#i know plenty of people who were in similar situations and they all seem to think its a cult also

[gorps]

Idk how many of you know about tenacious unicorn ranch, but I'm like 99% sure it's being run like a cult.

Nobody in the area really knows they're there despite what they claim. They run constant armed patrols despite there never being any credible threats against them. It just seems like a way to make everyone there paranoid.

The thread this tweet came from contained the only evidence that anyone has ever trespassed on their property.

This tweet below heavily implied that they rescued someone from a hostile environment, but instead they just picked someone up from a bar.

The person who runs all the accounts also "owns" a significant number of the people there as a BDSM dynamic. Which in of itself I have no issues with; people can be into things. The issue is of course that the whole place is more or less designed to make people paranoid of the outside world and deliberately isolates them from everyone else.

and that, combined with a power dynamic like that, means that it's really easy for some poor 18 year old freshly out and without any support to end up stuck there with no way out, no income, and no housing beyond a near-cult ran farm in the middle of nowhere, Colorado

[xo100]

Airport - LN4

*:･ﾟ Summary: Lando Norris offers a woman, who missed her flight, a ride on his private jet to Monaco. They bond over light conversation and flirting, leaving with the possibility of seeing each other again.

*:･ﾟ Word count: 1323

୨ৎ

The race weekend had been long, grueling, and filled with adrenaline. Lando Norris was ready to head back to Monaco, to the comfort of his own home where the sound of engines could be swapped for the quiet of the Mediterranean breeze. As he made his way through the airport, sunglasses perched on his nose and his cap pulled low, he weaved his way through the flow of people without drawing too much attention to himself.

It wasn’t until he neared the private terminal that he noticed something out of the ordinary: a young woman standing near the gate of a commercial flight to Monaco, her expression a mix of frustration and panic. Lando slowed his steps, curiosity piqued. She stood there, gazing hopelessly at the closed gate, gripping her passport tightly. Her bags were tossed haphazardly by her feet as though she’d raced through the airport only to fall seconds short of making it to her flight.

The sharpness of disappointment etched on her face was all too familiar. He’d been in similar situations before, dashing through airports, missing flights by mere moments. Only, she didn’t seem to have the luxury of a private jet waiting just down the hall like he did.

Lando hesitated. He didn’t know her story, but something about the way she stood there, looking so defeated, tugged at him. He glanced at his watch. His jet was leaving soon, but he still had time. And, well, maybe this wouldn’t be the worst idea. What was the harm in offering a bit of help?

He pulled his cap down a little further and crossed the distance between them, moving casually as though he were just another traveler making his way to his flight.

“Missed your flight?” he asked, his voice light but laced with concern.

She turned to look at him, startled at first, then quickly took him in—cap, sunglasses, and all. Recognition flickered in her eyes, but it wasn’t overwhelming. Just a flicker.

“Yeah,” she breathed out with a weak chuckle. “By about three minutes. They wouldn’t let me through even though the plane is still sitting there.”

“That’s tough,” Lando said, giving her a sympathetic smile. “Where you heading?”

“Monaco,” she said with a shrug, though it seemed like a more resigned gesture. “Guess I’ll have to wait for the next one.”

Lando nodded, glancing around the terminal. The airport was buzzing with the usual chaos, and he could see the stress rolling off her shoulders. He thought for a second, then made a split decision. A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

“I’m heading there too,” he said, slipping his hands into his pockets. “I’ve got a private jet leaving soon. If you want, you can take the flight with me.”

Her eyebrows shot up, and her lips parted slightly, a mixture of surprise and hesitation crossing her features.

“A private jet?” she asked, a little skeptical. “Isn’t that...a bit much?”

Lando laughed softly. “Maybe, but I’ve got plenty of room. Plus, you look like you could use a break from airport stress. I promise it’s less chaotic than commercial flights.”

She blinked, clearly processing his offer. The idea of getting onto a private jet with a guy she just met—even if he was Lando Norris—probably wasn’t something she had expected when she woke up that morning.

“That’s...really kind of you,” she said after a moment, her voice soft. “But I couldn’t—“

“Sure you can,” he interrupted, his tone teasing but warm. “Think of it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You miss your flight, and instead of waiting around, you get to fly in style. How often does that happen?”

She laughed at that, the tension in her shoulders easing slightly. “When you put it like that…”

Lando grinned, taking her hesitation as a positive sign. “C’mon, what’s the worst that could happen? You get to Monaco an hour earlier, and we both get some company for the flight. No need to sit around waiting for the next one.”

She looked at him again, weighing her options. He could see the internal debate playing out in her eyes—logic versus the sheer spontaneity of his offer. Finally, she sighed, her lips curling into a tentative smile.

“Alright,” she said, running a hand through her hair. “Why not? But I’ll warn you, I might be a terrible conversationalist after the day I’ve had.”

“That’s okay,” Lando replied with a wink. “I’m known to talk enough for two.”

With that, he grabbed one of her bags effortlessly, motioning for her to follow him toward the private terminal. She trailed behind, still looking a little shell-shocked, but there was something about the ease of his manner that made her feel less anxious about the whole thing.

As they walked, Lando kept the conversation light, asking her about her trip and how she ended up almost missing her flight. She shared a story about how her taxi had gotten stuck in traffic, the minutes ticking away as she helplessly watched the airport get closer and closer. Lando laughed, offering a few of his own travel horror stories in return. By the time they reached the sleek jet waiting on the tarmac, the mood between them was light and comfortable.

-

“You weren’t kidding,” she muttered as they approached the aircraft, eyes wide as she took it all in. “This is...wow.”

Lando chuckled and waved a hand. “It’s not bad, right?”

They climbed aboard, and soon enough, they were airborne. The hum of the engines was soothing, and the view of the clouds stretching out below them was a peaceful contrast to the chaos of the airport they’d left behind.

“You know,” she said after a while, leaning back in her plush seat, “I still can’t believe I’m on a private jet with you. This feels surreal.”

Lando smirked, leaning forward slightly, his elbows resting on his knees. “Trust me, I’ve been in a lot of surreal situations lately. This one’s pretty tame.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “I guess that’s fair. Monaco, huh? Do you live there?”

“Yeah, for a while now,” he replied, glancing out the window. “It’s a nice place to unwind after the craziness of race weekends.”

“I’ve always wanted to visit,” she admitted. “I mean, I’ve been through a few times, but never really had a chance to stay.”

“Well, maybe this is your chance,” he said, eyes twinkling. “What’s your plan once we get there?”

“I was supposed to meet a friend,” she said with a sigh. “But it’s not set in stone. What about you?”

“Just heading home,” Lando said, then added with a teasing grin, “But if you need a tour guide while you’re there, I might be available.”

She raised an eyebrow, a smile tugging at her lips. “Are you offering to show me around Monaco, Lando?”

“Maybe,” he said, his grin widening. “Depends if you’re up for it.”

She laughed softly, glancing out the window again. “I might take you up on that.”

For the rest of the flight, the conversation flowed easily, peppered with light flirtation and comfortable silences. There was something so natural about it—like they’d known each other for longer than just a chance meeting in an airport.

As the jet began its descent toward Monaco, Lando glanced over at her, feeling a strange sense of contentment.

“Guess we’re almost there,” he said.

”Yeah,” she replied, though her tone held a hint of reluctance. “Thanks again for this, Lando. You really saved my day.”

He flashed her a playful grin. “Anytime. Maybe I’ll see you around Monaco.”

“Maybe,” she said with a smirk of her own. “But next time, let’s hope it’s under more normal circumstances.”

“Deal,” he replied with a wink.

As they stepped off the jet and into the warm Monaco air, Lando couldn’t help but think that maybe missing her flight had been the best thing that could’ve happened to either of them that day.

୨ৎ

*:･ﾟ Notes; thank you for reading, I hope y’all enjoyed! Remember requests are open if you would like to request something. Also question for you guys, is there someone who can help me with the link of the requests so I could put it in my masterlist? I don’t know where to find that link, DM me if you know.

[starcurtain]

A Look at Ratio and Aventurine... and Ratio/Aventurine

I was morally obligated to use this picture.

Anyway, I got an ask about my understanding of Ratio and Aventurine's relationship both in canon and as a ship that I have been holding on to for a while now because... phew, there's like... a lot to talk about there... But I felt I should at least give it a try, so here is my attempt to comment on the intersection of two of Star Rail's most complicated personalities. Long post is longgggg; you have been warned.

First, Aventurine's canon relationship to Ratio:

In the interest of not hitting tumblr's image limit, let's just throw out some of the information we have in one go:

It's pretty complimentary. (Yet somehow...)

The implication of the infamous "Keeping Up with Star Rail" video is that Ratio understands Aventurine better than anyone else, and Aventurine knows this. At the very least, putting all shipping aside, Ratio is the person who can explain Aventurine's behaviors best. He's the person Aventurine chooses do so. This suggests significantly more knowledge of each other's lives than the game first led us to believe.

Other people (read as: my GOAT Owlbert) perceive respect from Aventurine to Ratio, and although I read them as a bit sarcastic, the 2.1 mission logs not only repeatedly confirm that Aventurine views Ratio as smart and reliable, but that Ratio is reliable "as always," again indicating a longer and closer history of collaboration than we get to actively see in game. The devs were working hard to tell us "Penacony isn't Ratiorine's first rodeo," which is interesting--given Topaz's voiceline recommending the Trailblazer avoid working with Aventurine whenever possible, we're led to believe through 2.0 and 2.1 that not many people will willingly work with Aventurine more than once, let alone many times.

While going through psychological scrutiny from the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come his Harmony-infused self, the "Future" Aventurine suggests that Ratio and Aventurine are quite similar, and that Aventurine puts a surprising amount of trust in Ratio, to be willing to hinge such a dangerous plan on something as untested as Ratio's ability to act. At the very least, Aventurine's own psyche is pondering on Ratio and whether or not their connection has any emotional meaning.

But despite all this evidence suggesting Ratio and Aventurine spend significantly more time with each other than we get to see in game, Aventurine's own thoughts cast strong doubt on whether he and Ratio are actually close.

Aventurine's "About Dr. Ratio" voice line suggests that Aventurine believes Ratio does not particularly like him. He seems to think that Ratio would prefer to stay away from IPC operations where possible, and it's "unfortunate" for Ratio to be stuck with Aventurine as a conversation partner. He's tolerated, rather than enjoyed. His overall impression seems to be that Ratio mostly views them as distant coworkers.

When the "Future" Aventurine suggests Ratio did not betray Aventurine willingly, actual Aventurine immediately pushes back:

(Personally I'm on the fence about whether this was real doubt or just a ploy to continue sussing out Sunday; see my other post about this scene for some more thoughts.)

But if we take this statement to be played straight, it implies that Aventurine doesn't fully believe Ratio will side with him, even (maybe especially) in dire circumstances. If this statement is real doubt, then despite considering Ratio the person who best understands him, despite building an entire life or death gamble around Ratio's loyalty... Aventurine still doesn't think Ratio even likes him.

Aventurine's not stupid or blind, so theoretically he should be able to read the situation better than that. But actually, there's plenty of evidence both in the game and outside it to suggest that Aventurine is not the most accurate judge of his own relationships to others and is a down-right terrible judge of his own worth as a person.

"Future" Aventurine suggests that one of Aventurine's deep inner flaws--the truths that he rejects about himself--is a massive inferiority complex. This is backed up well by the mission text, where Aventurine's thoughts about himself spiral into self-harm, and the scene in the maze, where "Future" Aventurine taunts our Aventurine with the unforgettable fact that his entire life was only worth pennies:

There's also pretty consistent self-deprecation, with both "Future" and real Aventurine noting several times that he's a pathetic mess of a person that other people don't trust or like.

The overall impression 2.0-2.1 left me with is that Aventurine is perfectly capable of respecting and caring for others, but virtually incapable of accepting other people genuinely respecting and caring for him.

Part of this seems to stem from the directly-stated sense that he's a failure whose only worth is in transactional exchanges, using and being used by others (there's so many layers to this--internalized racism even), but I also suspect that much of his inability to accept genuine connection from others is defensive behavior.

Aventurine's true self, Kakavasha, is deeply hidden away, like the ghost of the child that manifests from his Harmony delusion in the Dreamscape. Although Aventurine clings to that person, claiming that he has "never changed," he actively coats over his beliefs, his kindness, and his authenticity with the mask of a "cavalier gambler," with glitz and glamor and showy distractions. No one gets to see Kakavasha. No one gets to know him, because being buried deep in the dirt is the only way to remain untouchable, and fiercely keeping one's distance is the only safe bet. (For both Kakavasha and any fools who would doom themselves by daring to care for him.)

So: Canon is telling us that Ratio is one of, if not the, closest people in the world to Aventurine. But canon is also telling us that that still means absolutely nothing at all, because Aventurine won't let himself be close to anyone living.

Aventurine's senses of self-worth, trust, attachment, and safety have been warped so badly by ongoing and untreated trauma and mental health issues that, at least until the end of 2.1, I just don't think he was capable of even accepting genuine friendship from Ratio, let alone anything more.

(Interesting side note here: Ratio is actually one of the people Aventurine calls "my friend" the least. He only says it directly to Ratio a single time in all of their lines of dialogue across 2.0 and 2.1, and even then, does so only when right outside Sunday's door, while almost certainly being spied upon by the Family. Anyone who knows how often "my friend" is peppered into Aventurine's dialogue otherwise should know that the absence of the phrase is actually pretty telling. It almost feels like canon Aventurine's not even sure he can call Ratio his friend, at least to Ratio's face.)

Which makes Ratio's canon relationship to Aventurine quite sad and ironic:

From start to finish, Ratio canonically esteems Aventurine more highly than almost any other character in the game. I'm not even talking about shipping when I say that there is no character Ratio is closer to in the entire game.

At present, Ratio has only four voice lines about other characters, and of those four, Aventurine's is the only one that isn't someone from the Genius Society. The only one. Ratio's voice lines are also notably, uh, not very complimentary. Herta is "talented but not helpful to others" and "sees no one as her equal" (read as: she's self-absorbed). Screwllum is a "monarch, rather than a genius" (with the vague implications of being a tyrant), and Ruan Mei is overly ambitious and "fooling everyone."

Meanwhile, Aventurine is "our man" (who is "our" Ratio? who?) whose success "can't all be chalked up to luck," implying that part of Aventurine's success must come from skill. Ratio notes that Aventurine questions his own ability... but as far as Ratio's evaluation goes, he seems to doubt that Aventurine will ever experience a downfall. For someone who thinks 99% of the people he meets are mediocre failures scrambling around in the filth of existence, to be recognized as skilled and unlikely to fail is quite obviously glowing praise.

Then, of course, there are numerous moments that echo Aventurine's hints, implying that Ratio spends significantly more time with Aventurine than we see on-screen, that he knows Aventurine extremely well, and, although he tries (vainly) to pretend he isn't, he's clearly quite concerned with what Aventurine thinks of him.

Especially this last one. "No wonder that gambler likes you so much" is pretty intentional on the devs' part, confirming that Ratio and Aventurine are having off-screen conversations we players are not privy to, which obviously would indicate a closer relationship than the in-game cutscenes could cover.

Then, Trailblazer has the option to flat out ask Ratio to "rate" Aventurine. (Star Rail ship bait is not even subtle.)

At first, this line might read as all over the place:

"The bosses say we're partners but I wouldn't say that" -> Read as: Ratio wants people to know how their relationship is classified but doesn't want to admit to being actually invested.

"I see myself as the teacher to everyone I meet" -> Read as: Ratio at least pretends that he doesn't view anyone as his equal; everyone is either above him--geniuses--or below him--students.

"Aventurine is not that bad of a student" -> High praise; even Ratio can't pretend Aventurine's untalented.

"Actually, Aventurine's probably in metaphysical danger" -> Read as: Ratio is aware of the "void" Aventurine is experiencing and his mental struggles.

The ultimate takeaway of Ratio's "rating" actually says more about Ratio than Aventurine. When it comes down to it, Ratio's choice to answer this question for the Trailblazer instead of dismiss it tells us that Ratio has spent time quantifying and trying to define his relationship with Aventurine, is willing to at least discuss that relationship with other people (when we have no evidence he ever discusses any other personal/non-academic matters with anyone), and that Ratio pays attention to Aventurine's mental states.

Canon Ratio is not beating the allegations, I'm afraid.

But actually, I think the biggest tell about Ratio's canon relationship to Aventurine is that Ratio's behavior completely changes the moment Aventurine appears in the game.

In every single one of Ratio's other appearances, two facts are hammered home again and again:

First, Ratio hates interacting with fools and "noisy" people. He wears his plaster bust so that he doesn't even have to see them. Canonically, we're informed by both March 7th and Argenti that Ratio brought and was wearing his headpiece in Penacony. Curiously though...

The players never see it throughout 2.X--probably because 90% of Ratio's scenes are with Aventurine, and Ratio is never shown wearing his bust on screen with Aventurine--even in their very first meeting in the Final Victor lightcone. Aventurine clearly knows of the bust, but despite Ratio verbally going on and on about how Aventurine is the most "flashy" and "devoid of logic" person Ratio knows... the devs deliberately send their message: Ratio has chosen not to cut himself off from Aventurine.

Aventurine can be more "clamorous" than a screaming peacock, but Ratio will still not put up walls against him. This isn't accidental. The devs had every opportunity in the world to go the opposite route and make jokes about Ratio refusing to take the bust off in Aventurine's obnoxious presence; instead they decided that Ratio apparently has a glaring, Aventurine-shaped exception to his "I don't want to perceive you fools or be perceived by you" life rule.

This "willing to tolerate shenanigans only if Aventurine is involved" behavior continues basically throughout all of Penacony's plot. In 2.3 for example, if you turn around and talk to Ratio again on the Radiant Feldspar, he flat out says:

But there's no actual explanation for why he's there in the first place. He mentions he was assigned to watch over "the IPC's ambassadors," which theoretically should apply to Jade and Topaz, yet we never see him interacting with them in any capacity. He's never even shown in the same room as Jade or Topaz, and he's not shown doing any other form of business for the IPC on the Feldspar either. Theoretically, he could have been on the Feldspar to meet regarding the Divergent Universe... except Screwllum wasn't there yet, and Ratio doesn't mention a single word about the Divergent Universe to the Trailblazer.

The only person Ratio talks about in his dialogue on the Feldspar is Aventurine, and the only non-Trailblazer he talks to in 2.3 at all is also Aventurine, replying to him and only him in the group chat.

He looked like he might give it a shot to try to befriend Boothill and Argenti at the end of 2.3... but immediately changes his mind and leaves without saying a word to them.

It's not really a stretch to suggest that the only reasonable excuse for Ratio to attend the party on the Feldspar was if he was there for Aventurine, a behavior that he himself notes is out of character. ("A waste of time" he says, as he stands there anyway.)

But, second and even more importantly: Ratio's single most defining character trait is that he believes people need to pick themselves up. The entire point of his debut appearance in the game was to present his philosophy that if the powerful or privileged intervene to continually "save" the mediocre, ordinary people will never learn for themselves or get the chance to grow. It is in times of desperation, he says, that fools exceed their limits and reach greatness.

This is why, in 1.6, he insisted on Asta and the Trailblazer being the ones to solve the attacks happening on the space station, without relying on Screwllum or the other geniuses. Although Ratio did actively intervene a little (using the phase flame to save the researchers from death), he did so only from behind the scenes, where his actual help would not be noticed by those affected and where it had no impact on their decision-making or their struggles to solve the mystery.

He let Asta and the Trailblazer panic. He let them flounder. He even deliberately misled them at points, claiming that Duke Inferno must have kidnapped the researchers (when it was actually Ratio himself who re-routed them).

Ultimately, Ratio let Asta and the Trailblazer grow from their experiences.

This is also why he lets the Trailblazer go blazing in to fight Ruan Mei's faux emanator of the propagation, despite knowing that Trailblazer was not actually strong enough to win. Ratio watched and was ready to intervene... but in the end he did not, because it was the Trailblazer's fight to lose.

Ratio's most defining character trait is that he believes standing back and observing is the true kindness, rather than inserting oneself and denying people their autonomy or opportunities to grow.

Buttttt... then there's Aventurine, and suddenly the story is completely different.

Suddenly, Ratio isn't an observer but becomes essential to the plan. He's even walking around making big claims about being the manager of the task, flexing all of his C+ acting ability to actively carry out their mutual ploy.

In 2.3, he claims he was just there to watch, and his Penacony sticker asserts he's only "a supporting character"--yet we have never seen Ratio take a more active role in the entire game. Unlike with the Trailblazer in 1.6, he's not primarily watching events unfold from shadowy corners. He's in Penacony as Aventurine's active partner in crime.

And, even more telling--he later jeopardizes their entire mission just to ask if Aventurine needs help.

What? Huh? The character who is famous for the voice line "You look distressed. Is something troubling you? If so, you can figure it out for yourself" is suddenly offering his assistance entirely unprompted?

The guy whose motto might as well be:

Is suddenly out here throwing his own core philosophy out the window to solve Penacony's mystery for Aventurine and save him from himself in Aventurine's hour of greatest need?

A lot of people get hung up on the second half of Ratio's letter, the part about staying alive, which of course is very sweet. But I think the second half causes people to forget that the first part of Ratio's letter is, quite literally, the answer to Penacony's mystery.

Ratio gave Aventurine the answer.

This is like if your professor just gave you and you alone the score key to the final exam and then turned around to insist he "doesn't play favorites."

Of course, Aventurine is brilliant and didn't need Ratio's answer about dormancy, which makes the fact that Ratio went out of the way to give it to him even more odd. Ratio despises unnecessary repetition. If he wasn't dead worried, he would never have given Aventurine an answer that Aventurine had the power to find on his own.

And, as far as canon tells us, Ratio has never done this for anyone else.

The difference is night and day. It's literally the Gordon Ramsay meme, with everyone else in the entire game being the "fucking donkeys" to Aventurine's "Oh dear. Gorgeous."

So: Even if we entirely put aside shipping, if we look strictly at what we're given in canon:

Ratio treats Aventurine with more respect than he treats most other characters in the game.

He involves himself in Aventurine's struggles in a way that he flat out refuses to do for anyone else.

He compromises his own beliefs purely out of concern for Aventurine.

So, at least as far as we've been shown in canon, it is accurate to state that Aventurine is the closest character to Ratio--and unlike Aventurine (king of self-gaslighting), Ratio isn't even good at acting like he doesn't care.

Frankly, the whole thing is a little sad. Ratio's behavior is so blatantly out of character that a smart person like Aventurine should easily be able to determine it is genuine, but Aventurine's personal hang-ups and ongoing trauma make it difficult for him to even see that authenticity, let alone put faith in it. Even in canon, Ratio is mostly unable to help himself when it comes to Aventurine, which is especially unfortunate given how badly skewed Aventurine's perception of himself and others is by the start of Penacony's story.

PHEW! I finally made it through canon content!

Now there's just... everything else... 🫠

Well, to be honest, I don't think I could ever manage to put all my thoughts about this ship into one post. Probably not even fifty posts.

So rather than trying to say everything there is to say about Ratiorine, what I want to focus on is how fantastically these two characters just fit together. Like puzzle pieces that need to be mirror opposites in order to link, these two characters parallel each other while also perfectly filling in each other's voids. It's some of the best character pair writing I've seen in a long time (though I'm still sort of convinced it was at least 50% sheer luck on Hoyo's part), and my perspective on their ship can really be tied to my underlying perception of Ratio and Aventurine's characters as remarkably similar individuals:

It's obvious that Aventurine is not a healthy or well-adjusted adult man, but like... neither is Ratio.

Both of these characters are "not quite right" marginalized people who, at least in my interpretation, have essentially given up on even faking normality and are now just vaguely play acting their way through being functioning members of a universe that is entirely unequipped to accept them for who they are. In a world full of cyborg cowboys and people with wings growing from their heads, the game still manages to somehow convince us that Aventurine and Ratio are odd ones out.

Kakavasha can't even exist in the dystopian capitalist hellscape of the IPC's machinations. "Aventurine" isn't even a real person, just a never-ending performance, a slick, devil-may-care persona without a single ounce of substance.

Ratio, meanwhile, is a world of one, rejected from the only place he thought he could find validation and acceptance but unable to lower himself to fit in anywhere else.

Aventurine is so bad at making genuine connections that he turns everyday conversations into gambles because he doesn't believe people will care enough to keep talking to him without tangible incentive.

Ratio's insistence on treating everyone as students, not as equals, also means he has an excuse to never emotionally engage with anyone he meets. (This is not at all a textbook method of intentional avoidance to prevent any chance of social rejection. Not at all.)

At the end of the day, Aventurine and Ratio both come across as desperately lonely, and so caught up in their own situations that they really don't have the ability to climb out of that hole on their own.

Preventing them from even being able to maintain any form of relationship is also the fact that neither one of them can even find justification. Neither one of them has a reasonable answer to the question "Why am I alive?" anymore, because Aventurine's reason died on Sigonia and Ratio's reason died with an IPC invitation instead of a Genius Society letter. Though their differing perspectives have led them on opposite paths pursuing their own answers to that ultimate question of "Why should I keep living?" (Aventurine was headed toward giving up before the end of Penacony, while Ratio has invented an immeasurable, impossible goal to distract himself from feeling purposeless), both of them are pretty much miserably unfulfilled in their current lives.

They're also both violently allergic to emotional vulnerability and to having any of their flaws or true desires actually be perceived. Both of them put up insanely high walls. Aventurine pushes boundaries with everyone he meets to provoke their hatred in advance, before they can come to disdain him for his "real" flaws. He acts out harmful racist stereotypes to use others' preconceptions for advantage, manipulating every situation he's in--incidentally affirming the stereotypes against his people by doing so.

Ratio puts a physical wall of plaster between himself and others, but the plaster bust actually doesn't have anything on the mental and emotional gymnastics he's engaged in to justify his isolation from the world, doing everything in his power to convince himself that he's isolated by choice, that it's perfectly logical for Veritas Ratio to have nowhere to truly belong, no one to truly belong with. He's so mundane after all. Of course the geniuses don't want him, that's just commonsense. But everyone else is so... different, so foolish, so illogical... It just wouldn't be reasonable of him to try to become one of them either, to be their friend instead of their distant educator. (You know, if you never try to integrate with others, then they can't reject you. Ratio has learned his lesson.)

Somehow, Aventurine and Ratio are two of the most competent and successful people in Star Rail's entire universe and simultaneously also two of the most misfit, reject, dysfunctional messes in the game. Like... Blade has a better support network than Aventurine and Ratio combined. The 7000-pound murderous mech with a disabled, genetically-modified war veteran who never got to live a normal human life hiding inside it is more capable of making friends than Aventurine and Dr. Ratio.

Which is why I love that the devs decided to make their canon backstory: "Some absolute treasures in the IPC and the Intelligentsia Guild had the galaxy-brained idea of pairing Ratio and Aventurine as strategic partners." The game's writing really said: "These two characters are so socially stunted, they have to be assigned a relationship like it's homework."

They may not have it all figured out yet, but the fans see the design: Now that Ratio and Aventurine have each other, they're not alone anymore. I have never seen two characters better fit the "Is anyone going to match my freak?" meme only for the actual answer to be "Yes."

Ratio is "plays chess with himself" levels of loner weird? No problem--Aventurine is "Wanna take bets on who's going to die today?" weirder. Ratio wears a plaster bust to ward off idiots? Aventurine transforms into a monster on command, which is pretty much guaranteed to achieve the same effect.

Ratio wasn't chosen by Nous? That's fine, Aventurine's one job as a "chosen one" was to save his people and now they're all dead. Nobody can keep up with Ratio in conversation? Watch a single comment from Aventurine turn him into a fumbling mess on live television.

Ratio's inability to relate to the experiences and development of any peers his own age have left him extremely isolated and with a permanently scarred sense of self-worth? Wow, I wonder if Aventurine knows exactly what that feels like.

They just... fit.

And, changing focus a little here at the end: While I personally think that recovery from trauma requires internal motivation and self-kindness foremost, I also think that Ratio and Aventurine's relationship should be considered from the perspective of how they help to fill each other's gaps.

Unlike any connection at the Genius Society who will always evoke unpleasant memories of Nous's rejection, Aventurine isn't going to make Ratio feel intellectually inferior. Aventurine has nothing but good things to say about Ratio's intelligence, and it's even apparent that Ratio felt comfortable enough to at least mention his Genius Society woes to Aventurine, something he explicitly does not do with anyone else.

Even when it comes to social interactions, Aventurine isn't going to make Ratio feel inadequate, because honestly? Aventurine's almost as bad at them as Ratio. Aventurine is much better at faking it socially, but when it actually counts? When he's trying to be real with others? A solid 70% of the people who meet Aventurine still end up wanting to strangle him. The guy tried to apologize for threatening to detonate the Trailblazer like a bomb by buying them a model train...

Then there's this:

Aventurine is the only character explicitly called Ratio's equal in game, and more than just treating him respectfully as an equal, Aventurine also exhibits one extreme appeal that no one else in game has ever shown to Ratio: Aventurine makes Ratio feel needed. For Aventurine, Ratio is not a forgettable after-thought as he is to Herta and most of the other geniuses. He's not just "some weird guy who scolds me about school" like he is to the Trailblazer. Ratio's intellect and skill were integral to Aventurine's plan from step one to the very end. Ratio has a place in Aventurine's plots. For a character who directly assesses worth by how beneficial a person can be to others, the fact that Aventurine can make Ratio feel wanted and valued probably produced some of the strongest personal fulfillment Ratio has had in years.

On the opposite side, Ratio's in a unique position. Out of every relevant character in Aventurine's story, Ratio is the only one who has nothing to lose by choosing Kakavasha over "Aventurine." Ratio doesn't profit off Aventurine or take any expensive gifts from him, like the Trailblazer does. He doesn't need Aventurine's luck for anything at all. He'd be able to work for the IPC even if Aventurine wasn't in it. Ratio certainly doesn't want the glitz and glamour of a shallow gambling hustler persona. His work doesn't require Aventurine's continued involvement like Topaz's and Jade's does. He'd probably prefer not to know any Stonehearts at all, thank you for asking.

Outside of deliberate-acting insults about Sigonians for Sunday's sake, we're not told that Ratio has any connections to--and therefore has no preconceived biases against--Sigonians. Being a person who values self-determination and a refusal to live in mediocrity above all else, he would have nothing but esteem for how far Aventurine has managed to come despite the harsh circumstances of his life. Ratio probably wouldn't even think Aventurine's belief in Gaiathra is that strange; one of Ratio's doctorates is actually in theology.

Unlike literally everyone else in the universe who needs "Aventurine," we have every indication that Ratio's respect and admiration will only grow when he finally gets to meet "Kakavasha."

Loneliness, rejection, betrayal, a lack of understanding from others--all of these can leave wounds that only genuine, deep bonds with others can heal.

On death's doorway, in the darkest shadow, when Aventurine had to make the choice between passing on to be with the family that loved him and choosing to return to a reality without them... Ratio's letter was there, telling Aventurine the exact thing he needed to hear to choose life: Someone is waiting for you to come home.

If the resounding rejection of Star Rail's Nihility is belief in humanity's power to make meaning in our own lives through our connections to others, then the ultimate message of Ratio and Aventurine's arc in Penacony is that no one needs to be alone. The world is not as empty as you fear.

And that is a message that Ratio and Aventurine can learn best through each other.

(I just... love them so much...)

[river-of-wine]

I know I’ve mentioned this plenty of times before but I’m still kind of annoyed by how the fanbase just kind of completely declawed the four lords and placed the entirety of the responsibility for their wrongdoings on Mother Miranda.

The Baker family are great, I love them, they’re an incredible unit of antagonists who are intended to be very sympathetic, at least for the most part. Jack and Marguerite in particular have lost all control over their minds and their bodies, turning into extremely violent murderers and cannibals who threaten and attack their own family, kill anyone unfortunate enough to come across them and, especially in Marguerite’s case, lose complete autonomy over their own bodies. Marguerite turns into a walking bug hive who’s only purpose is to feed her family and birth her new children. Jack is an unstoppable murderous force of patriarchal violence who has so much fun chasing down and harming his victims, which in the Daughters DLC includes even his own daughter. The exception to this is obviously Lucas, who has been cured of his infection and his acting of his own free will. All of this is caused by Eveline, everything Jack and Marguerite do controlled by her, and yet Eveline is just as sympathetic as the rest of them. She’s a ten year old girl. Even Jack, who has watched his family and their victims suffer because of her infection, doesn’t seem to hold any of it against her. She just wants a family of her own, after all. It’s a complex and tragic situation.

The four lords, while I suppose being similar in structure, are not the Baker family. Not in dynamic, not in character, not in the kind of tragedy that they embody. I could talk for a while about just how completely different they are, but I don’t know if I really need to.

The Baker family are so tragic because they were just innocent bystanders trying to help a woman and a little girl they found in a shipwreck out in a storm. That’s the only reason they ended up in the situation that they were in. While the lords have similar origins, being victims of Mother Miranda’s experiments to bring her daughter Eva back, an important distinction between them is that in the case of the lords, all four of them are still acting of their own free will. Yes, Mother Miranda has undeniable power over them. She leads the cult they are part of, she has control over the village, she is their superior. However, I really dislike when every negative action by the lords is pushed onto her, as if the lords are not all grown adults who are for the most part acting independently of her.

With Alcina, she is the head of her own extremely brutal crimes. I think a lot of people have forgotten quite how horrifying the situations of the maidens are, possibly due to the prevalence shipping between Alcina and the maidens, and though we have minimal information what we do know is very frightening. Alcina uses her work force like livestock, draining them for their blood in a cellar full of horrific torture devices, and leaves their corpses to shamble around, armed and ready to attack any unwanted guests that have slipped out of the daughter’s clutches so that Alcina still doesn’t have to do her own dirty work, given how highly above everyone but Mother Miranda she appears to view herself as. While yes, Alcina does need human blood to survive, her methods are brutal, and none of this has been enforced upon her by Mother Miranda. Similarly to Jack on occasion, she takes a great deal of pleasure in hurting and attacking Ethan as he runs from her. Additionally, everything she does to Ethan is against Mother Miranda’s request. While yes, it is retaliation after he killed Bela, the part I often see people leave out is that Alcina is equally as upset that he entered her property and was attempting to steal from her, and she isn’t just after him to kill him.

Alcina has also been an active participant in aiding Mother Miranda with at least one experiment, considering that I’d how she got her daughters. While I’m sure her strong admiration for Mother Miranda and Mother Miranda’s power over her has absolutely had an affect in this, that’s not something I’ll deny, Alcina is still a grown woman and in her written entries about this shows no qualms about her participation in this. Her general attitude towards others, using young women as a good source and turning men into scarecrows, also leads me to believe that she does not exactly care who gets hurt or taken advantage of when it comes to her and Mother Miranda’s personal endeavours.

Donna and Moreau are the two more sympathetic people within the four lords, but they are not innocent. To start with Moreau, he’s desperate for Mother Miranda’s approval, as well as the other lords. He’s insecure and lonely, and he’s doing what he has been instructed by Mother Miranda when it comes to protecting the flask. However, he does also take quite a bit of joy in trapping Ethan in the reservoir and swimming after him with the intention to eat and kill him. Moreau though, given his conditions and circumstances, is the one I think is the least to blame for what he does.

Donna is hard to discuss because we know so little about her. Her parents are dead, as well as whoever Claudia was to her, she communicates through Angie and she can cause those who enter her house to hallucinate. According to Mother Miranda, Donna is severely mentally ill and that is what has made her an unfit vessel. I think a lot of people took this to mean that Donna is unaware of what she is doing, that the hallucinations she is showing Ethan are frightening, but after having been a fan of this game for years I just can’t agree with that anymore. Donna intentionally lures Ethan into her house with visions of his supposedly dead wife. Donna is going after fears she likely knows Ethan has, making him relive Mia’s death, take apart a mannequin of her, listen to her voice panic over something being horribly wrong with Rose, all building towards the horrifying baby that chases him through the house. There is no way Donna doesn’t understand how what she is showing Ethan is distressing, especially when you consider that, given how she can make herself appear and disappear at will within Ethan’s vision and that Angie is sitting in the hallways stationary and unspeaking, Donna was likely close by Ethan at all times and could see and hear his frightened reactions to what she was intentionally showing him.

Donna’s death is upsetting, but Ethan was not just chasing her down and killing her. Donna was attacking him, or at least she was controlling her dolls to do so. It’s still a hallucination, but Ethan doesn’t know that. When faced with a threat that is keeping you trapped and trying to end your life, you will likely try to get away or try to fight back, as Donna is doing to Ethan after he starts to attack her and Ethan is doing to Donna when he thinks his life is still in danger. I would also like to remind everybody that Donna communicates through Angie. What Angie is saying, that’s Donna. Angie doesn’t talk or move once she’s dead, it is Donna who controls her.

Lastly, Heisenberg. I think Heisenberg is the one of the four most entrenched in headcanons. Headcanons are fine, I am never in this post trying to suggest they aren’t, but my issue comes in when people use them to try and change the canon of the game. For example, it’s fine to believe that Heisenberg was experimented on by Mother Miranda as a child, but that isn’t canon. It’s fine to believe that Heisenberg mourned the deaths of his siblings, but that isn’t canon. The opposite is, with Heisenberg not viewing the cult as an actual family and being very openly mean to all three other lords, even Donna and Moreau who seemingly haven’t done anything to slight him. While his goal of killing another Miranda is a very understandable and sympathetic one given what she has done to him, using a six month old baby as a weapon and trying to bring her father into the mix only to try to get him killed when he denies him is not. I cannot overstate quite how little Heisenberg actually cared for Ethan and Rose’s safety when it came to his goal, and given that we are playing as Ethan, Rose is the priority.

Heisenberg has built an army of corpses he has presumably stolen and desecrated. This is kind of fucked up actually, and done completely independently of Mother Miranda. He also puts Ethan through a very dangerous lycan gauntlet before he even reaches the factory, which makes it even stranger to me that people seem to interpret Heisenberg’s deal as something that would have benefitted both him and Ethan and as if he ever had Ethan’s safety in mind.

All four of the lords have tragic aspects to them and there are definitely reasons to sympathise with all four. They’re victims of Mother Miranda, who knows they will all be killed. She wants them to be, giving her less to deal with by the time she has Eva back. They never meant anything to her. Not Alcina or Moreau, who were desperate for her attention. Not Donna, suffering from her unspecified but apparently severe mental illness. Not Heisenberg, who was seemingly her favourite creation. However, all of them are grown adults who do their own bad things independently of her.

And it’s fine to still like them. It’s fine for them to be your favourite character. It’s fine to have happy or nice headcanons about them or want to kiss them or be their friend or to want them to have survived. It’s fine to like characters who do shitty things. It’s to be expected in a game series like Resident Evil. It’s a horror game series. People are going to do bad things.

I just find it so boring when people take away all their bite. What makes a character like Lady Dimitrescu so fun it’s that she’s completely over the top. She’s campy and ridiculous, her castle layout makes no sense, she’s got three kids made of swarms of flies dressed like a set of goth triplets, she’s a lesbian who’s castle is full of naked statues of women, she turns into a big dragon and laughs maniacally while flying around and trying to eat you. She’s evil and it’s fun. It’s the same with Heisenberg. He’s a campy show off with a fun voice and a massive hammer he never actually uses. He can control metal. He looks like a cowboy. He pronounced Miranda in a funny way. He talks to you over an intercom while trying to get you killed. They’re fun and evil and they fight over who gets to kill Ethan like they’re two little kids. It’s absurd.

What makes a character like Donna so scary is that she’s silently working in the shadows, unassuming at a first glance and unseen for most of the time in her house. She is the least threatening of the four upon first glance, and yet she has undeniably the most frightening part of the game. Pretending as if Donna is completely unaware of what she is doing and babying her like she is an incapable child waters her down completely and takes away from the effectiveness of her character.

Villain characters are great! They’re very often the highlight of the story they are in, and they aren’t real! The four lords especially are often so completely exaggerated in what they do as well. It’s fine to like villains! It doesn’t make you bad! Characters can be bad people and you can still like them!

It’s just frustrating seeing a group of very fun and exciting villains, all designed with different aspects of horror, all over the top and campy and stupid and fun, all doing their own set of fucked up things, watered down to a set of poor innocent victims who have never done any wrong ever. If you want Jack and Marguerite, take Jack and Marguerite. Lady Dimitrescu loves killing and eating women and Karl Heisenberg turns corpses into soldiers. They’re bad people and they do comically exaggerated bad things. If you can’t stomach liking a character like that, horror is probably not the genre for you. Unless it’s Resident Evil 7, I suppose, but apparently tall women aren’t hot when it’s Marguerite Baker crawling on the walls.

[seresinhangmanjake]

Main Masterlist

Series:

Oh, Baby (dad!Jake Seresin): You might not have been his girlfriend, but when you left town one night a month after sleeping together, it completely broke Jake’s heart. Now, a year later, you’ve returned and you’re not alone. You have a new little companion that just so happens to bear a startling resemblance to Jake.

The One I Want (Jake Seresin x Plus Size!Reader): You're new in town and some guy named Jake is about to be your roommate. Being skeptical of new people keeps you lonely and uninterested in any entanglements, but Jake is desperate to change that.

Signed Away (Arranged Marriage AU): You find out about the contractual marriage your parents arranged with Jake’s when you were a baby. You’re plenty angered by it, but Jake doesn’t seem too bothered. He might even be happy.

Stolen Angel (Angel/Demon AU): You thought you were having a one-night stand with some random, normal guy. Turns out he's a winged, demon-like stalker who has been obsessed with you for years.

One shots:

Forgetting: Jake forgets to pick you up at the airport because of his ex, and for the first time, you think maybe you and Jake aren't mean to be.

Can’t Let You Go: When you and Jake broke up, it hurt both of you more than you could handle. Now, after three months of barely seeing or speaking to one another, Jake walks in on the surprise of seeing you in a wedding dress, and it brings past memories and ruined dreams to the surface.

Rather Be with You: Jake has been away for six months and he just hopes you waited for him.

It’s oh so Quiet: you are in a bad relationship, and you just want to be with Jake.

Just a Little Weak:  You are Penny’s new bartender and she warns you to stay away from one particular pilot, so you do your very best to please your boss. It is only when Penny goes out of town for the summer, leaving you in charge of the bar, that the pilot finally makes his move, and you finally give in. 18+

Touch and Go: You and Jake had been sleeping together for months, and as sure as you were of your feelings for him, you were unsure of his for you. He, however, certainly knew how he felt about you, and after you decide to go on a long trip without telling him, he lets you know just exactly what’s on his mind. 18+

Lazy Mornings and Whatnot: After coming home from his last mission, Jake doesn’t want you to leave the bed and will do what he has to if it means insuring that you’ll stay, which leads to fluffy conversations.

Jealousy Game: You do a little experiment to try to make Jake jealous and it works, with unexpected consequences that change the way you thought the night would go. 18+

Jealous Jake and the Biting Problem; Jealous Jake and the Other Sleepover Buddy: You and Jake have a friends-with-benefits situation, but when he finds bite marks on you from another guy, he doesn’t handle it well. 

Split: You break up with Jake because his actions make you question everything you’ve had between you, but he wants you to take him back. 

A First and a Second: It’s soft Dad!Hangman from start to finish. And cute marriage stuff.

Wanting it all: Hangman ends up in the hospital from a very similar Phoenix/Bob/birds situation, and you suddenly regret keeping a big secret from him.  

Drunken Words, Sober Thoughts: You and Jake had a history of flirting and occasionally kissing if too much time was spent at the bar, but it never went any further than that. One night, after showing up at your house and passing out on your couch, Jake wakes up the next morning only to learn he had drunkenly confessed his feelings for you.

Alive: After you get into an accident, Jake has a hard time coping with how close he was to losing you.

More Than What We Are: You and Jake are friends with benefits, and you have one rule: No feelings! Jake decides that rule doesn’t work for him anymore. 18+

Less Misery, More Company: Jake has feelings for you but you don’t believe it, so you play a little trick to get back at him for all of his flirtatious teasing. But that little trick fails miserably, and as the weight of your mistake settles in, you realize you owe him an explanation, one that requires you to admit some things you’ve long denied.

Back for More: Jake up and left you without explanation right before a mission. Now he’s returned wanting you back, but you want that explanation before you’ll be willing to let go of the pain and heartbreak from his sudden departure a month prior. 

Scrapes and Bruises:  When Rooster and Hangman get into a fight over you. Basically, Rooster is not thrilled about your relationship with Hangman, and their issues with one another bring up some fears of your own.

A Mission of Another Kind:Jake is assigned to a mission he did not think he would have to take part in, despite training for it with everyone else. Considering its high level of danger, you had been happy he hadn’t volunteered for it, until he came to your house one morning to tell you he had been assigned and would be leaving within the hour.

Drabbles:

He Doesn’t - Jake doesn’t do relationships...right?

Early - Jake’s a sweet boyfriend when reader gets her period.

Jake helps his drunk girlfriend

His Princess

“The bed is cold without you here”

Perfect for me, Baby - Jake is there for you when you have body-image concerns. 

Get Me Through - Jake helps you through the death of a loved one. 

[alphajocklover]

Hey, I've been in a relationship with my Korean boyfriend for some years now, and he keeps telling me things about this InstaJock app, and how he's gonna use it to make himself the biggest, most dominant muscular jock ever... I'm usually the one who tops though, so I'm a bit concerned over what that entails, could you help me out? I don't want to lose my twink...

I’ll admit, I’m a little unsure on how to answer your question, mainly because I’m not entirely sure how to interpret it. I might just be overthinking things, but to me it seems like your question can be interpreted in two different way. Both interpretations suggest a different kind of person asking and each have a different answer. So, let’s look at them both.

Our first scenario: you are a concerned boyfriend who is worried that InstaJock, a mysterious and possibly dangerous app that turns the user into a jock, will change your boyfriend in ways he doesn’t fully comprehend. You’re worried because you’re a loving boyfriend who is naturally worried about the man you love messing around with mysterious technology and altering his personality to the point he’s like a different person. If that’s the case my advice is to just talk to him. If you’re worried he’s rushing into this, tell his as much, and talk to him about why he wants to become a jock in the first place. Maybe he’ll go through with it, maybe he won’t, but if you talk about it beforehand things will probably be much better for both of you, and I’m sure you’ll be able to work this out. Maybe you’ll even get a hot jock boyfriend out of it.

The second scenario is that you’re not concerned about your boyfriend literally changing his identity, you’re concerned because you want to be the top. Which… honestly is kind of shitty man. Like, I get worrying about being sexually compatible with your boyfriend, but when you hear the love of your life is using a magic app to change basically everything about themselves, you’re first thought shouldn’t be ‘how will I be able to fuck him if he’s bigger than me.’ Lucky for you I’m going to give you an answer anyway. Hell, I’ll give you 3 possible answers.

Number 1: Top the Jock. I can’t believe I have to explain this, but just because he’s a jock doesn’t mean he’ll be a top. Sure most jocks are dominant studs who think with their dicks, but it’s possible to be a jock and bottom. There are submissive jocks, power bottom jocks, and plenty of vers jocks. Even if you both end up as tops, you could find a way to make it work. A lot of people do. But something tells me that’s not the answer that you really want. So let’s move onto our next answer.

Number 2: Become the Jock. If you don’t want your boyfriend to use InstaJock, one of the things you could do is use it first. Now, that won’t actually stop him from using the app, but considering his obvious infatuation with jocks I’m betting that if you became one, he’d do whatever you want. Jocks have a way of getting what they want, and I’m better a Korean twink like your boyfriend would be putty in your hands. He wouldn’t become a jock unless you wanted to, and you’d never lose your twink. This one is the one I think you’d like best, but… personally I enjoy the 3rd option the most.

Number 3: Join the Jock. This one is pretty similar to number 2, with one key difference: you both become jocks. Since you were bigger to begin with you’ll most likely be bigger after you get jockified, and then not only will you have a boyfriend with enough muscle to handle getting topped by your new beefy jock self, you’ll have a fellow jock to bro out with!

I’ll be honest, I can’t tell you what to do. I don’t know enough about your situation to know what’s right for you or your boyfriend. But let me know how it all works out in the end. I’m sure whatever happens… it’ll be very hot.

**hey guys! I have to say I had a lot of fun with this prompt. I kind of have a thing for buff Asian guys, if you can’t tell, and it’s always fun to do InstaJock stuff. I am sorry to say that I have no idea if anyone pictured is Korean or just generally Asian. Finding specific pictures online is hard so I tend to go with the closest I can get. Anyways, stay tuned!**

[fatkish]

Alpha Mezo Shoji x Mortem Omega Reader

For Mortem Omegas it isn’t really so much that they are violent and aggressive on purpose or that they are adversed to alphas, it’s more like they are in a constant mental state of fight or flight.

They rely almost exclusively on their instincts as well as their animal brain

Needless to say, Mortems were given the name Mortem after the Latin word for mortality and death: Mort

Mortems have a very sensitive sense of smell that allows them to pick up even the slightest traces of adrenaline or cortisol (stress hormones) that alphas give off, when an alpha has certain chemical scents, the omega will react violently as an instinctive safety mechanism.

Due to Mezo’s rather lax and calm demeanor, when he first came across the omega reader, he wasn’t afraid or stressed meaning he didn’t activate the reader’s instinctive kill drive. Aizawa, is another example of an Alpha who doesn’t trigger violence in Mortem omegas due to his logical reasoning and calm temperament

Without their kill drive leading them, Mortems are just like any other omega, they can be submissive and given alpha commands but only from an alpha that they trust and deem as their’s

When Mezo met the reader, they were curious about him and began scenting him, circling him and taking on his scent

Mezo just let them do whatever they needed to do. Once the reader was done, they walked up to him and put one of his hands on their face. Mezo gently scratched their head and scalp leaving the omega to purr and give off happy chirps.

After that, the reader reached out their arm and exposed their wrist to Mezo, understanding that the reader was now letting him scent them, he began to take in their scent.

After meeting him, the reader followed Mezo back to the dorms. Realizing this, Mezo called Aizawa and explained the situation to him.

Not wanting the reader to attack anyone, Aizawa had the other staff members notified and made sure that the other alpha students in class 1A were in their rooms and didn’t come out until after the Omega was tucked away in Mezo’s dorm.

Recovery girl told the staff that the best course of action was to allow the reader to stay as close to Shoji as possible since they seem to be interested in him. She suggested that the reader should be with Mezo as much as possible and suggested that the reader be be provided with nesting materials to build a nest with inside Shoji’s room

Seeing how small the the reader can make themselves, Recovery Girl had Power Loader build a small box, similar to the one Tanjiro carries Nezuko in, that blocks out scents and is comfortable so that Shoji can keep an eye on them at all times

Reader is fiercely protective and loyal to Mezo, so much so that any perceived threat to him will be met with snarling and aggressive threat displays signaling for whatever to back off or f~~~ around and find out

This is when Mezo releases calming pheromones and gently rumbles to the reader, giving off small purrs and making noises that signal safety and comfort. Mezo calms the reader and has them stay inside their box and simply lets them keep an eye on him.

Since the reader will attack Bakugou without restraint or hesitation due to his constant aggression, Aizawa has forbid Mezo from sparring with Bakugou

Reader, just like other omegas, is extremely friendly and protective of children or pups. When Eri is brought to live with Aizawa on Campus, he often leaves the reader with Eri since the reader can be trusted to take care of her

The reader ends up building a giant nest in Mezo’s dorm. I also strongly believe that Mezo and Tokoyami have a pack bond between them and reader is part of it. Tokoyami is the only other member of 1A who has been inside the reader’s nest

When it comes to the reader’s heats, they are constantly biting Mezo. Luckily he’s got plenty of stamina and can easily subdue the reader. (Come on people, we all know how horny we were as teenagers)

I also believe that Aoyama is an omega, and the reader has a tendency to be like a mother cat and corrals other omegas who are not bonded as well as those that are, into their own little communal nest.

Mortems are fiercely protective of other omegas, they have a tendency to create packs and have been reported to act as an alpha in the sense that they are defensive and will create bonding marks similar to mating or claiming marks. These marks basically act as a hive-mind~ish emotional and psychological frequency that allows the Mortem to look after their bonded omegas. This bond is like a sisterhood or brotherhood bond.

Mezo has had to apologize to other alphas for the reader’s habit of kidnapping other omegas. This is when he puts his foot down and is one of the only times he uses his status and authority as an alpha, to make the reader do as he says.

(I hope that you enjoyed this and thank you for your request. I will add more to this as the thoughts come to me and I might make a NSFW part 2. I don’t know, I’m still working on the eight other requests)

[weltenwellen]

Hello! I didn’t want to reblog your personal post so I came here to tell you that I relate to it so much.

I’m 27 and currently very scared to look for my first ever job, while my friends are years along in theirs and some are getting married. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched “Friends” but it feels very much like being Rachel, who at some point “was only getting coffee”. I rewatched it recently and it helped with that lack of compassion a bit - it was easier to feel it for someone else, but then it dawned on me how similar some situations were to my life. It made me feel better about myself and somehow also more hopeful.

So, I’m sending a virtual hug to you (if that’s ok) along with a reminder that 30 is young and we have entire lives ahead of us and I don’t think it will ever feel like we’ve learned enough. We can only keep going and try to approach the learning with excitement (if possible), even if it seems we might be behind.

I get that feeling. When was writing my master's thesis it was really hard for me to get motivated to finish it (due to there not being a deadline) but also I was dragging out the time where I had to apply for jobs. I was working always a bit while studying but I really started to panic because I could not imagine myself working in the field that I studied in for 5 years and I was also scared to get rejected from jobs if I did apply. I did not know what I liked, where I saw myself. It was really bad. But I did get a job and it did change me and I grew a lot as a person. I am also single and people around me seem to be more grown up than I do (at least that's what my inner critic is saying :)). They're having kinds, getting married or buying a house or even just dress more confidently and it makes me feel insecure and more isolated at times.

But as clique as it sounds, life is about being scared and showing up anyways. About writing your own stories and failing plenty. I feel like I fail plenty but I win and grow also all the time. It depends on which emotion I stand on when I look at the day or what I did or did not accomplish.

Me for example, I just got fired on Thursday because I also have a problem of keeping my mouth shut and keeping critique to myself. That post was about me not being professional enough or conformed enough and my boss got pissed at it. It feels like a relief because I was so stressed but it also it feels like my personal failure because the situation is due to both my boss and me (and also of course the work environment, the clients, a lack of communication etc.). But it really sucks right now and I feel the whole rainbow of anger, guilt, shame, fear and sadness right now. But things will get better again and in the grand scheme of things, this will not be as signifiant right now as it feels. It just does at the moment because I am feeling all these things and this job was very important to me.

I think what I just want to say with we're all fail at time but we also can celebrate our private victories a lot of times because both of them exist. That's life and that's the strength, for stuff to suck but still show up for yourself. I am trying to be compassionate with myself even though in all honesty I fail at it this year like 7 out of 10 times. But we still gotta try 🌻

[yeah-yeah-beebiss-1]

I feel like if people had any sort of common sense at all, they would've realized that Nintendo firing a voice actor over an apparent pay dispute but then hiring someone that costs much more might have meant that there was more to the story than just money. Perhaps unrelated, Hellena Taylor is a TERF.

Thing is, “video game voice acting pays like dogshit” and “companies can and will use lowball offers to get contractors to leave of their own accord” are both commonly-known facts. With this in mind, I don’t blame people (myself included) for taking Taylor’s initial claims at face value because they were plausible. The multiple-session rate that it turned out Platinum actually offered was still low in a general sense, but it was at least consistent with union rates in the field. From what I can tell, if this new information is correct, it seems like it went something like this:

-Platinum approached Taylor with an industry-standard offer, five several-hour sessions at $3-4k each. VAs absolutely should be getting more than this, but it isn’t a lowball offer by current industry standards.

-Taylor declined and asked for six figures plus residuals, which is frankly unrealistic in the current industry (even if game VAs absolutely should be getting residuals).

-Platinum opted to bring on a new VA who would take the standard union rate (Jennifer Hale). Platinum initially announced to the public that the change was due to “scheduling conflicts.” They still offered Taylor a cameo role that would be a single $4k session.

-For whatever reason, Taylor took to the social-media warpath and spun the cameo offer as her being offered $4k for the entire game. People took her at face value because, again, plenty of VAs have been paid less for similar projects. Other VAs in turn speak up about some of the dogshit rates they’ve been offered for games that are frankly much bigger than Bayonetta.

-When Taylor’s story went viral, rather than hunkering down and letting PR do their thing, Hideki Kamiya went on his usual hyper-abrasive Twitter routine. When people started roasting him online over the allegations, he made very angry vaguetweets about the situation and blocked so many people that the Twitter suspicious-account-activity algorithm flagged his account. This is, as the kids say, not a good look for someone whose studio is facing scrutiny.

-Someone within Platinum or familiar with the project leaks documents showing the full situation to journalists, Jason Schreier is the first to break the story. He’s generally been pretty aggressively pro-worker when reporting on stories related to labor issues in the games industry, so the fact that he’s vouching for these documents suggests that he’s pretty confident in their legitimacy.

-Taylor doubles down on her side of the story. Jennifer Hale has mostly been silent on the matter (likely due to NDAs), but has liked tweets alluding to the idea that there are two sides to the story. Platinum has yet to issue a direct statement about the situation beyond the initial “scheduling conflicts” claim.

This is just my attempt to piece the situation together based on the public information available right now. For all I know, some new development may crop up that completely vindicates Platinum or proves Taylor correct. We’ll watch this space, I guess. My gaming time is still being consumed by Xenoblade 3 so I’m in no rush to get the new Bayonetta at launch, as much as I love the series.

(And yeah, Hellena Taylor’s dodgy politics don’t strike me as surprising in retrospect; I’m already on a “probably transphobic until proven otherwise” attitude with any Brit over the age of, like, 40. But if her claims of being offered $4k for the lead role of the whole game are true, then her being a shitty person doesn’t change the fact that Platinum made a ridiculously low offer.)

[ozzgin]

LETS 👏GIVE 👏Y/N 👏SOME 👏LOVE👏

This is gonna be nearly impossible in real life but the anime has tons of non logical stuff SO...

Please make a HC of Modern Y/N meets prehistoric Y/N 🙏

Cause you know how somewhere in the earth someone could possibly be your twin?

That situation but in different timelines 😭🙏 perhaps maybe Modern Y/N is part of the science team and is SHOOK

Make the impossible POSSIBLE BEGGING

Y’all this is such a whole new level of meta-

I had to sit down and figure out how to even write this. Third person of (Y/N) variations? Second person except you never know which you is you? But I might sail forward with the latter, with the little twist that one line is yours, and the other one is yours. You get to decide. Pick your timeline or don’t pick at all and just be both.

Baki Headcanons: Prehistoric! Reader meets Modern! Reader

Featuring the Baki characters, you and you. (With a surprise you appearance)

“You never mentioned you had a long lost twin, (Y/N)” your coworker comments playfully. You return a hesitant laugh without looking away from your monitors. He has a point, the resemblance is uncanny. Save for the impressive size difference, every other feature down to the finest detail is eerily similar…no, more like identical to yours. There has to be a rational explanation but your mind is blank. Who the hell are you looking at? One of the screens flashes a loud notification and you jolt at the sudden disturbance. They’re waking up.

Your eyes are burning and the surroundings are blurry. You can almost feel your bones creaking as you groggily lift yourself up. There’s a faint tug at your skin and you touch around for the source. Long, thick threads seem to be attached to the surface of your body. Roots? Some sort of creature? You’d rather not wait to find out, so you swiftly rip them off. You hear a groan next to you and as you turn, your vision begins to return some clarity. Pickle is rubbing his face in irritation but immediately calms down once he sees you’re with him. At least you’re not alone. Although it doesn’t change the fact you don’t know where you are.

“Amazing”. Several people murmur in chorus as you stare down, towards the ancient creatures. You’d share their excitement if you weren’t so entranced and afraid by the view of a person that’s almost a perfect copy of you. You touch the double glass and wonder if perhaps you’ve been glancing at your own reflection all along. You don’t have to mull over it too hard, as the prehistoric man begins to lose his patience and the security window becomes a frail obstacle in the path of his massive fists. Within seconds you’re on the ground, scrambling to avoid the shards that now spread across the lab tiles. Is this how you die?

Pickle scans the room, completely baffled by the strange machinery. He doesn’t recognize anything. Not even the humans cowering in fear before him. He would like some answers, but doesn’t know where to obtain them. Frustrated, he grinds his teeth and considers his options. He turns to search for you and his head freezes. Did you…become smaller? What are you doing on the floor? He rushes to help you up, but you yell out in fear and try to shove yourself away. A familiar growl erupts behind him. It’s you. Confused, he checks the person he’s still holding. Wait. What?

Your wrists are aching and you’re panting. You can feel your knees giving up. Is he trying to kill you? Why you, out of all the people? The Jurassic man pauses in his movement and you shyly peep over towards the commotion that distracted him. You lock your eyes with the woman and she seems to be in disbelief. Can’t blame her, really. You’ve had plenty of time beforehand to process the similarities, but it’s her first time meeting you. Is she as shocked as you were during the first encounter? And then it hits you: the man thought you’re her.

You’ve often observed your reflections in the water and have always been fascinated by the phenomenon. As far as you can tell, however, there’s no pond or river around this time. Who is the person standing next to Pickle? You exchange a quick look with your equally bewildered mate. Oh, how exhausting. This isn’t your home and that isn’t you. You don’t understand. Maybe this stranger has some answers to all this. You step forward and squat down to the level of this smaller version of you. You’ll get to the bottom of this.

The wall crashes and you slap the emergency exit button. You crawl out of the cockpit, coughing out the dust particles and fumes caused by the explosion. Did the Time Machine work? You survey your surroundings and gasp involuntarily. Is it…you? There’s a tall, toned woman kneeling before a much smaller human, but they both bear your appearance.

My partner (that proofreads everything) absolutely lost it when he saw the request and found the idea so wild he wanted to write his own thing. So hereby attached are his own headcanons. Enjoy! This was a crazy ride.

Bonus: Baki Characters but it’s all You, the Reader

You reminisce about you fighting you. How you challenged you, met you in your underground fighting arena, how you circled around you, looking for an opening into your defense. How glorious when your fist hit your face, and how your blood splattered on the ground of your arena.

You are preparing to fight you. The strongest fighter in the world is you, and you are your son. If you want to have any chance of defeating you, you will have to become even stronger than you. So you train, every week, every day, every hour. In your basement you are facing yourself, so that one day you can stand in front of you instead.

You couldn’t believe your ears when you called from the survey site. In the salt, you found you fighting yourself, in the shape of a T.Rex. Reviving you after millions of years would further prove your spot as the number one scientist.

You feel yourself exiting your body, flying through the cold air. You rudely land on yourself lying among the trash bags. The unpleasant feeling wakes you up. Upon waking, you demand your clothes. You put them on, even though they barely fit your muscular body. You exit your alleyway, walking through the crowd of you. You stand out from yourself, so you spot yourself immediately.

[watcherthrowaway]

also one real post about this and like, plenty of ink has been spilt on how disconnected watcher entertainment seems to be from its fans but i think the missing piece here is how disconnected watcher is from the rest of youtube. when the catastrophe hit i went to all my terminally online friends, the same way i did after the hbomberguy james somerton video, or after the ned fulmer fiasco, or the creepshowart scandal etc, or every time jenny nicholson dropped a new evermore video, including the ones behind the $2 patreon paywall we all gladly pay for, and for the first time...

no one knew who i was talking about.

these are not insulated people. these are people i can trust to have at least name recognition of almost any youtuber i mention. they know downtherabbithole and strangeaeons and cjthex and kappakaiju and miniminuteman773 and kazrowe and somemorenews etc etc etc

so when i put in the group chat, with no context, 'he wasnt even on cribs' or 'we have no cats kathleen' or 'only humble pagan commune schemes' or whatever, i usually do so with great trust that at least half the group will know what im on about.

this time, crickets.

i backpedaled a little and pulled up the 'ive connected them' meme and the fuzzy blue professor, and i got nothing at all. the only recognition i got was when someone belatedly realized that he had seen the goatman video when it dropped (although he had no idea that they had their own company now), and another person remembered that they had offered to collab with danny gonzalez, a youtuber with twice the subscribers

because she had checked back to see if danny went ghost hunting again, and lost interest because he hadnt.

i also brought it up in my dedicated buzzfeed unsolved group chat but ummmmm i am the only one in that group still watching ever since the shift to watcher oops

the only splash they had made in my again, TERMINALLY ONLINE friend group that watches hours and hours of youtube a day was a buzzfeed video seven years ago, and when they had failed to collab with someone more famous than them. i found myself in the unusual position of having to explain the situation to a bunch of dirty internet gremlins, all of whom heard the whole story and said 'why would they do that'

not 'why would they do that to their fans' but 'why would they do that as youtubers'

even aside from the moneygrubbing, we watcher stans were confused about why they tried to offer us a service we didn't need or want, and i think it obscured the confusion on why they thought it was a good idea at all, when so many other models were available to them. why werent they using their patreon like other youtubers? why weren't they collaborating with other youtubers? why weren't they putting out regular, lower quality content like other youtubers? if they wanted higher quality content, why weren't they partnering with nebula, like lindsay ellis, or netflix, like bo burnham. why didn't they run their ideas past someone like the green brothers, who have jumpstarted scishow and many other similar projects successfully, and are famously good to work with/consult with? why would they try to pull a roosterteeth? don't they know what happened?

and i think the answer is no. i think they just don't know those things. and they didnt bother to check, because they think all those things are beneath them. because they think corporate content is the only worthwhile kind there is.

why else would they think they have to have an office building, keep dozens of people on staff, buy expensive cameras, and build a streaming platform? why do they only collaborate with actors and singers who have corporate entertainment approval? why are they reinventing the wheel on buzzfeed when thousands of youtubers build perfectly stable careers with a mic and a camera, and sometimes hire an editor?

i guess my takeaway from this is that, at least they didnt break my heart as a fan entirely because they fundamentally misunderstood me. they did it, at least in part, because they do not understand how youtube works, or what part they play in it.

they dont understand how people use youtube. it is not a cinematic event worthy of the big tv, it is line goes up playing in the background for the 400th time as i wash my face and put my laundry away.

that is why they spent months and months planning this without ever noticing it was a bad idea, while millions of youtube viewers knew instantly. thats why they didn't start with a more moderate solution, why they never used their patreon properly, why they cared so much about the production value, why they thought a youtube audience, any audience at all, would jump at the chance to leave youtube.

bc youtube as a creator sucks, and we all know that, but youtube as a viewer is extremely comfortable. all i ask of youtube is to be mildly interesting in the background while i do other stuff. it is filler. some of the filler is extremely good, yes, but there is no room or reason in my life to give more of my money and attention to my filler, let alone to get a bigger screen for it.

and honestly, this is why i and others stayed on with the ghoul boys even though their quality dropped. because it's filler. im not even looking at the screen you apparently spent 100k on. im flipping my eggs. im washing my hair. im waiting for the bus with my headphones in and my phone in my pocket. thank you for being my background music. in return i will sit through your ads and push your view counter up by one. i may even hit the like button by accident bc my phone is in my pocket.

this is not to say i dont enjoy my filler. i would absolutely die without it. but it is not and never will be exchanged for the instances when i make popcorn in The Big Bowl and turn on a Real Movie on the Big Screen (my old laptop that is 15 whole inches) with my phone turned over so nothing can distract me.

my filler can't be my movie, and vice versa. nor should it be. but watcher doesnt understand that, apparently. they think youtube is cruelly preventing them from being netflix, and they think we want netflix, and they don't understand that, even with that half-assed apology that they didn't explain their dream correctly and they are jsut so destitute they had to take extreme measures after they went to europe 6 too many times...

there is a fundamental misunderstanding about how people use youtube , both as creators and as consumers. they didn't just misunderstand their fanbase. they continue to misunderstand the entire ecosystem. idk guys. maybe you should have learned something from those youtubers that you apparently think you are too good for.

and as for me, welp. i've booted people from my filler line-up for less. and there are soooooooooooooo many other fish in the sea, and they are not asking me to pay them 27 corporation salaries from my own pocket. they are asking for me to bump their view counter up by one.

goodbye boys. i really hope you find a way to fulfill yourselves artistically or whatever. but you have burned this particular bridge, like. forever. and i don't think i'm the only one who feels that way.

and not because i dont support people getting a living wage, you guilt-tripping vultures, or because i dont believe in following dreams and wishing on stars and whatnot.

but because i prefer to consume content from people who know what they're doing, and i simply no longer trust that includes you.

[a-libra-writes]

Op...can you do a romantic headcanon for Mordecai from Lackadaisy please ༎ຶ⁠‿⁠༎ຶ

Yes indeedy ♣️

Reader is GN, pardon the length haha, it got away from me... like ...really got away ............................

I will preface that this would be a ... very slow burn, we're talking the flame is barely there for a long time because that's just how Mordecai Is About Feelings. No, never mind feelings - the trust has to come first, and that's difficult for him. It'll take years, really. You might have an easier time of it if you had a similar upbringing, if you're also Jewish - but that's just slightly easier, and it's not as though he's opening up about himself. It's mostly you talking and being vulnerable first, then he'll begin to volunteer (little bits of) information once he trusts you.

How can you tell he's trusting you? At that point, you've been around him long enough to pick up on Mordecai's mannerisms. He's not as stiff around you, he isn't watching you like you might turn on him, he's calmer and actually talks. You start to pick up what certain glances or gestures mean, when he's relaxed and when someone makes him suspicious. To outsiders, it may seem like you both only tolerate each other.

In fact, you two have something of a secret language with certain looks, gestures, body language and so on. It's especially handy in a gunfight or when you're trying to communicate something across a room. It sort of just came about after years of relying on and trusting each other.

Now, onto the feelings. Mordecai literally blames the feelings on everything but what they are. Was he becoming suspicious of you? No, he trusted you - even if he couldn't say it out loud, he did - perhaps it was a sickness, then? It only alleviated when he was away from you for a long time, but then another awful feeling would replace it, and that only alleviated when you were back. He will pathologize and overthink for literal months (or LONGER if you're a man) before finally conceding that maybe, maybe ... ... it's a crush.

Horrifying. He wants to throw up. Only the thought of the mess he'd have to clean up is keeping him from doing so.

(And obviously he never, ever wants to tell you and figures if he buries it down deep enough it'll just go away)

To anyone at Lackadaisy whose familiar with him, they may notice that he allows you to touch him. It's nothing big at first, and to be fair, he reacted strongly the first few times. You might clean some lint of his coat that he insisted wasn't there, you gently nudge him away from an awkward situation, you softly nudge him and tilt your head to a person you're suspicious of. The first prolonged touch was when you two were utterly exhausted after a run and just leaned against each other in the car, too tired and hurt to move for a while. He didn't say it, but that was probably the closest he'd been to someone in a very, very long time. It almost felt intimate. Thinking back to it made his hair stand on edge for a few days... or a week.

Those who know him may also notice how unusually irritated he gets with men or women "presuming too much" and being too cozy with you. If you're really uncomfortable with the flirting, he'll just outright stand in front of you and dismiss the person with a sharp, green-eyed glare. Mordecai didn't notice he was doing it until Mitzi pointed it out, and he had plenty of excuses ready. Once you both have an "understanding", he's even less tolerant of other people invading your space and being too forward - quite interesting, considering if someone is coming onto him, he's far less aggressive and far more awkward about it.

A lot of being with Mordecai is having to accept that sometimes, you won't hear what you want. Sometimes you have to pay attention to his actions and intentions. Sometimes you won't have a clear idea what he means or wants at all, at least not for a while. Mordecai is aware of his flaws, very aware. More than once he has thought that he isn't deserving of your feelings or the things you do for him.

(you are one of the few people in this cold world who gets the rare Mordecai Approving Smile, but don't say anything! just enjoy! It'll be gone as quick as it came)

The sort of things you do that give him butterflies are as follows: Taking his glasses off the desk, cleaning them and putting them back beside him. Getting into a debate or a discussion-that-turns-into-a-debate, you two getting more and more heated until your faces are two inches apart and you're shoulder-to-shoulder because you're both so invested in the topic. When you're both in close quarters, and your tail or ears accidentally brush against his. When you gesture at something symmetrical with a little smirk on your face. When you bring him warm food while he's working at his desk, something filling and just the right temperature. When you both enter a suspicious place, guns drawn, and you go ahead but glance back with an expression that says with absolute certainty, I trust you.

If you're in physical distress or danger, Mordecai can fix that. He can jump to action and shoot and kill whatever is doing this, and he's confident in that. If it's something emotional, that's the rub, isn't it? He can linger close, he can bring you blankets and food, he can keep others from bothering you, but what else can he do? What can he say? He wasn't good at these kinds of words.

It's these times when he'll touch you first. It'll be a hand on your back after sitting next to you for a long time, listening to you talk about what upset you. If you're in danger, he'll yank you by the arm to safety. He'll sigh, take your hands and show you how to properly hold your gun because why do you keep doing it that way you're going to give him grey hairs this is the best way to handle the recoilsdjsjfjd--

It's not his choice of expressing affection, that's for sure, but that's okay. More often, he finds himself drawn to things that both interest you and could be useful to you. He'll stop by your place with ingredients for a dish you love, he'll "come across" a new coat in your size because your old one got bullet holes. You'll find your guns cleaned and your ammo replenished, you'll notice your apartment has been tidied and dusted. He really appreciates it when you keep your space clean, or at least temporarily for his sake. The first time he was in your apartment for dinner, a spider crawled on him and he FLIPPED. A chair may have been broken. You just took it outside in a cup and continued on like nothing weird happened, even when he insisted on washing the cup like four times.

Also, sometimes Mordecai will associate things so strongly with you that he can't separate them in his mind - a scent, a specific color, a flower, a book, and so on. He might find something that's one or more of those things and keep it with him. Because. Just because. No other reason.

And again! It's so difficult for him to just say and express his feelings for you. It's more likely the two of you will just fall into a sort of odd are-they-or-aren't-they unspoken "understanding", especially if you don't express your feelings and just wait on him. You'll have to make the first step in that direction. Someone would have to torture him to get any serious information about you, especially his feelings. If someone untrustworthy comes asking about you and him, someone prying for a weakness - it's easy for Mordecai to brush off. He can act aloof, or better, callous. He'll say it right in front of you, if that's what keeps you safe. He'll say you're nothing to protect you.

For once, the words come easily, but it's the action he can't do.

It's agonizing the whole time he does it, like dying over and over. Getting beaten and shot was easier than this. Mordecai wants to see you as soon as it's over, even if he has no idea what to say anymore... If you even to see him again. Perhaps he should've expected this is how things would end. You knew what this kind of life would lead to, didn't you? He did. He thought he did.

[monstrousparalysis]

With A Life Like This, Who Needs Hell?

Warning for vivisection, human experimentation, suicidal ideation, temporary character death, and mild exploration of the implications of Viv and Vex just kidnapping gang members.

Fandom: Just Roll With It: The Suckening

Characters: Emizel Tucker, Viv Weylin, Vex Weylin

Relationships: Emizel Tucker & Vex Weylin & Viv Weylin

Word count: 1,670

Summary:

Emizel Tucker, age 16, goes missing after a night out with friends. He is reported as such 3 days later, when his father, used to his delinquency, gets fed up with what he presumes to be the boy skipping work. This is more than many similar cases of missing adolescents and young adults in Los Angeles have gotten.

The only people who usually notice the disappearances are the friends, fellow members of one of two gangs, the Demons and the Fangs. Of course, anybody involved in gang activity is unlikely to trust the police for help.

Of course, no mortal police force could help with what happens to the missing youths. The Weylin Twins are well above any mortal law, as well as most vampiric ones.

And Emizel Tucker has had the grave misfortune of catching their eyes.

Written for day 13 of @sintember, "Why won't you stay dead?!"

(also posted on AO3 here!)

Emizel Tucker is pretty sure he died at 16 in an alleyway because some Fang got a lucky punch on him. Because the only reasonable explanation for everything that's happened since then is that he's in Hell.

Then again, if he is in Hell, then the fact that he's been “dying” at all seems like a weird amount of mercy, with how peaceful it is right up until he ends up back in this fucking lab. The Adam Sandler movies are annoying, but the ocean of blood is fine, if edgy.

These weird twins definitely aren't human though, that he's sure of. The shit they've been doing to him doesn't make sense.

Illustrating his point perfectly, the one he's gathered is named Viv wedges her hands under his ribcage and just bends it open.

His brain glitches when it tries to process that. It sort of hurts in the same way hitting your funny bone hurts. Probably because your bones aren't supposed to do that.

Whatever, he'd let plenty of Fangs before the motherfucker that landed him here get in a spare hit just for the thrill of the pain. He grits his teeth and breathes through it.

Fuck, he can see his lungs inflating as he does that. He might need to revisit the “being in Hell” thing.

The other one, Vex, starts prodding around his organs, like this is the first time he's seen them.

“You know, Emizel, even beyond the obvious, you are quite the unusual specimen,” he remarks cheerfully, like he's not fondling Emizel's intestines.

He really, really wanted to punch him right now. But that hadn't gone well the last four times he'd tried, so instead, he choked out “You're one to fucking talk” in response. Still, his hands clenched with the urge to break the bastard's nose.

The way they talked to him while they opened him up like he was some sort of particularly interesting toy made him feel…something. Nothing as strong as the feeling of Vex squeezing his guts, but it was still strange.

They were probably just the kind of weirdos who only talked to other people in this kind of situation. Still, it beat having his entire mouth sealed shut, so he tried to respond and keep them interested in what he had to say.

Vex definitely got a kick out of it, giggling at the sharp words like they were a compliment.

“Oh, I'm well aware that me and my sister are unusual, especially to your limited perspective, but you're the man of the hour!”

As he said that, Viv did something that sent a static-y feeling up his spine, his legs twitching.

He hated that they didn't tie him down. He felt like a prey animal, like something so weak and scared that restraining it was a waste of time.

“Lucky me,” he spat with all the sarcasm he could manage.

“I do agree with your assertion, brother," Viv said. “Most of our subjects tend to scream out for somebody when in this much pain, as an instinctual response. Usually, parents.”

She glanced up from Emizel's ribcage to meet his eyes. Her eyes, bright white surrounded by blood red, struck a very rare feeling of outright fear into him. “You haven't the whole time you've been here.”

The absurdity of calling out to Jeffrey to help him mixed the spike of fear into a delirious ridiculousness. He actually might've preferred this to Jeffrey making him earn his keep. At least these two had better taste in music. They even thought he was interesting!

“What, do you guys not catch orphans?” he teased. Maybe the pain was getting to his head. It felt familiar, like the rush he got after a good fight.

Viv broke off a rib from his chest with casual ease, and Emizel shuddered.

As she inspected the marrow, she responded, “Not at all. In fact, the demographics of your gang are proportionally skewed towards parental abandonment.”

With a smile, Vex chimed in, “It does make our jobs much easier if we don't have to worry about Mommy and Daddy trying to track any of you down!”

Oh yeah. They controlled both the Demons and the Fangs, and didn't care about what happened with them.

Emizel had recognized pieces of the gross monsters they made, early on. A hand that felt familiar. Eyes that he'd seen before.

He was always going to end up here. No escaping it. And he had nobody who would care enough to find him except for the friends who'd join him soon.

He's pretty sure he cried about that the first time they revealed it, but he was numb to it now. Maybe Vex pulling out his heart that one time fucked that up.

Regardless, he definitely wasn't numb to the pins and needles feeling of their hands on him. It was agony. It was ecstasy. It was something completely new that he couldn't understand, and it was starting to feel kinda nice.

At least he had one leg up on these freaks. Every time he died, a voice had been counting down from 9, and he hadn't shared that with them. With the way they were studying him, he'd run out of lives soon. He'd die for real, and he wouldn't miss this lab, wouldn't miss the auto shop, and wouldn't miss his lack of a future. He'd flip his life the bird and find some other shit to do.

It was at that moment that Viv paused in her work and asked Vex, “Have you found anything particularly aberrant about his anatomy, brother?”

Vex groaned. “No, it's all small things I've seen before. Have you?”

Viv shook her head. “Aside from past fractures that weren't set, he's perfectly average. He'd make a textbook cadaver if he'd simply stay dead.”

Oh great, he's normal. How comforting.

They both stayed silent, lost in thought. Slowly, a smile crept back onto Vex's face.

“Sister, are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

With a simple look at him, Viv raised an eyebrow.

“If my assumption of what you're thinking is correct, I'd say that it's a worthwhile idea, but we'll have to be logical about it.”

Ugh, twins. Now he had no fucking clue what they were on about.

Vex grabbed Viv by the shoulders, enthused and getting blood on her white lab coat.

“If it all went right, he could be our next masterpiece!”

Emizel started to panic. He'd seen the fucked up creatures Vex called their “artwork”, and he didn't want to be trapped in some kind of fucking human meatball forever.

“I must concur, his true immortality could yield fascinating results in a kindred form,” she said, looking at Emizel with some sort of consideration on her face.

“I'll grab one of the thralls at once!”

“Wait, we should put more consideration into this. I'm unsure that making him a Brujah would be wise, brother. We've already seen how violent his temperament is, wouldn't that be quite the handful?”

Yeah, Emizel officially had no fucking clue what they were on about, but he wanted no part of it. Please, please, just go back to ripping him apart until he'd finally stay a pile of meat on the floor—

Vex looked upset about that comment, though. “Just look at him, Viv! Making him anything other than Brujah would be an insult to our talent! We can't have subpar artwork on purpose!”

Viv's rationality seemed to waver when faced with the potential of this next experiment they could perform on Emizel, like they hadn't done enough already.

“Okay, I concede to your point, Vex. This should make his generation 10th, correct?”

Vex was already rushing out the door with vigor at Viv's approval, leaving with the comment of “We can always find a way to lower it later if we want him to be stronger!”

Viv rolled her eyes. “His impulsivity will find us our final deaths one day,” she muttered to herself.

With that comment out, she turned back to Emizel, like she'd just remembered he was here.

She grinned, and Emizel was fucking terrified. She wasn't the one that did that, and he still didn't know what the fuck they were going to do to him.

“He didn't even remember to close you up first,” she said almost sweetly. Emizel went to stutter out some response, but before he could, she grabbed the opened flaps of his skin and crossed them back over his torso. She pressed them back together so forcefully he wheezed, and they messily bonded back together like clay.

“He's going to complain about that later, but I'm sure he's going to fuss over your skin regardless.”

Her smile bared her teeth as she talked, and for the first time, Emizel noticed that they had fangs.

“I must confess, I'm excited to see how you come out of this, Emizel Tucker. Behave yourself, and you might become one of the most terrifying things we've ever made.”

The promise of that statement enticed him, even through his fear. He didn't want to be anything like the monsters he'd seen so far, but the idea of becoming something even scarier than that appealed to him.

She used a hand to hold his head back against the table, and he noticed how cold she was to the touch.

She leaned down, fangs bared, and bit into his neck.

He tensed for a moment, then suddenly relaxed.

He felt calm. Peaceful. If he focused on it, he could still feel a pleasant sting from the teeth piercing his skin.

He was getting lightheaded, like his blood was all somewhere else.

“Oh,” he said dumbly. “You're vampires.”

He felt Viv stifle a laugh at that, still drinking from him.

He was feeling the newly-familiar fade of dying now, but it sounded like his plan of dying forever wouldn't work out.

Maybe he could accept staying here for a while. If anything was made to stay in hell, it would be a Demon.

[tower-girl-anon]

Mercury in signs: how do you sing

Hello again!! I came back with a short but funny post about Mercury and how we sign according to the sign it falls in.

As always, enjoy it, take it with a grain of salt since this is just based on my intuition, don't copy this post without giving the proper credits to the owner, and hope it resonates with you.

Mercury in Aries: for those who have this planet in the warrior sign of Aries, you sing with... passion. There is no other way to describe it. You put a 100% of effort and energy when you sing that sometimes you can't stay still. It's almost as if your life depended on it. You must move, jump, or do something in general. Seriously though', anybody hearing you sing in a stadium during a game or concert will feel scared due to the level of energy, sometimes even aggression, that you show in your voice.

Mercury in Taurus: the voices of these natives are harmonious in general, very pleasing to listen to, and very femenine. They are not as loud as the prior sign, and it's not common for them to miss a tone in a song. That's because Venus, the planet of love, is the ruler of Taurus, and they love when everything is in an harmonious tune. Also, it is possible that they prefer to keep their singing ability in private rather than sharing it with others.

Mercury in Gemini: you guys sing...whatever you like and whenever you feel like it. You guys know a lot about many songs and singers. Most probably than not, you're one of the best people when it comes about memorizing the lyrics of the songs. Truly, even if you sing good or bad, or if you sing ballads or rock (depending in the situation/mood that you are in), you just know the song and no one can compete with you when it comes about memorizing the lyrics.

Mercury in Cancer: you guys sing... with emotion. You put your heart into the singing no matter if it sounds good or bad. Depending on the type of song, letter or melody, your mood could change so greatly that, if it's a sad song for example, you will cry your eyes out. Even if you've never experienced something similar to the described situation/emotion in the song, it will still resonate due to your emphatic nature.

Mercury in Leo: you sing...with power. You have a powerful voice that may resemble, in force, the roar of a lion. Your singing voice don't get unnoticed by others, somehow it affects others, no matter if it's in a good way or a bad one, and, also, there is a chance that you may become very popular in the industry due to this ability or due to the passion, charm, energy, or optimism showed during this act. No matter if you sign good or bad, your voice don't go unnoticed.

Mercury in Virgo: you sing... with a lot of technique if that makes sence. Let me explain. For one side, I don't feel like most of those who have this sign sings. At least, not spontaneously. Most of you sing with plenty of conscience about the techniques needed for this such as vocalization, breathing, expansion of diaphragm, etc. Even if you don't know it, you try to give the effort required to sing the song and reach all the notes without failing. If you sing bad...I guess you prefer it to do it quietly. In private.

Mercury in Libra: you sing...smoothly and harmoniously. The voice of those who have this planet under the loving sign of Libra possess a beautiful voice. Maybe not as loud or as fast as other sign like Leo or Aries, but you don't mind about that. Certainly you focus more on reaching the correct notes or respecting the whole rithm of the song, and you do it. Sometimes even without you having to put a lot of effort.

Mercury in Scorpio: you guys sing...intensely. You guys have a powerful voice that can influence over other people's emotions or, due the profound way you sing in which the darker and most intimate part of yourself is almost, if not completely, free in the song, it may become adictive to some people since it seems as if you were able to reach their inner, darker, and unknown part of themselves. Maybe singing is an activity that tranforms you or others somehow.

Mercury in Sagittarius: you guys sing...at your own pace. Those of you who have this don't mind about what type of music you are listening to since you tend to know a lot about different types of music from, maybe, all around the world. Your voice could be loud due to the influence of Jupiter as ruler of this sign and, no matter if you are good or bad at it, as long as you enjoy doing it, then the critics won't mind. You can sing at any place and any time. School, the bus, the shower...it doesn´t matter.

Mercury in Capricorn: you guys sing...shyly and with a critic ear. You guys don't share your singin voice often. You do it in private or, at the very least, if there is public, when there are others doing it too so your singin can go unnoticed. Please don't worry, your voice is as nice as everyone elses and the ammount of effort you put while singing, practicing, and reaching the notes correctly is something to be praised, not criticised.

Mercury in Aquarius: you people sing... with a unique tune! For those who have this aspect, your voice while singing could have a particular way of intoning, and may enjoy showing or sharing your talent with friends. Even if you don't sing at all, there is still some enjoyment when it comes to sing with friends. In those cases, you don't mind changing the tune, the letter, or even the sound of the song. Perphaps, by doing so, you will make it sound better.

Mercury in Pisces: you people sing... dreamingly. There is some sort of smoothing energy sorrounding your voice. Its like as if the sounds or melody expresed through your singing voice resembles some kind of otherworldly or mystical sound. You can sing almost about everything and with passion since Pisces brings an emphatic energy. Most probably than not, many people gets surprised by the sounds you project. Or, maybe, they didn't know that you sing in the first place.

That's all I have for you today. There is still some aspects to consider when it comes about voices such as the third house, it's ruler, the aspects of other planets to the ruler, etc. Still, I hope you still enjoyed it, and I send you, as always, lot's of love and light.

Tower Girl Anon

[sideprince]

In a recent post you said James probably kept his bullying of snape away from lily (pre SWM) (hence why lily probably isn’t taking snape’s complaints seriously) but during swm James seems to be actively trying to get Lilys attention through the violence/bullying, why do you think this situation was different for him? Presumably he kept it away from her because it doesn’t make him look great so then why would he switch up and be so blatant about his assholery in front of her? I never quite understood this tactic lmao

Tbh I think this is more about Rowling's flaw as a writer than anything that makes sense in canon. Especially given how much she romanticizes James without giving him any kind of real redemption, and how she talks about him and Sirius in interviews ie. that they're bad boys and "women will understand" what she means by this. James is also very blatantly based on Rowling's abusive first husband, as many people have pointed out.

I think people who don't understand the experience of abuse for a victim have a difficult time with seeing the ways Rowling's own experiences inform her writing, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously (which isn't to make any assumptions about your own experiences by any means!). The reason someone becomes a victim of persistent abuse is because they have an emotional attachment to their abuser, otherwise they would have left after the first incident (strictly speaking of romantic relationships here, family abuse obviously has somewhat different dynamics). An abuser isn't all vicious all the time - there are also moments of affection and vulnerability, sometimes sincere, sometimes deliberately manipulative, sometimes both at the same time. A victim often sees their abuser as someone complex who needs empathy and who they just need to placate. Victims also often feel responsible for their own abuse, because abusers tend toa gaslight them. Each person's experience is different, but if you look at the clinical descriptions of abusive relationships, ie. the cycles of physical/emotional abuse followed by apologies and/or gifts/love bombing, gaslighting, and victim blaming, and look at them from the perspective of the person receiving the abuse, you can start to see how victims might make excuses for their abusers and minimize their ugly parts, focusing more on their attractive attributes. This is also often a necessarily coping mechanism for survival in this kind of relationship.

While Rowling unwittingly draws a parallel between school bullies and violent abusers with James' character (and after all, bullying is on the abuse spectrum), SWM memory would be an unlikely scenario even in a real life British boarding school bullying scenario. Although bullying victims at these schools get abused horribly, and although other students witness it and can even cheer it on, and teachers are sometimes even aware of it happening, the unusual thing about SWM is that it happens out in the open. Teachers at these schools may look the other way despite knowing there's bullying, but students know not to do it in front of staff, because the latter are still obliged to dole out punishment (and part of this culture is to not only separate the bullies from the victims but to teach bullies how to get away with it *gestures at the Houses of Parliament*).

So it seems very uncharacteristic for James, both as someone who displays abusive behavior (and is based on an abuser) and knows how to hide his abusive behavior, to attack another student so openly. We also know that on the occasions he was caught hexing other students in the halls (and presumably there were plenty of incidents he got away with too), he was disciplined. The fact that a detention is a slap on the wrist to a student who's had dozens of similar infractions already is a whole other post, but the point is that when this behavior is caught, it's punished. If hexing a student by enlarging their head in the halls is worthy of a detention, then what might waterboarding, hoisting, and pantsing another student warrant? Would a bully like James really risk getting caught by attacking another student so egregiously, and given the length of the incident, is it really possible that not one teacher saw the crowd from a window and went to investigate?

I think the point of James' actions in SWM was that Rowling needed a narrative tool. She needed to make Harry question his father, to drop a bit of exposition about Snape without revealing too much, and to set up the eventual reveal at the end of the series. I don't think Rowling did as much character development with James and Lily as we'd like to think (and they barely show up as it is), so I don't think she thought through whether James' assault of Snape and how it's done is in line with his character all that much. It served her needs as a writer and that was enough for her. It wasn't the first time she treated a character like this.

I also think that James is in some ways a struggle between Rowling's conscious and subconscious when it comes to her processed and unprocessed abuse experiences. At the risk of psychoanalzying someone who's a complete stranger (and also because I'm not a trained therapist), I think it's worth noting that abuse victims who have processed their trauma in healthy ways generally don't become avid spokespeople for bigotry, despite how vulnerably everyone is, as a rule, to being radicalized. People with unprocessed, active trauma do tend to be more vulnerable to it. James Potter, a character who's described as looking like Jorge Arantes (Rowling's abusive first husband), whose personality is described as entitled and who enacts casual violence on other students, sure seems like a projection of Rowling's abuser. She also began to write Harry Potter as both a personal form of escapism from that relationship, and a very real one in how she hid her manuscript from him and essentially leveraged its success into getting out of that marriage. At the same time she puts James on a pedestal, shows him as loving and heroic throughout the series, and has written a prequel story romanticizing him and Sirius.

Although Harry leaves SWM feeling rattled at what he witnesses his dad doing, and even acknowledges that he seemed to be as arrogant and awful as Snape had always said, he doesn't do much further thinking about it. He asks Sirius and Lupin about it, who don't deny any of it and excuse it as youthful foolishness, and Harry, who has experienced both abuse and bullying firsthand (and has connected this immediately with Snape's experience at his father's hand), accepts this easily and moves on, keeping his father on his pedestal. I can't help but think that this is a manifestation of Rowling's own issues, ie. the ability to identify abuse but also excuse it at her own expense long enough to end up in a bad and violent situation.

It's hard not to see the way she writes James as a projection of her own feelings as an abuse victim of "yeah I know he's awful and he doesn't treat me right but also I really want to fuck him." Especially given that she describes James as a "bad boy" and talks in interviews not only about finding his bad traits attractive, but assumes this is a universal perspective among women. Aside from SWM, the reader generally walks away from the HP books with a perception of James as a paternal, heroic figure, because that's what Rowling wants them to take away from his character; it's how she sees him. His abusive behaviors are a footnote specific to Snape's experience of him. Rowling literally creates an abuse victim and then gaslights him. Again, at the risk of psychoanalyzing a stranger, I have a hard time not seeing this as a blatant projection of her own experiences and the muddled, unprocessed trauma she has.

All in all I think James' behavior in SWM is out of character because Rowling's approach to his character was too complicated. He's not a three dimensional character but a storytelling vehicle who says and does things for sake of plot development, and sometimes that means his actions make no sense if you start to think about it.

[mooseyspooky]

Hiya, I love your blog so so much so I wanted to ask some questions I've been curious to know your thoughts on:

1) What do you think about Johnny's sexuality? I know it's a very personal thing from experience and I don't wish to be intrusive but I've always wondered about him as someone who has been in a similar situation with a friend. I recall an interview where, in response to being asked about the possibility of being in love with Moz, he simply stated that he wasn't just because he was in love with Angie. He didn't say "No, because I'm not interested in guys" or anything. Just an interesting one lol.

2. Do you think that Moz's longing for Johnny remained as a simple infatuation rather than there ever being any instance of the two being more than friends? I ask this because I remember reading on Tumblr somewhere that apparently Grant Showbiz claimed they had been sleeping together on tour in 1983 or at least he had suspected it and also I've always had a hunch that there had to be at least one moment where something happened because I get it being awkward anyway but there had to have been something happen between them for them to be so secretive, right?

3. The whole thing with Johnny's wedding seems suspicious to me but I was wondering what you thought about it. The reason I say this is because I've always found it interesting how Joe Moss was very pushy about Johnny marrying a 'strong woman' and that, even if he may not have been thinking about the idea. I wonder if it was partly because Moss wanted to sway Johnny away from Moz/hide something/stop any suspicion from the press. Idk, just rambling lol.

Thank you!

Thank you so much for all these amazing questions! And for your sweet comments!!

1) Johnny's sexuality is on paper assumed to be straight, but I don't believe that in the slightest. Johnny has always given me the impression he was bisexual. He was drawn to and fit in with other queer people from a very early age. His best friend Andrew Berry was gay, some of his other early best mates were queer. Johnny found community among these people and went on to form a band with an openly queer frontman. He encouraged and was excited about Moz writing lyrics about queer experiences and queer sex. Maybe he's the world's biggest ally, but I doubt it. He seems very much like Noel to me, and Clint. Where having wives and girlfriends gives you "straight people privileges" while behind closed doors they're very open about their sexual interest in both men and women. Johnny was very physically affectionate towards Moz, hanging off him, cuddling him, sleeping on his shoulder. He was this way with Bernard, too, and with Issac from Modest Mouse to some degree. He was also very physically affectionate towards Andy.

The one time I can recall Johnny trying to say he was straight he stumbled over the words. It's tagged on my blog somewhere, but it's in the Oxford Union interview from 2019. (Edit: Found it!) Otherwise he's never definitively said one way or the other how he identifies.

Also, these quotes from Johnny in the book The North Will Rise Again:

Like damn, Johnny. Tell me again how straight you are lmao

2) I go back and forth all the time about if Moz and Johnny were actually sexually intimate. I know, this is coming from me. The one active marrissey fanfic writer, but it's hard for me to say. I'd never heard that about Grant Showbiz though. I find him to be generally pretty trustworthy, so that's fascinating if he does think that. Because more than any other time, late 1983 is when I think their relationship could have become more than infatuation. Angie broke up with Johnny for a week or two in December 1983, before they first went to America. Joe Moss also left. They were alone together, there was no band manager around, really. Johnny was filling that role. There was plenty of opportunity. Because of Moz being so reserved, I don't know that they would have gone beyond making out and heavy petting while they were both drunk, but I think even that would lead to Moz' spiraling obsession becoming what we saw by 1987. Songs like Happy Lovers at Last United, Alastian Cousin, Suedehead ('it was a good lay'), You Must Please Remember, Speedway. So many songs suggesting something more happened between them. So to some degree yes, I think they had to have messed around some, though I imagine Johnny tried to back pedal and push Moz away because he feared losing the aforementioned 'straight privileges' that being with Angie had. Having a public and open affair with your frontman would have been a PR nightmare, and while I'm sure Moz didn't care - Johnny would.

3) Joe Moss being pushy about the wedding is also something I haven't heard, but I'm not surprised. Johnny didn't propose to Angie. He just asked her if they should get married, and then they did so the next day, in California. Hundreds of miles from their parents, their siblings, from their home. They didn't have a honeymoon until after Johnny left in June 1987, suggesting Johnny didn't prioritize their marriage. The wedding photographer wanted a lot of money for the wedding photos, and Johnny decided it wasn't worth it (yes, the photographer was scamming him, but surely you'd pay out the nose for your own wedding photos - like. Did he not know a single person to loan him the money? In 1985 he was snorting a mountain of cocaine a day, couldn't he sell some of that and buy them? There had to have been options). Marriage seemed like an afterthought to him. Moz calling Angie a 'sad veiled bride' is also weird. Yes, of course Moz was upset. Johnny didn't choose him, but I Know It's Over is hardly a resentful rant. It's a very honest song. And so that makes me wonder why exactly is Angie unhappy? Because Johnny is doing this out of peer pressure? Because she knows it's something he doesn't really want? I refer to it again and again, but Happy Lovers at Last United also brings this up. Why did Moz have to help repair Angie and Johnny's relationship? Was Johnny unfaithful? Just checked out? Disinterested? This is further compounded by the fact that Johnny was MIA for so much of Nile's and Sonny's childhood. Johnny talks endlessly about how him and Bernard were always together. They spent days in the studio, at times saying they were literally locked in there together. Johnny went on holiday with Bernard, Johnny went on tour with him. More than that, Johnny says he spent several days at a time high on acid or shrooms recording stuff for The The. How did his marriage to Angie survive that? Did his kids get to see him sober when they were growing up? Did they get to see him at all? I don't have definite answers to any of these things, but it's definitely troubling.