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[stiltonbasket]

What is your flavor of "accidental sugar daddy SY"?

ao3 link

When Shen Yuan first transmigrated into the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way some thirty years earlier, he knew nothing about the strange universe he had landed in.

He had heard about the novel before, albeit in no great detail. Shen Yuan watched it climb to the top of Zhongdian’s ranking page while he was busy catching up on A Chronicle of Primordial Wars: but he never bothered to read it, or join the fan forums—a decision he regretted immensely when he opened his eyes, a newborn again, and found the System’s welcome screen flashing over his head.

What was the premise of the plot? Where in the timeline was he? What was the main character’s name? What was his name?

Who knew? Not Shen Yuan! He could guess that the novel’s protagonist was some kind of demon, given the title: but in spite of his pleas to learn more about the story, the System was completely uninterested in enlightening him. According to his task list, Shen Yuan’s only mission—if it could be called a mission—was to educate himself about the world: and after it was assigned to him, the System disappeared.

It wasn’t a bad transmigration experience, so far as such things went. Shen Yuan was reborn as the only son of a wealthy merchant family with few members, and consequently more lands and money than it knew what to do with. He was indulged in all ways; his parents bought him every bestiary and cultivation manual they could get their hands on, and then hired a cultivation tutor after a passing daoshi examined him and exclaimed at Shen Yuan’s cultivation potential. His parents would not allow him to seek admission at one of the four great sects, since they had no second son to take over their jewelry business; but they did not object to him learning how to cultivate at home.

Shen Yuan’s life was as close to perfect as could be, until his parents were killed in a bandit raid two months before his eighteenth birthday.

The less said of that year the better, he thought.

When the funeral was over, Shen Yuan left the Shen estate in the hands of his father’s steward and spent the next months wandering the countryside as a rogue cultivator. After all, there was nothing left for him at the manor: and since that was the case, he might as well make himself useful elsewhere.

On the first anniversary of his parents’ deaths, he stumbled on a group of slavers hunting in the streets of Jinlan: and in that moment, Shen Yuan decided that he had found his life’s purpose.

The Shen-fu was far too grand for a household of one, anyway.

___

“A sponsorship for orphaned cultivators?”

Shen Yuan takes a sip of tea and eyes the Cang Qiong cultivator before him with some interest. 

In the years since he dissolved the slavers’ gang in Jinlan, the Shen-fu has transformed from a tasteful merchant’s estate to a crowded academy for cultivation hopefuls and children from all corners of the country—most of whom had been slaves or street-children, like the first band of ducklings Shen Yuan brought back to the manor when he was eighteen. Others came to stay at the Shen-fu because they were orphaned, or because their families could not afford to educate them; but whatever their origins, Shen Yuan’s pupils are well-loved and well-tended, and attend to their studies with such diligence that the great sects would be lucky to have any one of them. 

Shen Yuan himself has become a figure of some renown, by virtue of having taught several young disciples who distinguished themselves at Cang Qiong and Zhao Hua: and as a result of his success with his eldest students, the Shen-fu is among the estates being courted by the spokesmen of An Ding Peak’s new patronage program.

“Peak Lord Shang said you would be interested, Shen-daye,” his guest says earnestly. “In theory, cultivation sects provide for their disciples regardless of background, and reliance on family wealth is strongly discouraged—but in truth, it is difficult for disciples without family to find a place among their shixiongdi. Well-to-do households send money to pay for better materials and trips into town; and even if the children are willing to share treats among themselves, things often become awkward when the poorer disciples have nothing to give in return.

“And of course there are visiting days, when disciples without kin must remain at the sect while their classmates go to see their parents. Put together, all this can be hard to bear.”

“Say no more. This master understands,” Shen Yuan sighs. “Children without protectors are easy to bully. Such things rarely happen at my estate, for nearly all of my charges are poor, but at a great sect like Cang Qiong…”

The cultivator nods. “Exactly.”

Shen Yuan leans forward and replenishes the man’s cup of tea. “What would my part in this venture be, then?”

“That would depend on Shen-daye. Some of the patrons will send a fixed sum of money a few times a year, and others prefer to send supplies and invitations to dine on New Year—but it is possible for the patron and disciple to become adopted kin, of a kind. The disciple would receive coin and gifts and such; but they would also have a have a place at the patron’s home thereafter, and be considered the patron’s ward until one party wishes to end the agreement.”

Shen Yuan thinks for a moment.

“It would be no hardship for me to take the last option,” he says at length. “My estate is large, and the family business is doing well. Another child would hardly be a burden.”

“That is—most good of you,” the cultivator says, startled. “Shall we give you time to make arrangements, or…?”

“No need. I will set up a room by the next visiting day; but for now, I’ll give you a package to take back with you.”

“This one understands. Would Shen-daye like to see the list of children, so that he might choose which one to support?”

“I suppose I might as well.”

The cultivator reaches into his sleeve and pulls out a bamboo scroll. 

“Here,” he says, handing it to Shen Yuan. “It lists the disciples’ ages and the peak they belong to, as well as the name of the shifu above them.”

Shen Yuan unrolls the scroll and runs a finger down the first column of names. Most of the disciples listed on the right side of the scroll are girls under Peak Lord Shang or Xian Shu’s Qi Qingqi, with some apprenticed to Mu-fengzhu of Qian Cao or to one of two senior cultivators on Bai Zhan; and the boys are listed on the left, with a greater number coming from Ku Xing and Mo Shou. 

However, none of Shen Qingqiu’s former disciples appear on the list in spite of being orphaned—though this only surprises him for a moment, for he soon recalls that he asked them to name him as their next of kin upon arriving at Cang Qiong.

As he continues reading down the list of names, Shen Yuan realizes that two peaks are notably absent: Qiong Ding, which did not put forth a single name; and Qing Jing, whose title precedes the lone name of Luo Binghe, a fourteen-year-old boy studying under Shen Qingqiu.

Shen Yuan’s stomach twists in sympathy. Even he has heard of Shen Qingqiu: for the chief strategist of Cang Qiong Mountain is far better-known for his fondness for cruelty than his achievements as a tactician, and if this poor child is apprenticed to him…

“I’ve decided,” he says aloud. “You may put my name down under Luo Binghe, of Qing Jing Peak.”

His guest nods and makes a note on one of his papers. “And how would Shen-daye like to support him?”

“I’ll send packages once a month with letters to accompany them, unless—ah. Is once a month too often?”

“It is more often than most disciples usually hear from their parents,” the cultivator ventures. “But Shen-daye may write as often as he pleases.”

“That’s good, then. Let Disciple Luo know that he can write to me in turn,” Shen Yuan says, “and as far as visitation goes—tell him that he will be welcome at the Shen-fu for as long as I am the master of it.”

After this exchange, Shen Yuan is presented with a sheaf of papers to sign, all stamped with the seal of An Ding peak; and then he summons one of the servants and orders luncheon for his guest.

“If Daozhang would wait for a little while,” he entreats, rising from his chair, “this master must collect the things for the parcel and write a letter explaining matters to Disciple Luo. I should be finished by the time daozhang has eaten.”

He rustles out of the room without waiting for a reply, leaving two little manservants—the chief housekeeper’s twin sons, who do chores about the house after lessons in exchange for pocket money—to wait on Daozhang Wu.

“Now for the storeroom,” Shen Yuan sighs to himself, rubbing at his temples. “I hope I’ll find something to fit him.”

This is a question of some concern, for the Shen-fu has not hosted a male disciple above thirteen in the last decade. Knowing children as Shen Yuan does now, all that can be certain of any boy of fourteen is that he must be growing like a weed; and with that thought in mind, he makes his way to the storage compound and asks for a few boys’ clothes in the largest size.

“These might not be large enough. The boy is nearly grown,” the steward says doubtfully, as Shen Yuan examines a set of sturdy day robes. “Wang Yufan was the tallest boy we ever had, and he left the manor when he was twelve.”

“You’re right,” sighs Shen Yuan. “For now, fetch the longest robes we have. I’ll pack a few of my own in case the disciples’ clothes don’t fit him.”

But there will be money, too. Not a great deal, but more than enough to buy a few sets of robes from a tailor near Cang Qiong; so Shen Yuan gathers a box of thick-sewn clothes from the storeroom before adding a selection of never-worn garments from his own wardrobe. He takes the box to the hall of spiritual tools next, and then to the kitchen: and when the box is full, he writes a letter to his new charge and seals it before returning to the receiving room.

“Thanking daozhang for his patience,” he says, somewhat flustered. “The package took longer to assemble than this master expected.”

“No matter,” Wu-daozhang replies. He is sitting in Shen Yuan’s best armchair with the housekeeper’s boys on either side of him; for the three of them are half-way through a game of weiqi, which Wu-daozhang appears to be losing on purpose.

Shen Yuan’s mouth twitches. “Wu-daozhang has been well tended to in my absence, it seems.”

“Well-tended indeed,” his guest says, laughing. “From what this one has seen so far, Shen-daye, your disciples are a great credit to you.”

He frees himself from the chair with some difficulty, since Hua Ruoman’s sons are clinging to his coat and pleading with him not to go; but Shen Yuan chivvies the boys down the hall to their qin lesson before handing over Luo Binghe’s care package.

“Remind Disciple Luo that this master is awaiting his reply,” he says anxiously, as Wu-daozhang prepares to depart from the gates of the Shen-fu. “There are clothes in the parcel, but I did not know his size—so if they do not fit him, he should write back with a set of measurements or take some of the money I sent to change the clothes for better ones. And tell him that he should open the box as soon as he can; I packed some food in a reinforced shihe, and it should keep for the next fortnight—but the snacks will taste best if he eats them right away.”

A bewildered look comes over Wu-daozhang’s face. “Shen-daye—”

“He might try to ration the snacks, since most cultivation sects serve only simple food,” Shen Yuan entreats, wringing his hands. “Tell him that he must not worry about saving them. If he wants more, he need only ask, and this master will send another package. Children need treats now and then to help them concentrate on their studies.”

“Ah, Shen-daye, that isn’t really…”

“And the books—! I should have mentioned it in the letter. Listen, daozhang—this teacher has a tab for former students at the bookseller nearest Cang Qiong; so if Disciple Luo requires any texts for his own use, he should go down the mountain and buy what he wants. Ku Xing’s Wang Yufan can show him how. And—”

“Surely all this must be enough for the first month,” Wu-daozhang protests, backing away. “Thank you very much for your kindness, Shen-daye; but now this one really must be off, or I will be late back to An Ding.”

And then—without another word—he jumps onto his sword and flies off.

Presently, a small hand tugs at Shen Yuan’s sleeve.

“What was all that about, shifu?” says a little voice at his elbow. “What did that daozhang want?”

Shen Yuan stoops and lifts Hua Yun into his arms. “He was bringing a new shixiong for you and Cao’er,” he smiles. “He is to be this teacher’s ward; and if all goes well, we might get to meet him sometime in the next year.”

“A new shixiong?” Hua Cao squeals. 

“En, just like your Yufan-shixiong and the rest of the big brothers.”

“What’s his name?”

“He is called Luo Binghe, and he is a disciple at Cang Qiong Mountain—where Yufan and your Feng’er-jie are studying, remember? When he comes to visit us, you and Yun’er must call him Luo-shixiong.”

With that, Shen Yuan closes the gate and takes the children’s hands; and as they walk back to the house, he realizes that he seems to have heard the name Luo Binghe somewhere before.

___

Dated: Taoyue 8

To Disciple Luo Binghe of Qing Jing Peak; Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, care of Wu Shaojiang

Luo-gongzi,

I do not know if your shixiongs and shishu on An Ding have explained matters to you; but in case they have not, this master is the patron assigned to you through An Ding Peak’s sponsorship scheme. I am called Shen Yuan, and am a cultivator nearly one-and-thirty years of age. I am writing from Shuizhai, a little country town on the western outskirts of Luoyang, where I run a cultivation academy for children between the ages of three and thirteen. Five of my former disciples are your shixiongjie at Cang Qiong, and Binghe should seek them out if he is ever in need. (I have written their names and peaks on the back of this page, so you will know whom to look for.)

The courier who offered me the chance to become your sponsor is waiting in the hall, so I will keep this letter brief. From now on, you are to have full rights as a member of the Shen estate; you may visit whenever you like, as my grown disciples do, and there will always be a place for you under my roof. This master will send you packages every now and then, as I do for your elder disciple-siblings; but since I do not know your tastes, I fear that Binghe will find this first parcel somewhat lacking. I put in a few clothes, since I know how quickly you disciples go through them, and a little coin so that you can buy replacements if the garments I sent do not fit. There is also a meal-box, and a few tools you may find useful in the absence of a good spiritual sword (which, if I am correct, you will not receive until your third or fourth year of study).  Lastly, I packed a couple of books for Binghe to keep: though these will likely be no great help to you, since I hear your Qing Jing is home to the finest library at Cang Qiong.

If anything is unsatisfactory, Binghe should tell this master so at once; but either way, you must write back with a proper introduction, so that your new shidimei and I can become acquainted with you. You see, there are more than forty of them, some nearly as old as you and some barely bigger than babies in arms; and once the children hear that they have another shixiong, they will not let this old teacher rest until I can tell them something about you!

Yours,

Shen Yuan.

[lusmeitli]

But like of each thing that in season grows

Summary: How a kind gesture can lead to something more. One shot.

Pairings: Loki x Female Reader

Warnings: Christmas fluff, mention of off screen assault, some swearing, lots of snow, books, poetry, smutty smut.

A/N: Okay, look. It just wanted to get out. You’re thrown in without a warning, nor a floatie. Apologies for the liberties taken to interpret and manipulate characters to dance after my will once more. Obviously don't read if you're a minor.

9~9~9~9~9~9~9~9~9~9~9~9~9~9~9~9

The greatest ideas were conceived in the shower. That was a scientific fact.

You liked facts. You did not like uncertainties or speculation. The feeling of being in limbo was something that didn’t sit right with you.

So as you were in the shower, working the conditioner in your hair, the idea was just there. It was simple, humble, but beautiful. Your hands slowed and stilled. And then your mind rebooted and went at lightning speed, planning things out. You needed to write things down.

You stepped out of the shower hurriedly, towelling down your body, before realising that your hair felt different. Cursing, you stepped back under the water to rinse off the conditioner.

*****

You hated staff meetings. Particularly third Thursdays staff meetings, because they dragged on and on. The weekly mission reports were presented and Fury insisted on inviting some guest speakers. He called it “Horizon Thursday”.

In your opinion it narrowed rather than widened it. Today’s guest speaker was Quinn Harris, cyber security specialist. You suspected self-proclaimed, but you hadn’t bothered doing a deep dive on him.

You were sat on the increasingly uncomfortable chair, rows of employees in front of you, the Avengers at the very front. Rogers had delivered his usual military style mission report, the other members of his team trying to look alive, though you suspected Romanoff and Banner were asleep, as they were both donning sunglasses.

“What you need is a quantum computer and it’ll solve all your problems with encryption.”

“They might as well propose using block ciphers,” you murmured under your breath, turning the page in your book.

Meanwhile, a hand shot in the air at the front. “Excuse me, Mr Harris.”

The man smiled. “Mr Stark, do you have a question?”

“Well, not so much a question for you, but I would very much like the opinion of another expert on what you just said. You know, before anyone here thinks about investing in your product, which, let’s be honest, would be me. I’d like to be sure it’s the right thing.”

Fury rolled his eyes and sunk back in his chair.

There had been talk about getting that dude in? You must have zoned out for that part.

Harris’ face fell for a second, but he honed his features and forced a smile. “Of course.”

“It just so happens that we have an inhouse expert,” Tony got up and scanned the crowd. “Isn’t that right, Y/N?”

Everyone uniformly turned to look at you. Everyone.

You felt the moment one particular pair of eyes set on you. The amount of times you had spoken to one another had been limited to the missions you were needed on, for hacking. You’d had his voice in your ear a few times and it did things to your body that made you feel like a system overheat. You never really saw him during missions though as your job was very much office-bound.

Today, he wore the damn leather suit. Whilst Fury didn’t give a fuck, Rogers very much was all about the professional appearance of the Avengers. What you didn’t understand was why everything looked better on him. The black and green possibly was the best colour combination there ever was. The other day Bucky had worn a Slytherin pullover and even though it very nicely accentuated his physique, it looked nothing like the colours did on Loki.

You swallowed hard when you felt his eyes on you. They seemed to see right through you, even over the distance of the seven rows of chairs.

And then you felt the weight of all the other pairs of eyes on you. That was a lot of people. You gulped and pushed your glasses back up the bridge of your nose - a habit you couldn’t break. 

“Y/N,” Tony called, bringing you back to the matter at hand. “Stand up and look at me.” His voice was gentle. “Start breathing again. Good. Now tell me what Harris is not telling me about the quantum computer.”

You adjusted your glasses again and cleared your throat. “It’s a solid proposition, I suppose,” you started, “however, one I would expect from a college freshman, certainly not from a cyber security expert specialist.”

Murmurs erupted, but you ignored them and rattled off your thoughts.

“Can a quantum computer crack asymmetric encryption algorithms? Yes. And yes, we all know that thanks to Shor’s algo the maths problems are only polynomial. Also, we know this applies to discrete log problems, too, therefore, all we’d need is a large enough quantum computer. Of course, he,” you gestured to Harris, “would have to build one first, which as you can guess is very costly. However, this entire presentation is based on the assumption that quantum computing is the end of asymmetric cryptography. And that is such a blatantly ignorant approach, with complete disregard for the safety of the members of our staff that are entirely reliant on the encryption cracking working on all their devices during operations and missions. And this whole quantum computer only works if you have a network connection.”

“So you’re suggesting there are hard problems that a quantum computer can’t solve?” Harris said, chin jutting out, arms crossed defiantly.

“Don’t be silly, of course there are,” you huffed. “I coded new post-quantum asymmetric encryption algos three years ago and tested them on several sites I am not authorised to disclose that have quantum computers. Not one of them cracked the simplest of those codes, in any of the over 5,400 attempts they ran over the past three years. So this presentation is… rather embarrassing in its sloppiness.”

“Well,” Harris’ lips were a thin line now. “I’m sure you have a ‘much better’ suggestion then?” He actually raised his hands to add the quotation marks.

“Actually, I do. I developed our own version of a quantum computer, at - and I’m only guessing here - a fraction of the price you’d charge Mr Stark, which can crack both symmetric and asymmetric encryption, works on all of our staff’s devices, portable and stationary, works offline and is about the size of, uh, a thumbnail.”

You pointed to your thumb, because in your humble experience men like him struggled to accurately size things.

Tony smiled and turned to Harris.

“Okay that concludes today’s meeting.” Fury got to his feet and patted Harris’ shoulder. “Looks like we’re good, but thanks for coming.”

People around you stood, some nodding at you as they passed. Tony caught up with you in the hallway. Before he could say something you blurted out: “Did I say something wrong? Was I rude again?”

He smirked and pushed the button of the lift. “He needed putting into place. Totally fine by me. You did great.”

“Stark!” bellowed Fury from down the hall and Tony winced.

“Excuse me, mother’s calling.” He turned and left.

You sidled into the lift with several other people. The cabin stopped a few floors up and people got off. That was when you noticed Loki on the other side of the lift. Up you went and after another stop you were alone with the Asgardian god. The cabin seemed to shrink.

You both watched the numbers climb, the lift hummed, Loki’s leather suit creaked softly as he crossed his hands behind his back.

“Could you please enlighten me about Shor’s algorithm?” he suddenly asked, looking at you.

You had a heart palpitation. Surely that was what it was. He was so impossibly tall and sculpted and… here.

“Um,” you pushed your glasses back up, “it’s a quantum algorithm for finding the prime factors of an integer.”

Loki’s face looked blank.

“It, er, essentially it finds the prime factors of large numbers a lot faster than conventional computers do. Which we use in encryption. The large numbers, that is. So it cracks codes faster.”

“Ah,” he said, head turning back to continue staring at the number display. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” you croaked out.

The urge to facepalm burned under your fingers, but you resisted. As soon as the doors slid open on your floor, however, you fled and sought asylum in the ladies’ toilets, banging your head against the wall of the stall.

*****

Operation Great Idea was in full swing.

So you’ve had a little personal setback, but that didn’t deter you from the objective. You had compiled a list, one you were confident was accurate based on your intel and research. That very list was neatly folded in the deep pocket of your coat as you walked through the cold rain on this late November afternoon.

Yes, you did something you’d never done before - take an afternoon off - and were trying to evade puddles on your way to the bookshop. Could you have ordered the books online? Most of them, certainly. But your late mother, an independent business owner, had ingrained in you to support local shops. You liked bookshops, they reminded you of her and of simpler times.

Your timing was excellent - of course you had researched when the shop was least busy - and you practically had the shop to yourself. And so you walked, dragging a pull-along basket behind you as you searched the shelves for the books on the list.

Sometimes, there were different editions there and you stood for a while, feeling the weight of each book in your hand, the feel of the embossed letters on the spine, the scent of the pages. You wanted it to be just right, so you took your time.

Some of the books you would only be able to get in a little second hand bookshop, tucked away in a side street. You had called beforehand and the owner lifted a box from under the counter to show you what she had reserved for you. As soon as your fingers made contact with the books you felt absolutely giddy.

Back at the Tower, you spent two entire evenings wrapping books after work. When you were finished, you leaned back, looking at the neatly organised stack. Yes, you were ready. Now all you needed was an exorbitant amount of luck for the next 24 days.

*****

You watched Loki stare suspiciously at the first parcel. He was sitting in the communal kitchen, Thor next to him. 

“Why would it be hexed?” Thor asked. “Simply because the sender is missing?”

Loki just gave him a pointed look.

“Come, brother, aren’t you curious to find out what is in this gift?”

“Loki got a present?” Steve asked as he pulled a bowl out of a cupboard. “Did I miss his birthday?”

Before Loki could say anything, Thor shook his head. “He’s worried it has been tampered with.”

Roger’s brows furrowed. “How did it get into your possession?”

“It was on the floor outside my door this morning,” Loki complied, sighing.

“FRIDAY would have picked up on any foreign substances or intruders in the tower,” Tony said between gulps of coffee. “He now can detect traces of magic, too. ‘Course, he went apeshit over your magic, but we got it under control, eventually.”

“That’s what all this ‘Alert, alert, magic detected, caution advised’ blaring at five in the morning was?” Scott bustled in.

A slight tinge of red shaded Loki’s complexion. “I have to practise some time.”

“Thought you were born with it?” Scott interjected, helpfully.

This earned him a glare. “I was born with the aptitude for magic and sorcery. It takes a lot more than mere talent to achieve this level of proficiency.”

“Several centuries, in fact,” his brother supplied. “Now then Stark here says it’s safe. So open it, brother!” Thor clapped his hands together. 

Loki indignantly and very reluctantly slid the parcel towards him and pulled on the simple string that held the wrapping together. The paper fell open to reveal one of the books you had picked.

From your vantage point of, well, your computer screen, you zoomed in to get a better look at him.

“Oh, a book,” you heard the onlookers muttering disappointedly, quickly losing interest and going about their business once more.

But Loki just sat, staring at the book. It took him a good few minutes to pick it up. And he did what you had seen him do many times before. He weighed it in his hands, fingertips running over the cover, the spine. Then he opened the lid. To anyone else it might not have been noticeable, but to you it was: he inhaled the scent of the book. And finally, there was the smallest upturn of his lips.

You exhaled, relieved. One down 23 more to go.

*****

Over the next week you were too busy testing the new firewall you had developed to check on Loki’s reaction. Sometimes you felt a little self-conscious, scared even that he might not like the books or think this was from a stalker. Which technically you had indulged in, stalking that was, but only to find the perfect books for him. And then sometimes you would get worried that someone else might have found the presents.

But you knew he had received every single one of them, for every evening, when you passed the common area you saw him sitting on the couch with the latest offering in his hands. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but it looked as if his tense shoulders had started to relax a bit.

Another couple of days went by and as the decorations started to pop up in the Tower and the first snow fell that didn’t immediately melt or turn to mush you felt happy. Perhaps it also had something to do with the fact that a certain someone walked differently. Maybe it was your imagination. But he seemed even taller these days.

*****

“Did it work?” you heard his voice in your ear a couple days later.

The data set was streaming on the screen in front of your eyes. “It did. Give me a moment to inject the virus, then you can disconnect the USB cable.”

“Can I still talk to you?”

Your fingers on the keyboard stilled for a moment, surprised. “Of course. The program runs through your phone, not through comms.”

There was a little pause, before he said: “I have a question. About a Midgardian tradition.”

You wrinkled your nose, scanning the code rushing over the screen. “I’ll try my best, but I’m rubbish at traditions.”

The audible outbreath sent shivers down your spine. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

“What’s your question then?”

“Tell me about the Yuletide calendar.”

45% done. “You mean the Advent calendar?”

“Precisely.”

This was dangerous territory you were treading on. “Oh, it’s a fun thing for kids, really. To make the wait for Christmas a bit more exciting and I guess more bearable. It’s nice to get a little something like a toy.”

“Is it always toys?”

69% now. “Well, no. My mum used to get me an advent calendar that had these lovely drawings behind each door. I hung it up in the front room and we’d open it together every morning.”

“I suppose it’s a nice custom,” he said, before asking, “What about grown ups, do they have advent calendars?”

83%. “Sometimes. There’s all sorts: beer, wine, beauty products, chocolates - you name it, it probably exists somewhere.”

“Books, too?”

The question threw you, did he know it was you? A light was blinking on your screen.

100%.

“That’s it, Loki, the virus is uploaded, you can unplug the cable now and get out of there.”

“Thank you, Y/N.”

You heard a crackle and the comms was handed over to operations again. As you finished running the decryption programme on the data Loki had extracted, you kept hearing his voice in your head.

“Books, too?” Were you busted?

*****

Security breaches were both an insult as well as an admittedly welcome challenge to you. Someone had tried to flex their fingers - and you had a very good idea who - to break into Stark’s network. They had managed to pierce a little hole into the outer layer of the firewall, but they didn’t know that you had several back up plans in place and you enjoyed watching them work. However, as you scanned over the intruder’s code you devised a new security strategy.

You were in the middle of coding a nice little primer for a new layer - unexpected because of its simplicity, but a tough little nut to crack - when someone cleared their throat next to you. You looked up to find Loki, his eyes fixed on you. You blinked, looked around, but no one else was there, and back up at the god.

“Can I, uh, help you?” Smooth. You facepalmed internally.

“I realised I have never been in here,” he said, looking around the room, then back at your desk. “You have a lot of monitors.”

You waved your hand dismissively. “Just the standard three.”

“What are you doing now? Or is it a secret?”

“It’s not a secret at all. So we’re currently under attack. Relax,” she said when she noticed him tense, “cyberattack. Someone’s knocking at our backdoor, trying to see if they can get in.”

You motioned to one of your screens. “This is the intruder’s code. He’s trying out lots of keys to see if he can get in. And this,” you pointed to the screen next to it, “is our defence mechanism.”

“Extraordinary.” Loki’s low voice murmured. He was close. You turned your head and nearly had a heart attack at just how close. His sharp profile was illuminated by the blue glow of the monitor, his hair falling to his shoulders, one hand splayed on the desk, the other resting on the back of your chair. He looked beautiful. Perfect. He was leaning closer to the screen so he could see what was going on. Your breath hitched.

And then he turned his head.

Something that sounded an awful lot like a squeak escaped your throat.

Loki lifted an eyebrow. “Am I making you nervous, Agent Y/N?”

You pushed your glasses up your nose and leaned back, just an inch. “No?”

Loki’s eyes drifted over your face, before they met your gaze again. “Is that a question or a statement?”

“A… a statement,” you mumbled and, for good measure, added, “sir.”

His eyes darkened, a smirk curling the left side of his lips. “Are you scared of me?”

You tilted your head ever so slightly. “How can I be scared of you?”

“You’ve heard the stories, undoubtedly.”

“I did. And if I believed everything people told me and not looked beyond I would be incredibly shitty at my job.”

He smiled at that. It was small, but there, and it made him so attractive you felt your stupid heart starting to pound in your chest. Could he hear it?

“Do you like to read, Agent Y/N?”

Another adjustment of your glasses. “I do.”

“What would you say is your favourite book?” His voice was low and smooth.

His hand moved from your desk to the side of your face, where he gently pulled on a tendril, before he brushed it behind your ear. The back of his fingers skimmed your cheek for less than a second, but it sent you reeling. It was as if an electromagnetic pulse was slowly wiping clean your hard drive. You couldn’t think.

“Um, err, Jane.. Jane Eyre.”

He hummed. “I wonder why? Is it because she’s abandoned and rejected all her life?”

You shook your head slowly. “No. Because she’s forced to leave home, into a life she didn’t choose. But when she is given the freedom and space to grow she learns to be the master of her happiness.”

His eyes followed the curve of your neck and back up again. It almost felt as if he was touching you. “Interesting.”

You swallowed again, before he stood upright, nodded at you, turned and left. 

Your heart was pounding. And then your computer beeped and your attention was back on the screen.

“Oh pants…” Your fingers started flying over the keyboard. “Not today, Harris. Or any other day.”

Nine more books to go.

*****

He was onto you. Of course he was. After all, he was the God of Mischief and Lies. If anyone would find out who was behind this, it would be him. Personally, the preferred outcome was that he never would find out.

You had asked yourself often over the last 18 days why exactly you wanted to do this for him. But that was just it. You really had no other motive than wanting to do this for him. Maybe because you sympathised with him, being stuck somewhere far from home, feeling lonely and not really integrated. Maybe you had projected your own feelings onto him a tiny little bit. Possibly considerably. However, it was done with the best of intentions. You wanted to make this nice for him. The run up to Christmas. A little bit magical. He must like magic, he was a sorcerer after all, wasn’t he?

So what if you had started dreaming of him at night. He would lean over you as you sat at your desk, in all his tall- and broadness. This time his hands would be touching you. And he’d lean in to whisper into your ear. Admittedly, not words you would necessarily associate with such a situation.

When you would wake up you knew where to place the things he said to you in your dreams. He’d said them to you during missions. And yes, “how much longer till the download is complete, Agent Y/N?” was not remotely as sexy as “I’m going to ravish you now, thoroughly” would have been, for example. But your brain only had so much to work with and it worked for you.

You noticed a few things, however. Loki was around more often, probably just a silly coincidence, or you had started to pay more attention. He looked at you now. You’d look up and find him already looking at you, sometimes a little smile crossed his lips, but mostly it was just something with his eyes, they seemed… warmer, maybe?

However, to your horror you discovered that you had started to blush. Every single time this happened. So you spent a lot of time in the ladies’ toilets, splashing your face with cold water, only to see it even more flushed than before. Apparently, all the books you had read lied about that ‘splashing your face with cold water to calm down and not make people notice’-thing.

But it all boiled down to the fact that he was onto you. Maybe he was humouring you and seeing where this was going. Maybe he had found out already and you made him feel awkward. Or he was waiting for the opportune moment to expose and humiliate you. You weren’t sure which.

Right now it didn’t matter. You were so tired you could hardly see properly anymore. So when you decided to crash on the sofa in the common room, because it was halfway to your room, you didn’t think to check if anyone was there.

That was mistake number one.

You collapsed onto the sofa with a groan, eyes closed, head leaning against the back of the sofa.

“Fuck. My. Fucking. Life,” you complained to the universe. “Can you please make the appendage of that misogynistic wanker fall off already? For fuck’s sake!”

Mistake number two.

Someone chuckled. It came from rather close to you.

Dread filled you. Foul language was not tolerated in the workplace. To be fair you could argue that the common room was not your workplace per se, however, you did not want to start arguing with HR because they were absolute savages in the art of word twisting. Or just savages full stop.

Carefully, you cracked your eyes open. And there, on the sofa right next to you, sat Loki. One leg was stretched out in all its glorious length, the other bent at the knee, his forearm resting over it, the book in his lap now closed, one of his slender fingers acting as bookmark. For a moment you wondered what it would feel like to be the book.

“I hope it’s not my appendage you’re asking to be removed,” he said with a smirk.

You grappled to sit up, horrified. “Of course not! That would be awful… I mean, a terrible thing to wish for… you’d… err… such a loss of such a beautiful… I mean, I can only guess… but… um, err… heavens, please make me stop talking…”

You hid your head in a throw pillow, wishing the floor would open up and swallow you whole.

Mistake number three.

The sound of a low, rumbly laugh made its way to your ears. It entered your system like a virus, leaving your limbs feeling weak and yearning. Was Loki laughing? You lifted your head and watched him, highly bemused at your idiotic display.

It was the most beautiful thing you’d ever heard. You felt a hard tug at your heart. Goodness, if this man wasn’t already a god, you’d have to declare him one. If he were the head of a religion you would throw out your atheist views and follow him to the end of the multiverse. He looked absolutely breathtaking. Then again, when did he not?

“I’m so sorry,” you started to apologise, “I don’t know what-”

With superhuman speed he moved and sat next to you, his finger on your lips. The feel of his digit on your mouth felt more intimate than any sexual intercourse you’d ever had.

And then he leaned in.

He was so close your cells were basically breathing him in. His eyes were locked onto yours and nothing would have been able to make you look away right then.

“Do you want to know what book I’m reading right now?” His quiet words did things to your insides that were not legal.

You just about managed to nod, his finger still in place.

“‘The Remains of the Day’ by Kazuo Ishiguro. Do you know it?” He waited for your affirmation. “It’s about a man who is in love with a woman. But he doesn’t tell her. When they meet again after decades, she tells him her life would have been different if she had married him. And you know what he does? He still won’t admit his feelings to her. He walks away from her. The first time he lets her go, the second time he walks away.”

You remembered the book very well. You had picked it out for him, after all.

“It’s a cruel story, Y/N. A love that is never acknowledged, nor consumed.” Loki’s eyes drifted from yours down to your mouth. His finger slowly traced the outline of your lips. It was too much, your eyes closed.

“Do you think love is this cruel?” Loki asked quietly. You felt his words as he spoke them almost onto your skin. So close.

“It-it can be,” you whispered. “But maybe, maybe that wasn’t the point of the story.”

“No?”

You opened your eyes to find him looking at you. He’d moved away a bit, giving you some space, waiting for you to elaborate.

“Maybe the point was to show that he chose his job over love. Twice. You can call it dignity or pride, but at the end he’s alone. Without love.”

“What about you, Y/N? Do you have love in your life?”

You weren’t able to look into his eyes. Slowly, you got off the sofa. You turned back to him to respond to find he’d stood up, too.

You looked down at your shoes. His shoes were black, of course, polished, perfect, like him. Yours were several seasons old. Worn. A bit of the shoe sole had started to peel off at the top of your toes. The bit you always kicked into the floor when you worked.

Your eyes wandered up his trousers, black, to the belt, his pullover, also black. He looked effortlessly elegant, poised. You, on the other hand, looked a mess, even in your work attire. Your heart grew heavy at the realisation. Your dreams were stupid. Turned out your heart was even more stupid. And suddenly you felt incredibly small in more ways than one next to the tall, powerful god.

Swallowing a lump in your throat, you said: “I have known love, once. A long time ago.”

With that you pivoted on your heels and left, leaving Loki alone in the common room.

*****

Harris was an absolute tosser.

He just couldn’t leave things be. He insisted on trying to show you up, so he tried and tried to hack his way through your firewalls. Of course he had tried to hide his identity and it had made you chuckle, because you seriously had no idea how he could ever dare call himself a cyber security specialist if he covered up his tracks like a novice hacker.

In a way it was cute, but it was getting to the point of obsessive stalking and you frankly were rather tired of this little game by now. Particularly, since it kept you from your nice, warm, comfortable bed well past midnight.

However, Harris seemed to have changed tactics and started to badmouth you in the industry. Even Fury had called Tony and asked whether he should be worried, because Harris had dug up some hacking you’d done when you were much younger and much less ethical. Really it was unhinged, but everyone worked through teenage years in their own way.

You only knew this because you happened to be in Tony’s office and he had Fury on loudspeaker. Tony had pacified Fury without batting an eye, then hung up and asked if you’d be okay with him paying Harris a little visit, preferably as Iron Man. You had both laughed it off. But it bugged you.

So when you were on your way back to the tower from the compulsory (for all employees) counselling session and someone grabbed you, you weren’t surprised to come face to face with Harris. He didn’t lay a finger on you. No, he got two goons to do that for him.

Later, as you stumbled out of the lift and along the corridor, trying to make your way to your room, someone blocked your way.

“Speak of the devil! Y/N! We were just talking about you.” Tony. Other voices around him.

You kept your head down, thinking of how to get out of this unnoticed.

“We were just wondering if– Y/N? What happened?” You saw Tony’s hand reach out for you, but you flinched away.

Silence fell for a long moment.

Then a movement. Shoes appeared in your line of vision. You knew those shoes well. They had been on display on the couch for the past 22 days, attached to an Asgardian god.

He slowly held out his hand, palm up. An assurance, no harm. You gave the slightest nod. He moved the hand up and placed a finger under your chin so carefully you wanted to sob. The faintest of pressure had you lift your head to look up at Loki. His eyes scanned your appearance, stopping at your bruised hands that were trying to hold together your coat, taking in the blood splatters on the fabric, your busted lip, the lopsided glasses, the badly bent temple dangling off its hinge.

You never understood the expression ‘his features darkened’. You did now. Loki’s face transformed and you saw for the first time what a dangerous man he could be. Power radiated off him. You were glad it was not directed at you. His nostrils flared and you almost heard how much he was clenching his teeth.

“Names,” he ground out.

A hot tear rolled down your cheek and now that it started it didn’t want to stop. His eyes softened, something akin to vulnerability flitting across his features.

“H–Har…”

“Harris?” Tony asked softly. You nodded, still looking at Loki.

Loki rolled his lips in his mouth, his thumb swiping ever so lightly over the skin of your chin, before dropping his hand and walking to the lift in long strides.

“Nat?” Tony asked, the spy already by your side.

“Hold up, Reindeer Games!” Tony hollered behind you, as Romanoff led you down the corridor to your room. “I’m coming, too…”

It felt as if you were having an out of body experience as you were peeled out of your bloodied coat, your clothes and body assessed quickly but gently. She pulled out her phone after she ushered you into the shower.

“Tony? No forced intercourse, but lots of bruising…,” was all you heard before the hot spray of the water ran into your ears, blocking all noise out.

*****

Your glasses were fixed and you could see properly again. That was important, otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to see Harris’ face on the news as he was escorted - handcuffed - from a courtroom and shoved into a police van, followed by the two goons who had helped him.

When you turned from the screen above the cashier, you saw Loki next to Tony across the canteen, looking at you. You walked over, clutching your sandwich.

“So, um… thank you,” you said, gesturing to the screen, “for that.”

Tony put a hand on your shoulder, squeezing gently, before his eyes gazed behind you. “Is that a double cheeseburger I see? Excuse me.”

And off he went, leaving you alone with the Asgardian god.

You shuffled your feet, studying the floor.

“Thanks again-”

“Are you okay?” 

You both said at the same time. You laughed quietly, looking up at him. He smiled. You’d never seen Loki smile.

“I’m fine, thank you,” you said.

“I’m glad to hear it.”

You wanted to say so much more, do so much more, like hug him. But he was a god. You weren’t exactly sure what the protocol was for hugging gods. The awkward silence thickened.

“So, I’ll see you around?”

He was still smiling. “Yes. See you around.”

You were fairly sure you were blushing as you scampered off, back to your office.

*****

Bryant Park was one of your favourite places to be in New York. For one, it was right behind the public library - your heaven. For another, it was close to the Tower and you could wander the paths under the lovely trees. The park was very busy as it was Christmas Eve and people wanted to while away the time in the Winter Village until the big day. But as the ice rink closed down and the skaters came off, noses and cheeks red from the cold, the park started to empty.

You sat on a bench under one of the trees, gloved hands deep in your coat pockets, a woolly hat and scarf keeping you warm. Your head was tilted back and you watched the snowflakes dance and twirl in the cold wind.

“Y/N,” someone called.

Loki stood a few metres away from you, a black coat making him look even taller. He was not donning a hat or a scarf, he looked comfortable with the cold. The snow clung to his dark hair, a soft dusting was on his shoulders. You envied the snowflakes.

You got to your feet and he took a few steps closer, looking down at you.

“Were you enjoying the activities?” Loki asked, nodding to the ice rink.

“No, I just… I just like to sit here,” you said, feeling a bit silly. “I like the trees and the snow. It’s… peaceful.”

He nodded.

“How about you? Fancied a turn on the ice?”

He laughed and you watched the cloud mix with your breath. Now you envied your breath.

“Actually, I was looking for you.”

“Me?”

He took another step towards you. “Yes.”

“Why? Did something happen at the Tower?” Worriedly, you fumbled your phone out of the coat pocket and checked it.

A large hand covered it. You looked up. “Nothing happened. I wanted to talk to you.”

Nervously, you glanced down at his hand that still covered your phone. If you hadn’t been wearing gloves your hands would have had actual skin on skin contact. He dropped his hand to his side.

“Am I in trouble?”

He shook his head. “I… I wanted to thank you.”

“What for?”

His hand pulled a book out of his pocket. “For this.” He slid it back in the folds of his coat.

“Oh.” You didn’t really know how to feel or react. You knew he’d been onto you, so it was no surprise he’d sussed it out. He was, after all, the God of Mischief and Lies. But you had to give him kudos for letting it play out.

“Um, you’re welcome.” You bit your lip.

“You don’t know what this meant– what this means to me.”

It was impossible to look at him.

“I was dreading this time of year here on Midgard. But your incredibly generous advent calendar made it feel… like when I first visited here with my mother.” He grasped your gloved hands in his. “I miss her dearly, so thank you. For giving me this.”

You were too choked up to say anything, so you just nodded.

“Can I enquire what your reason was?”

It was so cautious, as if he was worried it might scare you off. And yet, the question threw you, most likely because you had been asking yourself the very same thing from the moment of its conception in your shower. It was just there, a need, an urgency you didn’t know where it came from or why it existed. It was something you had to do. Like breathing.

But over the course of the last few weeks, particularly the last few days, it had become painfully clear why you did it.

“I wanted, no, I needed you to be happy.”

He squeezed your hands gently. The tips of his shoes, his shiny, polished shoes, now touched yours.

“Please look at me.”

So you did. He looked different… vulnerable maybe.

“Why do you need me to be happy?” The question was another cloud and you breathed it in, let it fill your lungs.

“Because…” You were afraid to say it, to admit it. But something in his eyes made you courageous. Either that, or foolish.

“Because I watched you, during missions and in briefings and ops planning. You started to believe what they said about you. And it’s not true. There’s so much you don’t share, don’t tell them and I see it. It’s right there in your eyes. And I didn’t want you to lose yourself. And it’s selfish, I know, but I need you to be happy… because if you are, so am I.”

“If you think that’s selfish, then I am guilty of this notion, too.”

Loki raised his right hand to run the backs of his fingers over your cold cheek. “I knew after three days it was you. I wanted to see where this was going, what your motivation was. And I… when I saw you after Harris… I was filled with so much rage and fear. That I would lose you. Before I had you.”

He leaned his forehead against yours, you closed your eyes, heart beating out of your chest at what you were hearing. Was this a dream?

Loki’s voice was just above a whisper. “Can I? Have you?”

You moved away slightly to look into his eyes. “Yes.”

He leaned in, his hands splaying on your back, as you stood on your toes. The moment his lips touched yours, you felt a current run straight to your heart. It was as if your brain rewired, the missing piece of the primer clicked into place and unlocked everything.

Snow was falling as Loki kissed you under the tree. You didn’t hear the whistles and hollering of passerbys. You didn’t feel the cold wind. You felt elated, buzzing even.

“Your phone is buzzing,” Loki murmured against your lips.

“Hm?” you said dreamily. 

“Your phone is buzzing,” Loki smiled, “someone’s calling you.”

Quickly you pulled out the damned device. Before you could even say your name, you heard Tony say: “So sorry for disrupting, Y/N, but we got a slight issue here that needs your expert skills pronto.”

You hung up, burying your head in Loki’s chest. His laugh rumbled in his chest. “We’ll talk more later.”

Breathing in his scent and holding onto him, you weren’t ready to let go. “Promise?”

*****

“Oh god, yes,” you sighed in absolute bliss. “That’s the spot, right there.”

Your groan sounded through the kitchen. You deserved that after three hours of extra work on Christmas Eve.

“Here?” Nat asked.

“Yes, yes! Please don’t stop,” you begged, putty in her hands, eliciting more noises from you.

“Maybe you should try yoga. Your shoulders and your whole upper body are so tense and full of knots. There’s a class I go to tomorrow at lunchtime, if you want to join me?”

“No time,” you murmured. “Heavens, Nat, what else can you do with those hands?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she teased.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Banner interrupted, grabbing Nat by the hand and dragging her to the door. “I’m happy to share my girlfriend’s masseuse skills for a severe case of muscle lock, but I’m afraid I have a personal request now.”

You opened your eyes to catch Nat winking at you, a slight blush on her cheeks as she was pulled out of the room. “So I’m your girlfriend now?” you heard before they disappeared down the corridor.

You laughed and turned in your stool. Thor, Scott and Loki stood staring. Thor at the ends of his braids, Scott at his fingernails, Loki at you. Eyes intense and dark. You swallowed.

“Y/N, a word, if you please,” Loki said, before wrapping his fingers around your wrist and marching out of the room, with you trying to keep up with his long strides, your coat and shoulder bag in your other hand. 

He didn’t say a single word until you reached his room - it was closest - and the door shut behind you, locking the outside world out. He pushed you against the door, arm placed against the wood above your head, body leaning into yours, not quite touching.

“That was… a rather interesting display,” he remarked quietly, his breath puffing against your face as he spoke. “In future, I would prefer if your keening was reserved for me.”

Your hands found the buttons of his shirt. “That sounds like an exclusive right to me.”

“It most certainly is.” His lips hovered over yours.

Your index finger slipped in the space between two buttons. “A right that needs to be earned,” you whispered, your finger grazing his skin.

His breath hitched ever so slightly. “Do not challenge me, darling,” he leaned in, his body moving against yours teasingly. “It might be,” his mouth brushed against your earlobe, “too taxing for you.”

You scoffed, but his lips silenced you. His stance shifted as he picked you up and placed you on the nearest surface - a sideboard - and stepped between your legs. He broke the kiss, to cup your face. For a long moment he just gazed at you. The heat in his eyes seemed to intensify, turning you into a needy mess. He made a show of taking off your glasses, folding the temples and carefully putting them on the side board next to you. Your core clenched.

He held out his hand for you to hop off the furniture. You took it and he took to your lips.

It was quite possible that several things fell off on your way to Loki’s bedroom. When you pushed him into the wall to open the damned buttons of his shirt, a picture might have fallen. A vase, perhaps, when he picked you up and spun you around so your back was against the doorframe next to the fragile ornament. Your head hit the heavy frame of a painting, rendering it lopsided, when Loki feasted on your throat, and you tilted your head back to allow him better access.

Kissing, licking, nipping, sucking - he was intent on leaving marks. Your fingers somehow were in his hair, keeping his head in place. Soft, his hair was so soft. A sharp contrast to the teeth you felt pulling on your skin. His ministrations drew a long moan from you.

Loki smiled against your skin. “Yes, my siren, sing.”

Your back hit the mattress and he crawled over you. His hair a curtain, screening you off from the rest of the world in your own sacred space. His shirt hung open, your hands reached out, tracing each line, each dip. His tongue against yours mimicked the motion of his hips that rolled into you. Your legs wrapped around his waist, meeting each movement, as if you had practised this dance many times before. He pulled away to tug off your pullover. His fingers pushed up your bra and then he sucked your nipple into his hot mouth, making you arch your back.

“Loki, please.”

You didn’t really know what you begged for. More, probably. More of this, more of him.

He pulled you up so you both were kneeling on the bed. Shaking hands fumbled with clothes and fastenings and then you were both naked. Your breath hitched at his beauty.

“Can I…,” you started, voice sounding hoarse. You looked up at him. “Please let me worship you.”

Something flickered across his face - surprise? He gave a curt nod and then watched every single one of your movements.

You took his right hand, tracing each finger with yours, the veins on the back of his hands. You brought his hand up to your face, cradling it to your cheek, before kissing the palm of his hand. One finger at a time, you sucked it into your mouth, to the knuckle, your tongue swirling around the digit, before releasing it and pressing a kiss to the tip, before moving on to the next.

Your hands traced the skin of the inside of his arm, his veins, the rise and fall of his muscles, and up over his shoulder, across his chest to his left arm, which you gave the same treatment. Each birthmark, each scar was kissed. Your hands skimmed over his chest, your lips followed the path. Loki’s breath stuttered when you sucked on his left nipple, before you released it, softly blowing on it. It puckered. You bestowed the same treatment upon the other nipple.

“Please, lie down,” you whispered and he complied.

You lay next to him, kissing his forehead, your fingers running through his hair along his scalp, gently tugging. Onwards, to kiss the curve of each eyebrow, the bridge of his nose, his cheekbones, his chin, along his jawline to his ear. You felt his body shiver when you breathed: “You are so beautiful, inside and out.”

Then your teeth closed around his earlobe, gently pulling. A deep moan sounded through the room. Up until now he had let you do whatever you wanted to and not touched you. But his restraint waned and his hands splayed on your back, pulling you flush against his body. You kept going, your lips now worshipping his delectable throat. He tilted his head back to give you better access.

“Herregud,” he rasped as you kissed, licked and sucked on his sensitive skin. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed hard, his hands growing slack on your back.

You kissed the dip between his collar bones and worked your way down his torso, lips kissing, hands caressing. Further and further you went, along his abs, dipping in his belly button, following the trail of hair below. You leaned back a bit, to look at him. He was fully erect, heavy, swaying slightly. The purple mushroom head gleaming with pearls of pre-cum, thick veins running down the shaft to his pubic hair.

You licked your lips, curling one of your hands around his base, the other cupping his testacles. Then you looked up at him. He was up on his elbows, staring down at you hotly, biting his lips as he watched you in anticipation. You made sure to have and maintain eye contact and then you took him into your mouth.

He hissed, his head falling back, a loud moan following when you hollowed your cheeks to apply suction, the salty taste of his precum on your tongue.

You moved your hand up his length, still sucking, giving his testicles a gentle yet confident squeeze. Up your mouth went, your tongue circling his slit, before sucking him back in. The third time you did it, his hands clasped your shoulders.

“Stop.”

You looked up at him. Loki was breathing hard and you let his cock slide from your mouth with a wet ‘plop’.

In an instant your back was on the mattress and he hovered over you.

“Please don’t misunderstand,” he explained, voice rough, “I loved it, but I have plans.”

He settled between your legs, eyes locked on yours, hand on your thigh, pulling your leg around his waist. His hand slid up, splaying over the fullness of your ass, before giving it a firm squeeze, then sliding over the globe and dipping between your legs. When his slender digits made contact with your aching centre, you cried out. Your whole body was throbbing with need.

“All this nectar is for me?” he rasped. 

You nodded.

“Oh, I have to see this.” And in one fluid motion he sat back on his heels, spreading your legs with his hands, looking at your dripping wet centre in amazement.

“Wait a moment,” he said, before he scrambled off the bed and disappeared in the corridor, only to come back a few moments later to resume his place between your legs. He handed you something with a smirk. Your glasses.

“I want you to see me.”

You put them on, your heartbeat accelerating. You bit your lip in anticipation. He looked up at you, his hot breath puffing against your wet core and then his flat tongue licked you all the way from your entrance to your clit. Your fingers fisted in the bedsheets, eyes falling shut in ecstasy, mouth open in a silent cry.

“Look at me.”

You did. He started a rhythm of licking, sucking and lapping that had the coil inside you wind up and tighten impossibly in no time at all. You fell back onto a pillow. Then he slid two fingers inside you and your hands dove into his hair, tugging, scraping.

What a visual. Loki between your legs, eyes burning into yours, humming and moaning against your clit, fingers sliding in and out of you, curling just at the right time, at the exact angle you needed. It was as if you were a book he’d read a thousand times before. Your toes curled and then you fell into the abyss. You moaned out his name over and over as the orgasm washed over you, leaving your legs shaking.

Loki moved up your body, placing kisses on your thighs, your tummy, your breasts, before he brushed some hair out of your face. You took your glasses off, he placed them on the bedside table. His eyes searched yours.

“I need you, Loki,” you managed, pulling him down.

He kissed you deeply, slowly, the taste of you on his tongue. His hips rocked forward and he slid inside you all the way to the hilt. Loki stilled and broke the kiss, resting his damp forehead against yours.

“Are you okay?” he whispered.

Your fingers caressed his back. Unable to form words, you nodded. Then he moved. His hips rocked into yours in slow, deep thrusts. He filled you so well, stimulating places inside you you didn’t know existed. Your hands ran over his back, down his sides, making him shiver. He watched you, eyes dark but warm. One hand found your swollen clit and his fingers circled and rubbed, applying the pressure you needed to fall into oblivion again. Your feet pressed into his ass cheeks to bring him closer, deeper and his name fell from your lips over and over.

He rocked inside you as you rode out your orgasm. You opened your eyes to look at him in wonder. Never had you seen anything as beautiful as Loki. He seemed to glow from the inside. Maybe it was your imagination. You lifted your head, cupping his face to pull him in for a kiss. His tongue moved languidly against yours, savouring the intimacy.

Then he started moving faster, pulling one of your legs up to rest the calf against his shoulder. Deeper, you wanted him deeper. You couldn’t get close enough. His mouth was devouring yours in a needy kiss, all tongues and teeth now as he pistoned faster into you, your hips meeting each of his thrusts. His lips found your nipple, sucking, pulling on it, moving to its sibling. You couldn’t believe you were on the verge again already. Never before had you been able to orgasm more than once during intercourse.

The room was quiet but for the moans, the heavy breathing. You were so wet that your coupling’s noise was wonderfully dirty, edging you both on even more.

“Look at us,” Loki commanded and you did.

Nothing had ever been so erotic as watching him fill you, stretch you, sliding out, covered in your juices. His fingers were on your clit again, rubbing, circling.

“I don’t know if I can…”

“One more, darling, give me one more,” he insisted, breathlessly.

His hips moved faster, as did his fingers and you were there, on the edge. Loki’s eyes met yours and he knew. His movements stuttered, pupils fully blown, jaw slack, a drop of sweat sliding down his temple.

“Cum with me,” you whispered, your fingers dragging down his back, possibly breaking skin, squeezing and pulling his ass into you.

And he did, propelling you into bliss with him. Your name fell from his lips in a string of Norse profanities. His cock pulsated as the hot ropes of his seed marked your insides as his, your pussy eagerly clenching around him, making sure every last drop would be spent inside you. His movements slowed and then he stilled, buried inside you.

Loki’s lips pressed onto yours in a tender kiss. You stayed in the embrace until you both caught your breath. Then he pulled out of you, your mixed juices running out of you. He could have cleaned you up using magic.

But Loki got out of bed, got a wet flannel from the bathroom and gently cleaned you, kissing your tired body, before sliding back into bed. He pulled you into his arms, your hands joined over his heart, legs intertwined and you both lay there, in your bubble of utter and complete happiness under warm covers, watching the snowflakes dance outside the window in the early hours of Christmas Day.

Christmas Day!

“Oh, wait here!”

You scrambled off the bed and ran to the door, forgetting about your nakedness, pulling your shoulder bag from under your coat. You pulled something from it and brought it back to Loki. He was sitting up, forearms resting on his knees, an intrigued look on his face. 

“Merry Christmas,” you said.

He looked at you and then at the present you held out to him. He cocked an eyebrow as he took it and pulled the fabric ribbon off. His hands parted the paper and then he grew completely still.

“Where in the nine realms did you get this?” he asked after a few moments, voice sounding rough.

“A friend of mine got her hands on this a while back. I thought you might like it.”

He stared at the book, transfixed. His slender fingers caressing the embossed letters on the front and then he lifted it to take in the scent of the pages. His eyes closed.

“Do you? Like it, I mean?” You were worried about this book. It had cost an arm and a leg, but you thought it would be worth it.

“Like it?” Loki asked, finally looking at you and pulling you on his lap. “My mother used to read me his poems when I was a child. I rediscovered it later. This is…”

He was searching for words, failed to find them and instead kissed you, hard, hand fisting in your hair. After a long moment, he broke the kiss.

“Thank you, love.”

Your fingers wrapped around his wrist, stroking his pulse point.

“Will you read it to me?” you asked, a bit out of breath.

Nodding, he sat against the headboard, you curled up against him with his arm around you. He made sure you were both tucked under the covers. Then he opened the book and cleared his throat.

“Kormákr Ӧgmundarson ‘Sigurðardrápa ‘Drápa’. This is one of my favourites, he wrote it for the love of his life.”

His fingers wandered up your arm.

“Brunnu beggja kinna

bjǫrt ljós á mik drósar,

oss hlœgir þat eigi,

eldhúss of við felldan.”

His digits absently stroked your ribcage, skirting over the side of your breast. The rhythm and intonation of his deep voice made you clench your thighs.

“Enn til ǫkkla svanna

ítrvaxins gatk líta,

þrǫ́ muna oss of ævi

eldask, hjá þreskeldi.”

He paused, closing the book and brushing his lips against the skin of your neck. Your eyes fluttered shut.

“What-what does he say?” you all but stuttered.

Loki kissed along your collarbone. Humming against your skin.

“The bright lights of both

her cheeks burned onto me

from the fire-hall's felled wood;

no cause of mirth for me in that.”

His hands cupped your breasts as he sucked and teased one of the nipples. Your hands tugged on his hair, desperate for him again already. You felt his need hard and heavy against your thigh.

“By the threshold I gained a glance

at the ankles of this girl

of glorious shape.”

Loki moved to lie between your legs, hands sliding over your breasts, your tummy, your thigh, down to your ankle, lifting it to wrap it around his hips.

“Yet while I live

that longing will never leave me.”

His voice faltered as he rocked his hips forward and your bodies were joined once more.

“That longing will never leave me,” he repeated like a vow, eyes serious and warm.

“Nor me,” you pledged, before you lost yourselves in the physical expression of your feelings once more.

~ fin ~

[mermaidgirl30]

✨Saving What Was Lost Part 6: New Introductions with a Cup of Hot Chocolate✨

Pre-Outbreak! Joel Miller x fem! reader

Series Masterlist

A/N: The frequent need to write about these two is always sitting in the back of my mind. The slow burn is burning, friends 🥹 I have so much more left for these two, so this is a little New Year’s present because the writing bug hit me this week. I hope you enjoy 🩷

Chapter Summary: An unexpected guest appears in Joel’s front door, but it’s not just any guest. It’s his daughter Sarah, and he wants you to meet her.

Rating: 18+ only MDNI

Word Count: 6.8k

Chapter Tags: Fluff, angst, meeting Sarah, soft! Joel, age gap (reader is late 20’s and Joel is late 40’s), slow burn, mentions of being trafficked, hurt Joel, yearning, so much yearning

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

  November autumn leaves fall from the oak and maple trees outside the view of the floor to ceiling windows, stacking vivid piles of bright orange and dark red colors across the front lawn. Whiffs of pine and cinnamon permeate through the house, creating the perfect atmosphere to read by the crackling fireplace in the living room. 

   That’s what you spend most of your time doing these days. Reading anything and everything you can get your hands on. Joel has hundreds of books scattered around his house, so you don’t have to go far to find something you want. 

   You love the afternoons. Love being in the comfort of a home where you feel warm and relaxed. Where you feel… safe. Yes, safe. Joel does that. Makes you feel like you’re in the presence of a knight in shining armor. You guess that’s what he is to you. Your savior. But mostly, you love afternoons because that means he’s here, and he’s choosing to spend his time with you. 

   The other night when he watched Gone with the Wind with you was the first time you actually had fun in a long, long time. And he made sure you were comfortable and taken care of, made sure you got to bed okay. But the one thing that burns like flickers of embers in your brain is the moment he picked you up and took you upstairs. 

   He was so… careful. Gentle, even. You latched on so tight to him that he had to pry your fingers from his flannel. He tucked you in, that much you remember. But also, you vaguely remember the faint brush of his fingers on your cheek, a lock of hair pushed behind your ear, and whispered words of affirmation. 

   Beautiful. He called you beautiful. Even if you were falling in and out of sleep, you still heard his slow drawl float through your ears, and you’re still blushing from the electric moment. He doesn’t need to know you heard it. You’ll just keep it tucked away in your locket, save it for a rainy day when you can repeat it a thousand times in your mind. Maybe one day he’ll say it again. Or maybe, one day you’ll be strong enough to look him in the eyes and tell him exactly how he makes you feel. Safe, beautiful, whole, seen. 

   Thumbing through the colorful bookcase, you slip a book out and start scanning the back. Just when you start to flip the front page, the click of the front door opens, and then you hear voices. Joel’s and someone you don’t recognize. Pressing the book against your chest to hug away the anxiety that’s building in your system, you pause when in comes Joel with a girl with big doe eyes and long strands of curly dark hair. You take a good, long look, your brain suddenly registering who she is. 

   Sarah. 

   You drop the book from your arms and it goes tumbling to the floor, your mouth parted open in mere shock as you register the situation. 

   Joel steps forward, enough to feel the heat from his body against yours, his arm placed gently around Sarah’s back, pushing her forward to present to you. He clears his throat and smiles. “Have someone I’d like to introduce you to, sweetheart.” He flicks his brown eyes to you and then back to Sarah as she stands gleaming in the sunlight with a bright smile. “This is Sarah, my daughter.” And then he says your name, introducing you the same. 

   You stand there lock-jawed, eyes wide, arms down at your sides, your mouth parched of words as you take her in. Big smile, as kind as her brown eyes. Eyes like Joel’s. She has a light dusting of freckles across her nose, cheeks warm and pink. She looks so kind. Kind like Joel, you think. 

   She says your name brightly and flashes you a genuine smile. “It’s so good to finally meet you! I’ve heard so much.” Before you register what happens, she’s throwing her arms around your back and pulling you in for a tight embrace. 

   Your eyes widen in confusion, mouth hanging open as she squeezes you tighter with your arms still draped to the sides of your body. It’s like you’re a long-distance cousin she hasn’t seen in years, but you’ve never met her in your life. But you think it’s okay because she’s a survivor like you, and you feel like you do know her. Joel’s told you so much. 

   Briefly flicking your eyes up, Joel chuckles under his breath from the foyer and gives you an encouraging smile, his eyes sparkling with glee as he takes in the sight of his sweet daughter pulling you in for a hug. 

   As if he’s encouraging you, you cautiously snake your arms around her back and hug her right back, embracing her like a sister that got lost along the way of the kidnapping. And when you finally breathe in her strawberry scent, you hold her tighter for just a few seconds knowing that she had everything stripped from her years ago too. 

   When you release your arms from her, Joel gives you a small smile and slowly retreats back from the room. “I’ll get out of your hair, let you two talk.” And then he’s disappearing around the corner, leaving you alone with Sarah. 

   “You want to go out on the back porch?” Sarah asks brightly, brown eyes as big as the moon. 

   You give her a shy smile and hesitate because you’ve never actually been out there before. You kind of just locked yourself in the house, afraid to venture far from closed doors and warm air. Afraid to go far because you’re still scared. Scared someone could take you away from Joel again… “Umm, sure. I’ve never really been out there before.”

   “You’ve never been out back?” she asks, shocked, jaw dropping like you just said you’ve never seen colors before.

   You shrug meekly and say, “Kinda keep tucked away in the house.”

   Registering your answer, she closes her lips and nods. “I understand. It’s nice and cozy in here, but come on. You’ll love it.”

   She tugs your wrist and pulls you along with her toward the back glass door, only stopping momentarily to pick up two fleece blankets from a little basket tucked next to the fireplace. Handing you one before she slides the door open, she encourages you forward.

   When you step out onto the wooden back porch, your jaw drops as you take in the beautiful view. Acres upon green acres expand over the horizon. A small pond that glistens in the sunlight sits a couple miles out. A flock of birds soar in the blue sky, only disappearing behind some forming grey clouds in the near distance. And the trees… so many tall, green, large scatters of them expand over the open land. It’s almost like home…

   “Whoa. This is…” You pause, mouth suddenly dry as you join Sarah on the porch swing, eyes still roving across the beautiful view. How did you not know this was out here all this time? 

   “Pretty great, right? Dad owns all this. All the way back behind that line of thick trees.”

   You scan the horizon, but you don’t see an end anywhere in sight. He must own hundreds of acres. 

   Taking a deep breath, you part your lips and smile, pulling the blanket up over your lap to dissipate some of the November chill. “I’ve been kind of a recluse since I’ve been here. I just can’t believe I missed this. It’s beautiful…” And it is. Breathtaking, actually. It kind of takes the ache away, fills you with a little happiness that replaces all the bad things that have happened to you over the past couple of years. 

   “That’s okay,” she smiles encouragingly. “You’re seeing it now.”

   You take another moment to soak it all in. The crisp smell of autumn, the yellow and red tinted leaves that blend in with the deep greens, the open land that’s filled with picturesque views that you swore would never be in Texas. But this? This is as close to home as you’ve felt for a long time. 

   Sarah’s warm voice pulls you back to the present. “Dad’s told me a lot about you.”

   You turn your head, eyes a little weary. He’s told her about you? “Really?” you ask, taken aback.

   “Mhm,” she hums out with a smile plastered on her glossy lips. 

   “Nothing bad I hope,” you breathe out.

   She shakes her head, curls bouncing with the movement. “Oh, no. Only good things. He really likes your company.”

   He likes your company? 

   You smile to yourself, feeling a blush set in on your cheeks as the cool air blows against your skin. He likes your company… “Well, I like his too.” But really, you mean to say you just like him. More than his company. You like being in his space, nuzzling into his soft flannels that smell like him—Pinewoods, mahogany, and a hint of black coffee. You like talking to him, watching his dimples cave into his tanned cheeks when he’s smiling. You just like him. All of him. You like everything about him. Especially how kind and soft he is with you. You like it all. And that scares you a little, but you shouldn’t be because he makes you feel so safe. 

   Yes, safe.

   She pulls her knees up to her chest, hugging them to her pink hoodie, the blanket loosely draped across her shoulders, and then she takes a good look at you, like she’s doing a deep dive into your mind. “How are you doing, really?”

   You let the question simmer, let it bubble inside you as you contemplate exactly what you’ll say. How are you really feeling? Drained, worn down, discarded, hurt. But there’s a chip inside you, one that’s filled with a little warmth, a little healing. A part of you is being stitched back together. One thread at a time. And it’s not because you’re away from that awful house, away from their clawing hands and sharp commands. You think maybe, just maybe, Joel’s healing a teeny tiny part of you. Inside and out. He’s making you whole again. Even in the short amount of time you’ve been here, you think he’s making you brand new. 

   He’s making you feel not so alone. He’s making you feel safe, wanted. He’s giving you wings…

   “I’m hanging in there,” you say quietly, fingers brushing lightly over the fleece blanket. ”Kinda just taking it one day at a time.”

   “It’s been a little over a month now, yeah?” she questions, tilting her head as her brown eyes glisten through the clouds now hanging over the covered porch.

   “Yeah, that’s right,” you nod, eyes wandering back to the big, open field. You could get lost in those sea of trees. Run, disappear forever. But you don’t think you want to anymore. At least, not right now. 

   “How long were you gone for?”

   You fiddle with your bottom lip, wincing at the lost time that’s gone by. “Almost two years. Seems more like ten, if I’m being honest. Time seems to blur together when you’re… Well, when you don’t know if you’ll make it through the night.” 

   A lump forms in the back of your throat, making your eyes a little blurry from the thought of being gone for so long. How had you managed to survive all those days of abuse and torment? How’d you ever get saved by the likes of someone like Joel? Warm, kind, safe. 

   She twirls a strand of her dark curls around her index finger, eyeing you with big sad eyes that make you want to choke out a sob, but you don’t. “I wasn’t gone nearly as long as you. And I can’t imagine what you went through. Two years, that’s… God. I’m so sorry.” Regret fills her eyes, and then she places a hand softly on your shoulder, saying just as much in her touch. 

   “Yeah, I am too,” you say a little dazed as her hand slips away from you, back into her lap.

   You mull over what you’ll say next while your emotions are running rampant. You feel everything all over again. The fear, the blinding pain, the inconsolable ache in your bones that won’t go away. You’ve been scared for so long, so how are you supposed to navigate your way through life again? How are you supposed to go on when the weight of the world rests like cement on your chest?

   Turning your head toward her slowly, you ask something that’s been bothering you. “How do you do it?”

   “Do what?” she questions; her tone gentle and patient.

   “Keep living a normal life,” you whisper, letting your words float across the frigid air, right back to Sarah.

   She shifts in her seat and takes a beat before answering, her voice calm and collected. “I wouldn’t exactly call my life normal. It’s gotten almost to that point, but there’s still days I can hardly get out of bed, nonetheless eat. But my boyfriend, Ryan, helps me when it gets like that. Or I talk to Tess. Have you seen her yet?”

   Tess. That’s right. You forgot about Tess.

   You shake your head. “Not yet.” But you’d really like to.

   “She’s great. She’s really helped. Even my dad sees her sometimes.”

   “Your dad sees her?” you ask, tilting your head slightly.

   She nods. “Yeah, she’s actually helped him a lot too with everything. Especially with his line of work. He really needs someone to lean on on the hard days, you know?”

   You let your mind settle on her words, your thoughts turning back and forth over the endless images of Joel’s sleepless nights. The deep shadows under his chocolate eyes. The restless image of him hunched over a laptop with his fingers lacing frustratedly through his dark locks. The late night runs he has to do periodically. The stressful calls he takes right when he’s about to head to bed. The times he’s not home when it’s three in the morning. The pacing back and forth he does when Tommy’s talking to him about a job. But there’s one thing you don’t ever miss. The pain that flares behind his brown irises, blending in with the inky flecks that remind you of dark chocolate. 

   Something hurt him. Something continues to hurt him, and you don’t even know what that something is.

   Jesus. You don’t even know half of what Joel goes through, but you think he might need someone just as badly as you do. Maybe, just maybe, you can be that something he needs because he’s that to you. He’s your foundation when you had nothing.

   “Your dad, what he does, he’s helped so many girls…” you murmur, your voice caught in your throat as you think about everything he’s done specifically for you. But really, it just takes a toll on you thinking of everyone he has saved. He’s… incredible. 

   She smiles, her cheeks bright from the crisp air. “He’s saved countless lives. And for that, I really couldn’t ask for a better dad.”

   No. She really couldn’t. He is the best dad, and she’s so lucky to have him.

   After a moment of silence passes, she speaks again. “He seems happier lately.”

   Your eyes flick over to hers while your heart does a somersault in your chest. “Really?”

   “Yeah,” she smiles gently. 

   “What makes you say that?” The knot tightens in your stomach, and maybe you’re a little scared of the answer. Was it… was he happier because you were here? No, that couldn’t be possible, could it? 

   “I don’t know,” she laughs, shrugging casually as her hair tumbles past her shoulders. “He just seems lighter, maybe a little brighter. His eyes, they’re a little clearer. I think… I think ever since you came here. Yeah, that’s when I noticed the change.”

   Your eyes widen, lips part in awe. Did she just say… No. You must’ve heard wrong.

   “Me? But I…”

   She stops you mid-sentence and smiles. “He likes your company, like I said. I can tell. He’s never been… Well, he hasn’t been happy in a while. It’s nice to see him smiling for a change.”

   You bite your bottom lip out of habit and curl your fingers into the fleece of the blanket, tossing ideas back and forth in your mind. Maybe he has been smiling more lately. Like on movie night. You’ve never seen him laugh so carefree before. He did seem happier. A little more teasing, maybe even playful in a way. You wanted to see more of that. Carefree Joel is heart stopping.

   “And you think I’m the reason he seems happier?” you laugh, a pang of disbelief flowing through your body. Could you really be the reason he was happier? 

   “I really do,” she confirms with the imprint of a dimple in her cheek, solidifying the question. 

   You’re the reason he’s happier… 

   “Hey, umm. I just wanted to say you can reach out to me anytime. I’m always available if you need a friend,” she smiles, her eyes sincere and warm. “And just know that you’re a survivor. You’re a strong one, and there’s nothing you can’t overcome. Never give up. Keep fighting the long fight. You’ve got this. I believe in you, my dad believes in you, Tommy does too.”

   They believe in you. Joel believes in you. And that in itself means so much to you…

   “Thanks, Sarah. I’m so glad I got to meet you.” A tear forms in the corner of your eye, but you brush it off just as Sarah squeezes your knee in encouragement. 

   Before you can say another word, you hear a shuffling noise by the door. “Hope I didn’t intrude on anything.” Joel slides the glass door open, balancing mugs with two hands and one braced against his flexed arm, making you almost lose your balance at the sight of him. Tall, fitted blue flannel around his muscular arms, slicked back hair with silver streaks glistening even under the cover of a grey cloud. So handsome, so put together, so…

   “Oh, no. Not at all, Dad!” Sarah chimes in, giddy as she reaches for the pink tinted mug in his firm grasp.

   “Thought I’d whip up some hot chocolate for you two. It’s a bit chilly out here. Don’t want ya to catch a cold. Plus, I know how much you like my homemade recipe, Sarah.” He smiles as she takes a big gulp, groaning when she swallows the first taste.

   “Yes! I knew you’d make me your famous hot chocolate. Thanks, Dad. You’re the best.” She throws him a toothy grin and settles back against the swing, kicking her legs carefree while she indulges in the warm hot chocolate, eager for you to try a taste yourself.

   “Here ya go, sweetheart. Reckon you like hot chocolate.” He smiles, reaching his arm out, offering you a warm mug with swirls of steam billowing out the top.

   “Yes.” You extend your arm, palm open with an invitation. And when he slides the cup into your hand, his calloused fingers brush against yours, causing goosebumps to rise on your shivering skin. You gasp, feeling how warm and welcoming his hand feels against yours, but it’s only there a second, the next he’s whisking his arm back to his side. You already miss it—his hand sliding against yours implicitly. 

   Physical contact is not in your book of things that make you feel good anymore. But with Joel? It feels more than right. It feels… perfect. Like his hand was made to brush against yours. Or maybe it was made so he could intertwine his fingers with yours, thread them together like your stitched-up heart. You think you’d like that. One day. And maybe he would too.

   “Put some extra whipped cream and marshmallows in jus’ for you. Know how much you like everything extra sweet.” He gives you a gut-wrenching smile. One that could bring you to your knees. Especially once that dimple forms on the middle of his cheek. 

   God. What did you ever do to be worthy of looking at that angelic face? Carved to perfection, tanned, smooth like his tousled curls. And his eyes. Big pools of warmth that instantly make my insides all fuzzy and warm. 

   “Thanks, Joel. You didn’t have to go through all that extra trouble though,” you smile bashfully, still trying to get a grip on this reality.

   “‘Course I did. You’re worth the extra mile.”

   Your mouth parts at the words. You’re worth the extra mile. Sarah giggles under her breath, but she keeps to herself. But you can’t help but notice her eyes keep roaming from Joel and then back to you. She must see it. See just how much we affect each other. Just one look and you’re melted butter. It just takes one glance from those big brown eyes until you’re nothing but dust in the wind. 

   “Dad makes the best hot chocolate!” She brags, taking another sip of her steaming hot chocolate. “Don’t for a second let him tell you it’s nothing special.”

   But it is special. Every single particle of him is special. How’d you ever get so lucky to be sitting here on his porch, drinking his hot chocolate that he made specially just for you? 

   “You know,” he drawls. “Thanksgiving’s next Thursday.”

   Thanksgiving? How had you forgotten it was Thanksgiving? To be fair, you weren’t really in the mindset to think about holidays. You overlooked Halloween already, what used to be your favorite. 

   “Already?” you laugh uneasily, afraid he’ll be upset you forgot.

   “Sure is,” he chuckles back, but he gives you an encouraging smile, saying you’re just fine. 

   “Dad makes the best cherry pie you’ve ever tasted! I’m so excited,” Sarah squeals excitedly beside you. “Well, I guess everything he makes is the best, but this is to die for!” 

   “Oh?” you ask while Joel nods shyly. “What about blueberry pie?”

   He tilts his head and looks at you a beat before he says, “I can make that, but only if you help me.”

   “You want me to… help you?” you gawk, mouth parted in surprise. You’re not a cook, never really been one in the first place. Do you even remember how to do anything? 

   No… you really don’t.

   He nods as he takes a sip of his warm coffee, brown eyes locked on yours. “Can’t do it without you. Take it or leave it, sweetheart.”

   He’s not making this easy, is he? 

   “Okay,” you break after a beat. “You’ll just have to guide me. I’m not the best at baking.”

   “Well, I’ll jus’ have to teach ya then,” he smirks, sending a wink your way and making you blush all over again.

   “Perfect,” Sarah giggles, like she knows something we don’t. But she’s been watching us like a hawk; silently tapping her talons and sharpening her ears. Maybe she sees the chemistry swirling between us like the smoky fog hovering over the glassy lake. If she does, the only thing that gives her away is her sneaky smile and bright eyes flicking between us.   

   He shakes his head and chuckles under his breath while he leans against the wooden porch fence. One elbow propped lazily up on the edge, his other hand flexed around his royal-blue coffee mug. You follow the map of lines on his forehead, memorizing every crevice, every wrinkle like the constellations in the sky. 

   He catches you staring, which makes you look down, a deep blush burning in your cheeks. But when you look back up, he’s still watching you. Almost like he’s memorizing your face just the same. 

   Soft. His eyes are so soft. Warm, big, his brown irises full of promises of something. It makes your breathing hitch, makes you a little off center. But yet, he keeps watching like he can’t quite believe you’re there, sitting right in front of him too. 

   And it stays just like that until Sarah starts up the conversation again. But he still doesn’t take his eyes off you. It’s almost like he’s just as mesmerized as he makes you feel. 

   There’s a spark, a lapse in time where fireworks go off somewhere in the far distance. You can almost hear the sizzling and booms as they light in the sky. But instead, you hear Joel’s name whooshing around your mind, lighting you up a variety of colors. He painted you a multitude of shades and brought life back in your eyes when all you could see was black and white before. 

   You’ve never seen such pretty shades of brown before until you looked up and saw his eyes. You think he lit you up the very moment you became his that night he saved you…

   “Joel?” you call, a few minutes later when the only sound is the faint rustle of leaves in the distance.

   He turns his head toward you, coffee cup snug in his big hand. “Yeah, sweetheart?”

   You hesitate a second, looking from Sarah and then back to Joel. Yes. You think it’s time. “I think… I think I’m ready to talk to Tess.”

   His brown eyes light up like Christmas lights, a soft smile splaying across his lips which nearly takes your breath away. And the way he’s looking at you? All soft and warm. Well, you think you’ve just fallen all over. “Why don’t you give her a call this week? I’m sure she’d be happy to get you in soon. In fact, I’ll drive you to your appointment. Whenever you’re ready, you can count on me.”

   You can count on me. He’s so reliable, so sweet, so genuinely caring. It makes a smile crack over your lips, makes another wave of warmth rush through your chest, filling you up with sunshine and the hot chocolate he made for you. With extra sugar, you can’t forget that part. 

   When Sarah congratulates you on taking that step forward, Joel can’t help but to smile even bigger and brighter. He even goes so far as mouthing the words “I’m so proud of you” to you through the air. Even though you didn’t hear them, you swear you can taste them as they simmer through the chilly air, along with his thick Southern drawl. 

   And just like that, you’re falling through cloudless skies, crashing down to earth. But you don’t have to be afraid anymore of dying because he’ll be right there waiting to catch you. 

   Later, when Sarah’s gone for the night, you’re wrapped up in your favorite fluffy blanket, knees tucked up underneath you while you silently read under the bright lamp. The fireplace crackles in the corner, making for the perfect night to read in the living room. But this is kind of a ritual now, a normal routine you’ve slipped comfortably into. 

   And then there’s Joel—the man who completes these relaxing nights. He’s here. Right where you need him. He’s perched on the leather couch, his guitar between his legs, gently taking a rag and dusting off the smooth wood, carefully cleaning each string with rapt attention. It’s a little distracting you think—watching his hands slide over the instrument, oh-so-carefully polishing and refining something that seems like it means the world to him. 

   To be honest, this is the first time he’s actually taken the acoustic guitar out of the reading room. He’s never really talked about it before. Which means, it’s something he hides deep inside his chest, careful not to show emotion when he glides over the colorful moth that’s etched in the wood. You think it means a great deal to him, whatever it symbolizes. 

   Putting the book down on your lap, you sit up straighter and muster enough courage to call his name. “Joel?”

   He looks up, his brown eyes crinkling in the corners when he focuses on you. “Yeah, sweetheart?”

   “I, umm. I was wondering…” You bite your bottom lip, suddenly nervous as he zeroes in on you, waiting for your question. You muster up enough courage to ask, but you don’t want to overstep. “Would you… Do you think you could play me something?”

   His jaw ticks, his lips quiver as he muddles over your big ask. There’s a glimmer in his eye, a faint recognition of something hiding deep behind those brown pools. Uncertainty, maybe. Or was it just sadness? 

   Grazing the tip of his thumb up one of the strings, he sighs. “Haven’t played in quite some time, sweetheart.” His deep drawl is filled with anguish, and the last thing you want to do is make him sad. 

   Taking back your ask, you whisk it back in. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… You don’t have to…”

   He stops you before you can finish your stammering. “S’alright, sweetheart. You didn’t do anything.” But it feels like you did. After a beat, he huffs out a breath. “I’ll, uhh. I’ll try, sweetheart. For you, I’ll try.”

   Those words mean more to you than he knows. He’ll try for you. That’s all you can ask for. Putting him in a vulnerable position, and he still wants to try? You don’t think you could be more smitten. 

   He straightens his back, mulls a little more over what he’s doing, then he’s placing the guitar carefully over his lap, adjusting his arms as he cradles the instrument like it’s the most fragile things he’s ever touched. 

   You fall silent and watch the way his thick fingers flex, eyebrows thread together, eyes close, lips slowly part. It almost feels like he’s keeping something down—something that’s hurting him, cutting him deep, bleeding him dry. You wish you could sew the wound up, wipe away his invisible scars that only show beneath the surface. You want to take his pain away like he takes yours. 

   After a silent fist fight in his mind, he slowly places his fingers gently on the taut strings and oh-so-carefully begins to play a steady, melancholy tune. You can feel the weary emotion he wears on his face, can see the hurt lined in his weathered stare, can feel the debilitating pain he wears on his slouched shoulders, can even hear the grieving through the deliberate cords he strums. 

   You feel the backs of your eyes burn with held-back tears the longer you watch Joel wear his heart on his flanneled sleeve. And as the melancholy tune carries throughout the stifling room, you feel every single emotion he’s ever poured out into that guitar. That special, one-of-a-kind, gem of a guitar. Whatever it means to him, you see it so clearly now, even if you don’t really know what’s got him so torn up. Was it the moth etched to perfection in the wood, or was it the person that gave him that guitar. Or, had he lost someone, too?

   When he plays the last note, his jaw goes slack, and he lays the guitar flat on his lap, his thumb slowly tracing the edge of the little moth. Tears well in his big brown eyes, but he doesn’t dare let one fall. He holds them back, like the strong man he is. But strong men are allowed to break too. And right now, you’re fighting every single particle in your body not to tiptoe over and fall into his arms. 

   Joel deserves that. Someone to take his pain away, lock their arms around his neck and promise him that he’ll be okay. Just like he promised you…

   He looks up slowly, steadily, his head still hanging low, but his eyes meet yours for a brief second. It almost kills you to see those big, sappy brown eyes lathered in such sadness. Makes you want to just rush into his arms and never let go. 

   Who hurt Joel? That’s what you want to know. Who tore his heart from his chest and ripped it in two? 

   You slowly peel yourself off the couch, leaving your book open, laying face down in the blanket. You silently tiptoe over to him, careful not to disturb his sulking, keeping your eyes glued to the way he’s brushing the pads of his fingers against the scarred strings. He’s got his heart spilled all over them like black ink. 

   Carefully, you slide in next to him, fully aware you’re about to play Russian roulette in the next few seconds. “That was beautiful. The song you played,” you whisper out, afraid you’ll shatter his glass box that’s cased around him. 

   He shifts against the leather, dragging his thumb smoothly across the polished wood. A sad smile crosses his lips, but it doesn’t meet his darkened eyes. “I uhh… I wrote that for someone. Someone who meant a lot to me…” The pain in his strained voice is etched in his clenched jaw, his palms a little shaky as he speaks. 

   You almost reach your hand out for his, but you think better of it. Someone did hurt him. Or maybe, he lost them… “Joel, that’s… that’s…” You can’t even finish your sentence without your own voice cracking. What could you say to that? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

   He rasps out a sigh and slumps his broad shoulders a bit more, one hand dragging over his silvery scruff, all the way across his mouth. And his eyes. Still glistening with held-in tears. 

   Oh, Joel… 

   “Do you want to talk about it?” you ask bravely, clenching your fingers as the words leave your lips. 

   Sniffling, he murmurs, “Not tonight. Not right, at least.” 

   You let his words simmer, let them soak into your sweater until you feel it’s safe to respond again. Shifting just a little closer, you brush your fingers just inches away from his hand, enough to where he might be able to feel the warmth coming from your palm. “Joel?”

   “Hm?” he hums, his deep bravado echoing around the room. 

   Your fingers dance closer, just enough to lick flames from your skin. If you were brave enough, you’d thread your fingers through his until he let you take away some of his held-in pain. “You know you can always talk to me, right? About anything.”

   He lets out a breath and slowly looks up at you. His eyes are hazy, a little cloudy with the fog from his watery eyes. It makes pain flood inside your chest. You freeze when he brushes his knuckles gently down your cheek, a light touch that means he appreciates you when words surely fail him in this moment. And then there’s the way he’s looking at you, like you’re the center of his gravity, making a tear leak from the corner of your eye. But of course, he wipes it away before you can blink. 

   “Thank you, sweet girl,” he smiles, letting his thumb trace your jawline before he snaps his hand back to his side. And there you go, wishing his warm palm was still lingering across your skin. 

   The way he touches you—it’s not sexual. Not in the least bit. It’s warm, filled with so much care and attention. Just like the special recipes he conjures up in the kitchen. It’s filled with extra care. And God, how he cares for you. Just like you care for him…

   He stares at you for a beat, crystallized brown flecks dancing across your vision, soaking you up like you want to do with his pain. He tilts the guitar against the leather couch and lets his palm drag down it, eyes flicking back and forth from it to you repeatedly. He looks like he wants to tell you something. Maybe the reason he’s hurting?

   Please, Joel. Give me your pain. 

   Once he’s settled his mind, he blinks a couple times and looks at you with hurt-filled eyes. He focuses on a strand of your hair, lets his fingers fall over the silky surface while you hold your breath from the contact. And he fixates on it while his mouth twitches to let the words he really wants to set free out. “The reason I haven’t played in so long is because… Because I…”

   You hold your breath, waiting for that something to come tumbling from his lips like an old wound he just won’t let go of. But before he can finish, his phone starts ringing off the hook, deflecting him from the one secret he was about to share with you. The one thing you might’ve been able to remotely help him with. 

   Pulling his phone free from the front pocket of his denim jeans, he sighs, carding his free hand through his slicked-back curls. You get the faint view of Tommy’s name scrolled across the screen which means it’s probably going to be another late night for Joel. He deserves a break. He works too hard, pushes himself past his limits most nights. He deserves someone to stop the madness for just one single night. 

   Could you stop it? Press pause on the world for just one night? Just long enough for him to get a decent night’s rest. The dark circles beneath his tired eyes never go unnoticed. He’s got so much weight on his shoulders, so much baggage to pull around. Would he let you take some of that weight off, just for one night? 

   Groaning, he pushes off the edge of the couch and stands, his thumb hovering over the answer button. “I’ve gotta take this,” he mumbles heavily, dragging all his pent-up frustration and pain right back on his shoulders. But before he clicks the button and walks away, you recklessly reach your arm out and wrap your fingers around his wrist, pulling the thick flannel just enough to get his attention. 

   Stay, Joel. Don’t go. That’s what you really want to tell him, but you’ve said enough through your rampant movements.

   Looking down at your closed hand around his wrist, he lets the phone keep ringing, just stares into your eyes while his big, wide brown irises cross with yours. There’s a hesitation there, a moment in time where everything just stops. It’s just you and him for the second, the flickering embers that crackle like pop rocks in the flames of the fireplace. 

   Parting his lips in awe, eyes crinkling slightly at the corners, tears pooling in the backs of his irises, you think he might crack right on the spot. But the world begins to spin again, bringing you back to the present where his phone continues to ring and ring and ring repeatedly. 

   Don’t answer it, Joel. Let it go to voicemail. Stay. Stay with me. But the disappointment bubbles up inside you the moment he clicks the green button to life, letting Tommy’s voice slip through the end of the receiver. “Yeah?” His voice cracks, strains as he swipes at his teary eyes. It makes you crack just the same.

   Just when you let a puff of air leave your lips, he fills the empty space by just a smidge. Slowly, carefully, he reaches over and cups the back of your head affectionately, letting his fingers linger in your hair, tangling for just a second as he fights to pull away. He’s talking on the phone, nodding his head and repeating what Tommy says, but his wide eyes are tethered to yours in a wave of emotions tossing through his beautiful brown eyes. He’s said enough in that touch, even as he pulls away. He’s saying thank you, that he appreciates you being here, that he revels in the way you’re trying. He’s trying to let his walls down too. Just enough to let you creep in and slip into the parts he keeps tucked away, afraid to show just how vulnerable he is too.

   Taking one more good look at you, he snaps his hand back inside his pocket and disappears around the corner, leaving you alone with the flickering fireplace and solid guitar next to the now empty couch. 

   You close your eyes and let your head fall back into the cushions, tucking your knees against your chest as you blow out a heavy breath. You were this close to getting a glimpse into his mind. And now? You didn’t know if you’d get that chance again.

   Joel… He barely touched you, barely grazed his fingers across your skin. But that last touch? The way he ran his hand down your hair and cupped the back of your head? That was everything all at once. He was everything. Gentle, kind, and so very soft. 

   You don’t know how long you stay there, but it’s long enough that you’ve faded off to sleep. Long enough that you feel him slip his strong arms around your body and carry you back to bed in the early morning hours of dawn. This time you don’t fight the need to sleep; you just curl into his chest for those few short, blissful seconds, breathing in his woodsy scent until he tucks you safely into bed. And you don’t miss that same brush of knuckles across your cheek before darkness takes a hold of your body. The last thing you remember is hearing his soothing Southern drawl whisper sweet nothings through the air.

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

AI’s “human in the loop” isn’t

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

AI's ability to make – or assist with – important decisions is fraught: on the one hand, AI can often classify things very well, at a speed and scale that outstrips the ability of any reasonably resourced group of humans. On the other hand, AI is sometimes very wrong, in ways that can be terribly harmful.

Bureaucracies and the AI pitchmen who hope to sell them algorithms are very excited about the cost-savings they could realize if algorithms could be turned loose on thorny, labor-intensive processes. Some of these are relatively low-stakes and make for an easy call: Brewster Kahle recently told me about the Internet Archive's project to scan a ton of journals on microfiche they bought as a library discard. It's pretty easy to have a high-res scanner auto-detect the positions of each page on the fiche and to run the text through OCR, but a human would still need to go through all those pages, marking the first and last page of each journal and identifying the table of contents and indexing it to the scanned pages. This is something AI apparently does very well, and instead of scrolling through endless pages, the Archive's human operator now just checks whether the first/last/index pages the AI identified are the right ones. A project that could have taken years is being tackled with never-seen swiftness.

The operator checking those fiche indices is something AI people like to call a "human in the loop" – a human operator who assesses each judgment made by the AI and overrides it should the AI have made a mistake. "Humans in the loop" present a tantalizing solution to algorithmic misfires, bias, and unexpected errors, and so "we'll put a human in the loop" is the cure-all response to any objection to putting an imperfect AI in charge of a high-stakes application.

But it's not just AIs that are imperfect. Humans are wildly imperfect, and one thing they turn out to be very bad at is supervising AIs. In a 2022 paper for Computer Law & Security Review, the mathematician and public policy expert Ben Green investigates the empirical limits on human oversight of algorithms:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3921216

Green situates public sector algorithms as the latest salvo in an age-old battle in public enforcement. Bureaucracies have two conflicting, irreconcilable imperatives: on the one hand, they want to be fair, and treat everyone the same. On the other hand, they want to exercise discretion, and take account of individual circumstances when administering justice. There's no way to do both of these things at the same time, obviously.

But algorithmic decision tools, overseen by humans, seem to hold out the possibility of doing the impossible and having both objective fairness and subjective discretion. Because it is grounded in computable mathematics, an algorithm is said to be "objective": given two equivalent reports of a parent who may be neglectful, the algorithm will make the same recommendation as to whether to take their children away. But because those recommendations are then reviewed by a human in the loop, there's a chance to take account of special circumstances that the algorithm missed. Finally, a cake that can be both had, and eaten!

For the paper, Green reviewed a long list of policies – local, national, and supra-national – for putting humans in the loop and found several common ways of mandating human oversight of AI.

First, policies specify that algorithms must have human oversight. Many jurisdictions set out long lists of decisions that must be reviewed by human beings, banning "fire and forget" systems that chug along in the background, blithely making consequential decisions without anyone ever reviewing them.

Second, policies specify that humans can exercise discretion when they override the AI. They aren't just there to catch instances in which the AI misinterprets a rule, but rather to apply human judgment to the rules' applications.

Next, policies require human oversight to be "meaningful" – to be more than a rubber stamp. For high-stakes decisions, a human has to do a thorough review of the AI's inputs and output before greenlighting it.

Finally, policies specify that humans can override the AI. This is key: we've all encountered instances in which "computer says no" and the hapless person operating the computer just shrugs their shoulders apologetically. Nothing I can do, sorry!

All of this sounds good, but unfortunately, it doesn't work. The question of how humans in the loop actually behave has been thoroughly studied, published in peer-reviewed, reputable journals, and replicated by other researchers. The measures for using humans to prevent algorithmic harms represent theories, and those theories are testable, and they have been tested, and they are wrong.

For example, people (including experts) are highly susceptible to "automation bias." They defer to automated systems, even when those systems produce outputs that conflict with their own expert experience and knowledge. A study of London cops found that they "overwhelmingly overestimated the credibility" of facial recognition and assessed its accuracy at 300% better than its actual performance.

Experts who are put in charge of overseeing an automated system get out of practice, because they no longer engage in the routine steps that lead up to the conclusion. Presented with conclusions, rather than problems to solve, experts lose the facility and familiarity with how all the factors that need to be weighed to produce a conclusion fit together. Far from being the easiest step of coming to a decision, reviewing the final step of that decision without doing the underlying work can be much harder to do reliably.

Worse: when algorithms are made "transparent" by presenting their chain of reasoning to expert reviewers, those reviewers become more deferential to the algorithm's conclusion, not less – after all, now the expert has to review not just one final conclusion, but several sub-conclusions.

Even worse: when humans do exercise discretion to override an algorithm, it's often to inject the very bias that the algorithm is there to prevent. Sure, the algorithm might give the same recommendation about two similar parents who are facing having their children taken away, but the judge who reviews the recommendations is more likely to override it for a white parent than for a Black one.

Humans in the loop experience "a diminished sense of control, responsibility, and moral agency." That means that they feel less able to override an algorithm – and they feel less morally culpable when they sit by and let the algorithm do its thing.

All of these effects are persistent even when people know about them, are trained to avoid them, and are given explicit instructions to do so. Remember, the whole reason to introduce AI is because of human imperfection. Designing an AI to correct human imperfection that only works when its human overseer is perfect produces predictably bad outcomes.

As Green writes, putting an AI in charge of a high-stakes decision, and using humans in the loop to prevent its harms, produces a "perverse effect": "alleviating scrutiny of government algorithms without actually addressing the underlying concerns." The human in the loop creates "a false sense of security" that sees algorithms deployed for high-stakes domains, and it shifts the responsibility for algorithmic failures to the human, creating what Dan Davies calls an "accountability sink":

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

The human in the loop is a false promise, a "salve that enables governments to obtain the benefits of algorithms without incurring the associated harms."

So why are we still talking about how AI is going to replace government and corporate bureaucracies, making decisions at machine speed, overseen by humans in the loop?

Well, what if the accountability sink is a feature and not a bug. What if governments, under enormous pressure to cut costs, figure out how to also cut corners, at the expense of people with very little social capital, and blame it all on human operators? The operators become, in the phrase of Madeleine Clare Elish, "moral crumple zones":

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

As Green writes:

The emphasis on human oversight as a protective mechanism allows governments and vendors to have it both ways: they can promote an algorithm by proclaiming how its capabilities exceed those of humans, while simultaneously defending the algorithm and those responsible for it from scrutiny by pointing to the security (supposedly) provided by human oversight.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/30/a-neck-in-a-noose/#is-also-a-human-in-the-loop

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en ==

[seeingivy]

pillowtalk

ryomen sukuna x f!reader

**part of my dream girl fic

previous part linked here

--

--

sukuna takes the brief minute that he’s afforded – your preoccupation with pulling the blinds on each of the windows and hanging your coat up on the rack the second that you enter the apartment – to observe the room in earnest. 

your home is a collection of what you love. it’s the first thing that comes to sukuna’s mind – a shitty quote that he saw on a doormat on his neighbor’s porch – as he tries to figure out what exactly that is from the room that he’s looking at. 

dark brown cabinets and a gray granite counter, that by the looks of it, is in pristine condition. a space that had to be slightly used, but was most definitely well maintained. a fancy nespresso machine, a kitchenaid mixer, and a quick rice cooker. 

seven locks on the front door. big black ones on each of the windows, and a glass cake stand with a loaf of bread in it. 

you love fancy kitchen appliances. and advanced security systems, it seems like. 

“i wouldn’t dream of trying to break into here.” sukuna murmurs. 

he notes that his comment is enough to make you pause, your ears perked up from the premise, and that whatever it was that he said warranted you turning around to narrow your eyes at him. 

“no one could break into here.” you state. 

sukuna glares. 

“i know? that’s why i wouldn’t even dream of trying?” sukuna clarifies. 

sukuna notes that you ignore the conversation, barely even give a consideration to his comment, and continue on without sparing him a second glance. 

“is there a reason that you asked me to stay?” he asks. 

“come here.” 

sukuna retreats to your side, your fingers still tightly clutching to the last curtain you had left to draw, and point to the cars on the sidewalk. he notes that there’s five that he can count on the street and that it’s particularly full compared to the streets he was driving up on. 

“the cars?” 

“paparazzi. usually here pretty often, sometimes they just hang out over here. it would look really weird if you came in and left right after. or just dropped me off on the curb.” you respond.

sukuna notes that the particularly feeling of warmth that he had in his chest when you first offered was wiped fresh clean with your swift words. 

he ignores the thought and watches as you tightly pull the curtain to the hook on the wall, before retreating and disappearing down the hall. it’s an eerily quiet silence the second that you depart, noting that the apartment seems to settle around him, and it sends a quiet chill down his spine that he attempts to ignore by observing the cake in the glass. 

the swirl in between each of the cut slices isn’t foreign to him and nearly identical to the coffee loaf cake that he used to make every thursday at the cafe. he notes that directly beneath it, there’s a dark green leather notebook, still open to one of the pages, with messy handwriting on the page and slight splotches of stains – which he’s assuming were created in the rush of cooking. 

a recipe. that from the looks of it, with the crossed out ingredients and switching measurements, is something you were attempting to perfect. that much is confirmed when he switches to the previous page, almost identical in a slightly different iteration, and the page before it the same as well. 

there’s a pair of swift footsteps leading right to his side, where you’ve materialized again, clothed in a pair of plain pajamas and a pair of clothes in your hands. he shoots you a smile, his earnest attempt at thanking you for the thoughtfulness, before eyeing the stack of clothes. 

“i only have one shirt that would fit you, but i think you should save that for when you try to dye your hair tomorrow. and these shorts should fit. otherwise…i don’t know. you can sleep in your underwear in the guest room or something.” you state. 

“wouldn’t you like to see that?” he asks. 

sukuna notes that you roll your eyes – with a smile on your face that almost deceives you entirely. 

“well, not exactly. that’s why i’m banishing you to the guest room, natsu.” you state. 

sukuna gives a polite smile, before eyeing the shorts. 

“do you google fictional characters that have pink hair so that you always have a nickname for me, lucy?” sukuna asks. 

you shrug. 

“do you google the fictional partners of characters that have pink hair so that you can always have a nickname to retort back to me?” you ask. 

sukuna smiles, albeit so softly that you nearly step back, just to put space between the two of you. 

“yes. i do. part of me thinks that it’s a little bit on the nose, but it’s seemed to work in my favor so far.” sukuna states. 

you hum, lifting the glass cover over the stand and reaching for one of the pieces of the loaf. the coffee taste is still as bitterly overwhelming as when you made it the night prior – and still every bit as horrible as you remember. 

“the first few times it came naturally. but i do have a list in my phone for less common ones in case i start running out. just so i can keep you on your toes.” you respond. 

sukuna leans forward, mimicking the way you’re leaning against the counter, and moving just the slightest bit closer to where you’re standing. 

“do you anticipate that much time passing? that you would run out?” sukuna asks. 

you shrug. 

“i guess we’ll just have to see where this goes. though it seems like you’ve given more thought to this entire thing than i have.” 

sukuna hums in response, his fingers ghosting down the length of your forearm, before he finally leaps and intertwines his fingers in with yours, the same way they were knitted together in the car. you look down to see the same red mark in the car, properly illuminated this time, and wonder how often that happens in that line of profession. 

how many coffee stained marks are indented on his pants, how many burns the coffee machine has given him when he works too fast. 

“i appreciate how much thought you put into our little game. most effort someone’s put in a really long time.” 

“been a long time since i’ve played. and the first time i’ve overtly pretended to be someone’s …whatever i’m supposed to be.” you offer. 

sukuna grins. 

“don’t tell me i’m your first.” he jokes. 

“and i’m not?” you ask. 

“jealous already?” 

“god forbid i’m territorial over my pretend boyfriend. that much should be a given.” you joke. 

sukuna reaches for the shorts on the counter before he holds them up in the air. his eyes are wide – like they almost always are – and you wonder if he looks at everything with such careful scrutiny. 

“an old boyfriends? are you giving me someone’s sloppy seconds?” he asks. 

sukuna watches as you finally meet his eyes, for the first time since he dragged you out of the after party, and notes the red. the smudged black around the bottom of your eyes. and tries to annoy the slight twinge it gives him in his chest. 

“no. my junkie dad’s actually.” you deadpan. 

sukuna gives you a quiet nod and seems to retreat from the topic entirely – most likely a byproduct of the fact that those same words elicited such an angry outburst from you an hour prior, and folds them back onto the counter. 

“so? what gives? you didn’t have to interrupt that fight. it was actually none of your business.” you ask. 

“well, i’m not just going to let you fight it out with a girl who does kickboxing everyday at six in the morning. and it kind of is my business. girlfriend and all.” 

you roll your eyes. 

“i don’t understand that. you do realize no one really thinks we’re dating, right? and if they do, they’re going to realize very quickly what’s going on. what are we even doing?” 

“you’re eating a piece of coffee cake and very rudely not offering it to your guest. and i…guess i’m just trying to make sense of everything that’s in here. you, primarily.” 

“do you have to find a reason for everything? except, clearly, the one thing i keep asking you about.” 

“i heard you’re not fond of coffee. and yet, i can distinctly recall that not only did you drink coffee the second time i met you but you’re also eating it right now, in the form of a dessert. you also have one of the nicest nespresso machines on the market.”  

“trying to get myself to like it.” 

sukuna narrows his eyes. 

“are you so keen on forcing yourself to like something that you’re not particularly fond of?” he asks. 

you fight the urge to scoff, before looking down at the cake, the bitter mess of crumbs still on your hand. you shake the unsettling feeling it gives you – the accusation in his words and the taste in your mouth – before dusting your hands and tucking them into the crooks of your armpits. 

“i’ve been told that coffee is an acquired taste. i’m trying to acquire it.” 

“that didn’t exactly answer my question.” he responds. 

you shrug, before giving into defeat. 

“i’ve been told that i don’t necessarily go out of my comfort zone too often. by my producer, her name is mimi. and so, i’m going on a bender of eating and drinking everything coffee flavored – drinks, desserts – until i can finally find something that i like. or make something that i like. and prove to her that i do go out of my comfort zone.” 

sukuna smiles. 

“so the stubbornness isn’t something you just reserve for me?” he asks. 

you push the napkin with the loaf on it closer to him, gesturing for him to take a bite. 

“i suppose not.” 

“do you think you’re out of your comfort zone right now? with me?” 

you shake your head, before leaning down on the counter, sticking your cheek in your palm. 

“you’re far from the comfort zone. all the way on the other end, actually.” you confess. 

“and why’s that?” 

you shrug. 

“you’re a random person. and you’re in my apartment in the middle of the night.” 

“what’s so uncomfortable about that?” 

“nothing i just said necessitates me being uncomfortable. it’s just…you. me. our secret. the fact that everything you know about me, which i’m not even sure of at this point, is something that you’ve heard from someone else. i have no control over what conclusion you draw, no idea of what it is that you really want from me, and for someone who likes to usually control all those factors, every conversation with you almost feels like…an argument. or a game i’m trying to win. a puzzle i’m trying to figure out.” 

sukuna hums in response. 

“can i tell you something?” 

“i have a feeling you’re going to say it anyway.” 

sukuna hums in response. 

“that’s true, cricket, but having your permission would be nice.” 

you tilt your head to the side in confusion. 

“cricket?” 

“you chirp a lot. like a cricket.” 

“hilarious.” you deadpan. 

sukuna gives you an exasperated smile. 

“i did a very modest google search of you the first day after we met. i’ve listened to…about half of your discography by now? i try to listen to each song a few times so that i can remember it. will admit that the songs themselves prevented me from needing to do a further google search, since i basically know what you think about the three ex-boyfriends and one ex-friend that i counted.” 

“i do that on purpose.” 

“i like it. no way to tell them off than singing about it, i suppose. and they don’t seem to hold back either, for what it’s worth. after i did that, i talked to megumi, since i remembered that you two were childhood best friends. this was after the basketball game, so most of the conversation revolved around your favorite types of foods, what kinds of drinks you like…since you were eating breakfast that i was going to be providing. i heard aimee mention a few words that i will admit piqued my interest…something along the lines of…” 

“i remember what she said.” you respond. 

“well, that’s it. that’s everything that i know about you. i have a feeling that i’m just cracking the surface, but i would be remiss in…whatever it is that we’re doing…if i wasn’t honest and pretended like i didn’t want to know more.” 

“remiss?” 

sukuna scrunches his nose. 

“i’m auditioning for a period piece sometime later this month. the big words are somehow making their way into my vernacular, so you’ll have to excuse me.” sukuna responds, almost exaggerating. 

you can’t help but laugh. 

“would you tell me more? maybe what you know about me, so we can be even?” he adds. 

you shrug. 

“i did a very extensive google search of you. ryomen sukuna, fraternal twin brother of yuuji itadori. you have an adopted brother who is also an actor, choso, and a sister-in-law too. yuki. niece that you’ve talked about in a few interviews, her favorite show is bluey. you like to take nature walks, which i’m assuming is why you thought of the whole cricket thing when you listened to me.” 

sukuna scoffs. 

“you wouldn’t believe the things i’m thinking when i listen to you.” 

you ignore the implication for the time being. 

“you love the coffee shop that you work at because you’ve been there forever, you met aimee lynch at a party in dallas, and you’re probably regretting every talking to her at this point in time. got a manager that’s pretty strict about your pr, which is a given, since you’re a new actor. your career means a lot to you if you’re able to risk everything on it. you’re also stupid if you’re banking that entire career on the help of a stranger that you don’t know either, who just got into an attempted fist fight a little while ago.” 

you pause. 

“for some strange reason, you’re sticking around, even after my attempts to nip this in the bud. for both of our sakes by the way, since we’re clearly ruffling feathers we both most likely made a vow to never even go near again. and especially when it’s something that’s not going to help you anywhere, not when i can’t even control my temper against someone who was very clearly trying to goad me into fighting in the first place.” 

sukuna reaches for the slice of the loaf left on the napkin, slicing it in half before tilting his head backwards, and slowly chewing. he makes the same look as before – like he’s so thoughtfully thinking about the taste that it’s present on his face – before giving you a smile. 

“it’s a little crumbly. how much butter did you put in it?” 

“i hope you can read, huckleberry finn.” you respond, pointing to the page. 

“i’d be inclined to take the proposition that you gave me the other day. to…let it fizzle out, as you so keenly put it. but i’ve spent a long time letting people dictate what i can and can’t do. followed things i should just because i was going along with something, left other things behind just because people told me not to. i’m not going to stop talking to you, when i actually find it quite enjoyable, especially not for aimee lynch or a stupid pr manager. and there’s still a lot of benefit that you could pose to my career. and your own, if you think about it too.” 

you shake your head. 

“i’m not giving into fear, if that’s what you’re insinuating” you defend. 

“then what are you giving in to?” 

you shrug. 

sukuna reaches forward, his hand warm on your cheek, and his touch feathers as he rubs at the spot underneath your eye. you watch as he looks back, at the smudged darkness on his finger, before picking up the stack of clothes. 

“something comfortable, i suppose.” sukuna murmurs, before trailing away. 

--

“you’re missing a few spots in the back.” you state, consequently calling attention to your unexpected presence in the bathroom by knocking on the door. 

sukuna’s startled by the sound in your voice, evident from the fact that he nearly jumps at the sound, before quickly decking his head back to look at you. his hair is a matted, red mess – the smell of chemicals thick in the air as you give him a wave, and a dark pink stain on his hairline. 

“am i really?” he groans. 

you give him a polite nod. 

“if you’re going for an ombre look, then you can ignore me by all means.” 

sukuna glares. 

“not exactly what i was thinking. my brother usually helps me with this type of thing.” he states. 

you give him a shrug, before walking closer to the counter, where the little black tin is filled with an almost red goop. you give him a quick glance, noting that the shorts that you were able to dig out of the box in the back of your closet did fit, before reaching for the spare pair of gloves in the box. 

“you guys do touch-ups together?” 

“helps us get to the spots that are kind of hard to reach. and my arms start hurting at some point.” he responds, before placing the black tin in your extended hands and shooting you an almost too grateful smile. 

you touch the back of his hair, an entire ring of hair around his neck untouched, before you reach for the brush in the tin. 

“was the guest room okay?”  you ask. 

“very nice. breath mints on the side table is a fancy touch.” 

“i live to please. but also have some friends who are very high maintenance.” you respond. 

“i can imagine.” he responds. 

you spare him a look in the mirror, before placing your hands on the side of his head and angling his face down. he slightly shifts the second you spread the dye over his hair, as you lean forward to get every last strand. 

“are you performing at the show tomorrow?” he asks. 

“i sure am.” 

“have you figured out what songs you’re singing yet?” 

“i’m thinking something new. this is a pretty big stage, has pretty far reach in terms of getting fans or streams from people i haven’t necessarily reached before, so it has to be something good. that catches people’s attention.” 

sukuna hums in response. 

“it’s not very difficult for you to do that. i’d gather that you have unwanted attention more often than you like.” 

you purse your lips. 

“well, anyone could have figured that one out. it’s not exactly something that came by design.” you mutter. 

“one of the first things that i learned when it came to acting was from my first manager. and she basically harped on, for hours, about the fact that brand was everything. how’d you pick your brand?” he asks. 

you smile. 

“you think i have a certain brand?” you ask. 

“sure. some of your biggest songs are scathing. would hate to be on the receiving end of your wrath. it seems like every time something happens, you’re always singing in response, instead of actually talking. i actually couldn’t find a single song that wasn’t a response to something that someone said about you. which is why i’m shocked you say it’s not by design, because it almost always seems like that’s the intention.” 

“well, don’t get on my bad side and that won’t ever happen. not sure how it works for acting necessarily, i was pretty young when i used to be on that side of things, but a brand like mine isn’t exactly what i think my producer wants from me. it’s tried and true – it’s definitely easy for me to write songs like that. but i guess she just wants to see if i can write something new. branch out a little bit. but i’m just trying to be honest when i write.”

“nothing as honest as anger.” 

sukuna takes a beat, very clearly thinking of what to say next. how to articulate it properly. you figure that the time he takes to choose his words so carefully is the precise reason that they always seem to hit too hard. 

“what are you trying to do exactly anyways?” he asks. 

“what do you mean?” 

“do you have a really big goal in mind? when it comes to music?” he asks. 

you pause, twisting the brush twice in your hand, and wonder if you should tell him. if it would help you to tell him, if it would push you closer to what you wanted. 

“promise you won’t tell?” 

“it’s our secret.” he offers. 

there’s that word again. secret. 

“music was something that i decided to do on my own. i used to do acting when i started out, musicals when i was little and then a few small tv shows. i guess i pivoted for a while to do modeling, which was horrible, and then…decided i wanted to do music. and now that it’s what i picked on my own, as what i want to do, i…want to be one of the greats.” you murmur. 

sukuna pauses. 

“is modeling how you met aimee?” he asks. 

“was scouted for modeling from the acting career. by her dad, not sure if you ever met him.”

sukuna narrows his eyes. 

“can’t say i ever had the pleasure.” he respond. 

“count yourself lucky. but i really want to be recognized for an entire record. not just one song, not just one big hit. an entire record. something i put together, curated as an entire listening experience.” 

sukuna nods. 

“is that why you’re being asked to go out of your comfort zone?” 

“maybe. my producer just think that i have a lot more to say than what i’m…currently saying. metaphorically speaking.” you resopnd. 

“and you’re scared to go out of your comfort zone, since you know the music you write currently gets you some level of industrial success.” he finishes. 

“i think when i have something that’s really special, i’ll know it when i write it.” you finish. 

you shift around to the side, ignoring the fact that sukuna’s forearm is brushing against your knee, and continue to smear his hair in the dye. 

“you don’t think your current music is special?” 

“my current music is just my way of fighting back. and while i can recognize that engaging is, in some way, helping the case, drama is what sells music. gets people to listen. and i have to defend myself someway or another. it’s not special at all, it’s just survival. i’m just angry. like i said, it’s not by design. not my intention at all.” 

you can feel the lump stuck in your throat. sukuna takes a beat. and the next sentence that he says comes out so uncharacteristically soft, that some part of you feels like you imagined it all together. 

“you don’t have to be so angry all the time.” 

“you don’t have to worry. the song i have in mind for tomorrow isn’t blatantly angry, if that’s what you’re worried about. your pr manager can sleep well knowing i won’t fight with someone tomorrow.” 

“i know. but i was just saying, your go to response doesn’t always have to be angry. hell, i’m sure it probably isn’t always angry either. you can feel sad that people treat you the way you do, especially when, from what i’m gathering, you hardly ever do anything to deserve it.” 

you smile. 

“you would love my producer.” you state. 

“just being honest, as a one week fanatic of your music and of you. and i’m not too big on the whole manager/producer dynamic. i’m sure she’s great, but…my experience hasn’t always been so…liberal. i’ve actually switched two or three times.” 

you pause. 

“can i ask you a question?” 

“go ahead, cricket.” 

“how are you so comfortable going with the flow all the time? changing things up so much? is it because you know that backing out at the last second is an option that’s not impractical for you?” 

sukuna nearly shivers as you spread another swatch of cold dye on his hair. he notes that you must notice because you mouth a polite sorry to him through the mirror, before returning your attentive eyes back to his hair. 

clearly you were thinking about what aimee had said just as much as he had been. 

he watches as you make your way around to the front, leaning against the back of the counter to get the strands in the front, properly distributing each strand with the dark red color. you can tell that he’s attentively watching you, his eyes shifting upwards, as you look down and purse your lips at him. 

“that’s really bad posture.” 

“are your parents pilates instructors?” you ask. 

“so close. they’re both teachers. but really, that can’t be comfortable.” he states. 

you roll your eyes. 

“well, learn how to dye your hair on your own then.” you complain. 

sukuna reaches up, placing his hands firmly on your waist and pulling you down to sit on top of his legs. you glare at him, feeling a slight flush from only being a few inches away from each other, and squint at him. 

“really?” 

“making your job easier for you. since you’re so intent on doing it the difficult way. come on, readjust so you’re comfortable and keep going.” 

you give him one last glare, before shuffling in his lap, carefully keeping your balance on his legs, and making your best attempts to ignore looking at him so close by continuing with the front. 

“i do get called a chronic flight risk here and there. but i’ve been trying to stick with things more consistently.” 

“since when?” you ask. 

“when did we meet again?” 

you lightly tug on his hair, earning you a laugh from him, before continuing the side you were working on. 

“you’re so stupid.” you mutter. 

“i am being serious. i’ve been like that since i was a kid. find it difficult to stick to things, commit to one because i don’t want to leave anything else behind. sometimes i find myself in situations that i don’t even realized i walked into in the first place.” 

“or you’re too scared to see something through. pick something you really like.” you offer. 

“what do you mean?” 

“just saying. what you’re saying makes sense, but in my experience, a failure to see things through is…a fear of failing. if you see something through, all the way to the end, there’s a possibility it doesn’t work out. and maybe the fear of failing at something you really tried at is scary. debilitating. better to just throw the towel in and live with the fact that you’re not actually bad at something or dysfunctional – because you didn’t really try in the first place, did you? if you’re not actually the one who picks, there’s no fear of knowing that you’re the one who made the mistake by picking wrong. ” 

sukuna can feel a dry patch in his throat. and feels eternally grateful that you decide to fill the silence from his lack of a response. 

“for someone who hates to commit to things, i will say that pink is an interesting choice.” 

“one of a kind.” he responds. 

“it would be. you know, except for the whole fraternal twin brother who has the same thing going on.” you respond. 

sukuna grins. 

“speaking of. can i have his phone number? i need to ask him for a favor.” you state. 

“what are you going to give me if i do?” he asks. 

you roll your eyes. 

“sukuna.” 

“am i next on your list of things that you’re trying? coffee…fake boyfriend?” he asks. 

you yank on his hair again for good measure. 

“you’re still here, aren’t you?” you murmur. 

sukuna gives you an elated smile, one that spreads all the way across his face, before reaching for his phone. consequently, there’s a resounding ping from your phone that follows. 

--

--

“are you ready to perform?” 

you jump at the sound of sukuna’s voice, before turning around to look at him, and glare. he’s accompanied by yuuji and megumi, the latter of which gives you such a bright smile that it nearly melts some of your nervousness. 

you wonder if he was just as nervous as you. 

“more nervous about watching whatever this train wreck is.” you mumble, before turning back around to view the stage, hiding in the dimmed lights of the curtains. 

sukuna places his hand on your shoulder, squeezing twice in reassurance, before holding out a glass in front of you. you look down, taking the glass from him, before looking back at him. for some reason, that you’re almost positive was in no way an accident, your performance is slated to be right after jake’s at the award show. 

a slot that you were originally going to use to perform your last star girl set before your hiatus that you now repurposed for something else entirely. 

“megumi and i spent half an hour trying to find this coffee for you. now’s a better time than any to acquire the taste.” sukuna states. 

you shoot him a smile, looping your arm around his waist, and leaning your head against his shoulder. you can tell that sukuna’s slightly confused from how tense he is, but makes no effort of pushing you away. he responds in earnest by leaning his head against your own, and rubbing a small circle into your bicep. 

you can tell that megumi’s staring at you from the corner of his eye and you make a mental note to shut him up later. there were eyes everywhere. you were almost positive this interaction would be somewhere on the internet later today. 

not that he knew that you guys were pretending. or had any reason to question anything in the first place. 

you nervously sip on the drink, irritated by the bitter taste in your mouth from the lack of sweetener, as the lights go back up, the entire backstage crew counting down to when they’re back on the air. both you and sukuna instinctively hunch forward the second jake starts singing, teetering on your heels to get closer, and hear exactly what he’s saying. 

Climb on board We'll go slow and high tempo Light and dark Hold me hard and mellow

I'm seeing the pain, seeing the pleasure Nobody but you, 'body but me 'Body but us, bodies together I love to hold you close, tonight and always I love to wake up next to you I love to hold you close, tonight and always I love to wake up next to you

So we'll piss off the neighbors In the place that feels the tears The place to lose your fears Yeah, reckless behavior A place that is so pure, so dirty and raw

In the bed all day, bed all day, bed all day Fucking and fighting on It's our paradise and it's our war zone It's our paradise and it's our war zone

“is he singing about…?” yuuji asks, the tone in his voice so careful that you can tell he’s trying to be polite. 

“sex. he’s singing about sex.” megumi finishes. 

you can’t help but shrink at their side, turning over to give megumi a particularly miserable look, one that he only narrows his eyes at. you can hear his voice in your head. 

it could be worse. though you’re not sure what could be worse than this. 

“so much for a guy who spent six months complaining about you….what was the term he used?” megumi asks. 

“not putting out.” 

“i don’t understand what’s happening here. i thought he didn’t like you anymore.” yuuji states. 

you turn to look at yuuji, who is almost instantly embarrassed at the lack of care with his words, and you can’t help but think about how he’s the opposite of sukuna. in demeanour and attributes – sukuna picked his words so carefully that you would imagine that he’d never dream of making a misstep like that. 

“not that he doesn’t like you. i mean, he doesn’t like you. but you’re not unlikeable, clearly you have no trouble at all since you’re with my brother. i just mean…” 

“every word gets worse, dude.” sukuna mutters. 

“i’m not offended. and i understand the confusion, but trust me. i know jake and his team very well. i’m pretty sure he’s realized he’s made some misstep with me. maybe wants to stay friends or get back together. he sure has an interesting way of pursuing that.” 

Pillow talk My enemy, my ally Prisoners Then we're free, it's a thin line

I'm seeing the pain, seeing the pleasure Nobody but you, 'body but me 'Body but us, bodies together I love to hold you close, tonight and always I love to wake up next to you

“i get it. he’s trying to take back what he said to aimee by singing a song about the opposite. the words that she’s been repeating this entire time…that you don’t put out. she knew that you would recognize those words as the ones that he said and know that he told her, something he clearly regrets now.” sukuna finishes. 

you give sukuna a nod. 

“you’re getting quite good at gleaning these types of things.” 

“learned from the best. plus, the fact that he has texted me three times now about you made it easy to guess.” 

sukuna wonders how exhausting it must be to be a musician. or to just be you – having to deal with an assault on your character at all times, having to think of clever responses to defend yourself from it almost right after. he had a small taste of it for three days and could barely happen it; and from the very limited knowledge that he had, this had been going on, at a minimum, for at least three years. 

he wonders if he made things worse by putting a target on your back. an even bigger one than the one that was already there. 

“does the song still work the way that you intended it?” yuuji asks. 

you sigh. 

“not sure. i was expecting him to go the other way, not…sing a song about having sex with me, if we’re even sure it’s about me.” 

“it’s you. he posted a tweet earlier that mikasa sent me a screenshot of.” megumi offers. 

“what are you singing a song about?” sukuna asks. 

you can’t help but internally groan. 

“being horny?” you mumble. 

“what?” 

you shake your head. 

“it made more sense before all of this. now it’s just going to look like we both planned it.” you respond. 

“wait, i have an idea. how to fix it. to make it really obvious that you planned it with me instead.” yuuji states. 

“planned it with you? what are you talking about?” sukuna asks. 

you turn to your side, to where yuuji’s standing and smiling at you so excitedly, before he drags you almost five feet away from sukuna and megumi, and whispers in your ear. 

his pure conviction that this plan could save you is the only reason that you go along with it in the first place. 

--

--

an: I lied. NOW the next chapter is actually called juno (this one went on for too long)

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[suzukiblu]

WIP excerpt for Plot Bunny behind the cut; “love is being stupid together”. (( chrono || non-chrono ))

Lex stares blankly at the front page of the Daily Planet, then lifts his eyes to stare blankly at Superman, who is floating outside his office window and fondly watching Lennox ignore both him and his breakfast to eat the vast majority of Lex’s breakfast. He did not see fit to mention giving Cat Grant an interview upon arriving this morning, nor see fit to identify Lennox as anything but “Kon-El” in said interview, which is extremely irritating. 

Admittedly, Lex hasn’t actually let him in, but if Superman had wanted to mention the interview, it’s not as if he couldn’t break the window. Or knock, Lex supposes, though he hardly sees why the man would bother. And also he hasn’t actually mentioned Lennox’s name to Superman yet either. But Superman is an amateur stalker with super-hearing who listens to people’s heartbeats as a regular pastime, so Lex refuses to consider that an acceptable excuse either way. 

“Of course you picked the Planet for the birth announcement,” he says witheringly, eyeing Superman over it. Superman is too busy being besotted with Lennox to look at him. He says something, but the windows remain soundproof to human hearing, and Lex sighs. He’s going to have to set up an outdoor speakerphone at this rate. “The only thing that surprises me is that you didn’t give Lane the exclusive. What, was she on vacation?” 

Superman says something soundproofed again, still fondly watching Lennox messily devour a good three-fourths of Lex’s bagel and a somewhat concerning amount of cream cheese. Eventually-invulnerable demi-Kryptonian stomach and circulatory system or not, Lex just cannot imagine eating that much cream cheese without vomiting. 

Children remain absolutely baffling, as Lex has continued to find since first collecting Lennox from Cadmus. Not that children being baffling was any kind of a surprise, but the hypothesis has certainly been well-confirmed at this point. The inscrutable nature of small children aside, though, Superman is still the most ridiculous thing happening to him right now. 

Lex sighs, and finally just opens the window. Lennox makes a face, annexes the remainder of the cream cheese–and the remainder of Lex’s bagel, while as per usual leaving his own entirely untouched–and retreats to his preferred corner of the office, where his scavenged art supplies are all only arguably contained. At this point it’s approaching his favorite wall, given the unchecked spread of said supplies. 

Children, again, remain inscrutable. 

Lex should probably invest in a file cabinet, considering. Children understand how file cabinets work, yes? Presumably? They’re not complicated concepts, and Lennox is presumably at least somewhat familiar with at least one alphabet and some basic spelling. 

Worst case scenario he can color-code, Lex figures. 

“Thank you,” Superman says politely as he floats into the office and lands lightly on the floor. Lex is frankly disgusted with him for showing up and bringing his manners, of all things. At least the man could have the dignity to be a hostile uninvited guest; is that so much to ask? 

Though he does appear to have brought something else, judging by the small tote bag he has hooked over one shoulder. 

Maybe Superman finally thought to pack himself a meal of his own, Lex reflects idly, his nose wrinkling in distaste at the thought. How . . . quaint. 

Does Superman even need to eat? It seems unlikely.

[junkfoodgames]

TTRPGs for Trans Rights - West Virginia bundle!

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[synesthesiadreamscape]

Eternal Punishment: Ideology, Performance, and Martyrdom as Sunday's Expressions of the Death Drive

“Sleep sleep happy child. All creation slept and smil’d. Sleep sleep, happy sleep, While o’er thee thy mother weep” -William Blake, “A Cradle Song,” Songs of Innocence and of Experience “So, where is my dream?” “It is a continuation of reality.” “But where is my reality?” “It is at the end of your dream.” -The End of Evangelion (1997)

Considering the majority of his development occurred in Penacony’s third act, Sunday has proven himself as a compelling antagonist who rivals both Takuto Maruki (Persona 5 Royal) and Kevin Kaslana (Honkai Impact 3rd) in grandiosity and pessimism. Although his motivations and methods closely resemble theirs, the tragic path that led Sunday to his rigid belief system began when he was still a child and is intimately related to his experience with family. Having both witnessed the suffering of others and experienced it himself, Sunday’s ideology was born with a single purpose: to shelter humanity from the pain of reality. His answer to life appears rational on its surface and is constructed with kind intentions, but in practice it would have damned the cosmos to a purgatorial world of constancy and doomed its creator to infinite loneliness. It is this tension between Sunday’s intentions and the truth of his actions that fascinates me, because it reveals a deeper conflict within him that is also at the center of Penacony’s story. Here, I’ll use some of Freud’s psychoanalytic theories to illustrate what exactly that conflict is, and why it’s so important for a full understanding of both Penacony's finale and Sunday’s arc thus far.

Cohesion not guaranteed, my brain feels like swiss cheese after 2.2

Spoilers for the entire 2.2 Trailblaze Mission (In Our Time) and a small post-quest with Robin (The Feather He Dropped).

Disclaimer: All content in this post, especially the psychoanalysis, should be taken in the spirit of media analysis and nothing more. Also, corrections and additions are welcome, whether they are about interpreting Freud or HSR. :) 

To cut down on post length, external sources (that is, any reading that is not official Star Rail material) are given as numbered in-text citations and gathered in a pastebin document linked at the bottom with the full title and exact page numbers of the source.

And before we begin, a huge thank you to my boyfriend for proofreading this numerous times despite not having played any Hoyoverse games, and for talking out the philosophy with me T_T That’s love right there!

Penacony, Freud, and the Occasion for the Death Drive

“The IPC does not care about its workers! I bet you they would love it if those monsters came and killed me. That way they wouldn’t have to pay for my pension!” “Sounds like somebody could use a Sprinkles cupcake!” -It’s Always Night in Penacony Show

It is impossible to avoid Sigmund Freud when discussing the psychology of dreams, and his psychoanalytic theories are tightly woven into nearly every aspect of Penacony’s environment and story. Our most salient point of entry into his work is The Family’s sweet dream, which embodies the base instinct in human nature towards pleasure-seeking behavior and instant gratification, even at the expense of self-preservation, also known as the pleasure principle.¹ Be it slot machines, luxury cars, decadent food, or endless shopping malls, everything in the sweet dream exists to further each guest’s pursuit of pleasure—such is the purpose of dreams, Freud theorized, as vehicles for wish-fulfillment.² “Death,” let alone pain, is not allowed to exist in the sweet dream in order to preserve that pleasure:

“A further incentive to a disengagement of the ego from the general mass of sensations–that is, to the recognition of an ‘outside’, an external world–is provided by the frequent, manifold and unavoidable sensations of pain and unpleasure the removal of which is enjoined by the pleasure principle, in the exercise of its unrestricted domination. A tendency arises to separate from the ego everything that can become a source of such unpleasure, to throw it outside and to create a pure pleasure-ego which is confronted by a strange and threatening ‘outside’” (Freud, 1930, p. 4).³ “One of the twelve Dreamscapes in Penacony, and its time coincides with midnight. Here, the dream's time is forever stuck at 00:00. Tomorrow will not come, and this night of revelry will never end” (Loading Screen: Golden Hour).  Gallagher: …Think about this — what would it cost to create and maintain such a lavish dreamland? Gallagher: It's people's lives. The opulent dream is built upon the decay of spirits, with a toxic elixir called "pleasure" flowing through the Dreamscape. It tempts people to indulge in the Dreamscape, and gradually their minds succumb, becoming nourishment for the sweet dream. (The Public Enemy)

Aventurine: This dream [Memory Zone] of theirs isn’t a boundless sea, it’s a lonely island. The Family used the Harmony to build a high wall and isolate them from the vast and treacherous ocean of the outside world.

But “death” still lurks beneath the juvenile fantasy and its sweet commercial lies, in the yawning chasm proceeding spiritual death. This space, the Primordial Dreamscape, is a chaotic rendering of memories and emotions that goes beyond consumerism as the ultimate form of pleasure, and the high walls of the sweet dream separate each “Moment” from its depths. It is the original form of the sweet dream, its primitive reflection in the Memory Zone’s water, and the crystalline bodies of its memetic entities are like mirrors into the past inviting guests’ introspection. 

Introspection is the Achilles’ heel of The Family’s superficial paradise, because curiosity about oneself redirects the ego’s interest from external objects to the inner abyss of thoughts and desires deemed unacceptable in reality, and remembering their existence reveals psychic pain. The Family’s denial of these ‘impure’ thoughts reflects the process by which the ego represses instinctual impulses to avoid that pain:

Robin: While I was away from Penacony, the boundaries of the Twelve Dreamscapes kept expanding outward. But whenever I mentioned the anomalies in my dreams... all The Family heads refused to talk about it. Only my brother was willing to respond... Robin: Later, I discovered the secret letters from the IPC ambassador, which further convinced me that there are hidden secrets beneath the surface of Penacony. So, following the clues in the Oak Family's dossiers, I found my way here... Robin: ...The land of the exiles, concealed by The Family under the guise of "Death", a dream within a dream where Penacony's past is buried. (Small Town Grotesque) “Life is parceled in impenetrable barriers, obstructing the intrusion of the alien. But beneath that ironclad shell, there is a region both nameless and fragile” (Memory Zone Meme “Heartbreaker” Story). “We are very apt to think of the ego as powerless against the id; but when it is opposed to an instinctual process in the id it has only to give a 'signal of unpleasure’ in order to attain its object with the aid of that almost omnipotent institution, the pleasure principle” (Freud, 1926, p. 92).⁴

Freud begins Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) by pointing out the foundational assumption of psychoanalysis, namely that all psychic processes serve the pleasure principle in infantile life and the reality principle at a later point of ego development. The reality principle arises from the ego’s instinct for self-preservation, and it redirects pleasure-seeking behavior so that one is willing to wait for its payoff. Rather than relying on dangerous sources of pleasure that provide instant gratification, instead the constraints of reality (or “time”) imposed on the ego and any consequent pain (or “tension”) are endured for the sake of eventual pleasure.⁵ For psychoanalysts, this only further cemented pleasure’s importance in mental life. 

However, as World War I came to an end, Freud found these principles alone were insufficient to explain the purpose of trauma dreams in veterans returning from the battle front. Their dreams would faithfully recreate traumatic memories from the war each night, with no pleasurable payoff for the dreamer, and this directly contradicted Freud’s theory of dream interpretation.⁶ If trauma dreams did not fulfill the dreamer’s unconscious wishes, then they did not follow the pleasure principle; they seemed to serve some other purpose.

Though unconsciously repeating pain in waking life was not a new idea in psychoanalysis, trauma dreams highlighted a critical flaw in its understanding of this behavior’s ends. To untangle this complexity, Freud reexamined the aims of the “compulsion to repeat,” and speculated that it is not only an instinctual behavior, but also has an earlier origin than the pleasure principle. He then proposed a dualistic theory of desire that revealed something he believed was common to all organic life—that if there are life instincts, or what he called “Eros,” that are geared towards an organism’s pleasure and self-preservation, then there is also a primary death drive, or death instincts, that aims for its destruction:

Acheron: The Beautiful Dream is crumbling, but not because of a particular Aeon, a particular faction, or a particular visitor. Its collapse stems from a certain inevitability of human nature. The Family refuses to acknowledge this, and it has ultimately backfired and become a catalyst… Acheron: As people immerse themselves in the Dreamscape, where consequences and pain cease to exist, and only ease and pleasure prevail, they draw closer and closer to necrosis. Regardless of the perceived bliss, death looms as the inevitable conclusion. Acheron: Also, this necrosis will diffuse and spread. One piece of the puzzle’s mutation will eventually cause the entire building to shake, break…and crumble. Welt: …In the end, the dreams that people built in the name of freedom became the cage that imprisoned them. (When the Sacred Ginmill Closes)

The “inevitability” Acheron refers to is one and the same with the death instincts as illustrated through the Nirvana principle, originally proposed by psychoanalyst Barbara Low and adopted by Freud in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Early on in the work, he identifies G. Th. Fechner’s principle towards stability, or the constancy principle, as a greater implication of the pleasure principle’s terms. According to this principle, the psychic apparatus (or ‘psychic processes’) aims not only to relax psychic tension to avoid pain, but also to keep tension low and constant.⁷ But this raises a problem: the pleasure principle’s express purpose is to avoid pain, but pleasure is a finite state that can only be felt as such if there is pain to reduce in the first place. If this balance is interfered with, we do not preserve the initial euphoria of pleasure infinitely, but instead find it dulled with time until it approaches ��zero’:

“When any situation that is desired by the pleasure principle is prolonged, it only produces a feeling of mild contentment. We are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment only from a contrast and very little from a state of things” (Freud, 1930, p. 16).⁸

This ‘zero’-state is the aim of the Nirvana principle, where it is not just the reduction of excitation but rather its total elimination that is ultimately desired.⁹ In other words, its aim is stillness through the suspension of psychic processes, a state of being that could only find its analogue in dormancy,¹⁰ or something unto death. Acheron’s point is that this necrotic, empty feeling is not an accident, because “death” lays the foundation for something new.

And this, at last, brings us back to Sunday. Incongruence, fantasy, and wishful thinking are just some of what drives Sunday to create his ideal world, a paradise where every day is a day of rest. Though his methods are misguided and extreme, he does this out of compassion for the weak and a sense that he must catch them in his paradise before they crash to their death. In truth, this “paradise” was death in a different form, where reality is inverted with one’s personal fiction and conflict is transcended by removing choice. The conflict between the life instincts and death instincts is key to understanding how Sunday arrived at this answer to life’s pain, but to understand the depth of that conflict we must go beyond his facade and grasp the true meaning of his infantile fantasy. By employing a Freudian psychoanalytic reading of Sunday’s arc, I hope to open new avenues of discussion about both his character and the meaning of Penacony.

The Prison of Fate

“Is darkness equal to daylight? Are sinners equal to the righteous? If you are born weak, which god should you turn to for solace?” -Sunday, Everything that Rises Must Converge “You know, in the thick of things, people are blind to the grit in their eyes...yet they can always feel its scratch. Want the answer? I'll give it to you. The whole thing is just fate playing a cruel joke on us.” -Gallagher, A Walk Among the Tombstones

We’ll begin with Sunday’s warped understanding of society and his ideology, as these represent the first layer of his fantasy. What’s striking about Sunday’s reading of human nature is his pessimistic outlook on human relationships and the potential for individuals to change. Sunday believes that life obeys a natural law called “survival of the fittest,” a perverse interpretation of Darwinian principles of evolution, that categorizes individuals as “strong” or “weak” based on inherent, unchangeable qualities within them. This law is the foundation of a chaotic world where the strong do not defend the weak, but trample them for their own gain:

Sunday: While the Harmony holds noble aspirations, the strong will always be strong, and the weak will always be weak, even in this carefree dream... Human nature contains greatness, but it also harbors inherent weaknesses that can't be eradicated. Sunday: In the end, if people can't even secure their own survival, they won't care about the illusory future of equality. As long as the law of survival of the fittest prevails... there will always be fledglings crashing to their death. (The Only Path to Tomorrow)

Sunday’s ideology takes a page from Arthur Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Idea, where he argues that the will to life is the reason individuals suffer, because, like the pleasure principle, “the basis of all willing is need, deficiency - in short, pain.”¹¹ Willing is a feature of individuality, which Schopenhauer further identifies as an illusion of nature—that is, individuality obscures how all life is an expression of one underlying Will, the common source of life.¹² In Sunday’s ideology, Schopenhauer’s “individuality” and “willing” are substituted by the term “self-value,” which forms the basis of the illusory prison of human consciousness. Self-value, then, is the root of human suffering, because satisfying the will to life requires taking “value” from others: 

Robin: That's just sophistry. If that were true, then only the powerful would have the right to determine the future. Sunday: Unfortunately, that's exactly what happens. Another name for "the future" is "self-value." [...] Sunday: Some are born weak and vulnerable, some find themselves trapped in unfortunate circumstances, some fall victim to malice and cowardice. When it comes to survival, everyone is equal, and the weak can only watch as their value [future] gets constantly diminished by external forces. (The Only Path to Tomorrow) Firefly: So, what is your definition of living a happy life? Sunday: Good question. Human consciousness is fundamentally an illusion, a cage known as "self-worth". People lured in by this illusion, make mistakes, yet still ask that external influences bear the burden. Sunday: When one mistake after the next permeates the masses, they become impossible to trace... Thus, the amassing of these individual cages culminate to form a prison, a place dictated only by the rule of "survival of the fittest." Sunday: Nature is always accompanied by predation and sacrifice... Its antithesis is known as Order. (Beauty and Destruction)

As long as the will to life must be satisfied, “survival of the fittest” will persist; in other words, the illusion of self-value ensures the law’s survival in the future. While this tells us part of why Sunday equates self-value with the future, his statement can also be interpreted through a psychoanalytic lens, particularly as it relates to transference and the repetition compulsion. Transference is the process by which people unconsciously cast the roles of past figures onto current relationships, repeating past trauma in the present. The individuals filling the roles may change, but the roles themselves remain constant through time. Through transference, a person’s unresolved past and unconscious beliefs adopted from those experiences construct an illusion that passes for objective reality:

"What psycho-analysis reveals in the transference phenomena of neurotics can also be observed in the lives of some normal people. The impression they give is of being pursued by a malignant fate or possessed by some 'daemonic' power; but psycho- analysis has always taken the view that their fate is for the most part arranged by themselves and determined by early infantile influences" (Freud, 1920,  p. 15).¹³

Transference is driven by an underlying compulsion to repeat the past known as the repetition compulsion. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud found that the repetition compulsion does not solely operate in service of the pleasure principle as it was previously understood, but also as an unconscious compulsion to repeat pain. Psychoanalyst and scholar Jonathan Lear provides an example of this in Freud (2015) when he describes the nature of unconscious mental processes:

“Suppose, to take a highly simplified case, a child has an unconscious fantasy, ‘I am the unloved one.’ Precisely because this fantasy is exempt from contradiction and is presented in a timeless mode, the person will tend to interpret life’s passing events through a frame of feeling unloved. The person will focus on real-life slights; but even kind gestures will tend to be treated with suspicion, as though there must be some underlying motive (‘He was nice to me only because he wants something from me’). The world will come to seem an unloving place, thus reinforcing the fantasy. The person can come to feel that she is somehow fated to be unloved.” (Lear, 2015, p. 6).¹⁴

To put Lear’s example in Sunday’s terms, an unconscious fantasy adopted from past experiences is the underlying material that constructs the illusory prison of self-value. The prison shapes our perception of reality, and this perception then reinforces the prison’s ‘form’ by affirming the unconscious fantasy. If one’s perception or the fantasy were to change, the dimensions of the prison would change with them, reshaping ‘reality.’

The prison of self-value therefore ensures the past’s survival in the present by facilitating its repetition; through repetition, the past becomes the prisoner’s future. In other words, by materializing the unconscious fantasy in reality through actions, the prison of self-value becomes one’s fate. We can then apply this framework to Sunday’s ideology: if fantasy and perception co-construct one another to create an individual human consciousness, it follows that Sunday’s ideology, as a reflection of his perception of the world, is rooted in an unconscious fantasy too, a belief that he has about himself.

Sunday: Well, don’t forget this…. not everyone really has a future.

So, just what is that belief? The past holds great significance to Sunday, and he vividly remembers the consequences of each decision he made. While in his inner world, he recounts three decisions that led him to lose faith in the Harmony and choose the Order for salvation. These decisions involved a Charmony Dove he and Robin found as children, a fraudulent stowaway, and Robin’s brush with death while she traveled beyond Penacony. He then asks which choice the Trailblazer would make given each scenario—the same choice as Sunday did, or some other choice? However, the choices are limited to either-or decisions between Sunday’s choice and its extreme opposite: either support Robin’s journey, or prevent her from taking it; either remain silent, or ask the Bloodhounds for mercy; either cage the Charmony Dove, or build a nest for it in a yard of predators, and no matter the choice, it always ends in tragedy.

Sunday: I know the suffering of being tormented, the turmoil of losing your way, how sorrow… and even despair, set in when matters don’t work out. All of this causes me unending pain, because this is not what “happiness” is at all.

This is because Sunday understands the world in terms of dichotomies, where things are either good or bad, righteous or sinful, strong or weak. It’s also why Sunday’s choice in each scenario is cast as the “good” choice, because it was made with kind intentions, while its opposite is the “bad” choice because it lacks compassion for the individual. The unfortunate outcome of either decision, both real and imagined, is therefore meant to persuade the player that Sunday’s perspective is ultimately correct, because “good” choices do not necessarily result in “good” outcomes in a disorderly world. Rather, choice itself is a chaotic variable that introduces uncertainty, splitting life into infinite paths and possibilities, or “untraceable mistakes.” In order to control outcomes, choice must be removed, even if such an outcome can only be achieved through fantasy.

To see the world in this way is to inhabit the monochrome world Acheron first referred to in Act I, a world where it’s all or nothing, and everything appears black or white. This manner of thinking constructs each decision as a false dilemma, which artificially limits the available options or perspectives to two extremes. For our purposes, this is among the most meaningful hints as to what Sunday’s unconscious fantasy is, because it is born out of his intense need for control, which is both a defense against the fantasy and the primary way that he repeats it.

Acheron: The golden dream is getting restless. In the coming long night, I'm afraid you will face many tribulations and witness many tragedies. And finally...your sight will only see black and white. Acheron: But please believe me that in that monochrome world, there will be a glimpse of fleeting red, and when you make a choice, it will reappear before you once more… (The Knocking at Ungodly Hours)

With this in mind, we can use Sunday’s black and white thinking to our advantage. Upon closer observation, a common theme is repeating itself in each decision Sunday did make, with each individual cast in the same role at different points in time. Despite his best intentions, Sunday’s actions alone can’t protect them from tragic outcomes—indeed, he is powerless against their fate. According to his ideology, there are inherently strong individuals and inherently weak individuals, and the strong have the power to defend the weak, but often choose not to; by this same logic, if Sunday can’t defend the weak despite his intentions to do so, then he must not be strong. He must be weak.

This brings us to the Charmony Dove’s fate, which is undoubtedly the most significant to his character out of the three scenarios, and acts as a symbol of the difference between Sunday’s and Robin’s beliefs regarding humanity. The bird is an object that they project these beliefs onto, shaped by their individual “cages,” and its fate reflects those beliefs back at them, reinforcing their diverging fantasies:

Sunday: This place is too dangerous for a fledgling. Let's take it with us — we can put it on the wooden shelf in front of your window. Robin: Okay! A bird like that must have a beautiful singing voice. But where will it live? Sunday: I'll ask the family head to build a cage for it. Robin: A cage... but then it won't have the freedom to fly, right? [...] Robin: Even if it's small and not fully feathered, and can't sing... it didn't come into this world just to be locked up in a cage. Robin: Birds... belong to the sky. (The Only Path to Tomorrow)

To Robin, the Charmony Dove is full of potential, and its fate can’t be determined by a single moment of its life, but Sunday regards it with caution and uncertainty; one wrong move, and the bird will take its last breath. This difference becomes the central disagreement in their debate over the sweet dream’s value, and Sunday reveals the bird’s tragic fate to Robin in order to drive home his point:

Sunday: Shortly after you left, it crashed to its death right in front of your window. Robin: ...I had surmised as much. I knew you wouldn't have avoided mentioning the bird for no reason. Robin: Despite that unfortunate outcome, I still believe it was the right decision. Birds aren't meant to spend their lives in cages... They belong in the sky, even if they can't fly. Sunday: But here's the thing. If there are birds in this world that can never fly, can we really assert that they belong in the sky?

Sunday’s meaning is clear: flightless birds are no different from those individuals who are born weak, and their fate is to watch their future disappear under the pressure of external influences. While Robin came to embody her beliefs by leaving Penacony behind, Sunday stayed and rose through the Oak Family’s ranks, never leaving the sweet dream’s cage. He embodies his beliefs by denying himself a future, because to choose otherwise would contradict his fantasy—that he is a flightless bird too, and therefore has no “value”:

[Sunday]: The victor bears the responsibility of victory. Finish me... and fly into the sky. [Robin]: We were supposed... to fly into the sky together. [Sunday]: ... [Sunday]: If only... I could… (The Feather He Dropped)

Sunday's unconscious fantasy—that he is an inherently weak person, a bird that will never fly—is a reflection of his self-value. By unconsciously repeating the pain of his past, his fantasy becomes the illusory prison known as one’s future, a self-fulfilling fate.

But all of this is only a small piece of the puzzle. It tells us what the unconscious fantasy is and how it affects him, but it doesn’t really tell us why he has it in the first place. Just as the belief was hidden in the shadows of Sunday’s ideology, its origin is hiding behind something even more conspicuous—a grand performance on the dreamscape’s finest stage.

An Infantile Drama

Trailblazer: Where is the Stellaron? Why am I not seeing it? Sunday: It hides behind the curtain. Or rather, it is the theater itself.  (Everything that Rises Must Converge)

Naturally, this leads us to the Embryo of Philosophy.

There is so much to talk about between the three phases of this entire fight, not to mention the mountains of references it makes to other media. However, I want to train our attention on the Embryo’s tears. Why is it crying, and why at this particular moment? The religious meaning of its tears is clear, but what is their psychoanalytic significance?

First, let’s consider their context. The Embryo’s golden tears stream down its face with each turn of “Im Anfang war das Wort” (“in the beginning was the word”), stretching its arms towards the sky with palms open in worship of Order. On the 8th turn, it reaches toward the sky to ask for Ena's blessing; Ena answers its call, reaching down to grant it power, nearly touching the Embryo’s outstretched pointer finger with THEIR own. In doing so, they create a mirror image of Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam, a depiction of God giving Adam the spark of life.

This artistic and religious reference, alongside the Embryo’s fetal imagery and tears, leaves no doubt that the third phase in the fight is Sunday’s “moment of birth” as an Aeon, and this suggests that birth must inform the answer to our original question. So then, why does the Embryo’s “birth” bring it to tears? The answer lies in the meaning of Sunday’s performance in Penacony Grand Theater, of which the Embryo is just one part, and how it relates to his unconscious fantasy.

In a final effort to dissuade the Astral Express from resisting his plan, Sunday stages a dramatic retelling of the Order’s Genesis story and Penacony’s history that chronicles its changing masters through the eras. As an immersive stage play, its completion hinges on the crew’s participation, which involves slaying the master at each act’s conclusion in order to usher in the next one. Through his play, Sunday argues that humans crave a master who can provide them with meaning in the face of chaos, and because of this inherent weakness, progress is an illusion. The past, present, and eternal show of human history is one of endless repetition and self-delusion – though the individual master may change, humans remain puppets by their own design.

The Past, Present, and Eternal Show

This fraught relationship between humanity and its masters was a foundational point of Freud’s theory of the death instincts, which he grounded in his observations of infantile play. While he was staying with his daughter’s family, Freud noticed a peculiar game his grandson played with his toys that further called the pleasure principle’s dominance into question. The game began when his grandson threw the toys out of sight to make them “disappear,” after which he would retrieve them with his mother’s help to make them “return.” Freud deduced that this game (Fort/Da) was a reenactment of his mother “disappearing” when she left him at home, and speculated that it played a crucial role in his grandson’s good behavior during her absences.¹⁵ If the game was in service of the pleasure principle, Freud expected that the entire game would be played to completion, where the pain of the toys’ disappearance is endured for the eventual pleasure of their return. Instead, his grandson often only repeated the disappearance – the “drama’s” most painful part.¹⁶

In infantile play, several instincts intersect with a child’s memory in order to process psychological stimuli.¹⁷ Repetition facilitates their sense of mastery over unfamiliar stimuli, whether pleasurable or painful,¹⁸ and play offers a safe, fictional space for children to make sense of reality, where they can leave behind their role as spectators of life’s phenomena and become actors on its stage.¹⁹ By playing an active part in a memory’s repetition through play, indeed by controlling it, children move toward an even grander wish in their hearts: “the wish to be grown-up and to be able to do what grown-up people do.”²⁰ Freud suspected this was why his grandson played the game, because it offered him a sense of agency over his mother’s absences that reality could not.

The Golden Hour base model and its uncanny inhabitants, found in Dewlight Pavillion. One of the Oak Family Head’s toys.

However, Freud’s point was not that repetition in infantile play is pathological, but rather that when trauma is repeated in adult life—a time when experiences do not feel so new, and therefore do not bring as much pleasure or sense of mastery per repetition²¹—the mind is reverting to a previous state,²² namely to the way it functioned in childhood. In other words, the repetition compulsion is related to the instinct for mastery, and trauma repetition is the mind’s attempt to master a painful experience by replaying the past in the present, as it did through infantile play. In this way, life itself becomes the game, or a “play,” and fantasy merges with reality.

Now, let’s examine the conclusion of Sunday’s stage play, as humans take fate into their own hands on the Genesis story’s seventh day:

2:1 THEY bestowed upon all beings the gift of ‘meaning.’ All had been brought into existence. And then, THEY rested from all THEIR creative work. 2:2 However, once again, all the beings beseeched Ena, praising THEM, the magnificent Aeon with divine power, but with a tone of curse. 2:3 ‘With Order, you have defined all things in the Cosmos, yet this only made us realize that we are mere puppets within your grasp.’ 2:4 Thus, on that day, all beings united and cast the Aeon into the pit of destruction. 2:5 And so it was done. That marked the seventh day. (Lost Property readable)

Like a parent guiding their child, Ena imbued the universe with meaning through Order, weaving the answer to each of humanity’s questions into THEIR grand symphony. Humanity then recognized its passive role in relation to Ena, a higher being who is able to act on the universe’s grand stage, while mortals merely watch THEM. And just as Freud’s grandson casts away his toys in the first part of the drama, humanity then casts Ena into the abyss to make THEM “disappear,” rejecting their old master in a bid for control only to seek THEM out again in the eternal show. In their effort to become masters, humans seal their fate as puppets; or by another interpretation, this is the intended outcome all along, because out of the two desires at play here—the desire to replace the master themselves and the desire to submit to another—answering to a new master is far easier than becoming one:

[Tiernan]: Sin Thirsters... the obsessions of the Pathstriders. They emerge from the depths of IX, seeing themselves as masters of their own destiny, unknowingly repeating the actions of their past lives. [Tiernan]: They emerge from the Nihility and head toward it, leading purposeless lives… (And on the Eighth Day) Butler: "Either I shall be my own master, or I shall return to my former master! I shall not submit to a new master under any circumstances!" "I wish they could regain their reason [calm down] and cast away the shackles of hypocrisy," proclaimed the new master. (Tune Butler's emotion to Calm) Butler: "Without a master, who can grant me true freedom?" (Everything that Rises Must Converge)

By returning the planet to Order, its Pathstriders hope to reinstate the earlier phase of galactic history before Ena was absorbed by Xipe the Harmony. Understood through Freud’s observations of infantile play, this can be seen as a struggle between retaining the innocence of childhood, the previous state, and the “grand wish” to become an adult with agency; desires that are at once contradictory, and yet work in tandem with one another. But is this really all that Sunday’s performance is about?

For the moment, let’s return to trauma repetition and its conflict with the pleasure principle. To Freud, trauma is like a bodily wound, where unfamiliar stimuli “breach” the mind’s protective layer and overwhelm it; the repetition compulsion is a response to this breach, replaying past trauma in the present so that the mind learns to anticipate the disturbance in the future:

“The fulfilment of wishes is [...] brought about in a hallucinatory manner by dreams, and under the dominance of the pleasure principle this has become their function. But it is not in the service of that principle that the dreams of patients suffering from traumatic neuroses lead them back [...] to the situation in which the trauma occurred. [...] These dreams are endeavouring to master the stimulus retrospectively, by developing the anxiety whose omission was the cause of the traumatic neurosis” (Freud, 1920, p. 26).²³

This brings us to the final pillar of Freud’s death drive. If the repetition compulsion is an instinct, then it must not only be common to all organic life, but also must originate from a shared disturbance in evolutionary history. But a disturbance of this scale, he realized, could only be found in what shaped life’s beginning—the physical and chemical processes that cultivated life on Earth, rousing the first unicellular organism from its slumber in the primordial soup, and animating what was once dead. The repetition compulsion, then, was born from this original trauma of organic life, unanticipated by that ancient sea. And if that is the case, then the repetition compulsion’s true purpose is clear: it aims to return the living to its slumber, to the death state, and it dutifully follows life’s “circuitous paths” to bring about that end: 

“It would be in contradiction to the conservative nature of the instincts if the goal of life were a state of things which had never yet been attained. On the contrary, it must be an old state of things, an initial state from which the living entity has [...] departed and to which it is striving to return by the circuitous paths along which its development leads. If we are to take it as a truth [...] that everything living dies for internal reasons—becomes inorganic once again—then we shall be compelled to say that 'the aim of all life is death’ and, looking backwards, that 'inanimate things existed before living ones’” (Freud, 1920, p. 32).²⁴

The implications of this theory can be seen in Penacony’s oceanic imagery, which signifies both the unconscious memory of that primordial state and the salvation the sweet dream offers from reality. To enter the dream, The Reverie’s guests submerge themselves in a shallow pool and emerge on the “other side” reborn, baptized into the religion of pleasure and cleansed with the dream’s fiction. The primordial memory, then, is the lost childhood of organic life, a previous state it wants to return to — the unity before the violence of individuality.

Sunday: Some are born weak and vulnerable, some find themselves trapped in unfortunate circumstances, some fall victim to malice and cowardice. When it comes to survival, everyone is equal, and the weak can only watch as their value [future] gets constantly diminished by external forces. [emphasis added].

We also don’t need to stretch our imagination to connect all of this back to Sunday, who compares the weak to spectators of their own demise, just as Freud likens children to spectators of life’s phenomena, and perceives “external forces” as catalysts for change—for Sunday, they whittle away at one’s future, while for Freud they disturb a peaceful slumber.

How is all of this related to the Embryo’s tearful birth? The primordial soup was a cradle for organic life in its infancy, but it was also the “mother” that birthed it, and the death instincts compel life to return to its embrace. In Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety (1926), Freud identifies birth as the first “danger-situation” an individual experiences, because birth requires separation from their mother.²⁵ By coming into the world, newborns are inundated with unfamiliar stimuli, like the unexpected “breach” that characterizes trauma, and these sensations in turn produce the first instance of anxiety.²⁶ Though they can’t yet conceptualize this danger as the loss of their mother, for mental life at this stage doesn’t distinguish between the self and other objects, infants soon learn the uncertainty that accompanies danger can be relieved through their mother, who “satisfies all [their] needs without delay”; anxiety, then, is a response to situations where these needs go unsatisfied, and over which they alone have no control.²⁷

But birth is only the first separation between mother and child; the final separation, of course, is death. If the former’s danger is characterized by the mother’s absence (“object-loss”), then in death this danger becomes permanent. In Mourning and Melancholia (1917), Freud writes that mourning is a process of “[accepting that] the loved object no longer exists” and of withdrawing one’s interest (“libido”) from them.²⁸ Melancholia, its fraternal twin, shares several affective traits with this process, namely “a turning away from reality […] and a clinging to the object through the medium of a hallucinatory wishful psychosis”—that is, by living through fantasy.²⁹ Where melancholia distinguishes itself from mourning, however, is in one’s sense of responsibility for the object’s loss. In other words, the melancholic is tormented by a pervasive sense of guilt:

“In mourning it is the world which has become poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself. The patient represents his ego to us as worthless, incapable of any achievement and morally despicable; he reproaches himself, vilifies himself and expects to be cast out and punished […] He is not of the opinion that a change has taken place in him, but extends his self-criticism back over the past; he declares that he was never any better” (Freud, 1917, p. 246).³⁰

Sounds a little familiar, doesn’t it? Transference is another way of living life through fantasy, where each new actor plays the same role in its infinite drama, in this case the “lost object.” The Charmony Dove, the fraudulent stowaway, and Robin all unknowingly take on this role in Sunday’s unconscious, as objects he is trying to protect. However, this performance is always fated to end the same way: his actions fail to save them, and he blames himself and his weakness for their loss.

If performance is the throughline between reality and fiction, then Sunday’s “play” in Penacony Grand Theater—the birth of his paradise and near-ascension as an Aeon—is yet another continuation of this eternal show. Sunday’s greatest wish, his infantile wish, is to protect everyone, and Ena’s dream facilitates its fulfillment through fantasy. To realize the dream, Sunday must usurp the power of a master (an Aeon) for himself, and he does so by fusing the Harmony and Order together to create the Embryo of Philosophy, making Xipe and Ena its 'mothers.' But the Embryo’s birth also requires the “death” of its creators, precisely because their power had to be stolen to create the eternal dream’s foundation. In other words, the Embryo must replace its parents so that it may truly become a master like them. Sunday's full performance encompasses both separations between “mother” and child at once: the separation through birth, and the separation through death.

In their Christian interpretation, the Embryo’s tears signify Christ’s empathy for human suffering, but in the psychoanalytic interpretation they suggest the Embryo’s anxiety about its performance. And this anxiety is well-founded, for all of the reasons we’ve discussed: the primordial danger of being born into the world, of emerging from “death” and becoming separate from it, and the threat of permanent object-loss if the Embryo completes the performance as planned. But we should also remember that this anxiety is in reality nothing new for Sunday, because he has already experienced all of these losses first-hand in the past. In other words, the Embryo cries because its performance reminds Sunday of something he’s experienced before, the very memory that he is trying to control—indeed master—through repetition. This memory, and the anxiety, concerns his wish’s original failure to materialize, the trauma of which laid the foundation for each subsequent “performance.” Plainly, it’s about the death of his mother, and his failure to protect her from the Stellaron disaster.

Given how he belabored the importance of his three decisions in his inner world, this may seem like a bit of a stretch. In fact, he doesn’t directly say a word about his mother at all — but that is exactly why I am so suspicious. Instead of acknowledging her with words, her death lingers in his desperate need to control outcomes, his preoccupation with weakness, and his yearning for guidance from a master, something he lost as a child when he needed it most. Perhaps this is part of what motivates him to become that master for everyone else, to replace the parent he lost by “becoming” them. 

It’s also not lost on me that Sunday cries during the Stellaron disaster, further suggesting a narrative parallel between the Embryo crying and his past. In that moment, his tears highlight the incongruence between the image Sunday puts forth of himself as Robin’s protector, and the reality that he alone was never able to protect anyone. His mother died, Robin got shot, and suffering followed his decisions despite his kind intentions. From an early age, he had already given up on the possibility of sharing a stage with his sister, and eventually resigned himself to a grim fate as the universe’s lone star. While Gopher Wood’s role in reinforcing his unconscious belief should not be understated, I hesitate to say his poison is truly the belief’s origin.

“The echoes of the memories someone once held of their beloved family. Across the long night, they will accompany him in the past, present, and future.” (Echoes of Faded Dreams story)

What’s more, Sunday tells us that his end goal is not to resurrect Ena, but rather to construct his paradise on Ena’s remains, creating a world without Aeons at all. This infantile fantasy, a world without the “adult” influence of these higher beings, is a metaphor for his search for happiness after the meaningless Stellaron disaster that took his mother away from him, and to recover the innocence he lost with her passing. He seeks to create paradise from destruction, to build a new world on her remains, and become a master of it himself. Both his stage play and his role as the conductor of the paradise’s symphony only further cement this: through his performance, he asserts that he is no longer a passive observer of the disaster, no longer a spectator of his own demise or merely Gopher Wood’s puppet, but an actor and an artist in his own right. By utilizing the Stellaron to create paradise, he hopes to master his weakness.

This symbolism goes crazy. What do you mean the Stellaron is a theater, it shines like the moon, it’s the reason Sunday’s mother died*, and it’s the site where he initiates Third Impact?

And I know, I know all of the Evangelion fans are saying “we fucking knew this already,” and you’re right! Hideaki Anno was also inspired by Freud, among many other psychoanalysts and philosophy giants, and Hoyoverse has never been shy about how much Anno’s work influences their own. It is undeniable that Shinji and Sunday share a character arc as it relates to the loss of their mother, and Sunday is far from the first and certainly not the last Hoyoverse character who will either, but where they differ is in the details of their death wish. In The End of Evangelion (1997), Shinji wishes for a world where he can’t be rejected by others, because there would be no meaningful difference between him and another person if they’re all just LCL soup, while Sunday wishes for a world where the weak never have to face their weakness, and weakness is no longer a “sin”; the outcome of both of these wishes, then, is a world where sin can never be repeated. But this tragedy’s ending was told from the beginning — trying to sever the cycle is the same as repeating it, and shedding one master means gaining another. Rather than preserving life and protecting it from pain and disappointment as he intended, Sunday’s dream world only guarantees its own end.

This is why the Embryo cries. Sunday’s performance is a reenactment of both the first and last severance between his mother and himself—his birth and her death—and the origin of the pain that would eventually justify the eternal dream’s creation. 

*I say this with the huge caveat that Penacony lore, Halovian lore, and Sunday + Robin lore, are a bit (okay, very) confusing. It is possible their homeland was destroyed by a different Stellaron. Also, who am I to assume Halovian birth even remotely resembles human birth? I don’t know. Talk about how vague Halovian lore is right now in the version satisfaction survey and maybe we’ll get real answers.

Infinite Sin and the Will to Punishment

Unfortunately, it isn’t quite that simple. Freud did not believe that this pessimistic interpretation of the death instincts was the full story of the death drive, and this analysis, though fruitful, is full of apparent contradictions as a result of treating it that way. Though it’s not incorrect to assess Sunday’s actions from a self-destructive angle, this alone is an inadequate framework for illuminating the full extent of his hypocrisy. We see glimmers of it in Sunday’s inner world, when he admits the price of attaining his dream—“merely a personal and eternal sacrifice”—and in Penacony Grand Theater, when Himeko points out the fallacy that this could ever truly be a dignified existence for the many living under Sunday’s will. The tension between his willingness for self-sacrifice and desire for total domination is a core conflict of Sunday’s character arc in Penacony. These two aims constantly struggle to overcome one another, and within that struggle lies a truth about the nature of life and the meaning of Penacony’s story.

The seductive promise of Sunday’s paradise belies its reality, which requires the paradise’s conductor to remain awake until the end of time. Sunday minimizes the personal cost of Ena’s dream by portraying himself as a martyr for a noble cause, because to him this solitude truly is a meager price to pay for everyone’s eternal “happiness.” However, Robin is the first to point out that his role in sustaining the dream looks less like a heroic sacrifice than it does eternal punishment:

Robin: It's true that some people are born strong, and others are born weak. If the Trailblaze is the target of heroes, then the Harmony will guarantee that the strong help the weak. Only the people of Penacony themselves can be the saviors of their homeland. Robin: Their path of happiness should be forged by themselves. While I may not be a Nameless, I'm willing to instill courage in all those who need it. Robin: This includes my brother as well. Ena's Dream... is too cruel for him, and everyone else. […] Robin: Brother, you have heard their cries... This is not the paradise they hoped for. "Harmonious Choir" The Great Septimus: Even so, they don't know where they should be heading. That's why... I had to become the lone star in the sky to guide them. Robin: Even if that star... must hang in a perpetual night of solitude? (And On the Eighth Day)

And one does have to wonder: why would Sunday, who has clearly demonstrated his own desire to turn away from the pain of reality, deliver a fantasy world that promises just that to everyone but himself? To begin to unpack this, let’s return to the idea of guilt, which we briefly touched on in the discussion of melancholia. 

Before developing his death drive theory, Freud attributed a wish for punishment to dreams and behaviors which, on their surface, contradicted the pleasure principle’s tendency to avoid pain.³¹ These dreams, he argued, represented a masochistic tendency in human nature, where “[pain] for one system [is pleasure] for the other.”³² But Freud’s understanding of masochism changed with Beyond the Pleasure Principle, which raised the possibility that masochism was originally a death instinct that was altered by the life instincts to serve the pleasure principle.³³ He was then able to take up masochism with a newly instructive angle in The Ego and the Id (1923), where he formally introduced not only the term “id” for the realm of the instincts, but also the “super-ego,” an omnipresent and judgmental conscience that defines the ego ideal.³⁴

The super-ego is a representation of the ego’s parents and their teachings, reborn from the ruins of the Oedipus complex and its unfulfilled wishes. The Oedipus complex is named for the ill-fated protagonist of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, who unknowingly murders his father and marries his mother, thereby fulfilling a prophecy he sought to avoid. After he is made aware of his moral failings, he blinds himself in shame and goes into exile from his former kingdom. In The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), Freud describes the Oedipus complex as an early stage of child psychosexual development where the child’s parent of the opposite sex is cast as their first sexual object.³⁵ But this nascent sexual attachment creates a dilemma for the child, because in order to fulfill the Oedipal wish (attaining a “union” with the loved-object), they have to triumph over their rival, the parent of the same-sex. The child then develops an “ambivalent” attachment to their same-sex parent, where the familial love they have for them is complicated by their desire for the other parent.³⁶ However, the child soon realizes that its options to fulfill the Oedipal wish are untenable with reality, and the price of achieving it is severe punishment at the "rival's" hands.³⁷ It then abandons the Oedipal wish by repressing it, instead developing a strong “identification” with the same-sex parent—that is, instead of trying to kill the father to be with the mother, it tries to become like him.³⁸ This identification establishes the ego’s moral framework. 

On the left, Sunday crying in his ultimate animation. On the right, a photograph by Albert Greiner of actor Louis Bouwmeester as Oedipus after blinding himself in Oedipus Rex. This shit, as they say, writes itself.

Penacony’s environmental design references the super-ego through its persistent eye motif, which represents surveillance in the sweet dream and introspection in the primal dreamscape. In addition to its psychoanalytic roots, the eye motif in Sunday’s character design both furthers his angelic iconography and visually connects him to Ena, whose eye represents THEIR sovereignty over mortals through the law.

Surveillance is central to any system of government that prioritizes control like the Order does, and the resulting paranoia of such a system encourages rigid adherence to its rules. Likewise, the super-ego watches the ego’s thoughts and actions for signs of transgression and punishes it for every immoral impulse, whether acted on or merely imagined. The threat of punishment is what motivates the ego to enforce the super-ego’s imperatives, repressing impulses that fall outside the sphere of moral acceptability and casting all that is not orderly outside of what comprises it. In Penacony, the analog for the super-ego is most closely found in Gopher Wood, the Dreammaster, who oversaw the sweet dream’s descent into hedonism in order to strengthen his influence and nurture the Stellaron. This is also why he is often embodied as a raven who spies on Penacony’s scenes, acting as Sunday’s “eyes” to maintain control of all the actors.

“Something Unto Death”

It should come as no surprise, then, that the super-ego also plays a crucial role in the eternal show. The super-ego is built on the teachings and morals of the past as embodied by the individual’s parents, and these values guide the ego in the present so that the ideal may be attained in the future; in other words, the super-ego ensures the past’s survival through its repetition in the present so that it becomes one’s future.³⁹ Of course, the super-ego is not literally the ego’s father, but rather a representation of him recreated within the mind.⁴⁰ Perhaps this is why Gopher Wood is able to “speak” through each Oak Family member in the present, despite his body’s immolation in the past — his rules survive in their minds as the supreme source of moral guidance. That, and dream logic.

As both a political and religious fundamentalist leader in the dreamscape, Gopher Wood radiates the “Father” archetype, marking him as an authority not only of Penacony’s civic prosperity, but of righteousness itself. Because of this, he is a surrogate for divinity—for Xipe the Harmony in public, and for Ena the Order in private—capable of judging the ego in "God’s" place. While this relationship to some extent applies to all Oak Family members, it is especially true for Sunday and Robin, for whom Gopher Wood literally plays the role of their adoptive father. For Sunday, as Gopher Wood’s successor in the Oak Family and tool of the Order, this takes on an even greater significance. Their relationship constitutes a faithful representation of the ego and the super-ego, where Sunday is taught by Gopher Wood to uphold the Order’s ideals to be a morally righteous person, and to repress all of his ‘imperfection’:

“As a substitute for a longing for the father, [the super-ego] contains the germ from which all religions have evolved. The self-judgment which declares that the ego falls short of its ideal produces the religious sense of humility to which the believer appeals in his longing” (Freud, 1923, p. 33).⁴¹ “It's said that the master of this pavilion suffers from severe compulsions, but this table clearly shows that he has been cured.” “Unlike a long table, round tables have no sense of priority or opposition, it is very likely that they are an Aeonic candidate for the Path of Harmony”  (Conference Round Table investigations in Dewlight Pavillion) [emphasis added].

Killing the “Father”....to be with the “Mother”?

But the super-ego’s standards aren’t truly meant to be achievable for the ego, because the ego’s identification with the parents is defined by its difference from them; to disrupt that identification would be to confuse the ego’s sense of self.⁴² This is yet another manifestation of the ego’s conflict between remaining subservient to its “master,” the super-ego, or overthrowing it to become the new master:

“[The super-ego’s] relation to the ego is not exhausted by the precept: ‘You ought to be like this (like your father).’ It also comprises the prohibition: ‘You may not be like this (like your father)–that is, you may not do all that he does; some things are his prerogative’” (Freud, 1923, p. 30).⁴³

Thus, the ego creates an impossible task for itself. It wants to be seen as a morally righteous subject, and it tries to achieve this by modeling its every thought and action after the “Father.” However, the ego can never truly censor all 'impure' impulses, and for this reason it will always be deserving of punishment; this is the source of the ego’s persistent sense of guilt.⁴⁴ The tension between the super-ego and the ego is what Freud referred to as “moral masochism,”⁴⁵ wherein the ego not only fears the super-ego’s punishment, but also unconsciously desires it. Moral masochists do not care who punishes them and do not limit their suffering to sexual fantasies—instead, “the suffering itself is what matters.”⁴⁶

This desire is the result of several transformations that occur in the death instincts. Earlier, I mentioned that we were working with an incomplete understanding of the death drive—that the purpose of life is to return to death. But life is almost never this frictionless, and neither is instinctual life. In reality, the death instincts all trend toward self-annihilation and restoring the state before life, but the life instincts persist alongside them to preserve life. Taken alone, they are only capable of stagnation; together, as each struggles against the aims of the other, life can evolve and progress into new territory, ‘blazing a trail’ towards new beginnings  — “life itself [is] a conflict and compromise between these two trends.”⁴⁷ To make "life" possible, the death instincts are fused with the life instincts, making it difficult if not impossible to observe any one behavior that purely exhibits the death instincts.⁴⁸ 

One product of these fusions is the sadistic instinct. In The Economic Problem of Masochism (1924), Freud affirms what he had only surmised in Beyond the Pleasure Principle—that sadism is an inversion of a primary masochism, where what was once a death instinct bent on self-annihilation is now a “destructive instinct” fused with Eros that seeks to 'master' others:

“The libido has the task of making the destroying instinct innocuous, and it fulfills the task by diverting that instinct to a great extent outwards [...] towards other objects in the external world. The instinct is then called the destructive instinct, the instinct for mastery, or the will to power” (Freud, 1924a, p. 163).⁴⁹

But a portion of that aggression is retained in the ego, attached to the super-ego (the 'master'), and redirected towards the ego; hence, moral masochism.⁵⁰ In other words, the desire to punish others is reconfigured through the super-ego as a desire to punish oneself.

So what does “punishment” mean here? Freud concludes The Ego and the Id by arguing the fear of punishment is really a fear of losing love and protection from the parents, “Destiny,” or the super-ego. If their love is only garnered through moral behavior, then immorality risks its withdrawal. Without love, the ego is vulnerable to the world and its dangers, and to the possibility of its death—thus, the fear of punishment is really the ego’s fear of death, and consequently, its desire for death:

“The fear of death in melancholia only admits of one explanation: that the ego gives itself up because it feels itself hated and persecuted by the super-ego, instead of loved. To the ego, therefore, living means the same as being loved [...] But when the ego finds itself in an excessive real danger which it believes itself unable to overcome by its own strength [...] it sees itself deserted by all protecting forces and lets itself die” (Freud, 1923, p. 61).⁵¹

Now, let’s consider the origin of Sunday’s melancholy, his failure to protect his mother. This ‘sin’ is at the center of his performance, and it is the pain he keeps repeating over and over again. He repeats this pain because he feels guilty for being too weak to protect his loved ones, and that guilt finds its source in his severe and unforgiving super-ego. Sunday suffers immensely from the responsibility he feels for everyone’s happiness, let alone his loved ones’ safety; it is strongly implied that he has obsessive-compulsive disorder, a condition that likely wasn’t helped by the Order’s strict rules. But Sunday fundamentally suffers for the same reason that everyone else suffers — because ‘sin’ is infinite for imperfect beings, and no amount of repression can change that. The guilt he feels for this is also infinite. One of the reasons that Sunday volunteers himself as the Order’s sacrificial lamb is because he believes the suffering of others to be of higher importance than his own, certainly, but it is also because of the self-punishment he is promised through the plan’s outcome. In other words, his infinite solitude is a form of justice for his original sin and is, by design, a death sentence.

This leaves us with our final contradiction to untangle. The deceit of Sunday’s dream world is its benevolent veneer, which obscures the violence of its compulsive unity at the expense of individuality. Before his performance in Penacony Grand Theater, Himeko acknowledges Sunday has “a strong conviction and a desire for dominance” that cannot be satisfied through debate alone; he derives far more pleasure from demonstrating his superiority through example. We witnessed that aspect of his personality firsthand when Sunday subjected Aventurine to a trial from the Harmony and branded him with its death sentence, an outcome he took utmost care beforehand to ensure was predetermined. However, when Himeko calls Sunday on the hypocrisy of his martyrdom, he dismisses it and shuts down any further debate:

Sunday: True goodness can only be achieved through faith. Himeko: Allow me to point out that falling into a permanent slumber is not happiness, especially when those people are driven by someone else's will in their sleep. […] Sunday: My sole objective is to create a paradise free from Aeons, where the Order ensures the dignity and happiness of all humanity. A paradise exclusive to us human beings. Himeko: That's not the case. If people are to live with dignity, there must be nothing and no one above them. Himeko: In your so-called paradise, you would be the one reigning supreme. Sunday: Looks like we won't be able to convince each other. Now that our conflict has been destined, let's unveil our Paths and reveal to the universe the true path. (Everything that Rises Must Converge)

You know he enjoyed every second of this. (From Aventurine’s “A Moment Among the Stars - Inherently Unjust Destiny” trailer).

Circumstances aside, good intentions or not, Sunday is not without his own stubborn will that he imposes on others. Acknowledging this neither throws everything we’ve discussed beforehand out the window, nor does it suggest that Sunday’s martyrdom isn’t genuine. It does ask whether emphasizing Sunday’s martyrdom at the expense of his capacity for sadism is possible without disregarding his agency. In other words, Sunday did not create a dream world that excludes himself by design solely to punish himself and move closer to death; the control it offers him over others, though illusory, is just as appealing. Playing “God” in this way is an extreme and, in a sense, ‘aggressive’ expression of his own will to life, an equally fervent wish to surpass his “master,” protect the weak, and forge a new beginning.

In Sunday’s manifestation of Dominicus, we see both the sadistic instinct and the masochistic instinct represented as two sides of the same being. On one side is the confident and domineering Septimus, who, as the maestro of the eternal dream, embodies the sadistic instinct for mastery over others; on the other side is the Embryo of Philosophy, representing the masochistic instinct to return to the mother. 

We’ve already discussed the Embryo of Philosophy at length, but Septimus also merits closer attention. In contrast to the Embryo’s fragile, withdrawn posture and emotional vulnerability, Septimus is towering, ostentatious, and grandiose; it makes wide, sweeping gestures that cover the entire stage, carrying itself with an authority that commands the audience’s attention. Indeed, Sunday puts on a voice as Septimus**, lowering his pitch and raising its volume so that it booms with the power he so desperately craves. Even its title, “The Great Septimus,” reads more like a character in a child’s fantasy than a threatening embodiment of Order with the means to suppress autonomy. In other words, Sunday treats Septimus as a persona, an image he wants to project into the world, or a “fictional” version of himself; plainly, it is a manifestation of his ego ideal.

The destruction of this nascent Aeon’s body therefore holds great significance as we move into the conclusion of Sunday’s character arc, at least for his role in Penacony. Dreams exist in the liminal space between reality and imagination, much like the “self” straddles the ideal and the real. Destruction and creation are rules of the universe that can’t be transcended, and the “self” is always in flux; but because of this chaos, there is always a chance to change one’s fate. Septimus represented Sunday’s infantile wish to protect everyone, no matter the cost, and the Embryo of Philosophy signified his desire to remain the same forever, as he was in childhood. Without their armor to protect him from reality, he once again faces the primal fear of life and the inevitability of one’s death. But rather than letting himself die in an ocean of guilt, there’s a chance to write a new ending to his ill-fated play. 

**It’s apparent that the boss’s voice has certain effects on it that contribute to this, but I noticed something a little more than that while listening back to some cutscenes that I believe were acting choices on the VA’s part. Also, this judgment is based on the English dub.

TL;DR: someone get this man some serotonin immediately.

That’s it! I really wanted to include an analysis of Sunday’s new outfit here that ties it to Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy and back to The World as Will and Idea, but I ran out of time. :( It will have to wait for another post. Thank you so much for reading <3

References:

Numbered external citations with page numbers can be found here:

https://pastebin.com/2jXQGTHk

List of Freudian Texts Referenced:

Mourning and Melancholia (1917) Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) The Ego and the Id (1923). Page numbers are given from my hard copy. The Economic Problem of Masochism (1924) The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex (1924) Civilization and Its Discontents (1930). Page numbers are given from my hard copy. Inhibitions, Symptoms. Anxiety (1926)

Other Texts Referenced:

The World as Will and Idea by Arthur Schopenhauer. Page numbers are given from my hard copy. Freud (2015) by Jonathan Lear, 2nd edition. Page numbers are given from my hard copy.

Further Reading/Watching:

I highly recommend this article series by solenestuaries of Hyperion Team 3rd on substack. The first is Honkai Impact 3rd focused, the second is a mix of Honkai 3rd Part 2 and Honkai: Star Rail 2.0 focused:

Part 1: What do we talk about when we talk about dreams?

Part 2: “Why does life slumber?”: Dreams, Entropy, and the Many-Worlds of Quantum Mechanics

I am greatly indebted to her analysis for convincing me to go beyond Freud’s A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis. Her grasp of psychoanalysis and schizoanalysis is staggering and thought-provoking. Do yourself a favor and read all of her articles!

Destruction as a Cause for Coming Into Being by Sabina Spielrien. The inspiration for Beyond the Pleasure Principle. 

Origins and Mysticism of the Death Drive in Psychoanalysis & the Philosophy of Transgression by ESTOERICA. I was wayyy too deep into writing this post by the time I discovered this video, but please for the love of god just watch it and prepare to have your mind blown.

[juvinadelgreko]

a short list of things that happen to gallavich post-canon because i said so:

ian & mickey ditch the yuppy westside after a year and get a small duplex on the south side that's far enough away from either of their childhood homes to not have too many ghosts, but close enough to family and the places they know. it's 3 beds and 2.5 baths, which is the perfect size for them and any guests they may have. franny and freddie love to sleep over, and fiona enjoys staying with them when she decides she's ready to come visit.

the security business grows to the point that they file Real Business Paperwork™️ and start hiring new people. Their services eventually expand beyond just weed. Their clientele mostly consists of small family restaurants and shops that want to cater and deliver but don't have the budget to buy their own vehicles/hire their own drivers. ian and mickey's favorite client is a family run greek restaurant that sends them home with leftovers every time they do a run for them (i'm greek, chicago has a huge greek community, and it makes me happy to think of ian and mickey stuffing their faces with homemade gyros and baklava after a long day).

mickey thrives as CEO of GM Secure Transport. we know he's a math whiz, and his accounting methods, though unconventional, are pristine. he knows the city so well, has a knack for mapping the most efficient routes that keep them on time and cost effective. they set up a website and social media pages that quickly become plastered in rave reviews. he actually comes to enjoy meeting the different people that hire them, getting to know their businesses, getting free samples and leftovers. he establishes a rapport with the business on his route, and would even go so far as to consider himself friends with some of the owners.

things go so well that ian begins to consider stepping back. on the downlow, he starts doing research on a possible path back to working in healthcare. after losing his army dreams, it was the only career he ever felt passionate about. he loves helping mickey, but he misses it so much. he finds a few different legal processes by which he could return to it, and decides he's going to try. he refuses to live the rest of his life regretting not trying. he's nervous to tell mickey about stepping back from their business, but of course mickey is 100% behind ian doing what makes him happy. mickey rallies the entire family behind ian to help with the paperwork and supporting documentation. it takes months, but ian eventually receives permission from the state of illinois to go to paramedic school. he'd loved being an EMT and had always wanted to learn more. mickey draws flashcards for him and helps him study for all of his exams. ian, of course, passes everything with flying colors and graduates at the top of his class. mickey insists on throwing him a big gallagher blowout party after the ceremony. when his shifts start, mickey packs him lunch with goofy (sometimes dirty) notes in the box. (I'll forever be so angry at the writers for taking ian's EMT career from him and i refuse to believe that in shameless's wishy-washy version of the legal system he couldn't find a path back to it).

aside from their business, mickey has a small side gig as an artist. ian always knew mickey was brilliant and creative, and never passes on an opportunity to tell him so. when he went over to the milkovich house as a kid, he'd always pocket mickey's little doodles he left laying around (ian was not as slick about this as he thought, mickey 100% saw him doing it but was way too nervous to bring it up until they wound up in prison together years later). now that he has the money for it, mickey invests in some entry level art supplies, takes some classes, and really falls in love with it. he posts some of it to social media and gets way more love for it than he was expecting. people eventually ask about buying his work or commissioning pieces, leading mickey milkovich, at one time the meanest thug on the south side, to set up an etsy shop.

but what really surprises everyone is when mickey picks up knitting (thank you, @infjgemini for being the originator of this headcanon) he's always liked working with his hands, working with numbers and patterns, and the women in his art classes are always talking about their knitting. when one of them catches him looking at the patterns sticking out of their purse, she offers to share an extra set of needles and some yarn with mickey so he can learn how to do it. ian's a little intrigued when he comes from his shift and sees mickey knitting, but he just encourages mickey to keep doing it if he's enjoying it. eventually, ian stops buying sweaters, hats, mittens, etc. at the store and exclusively wears mickey couture. he can't go five seconds without telling people that his husband made one of the things he's wearing. 'oh you like this hat? my husband made it. he has an etsy store.' and 'this is my favorite sweater. my husband made it just for me, you can't have it.' franny and freddie love their custom uncle mickey sweaters. a year after he starts, mickey's christmas gift to ian is an absolutely massive knitted throw blanket that will actually cover all 6ft of ian plus mickey when they snuggle, unlike the ones at the store. it becomes ian's most prized possession, and they almost always spend their evenings and weekends curled up under that blanket watching movies on their very comfy couch. mickey's knitting of course sells gangbusters on etsy, and he wishes he could go back in time just to tell his 17 year old self that people are paying actual money for his artwork. he continues meeting with his art class friends, with the women who taught him to knit, and finds he really enjoys the low stakes gossip and chatter of their group. ian gets so hooked on all the tea he brings home, eagerly waits up for mickey to relay him the knitting circle drama for the week. he's not the only guy in the group, and there's a good enough age range that he doesn't feel like an oddball. ian enjoys meeting them, is glad that mickey has friends he feels comfortable with. some of them are elderly, and he and ian frequently go to their houses to help with chores and heavy lifting. they accidentally end up with a small cohort of surrogate grandparents, which they both really enjoy after growing up with almost no sane adult presence in their lives.

ian finds his way back to running. it's one of the many things he adds back into his routine as part of his and mickey's agreement to start taking better care of themselves. it had taken a few really loud arguments, but once the dust settled on their first year of marriage, ian insists they're going to start eating better and living healthier now that they can afford it. it takes a lot of convincing, but he manages to get mickey to quit smoking with him, to cut back on drinking, and work some more exercise into his life. mickey hates running but loves lifting (man after my own heart) so they spend a lot of time doing that together. but ian's runs are his quiet solo meditation time. he really missed it. he finds a local queer and trans run club, and once he's sure it doesn't involve caleb or any of the gay jesus kids, he joins up. he ends up getting along really well with the group, and even convinces mickey to go out for drinks with some of them. ian trains a healthy amount, doesn't push himself too hard or obsess over how fast or far he's going or how much weight he is or isn't losing--he just enjoys it. he enters in a neighborhood holiday race with the run club just for shits and giggles, and actually really enjoys the fun competitiveness and goofy holiday outfits. he keeps doing fun little races, enters a local half marathon, and then a full one. mickey always parks himself somewhere along the route with the partners of the other people in the run club and cheers like a rabid soccer mom when ian passes by. he does not care who stares. that's his fucking husband! after a few years, fiona comes home and they run the chicago marathon together. the whole entire family shows up to cheer for them, and the picture of him and fiona in their race bibs and participation medals, surrounded by the entire family at the finish line, is framed on ian's nightstand.

speaking of eating better, ian finds he really loves gardening and cooking. he starts with tomatoes, and when those go well, slowly expands. he finds that mickey's much more amenable to trying new foods if he knows ian grew the ingredients in their yard. ian loves to dig online for recipes, loves to experiment with new ingredients. one of the older ladies from mickey's knitting circle comes over sometimes to help him with new dishes. liam, franny, and freddie come to their house for dinner at least once a week just because ian's cooking is that good. liam especially takes an interest in it, and starts coming over a bunch just to cook with ian. he gets really good at meal prepping for the days he works 12 hour shifts and doesn't have the energy to cook anything when he gets home. he puts everything together beforehand and leaves mickey directions for serving it. mickey always has it ready for him when he gets home. they cook together on ian's days off. in the summer, ian will make spreads of berry pies and have the entire family over for dinner. he always hides one away for just him and mickey. for holidays, everyone pitches in to cook, but ian is the chief executive of it all, with liam as his right hand man. mickey is chief taste tester.

also--they get a dog. a few years on, mickey finds a worse-for-wear boxer-mixed-with-something wandering around one of his delivery routes, and like. he can't just leave it. he takes it to a shelter, but it sticks in his mind for weeks, until he can't resist anymore and has to ask ian about maybe, just maybe getting a dog. ian agrees, because they both really wanted a pet growing up and now they can have one because they're grownups with the space and money for one. after doing some research, they decide to go adopt from the same shelter mickey took the stray to. he's still there, and mickey never believed in fate before, but he thinks maybe he does now. they bring him home and name him Sox, both after the white sox and because his brindle coat is interrupted by four white socks. he is the most spoiled dog in the city of chicago. the 'no dog on the couch or bed' rule lasted about five seconds. he sleeps on the end of their bed every night and flops on their laps during movie time. mickey insists that dog food is dog food and people food is people food, but ian is a softie who sneaks him pieces of meat from dinner almost every night. mickey will sometimes take him on delivery runs because the customers love him and Sox loves to stick his head out the window. whenever his station does a cookout, ian brings Sox and everyone takes turns playing fetch with him. in the summer, he loves to swim with them and the kids in the above ground pool in the yard, and sit in the garden while ian works.

this is so soft, guys, but it makes me so happy to think about these two having a good life.

[sewacalls]

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[duckprintspress]

Happy Word Nerd Day! Meet Some Words We Love

We love words at Duck Prints Press, and we also love that words have a special, dedicated day when we can babble about how much we love them! Last year, we shared some of our favorite words. This year, we focused on words we’ve used in our stories and how we’ve (hopefully correctly!) used them. Contributors were asked to tell us one word they loved, and share with us a sentence from their own work in which they used the word. Ready to meet some cool words? Read on!

besmirch - to cause harm or damage to the purity, luster, or beauty of (something)

“Garbage goals win games,” Brady added. “Do not besmirch the good name of garbage goals.”

Hockey Bois by A. L. Heard

-

apoplectic - showing symptoms of apoplexy or stroke

He gasped and screamed, and as he recovered, she [tazed him] a third time, watching him shake apoplectically with a satisfied smile.

A Glimmer of Hope by Nina Waters

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susurrus - a whispering or rustling sound

The susurrus of his voice amplifies and folds in on itself until your name is a knife, and Vash is the carver who fashions your wooden, deadened limbs.

but heaven still holds me by thechaoscryptid

-

supple - capable of being bent or folded without creases, cracks, or breaks

Laurel grounded themself with the feel of the books in their hands, the supple thickness of the covers, the pale scent of paper and glue, the quiet of the store around them.

Troubled Trouble by Genevieve Maxwell

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variegated - having discrete markings of different colors

[His tail] glimmers in the moonlight: a dark, variegated green, with shimmering threads of gold swirling along the edges of the scales and fins

on the strangest Sea by MuseofWriting

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azimuth - horizontal direction expressed as the angular distance between the direction of a fixed point and the direction of the object

He says that, since you're in New York, what you'll need to do is find Uranus with your telescope, then turn it about 3° west (or, as he initially put it, 3° back azimuth).

Dear Stupid Penpal by Rascal Hartley

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unmoored - loosened from or as if from moorings

Haruki didn’t know what Akira wanted to hear. He kept smiling. Even now that the drugs had mostly worked their way out of his system and the shakes were mostly done, he felt light-headed. Adrift. Unmoored.

In Good Company by Nicola Kapron

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elytra - one of the anterior wings in beetles and some other insects that serve to protect the posterior pair of functional wings

It slid into space, hardened sections on its back spreading like a beetle’s elytra to reveal the great engines that were its wings.

Sarisa by N. C. Farrell

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Forsooth - in truth

“Oh yes, such a delectable morsel.” Poe held a 3D rendition of the drive in his hand, where it sat easily enough to be hidden in a fist. “Forsooth, I did see its likeness change hands within my halls. You’ll understand, of course, that the identity of the buyer is sacrosanct? They might instill in most people nothing more than a vague disgust and draw the contempt deserved by the lowest of the slubberdegullion, but they are still a guest?”

Chase the Morning by Hermit9

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anserine - of, relating to, or resembling a goose

An alarm goes off, a full-throated anserine metronome complete with lazy red strobes.

Anglerfish by S. J.

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ostensibly - to all outward appearances

Dean blinked and flicked to the contents page, ostensibly looking for the promised hot girls enjoying the summer.

Sunshine Commune by foxymoley

[todayisdeadinside]

My Thoughts on @quietasides 'Just Like You' Analysis (x) (x)

Okay, I'm going insane, I need to yap. I just read the two part analysis for the first time, and I have some background info on Simon Cowell that I wanted to tie into this since OP pointed out how many Simon references there are in JLY.

This bullet point list is about as organized as this post will be. After the cut I start quoting and talking about OP's analyses, elaborating on what I picked up on. I really tried to make this coherent.

Immediately I picked up on the overall themes/repeated concepts-

Louis comparing himself (and artists at large) to race horses, who are very notably worked until death and killed when they are no longer in peak condition.

The Weinstein case being shown in articles, including statements from his accusers, as well as various related and unrelated snippets and headlines about sexual abuse and specifically pedophilic sexual abuse.

"Everyone else here before me" repetitive themes of Louis not being the first artist to be used by the industry, with precedent of Weinstein's accusers and Pat Sephton.

Silencing and victims being too afraid to speak out, and various subtle calls for the industry to change. Subtle visual allusions to the GP having access to more info than they know because they choose not to look at what's in front of them.

Various allusions to One Direction and sometimes specifically Harry.

Thoughts on Part 1:

Okay. Louis being blurred out by the word "cash." He's a product, he's a dollar sign.

"Right to oppose despotism" I didn't know what despotism meant so I googled it. It's essential tyranny. Right to oppose a dickhead ruler who controls your life and fucks you over. So, Simon Cowell, in context.

“Hairdresser with HIV pressured victim into having sex” headline comes up SO many times and I think the hairdresser with HIV part is less important, and it's meant to drive home that theme of being pressured into sex acts as an aspiring artist.

And it showing up on the same page as the name Pat (Sephton), tying in the theme of being a child or otherwise young when this pressuring typically occurs. And add what I talked about in my Simon Cowell post about his pedophilic sex parties he hosted with Max Clifford.

“In sentencing the judge said he had taken into account psychiatric issues...” I wonder if this is about the trend of pedophiles and rapists in the industry accusing or painting their victims as mentally ill, or crazy, to destroy their credibility. We see this all the time with artists being slandered because they were going to speak out about something. There's that theme of silencing and fear again.

The crossword being brushed over with transparent white paint makes me think it's conveying that the puzzle pieces and hints of what goes on in the industry are all there, just thinly hidden behind plausible deniability and distractions so few people ever figure it out GP-side. It's right in front of you, it's barely hidden.

The race horse tables. It's all about numbers in the industry. For horses it's times, for artists it's sales. Money. And that appearing with the lyric "same shit/stress." Again Louis saying this is nothing new, and he isn't the first.

The court thing reoccuring- contracts, being sued, lawsuits, all the settlements that abusers have with victims to avoid charges, this is all very common in the industry. Also "bounty pursuit" is very much how these moguls and industry folks see artists- a bounty, a pursuit towards money. Louis could be the Daring Guest, a speck in the wider industry who's daring enough to subtly speak about it.

The whole bit about the owners and the codes being old, this is a cycle, this is STANDARD, artists aren't just seen as objects by some shitty managers, the system is designed to treat them as walking dollar signs. This and the "gun reform" mention make me think Louis is calling for the standards in the industry to be changed, to be more humane.

"It's like we take, then backwards—form of distraction—enormous reaction—so we—instead of talking" Take, then backwards. They get a win, they get punished. Form of distraction is about the media and tabloids, how they control the narrative and distract the GP when they need to, enormous reaction is what the form of distraction wants to prevent. Instead of talking about the music industry's systemic abuse, distract with glitz and glamour.

Followed by another direct mention of sexual assault and victims being afraid to speak out.

The silhouette over Louis' shoulder is a clear metaphor for management, as an entity, contracts, whatever and whoever is keeping eyes on him.

Followed by another mention of sexual harassment with Cara Delevigne's story.

The three strongest themes are artists being dollar signs/objects akin to race horses, Simon Cowell, and sexual assault/pedophilic sexual assault. I think it's clear what this is getting at, maybe not specifically but broadly with what I've uncovered about Simon and what I know broadly about the music industry. Combine those entwined themes with the subtle calls for the industry to change, but fear holding victims back. It's starting to tell a story.

Half of the story with the 1D fonts on Story, comes after all of that set up for the main themes Louis is trying to convey. Simon of course owned One Direction since they were teenagers. Louis is saying we only know half of the story about Simon Cowell and One Direction, how we can find the bits and pieces of how this industry works, of Simon's pedophilic sex parties, but we don't know the other half of how 1D was affected specifically. But with Louis' repetition of him not being the first, and the Weinstein case being prevalent as an example of the past, I think the message he's trying to convey is clear.

Five pound notes for five members of 1D, again that money cash cow comparison, how we only know the glorious story of world famous boyband One Direction, but not the other half.

Followed by the hairdresser with HIV pressures victim into sex article again. I think this is poignant.

The bits about "his downfall not being by chance" is about the fact that most big exposures of pedophiles and rapists in the industry are planned. The Diddy case, for example. A kingpin who gets thrown under the bus is thrown under the bus for a reason, because this industry has ways of protecting the kingpins it values. Diddy was caught on purpose, Weinstein was exposed on purpose. If Simon's crimes ever get exposed on a major scale, it will be by design. The info about Simon is out there (at least as off 2024-25) but he won't have his downfall until the people above him want him to.

"...Even life under—radar in the UK can—better than life at home where economic opportunities can be extremely poor..." And of course alluding to the fact that Louis and the boys (and most aspiring artists) were promised the world in exchange for just a little bit of their human rights and sanity. Being under radar- constantly monitered or filmed- is better than being poor, right?

"Weinstein’s disgrace and defenestration are not happening now wholly by chance. They are part of a changing world." That call for change again, the outright statement of Weinstein's downfall being planned. Louis is telling us how the industry functions as a precedent for the side of the story with Simon that he can't outright tell.

A hallway where it's dark and things are hidden behind closed doors? The metaphorical sense of things being hidden behind closed doors, but also the related metaphor of "behind the curtains" in industry speak, and also also the fact that there's been multiple instances in my recent research of illegal sexual "favours" taking place in LITERAL dark rooms behind literal closed doors, usually in strip clubs or members-only clubs (Groucho club, anyone?)

...And Louis being placed in that hidden hallway. Being whited out with that transparent paint that shows what's going on if you were to pay close attention, that transparent paint of distraction that the GP accepts, so that nobody pays attention to what's right in front of them.

"Look" and "Do" being important makes me think he's saying to look at what's happening, and then do something about it. Observe the information, then take action. It's another subtle call for change.

Alongside Pat Sephton's obituary. According to OP's post, a 14 year old who performed naked on a stage. This being an older example, again hammering in that Louis isn't the first. "Like everyone else here before me" and then he proceeds to show Weinstein, Weinstein's accusers, and Pat Sephton's names.

And references to Simon Cowell again after that. Really clearly outlining the message, I think.

The bit about a powerful and dangerous weapon, which I think is less about Louis and more about the industry and it's ability to "bomb" someone's credability in an instant- a very powerful ability to possess- if they speak out. Or even the bomb that is controlling when a kingpin gets exposed, also a very powerful weapon to possess.

Followed by the hairdressing pressured victim into sex headline, again.

Thoughts on Part 2:

Starting off strong with the word "watch" telling us to open our eyes.

“open secret—for years that—is a sexual—epic scale but—the horrific—the public.” With THIS basically saying "look at the sex abuse in the industry it's literally an open secret."

“...He was surrounded by yes-men and despite stories of his appalling behavior being rife in the industry, senior figures queued up to laud the producer...” This being followed by the bullhorn is showing us that these kingpins are protected up until they're not. They're lauded and praised and beloved- until the industry needs a scapegoat, or they've stepped out of line. Bullhorn! Weinstein in the news. Bullhorn! Diddy in the news. This is the cycle.

Followed by Cara Delevigne's accusation of sexual harassment. Perhaps highlighting how victims only feel safe to come out with their stories after their abuser is already disgraced by the GP? How the industry controls when victims speak out with this planned downfall pattern?

(It's an open secret -> industry protects abusers until -> bullhorn! planned exposure -> victims feel safe speaking out)

And followed by the bit about fear of speaking out again.

"late because—in the same—2013 he said—make good" This stuck out to me because Jeff Azoff started scouting Harry in 2013. The Azoffs are known for being big kingpin names and they have some sex abuse stories attached to them, but they haven't been bullhorned yet. Shelli Azoff sexually abused her maid for a year, Irving Azoff supposedly funded a sex trafficking plot. The rabbit hole with that family goes DEEP, I need to make a post about it.

"if only you knew" "stared at me like I was a piece of meat." These being right alongside each other on screen feels very intentional. He's saying "if only you knew how I was treated. That other half of the story you don't have."

That image ripping away to uncover “I wish I had—have been braver—I will be when I—that sexual abuse—in Hollywood” is continuing the story. "If only you knew I was stared at like a piece of meat, I wish I had been braver, I will be [braver] when (something comes out about Simon?), that sexual abuse in hollywood." Look I know I'm probably insinuating a lot here but this is what the video is conveying, to me at least.

The dog barking poem, I feel is an analogy for the constant expectations and constant surveillance in that industry. Always being barked at to do this, do that, perform better, sell more. Day and night. "it never stops."

By Louis' photo the bit about “brothers who grew up—the abuse they suffered” and 1D being as close as brothers, I think it's another 1D reference with them being teens when they formed and growing up as essentially brothers in this industry. With the Simon is a rich twat bit, and then court being mentioned again. Being threatened via contracts or with threats of lawsuits is very common in this industry, and Syco contracts and known to be INSANE (see: Katie Waissel)

2 speakers but one is off and one is on. I think this is another "half of the story" bit. Followed by the photo of Louis edited onto the article about Weinstein's victims, and followed by the phrase "I was a kid, and I was petrified." Louis mixing himself into the precedent is an even more clear show of Simon being another Weinstein, and Louis being another victim who was too young to know what they were getting into.

The part where the Weinstein article highlights the line about "him sexually abusing women over decades" which then switches onto the race horse article and a circled letter H. I think this is meant to portray the power dynamic in the industry, and maybe an allusion to Harry? The Weinstein and sexually abusing over decades bit, then it shows the H and race horse bit. So far, these kinds of stories being laid out have alluded to Louis, but the H? Is that alluding to Harry as well? 1D on the whole has been alluded to multiple times, so it's plausible.

“unsatisfactory” experiences for owners... want to see “fair, transparent and responsible practices in place to remove significant actual and perceived barriers to new owners” joining the sport" Another call for change, to stop treating the "race horses" (artists) so inhumanely.

Then Louis sets off a bomb and walks away, the same Louis cutout who's pointed to different bits in the articles. The call for change followed by Louis bombshelling the truth, essentially saying he's shown us the missing half of the story through this video, and he's been calling us to LOOK and DO about it. He's telling us to pick up what he's put down.

I don't think OP picked up on this in their post but the guitar doodle encases the phrase "brain-dead bigot" and then of course the jetski -> Simon Cowell reference. Louis called Simon a brain-dead bigot. Thought that was very important to add.

So Simon Cowell, followed by "come and see" and "no further warnings needed." Louis again saying "Look at this, it's visible, I've given all the warnings and precedent with Weinstein and whatnot, so now take that knowledge and look at Simon. Look at my story I'm telling."

"I thought I was safe" "I asked him if he knew I could sing." Louis hammering in that point that this is all precedent that explains his untold story. His face is on the screen during this bit. History is literally repeating itself so clearly he can use past stories to explain his own.

End Notes:

This was driving me crazy, sorry it's such a long post, but I hope I got my point across with what I was seeing. OPs analysis is amazing and I'm just expanding on it with my own thoughts and connections/themes I picked up on, mostly aided by my background knowledge on the music industry and Simon Cowell. I'm not saying I'm definitely correct, but I'm curious to hear people's thoughts.

The Simon Cowell post I mentioned is under my "The Music Industry is FUCKED UP" tag, it gets into alllll of the evidence I have for Simon Cowell being a pedophile and running underage sex parties during some of the years 1D was active & before.

The stuff about Groucho club I'm planning a post on, but basically: pedophilic sex trafficking. Again.

And the Katie Waissel mention on Syco contracts is about her reading her original Syco contract on her twitter a while ago, which I also plan to make a post about.

[canthandlethishit]

Batfam’s handwriting headcanons!!

Alfred (right handed): cursive, normally neat and kind of flowery calligraphic(?) (he usually write the gala, party invitations for worthy guests himself), his notes are written just as neat but the letters are more narrow and tilted to the right.

Brucie (left handed): writes in cursive, bubbly letters, flowery, extravagant with endless numbers of loops and stems, big flourishes (picture light yagami writing) watching him write is a performance itself (near impossible to read, looks like an art piece from afar)

Bruce (self-trained ambidextrous, favors his left though is equally efficient with both hands): rounded print (for notes in reports), and cursive (for personal writings), he’d had some influence from alfred so theres a little extra in his writing like an extra curve, stem (ie: his i’s & t’s got lil hooks, his v as a downward stem at the end), but its overall quite minimalistic and tidy, there’s sufficient force on the paper.

Batman: doesn’t write >:( computer <- duh (if he really has to like idk the riddler forces him to write sth he would in caps block letters very strong straight lines, almost like excessively forced and he also place his pinkie on the pen/pencil to further deter identification, he switches hands every time to keep people off-track)

Dick (trained ambidextrous, favors his right, naturally right-handed until robin): cursive quick and kind of messy but still eligible writing, he’s used to taking quick notes (cop job), his letters are jaded, pointed (ie: his b’s are written like music notes, not rounded). he uses average force when writing (dents the paper but not through multiple pages), his letters’ spacing are nonexistent they overlap a bit, his words narrowly apart.

Jason (circumstantial ambidextrous, favors his right, his left handwriting is still neat, not as pretty as his right’s): cursive, his handwriting experienced several metamorphosis, he was left handed by birth & mother’s teachings, then at school he was taught write right-handedly. His writing was somewhat neat minimally scratchy, letters joined with loops, generous spacing. during his time with bruce he copies writing styles from his favorite authors (look up Jane Austen), Alfred and ends up with a very distinct, tilted to the right, beautiful scripture, some loops (Mary Shelly), long y’s and consonants. Post-death, he still got a nice handwriting, just less of the pizazz, the flare of personality bleeding through ink, its more tamed, still slanted, he doesn’t take as much care to force distribution (calligraphic way) but it just became more subtle, not completely gone.

Cass (ambidextrous, writes left handed): print, when first asked which hand she’d like to learn to write with she chose left, she didn’t learn to write ambidextrously. clean yet a bit weirdly spaced, she dots her i’s and cross her t’s after whole sentences. She likes making capital first letters of her text flowery like brucie’s, its amusing how out of place it looks.

Tim (self-trained ambidextrous, born left handed, writes with both hands interchangeably): cursive, young tim researched on lots of encryption, alternative writing systems. he take notes in shorthand’s, his handwriting is fairly eligible but frequently misses letters from words (ie: handwriting -> hdwritig). his lines are slanted downwards, narrow spacing overall.

Steph (trained ambidextrous, writes right handed, batman’s ambidexterity training for her hadn’t reached handwritings): mixed, her handwriting alternates between really messy and scratchy and more eligible curvy with sharp ends to her words (when writing lift pen up fast, bigger hand movement, picture a tame and hinged light yagami). Her lines tilt upwards from left to right. her writing’s eligibility depends on her mood, what she is writing.

Duke (right handed, trained ambidexterity but opted out of handwriting training): mixed, his letters are rounded and evenly spaced, fairly neat but scrawls when he’s in a rush (makes more sharp loops, longer curls at the ends, more connected words). his letter have thin loops, sometimes subconsciously dots his i’s with crescents. his lines tilt upwards slightly in the middle (he prefer to keep his lines straight so he take notice and fixes them).

Damian (natural ambidextrous, favors his left for arabic and his right for english): cursive, strong neat strokes, clean writing, clear appropriate spacing. its almost a font, print-like from how consistently he writes. His signature on his arts is more rounded with a bit of lilts and curves (the end of his m curve like the symbol for scorpio zodiac sign). His personal diary/journal writing is softer, his paragraphs more densely packed, the first letter of each entry are more ornate than the rest (loops, curves, tiny doodles)

note: handwriting style main variety are these

these headcanons are based on handwritings of people in my life & myself :)! not based on graphology (during my search for specific adjectives and vocabularies i came across some graphology & writing analysis articles and found them to be kind of mean & biased, rude etc so just clarifying im basing these hcs on my friends and family’s)

[zenkindoflove]

I've been thinking about this question a lot, and I like your thoughtful answers to fandom, so I'm gonna shoot my shot so feel free to delete this.

Do you think there's space for unity and/or peace in the ACOTAR fandom (everyone goes their own ways and just does their own thing in their sub-communities)?

I have thoughts, but I'm curious about what you're going to say!

Oh boy. This is a doozy to answer. I’m going to put my thoughts under a cut because it’s mostly going to be me rambling about how I think fandom has changed in the last ten years and also some thoughts I have about the ACOTAR fandom specifically and what I’ve observed in the last year and a half I’ve been active here.

My tldr answer is: No. I do not think there is anyway we will ever just get along and find peace.

I’ve been reflecting for a while on why that is, and I have some overall theories. The first is something I think that is true about fandoms in general these days and is completely outside of our control.

I think social media has created more toxicity in fandom, and the biggest driving factor is that social media forces us to socialize with each other by valuing individualism. In the days before all these big social media sites, in order to engage with fandom (or the internet in general) you had to seek out communal spaces on your own based around a specific interest. You were always a guest/visitor in these spaces, and there were norms set in place for how to interact and engage with people. Now, the big websites that we all interact with each other on (tumblr included) requires us to create profile pages that we curate to represent who we are. We see our blogs as the “content” we create - both as a personal diary and a way to express our individuality and “authentic selves” that we share. Now, there is some value to that, but I think what it does is it makes us exist on these different platforms with a “me” first mindset. This is MY blog and I’ll say and express whatever I WANT.

But the reality is that there are communal spaces that exist on these platforms too. Such as the tagging system on tumblr. Tags are designed to be followed and ways to project your thoughts and share them with a community. And yet we still must do that from our home territory – our blogs. The posts co-exist in both spaces. And try as we might to enforce best practices and rules of how to use these spaces, people still are aggressively ego-centric in how they want to engage because they see their profile as their territory.

I don’t think that there is any way to request people to not act that way. Of course we want to curate and have freedom of expression in our own spaces. And we try to encourage ways for people to not see things they aren’t going to like (blocking, filtering tags, etc). But ultimately, to form community on these sites, we have to essentially follow people instead of only interacting with them in these communal spaces – which opens us up to basically witnessing every thought they have.

I think that is wherein lies the problem. We see things we don’t want to see, opinions or takes that irritate us, from people we otherwise enjoy. And this is fandom. We feel strongly about the subject matter no matter how you slice it. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here. I just don’t think we were meant to know all of this about each other. No matter what, you’re going to see something that pisses you off, and then cue the antics where people try to feel righteous or justify their irritation by stirring up shit. And on and on it goes.

I say this as someone who very much as participated in and perpetuated this cycle. I include myself in the offenders because after all – I am ultimately a stubborn, passionate human who wants to gossip and fight if I see something unjust. I am not immune, and I have observed this exact mindset in how I see my own behaviors.

Now – for the ACOTAR fandom specifically – I think we are basically this problem on steroids. I think partly it’s because of the nature of the fanbase. For so many people in this fandom – this is their FIRST fandom. While that is a beautiful thing, it also means a lot of people come into this space not understanding the norms of fandoms in general that have tried to address avoiding toxicity in the past. I also think that, frankly, a lot of people coming here from the bookish space are bringing in very weird ideas about censorship and shipping beliefs that essentially makes us have the same exact conversation over and over again – all because they still need to go through fandom university to unlearn a lot of the bullshit other places on the internet have ingrained in them.

I also think that the nature of this series – serial romances with a large cast of characters – it makes our fandom more fragmented then I have seen in other fandoms. We don’t just have one or two big shipper groups – we have multiples and they all have distinct flavors and personalities of how they interact with other groups and each other. This goes beyond just the toxicity of the ship war. A lot of toxicity exists within shipping groups or between shippers/stans for characters you would otherwise think wouldn’t have an issue with each other, and I think that is in large part because there are several competing interests and a lot of value placed on popularity. We see followers and post stats as currency (as is true for how social media works in general), and we use that in how we judge each other and whose voices matter.

I guess to not be totally doom and gloom, I do think there are ways to mitigate the toxicity. And that is finding a smaller group of like-minded people and forming a group chat or discord server with them. It won’t stop it completely. I think the most important element of this is finding people who you share the same interests - not just the same frustrations. You’ll still gossip and blow off steam and talk about what the new drama and bullshit that is going on in either your side or another side of the fandom. That's normal. But having time to really talk about the things you like and be positive is much more fruitful than only relating to each other because of what you all dislike. Search for people who are also looking to get the same out of fandom as you are, such as earnest connections rather than “reach” or “engagement”. Make friends because you share interests and how you think about the characters you love instead of who you think will make you more popular.

TBF, I have never been in a fandom that has known true peace, but I do think there is something unique with the ACOTAR fandom and how it really insists on playing all the top hits of worse fandom behavior on a loop. For me – I think taking a step back recently from how I’m participating in this fandom and the role I have within it has changed where I’m putting my energy. I do not see myself being here for a long time, but I do want to have a good time. I've been in enough fandoms to know my "Best by" date, and while I'm here, I'm trying my best to make the most of it.

[fugengulsen]

Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song (Live 1972) (Official Video)

Meaning Behind the Mythical Led Zeppelin Hit, “Immigrant Song” 

By Jacob Uitti-April 14, 2023

 If the battlefield had a theme song, it would be Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.” From the band’s 1970 album, Led Zeppelin III, the track has transcended the band and stands on its own as the howling, brooding, repetitious representation of mythical conflict.Appearing in movies like School of Rock and, of course, in the trailer for the 2017 superhero film, Thor: Ragnarok, the song is simply a part of pop culture.But where did it come from, exactly, what’s the meaning and what is Robert Plant singing about? Let’s dive in.

What is Norse Mythology?

It is a way of understanding the world through stories of gods. In Norse mythology, which Plant references in “Immigrant Song,” there is the thunder-god Thor and other beings you’ve likely vaguely heard of. There is also the concept of Valhalla, where the god Odin rules. Half of those who die in battle go to Valhalla. Of course, the belief system is much more complicated, but that’s the source text from which Plant gets his concepts for this 1970 hit.

Sings Plant, as if on a battleship preparing his fellow troops for war,

We come from the land of the ice and snow

From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow

The hammer of the gods

Will drive our ships to new lands

To fight the horde, sing and cry

Valhalla, I am coming

When Did the Band Write the Song?

In the summer of 1970, the band wrote the song while touring Iceland, Bath (England), and Germany.

The group’s string of shows began in Reykjavik, Iceland, of which Plant said in the 1994 book, Led Zeppelin, “We weren’t being pompous … We did come from the land of the ice and snow. We were guests of the Icelandic Government on a cultural mission. We were invited to play a concert in Reykjavik and the day before we arrived all the civil servants went on strike and the gig was going to be cancelled. The university prepared a concert hall for us and it was phenomenal. The response from the kids was remarkable and we had a great time. ‘Immigrant Song’ was about that trip and it was the opening track on the album that was intended to be incredibly different.”

In a way, of course, a rock band is at war, too. With their own inner fears, with the possibility the audience may boo. It’s metaphorical and artistic, but true.The band pl #ayed the song live for the first time during a show at the Bath Festival.

The Song, Itself

With bashing percussion, the song hinges on the repetitive guitar riff for Jimmy Page. It’s a heartbeat, a collective one. It belongs to the soldiers. It’s also their feet running over land, axes above their hands. Then Plant’s voice comes in like a war cry, a battalion of banshees.

Led Zeppelin all of a sudden becomes an army of Vikings. And we join them.

# Vikings  #  Immigrant Song  #  Led Zeppelin