#i just keep thinking about one other person. who fit so perfectly into the space i was the most scared of untangling.

[knifetoheart]

i owe so much to my friends, i truly believe none of us are supposed to go through anything alone. yes there are moments where we need to grieve and no one else can do it for us, but just having someone there to text or call or even hug can really help with processing.

i lived most of my life so alienated so now having these people here means the world to me.

i might not know where i belong but i am so thankful that they keep a space for me here. that they let me occupy space and even want me to have it.

having them here feels right. they love me and i love them and we keep each other afloat. i still feel like something's missing but they are part of the puzzle i'm trying to slowly piece together

[iamespecter]

TADC OCs: "The Die Quartet"!

"Oh but Ziku, who are these very handsome die?"

Well I'm glad nobody asked, because that would ruin the joke!

The Die Quartet are OCs of mine that I created for TADC, and for what purpose? Well, they're the minds behind show's music!

Hidden just behind a corner or two, or four, These obliviously mischievous and enthusiastic quartet play whatever music they can, one that certainly matches the current "mood" of what the cast is going through. Meet Cuba, Dodeca, Tetra, and Octa, The Amazing Musical Performers, for The Amazing Digital Circus!

LORE AND BOUNDARIES UNDERNEATH THE CUT!

When the Circus was initially created, it was feeling too barren for a place that's meant to be "lively". And so, Caine went and copy-pasted himself four times, while replacing the heads with some die props he found on the floor, retexturing and adjusting their bodies, to fit their new roles.

A little bit of a code rewrite to make them able of producing any sounds all on their own to be musically intertwined, and the quartet was basically ready to go: but there's only one problem.

Caine completely forgot to remove the admin privileges from their code.

So once the four spawned, they immediately began floating around, dancing and creating the main theme for the circus, and did it all perfectly. So Caine decided that as long as they don't interfere with anything major in the circus and did their job as the musical minds behind the show/game's soundtracks, he doesn't really care about fixing this error and would rather let these four run rampant to create more songs.

Ever since then, the Die Quartet has been messing with every circus members, most of the time playing obnoxious music that fits the "current mood". You'll even see their canes dance to the tempo they've set, like some backup dancers.

Think of it like: You now have x4 Caines with dice heads, flying and snooping around, so that they can "improve the mood" with their music! Ain't that swell??

(But really, all they do is just annoy the Circus members just like Caine does, for the better or the worse. Probably the latter.)

Fun facts about the Die Quartet!

Even though they've all been created at the same time and share the features of a die, they do not consider themselves as "brothers", and only see one another as colleagues instead.

Their names are related to the type of their die: Tetra (yellow), Dodeca (purple), Cuba (red), and Octa (green).

Despite being reused assets of Caine himself, they have distinct personalities that separate them from each other: Tetra is more joyful and playful, Dodeca is a more dramatic/theatric and over the top, Cuba is the natural lead and more stern than anybody, and Octa is the more closed off of the gang but willing to provide his best.

Yet, they all still lack awareness of personal space and boundaries just like Caine, and WILL be intrusive towards anyone they set their sights on, with the intent of predicting their mood and setting the current situation perfectly in musical form. (ex. if a character is sneaking, all four will follow "cautiously" behind while one imitates/pulls out a tiny piano playing to the theme of "tip-toeing". You know, like a cartoon gag.)

Although they can perfectly imitate ANY sound or instrument imaginable, They'll still pull out a "physical" instrument if the gag calls for it.

BOUNDARIES!

You can pretty much draw fanart of them! In fact I would REALLY love to see it and I encourage it! Really, just don't claim them as your own, or steal their designs.

NSFW of them is accepted, but please keep in mind that I have an SFW blog. Which means THERE ARE MINORS. Show them to me privately instead, I'd still love to see it <3

While NSFW is accepted (privately), please make it a morally decent one, because I don't really wanna see some disgusting stuff. This pretty much includes: non-con, scat, etc.

Aside from that though, I hope you all enjoyed these four! I really love how they turned out, and would love to draw them more. I was initially hesitant on showing my TADC OCs because I don't think people would like 'em, but fuck it.

My boys, they deserve to be seen even if just by a few people on the internet.

[sebscore]

gen-z driver chaotically taking over martin’s grid walk? thank you!!

KEEPING UP WITH THE GRID

pairings: f1 team principals, drivers and ex-driver x driver!reader (im too lazy to name everyone im sorry)

warnings: swearing. christian horner. mention of a nipple tweak.

author's note: anon, you are a legend for requesting this! I'm not too proud of the writing, since I wrote this in the middle of the night and my brain doesn't function normally then. but i hope you like it anyway, darling! let me know your thoughts!!

masterlist

• • • • • • •

Y/N was mindlessly scrolling through her phone when a sudden loud voice interrupted her peaceful time. ''How are we feeling about today, Y/N?'' Martin bent his knees, so he could hold the mic up to her face as she sat on the ground. 

''Oh my god, you scared the shit out of me.'' She cursed, quickly covering her mouth as she knows she isn't supposed to swear on Sky Sports. ''Uh, I'm feeling pretty good about it, I'm starting on the second row, so not too bad.'' The driver answered his question, smiling sheepishly. 

''You like having alone time before a race?'' He continued, a grin on his face. 

Y/N shrugged her shoulders. ''I just happen to be alone right now, sometimes I'm chatting with my team or with some of the other drivers.'' 

''Martin, you look a bit tired, you want to sit down?'' She patted the space next to her, feeling bad that he was crouching down while she comfortably sat on the grass. 

The former F1 driver held a look of surprise on his face. ''In all my years I've been doing this, no one has ever offered me to sit down.'' He gave the camera a glance before slowly letting himself sink to the ground. 

''You know, people always wonder 'Where is Martin?' But no one ever wonders 'How is Martin?' We need to take better care of you.'' The man seemed clueless about what she was saying, but he was amused either way. 

''I'm alright, all that walking takes a lot of energy.'' He responded, pretending to wipe sweat off his forehead. 

Y/N chuckled. ''Yeah, I mean, you've been doing this longer than I've been alive, so I understand that you're tired from all the walking.'' She never let the oppurtunity slip to make him aware of their age gap. 

''Well, let's not talk age,'' he sighed, making her laugh, ''anyway, I think I might just hang around here for the entire segment.'' Martin concluded. 

An idea popped into her head as she heard his words. ''Can I do it? I've always wanted to do it.'' 

Martin was surprised for a second time since joining the young woman. ''You mean I let you go around the grid and talk to people?'' 

She nodded. ''Yes, I love bothering people with my presence.'' Y/N said, matter-of-factly. 

The Brit looked at his cameraman, who adamantly nodded his head to the idea of letting the driver do her thing around the grid. 

Martin let out a deep breath, but handed his mic and headset over. ''Just don't get me fired,'' he said, trying to sound stern, ''and don't curse!'' He quickly added. 

''I won't, I promise! I'll see you later!'' She got up from the ground and put the headset on, slightly altering it so it fit her head perfectly. ''Alright, let's make some controversy.'' Y/N exclaimed, pulling the cameraman along. 

She glanced around the grid, trying to find some interesting people to talk to. ''So, I just need to find a person and ask them questions about whatever I want?'' The athlete asked the cameraman, who simply nodded his head, making the camera shake as well.

''Oh, I love this program!'' She giggled into the microphone, doing a small jump out of happiness. 

Y/N observed the grid, knowing her first ''guest'' needed to be a good one. ''Okay, I've found someone!'' She let the cameraman know, pointing in the direction she wanted to go. 

''Alright,'' she tapped the person's shoulder, having them turn to the camera in confusion, ''the first guest on Y/N's grid walk is the team principal of Mercedes… Petronas… Benz…,'' she tried remembering the full team name, ''Whatever, his name is Susie's husband! Welcome, Susie's husband.'' She introduced Toto. 

The Austrian man was incredibly entertained by the young woman's antics. ''Hello, Y/N.'' 

''I have to ask you- how does it feel to be married to the greatest woman alive?'' She asked him, glancing around to find the woman in question. 

Toto laughed at the question, but proceeded. ''It's great, Susie is an amazing person who has done countless amazing projects and campaigns- I'm a very lucky man.'' The sincere smile on Toto's face when talking about his wife brought a smile to Y/N's face. 

''That's so cute- where is she? I only came over here, because I thought she would be here.'' 

''Unfortunately, she's not here today,'' he told her in a sad tone, ''I know that upsets you, Y/N.'' The driver's girl crush on Susie had been an obvious thing for many years, amusing everyone involved. 

Y/N pouted at his words. ''Well, yeah… that upsets me a lot actuall-''

''What is going on here?'' A British accent interrupted her interview with the team principal. 

''Go away, Russell George! I don't want you on my show.'' Y/N teasingly dismissed George, slapping his arm to get him out of frame. 

The Mercedes driver feigned offense, placing his hand on his heart. ''Why not? I thought we were great friends, Y/L.'' 

''Crikey, crikey, crikey! Don't you have shirtless pictures to post somewhere? Bye bye!'' She quickly got away from the Mercedes team, practically running at one point. 

Y/N let out a big sigh into the mic. ''Martin was right, this is tiring,'' she momentarily stopped in her steps, her hand on her waist, ''OH! Look! It's Charles Lechair!'' Her tiredness from a few seconds before was long forgotten as she strided over to her Monégasque friend. 

''Charles, hello, Charles!'' She put her hand on his back, guiding him to the camera. ''How are you feeling about the race today? What are the strategies? Do they know that word at Ferrari?'' She teased the red team. 

''Uh, we're feeling optimistic today and yeah, I'm ready to give it my all.'' He smiled, putting up his tv-friendly facade, not wanting to trash talk his team on television. 

Y/N raised her eyebrow. ''You're so cute being all positive! Keep that attitude, Perceval!'' She patted his shoulder. ''Thanks for talking to me and good luck!'' She bid him goodbye. 

The young driver walked in all sorts of directions. There were many people present on the grid, yet Y/N had quite a hard time finding people to talk to. It was when she walked by the Red Bull team that she found her next victim. 

''Christian! Christian Horner, hello, welcome!'' She and the team principal didn't have the best history, but she knew the viewers would enjoy the interaction as they knew said history. 

''Everyone, I'm joined here today by Red Bull, uh, Orange, Racing or whatever, F1 Team's team principal, Christian Horner.'' She butchered the team name again, although it was one purpose this time. 

She turned towards the man. ''Christian, I won't hold you up too long, but there is one question that our viewers have been dying to ask you and I think this is the right time to finally do it.'' Y/N build the question up. 

''Yes?'' He seemed a bit nervous, attentively listening to her words. 

''Can you say one nice thing about Y/N Y/L?'' 

The Brit visibly looked relieved at the question, thinking it would be something controversial. ''Of course, she's, uh, a very talented race car driver.'' He nervously smiled at her. 

''You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen, Christian Horner thinks Y/N Y/L is the most talented driver in the history of Formula One!'' She overdramatized his response. 

''You know what they say, keep your friends close, but keep your enemies even closer.'' She patted Christian's shoulder. ''Thanks for the talk, good luck and I hope you don't win.'' Y/N told him before walking off, hearing him laugh behind her. 

''So far, I've talked to Toto Wolff and Christian Horner,'' she said to the camera, ''enemies to, uh, even worser enemies, I guess.'' 

''Guys, we're here with Yuki's boyfriend, Pierre Gasly.'' Y/N stood next to the Alpha Tauri driver, shoving the microphone in his face. He took his airpods out of his ears, already chuckling at the girl's actions. 

''How are you doing?'' 

''I'm-''

''That's all the time we have for you, I'm sorry.'' She didn't let him finish his words and walked away from him, quickly giving him a smile so he knew she was entirely joking. 

She stepped further onto the grid, continuing to look for people. ''A bunch of green outfits, not very fashionable- oh, it's Aston Martin! Let's find Sebastian!'' Y/N mixed herself with the Aston Martin team, trying to catch the German driver. 

''Seb! Seb! Can I ask you a few questions?'' She eventually reached the man, greeting him with a kiss on the cheek. 

His signature bright smile covered his face. ''Yeah, but where's Martin?'' 

''Me and Martin made an agreement, I get to do the grid walk and he gets to drive my car later- although, he never won any races, so that might not have been a great decision on my part.'' She told Sebastian, who seemed confused and fascinated at the same time. 

''Well, I think you're doing a great job as reporter.'' He deflected her words, not wanting to get in trouble by saying anything about Brundle's lack of GP wins. 

She smiled. ''Thanks, anyway… I know qualifying didn't go too well for you, but are you optimistic about the race?'' 

''Yeah, quali wasn't what we were hoping for,'' he sighed, ''It's gonna be difficult today, but we're gonna try our best to get as much points as we can for the championship.'' Sebastian finished his answer with an encouraging nod. 

''That's great to hear! You've been- oh my god, is that your dad?'' Y/N had glanced away from Sebastian's face for one second and saw Norbert watching them, waving at her once he noticed her looking at him. ''Okay, bye Sebastian! I'm gonna talk to your dad now.'' 

She walked past the Aston Martin driver to approach his father. ''Can I ask you some questions? I swear it's very short.'' She didn't want to burden him for too long. 

Norbert gave her a thumbs up, not minding being interviewed for a short time by her. ''It's okay.'' 

''Amazing! I mean, you're a legend of the paddock, Norbert! The drivers love you, the fans love you, everyone just loves you! Do you feel the love every time you attend a GP?''

Y/N had a good relationship with him as he and Sebastian would sometimes attend her karting tournaments together. Norbert had given her parents advice on how to support the young girl as best as possible. In a nutshell, the Vettel family were some of the greatest people she had ever met. 

''I do feel it, it's a great feeling and everyone is so nice to me.'' He wasn't very confident in his English, so he kept it short. 

Y/N smiled at him, delighted she got the chance to talk to him. ''You're always super sweet to everyone, so it's only right that we reciprocate your kindness,'' she nodded, ''okay, last question! Apart from Seb, who is the driver you're rooting for today? Is it someone you know very well? Or someone who is standing next to you and is asking you amazing questions?'' She played with a strand of her hair, pretending like she wasn't talking about herself. 

He laughed at her words. ''I'm supporting you, of course!'' He exclaimed, his arm going around her shoulder. 

''Oh! You're the best, Norbert! You're my favorite Vettel for a reason!'' Y/N said extra loud, knowing Sebastian would hear it that way. 

''I'll leave you alone now, thank you so much and I'll see you after the race.'' She gave him a brief hug and he wished her good luck, which she thanked him for. 

The cameraman had difficulties keeping up with her, used to the slower pace of Martin. Y/N noticed this and slowed down, sending him an apologetic look. ''Alright, I've talked to Seb, so I feel obligated to talk to Lewis now.'' She commented, trying to look for the 7x World Champion. 

''Where is he? He shouldn't be this hard to find…'' The athlete always saw the Mercedes driver hanging around the grid, chatting with his celebrity friends or getting ready with Angela. 

Y/N frowned. ''I should lore him or something…,'' she thought for a moment, ''vegan food, I have vegan food! Uh, free skydiving session! Oh my god, is that Roscoe on the track?'' She tried making him appear, but the only thing she got was weird looks from bypassers. 

However, a certain blond man caught her attention instead. ''Okay, I can't find Lewis, but this person knows him very well… or used to at least.'' 

''Britney Spears! Can I interview you for the highly respected tv-show, Y/N's grid walk?'' She snuck up to the former Mercedes driver, catching him off guard, but he played it off. ''Sure, I'm very honored.'' His monotone voice almost made her cringe. 

''First question: is it alright if I call you Britney? I don't know how you feel about the nickname.'' 

Nico chuckled at her. ''You can call me that, Y/N.'' 

''Ooooh~ I'm getting special privileges! I like it!'' She was impressed by Nico's answer, not being sure if he would go along with her humor. 

''Next question! How does it feel to be a Monaco based Youtuber? Do you enjoy the influencer life?'' 

The former World Champion snickered at her question, not expecting her to bring up his Youtube channel. ''It feels great, I'm, uh, yeah, enjoying the influencer life.'' She could tell Nico was doing his best to come off as positive as possible. 

''Nice, good for you, dude! Anyway, this was Britney, the man who beat the 7x World Champion, Lewis Hamilton, in equal machinery in 2016!'' She quoted the meme that was often made online when people talked about Rosberg. 

Y/N didn't wait for Nico's reaction, a bit too scared if she was honest, and made a run for it again. ''I've talked to three German guys- wait, is Nico German? He said once that he doesn't drink beer, so I don't know if he's considered German.'' She rambled on, not even listening to the words that were leaving her own mouth. 

''There's Jenson.'' She caught the Brit talking to his Sky Sports colleagues. ''You know what? I've embarrassed myself enough already, I'm not making it any worse.'' Y/N went in another direction so as to not cross paths with him. 

''Too bad he doesn't drive anymore, I would have loved to give him a lucky nipple tweak.'' Martin and Jenson used to have this running gag of the older man giving him a nipple tweak for good luck before a race. 

Y/N didn't see where she was going and almost tripped over someone's foot. ''Oh, shit!'' She loudly exclaimed, balancing herself so she wouldn't fall. ''Oh, fuck I can't swear- wait, shit! Ugh!'' She pulled the microphone away from her face, that way her curses wouldn't be picked up. 

''This isn't live, right? Cause then I'm in trouble, I think.'' She glanced at the cameraman, who mumbled a small ''It is live.'' 

''THIS IS LIVE?'' Y/N gasped, looking absolutely horrified at the thought of thousands of people watching her at that moment. ''Let's find Martin then, I think I've done enough damage.'' 

She headed back to the place where the presenter had approached her. ''Martin! Where is Martin?'' The driver glimpsed around, but no Martin in sight. ''I have oatmeal!'' She yelled, before making eye contact with the camera. ''Old people love oatmeal, right?'' He simply chuckled, not wanting to shake the camera too much with his laughing. 

''Oh, there he is!'' Y/N spotted the man and made her way over to him as fast as she could. ''I definitely didn't say anything controversial or cursed throughout the entire thing.'' She greeted him. 

Martin looked relieved as she handed his microphone and headset back over to him. ''I was out of my element for a while,'' he joked, ''did you have fun, darling?'' 

Y/N nodded her head. ''Yes, I'm even considering changing career paths.'' She chuckled. 

''That's great,'' Martin smiled, confident she made some amazing television, ''well, I think you're gonna have to go, cause I can see your, uh, coach not looking too happy.'' He pointed towards her performance coach staring daggers at her. 

''Oh, fuck, yeah, bye Martin! Thank you so much!'' Y/N quickly thanked the man for letting her take over his segment and she dashed out of there, hoping her team wouldn't be too upset about her disappearing into the grid to ask everyone ridiculous questions. 

''She's a special one for sure.'' 

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[vampiretendencies]

fiending for something, might just be a meaning

summary; jj’s earned the Godforsaken punishment.

warnings; angst, some fluff, reader questions a lot

pairing; jj maybank x fem!reader

a/n; requests are open & guidelines are posted, gif and divider creds to owner. proofread, but may have mistakes.

“she’s just been pissing me off lately more than usual!”

jj’s prominent raspy voice echoed unknowingly. a billowed porch adorning the whole of the apartment. an apartment that both you and jj intermediately held in the palms of your hands. you keeping one job and jj getting hired and fired by multiple— but still … you made it here nonetheless. savings bursted through all for this.

a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment. creme-colored walls, resembling that of softness. hard wood floors, perfectly polished and swept cleanly. jj known living off of john b wasn’t ideal for the rest of his life, nor did he really have a place to call home.

determination striked jj at an alarming rate he was determined to prove to you that he could do this—that he would take part in purchasing his own apartment. with the one and only person he’d even remotely think of sharing it with. he was determined to give light to you desires— the exact moment you’d both turned eighteen, dating two years checked off, getting you own place together was practically in the cards.

just the thought of, having you whenever, wherever, however he wanted you.

what his girl wants, she gets.

you were aware that you had him wrapped around your finger, which is why it was bombarding you thoughts.

why were you pissing him off?

what could you possibly have done?

you’d been sat in the open space that would be living room, legs spread enough for the large box to fit between them. a cardboard box filled to the brim with decorations that were yours, that’s your take the time out to purchase. wether it be online or in store, you made positive that this home would be something memorable.

you were both so fucking proud.

and didn’t care who knew it.

so why is jj complaining to pope and john b right now?

he had to be much more small minded than you’d thought or he just simply didn’t care that you were overhearing him speak ill of you. there wasn’t much to the apartment now, an air mattress in the living room and only small items for separate rooms— what fit in your car really. because the moving truck with nearly all thrifted furniture would arrive later in the week. a box for the kitchen with utensils, a box for the bathroom with necessities, and same for the bedroom only decorations.

seemingly so, you are doing all the work. you’d pulled the boxes out of your car, yourself. sorted through things, yourself. jj simply toured john b and pope around the apartment, boasting and what not. and for the past hour they have been outside fucking around like children. so no you weren’t pleased at first with jj’s actions, but your elation for your first home helped it subside.

but now you are searing with frustration.

that smug fucker knew exactly what he was doing, letting you do all the heavy lifting and prancing around without a care in the world.

you’d wanted to share the joy of your first home with him and sulk in it, rather than feeling ignored, used and thrown to the side.

and he the nerve to say you pissed him off.

the walls are thin and the porch is connected directly the living room past the screen door, so there’s no way he couldn’t have known you heard that. no way.

“that’s just how she’s been lately man, i don’t know,” john b wisely chimes in.

“every time i ask her something she snaps.”

jj continues, and then you begin to simmer with the fact that maybe he’s talking about another she or her. but there is no other she/her that’s annoyed him enough to tell john b or pope about it, you just couldn’t resonate as to who jj could be talking about. you’d decided that he was gossiping about you, putting two and two together it was the only thing that made logical sense to you. making you doubt that maybe this isn’t what jj wanted, maybe you moved to fast.

either way, if jj wanted to brush past you.

you were going to do the same.

shortly after, you assumed they were tired of hearing jj’s complaints with a mix of mosquitos attacking them. it is then that you hear jj say “it’s our first night apart jb, don’t cry though i’m a phone call away.”

it is then that jj earns a playful smack to the back of his head. hand on the door handle presuming that he was caught up in there dismissal, inches away from entering the apartment.

“i’m a phone call away,” you mocked under your breath. echoes of hearing bye y/n in the distance. john b and pope knew you could hear well enough to say goodbye, how couldn’t jj?

sheer stupidity you’d thought.

were you jumping to conclusions?

did you miss something?

kie hasn’t been around enough lately for him to be conversing of her?

little did you know he was talking about kie, jj had been going on about her since she got a new boyfriend and the pogues as a whole haven’t seen her enough lately.

so what then ?

your thoughts are interrupted by the crouching of jj in front of you, whilst you continued to peer down a particular piece decor. a photo, you were cradled into jj’s lap— he pretended to lick your beeming cheek, and you pretended to push him away as if you didn’t like it, though he actually did end up licking you. you sneered at it, eyes glazing over at your boyfriends insensitive comments.

“baby!”

jj had yearned for you the third time, he’s on the floor now- feet pressing against yours whilst he sat, leg length to fit the box between you two. mirroring your stature. his head it tilted, try to read your movements— all you can muster is a glare towards jj.

intending on keeping your problems only, between the two of you. only.

what game is jj playing? was it that he wanted a place, and then waiting for the right moment to cut you loose?

“hm.”

you hummed, not willing to utter words. as the silent treatment is looming over him.

“alright, what’s the matter, you got that mean stare going on .. and it’s kinda hot i’m not complaining but ..” he trails off, hoping you would interject— performing hand gestures of surrender and all.

jj despised silence, and right now it’s thick and sauntering, he feels like he’s going to croak right here and now if you don’t say something. he sensed the change in your attitude the moment you didn’t greet him, in your usual cheeriness. the glint in your eye is gone, shoulders hanging low, lips pursed.

where did his baby go ?

jj longed to hear your saccharine voice. how your tongue would roll any time you talked, sometimes he thought you did it purposely just to have him aching uncontrollably for you. it was heaven sent, angelic and blissful, but it’s gone. and he’s desiring to hear the sensation. the way it rings beyond his ears and settles the entirety of his body.

“if i don’t know what’s wrong, i can’t help you baby.”

his manner was sweet, just above a whisper. living is not without you, so what would a world be living with his girl, if he could not live.

“then don’t”

you bite back, you’d normally feel guilty for even saying the slightest tragic word to jj. but you can’t help it, he’d said you pissed him off. so now you were going to give him a real reason to be pissed off. and since you were snappy in his eyes, you guaranteed to show him snappy. insulting you and then leaving the mess for you clean up. leaning your weight onto your hand, you aimlessly throw the picture frame back into the box, trailing to the sheet clad air mattress.

jj’s mouth ran dry, ashamed that he’s absolutely fucking clueless as to what he’s done this time. he ran the entire day through his head and couldn’t think of one thing he’d done wrong. he’d always been unfamiliar with how to deal with your moods, because he’s only known anger and fighting. and he’d be damned if he’d react that way with you.

he decided to let you have it.

maybe what you feel is valid, maybe not, but he knew better than to prod.

you’d wish there’d been a sofa here already, jj would be in for a sore back and no sleep tonight.

you aren’t that harsh .. maybe.

his lover, feet away, left him dumbfounded. he constantly avoided fights, and the fact that one has crept it’s way in he’s struggling to keep composure. falling to pieces at the seams.

besides the fact that’s it’s 8 pm, eternally meaning that you wanted nothing to do with jj. and he was aware of that simply removing your biker shorts that framed your figure so tastefully. you felt his eyes burning a hole in your back, whilst you crawled under the small throw blanket, facing the wall— knowing full well it wouldn’t be enough to keep you warm all night.

you should’ve just talked to him and all of this could’ve be solved … but you’d decided to be stubborn due to the running of jj’s mouth and the zero progress that was made in unpacking today.

his face was long, and there was a soft jut to his lip beginning to form. he followed you. a lost dog.

he didn’t even want to shower, because he could not bare it. he just needed to fucking touch you, he wanted your hands wandering his flesh as it would.

but he knows that you won’t.

he knows you.

jj has officially earned the damned silent treatment.

his holed up—green cargo shorts fall past his feet. sleeveless shirt thrown over his shoulder, landing God knows where. but what jj knew is that he was going to make certain that you speak to him. black boxers hugging his waste deliciously, he climbs in hoping for a miracle.

for all about five minutes jj keeps his distance, his side firm against the air mattress. your eyes are wide open— aligning the crème colored paint. though you aren’t facing him, you imagine the messiness of his blonde tousled locks and the sorrow in his crystal like eyes. jawline firm in distaste jj enters the flaming fire.

sneakily wondering his hand to your side, grasping it with besot and cravings. he squeezes it once to let you know he’s here and he squeezes it twice to let you know he needs you.

and you let him because you needed it too.

but you couldn’t accept it.

not after today.

you swat his hand away beneath the throw blanket, he wallowed in his last few touches as he slid his fingertips down your back.

the skin so velvet to the touch, tender and his.

it was his.

so he was defeated that he couldn’t have it.

“baby please, m’not gonna be able to sleep.”

he adjured, thirsting to even just kiss your hair.

but you never answered, and jj never slept.

spices of cinnamon filled your airway, your groggy mind pleased with the scent.

jj had something in mind to when you over, but not breakfast exactly. he was humming, a tune of pleasure playing from the speakers of his slim black iphone. jj walked to the closest store, mind racing pondering of all the possibilities of what would happen when he arrived home.

if you acted like that yesterday, who knows what he’ll get today.

the closest he’d gotten to you last night was an elbow in the rib cage, he’d hoped it was because of you being a restless sleeper and not that you were dreaming of mangling him in your sleep.

it took him all night to come up with his master plan, that you’d soon see.

the anthem grew louder and so did jj’s singing, a lyric of something about … “i don’t even mind sharing oxygen, i just wanna get lost inside your lungs”

rays of the sun burning furiously, blinds really need to be implicated immediately.

jj purposefully cut onion for an ‘omelet’, on a paper plate—the past week of fast food, the paper plates were a must.

jj didn’t know how to make a fucking omelet and the cinnamon roles were prepackaged … obviously, it’s jj.

but he has a plan.

he side eyed your figure, standing from the air mattress, after neatly folding the throw blanket back in its place. spaghetti strap showing him all of what he pleaded to see but couldn’t have. panties pulled aimlessly to your waist, and he had to muster the courage to control himself.

“good morning! my pretty girl! m’making you breakfast!”

jj echoes but you proceed to stick to not answering. trailed to the bathroom where yours and jj’s tooth brush accompanied one another on the granite counter top. mint tooth paste beside it. you load the tooth brush, suds covering your mouth as you continue to hear the cycle of jj’s broad voice.

but then a “ow! son of bitch!”

jj saunter, implicating a image of hurt as he leaned his head to the cabinets, unwilling to face the embrace that was definite to come. you spit out the therabreath that was once swooshing around in you mouth, turning the corner of the bathroom, and making a b-line towards the kitchen.

was he hurt ?

pain was perpetually something that you always tried to prevent jj from.

thought you haven’t done a willingly decent job, he deserved the scolding silence in your opinion.

but not now.

not when he’s like this.

“c’mere j! let me see it!”

your eyebrows knit together, whilst you battened with him to see his hand. yanking and pulling him towards the sink to get cool water on the possible cut.

kitchen knives and jj were not a match.

thankfully though the cinnamon rolls were merely one third into its cooking session, those would not burn, so to speak. and clip slovenly clasped your hair, spun around delightfully. he inspected you closely, praising that you were in arms length.

your hands hooked around jj’s wrist, his heart thumping with each movement.

God, his deep devotion for you grew by the second.

he releases his hand to you after constant pulling, and your eyes are met with nothing. absolutely nothing, not a cut, not a scratch, not even a scuff. nails long and trimmed and bits of his skin of the sides that he’d bitten the last time he was away from you for two days.

“you ass! you lied!”

a shit eating grin is plastered onto jj’s features, whilst you bore at him with you eyes in disbelief but also eminently surprised that he came up with that on his own. you still had reason to be fuming, but as night passed you faltered.

and even through the stubbornness, you still longed for jj.

he quickly throws his arms around you from behind, trapping you.

because even in an empty apartment you two were somehow still going to be conjoined.

“sure did baby, had to hear your voice.”

“well this is the last time you’re hearing it … bastard!”

“i still got you to talk to me.”

and at that you heart drowned pitifully, you went to bed irate over something that could’ve been resolved.

you huff at the truth spinning on your feet to face jj, he’d then caged you in against the coolness of the marble patterned kitchen counter. he mindlessly taunted you with his plump lips, despite yesterday. you still urged to feel him beneath your fingertips, to engrave in your mind that he was fine. you poked at his arms, squeezing about. until you were bellowing forward. slowly enfolding your mouth with his, and to much his dismay he obliged. hands settling about the small of your back, thumb circling just eager to taste you.

gotta stick with this plan more often, he thought

“fuck.”

jj mumbled, mouth roaming and moving angrily with yours.

“i fucking love you, baby”

he pressed into the kiss, he needed you to digest those words, taste them, feel them in your bones, make your knees crumble beneath you. trying to keep up with your pace he pushed you flush against him, wrestling with your mouth speedily.

“now do you want to know why you earned the silent treatment?”

[gffa]

One of the most interesting things about coming back to the High Republic books is keeping in mind that the intention of these books via author commentary is to show the Jedi Order at their height (at least in Disney continuity), to write them as unquestionably compassionate and caring people, but when you actually get into the books, they're often written as coming off as detached to non-Jedi, there's actually a ton of people who dislike them, there's unresolved criticisms of them. And, in a way, it actually has delivered me pretty much the perfect silver platter I could have asked for. Here's what I mean: There's a passage in Out of the Shadows where two characters are discussing the Jedi they've been traveling with and one of them says they come off as detached, that they're not connected to the real people, that they never question themselves and think they have all the answers:

This is significant because the entire book is about Vernestra Rwoh feeling constantly unsure of herself and wondering what the right answer is. To the point that I don't even really have any snippets capped of it because I couldn't possibly choose from all the examples! And the rest of the commentary feels like it just kind of comes out of nowhere, to be honest. And this is about the High Republic Jedi. The golden, glowing, perfectly compassionate and kind Jedi these authors created to be the bestest era ever. Yet within their own pages, despite that we see this criticism doesn't really fit with who the Jedi are, this is how they come off--criticisms that are pretty much exactly the same as the ones leveled at the prequels Jedi. And then!! There's a conversation between Vernestra and Cohmac:

Christ, that could have practically been ripped right from the pages of a novel set during the prequels era! I have read novels where Obi-Wan and Bail discuss basically the same situation--the Jedi are aware that politicians are not always their friends and that they're being used, but that ultimately standing with the Republic is the best way they can see to help because people are dying at the hands of the Separatists. It's the exact same situation, that the Jedi of the High Republic are being drawn into politicians' schemes and they know that, but the purpose behind standing with the Republic--to save lives that are dying at the hands of the Nihil--is the most important thing to them, that saving lives is how they serve the Force, just as the prequels Jedi stood with the Republic despite all the flaws, because it was how they best saw a way to save lives, which was serving the Force. Of course they're conflicted about being drawn into politics and how they're being manipulated, but ultimately they believe in that they have to actually work with others in order to help others, that they see it as still the best path forward. And if critiques like this are being put into High Republic books and we're never really meant to question whether the Jedi care or are good people doing their best despite that the people of the galaxy do not always understand them, that Jedi are allowed to have flaws without that making them bad people, that being less than perfect doesn't mean they fucked up, then I could not have asked for a better silver platter to say that the prequels Jedi are in the exact same situation and are misunderstood in exactly the same way! Like, some of these High Republic Jedi are so perfectly kind and compassionate that they have literally no other personality to them, other than that they're in touch with the Force and part of the Jedi Order, and they still get hit with the same criticisms? Aha, okay, I see, it's not actually about how the Jedi could have been ~more in touch~ with common people, it's that Jedi Are Just Weird Because They're Literal Psychic Space Wizards With The Energy Of The Galaxy In Their Heads and the GFFA is not always kind to those who are a little Off. I unironically enjoy this because I'm fine with unreliable speakers and propaganda within a narrative and Star Wars has always been really clear that this is a story where half of the narration is lies lies lies and you need to see through it yourself.

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  deadratz/@munsonkitten! They have 32 works in the Stranger Things fandom on AO3 and 31 of those are in the Steddie tag!

Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by @munsonkitten:

the sound of silence

float among the wreckage

share the same space for a minute or two

you make me feel like i am whole again

sugar on my tongue

"In a fandom with over 20 thousand fics, it's hard to find fics that stand out, and Grim has so many that feel like a breath of fresh air for the characters. His specialty is exploring Eddie's trauma, past and present, and being patient with letting him heal in a messy, realistic way that tears your heart out and puts it back. Grim takes on topics that can be difficult to explain, like trauma and gender exploration, and puts them into words so perfectly. His fics are entertaining and heartfelt and always hot, no matter which one you open, you're in for a treat and he has some hidden gems! Regardless of what's popular, Grim stays true to the characters and it's easy to trust him with them, and that's something to appreciate!" -- anonymous

Below the cut, @munsonkitten answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

When Season 4 came out, I had lost all motivation in my old fandoms. I hadn’t written anything in months, but then I saw Eddie and fell in love instantly. As I was watching, I started to have this little thought like “is anyone else seeing this?” when I saw Steve and Eddie interact, and I ended up on AO3, reading through anything that looked good out of the 300 fics that came out in those first couple of days, and then I kept reading, and I was completely inspired. I was pulled in, and I tried to write something between volumes 1&2 that didn’t go anywhere, but I didn’t want to give up on them because there was just this pull that kept me thinking of them, and then, of course, we saw Eddie’s fate and I immediately had to rectify that in my own way. I love writing Steve and Eddie because they come from very different worlds, but as a queer punk who also played sports in high school, I know firsthand how those worlds can collide and I can relate to both Steve and Eddie and how they fit into their places as the freak/jock. There’s also just a certain coziness that comes with writing Steddie for me, like they’re familiar and something I can find safety in. They’re both complex characters with traumatic experiences and there’s comfort in that and there’s comfort in being able to process my own life through the perspective of the two of them and apply different things to their canon personalities and backstories. It really comes down to, like, even though they’ve fought monsters, they’re really just regular guys, too. They’re relatable and accessible because their lives are pretty average without the monster stuff. I don’t find myself wasting time doing tons of research about certain jobs or lifestyles as I have with other pairings in the past. Steddie has just given me a lot of freedom to do what I want.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

There are so many tropes that I love. I think a lot of them depend on how they’re written, of course, so even tropes I don’t typically like to read can end up being really good to me. My go-to answer for this is usually pre-dating sharing a bed/only one bed, whether they’re sharing because they get paired up together on a trip; they’re laying low at Steve’s and Steve needs to keep an eye on Eddie while he’s healing; nightmares bringing them to each other in the middle of the night; or one of them just crashing in the other’s bed. I think there’s something so intimate about the way these scenes can be written, something very vulnerable that I just love. There’s a lot of trust that goes into being comfortable enough sleeping near someone else, and I think it’s a really good way to start Steve and Eddie’s relationship. I also love, love like any kind of friends with benefits situation where they’re obviously pining for each other and completely in love but try to pretend the things they do together is just “helping a friend out,” while mutually being in denial of feelings. It serves for great tension and there’s always really good pay off when they start dating.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

My answer for this is really similar to the last one. First and foremost, I write what I want to read. I’m just very drawn to these kinds of fics with pre-relationship intimacy that turns into something solid between them. So I love writing only one bed and pining/fwb/friends to lovers fics as much as I love reading them.

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

It’s hard to choose just one favorite after almost two years of reading Steddie fics, but some real stand out fics for me that I’ve read fairly recently have been Trouble Looks Good on You by indelicate, Metamorphoses by fastcardotmp3, Play it Right by stereobone, and Doing Nothing with You by redoaktree. All of these give such nice depth to the characters and their situations and have stuck with me. “Trouble” is still ongoing, but I trust Rue (indelicate) with these characters so much that I can say it’s one of my favorites without having the entire fic yet. It just hits so many of my boxes for Steddie, has all the right factors for a phenomenal fic, and stays so true to the characters in my opinion.

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

I have so many plans for upcoming fics, but one I’ve been trying to find time to write for over a year now deals with a lot of grief/mourning of a loved one and includes rockstar!Eddie with a good slooow burn. It’s all things I’ve somewhat explored, but want to really expand upon with this one. I feel like I haven’t written a proper slow burn, either, because I tend to do fwb situations with slow burns on the emotional aspects and admitting feelings part of their relationship, and I want to do a full slowburn in more aspects of their relationship. 

What is your writing process like?

Usually I’m inspired by something, whether it’s a situation that happens to me or something I see on TV, and I think about what kinds of stories could be told with those elements. Sometimes I take one trope and try to build a fic around it, sometimes I see a tiktok or a scene in a show and decide I need to use that in something. Other times, I just have a sentence in my head that I have to write down and it turns into a whole page and then suddenly I have 5k words. A lot of my process is spent brainstorming with friends, talking through scenarios and seeing what kinds of responses they get, other times I have an idea and I run with it and don’t tell anyone until it’s done. There are some fics I’ve fully outlined and then gone in completely different directions, and there are some fics I never wrote down a single note for. I’ve had a few fics that started as just single sentences and turned into paragraphs and merged them with other ideas in other documents. My process is kind of chaotic and always changes, if I’m being honest, but it works for me. I think it entirely depends on the mood of the fic I’m trying to write, how much research goes into it, and how long it’s going to be, and all of that. Sometimes I’ll sit down to write something fully knowing it won’t go anywhere just to get me into a writing mood. I’m really all over the place with my process.

Do you have any writing quirks?

I don’t know if this is really a quirk, but I’m the type of person who will go weeks without writing anything and then suddenly have an entire chapter or oneshot finished in two days. I procrastinate until I realize I need to do something or until inspiration really hits me and then I just lock it in and write nonstop until it’s done.

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

This is kind of fic-dependent. If I know for sure that I have the time and motivation for a story, I post as soon as I get chapters finished. If I know I don’t have the capacity for another long form fic, I’ll write out the first chapter and leave it in my drafts until I get a bit further on it, just working when I’m between other projects or stumped on something else. I wouldn’t exactly say I post on a schedule because it’s nowhere near consistent, but I’ve never finished a full multi-chaptered fic before I start posting. I do write a lot of oneshots and two chapter shorter fics, though, so those two chaptered ones are usually close to finished before I post them.

Which fic are you most proud of?

Hands down, the sound of silence. They’re not done yet, but ‘you make me feel like i am whole again,’ and ‘sugar on my tongue’ are also up there with ‘sound of silence.’ It’s my longest fic in this fandom (currently) and my second longest fic I’ve ever written. I put so much of myself into this fic and I’m just really proud of myself for it. There were some definite challenges with this one, with one character in the main pairing barely having any dialogue for the first half of the fic, with the other half of the pairing navigating his newfound sexuality and his life being turned upside down yet again, and I also have a few outsider POVs like Wayne, El, Robin and Hopper sprinkled in there, which is always difficult to work in for me. I’m proud of myself for doing all of that and finishing it.

How did you get the idea for the sound of silence?

This fic started as two separate documents, just unconnected pieces of different stories, both of them hitting dead ends with no hope for continuation. I had started with just a simple idea of Wayne and Steve meeting after the events of season 4 put Eddie in the hospital, and I wanted to show the way Wayne cares for the people who love Eddie, and that ended up becoming the beginning of the fic once I put all the pieces together. The other document I had started around the same time was a short Wayne POV about living with Eddie after S4 and the person he turned into after losing so much of himself. I wanted to explore the idea of someone as loud as Eddie going non-verbal for weeks to months at a time (something I explored in a different fandom, so that sort of inspired me to write SOS too), and when I finally put those together, it just felt like everything was so clear to me and I took off with these ideas.

When writing float among the wreckage, what was something you didn’t expect?

Oh boy. This one was actually difficult for me because I wanted it to be a hate sex fic, and I realized I’m just incapable of making Steve and Eddie hate each other at all. I did something like that one other time earlier when the fandom was still pretty new, but wreckage came to me nearly a year into writing them and I’d really cemented the idea of these characters in my head, and it was just… Very unexpected that I struggled to tap into that tension and hatred. It ended up being less about hating each other and more about misplaced/misidentified feelings in the end.

What inspired share the same space for a minute or two?

I think my friend Teddy actually gave me the main idea for this one. An end of the world “I’m going to die a virgin” apocalypse setting during “season 5.” From that, I just started writing and saw where it took me, and I’m happy with where I took it. Sometimes all I need is one sentence and then I have 11k words written in just a few days, and that fic was one of those times.

What was your favorite part to write from sugar on my tongue?

This is a really hard question because I love so much of this fic and it’s still ongoing so I might still write something I love even more than any previous parts. Without giving too much away, it’s probably a tie between their first smut scene in chapter 1, their club night in chapter 2, and the part in chapter 3 where Eddie’s walking down the road after he runs out of gas and has a lot of introspection about his life and how he finds safety in Steve. One of my close friends told me the writing in that last part was beautiful and I’ve since decided it’s one of my favorite things I’ve written.

How do/did you feel writing the sound of silence?

Sound of Silence was very cathartic for me. I’m so proud of this fic and it deals with so much I rarely see in fanfiction – some of the topics are unsexy and there are a lot of symptoms of mental illness that are highly stigmatized that people just might not want to read in a story. But I knew it was the story I needed to tell for Eddie, mostly, but for Steve, too, and for myself. It’s not always happy, but it’s real to me. Life can be ugly and people can be volatile and traumatized and struggle with sexual function and have undesirable compulsions, and writing that whole fic felt like a release in a way because it’s stuff I relate to and stuff my best friends have also gone through. And the comments on this fic have made me feel seen and less alone in the things I struggle with that I had Steve and Eddie struggle with, as well. I think it’s just really important to have those fics that give at least one reader some comfort in their own situations.

What was the most difficult part of writing you make me feel like i am whole again?

This fic is about gender identity and pregnancy and love and all sorts of stuff that can be hard to put into words. I’ve never experienced a pregnancy, so there’s a lot of research that goes into that, a lot of reading firsthand accounts and finding out all sorts of things that weren’t taught in sex-ed classes. It’s also been a very vulnerable fic for me because Steve and Eddie both experience gender in ways that I do, too. Every time I write about identity and dysphoria through them, I’m putting parts of myself on display for others, and that can be hard, especially when people don’t always understand. I’m very protective over this fic, and I’ve had to defend aspects of it from people who can’t always accept other people’s experiences with gender identity and queerness. That’s been difficult, even well meaning comments can come across as criticism when the writing is so close to home, and it’s been a struggle to keep my head on straight with this one. But as difficult as that may be, the pros outweigh the cons with this fic. It’s so rewarding when people DO relate to the things I write about, and it’s been validating for my own identity and I’ve been told so many times the fic has felt validating to others, too. So as difficult as it can be, I wouldn’t change anything. 

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

I mentioned this bit of sugar on my tongue earlier and I think it’s my current favorite, but I have so many scenes and lines from other fics I’d consider my favorites: The sun beats down on his face and arms. He’s burning, red skin and hot tears. He feels like he needs to crawl out of his own skin. To leave it on the ground and walk away someone else.  Someone who doesn’t have to deal with Al Munson, doesn’t have to deal with a town that hates him for things he didn’t do. He wants to be someone who doesn’t have to be Eddie Munson at all. He just wants to be someone else, to feel safe in the skin he wears.  He thinks Steve might be the only person who makes him feel that way, even if it’s only for a glimpse, a small fraction of his life. Even if it’s just in the quiet hours of the morning when they’re curled up in Eddie’s bed, or when they’re just two boys kissing in a bar where no one knows their names. He wants to feel like that again. Safe. 

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

I’m helping with a Sub Eddie Week event in April, so if anyone wants to do a fic or art for that event, you can find all info @subeddieweek. Most of my upcoming work is going to be made for this event, so stay tuned.

Thank you to our author, @munsonkitten, and our anonymous nominator! See more of deadratz works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[transmascissues]

being told (by another trans person!!) that i should be using the men’s bathroom and not the women’s bathroom at this point in my transition because “most cis people would just look at you and think you’re a guy” is...so fucking surreal.

this is someone i literally met that day — what makes them think they know how people see and treat me in day to day life? do they really think i, a very out trans man who avoids being categorized as a woman as much as humanly possible, would be going into the women’s bathroom if that were true?

my stomach DROPS every time i have to use the bathroom in public because i hate having to go in there so much — if it were actually true that cis people would look at me and just see a man, i’d never do it again!

but guess what? i have to, because that’s not how cis people see me at all! so many trans people have it in their heads that the second a trans man goes on t, he passes perfectly and will never face transphobia or misogyny ever again, and it’s a total fucking lie but they believe it so strongly that they’re actually willing to shame us for keeping ourselves safe based on these preconceived notions that have no basis in reality.

i think a big part of the context that’s missing is that cis women not seeing us as other women anymore doesn’t mean cis men see us as men!

it’s very easy for me to see that the cis women i interact with don’t see me as “one of them” anymore — they may try to fit me into that box because they can tell i’m not a cis guy so they know i “should” be able to fit into it, but t has had enough of a noticeable effect that the cognitive dissonance is too much for them and they clearly can’t make themselves see me as a woman anymore.

but cis men don’t see me as “one of them” either! they clearly recognize the masculinity of my appearance, but they don’t ever really see it as maleness; they carry themselves differently around me than they do around cis women, but also differently than they do around each other. if me and my DDD chest were to walk into a men’s bathroom, my deep voice and dusting of facial hair isn’t going to help me — they’ll know i “don’t belong” there.

(not to mention, i’m still wearing a mask in public places, as we all should be because we’re in a fucking pandemic, so that dusting of facial hair and most of the other changes to my face are pulling no weight as far as how people see me anyway)

there are no gendered spaces that i can comfortably enter right now, and depending on how the rest of my transition goes, there might never be. so i have to pick the place that’s the least likely to get me hurt if someone’s gets mad at my presence, and that means going into the women’s room, because if we’re being honest, my 5’3 disabled self stands a much better chance against the average cis woman than i do against the average cis man, and that’s the kind of calculation i have to make every time i walk into a gendered space like a bathroom.

“but tumblr user transmascissues,” you may be saying, “what about the actual women in those bathrooms? they’ll feel unsafe if they see someone who doesn’t look like a woman in the bathroom with them!”

and to you i say, you know that’s literally just poorly recycled te/rf rhetoric, right? like you’re just parroting the moral panic about letting trans women (who cis people think “look like men”) into bathrooms because “think of the poor cis women!” it’s not suddenly a good argument to make just because you switched the target from trans women to trans men who are literally just there for our safety and probably hate it too.

do i hate the idea that my presence might make someone feel uncomfortable or unsafe? yes, absolutely! that’s one of my biggest fears about medically transitioning, because i’ve been made to feel unsafe by cis men and i would hate to make someone else feel that way! of course i hate it!

but at the end of the day, i also know that my presence there isn’t actually a danger to them because i know i’m not going to do anything bad to them. and i also know that there is a very real danger to me if i go in the men’s bathroom. so why would i subject myself to actual danger just to avoid making a hypothetical cis woman uncomfortable?

trans men’s lives are more important than cis women’s feelings. i do not have to put myself in real, actual, physical danger just because some cis women think hearing a lower voice in the same room as them is a threat. do i understand why they might think that? yeah! but that doesn’t mean i have to put my safety on the line because of it.

at the end of the day, i know for a fact that i do not pass well enough right now to be better off in a men’s bathroom than i am in the women’s. and i wish people — ESPECIALLY other trans people — weren’t so quick to encourage me and other trans men to make less safe decisions just because they personally perceive us as passing well enough.

there is no objective measure of how well someone passes; you can’t look at someone and say “yeah, you pass well enough to be safe in x place” because you can’t look at a person you’ve never met and just magically know how they’re treated in their daily life.

so if a trans man tells you they don’t pass well enough to safely go into the men’s spaces that you think they should be in? just believe them and drop it.

we know our lives better than you do. don’t make us feel even worse about something that we already probably feel like shit about.

[howtobecomeadragon]

Mike got upset at Hopper in s2 bc Hopper was keeping El hidden... when she could've been helping Will and preventing Will's situation from getting so bad

Obviously there are other reasons too, he was mourning and missed her, it was a shock to see her, etc. I'm just saying I think this is the bigger reason.

This also ties into Mike viewing El as a superhero and how this puts their relationship in a weird space. If someone is a superhero, you're not missing them as a person, you're missing them for their powers and what they can do for you.

Obviously we saw that Mike was missing El in 2x01 and 2x02. But at the end of 2x02, we saw Mike having a new concern about what was going on with Will and that he was seeing something from the UD. Mike is confronted with the reality that he doesn't know much about the UD and doesn't know how to help. He doesn't know if this is real or just visions. He doesn't understand (although he does his best to help), the others wouldn't understand, but Eleven would. She would know, she'd be able to help, she'd know how to stop this.

Because, after all, Mike has said it before: she's a weapon. He viewed her as a way to get Will back before (partly, not claiming this was his only motivation in his relationship with El) and now in s2, Mike is missing her for what she could have done here: helped Will.

Mike does what he can to put positive spins on the situation and he provides that emotional support, which probably helped more than he knew.

But that didn't exactly stop the bad things from happening. Mike still doesn't know how to fix this thing happening to Will. He does everything he can, he comes up with the idea to spy back and to put Will to sleep, but it's still a very upsetting day or two.

When El returns, he greets her happily but as soon as he hears that she's been out there, listening to his calls, his face drops. He wanted to know she was out there. And then very quickly his anger moves to Hopper. El didn't know that Will was in trouble. She stayed away bc Hopper told her to, but she didn't know what was going on. Hopper knew. Hopper knew that El was probably one of the only people who might know enough to help, so he gets mad about Hopper hiding her, when she could've been there, she could've stepped in as soon as Will saw the Mind Flayer the first time.

Moving onto the fight scene:

Mike and Hopper both look and gesture towards this wall a lot (EDIT: credit to @runninguplenorahills for pointing this out, this is also in Will's bedroom, similar to the s3 kiss with El in the finale. just another thing pointing to this being more to do with Will than the GA might thing), and I get that it's probably the direction of where El is in the kitchen, but just like always, Will is there symbolically too. He's there in the drawings that are on the wall between them in the dead center of the shot. It's a symbol of just how bad things got with Will.

Mike looks at the drawings and says he doesn't understand how Hopper let it go on so long with El there but hidden.

Again, looking and gesturing at the walls. And there's this talk of blame here. "Don't blame her, she's already upset." "I don't blame her, I blame you."

Blame El for... just staying hidden? When Mike can tell she wasn't allowed to talk to him? That doesn't really fit perfectly with the word "blame." What Hopper might mean, instead, is for Mike to not blame El for how bad it got with Will. "Don't blame El for not coming to help sooner, don't blame her for everything that has happened the past couple days." And Mike doesn't, he says he's blaming Hopper.

Another couple things from the full fight scene:

"Protecting her?" Mike sees what happened. Hopper chose to protect El over protecting Will this season (in a way, balancing out his actions from s1, selling out El's location to Brenner to save Will).

"So I should be thanking you?" Along that same line: Mike isn't thinking about his or his family's safety. Brenner is gone, and it sounds like Hopper kept El hidden for reasons he doesn't understand or care about at the cost of Will's safety.

"Nothing about this is okay." There's so many things he's upset and overwhelmed and scared about right now. It's multifaceted, just like so many of Mike's scenes. He's not just mad bc he missed El, there's more there.

After the scene with Hopper, Mike and El are standing away from each other. He even seems to be avoiding eye contact with her? Maybe from embarrassment over his outburst, maybe he just feels weird and conflicted already, feeling the strain of having his attention split when he's already so worried about Will. But either way, the shots are framed with Mike and Hopper together and everyone else with El. He didn't rush out from that fight to stick with El, be close, hold her hand, talk with her more.

And the first time he speaks in this scene it feels a lot like another "I'm the only one who cares about Will" moment. He's put the pieces together and was considering Will's part in all of this. He's not voicing concern about El being in danger again or leaving again, his mind is on Will.

And I think this all goes to the goodbye scene between El and Mike. Mike is concerned about losing people close to him. He can't say goodbye to Will, but he says goodbye to El. She tries to kiss him, he leaves his eyes open and doesn't move closer at all. A car with Will drives away and a car with El drives away, both headed towards danger. He stares after both, scared.

GA viewers assume he's just focused on El as he watches the cars drive away, but he spent most of the season just focused on Will. GA viewers assume Mike's outburst just has to do with loving El, but he spent most of the season trying to help Will, just like s1, except this time he didn't have El, his helpful link to the UD, to make the supernatural mysteries a little bit easier.

[inhuman-obey-me]

I really....really meant to do this way sooner, I’m so sorry, but I'm finally back with the next segment of characters!! Part 3 will come later, featuring the undateables, but for now, hope you enjoy this one!

Click here for Part 1 - Older Brothers

Part 2 - Younger Brothers

cw: mentions of past abuse + sexual assault, body horror, violence, torture, gore

Or, as these tags so accurately put it last time:

SATAN

When you tell Satan that you have something heavy to share, he is the perfect gentleman about it, making sure you feel safe and comforted and giving you space if/when you need it

He memorizes every word that falls from your lips, holding each one preciously in his mind as he holds you in his arms

His heart breaks as you describe what happened to you, and even though he always keeps his own wrath hidden away as much as he can, he thinks guiltily to the times where it has emerged around you

In that moment, he swears to himself he'll never allow it to happen again -- even if you know what he's like, even if you understand him and his rage, he could never forgive himself if he caused you the kind of pain you're describing now

For any anger you may have about it, however, you can express it as much as you want around him, with his own powers helping you let it out safely and absorbing some of it from you when it seems like it's too much for you

On intimacy, he's always been quite shy with you, but he takes care to be a bit more delicate now as well, a little less abrupt and a little bit more communicative about what he wants to do, stopping immediately to check in if you seem uncomfortable in any way

After a few days, though, the wrath in him is about ready to burst, and for all the rage he feels for what this disgusting human did to you...

No, no, he's not going to immediately tear the fucker to shreds, he can't let them die that quickly, no

No, this person is going to suffer for what they did to you

He starts with just a light curse, as a warmup -- invisible barriers just pop up in their path from time to time, causing them to randomly trip and fall whenever they're walking around

While casting the spell, however, he can't help but grow angrier and angrier thinking about what they did to you

He hits them with no less than twenty-two other curses before he collects himself enough to put the spellbook down, each of which would be fairly minor on their own, but which collectively add up to a very miserable existence of constant embarrassments, humiliations, frustrations, and injuries

When he looks in on the damage a week later, he's rather pleased to find them utterly broken down, covered head-to-toe in little bruises and cuts

He's far from done however, and in the dead of night, he whisks them away to an old, abandoned house said to be haunted by vengeful ghosts, much like the stories of the House of Lamentation

There, he immobilizes them with another curse and sets to work with a sharp-tipped pen, carving every last word of what you told him into your ex's flesh

His hand is steady as the pen slices into their body, but each time he reaches a part that especially infuriates him, he can't help but dig the pen a bit deeper in, taking vicious delight in the way their eyes water in those moments, and the wheeze of pain that emerges from their frozen lips

Once he's written out everything you told him across their body, he does what would be unthinkable to an actual book but what he finds perfectly fitting for this human stain upon the world, and sets up a pulley to gradually lower them into a firepit in the backyard

As they are slowly engulfed by the flames, he reads the whole tale upon their body out loud to them, making sure they hear every last word and know exactly what they did wrong before they finally perish

ASMODEUS

The Avatar of Lust, while he perfectly understands and embodies desire, is not forgiving of those who disregard consent

To him, so much of the fun comes from seeing that desire and pleasure emerge from his partner, so what the fuck is even the point if they don't want it?

But, as the beautiful and beloved Asmodeus, it's his job to keep everyone smiling and bright, and that's exactly what he's going to do for you

As you tell him about your past, he alternates between fussing over you to try to make you feel better, and quietly fuming over what your ex did

Over time, he helps you feel more in control of your own body again as well, empowering you to feel like it's really yours and yours alone, mixing fashion with feelings of safety and comfort, and always ready with the compliments to boost your self-esteem

Gradually, only if you want to, he'll help you get comfortable with intimacy again -- with his sensitivity to lust, he can always tell if something starts to feel wrong to you, and he'll stop immediately if that happens

Whether you want to take it slow, or try out some wild kink that might be therapeutic, or anything else, he's just excited for anything you want to do, and he'll make sure it's the best possible experience for you

As for your ex, he's sure they'll land themselves down in the Devildom eventually anyway, but if you want them taken care of sooner than that, he'll have a blast doing it -- it's been a while since he's had to a good chance to really use his scorpion venom!

And if not, hey, he'll have a chance to wreak his revenge when they eventually do arrive, in any case

He'll even invite you along too, if you'd like a turn at revenge by your own hands <3

Though his eyes can charm anyone, sometimes he finds it almost more fun to shrink them with magic and physically string them up like a puppet, and he's happy to hand you the reins if you want them

For his own fun, he manipulates the marionette strings to have your ex dance their way through any number of dangerous settings -- spikes, lava, fire, swamps, ghostly manors, you name it

He makes sure they hit every trap or flame on the way through, and malevolently flings them into those points in the most painful ways possible

With the strings, he also bends their body in impossibly painful ways, contorting them into bizarre and freakish poses and laughing over how ridiculous they look

If you want to participate, he teaches you how to move them around too

When you decide you've had enough, he drags the limp doll that your ex has become through coals and discards the charred remains into a lake of corrosive acid

There, your ex, still just barely conscious, feels their body slowly breaking down until they dissolve to nothing

BEELZEBUB

Beelzebub, in his ever-protective way, grows angry as you tell him about your abusive ex, but first and foremost his concern is making sure you're okay

He's quiet -- quieter than usual, even -- but fully present for you, reassuring you in the warm comfort of his large embrace

He holds you gently the whole time you're talking, and even for a while after, making sure you're feeling okay before he lets go

As thanks for being brave enough to talk about it, and for trusting him enough to tell him, he takes you out for anything at all that you'd like to eat, showering you with affection

He's perfectly happy to take it slow if/when you do eventually decide to ease into anything sexual, and he's so, so careful about his strength and size

His excellent sense of smell helps to guide him too, able to pick up the scents of happiness, desire, fear, lack thereof if you're dissociating, etc., and he adjusts himself accordingly to keep you feeling safe

And in general, though he may not have known you back then, he's filled with resolve to at least protect you from here on out

He won't fail to keep safe someone he cares about, not again -- and that means taking care of any lingering threats from your old life, too

It takes a bit of searching for Beelzebub to find your ex, but he goes up to the human realm and manages to seek them out soon enough because flies are good at seeking out rotting piles of trash

It takes a lot of restraint not to gobble them up on the spot and be done with it, but for how much they put you through, he thinks they deserve to suffer at least a bit

He snatches them away to a hidden alley behind a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, long after they've closed for the night but with the fragrant scent of meaty burgers still lingering through the air

If the shot of venom didn't already leave their muscles feeling tender, the incessant hits of the brutal physical beating from Beel certainly does

No part of their body is spared from the onslaught of punches and kicks, as joints pop apart and bones start peeking out from flesh through the wounds

Thin, spear-like tubes emerge from Beelzebub's mouth, piercing various veins across their neck and arms so he can drink up all the blood from their veins before it spills out all over the alley floor -- it'd be a waste of a perfectly good drink, after all

Once they're fully drained, he cracks open their carcass, carving each bone loose with knife-like claws for him to crunch on

Then into the restaurant's industrial meat grinder goes the rest of their body

Beel feasts with a certain satisfaction that night upon piles and piles of cheese-world humanburgers human-world cheeseburgers

BELPHEGOR

As you tell Belphegor about your past and your history with your abusive ex, he gives you his full, undivided attention

His stomach drops, as his prior deception and manipulation of you comes into full focus in light of all you had already been through

Holding you close, he whispers words of comfort and strokes your head gently until you fall asleep for the night, holding his own rest at bay until he's sure you've drifted off first

As a quiet, unspoken apology, he places soft and peaceful dreams upon you that night, filling your dream world with all the things he knows you love

If you're open to it, he also later creates dreams for you where things happened differently, quick to pull you out if anything starts going wrong but letting you get a redo on those traumatic moments where you have more power or where you can watch a cartoonish anvil drop on your ex's head to stop them, whatever works really

Intimacy comes gradually, if/when you're ready, happy to follow or take the lead as you prefer, but communicative every step of the way so that you always feel safe

And as for your ex...

Belphegor already held the opinion for a long time that humans were shit -- but until this moment, he had dropped his desires to destroy them, after everything with Lilith had come to light

But you're still a human, after all, and he loves you, so he'll settle for taking care of just this particular shitstain of a human being

Needless to say, your ex never knows a peaceful night's sleep again

Each time they close their eyes to rest, devilish apparitions appear at the edges of their vision, and menacing claws and teeth rip at their ankles, chasing them across worlds

At times, when the teeth manage to catch them in their grasp, their dreams turn to endless loops of being chewed up and spit out over and over on end

The resulting constant exhaustion is a nightmare of its own, as they begin to fear falling asleep and desperately try to wake themselves any time they feel sleep coming on

However, in their waking hours, too, Belphie twists and warps shadows around them, until the lines between life and dreams blur together

They are practically sobbing for death by the time he comes for them personally, though he's not so merciful as to be quick about it even then

He chokes them to unconsciousness but lets go each time they fall unconscious, dragging the sharp prickly parts of his tail across their face to wake them back up before doing it over again

Once their face has been torn up beyond recognition by these repeated cycles, he finishes them off by trampling across their body in cow form and leaving them to suffocate slowly from their punctured lungs

[oceanwithouthermoon]

i always considered saiki aro, but you make me really rethink with kubosai. .

THATS SO LOVELY, i know you didnt ask but.. im going to take this opportunity to talk a little about my stance on kubosai and saiki's sexuality.. i mean i have talked about it multiple times but still, lots of people dont see what i see in these things sooo im gonna keep talking about it lol..

(under the cut cuz i made this WAYYY longer than i meant to, sorryyyy..)

i still see saiki as aroace personally !! just not romance repulsed aroace, rather just on the aroace spectrum.. i think hes the type of person to use 'queer' and 'aroace' as umbrella terms for himself instead of caring about specific labels, but if i had to, i would say he fits best with demi based on my interpretation.. (i usually see him as with no preference, but based on the text its easy to see him as having a preference for men too..)

i do get why people would see him as romance repulsed and its a lovely hc, but saiki is pretty much mlm coded, at least in the way i interpreted it.. i mean, he almost straight up says he has a crush on satou in the manga.. its great if people interpret it as a 'squish,' but i personally dont see that,, he kinda blatantly threw them in a romance chart together, blushes every time he sees him, etc. HOWEVER aroace people who relate in some way and project their experiences onto saiki will ALWAYS be valid, so i dont care !! i literally do that lmfao im an aroace lesbian,,

anyway, saiki has a lot of silly tsundere moments that lots of people who dont really look at the show past surface level (and usually dont read the manga) see as him literally hating his friends, family, romance, etc when its very much shown how hes being a tsundere and he LOVES his friends, family, AND romance.. (canonically loves romance not as in he definitely experiences romantic attraction, but as in he just is weirdly into love stories and such but wont admit it lmao, i talk about that chapter where he gets obsessed with those strangers love story he saw with psychometry but its just so good lol..) so i think that misinterpretation is where a lot of the discourse in this fandom comes from, like people who think he GENUINELY hates teruhashi ? they r literally best friends he cares about her so much..

kubosai is a ship i started loving, not really from seeing their canon interactions, but from analyzing the characters in the manga and seeing who i think would actually fit together and have a good dynamic..

im very weak for characters who are ashamed of their dark past, afraid of their own strength and that they might hurt the people they love, scared to tell their loved ones their secrets, etc.. and kuboyasu and saiki fit the bill perfectly, so i looked at them and immediately thought BOOM what if they were in love..

their dynamic is fun, even though we didnt get a lot of canon interactions.. theyre so similar yet SO different at the same time..

they both have pretty tragic pasts and family lives, both VERY protective of their friends and family and would do anything for them, both have bad coping mechanisms (mostly refusing to acknowledge that anything is really wrong at all), etc.. and yet, theyre almost opposites in the way they actually carry themselves..

saiki appears apathetic at all times in front of others even though his internal monologue or how he expresses himself when hes alone can be really emotional.. kuboyasu is pretty happy all the time even though he has pretty thinly veiled anger about half the time..

kuboyasu is just a human boy who was taught to take up as much space as possible for his survival, defend himself with his fists, honesty and loyalty and trust are essential, etc, while saiki is an almost-god whose upbringing taught him to try his best to take up NO space at all for his survival, dont get involved unless its from afar, dont get close with anyone, dont trust anyone, etc..

saiki prefers to protect his people from in the shadows, going as far as to literally stalk them to make sure theyre okay without their knowledge, while kuboyasu is unafraid to show how much he cares and prefers to literally come out swinging to protect his people.. put them together and you get two silly guys who will literally protect the other with their life despite knowing damn well that theyre both fully capable of protecting themselves..

kuboyasu is also like.. one of the only people in the cast other than saiki who can be like.. a voice of reason sometimes.. he would be so good for saiki and would make damn sure he knows when hes being irrational or dramatic (because cmon, its saiki.. hes such a drama queen all the damn time..) and i just think he needs that in his life..

yasu would reign saiki in when it comes to his everyday dramatics, and in turn saiki would reign yasu in when it comes to his over the top romance standards (and probably his anger issues and overreactions too..) and yet at the same time they would take comfort in each others silliness.. saiki may be like "we cant just drop out and get married, thats not how it works" but isnt it so refreshing for him to have someone that cares about him so unconditionally ?? unlike his own family ?? itd scare him at first, but hed make yasu tone it down to a healthier extent and itd become soo comfortable..

[magnus-falafelking]

FIERROCHASE WEDDING SUMMARY!!!

wanna know how our special day went? here you go :)

[NOT MY FANFIC]

[MY FRIEND WROTE IT FOR TODAY]

Boston weather was always a coin toss. During the summer months, it could be gloriously warm and sunny, miserably hot and humid, or, especially during the first part of June, even chilly and rainy. Most summers on the back bay were a mixture of all these conditions, plus a splattering of dramatic thunderstorms, just to keep the grass growing. 

But today? Today was perfect. 

All day, the weather had been clear skies and a cool breeze. Even though Frey wasn’t supposed to make an appearance, Magnus couldn’t help but feel like he had something to do with the strangely favorable turn in the forecast. The sun peeked through the partly cloudy sky to dress the sides of the chase mansion in warm summer sunlight. It was beautiful. For so many years, whenever Magnus looked at this building, he’d felt like some angry god had installed a permanent storm cloud over the roof. It had always been shrouded in an aura of foreboding, always surrounded by darkness, and always made him feel a little uncomfortable. But today, with the sun shining warmly and the breeze rustling the paper streamers and handmade signs the homeless kids at the chase space had insisted on personally designing and hanging from nearly every window, even the gargoyles seemed to look a bit friendlier. 

As the sun started to set, there was a vibrant buzz of excitement on the top floor patio as friends, family, and the current residents of the Chase Space milled around in excitement and chatted about the evening’s events. The space had been done up beautifully by Samirah, Mallory, and Annabeth (who had done all the organizing, and most of the arguing about the way things should look) with help from Halfborn, Tj, and Percy (who had mostly broken up said arguments and lifted the heavy objects). It wasn’t extravagant, but there were chairs with little flower bouquets tied to them, and a little raised platform for the two of them to stand on, and Blitzen had personally arranged several extremely expensive looking potted flower arrangements for either side, so they would be framed by lilies and magnolias and roses and other flowers Magnus couldn’t remember the names of as they said their ‘I do's.’

The bedrooms on the third floor had been converted into changing rooms for the event. In the one on the south side of the house, Magnus was unfolding and refolding the paper with his vows on it as he looked out over the stunning view of the back bay. 

The day was finally here. He was finally going to marry Alex. 

In front of everyone, he was going to say a lot of things about how much he loved Alex, how much Alex meant to him, how much he needed Alex, how he would always be with Alex until the end of the world- literally.

“I think I’m gonna puke.” 

Behind him, several heads turned as Magnus gripped the edge of the railing on the little patio he was standing on. Blitzen came up behind him as he leaned over it, patting his back reassuringly as Magnus made sounds much more like someone who had eaten bad falafel than someone who was about to experience the happiest day of their life.

“Hey kid. Let’s back away from the railing before you go headfirst into the bushes. That would not be a good look on your wedding day.” Carefully, Blitzen pulled him back into the room, sitting him down in one of the available chairs and giving him some very fatherly and encouraging pats on the shoulder. He was really putting in the work Frey probably should have been there doing…

Around him, everyone was putting the finishing touches on their outfits. All perfectly tailored, of course, which Blitzen had done much preening about in the hours leading up to now. Despite their extremely varied figures, Tj, Halfborn, Hearthstone, and Blitzen were all dressed in the same suit. It was simple but elegant, a wool suit tailored to fit each of their varying frames, smooth silk shirts, a professional but understated waistcoat, and a pair of brown leather shoes to match their ties. The only differences were that Halfborn and Tj were dressed in shades of brown and green, and Hearthstone and Blitzen were wearing warmer, more sunny but not overbearingly bright colors. Halfborn was also sporting a kilt which was, apparently, the same color as Mallory’s outfit. The pair of them had insisted on matching separately, then found out about each other's request and insisted on NOT matching, then had some kind of argument that had begun with words and ended… well, still with tongues. Magnus hadn’t asked a lot of questions after that, and had just told Blitzen to make an executive decision. Seeing the amount of leg hair on display now, he wondered if Blitzen should be trusted with too many more of those, even if they DID relate to fashion.

 Magnus himself was dressed in the same suit, except his was a deep, forest green, his waistcoat was white and had some kind of a subtle metallic shine to it, and his silk shirt was a light, blush pink. 

Alex’s colors. He was happy to be wearing them.

His hair was trimmed but still longer, hanging neat and orderly around his anxious face. On the lapel of his suit, he was wearing a pin with the same symbol Alex had tattooed on his neck, the two entwined serpents, the reclaimed symbol of Loki pinned just over his heart. 

“Gettin’ cold feet, Magnus?” Halfborn was all smiles and mead-blushed cheeks, standing with one arm on the back of a chair as he worked his way through his second horn of booze this hour. He had insisted it was Norse tradition to get absolutely hammered for the entire ceremony and reception, and when no one had joined him, he’d insisted he’d carry the load alone. “Don’t drop your guts in here. It’s much more romantic if Alex gets to watch.”

Tj sighed, shaking his head as he put a hand on Halfborn’s huge shoulder and patted it a couple times. “Halfborn, I think you’ve had enough to drink until after the ceremony. Magnus is just excited, not getting cold feet. Right, Magnus?” Tj sent him a bright, confident and reassuring smile. His wedding suit was spotless, perfectly fitted and pressed with the care and attentiveness he always gave his regular uniform. For the first time in a long time, he wasn’t carrying his weapon. They were all on the property (just in case) but he looked a bit strange not having it right over his shoulder where it usually was. If it had been in his hands, he thought, Tj would look battle ready even in a wedding tuxedo. 

“Right.” Magnus’ voice was shaky. “Totally.”

All four of his wedding party exchanged a look. Each one of them took a seat, and Halfborn even set his drink down in its little stand as he half stumbled onto one of the couches and pinched his face into a decently impressive impression of a sober man.

Hearthstone sat nearest to Magnus, giving his arm a reassuring squeeze before he pulled his attention to sign to him. 

‘It’s normal to be nervous. No worries. Big day.’ He exaggerated the gesture for big with an appropriate facial expression, making it clear he understood how nervous Magnus really was. 

“I’d be nervous marrying Alex too.” Halfborn agreed. “The Argr is a bit unpredictable. He might get you up to the altar and-“ Beside him, Tj subtly kicked his leg, causing Halfborn to let out an “ouch” followed by some apologetic muttering. 

“Everyone gets nervous on their wedding day.” Blitzen agreed, looking over at Halfborn like he might want a turn. “That’s why there’s alcohol. To take the edge off the jitters. You’re fine, kid. You’ve handled way more difficult things than saying a few words.”

“The last time I said a few words about Alex I embarrassed myself in front of everyone.” Magnus leaned forward, dropping his head into his hands and making another one of those bad-falafel noises. “What if I mess up again? What if my vows suck?” His head shot up as he looked over at Hearth, eyes wide. “What if I lean in to kiss Alex and I puke into the kiss??” 

Hearthstone’s expression was a pretty clear don’t-be-ridiculous look (mixed with some disgust as he pictured a vomit-kiss unwillingly), but he still signed it out to reassure him. 

‘You will be fine. No puke in mouth. Won’t happen.’ 

“And if it does happen.” Halfborn assured him, his voice slightly slurred, “I’ll distract everyone by puking with you.”

“If anyone but Magnus throws up on these suits, I will personally drag the responsible party to Helheim and hand them over to the goddess herself.” Blitzen said coolly, eyeing halfborn with a narrowed gaze. 

Somehow, that made the tension in Magnus’ stomach settle a little. He even managed a laugh, fiddling with the paper with his vows on it again. “I’m glad you’re all here. I really didn’t know if Alex was going to agree to this or not. I bet they’re having a way easier time getting ready across the hall.” Alex was always so cool and calm and collected. Magnus was pretty sure his finance wasn’t considering which of his uncle’s expensive display vases it would be best to toss his cookies into.

“So, is it time for this then?” Halfborn patted the small, flat green box tied with a black bow he’d been entrusted with earlier that day. It was a decent size, but it looked small in halfborn’s massive hands. Inside was the gift he’d gotten for Alex for their wedding day. It wasn’t a lot, but he’d put a lot of effort into it. 

Magnus felt the butterflies that had been making his stomach their home for the last few days make a reappearance. Suppressing them must have pissed them off cause they were fluttering around his insides with a vengeance. “Y-yeah… I guess it’s probably time?”

Halfborn stood with a nod, carrying the box towards the door. “Gotcha. I’ll be delivering the package then!”

———-

Across the hall, the other wedding party was causing so much noise, it was a miracle the boys couldn’t hear it. 

“Catch it! Grab her! Don’t let her get to the door!” Furniture was overturned, pillows were torn and weapons were flying as Samirah, Alex, and Mallory chased something around the room. 

It had appeared when Alex had been checking the mirror to make sure the wedding suit was sitting right on her (for the fifteenth time in as many minutes) slithering up onto the fabric of the shoulder and whispering in her ear things nobody wanted to hear on any day, much less at their wedding. It had taken her a moment to figure out where the voice was coming from, but had spotted the tip of a little green head just over her shoulder in the mirror. 

Alex wasn’t willing to listen to bullshit any day, but especially not today. She’d grabbed and thrown the snake against a wall, the snake had hit the surface and flattened like one of those rubber sticky toys and slid down between the wall and a couch, and that had started a mess of moving things to get at it. 

“I know it’s you, mom!” Alex hissed, rolling on the floor and reaching under a chair, nearly missing grabbing the snake’s emerald green tail. “You weren’t invited! What are you doing here?”

The snake slithered over to a bookshelf, lifting up its head to peer at them. “Don’t be ridiculousss, Alexx …” the s sounds on the ends of his words were lengthened by the flicking tongue peeking out between those scaly lips, though it wasn’t clear if it was intentional or something Loki was doing for dramatic effect. “No child of mine will be married without my presenccce. I'm hurt you didn’t invite me. What have I ever done to deserve such disssregard-“ 

The snake’s speech was interrupted when a glowing spearhead sunk into the wood of the bookcase beside it, forcing Loki to dodge and slither away again. 

Samirah scowled, leaping over to retrieve her weapon and spinning around to look for where he had gone. “Nobody is humoring you today, Loki. You know exactly why you’re not welcome here.”

“Sorry, I know you’re family and all,” Mallory chimed in, her twin daggers flashing threateningly as she scanned the room for any sign of movements. “But the guest list is exclusive, and Sam and I are sort of responsible for watchin it. We’re gonna have to remove you if you don’t leave on your own.” Lighting fast, she stabbed her dagger down by a new moving lump in the carpet, nearly missing the worm. She scowled as she tried to land several more jabs in the twisting, contorting shape.

Samirah came to help Alex up off the floor as Mallory attempted to turn the rug in the room into Swiss cheese, straightening out the ruffled edges of the wedding suit. “Mallory is right, Alex. It’s our job to handle things like this. Don’t go jumping around and ruining your outfit.” As she spoke, she picked up her axe from a table beside her, throwing it as the snake came slithering out of the carpet and nearly pinning Loki to the wooden floor. The axe sunk in the old wood floorboards deep, but a few inches too far to the right, letting the snake slither away and under the door into the hallway.

“Oh Hel no.” Alex undid Sif’s garrote from her waist, making towards the door before both of the other women stopped her. 

“And just where do you think you’re goin?” Mallory asked, raising one fiery red brow at her. She and Samirah were both dressed in shades of pink, though Mallory’s pink was more of a rose red sort of color. It was a knee length dress, suited to running around a room toppling over furniture, which was pleated and patterned with a traditional Scottish plaid. The plaid pattern extended to a piece of fabric which lay up over one shoulder and went back down her back, and there was a belt cinching the whole operation in at the waist. Beneath the plaid she was wearing a plain white shirt, making her wholly more prepared looking for a fight than really anyone else Alex had seen all day. “I just said I’ll handle it. It’s only one snake, even if it is Loki.” She brandished a knife, wiggling it threateningly. “Think I can’t dissipate a little illusion magic? I swear, I just gotta catch him and you won’t need to worry for the rest of the week. I’ll send whatever piece of him came crawling up here right back where it came.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you will. I just think it’ll go faster if we all handle it together.” Alex pushed out of their hold, heading for the door. Her hands were a little sweaty as she gripped her garrote. Why was Loki here? What did he want? Did he really care that much about this stupid wedding? It was just some words they were saying, it’s not like it was anything super serious. Why had Loki decided to meddle in her life  again? She wasn’t sure, but she was 100% sure that the ceremony couldn’t go on if there was a worm wiggling around the Chase Space. No, it was definitely not okay that Loki was here. Loki was the cause of Alex’s anxiety, and Alex was going to stay anxious until she personally sent Loki back to that stupid cave. 

And anyways, it was better to be running around than sitting in this damn room counting down the minutes like she had been. Yes, definitely better to be chasing a snake that was actually your mother who is actually a mega-control-freak-shapeshifter than sitting in a stuffy old room staring at yourself in a mirror. 

Just as she put a hand on the door, Samirah pulled her back, placing herself between the exit and her sister. 

Samirah’s pink ensemble was much different than Mallory’s. Her dress was four or five shades of pink, and all layered organza. The skirt swept to the floor, and the sleeves were a sheer white lace that went all the way to her wrist, framed by loose curtains of the pink organza that fell delicately over her shoulders. With the hijab around her head, she looked a bit like an upside down rose the way the diagonal hanging layers of the dress cascaded around her form. 

Sam may have looked nice, but blocking the door was a very dangerous move. Alex had to respect it a bit, but she didn’t have to agree with it. 

“Sam, it’s my wedding day and I want to hunt a snake.” Alex’s voice was as tight as her grip on the garrote handles she was brandishing threateningly. 

“No, you want to escape dealing with your anxiety by cutting something into a million pieces.” Sam corrected, folding her lace covered arms over her chest. “And while I understand that living in Valhalla has inclined you towards such… violent forms of stress relief, I’m not allowing you to do this today. It’s a little sliver of spirit. Easily dispersed. Loki is still weak and recovering from… last time.” Samirah sighed, taking Alex by the shoulders and forcing her to sit on one of the chairs. When she had finally wrestled the garrote out of her sister’s hands and secured it back around her waist, she knelt in front of her to hold them in her own. “There’s no reason to assume he could show up in any significant form. He didn’t even change shape once, so he must be too weak to manage it. He’s just trying to get in your head and ruin your wedding. You’ve proven over and over that he has no power over you. Don’t give up that control just because you’re nervous about the wedding. Let us handle it and you just stay here and relax.”

“No trouble at all, Fierro.” Mallory assured her, finally un-wedging her knife from the floorboards. “We’ll go deal with this. You wait here and look pretty.”

Alex made some sort of sound that was probably more jaguar than frustrated human, grabbing a pillow and vaulting off the couch to chuck it full speed at the wall. “I’m not going to sit around in this room like a decoration ! If my mom wants a piece of me I’ll give her one!”

“Alex, no!” Samirah grabbed her arm, giving her a stern look. “I know you’re anxious. I promise it will be fine. Really, I swear. Please, let me handle it? And just take a few minutes to calm down, okay?” Samirah put on her best pleading expression, her hold on her arm softening. “I just… I just want you to be happy. I don’t want you to worry about anything today. Please…”

Alex didn’t know what she was feeling. Confused, angry, startled, nauseous… all the emotions were building up all at once. She felt a strange, almost uncontrollable desire to shift. Felt like her skin was itching to change, like maybe if she became something slippery enough she could slide out of this mess, or maybe change into something with a roar loud enough to quiet the buzzing that had been in her head all day. She had almost been happy to see Loki. Not because she wanted to, but because it gave her something to focus on besides how she really felt about this whole wedding situation…

Scared. 

After a long, silent stare-down, Alex crossed her arms and turned her head away, hoping she’d withdrawn fast enough to hide the way they were trembling. “Fine. Whatever. Call me when you need my help catching the slippery bastard.”

Samirah let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, nodding with the warmest smile she’d had all day. “We’ll call if we need you. Come on, Mallory.” 

————

[Song accompaniment: Wonder by Shawn Mendez]

Magnus had most often found it best to follow the rules. When his mom had been alive, she’d even accused him of being a little too well behaved sometimes, pinched his cheeks and told him he should sneak out or talk back. “Live a little, be a kid” or something like that. It wasn’t like he had a strong inclination towards the law or whatever, it was just usually easier and created less issues to do things the legal, reasonable way. 

But, his two years on the streets had taught him a lot of things, and one of those things was that sometimes, breaking the rules was sort of a necessary thing. Like when you hadn’t eaten in three days and there was nothing edible in the dumpster, so you had to swipe a sandwich from a deli. 

Or when your whole wedding party suddenly leaves your dressing room to deal with some kind of pest control emergency (since when did the Chase Space have worms?) and left you holding the box that someone else was supposed to deliver to your fiancée. 

Magnus stood awkwardly in front of Alex’s dressing room door, lifting and lowering his hand a few times. Should he leave it and run? Should he stay? Did it really matter if they saw each other a little early?

Inside the room, Alex was sitting with her feet up on the couch, knees to her chest and thoughts racing. There was too much to consider. Her eyes settled on a little ship in a bottle on the bookshelf across from her as a storm started brewing in her mind. 

Did Mangnus really want to marry her? Why were they getting married anyways? Mallory and halfborn broke up every other month and fought like crazy. What if they started fighting like that in a hundred years and wanted a divorce? 

The ship in the bottle seemed to move, swaying on the waves of Alex’s frenzied thoughts. 

Why was Loki here? Did he have some sort of plan to mess with her life again? Did he want to stop the marriage so that he could try and force her into another one like he tried to do to Samirah? Like she was almost forced to do when she took samirah’s place?

Her thoughts were so wild and all-encompassing that she didn’t notice the way her hands were shaking, didn’t notice the way her eyes were reddening. The memory of drinking out of the cup after Thrymm at her first wedding returned to her against her will. She’d been forced to do it, and the realization that the ceremony might have actually been completed made her almost as nauseatingly disgusted as the thought of sharing his backwash-wine did. She felt sick. The ship in the bottle seemed like it might capsize-

There was a knock at the door, followed by a familiar voice. 

“Uh… hey Alex. It’s me.”

The noise stopped. The sky seemed to clear. Alex blinked, wiping something wet and hot away from her eyes as she looked at the ship on the shelf. It was still.

“I know I’m not supposed to see you yet. Or uh, well, I mean you’re not supposed to see me either. but… there’s no rules about our voices, right?”

On the other side of the door, Magnus was fidgeting anxiously, rolling up onto his toes and back onto his heels like a weird little doll, bobbing back and forth in a way that would have made Alex laugh if she could have seen. “I just came to bring you your gift.”

Alex glanced towards the door, her body uncurling from its little ball before she even thought about it. Her feet moved without her direction, like Magnus was a lighthouse in her little storm guiding her safely to shore. She stopped a foot or so from the door, finding it startlingly easy to level out her voice. “You are breaking the rules, chase.” Her voice was barely shaking. She felt warm. She always felt warm around Magnus. 

Magnus felt his lips turn up into one of those stupid goofy smiles that always made Alex blush. He didn’t fight it. “Yeah well, you know, I figured you’d be way more into me if I broke a few rules.” 

Alex laughed a little. The sound was genuine, so the edges of the sound were tinged with the lingering fear that Magnus always chased away. “You’re an idiot.” 

“Ooh, careful. In a couple hours I’m going to be youridiot. Like, forever. You wouldn’t want to be married to an idiot, would you?”

“Probably not. Not unless he’s really hot. I mean, he’s gotta be really, really hot.”

Magnus’s grin got a little wider as he felt a swell of confidence. “Oh yeah? So you think I’m really really hot? Like really really really -“

“Alright chase, you’re pushing it. Three reallys? That’s crazy.” 

By now, both of them were pressed up against the door. If there hadn’t been a piece of wood between them, they would have been forehead to forehead, nose to nose. Magnus swore he could feel Alex’s breath on his cheeks if he closed his eyes. 

Alex felt completely calm. The rolling waves in her stomach had changed to a warm, bubbly feeling. Ah, right. What a dummy she’d been. Alex wasn’t marrying Magnus because someone told her to. She wasn’t marrying Magnus because he was strong or cool, or really really really hot. 

Alex wanted to marry Magnus because to her, Magnus felt like home. She’s realized recently that Magnus was warm and summery and light, and that just being near him made her feel warm and summery too. Her whole life had been a hurricane of wild misfortune and crazy happenstance, everyone and everything whipping her wildly in every direction all at once. 

But whenever Magnus was there, she knew she’d found the eye of the storm, and that was never going to change. 

“This is crazy.” The words left her lips before she could stop them, and she felt a momentary pang of guilt and fear, her eyes flicking up to the wood as if she could peer through it to see Magnus's reaction. Crap. 

“Yeah. It’s pretty crazy.” Magnus agreed, turning the box in his hands around a few times. “I mean, I never thought I’d get married. And I kind of thought if I did get married, I’d still be alive when it happened.” 

“Ghost marriages exist.” Alex ventured, her brain fried from all the emotional ups and downs. 

“Yeah, I know. We’re doing one I think.” Magnus pulled his head back from the door, reaching for the handle. “Here. This is for you.” He pulled the door open a crack, just enough to pass the box through. “Tj said I’m supposed to give you a gift before the ceremony? Halfborn was gonna bring it over but I guess we have worms…” 

As if on cue, the sound of something crashing came from downstairs, followed by the sound of a berserker shouting at the top of his lungs. 

“Must be big worms…”

Alex stepped away from the door and set the box down on a table, carefully untying the ribbon. Her hands started to shake again as she lifted the lid, carefully peeling back the tissue to see what was cradled inside. 

After a few moments of terrifying silence from both Alex and the lower levels of the house, Magnus heard the loudest, most ridiculous laugh he’d ever heard come from behind the door. For a moment it made him smile, then his smile faltered slightly when it seemed like Alex was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe. “What? I did my best!”

Alex was practically rolling over what she’d found in that box. In her hands she held a little clay figurine of (she was pretty sure) an animal, only she couldn’t tell what animal it was supposed to be. It was just big enough to fit in her palm, and seemed to be some kind of cow-goat-giraffe hybrid. It had a neck that was just a bit too long, short stubby little legs that came to strangely sharp points, what appeared to be a cat’s tail, and a lump of clay that was surely supposed to be designed into some kind of face, but Alex couldn’t for the life of her see it as much more than a smushed in thumb with eye holes that was smiling at her in a comically goofy way. The worst part was the little cow-giraffe’s dorky smile kind of looked like Magnus if she squinted. She had to put the figure down in the tissue so she didn’t break it as she nearly collapsed on the floor. 

“Mag- Magnus. Please tell me-haha! T-tell me what the Helheim im looking at.”

Magnus was moping on the other side of the door, a serious pout on his face. “… you really can’t tell…?”

“Oh gods. Hahah! Go- go back to your room. Hah! Oh my gods… I’ll see you in an hour. I’m giving you the biggest goddamn kiss when it’s time.” 

Alex couldn’t stop the laughs still slipping out of her lips as she picked up and cradled the little clay figurine in her hands like it was some kind of treasure. By the sound of Magnus’ excited little trot back to his side of the hall, it seemed like they were both in much better spirits. 

————

[Song accompaniment: Electric Love by BØRNS]

It took the wedding party an hour to deal with the pest control issue, which fortunately meant they were done right on time to walk the aisle. 

Unfortunately, that also meant that Mallory was walking the aisle with some kind of ash from an explosion on the left side of her skirt, and blitzen had to do a last minute patch of hearthstone’s sleeve, which had ripped in the scuffle with the worms. The state of them had confused Magnus, but they had all insisted it didn’t matter, and hurried into their places. 

They’d definitely looked worse. At least Halfborn was still wearing his shirt.

As the sun set over the horizon, settling a halo of golden hour glow over their reception venue, the ceremony began. 

The first down the aisle was the officiant, Jack. 

It was really a good thing that most people in attendance could see through the mist, because for the few that couldn’t, he couldn’t imagine what display was replacing a self-levitating talking sword. They had briefly considered using someone else for this role, but upon being rejected, Jack had offered to MC via acapella renditions of all their favorite songs for the whole evening, and had swiftly been returned the offer of officiating. He floated quite impressively to the end of the aisle, then spun to face the crowd in a pretty show-offey flourish. Magnus figured he was probably smiling. 

Up next were the boys. Tj walked the Aisle first, proudly taking his position at the side of the groom with a way too excited look on his face. He was followed swiftly by Halfborn, but only after Mallory had cursed him out in Gaelic and taken the mead horn from his hand that he’d been trying to walk down with. 

After that it was Magnus’ turn. Gods he was terrified. Alex wasn’t even up there yet and he was terrified!

He took a deep breath, straightening his jacket and trying to settle his stomach as Blitzen and Hearthstone came up on either side of him. 

Blitzen adjusted his own jacket, giving him a wink and a confident smile. “We got you, kid. No worries.”

Hearthstone nodded on his other side, signing ‘right beside you.’ 

Arms interlocked in what had to be a cheesy way, they made their way down the aisle together. Magnus was glad for the handhold, because when he started making eye contact with people, he felt like his knees might give out. He spotted Annabeth and Percy in the crowd, his cousin waving and smiling sweetly at him. Percy looked as cool and calm as ever. How did he do that all the time?

The walk to the altar felt like it took forever. By the time they stopped, Magnus wondered if they’d missed the ceremony altogether. 

“Welcome señor! Now that the groom has arrived, it’s time for the ladies~.” 

The crowd mercifully turned their attention away from Magnus. Blitzen and Hearthstone stayed beside him, holding his hands and giving him reassuring squeezes as they watched the entrance. 

Mallory came first. She’d made a good fuss about it earlier in the day, but she seemed happy now to be filling the role of flower girl. Most of her argument had been they hadn’t needed a flower girl, and if Samirah wanted one so bad how come she didn’t throw the flower then, and of course Alex had enjoyed the little spat and not helped settle it at all by saying she didn’t care either way. In the end, Mallory had agreed to be the “best damn cailín bláthanna anyone had ever seen”, and Magnus had to admit she was doing pretty well. Although it should be said there wasn’t much to throwing flower petals. 

When Mallory joined them on the altar, Jack's blade seemed to brighten up a little more, his runes glowing a soft pink as he spoke again. “Señors and señioritas, would you please join me and rise for the presentation of Alex Fierro?”

Eager smiles filled the faces as the door to the top patio of the Chase Mansion opened, and Samirah and Alex stepped out into the light of the setting sun. 

And oh, gods, did Magnus nearly fall over. 

Alex was dressed in a suit that hugged her body in every proper way. It wasn’t like his, it was… hard to describe. The base color wasn’t too far off the green of his own suit, but it was accented with beautiful shades of pink lining some of the seams and peeking out between the folds of the suit around the neck. Where Magnus's suit had sharp, smart lines that gave him an air of masculinity, Alex’s outfit was soft curves and gentle slopes. The way it moved made it seem like Alex was switching genders with every step. Like she was glowing with the sunset and becoming one with the wind. Like the breeze tossing his hair to the side might have also subtly changed the shape of his nose. Trailing behind him and draping off the back of the coat was a long, elegant train. It was a gradient pink to white, and glittered with the adornment of several hundred tiny crystals. Each one of them glittered a different color depending on the way the light hit them, making the whole thing seem to glitter in the setting sun. It seemed to be attached to the suit jacket in several places, at the shoulders, the waist… When Alex turned to pull the train from the stairs, her silhouette was so completely feminine. The suit seemed to shift fully into a dress, and the dress seemed to curve around her body perfectly. When the train was free and Alex faced front again, the suit came back into view, and the heavy stare that Alex leveled at him combined with the full frontal focus of the suit snapped him straight in the opposite direction so hard he almost fell into Blitzen. 

For the first time, his sense of Alex’s gender was a mystery.

Blitzen steadied him, nodding appreciatively. “I know, Magnus.” He patted his pseudo-son on the back, leaving the ‘I outdid myself’ silent. 

Alex took Samirah’s arm as the door closed behind them, and the pair of them made their way towards the altar. With every step, Magnus swore he could see Alex shift and change. He was fluid, harmonious, breathtakingly beautiful. As Alex got closer he could see the little bits of makeup she’d put on, and as he came up to the altar, Magnus said a rushed prayer to his dad that he wouldn’t fall over when Blitzen and Hearthstone let him go. 

Samirah gave Alex a kiss on the cheek, whispering something in her ear and left to take her spot on the Altar. 

Blitzen stepped up to Alex first, somewhat awkwardly reaching out to take her hand and shake it. “Alright, Alex. We’re handing him off. It’s a big responsibility.”

If Alex was nervous, it didn’t show. His expression was confident and maybe a little cocky as he shook Blitzen’s hand. “Yeah, I know.” 

“You take care of him properly.”

“I will.”

“Cause if you don’t, you know we can-“

Hearthstone cleared his throat, raising one thin brow when Blitzen turned to him with a scowl. The attending audience laughed politely. “Alright, alright. I get it.” 

Hearthstone stepped down to join him, smiling and nodding once before he signed. ‘We are happy to be here. Happy for both of you.’ He turned to Magnus when he signed ‘both’. He reached out his hand towards Alex, who placed her hand in his. He guided Alex up to the altar, then carefully placed his hand in Magnus’ hand, giving them both a little squeeze before he let go. 

Magnus wasn’t sure, but he thought he might have seen hearthstone brush away a tear when he and blitz went to sit down. 

“Aaaalrighty then, let’s get to it!” Jack said happily, swaying excitedly back and forth as he started in on the ceremony. Since Jack was a minister (for some reason) ordained a long time ago, his ceremony didn’t deviate too far from the one they had attended (and ruined?) before. They each shared a drink out of the same cup of wine, Jack floated sideways and impressively delivered a proper blessing on their rings while using himself as the tool of blessing, and there even seem to be a fairly targeted break in the clouds when they took turns slipping the rings on, filled with the warmth of summer. 

“Now that someone is done showing off ,” Jack said with a sour tone as their magical halo of ring-exchanging light dimmed and the sun finally began to dip all the way down. He muttered something that made his runes glow just barely, then brightened up as he floated a little higher again. “Magnus, you may say your vows to your beloved~.”

“Right. Cool.” Magnus smiled, still holding onto Alex’s hand where Hearthstone had joined them. Should he go for the paper with just one hand? Was it okay to let go? Probably not. Best to keep holding on, right? He didn’t want to let Alex go anyways. With one hand, he dug into his pocket for the folded up paper with his vows. Then, still holding his hand, he did his best to unfold them against his leg with his one free hand, smoothing it out clumsily and nearly dropping it. 

Could Alex have let him go and helped him out? Absolutely. Was he enjoying this display of genuine awkward lovable idiocy too much to help? Absolutely. 

As he watched Magnus finally get a hold of the situation (and the paper), he couldn’t help the snort of laughter that broke out of him. He waved off Magnus’ confused look with his free hand, gesturing for him to read his vows as the crowd giggled with him. 

Was he ever going to let go of Magnus’ hand?

Absolutely not. 

“Okay, got it.” Magnus smiled sheepishly, hoping the hand Alex was holding wasn’t too clammy. He gave her an apologetic smile as he cleared his throat and glanced at the paper. 

“Alex,” the name came out a little awkward, but he smiled through it. “Ever since you came to Valhalla and garroted my head off, I was intrigued by you.” He glanced up to see if Alex was still there, then back down at the paper. 

Yep, still there. 

“You were mysterious and mesmerizing, but I wanted to know more. I wanted to know you.” The words were coming easier now, but Magnus still felt like if he looked up he might start remembering how he’d felt a few hours before, and he just really didn’t need the thought of bad falafel at this exact moment. “And… through these years we’ve been together, as I’ve come to know you…” he looked up. It mattered this time. He had to look up, and when he met Alex’s eyes, he felt like he might not even need the paper anymore. 

Still held on to it though, just in case. 

“I think I’ve finally found what I’m looking for.” He smiled, the tension leaving him. For a minute, he felt like maybe they weren’t standing on a stage in front of a bunch of people. Maybe they were somewhere alone, maybe he was just telling Alex these things in private. They were sitting at a campfire, huddled together, things were undefined but Magnus knew what he knew, what he felt, and what he needed to say. “The piece of you that makes me vow to love you and stay by your side forever. And that piece is you, Alex. Who you really are. With all your compassion, courageousness, and with everything you’ve been through, you make me admire you more every day.” He smiled, squeezing the hand he still hadn’t let go of. “I love every part of you, Alex. And I want to stay with you forever, past ragnarok.”

There was a little cheer around the crowd, as well as what seemed like some sniffling sounds emanating from Jack’s blue glowing runestones. “Couldn’t have said it better myself señor.”

Magnus glanced towards Hearth and Blitz, both of whom gave him a thumbs up. Tj patted him on the shoulder, whispering “Great job, Magnus. The hard part is over!” In his ear. 

Magnus smiled and nodded, still holding Alex’s hand like a lifeline as he shoved the paper into his pocket, missed, bent to pick it up, tried to shove it in again, missed again-

After watching him struggle, Alex sighed and shook his head, reaching out to take it. He mercifully did not release his hand, using one of his own to fold the sheet back up as the crowd laughed some more. 

“Here.” He leaned over, tucking it into Magnus’ pocket. “Try not to lose it.”

“Right.” He nodded, still grinning dumbly as Alex rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“Okay Señiorita, it is officially your turn to confess your undying love for Magnus.” Jack directed, floating a little closer to Alex. 

“Cool.” Alex nudged the sword back into place with an elbow. “Personal space, please.” For the first time since coming up to the altar she looked nervous. Magnus could tell, even if Alex didn’t want him to tell. It was reassuring, feeling the way Alex’s hand trembled slightly in his own, noticing that Alex was just as eager to hold on. Alex even reached out to take the other hand too, fully facing him.

“Wait, don’t you need to-“

“I memorized it.” Alex said evenly, shrugging. “I’ve got it.” Despite her cool demeanor, her hands were trembling a little, just like his. 

She took a breath, focusing both two-toned eyes completely on Magnus and doing her best not to think about how many people were staring directly at them. “Mags.” Her lips twitched into a smile, hands squeezing his. “Beantown. Maggie.” Their audience giggled. Alex dropped her shoulders a half inch, relaxing. “I can’t believe that we’re actually getting married. Honestly, you must be a saint.” She squeezed his hands again, her eyes flickering down to them instead of Mangnus’ stupid perfect sunny face. “I’m flawed and I’m well aware. I know I can be annoying and loud and too flashy…” she trailed off, still not meeting his eyes. He squeezed her hands back, drawing her attention. He was still smiling, but his brow was creased slightly, as if he was saying “what are you talking about, dummy?” He shook his head just slightly. 

Alex felt a rush of warmth. Maybe it was a little bit of that weird Frey magic. Maybe it was just Magnus. 

She met his eyes again, and all the tension went out of her. “But, in the end, you're my person. And I’m yours, too. And while I may be kinda mean sometimes, I do love you. So much.” She nodded, seeming satisfied with her speech. “So yeah, I do.”

Behind Magnus, Halfborn’s voice broke up the sniffling and “awe”s coming from the audience. “Is that it?” 

Mallory bent down and pulled off her shoe, shooting it across the altar and beaning Halfborn in the head. Magnus didn’t even notice. 

“Relax the smile, Maggie, your face is gonna get stuck.” Alex whispered, reaching up to pinch his cheek. 

Magnus nodded, blinking back tears. His smile didn’t waver. 

“If there are no other blessings to be offered, then I will call for the end of the ceremony.” Jack said, wiggling around behind the couple on the altar like he was looking for someone to stand up, then glancing up towards the sky. When no one moved and it didn’t seem like frey was going to descend from the clouds, he bobbed up and down a couple times, glowing a little brighter. “In that case, dudes and dudettes of the assembly, I am totally thrilled to pronounce these two souls bound for life. Or uh… until the end of the world. You may now- oh.”

Alex didn’t wait to be told. As soon as they were given permission, she took a fistful of that expensive suit and swung Magnus around, dipping him dramatically and pressing their lips together. 

Magnus wasn’t sure if he was dizzy with excitement or because of how fast Alex had spun him around. He figured that was going to happen a lot from now on. 

———-

[Song accompaniment: Paper Rings/New Romantics by Taylor Swift]

The after-ceremony celebration was wild beyond expectations. Actually, it was a miracle upon miracles that no cops were called in for a noise complaint. 

It had started off relatively reasonably, with a little bit of magical mead carried over from Valhalla and a few uninvited guests (not wedding crashers really, just friends of friends), and had quickly somersaulted into what was basically an out of control house party. 

At first they were just playing music on the roof deck. People were dancing and hanging out, and there were a few volunteer valkyries running for food and drink from Valhalla (courtesy of a new catering service offered by Odin. They had gotten a discount for trying it out.) Of course there was catering from Fadlan’s Falafel as well, managed by Amir personally. Any time magnus came anywhere near him he was offering the new groom a plate of falafel. For once he wondered if he might be able to get sick of it. When some other Enherji had spotted the running Valkyries asked about where they were going, the attendance list of the wedding had started growing, and people had started looking for interesting things to do on the lower floors. 

By midnight, from the roof deck to the front lawn, there was music, drinking, and all out revelry. Even those who had abstained from the alcohol seemed to be overtaken by the mood of the celebration. There was an impromptu karaoke room set up in the study, a bowling tournament using some of Randolph’s old statues occurring in the hallway on the second floor, and since the catered food didn’t seem to be satiating them anymore, people had started raiding the kitchen of the Chase space for some kind of cooking operation. When Magnus peeked into the kitchen, he saw a lot of things going into a blender that didn’t seem like they were meant to go together, followed by several large burly guys daring each other to chug a disgustingly thick concoction. 

There were no weapons allowed, since many of the guests were Enherji and couldn’t be trusted to mix partying with violence and not end up dead over it, but there were still stick sword fights in the hallways branching out into all out Guerilla warfare. As Magnus moved from room to room defending his new wife, he noticed some of the Einherjar teaching the kids from the Chase Space how to fight, and noticed some of them were pretty good fighters.

That probably wasn’t a great sign for the future conflicts they were going to be dealing with, but whatever. Tonight was a good night. He was married. He didn’t Puke in Alex’s mouth or fall off the stage or embarrass himself, and he even got to look cool in front of the homeless kids, which was great for his ego. 

And best of all, Alex was next to him all night. The two of them were practically glued together, and Magnus was over the moon about it. He barely needed a drink of mead to start feeling drunk and giddy. They went from room to room playing games, laughing, and generally causing a bit of chaos. At one point, the play-war happening separated into the living vs the Einherjar, and he and Percy had had a very impressive sword fight in the front yard. He’d been one horn of mead in at the time, and was pretty sure he shouldn’t have been able to beat him, but Percy had taken a somewhat dramatic dive into the river after a good strike, leaving Magnus standing stunned on the bank for a few seconds before everyone exploded in applause. Alex had given him an excited reward kiss and shouted something at Annabeth as she was towing her wet boyfriend out of the river. 

Annabeth didn’t seem upset, and Magnus was pretty sure he’d seen her smiling the whole time as she’d given Percy a kiss of his own. 

It had been a few years since he’d died, and even though he’d stopped counting, he was pretty sure he was over Valhalla’s legal drinking age, or at least that he had earned it saving the world once or twice. So, after his glorious victory, he’d had a couple more drinks, offered some fighting tips to his eager (and drunk) troops, then wandered off to find somewhere to hide with Alex. 

The two of them were hiding for a few hours. No one ever figured out where, or what they had been doing, and they were extremely tight lipped, if very smiley about it, when they came back out to the party. They made a stop in the karaoke office for Magnus to do a frankly impressive performance of Taylor Switf’s ‘Lover’ to a flustered Alex sitting in a chair. He was still singing it when they headed out of the room. 

Near the end of the night the two groups of hallway fighters had called for an orderly competition, and they’d settled on a tournament of sorts on the rooftop. The chairs had been pushed aside and a circle had been marked off in the center of the space. It seemed like they were playing a game of King of the Ring, taking turns pushing eachother out of the circle and cheering excitedly when someone won. 

When Alex and Magnus had wandered up, the competitors had arranged a sort of throne for the two newlyweds to spectate the ongoing competition from. It was just a couple of chairs pushed together with the flower arrangements from the ceremony next to them and a bunch of pillows, but Magnus did kind of feel like a king every time they cheered and raised their glasses towards him. 

Alex came half wobbling over after refilling a plate full of snacks. Tossing her plate down on her seat, she planted herself directly into her new Husband’s lap with a happy wiggle.

Huh. Husband. Weird. 

“Make room, mags.” She pushed his arms and legs around a little until she was comfortably sitting sideways on his lap with her feet over the armrest, then reached over to pull the plate of food into her lap. 

“Mags?” Magnus was grinning. He'd had something to drink since they came back out. It might have been spiked? He hadn’t asked. Everything seemed kind of warm and funny. He felt a little dizzy, but he wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or the smell of whatever Perfume Alex had put on. Alex seemed in a similar state. Maybe that’s why she wasn’t using the mean nicknames. Happily, he wrapped his arms around her waist and squeezed. 

“Hey, I’m eating!” She elbowed him, steadying her plate of cookies and chips. “Sit still or I’ll get a proper chair.”

“Okay.” He nodded like a dummy, then rested his head on her shoulder and closed his eyes. After a few minutes of shouting, a round of the competition finished, and the whole roof let out a cheer. Magnus smiled, squeezing Alex again. 

“‘Mhappy.” He muttered, his voice quiet and next to her ear. 

Alex paused, tilting her head towards him and raising a brow. “Better be.”

“Mhm.” He nodded a couple times, his chin bumping her shoulder. “Mmm.”

She offered him a piece of cookie, which he ate obediently. “Magnus.” Her voice was soft, a little slurred. 

“Mmm?” He turned to look at her, meeting her eyes and trying to focus. 

“I love you.”

The two of them sat there, staring at each other for a few moments. The air was warm, the sky lit up with stars. They were surrounded by a hundred happy people there to celebrate them. Still, the best moments of the day were ones like this. Ones where they felt completely alone, and understood each other completely without saying any words. Magnus’s big dummy smile spread across his lips, and for once, Alex’s drunk mind didn’t bother trying to hide her own in return. 

“Yeah.” Magnus nodded. “I know.”

————————————————————————

TAGS: @alex-fierro-pr-nightmare@mallory-keen-to-kill@thomas-jefferson-jr@halfbornhalfdead@lordofsummergodofrizz@deadmomclubattendee@imhotterthanallofyou@that-hijabi-loki-spawn@runest0nes@blitzen-imnot-that-short

[the-lark-ascending69]

I didnt love S3 but Steve peaked there. Robin became the final puzzle piece he needed to complete his development - thanks to the actors because the duffers clearly didn't know what to do with him. Steve spent the last three seasons chasing after a girl who would never be his soulmate, and when he accepted that, he tried to find someone else to love instead. He tried flirting with any girl whose attention he could hold for over 60 seconds, except for Robin - setting her apart already, though for the wrong reasons initially. She was originally meant to be Nancy's replacement as Steve's arm candy, it seems, but making her a lesbian at the last moment is really what saves S3 for me, not only because she's my baby, my favorite character and I adore her with my whole heart, but also because... the improvised straightbait turned out to work incredibly well at the time to cement the conclusion of Steve's arc - he was a piece of shit and lost Nancy to someone who was better for her (say what you want about Jonathan, but that's clearly the idea the writers had with him, regardless of the effectiveness of the execution). Steve couldn't get Nancy back, and really, he shouldn't be focusing on romance at all because that's just not what he needs to grow as a person. The people who truly challenge him, push him to be better and motivate him to grow are his platonic bonds - Dustin and Robin. He couldn't "fix" everything with Nancy (meaning that he couldn't go back to before everything changed, as if he hadn't messed up). Nancy may appreciate the change but she won't go back to him. Steve doesn't need to change for love - he needs to change for himself, in order to be a better person, period. And Nancy has no reason to stay and watch him grow, she has her own matters to attend to, and she doesn't have enough space in her life for Steve. So Steve finds new people, somewhere else, away from Nancy, and he grows thanks to them.

Robin being not only just his friend but also being completely and eternally unavailable to him works perfectly here. The audience believed, alongside Steve (and the Duffers lmfao) that what Steve needed was romantic love, but Robin proves him wrong. He gets over his ex-girlfriend and finds a sister instead.

And then Season 4 ruins that, for no reason and to no one's benefit. Steve regresses. The growth is undone, for the purpose of keeping Nancy in that eternal love triangle loop that seemed to have been solved two seasons ago. It's sad and disappointing and I'm hoping they don't revisit that in S5.

What I would've done instead would've been to let Steve finish his arc in S3. S4 Steve has a flat arc now. He learned all he had to learn. He's fine. Now, he's here to teach others what he's learned, and I think it would be very interesting if the person who learned from him the most turned out to be Nancy. Steve basically just discovered the power of friendship, and deep emotional connections and trust and how closeness to others makes you stronger. Gives you a purpose. He learned to love and care for others and now that's his strength. Have him tell her about how much he cares about Robin and Dustin. Show him bonding more with Lucas and Max. Contrast him with Nancy, who is isolated, who just lost another friend after leaving him alone, and is desperately trying to protect Max from Vecna. Maybe she's hesitant to become friends with Robin, or to rely on her and Steve to share the burden, or trust the kids to take care of themselves on some capacity. Nancy has become more and more isolated as Steve grows closee to other people.

Then Steve sacrifices himself in S5 to save either Robin or Dustin or both of them idk I think that would be the best conclusion to his arc. Passing on the torch to one of them. Maybe Robin becomes the new babysitter and protector. Maybe Dustin becomes the new hot boy at Hawkins High idk but I think an ending of this sort would fit. He doesn't even need to actually die, if he somehow survives it still works, just having a sacrifice scene (not played for laughs) would be a perfect way to conclude his growth and move on to inspire others to grow like others have done for him.

[optimisticstudentangel]

๋࣭ ⭑Let the kissing session begin ๋࣭ ⭑

Simeon x reader ( gender neutral)

Warning: intense kissing session, little suggestive 

A ton of makeup was strewn all over the room. It was scattered in all corners, wherever you looked, there were definitely a couple of your possessions. You never suspected that you had so many different palettes, lipsticks, concealers and so on.

Many of these items were gifted by Asmo. He knew a lot about the cosmetics industry, everything he chose for you, fit well on your skin and perfectly emphasized your advantages. It was a sin to refuse such generous gifts, so you always gratefully accepted them, even if you didn't really need this thing. But the moment has come to get rid of excess cosmetics, which you no longer use, so as not to take up extra space.

And you decided to choose the perfect place for sorting – Simeon's room. In fact, you just wanted to be in the same place with him while everyone was involved in their own affairs. Perhaps the presence of a loved one would give you motivation to finish the job as soon as possible, so that then both of you could cuddle next to each other.

- Are you done? – angel asked periodically. He was sitting at his desk, writing the new plot of his upcoming book. The angel did not immediately turn to you, apparently because he understood that your progress with throwing unnecessary cosmetics was very slow. But when he did direct his gaze in your direction, the angel only reminded you with a sweet smile not to be distracted. There was no condemnation in his tone, he just wanted you to be able to get the job done faster and take a break from the task.

Even though you tried to concentrate, after a while you quickly got bored. You started little by little, and then ended up using make up on yourself and fool around.

That's why you came up with an idea. To sort the lipsticks for today. And leave the other part of the cosmetics for the next day.

And of course this thought arose for a reason… You knew how to turn boring sorting of cosmetics into a more or less fun pastime. And you knew perfectly well who would help you with this. However, the angel himself most likely did not yet suspect that he would soon become your victim.

- Simeon, darling, are you going to write for a long time? Aren't you thinking of taking a short break? – you asked. The angel stopped writing down the flow of his thoughts and lifted the pen from his scribbled sheet.

- Hmm, maybe, - Simeon pulled his hands up and relaxed a little. After that movement, he turned to you and hurried to keep you company on his bed.

- That's what i need, - you thought to yourself. As soon as Simeon was comfortably settled on the bed, you attacked your boyfriend with the words: "Gotcha!". You knocked the angel down on a soft bed and sat on him, while holding both of the guy's hands in such a position that his hands were over his head.

The angel took his gaze away from you because of surprise and embarrassment. - MC! What are you doing?

- Shh! – you interrupted your boyfriend. "Simeon, please I need your help. Thanks to you, I'll finish sorting cosmetics faster. Be my personal test subject! This will make my task much easier for me."

The angel still hasn't recovered from the shock, he was just watching you. A second later, after Simeon digested what had happened, he finally agreed.

You smiled and thanked your beloved one. With your free hand, you reached for the first lipstick you saw. Removing the lipstick cap with your finger, you began to paint your lips with it. All this time, Simeon was closely following your every smooth movement, as if he was under hypnosis.

- Well... let's get started! – you approached the angel's face and paused for a second to scan his face before kissing him. With every second his cheeks turned pink, you realized that it was becoming difficult for you to restrain yourself.

- What are you waiting for? Or are you against your idea, are you really embarrassed? Simeon said with a certain arrogance. Oh, he didn't know who he was messing with.

You took it as a sign that the angel can not be spared. To begin with, your lips gently touched Simeon's lips. He opened his mouth slightly, giving you the opportunity to explore his mouth. You wanted to set a slow pace so that you could enjoy the sweet taste of an angel for as long as possible. However, Simeon had other plans, even though he was under you, the angel wanted to show that he could also keep the situation under his control. Therefore, realizing that you are still lingering, he took advantage of the moment and stuck his tongue in, deepening your kiss. Then you were caught off guard, and you moaned in surprise into his mouth.

How impatient he is. It's like he's testing your patience.

You pulled away from him, but your face was still close to him. Simeon was smiling contentedly, having received what he wanted. You decided to change tactics and started kissing anything but his lips. Soon his skin turned a shade of lipstick. There were a lot of traces of your lips on him and if he had to leave urgently because someone called him, it would be hard to hide the fact that you had a hot kissing session.

Unfortunately, for Simeon, he didn't have the same privileges that would give him the opportunity to return your kisses. 

- Are you sorry? – you asked jokingly. To which the angel also answered positively, laughing. His laughter was contagious, and while you were distracted, Simeon changed your position, you were still on him, but you were already in a sitting position. Because of this, you were on the same level, which was a plus for the angel, but not for you.

- So, what were we talking about? Simeon asked innocently, but you understood that there was something else behind that tone. He could knock you down at any moment and start teasing you as revenge. Therefore, in order not to give an unnecessary reason to anger the angel, you decided to act cunningly and clung to him. You yourself pulled the guy closer, to which he rather mumbled into your mouth.

"Simeon, I love you so much," you said languidly. After a second, you added, "We definitely have to put this lipstick aside, it looks good on your skin."

- Hahaha, especially if you apply this lipstick with your kisses. Hmmm… How about trying the rest of the lipsticks, they should also be given a chance, don't you think? Simeon suggested. "I must say that I am glad that there are so many of them here. That means we're going to be basking in each other's kisses for a long time, right?"

You grinned and nodded to the angel, reaching for another lipstick…

[gothamslostboy]

Hi!! Can you do Jerome x transmale!reader where they have a height gap in between each other (ex. 4'10 - 6'2 ft)

JEROME W/ A SHORT TRANSMALE READER

A/N: thanks for the request anon and sorry it’s taken literal months. I didn’t know if you meant ur taller or he is so lmk if you want the short Jerome version

—————————————���————

Oh he’s such an asshole

Purposely puts things on shelves he himself can barely reach bc he knows it pisses you off

Also one of those ppl that uses shorter ppl as armrests, put like sticks you in his armpit

If anyone makes fun of your height though? Game over

He knows it’s something your insecure about, and he makes it clear he’s messing around

He cut like 3 inches out of one dude’s legs bc he called you short stack

Jerome asks you for help causing mayhem all the time

Mostly fitting into small spaces and planting bombs or stealing things

Or when he loses something under a desk

He low key makes it very obvious he likes towering over you

He’s not going to hurt you more than you consent too, but likes feeling like he could if this ends badly

If you’re really dysphoric about your height, he steals you lifts or platform shoes

Whichever one you’d like more

OOO ANOTHER THING

he’s obsessed with carrying you

Not in like a cute way though

He picks you up like a ladder:

Just sneaks up on you and keeps walking

You both gaslight anyone who sees this into thinking it’s a perfectly normal thing a tall person does

Forces convinces workers at theme parks or waterparks to let you on the rides with a height limit you don’t qualify for

Then gets pissed and kills them if anything goes wrong (bc PSA: height limits are there to keeps you safe)

Don’t worry

You get to fuck with him all the time too

When he goes to far with his jokes you hide his journal in places he never thinks to use bc he’s too tall normally (bottom cabinets, bottom desk drawers, or anywhere else that is naturally below his eye level)

It’s also very easy to sneak up on him, especially if he’s already doing something

And once he’s comfortable in his own home? Mother fucker jumps like 3ft when surprised

You had to take a break from scaring him for a bit bc he almost stabbed you

That’s also when you learned he carried switches blades around to play with

Despite your heights, he likes being the little spoon

Maybe it’s his mommy issues but he needs to be held like a little baby

Also the one time he was big spoon he rolled over and crushed you

——— TAGS ———

@crustyboypix @britany1997 @g4ywastaken @writhingcreature

[schneiderenjoyer]

The Wheel & The Rock

Time for another theory crafting and discussion on the world of reverse 1999! This time, I want to tackle something that's brewing up more and more as the story goes on.

That's The Wheel's connection to the Storm and possibly one of many catalysts to figuring out how it works.

There'll be discussions about what Chapter 5 has revealed to us, so keep that in mind. This topic is extremely long, so please take your time to read!

Let's start with The Wheel itself and what we know so far and what new information Chapter 5 brought to the table.

The Wheel is something located within the suitcase, specifically in the only place that never seems to change its form no matter how much the Wilderness shifts its appearance; The Lake.

We aren't given too much of a description about this lake, but we can assume it's exactly the body of water this wheel is submerged in, surrounded by fog. And it seems that this "Storm" lake holds none of the properties left to "sift" out anyone. Unless it's being counter balanced by the fog surrounding it.

A fog that apparently has a hallucinogenic ability like that of Apeiron's inner cave of secrets.

While Vertin is immune to the fog in her suitcase.

She's not to the fog of Apeiron and required a means to snap out of it.

Which brings up the conclusion that Vertin ends up thinking about, but with something missing about it.

Someone already owns the cave, therefore controls that rock. And it bends to their will only while others are repelled through means of illusions and inevitably,

Fall into a trap.

This could explain how Vertin is immune to the wheel's fog. Because she's the owner of the suitcase, thus the owner of the wheel and the fog surrounding it. And how the wheel even exists could also be solve by entertaining a certain idea.

The space in the suitcase is Vertin's arcane skill.

We're often told that Vertin's not the best at arcanum, but she's still able to use it. Meaning, at some point in her time as the Timekeeper, she's able to unlock her arcane skill. And to have her ability to be purely a support spell that creates a safe space than a combative attack fits her perfectly. If you consider it this way, everything inside that space reflects her personality and being. It can explain how they can expand the space for more rooms for her team, how the wilderness bends and shifts differently to her will. It's acknowledge in a Wilderness dialogue with Door:

If many things within the suitcase is reflected by who Vertin is, then it's possible that it has also reflected her ability to be immune to the Storm. That it represents as a reflection of her soul. Amidst all the surroundings at constant change, at her core, the wheel, is a never changing monument resistant to the Storm.

So that means another question has popped up. Who made the rock? It could be assumed that its place of origin is through the existence by someone or something. After all, just like the Manus masks, it's possible to create an item that can repel the effects of the Storm.

Which leads me to pitch this idea:

It's made by someone in Apeiron thousands of years ago. I don't see it a possibility of the rock being a new thing to the people of the island, it's far too ancient to be recent. But this "model" 37's mother has made could possibly not just mean their theorem on calculating the Storm, but also the ability of this rock to show the island's people its "truth".

Why do I consider that?

Because Vertin's wheel has its own ability aside from creating that fog that repels the Storm:

Its ability to summon arcanists.

I'll talk about it in a different post since this is getting way too long. Look forward to me going crazy conspiracy theorist on unilogs and its implications!

[dialovers-translations]

Diabolik Lovers CHAOS LINEAGE ー Violet Prologue

ー The scene starts inside the Church

Laito: Gotcha, Eve.

Yui: Kyah...!

( He’s embracing me...! )

Kou: Score! Way to go, Laito-kun!

Reiji: Kuh! So I was bested. I lost Eve to another House...

Ayato: You better not think it’ll be that easy!

*CLANG*

Kou: I won’t let you get in the way. We’ll be taking Eve after all!

*CLANG*

Ayato: Damnit!

Kou: Come on, Laito-kun! Now’s your chance!

Laito: No need to remind me. Well then, Eve. Allow me to show you the way to our manor.

ー Reiji draws his sword once more

Reiji: Not so fast?

Kou: Aah, geez! You guys don’t know when to give up!

Ayato: Of course! We’re not lettin’ you have her!

Yui: ( It turned into a stare-off...All of them are standing perfectly still, awaiting the others’ next move. )

( The atmosphere is tense. I’m afraid I might get cut to shreds the second they start moving... )

ー They hear approaching footsteps

???: What are you doing?

Yui: ...!

Ayato: Wha...!? Who showed up this time!?

Long-haired man: Laito, Kou, how long are you going to keep me waiting?

Laito: What’s this? You didn’t need to bother coming all the way here, Carla.

Yui: ( Carla...san...? This person’s incredibly intimidating... )

Carla: I came to check up on you since you were taking an awful long time to get back. 

Laito: Oh come on, don’t put it like that. We’re trying our very hardest, you see.

Kou: Ahーah. I thought the two of us would be able to pull it off by ourselves...However, it’s clear who has the most power on their side now.

Laito: Exactly. Even if Ayato and Reiji were to team up, they’d still have no chance at winning. 

Ayato: What did you just say!? I could take you bastards on by myseーー

Carla: Watch your words. 

Ayato: Guh...

Yui: ( Things are even more on edge than before.  If I were to go against these people... )

( He has such an intimidating aura...I can’t believe such a person exists... )

Reiji: Perhaps I underestimated the situation somewhat. I should have expected that you would show up sooner or later.

I have to agree that it does not seem very wise to fight right here, right now.

Carla: You are quick to understand.

ー Carla approaches Yui

Yui: ( He looked my way...My breath’s being taken away... )

Carla: Well then, come with me. 

Yui: T-That’s easy for you to say...Besides, who exactly are youーー

Carla: I never asked for your opinion. This is fate which nobody can go against. 

Yui: ( Powerful words and a piercing gaze... ) 

...O-Okay. I shall...come with you guys...

Carla: Hmph. You cannot even fight back. This proves that I am fit to become the Supreme Overlord.

It would be rather troublesome to have you trying anything funny on the way there. So I shall have you take a nap for a while. 

Yui: Eh...?

ー He knocks her unconscious

*Thud* 

Yui: Uu...!

( My consciousness is fading... ) 

*THUD*

*TIMESKIP*

ー The scene shifts to the inside of the dungeon

Yui: Nn, nnh...

( Huh...? Where am I...? )

( These are iron bars...Am I inside a prison cell, perhaps!? )

( I was knocked out cold and locked up afterwards? )

What did I do to deserve this...?

( Oh no, I suddenly grew weak-hearted... Especially since I don’t seem to remember anything. )

( The only thing I’m certain about is that my name is ‘Eve’. I don’t know anything else. )

( Whenever I try to recall the past, my memory becomes foggy... )

( What should I do now? )

( No, I have to calm down. )

( Anyway, I’m positive it was those people who took me away. In which case, if I can talk to them at least... )

ー People approach her cell

Yui: ( ...Somebody’s coming? A group of people, it seems... )

ー The door opens

Carla: Seems like you have awoken. 

Yui: Ugh...

( T-This guy, he’s the one who knocked me unconscious... )

Kou: Aha! She’s terrified. 

Man with a scar on his face: Sorry...for locking you up in such a narrow space...But please don’t hold it against us...

You simply must keep anything precious...carefully locked away after all...

Laito: To be honest, I wouldn’t have minded tying you up with ropes or chains either? Nfu~ 

Yui: ( It’s not just the people I met at the Church. There are two more people. Who exactly are these guys....? )

Angry-looking man: So this is the Eve who was asleep at the Church? She’s completely different from what I imagined. 

Laito: What’s that, Subaru-kun~? I wonder what kind of fantasies have been running wild inside your mind?

Subaru: Aah? Leave me alone! Do you want me to fuckin’ destroy you? 

Yui: E-Excuse me...Who are you people...?

Carla: I am Carla. I am the oldest of this family, of the Violet House.

Yui: The eldest brother? Could it be that you’re all siblings?

Kou: Yupー Don’t worry, we’re well aware that we don’t look alike at all.

Yui: ( So they’re self-aware...It’s true that they look completely different... )

Uhm, why did you bring me here?

Carla: Because you are Eve, obviously. So we can abuse your power and I can rise as the Supreme Overlord of this World.

Yui: Supreme Overlord...? 

Man with a scar on his face: Eve...You don’t know what a Supreme Overlord is either...

I’m Azusa...The second oldest of this house...

I want Carla to become the Supreme Overlord...That’s why...I hope you will work with us...

Kou: Yup, exactly! Because Carla is the most fitting for the title.

Ah, I’m Kou! The third son, right in the middle!

I’m basically the ‘idol’ of the family. Nice to meet you~

Laito: Oh? Are we introducing ourselves now? I’m the fourth son, Laito.

I’d love to get to know you better. In various ways...Do you understand? 

Yui: N-Nice to meet you...

( They’re just casually talking to me. All while I’m still locked behind bars... )

Laito: That being said, I guess that leaves our baby brother’s self-introduction?

Subaru: Che. ...I’m Subaru.

Kou: Eh? That’s it?

Subaru: Shut up! I don’t have anything else to tell her.

Azusa: Subaru never changes, does he...?

Yui: ( I want to ask why they’ve locked me up, but I can’t find the right timing to do so. )

( Besides, this should be my first time meeting these people, so why does something feel off...? )

Monologue

The majestic Carla-san,

and his loyal follower Azusa-kun.

While Kou-san and Laito-san appear to be on good terms with each other,

the youngest son Subaru-kun,

seems to be keeping his distance from the others somewhat.

I got a pretty good feel of each of their personalities. 

...However, inside my heart, something seemed terribly off. 

There is something strange about this. 

Yes, it isn’t quite right. I mean, in realityーー

Yui: ...!

( It’s no use...My head starts to hurt if I try to put any more thought into it... )

Azusa: Eve, what’s wrong? Are you in pain...?

Yui: I-I’m fine...It’s just that I can’t seem to recover my memories...

I can’t remember anything except my name being Eve...

Carla: So you’ve forgotten about the Supreme Overlord as well...huh?

Yui: Eh...?

ー Carla approaches her

*Rustle* 

Yui: Kyah!?

( He’s gripping onto my arm so tightly...I-It hurts... )

Carla: You will not gain anything from keeping it a secret from us. Tell me everything you know about the Supreme Overlord.

If you obey me, I promise that I shall treat you with care, even if you are nothing but a pawn.

Yui: I’m sorry...I truly don’t know...!

Carla: ...So you still won’t fess up? Seems like you will not speak up unless you are taught a lesson. 

Yui: Eek...!? 

( He bit me!? Eh? But, hold up one second...! )

F-Fangs...!? 

Kou: Huh? You had no idea that we’re Vampires? 

Yui: Vampires!? You mean, those Demons who suck blood...?

Subaru: What else?

Yui: No way...Then, all of you...

Azusa: We’re all Vampires...It’s not just us either.

Ayato-san and Reiji-san too, the other people living at the other Houses, all of them as well...

Yui: W-What about the other humans? The ones besides me...!

Laito: The others, you ask? It’s just us thirteen Vampires and you living here, Eve-chan. You even forgot such a basic fact?

Yui: Eh? N-No way...

( We’re the only ones here? It feels like my head is splitting in two... )

( Aah...But now that he mentions it, it’s true. there’s nobody else but us. )

( It only makes sense. Perhaps I was just a little confused due to losing my memories. )

Carla: ...I see. 

*Rustle rustle*

Yui: ( Ah, he let go of my arm... )

Carla: It does not appear to me that you are lying. It would seem that you are truly suffering from amnesia.

Once Eve is within your grasp, the path to becoming the Supreme Overlord will open up...However, it seems like it will not be that easy. 

Yui: E-Excuse me...What exactly is this ‘Supreme Overlord’ you are speaking of? 

Carla: The Supreme Overlord is the one who reigns over everything and everyone. A unique individual who was chosen for said role.

And you are the key to becoming the Supreme Overlord.

Yui: Me...?

Subaru: It’s some bullshit legend. The story of Eve, which everyone knows.

It’s said that if you want to become the Supreme Overlord, you’ve gotta make Eve - who sleeps at the Church - yours. 

However, we were never able to set foot inside the Church ‘cause of some mysterious power. But the other day, this spell was suddenly broken. 

Laito: If the legend is true, the Sleeping Beauty Eve-chan should be at the Church~

Subaru: That’s why the others all crowded together there. ...Bullshit.

Yui: ( I am necessary for someone to become the Supreme Overlord...These people kidnapped me because they believe said legend to be true... )

Azusa: Listen, Eve...

Us thirteen Vampires are divided amongst three Houses each consisting of a different family.

This is one of those, the ‘Violet House’.

The other houses each have four Vampires each, but there’s five of us...We have one extra sibling...

Yui: I-I see.

Azusa: Yeah, so...It doesn’t matter that we have one more person living at this house now...Just make yourself at home, okay?

I’m sure the others will try to come and claim you as well...

Kou: As if we’d ever let them. I mean, it will be Carla-kun who becomes the Supreme Overlord after all.

Laito: But we can have a little sip of whatever’s left over as well, right? She seems scrumptious after all!

Yui: ...!

Carla: ...Laito.

Laito: Oh geez, don’t glare at me like that! I’m obviously just joking!

Subaru: So? What are we gonna do now? If this chick doesn’t know anythin’ either, we’ve hit a wall.

Carla: Even if we cannot gain any new information right now, we can simply take our time to look into it.

As long as Eve is within our possession, the other Houses should not be able to get a lead on us.

Kou: No need to worry as long as we keep her locked up in here!

Yui: Eh!? Y-You won’t let me out?

Kou: Why do you think we put you in here in the first place? So you can’t escape, and to ensure that the guys from the other houses can’t steal you away.

Yui: ( I-I wouldn’t run though... )

Subaru: Oi, who’s gonna look after her if we’re gonna leave her in here?

Laito: Aah, good question. She’d need to be supervised as well. Should we put someone in charge of that?

Yui: ( No way. They won’t just lock me up, but supervise me as well...? )

Azusa: ...Hey, in that case, let’s have Eve choose.

Yui: Eh?

Azusa: I believe it should be someone...she wouldn’t mind spending time with.

Yui: ( Someone I’d want to spend time with...As if I’d ever want a Vampire by my side. )

( ...Huh? No, but for some reason, this one guy has caught my attention this whole time... )

Carla: Very well. You can choose the person who shall be in charge of looking after and supervising you. 

I shall give you time until tomorrow. Make sure you have an answer ready by then.

Yui: W-wait, please! You’re kind of catching me off guard with this...

Carla: Do not disobey me. All you need to do is listen to me.

Yui ーー !

( My body’s frozen. I can’t seem to defy him no matter what... )

O-Okay...I understand...I shall choose someone to watch over me...

Kou: I guess that’s everything for today? Let’s go back upstairs, guys.

Subaru:  We’re finally done?

Laito: Hey, Subaru-kun. Want to play a game of chess? We can use the board in the living room.

Subaru: Not a chance. We don’t even have enough pieces to play the game...

Laito: Just kidding~ Let’s kill time some other way then.

Kou: See you~ I know your cell’s narrow and barren, but we’ll make sure to provide you with food at least.

Carla: Humans are so inconvenient with how you have to feed them.

Azusa: See you later...Eve...

ー All of them leave

Yui: ( What now? I can’t believe I’ve been kidnapped and imprisoned by Vampires... )

( Still, I wonder why it feels like this isn’t the first time that this has happened...? )

Anyway, I should call it a day...I have to get some rest...

*TIMESKIP*

Yui: Pwaah...I managed to get more sleep than I thought...

( I wonder what kind of person I am to be able to sleep soundly inside a prison cell...? I have no clue since I can’t remember. )

*Thud* 

Yui: ( Ah, the door opened... )

Kou: Good morning, Eve! Were you able to sleep well last night?

Laito: Of course not. This isn’t the sort of place where a girl would be able to sleep comfortably. 

Yui: ( Uu...I can’t say that I slept soundly. )

Azusa: Good morning, Eve...

Subaru: Hmph...

Carla: Well then, time has come. I want to hear from your mouth who you have chosen as your caretaker. 

Yui: ( The one person I will spend time with from here on out. I have already come up with my answer. )

Yes. Iーー

[LAITO] [SUBARU] [KOU] [AZUSA] [CARLA]