#it isn’t really obvious where account settings are

[itsabouttimex2]

Descendant of the Lady Bone Demon: Part Two

(Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three)

Maybe they should’ve seen this coming. Maybe there were a few warning signs they didn’t pick up on. Looking back on it now, it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? All those little things should’ve added up a long time ago.

The way the room grew silent and tense when you walked in, no matter how how exuberant it had been prior. How you manage to sneak up on everyone without even trying, as though you had no presence. The wide berth that strangers give you, even though they can’t explain why. That last one had been particularly strange for your friends. They hadn’t understood why people would treat you so coldly, not back then.

They understand now.

MK has already had so much placed on his shoulders, and all of it was without his asking. The fate of his friends. The fate of the city. The fate of the world. Time after time, countless lives are placed into his hands, and he does his very best to bring them safely through the danger posed by ancient threats and lurking demons.

Once, living out the dream of being a hero had been fun. Back then, all he had to do was master a new power or bust down another bad guy, and then everyone laughed and went on with their peaceful lives. Back when every adventure ended before the day was over and he was back home just in time for Pigsy to start scolding him for being reckless.

But as he grows stronger, so too does his vast array of enemies. As he trains his body and masters his skills, all those who seek to oppose him are doing the same.

Which means higher stakes. More danger. More destruction. More lives on the line day by day. It means that every last friend and companion of his will end up finding themselves in danger just on account of being associated with him. His enemies are rarely noble, most of them willing to target his friends in an attempt to devastate his heart and mind, hoping to leave him mourning and unsettled. He thwarts these attempts one after another, always saving the day in the end.

His greatest fear is that a day will come where he falls short of such an accomplishment.

A fear that the Lady Bone Demon brings to the forefront of his mind. She brings this hidden terror to light, and exacerbates it.

“Foolish child. Do you really think that one person can save everyone from pain and suffering? Or are you truly arrogant enough to believe that your strength alone can forge a better tomorrow?”

She makes him want to be stronger. Smarter. Better. Good enough to protect anyone who’d ever be put in danger. Especially you.

“Y/N! Let’s hang out today! Come on, I’ve got my room set up for a Monkey Cop marathon!” He takes you by the hand, dragging you along after him with a big smile that he struggles to maintain. When he’s sad or upset, he turns to you. In turn, he makes it clear that you can always rely on him to protect you.

If he were a bit more mature, a little more confident and self-assured, he’d make for a wonderful older brother figure. He’s spontaneous, energetic, supportive… and entirely terrified that he might lose you.

That fear drives him to train harder, to work harder… to be someone you are truly and honestly proud of. To be someone you can rely on and turn to in any time of need. He tackles his training with a renewed vigor, all in preparation for the moment that you might need his protecting.

And now that said moment has come, he’s more scared than ever before. The person he fears most bears down on him as he stands in front of the person he fears losing most, and all he can do is hold strong.

“You will not stand between me and my destiny!” The Lady Bone Demon’s voice is furious, her eyes crackling with arcane energy.

The very same eyes that you have. MK doesn’t know exactly what started his suspicions, but your eyes are what confirmed his little hunch. The two of you are related in some way, he’s sure of it.

And with how insistent she is with getting her hands on you, it’s only a further nail into the coffin. There’s no denying that you and the Lady Bone Demon have some sort of connection. But what? Are you her descendant? Did she plant a seed of her essence into your forefathers long ago to ensure that some part of her would go on, and only now is returning to reclaim it? Are you simply powerful enough for her to see use in you? Does she think she could sway you to her side?

There’s a dozen explanations that could be true. However, he has no way to prove which one of them it is, because the Lady Bone Demon is staying tight lipped on why exactly she wants you, perhaps as to not give MK a chance to counter her plans.

It doesn’t matter, MK reminds himself. What she wants with you doesn’t matter. What matters is that she wants you, full stop. And if he can stop her and her well-intentioned plans, then he can save you and everybody else too. All he has to do is push a little harder.

And then?

Maybe he can just… forget about it all. Forget about the Lady. Forget about your nebulous ties to her. And everything can go back to the way it was, when he didn’t jump every time you spoke to him, when he could look into your eyes without feeling like someone had dumped ice down his shirt, when he could fall asleep next to you without waking up in a cold sweat.

He’ll forget all about it, burying it deep inside his brain.

And then things will go back to normal, with you safely under his protection.

Right?

He knows right from the start. I sincerely believe that if someone was the Lady Bone Demon’s descendant, Wukong would be aware the very moment he met them.

A dread chill races down his spine the moment he see you, freezing him for just a second as he contemplates one of his worst fears coming true. The Lady Bone Demon is back.

Except… no, not really. That’s not her at all, is it? You’re just… some kid. With the exact same crushing spiritual pressure that she personally exerted. And the same eyes that she had.

Yeah, this isn’t a coincidence. There’s just no way. He goes off to do some digging, but not before subtly tasking MK with keeping an eye out for you while he searches for anything that could prove your ties to one of his greatest enemies.

And this is Sun Wukong we’re talking about, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. It doesn’t take him very long, whether through cleverness and trickery or sheer brute force.

Maybe the monkey demon twists a few heavenly arms to get the information he wants. Maybe he utilizes the 72 Transformations to eavesdrop on a keeper of records. Maybe he’s just got a sacred book of lineage hidden away in some pile of junk somewhere.

However he does it, he gets the job done well, with just the conclusion he’s looking for- you are indeed, of the Lady Bone Demon’s blood.

But Sun Wukong has come far from his days before Five Phases mountain. He’s not some vicious demon who bullies those around him, nor does he jump to outright murder as a solution for every last problem.

He’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, just so you can maybe prove yourself to him.

It starts with him crashing at your house without an excuse, he himself writing it off with a very unconvincing “bout of motion sickness” that would supposedly leave him incapable of comfortably riding his cloud back to Flower Fruit Mountain.

His true intention is to see what you’ll do while he’s “asleep”, laid across your couch with his head rested on a cushy pillow, tantalizingly propped-up for one who might wish to try and crush his skull or slice his throat.

Instead, you usher him to a cozy guest room, asking him to call you if he needs anything. He makes use of this several times, asking for food and water to see if you’ll poison it.

But you don’t. There’s no hand-made poison sourced from the Underworld slipped into his peach tea. No sacred knife hidden inside your sleeve. No Heaven-forged needles baked into the slice of pie you bring when he mentions being hungry.

You aren’t a scheming demon, he realizes. You’re just a good kid.

You remind kind to him, even as he intentionally tries to fray your nerves. You don’t snap or argue or whine, instead tending to his false needs with a smile on your face.

He drifts comfortably to sleep in the guest room, stomach satiated and his brain whirling. Before he passes out, he realizes with a pang of sympathy that he’s clearly the first person to have ever slept here. Stocked and furnished comfortably for anyone who might stop by and spend time with you… it’s instead been rotting without occupancy, left unused for what may well have been years.

You aren’t a bad person. You really, really aren’t. You’re just a good kid who clearly needs someone to quell the stomach-turning loneliness that finds you down each path you take.

At first, he decides to be that person out of pity. He stops by sometimes, ducking in to snag a bite from your fridge, engaging in a short but friendly conversation, watching sympathetically as the mere exchange of several sentences boosts your mood to healthy levels.

You start to anticipate his visits, making sure you have food and drink he’ll enjoy on hand. Lots of peach-filled pastries, to nobody’s surprise. Pies, tarts, cookies… it turns out that Sun Wukong has a pretty unabashed sweet tooth. He’s actually somewhat touched that you out in the effort just to make sure that he’ll have something nice to eat when he stops by.

Just as pity went to warmth, slowly that warmth comes to a peak, igniting.

Eventually, he starts taking you back to Flower Fruit Mountain to spend time with you there, trying to acclimate you to an eventual residency there with him to repay every kindness you’ve done for him.

There’s not a single pivotal moment where he realizes that he wants to keep you beside him, just a slow, day by day fall into platonic obsession. He gets attached, hard.

From your point of view, your kindness and determination to forge bonds with those around you has finally earned you a friend.

From his point of view, you’re a lonely, wayward child who needs someone nearby to protect and shelter you.

This is far from the truth, but his delusions grow by the day, in part an innocuous desire to repay your kindness, in part an unhealthy attachment to someone who has no hope of escaping from his grasp.

Really, though… if he did spirit you away, would you complain or argue? Fight or run?

Even if you did, there’s no way you’d get away from him. Just sit back, and let him take care of you, just the way you took care of him.

That’s what family does, after all.

You’re another one of his weird kids. That’s where it starts and ends for Pigsy. You fit snugly between Mei and MK, forming a neat little trio that he wants to both throttle and hug. Just as often as you three make him feel like he’s heading to an aneurysm-induced early grave, you make him feel fulfilled and content. His noodle shop, his two best friends, his three high-energy goofy kids.

Pigsy is happy with the life he has. He’s happy with the life he’s provided for MK. He’s happy to see Mei overcome her insecurities with her family and gain their approval. He’s happy that Sandy has found peace and improved himself. He’s even happy when Tang comes to visit, though he’ll gripe about the man “freeloading” whenever he stops by.

It’s a strange, stressful life that he’s built for himself, but he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

A world he wishes was just a little kinder.

It has served him kindly enough, though. Success, family, friends, some degree of fame. Most things a person can want, Pigsy has in decent abundance.

His problem is the way it treats you.

You’re a good kid. You really are. You’ve been visiting since you were a child, and he’s watched you grow up. If it weren’t for Tang, you’d be his most frequent customer. (Because you actually pay for your food, he calls you his favorite customer, to Tang’s dismay) And because you’ve spent so much time here with him and his family, he has a pretty good feeling he understands you.

Is isn’t just the renowned food you’re coming back for. It’s the company, too.

You always come in alone and drag out your visits to last as long as possible. You make conversation whenever and wherever you get the chance, stretching out these moments of companionship for as long as you can.

You’re lonely. Not for a lack of trying, of course. You try to strike up conversations, try to reach out to others wherever you can. People seem consistently unsettled and unnerved in your presence, immediately looking for an out when you come around. No matter how kind you are or how often you try to make connection, you get left in the dust.

If you aren’t at Pigsy’s Noodles, then you’re alone. So you keep coming back, again and again. Not just for the incredible food, but for them.

For him.

It’s sad, but it warms his heart a little at the same time. You rely on him. Maybe he could go as far as to say that you need him. Who would he be, if he didn’t welcome you with open arms?

Pigsy wants you to be happy. He wants to keep you safe. And eventually, those feelings grind slowly towards wanting to keep you close.

And close he keeps you, there and then, and then, here and now.

Pigsy does not let go of you. Even as the manic wide-eyed man he only knows as “the Mayor” demands your unconscious body from him, talking about “bloodlines” and “destiny” and “the power she requires”, the chef refuses to be parted from you.

Since he can’t run, he has no chance but to stand and fight, wielding a nine-toothed rake with one hand and keeping you slung safely over his shoulder with the other. He’s never been good at fighting, so it isn’t truly an even match. He’s instead trying to block and dodge the Lady Bone Demon’s sycophantic servant, barely warding him off after each blow.

His efforts to hold out eventually do pay out, with MK stepping shortly in to knock the “Mayor” away from you both, punting him across the landscape and then into the ground from there.

Leaving Pigsy to weigh the options left before him. However, it’s not much as much of a struggle as one might assume. You’re a kid, he thinks to himself, holding you close as he examines your bruises and scrapes. You don’t need to know. What would it accomplish? Do you need to know why people fear you? Why they think of you as unapproachable? Why they run away from the kindness and warmth you offer?

Would it help you, to know the reason? No, Pigsy decides. It could only lead to trouble and heartbreak. What if you ran away from both yourself and your friends, and never came back for fear of hurting them? What if you lost the ability to trust yourself? What if you hurt yourself?

He can’t run the risk of losing you. From now on, he’s going to take a much more personal role in your life, very potentially bringing you to live in the restaurant with him and MK.

“You don’t have to worry about those two freaks, kid. Just let me look out for ya, from now on.”

[wildemaven]

bloom : one | joel miller

→ pairing: no outbreak joel miller x f!reader

→ WC: 2494

→ warnings: meet cute vibes, reader is single mom, small injury at work, Joel to the rescue using nontraditional techniques to help (I don't want to give it away), daughter is a teen and bleeds sarcasm, fluff and more fluff, mention of divorce and adoption.

→ a/n: some of you are probably like “wait, what is happening?!” i started this series on another account that i was using to take a break from this one. I had plans to finish this series out over there and then just abandon the account and move back here. but i love this series and want it to live here with my other work. so, im getting things set up so i can post part two later this week and move back to this account for good. also, this is series is a TLOU AU, so I've fudged all timelines and relationships to make it work for me. Ihope you like it, am very nervous to share it with you all.

two | series masterlist | main masterlist

You’re staring. 

It would feel less awkward if it were somewhere else, anywhere but where you are right now. Like sitting a table away at a packed restaurant, enough people crowded around to lessen your obvious ogling of a handsome stranger, eyes locked on his profile as you hide behind the empty glass you’re pretending to sip from. The crossing of paths in a grocery store would also feel less awkward, a quick glance back over your shoulder after your carts squeeze through the nearly claustrophobic aisle, your gaze on him as he stares at the shelves filled with sugary snacks— he most definitely would have a wicked sweet tooth you think. 

Unfortunately for you, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, it’s just you and him, alone in the store front of the floral shop— your floral shop. 

He’d walked by the front window, stopping instantly to read the shop’s name in gold letters above the entrance, then hands cupped over his eyes and face pressed close to the glass contemplating the shop’s worthiness of his time. 

It’s a corner spot, sitting at the crossroads of two of the town’s busiest shopping streets— prime location. Bold was a chance you took with painting the exterior black, even with the apprehension of the city council deeming it too “gothic” for the town's rather conservative appeal. The dark exterior paired with black and white striped awning over the door was the perfect balance of moody and romantic. 

It was worthy enough, pushing the front door open he stepped inside, the automated bell signaling through the shop. The heaviness of his boots scuff across the wood floor a few steps, his broad body stopping in front of one of the cold displays that held an array of dramatic arrangements. His hands tucked securely into his pockets as he looks around aimlessly, it’s evident this isn’t a regular occurrence for him. 

“Welcome to Wilder Floral. Is there anything I can help you with today?” You greet him from your workbench. 

Your hands busily work to trim the ends and dethorn the stems of a bundle of antique mauve roses, one of your best sellers, then trimming off the lower leaves before placing them in a bucket of water. 

“Not really sure at the moment. Just browsin’ for now.” His deep voice sounds through the small space, the raspy tone sending a tingle down your spine. 

“Okay. Well, if you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask.” He nods to you, catching the way his gaze doesn’t immediately break from you, he gives you a half smile then continues to look over everything again. 

You’re staring. 

Your mind is filled with thoughts of only this handsome stranger, quietly watching him over the now full bucket of cleaned roses. 

You note the way his hip cocks out to the side as he stands with his large hands secure against his small waist. His eyebrows pinch together briefly, a look of deep thought painted over his face accentuating the little crinkles around his eyes. After a moment, his beautiful face relaxes into a calmer expression. 

You can make out every muscle that runs the length of his arms, the weight of the arrangement he’s now holding provoking the defined musculature. His arms lifting and turning the vase with ease, examining every detail of the floral design you created. 

You’re still staring. You can’t help it though. Actually, you can, but your brain convinces you that you are just admiring, so that makes it more than okay— right? 

“You know, if you take a picture it lasts longer!” A hushed voice pops up from behind you. 

“Ouch!! God dammit, Ellie! Why do you do that?!” You yelp, tossing the rose stem you were holding onto the table. 

“It’s too easy! You were lost in la la land over some grumpy guy looking at flowers. I saw an opportunity, so I took it.” She laughs, pushing your buttons brings her a weird satisfaction. 

There’s a throbbing pain coming from your hand. Looking down you see  part of a thorn had broken off and was now embedded deep into the pad of your finger— a rookie mistake at this point in your career. You wrap your other hand around the base of your fingers, hoping some pressure will elevate the pain. 

“I’m glad you enjoyed this. Can you just go grab the first aid kit in the back, please!” 

“Yeah, yeah. Try not to fall for him too hard while I’m gone— don’t think you have enough bandages to fix that mess.” She sulks away into the back room. 

“Shit!” You hiss, the pain getting more intense and now radiating through your entire finger. 

“You okay ma’am?” The handsome customer asks you, stealthy in his approach to where you’re standing, still clutching your hand.

He places the floral arrangement he was holding down on your work table, his feet still moving in an urgent manner until he is standing in front of you. 

“Yeah— actually, no… The thorn broke off and it’s in there real good. It hurts and I’m trying really hard to not be a baby about it. Someone’s getting a first aid kit out of the back for me.” You hold your pained finger up to him. 

“Do you want me to take a look at it?” His hands slowly reach out, your lips parted and ready to speak but words fail you, only managing to nod a response. 

Your mind briefly wonders what Ellie is up to, but the thought vanishes instantly once his hands wrap around your wrist and he brings your injured finger closer to his face. 

“My name is Joel.” He looks over to you, heat pricks over your cheeks as he holds your gaze. It’s a cosmic thing, his touch activating warmth you’ve longed for. A corner of his mouth lifts, you can’t help but fixate on the dimple that forms resulting in a barrage of flutters erupting in your chest. 

“Hi Joel.” Giving him yours in return, his smile growing louder as he repeats it back to you softly, like he couldn’t wait to say it out loud. 

He refocuses back on your injury. A pinched expression, similar to the one he wore earlier, is even more adorable up close— zeroing in on the small wound that was tormenting you.

Joel’s movements are dizzying, an unbridled enthusiasm that elicits a sudden burst of desire you hadn’t experienced in ages, but he senses you trust him at your willingness to let him take control of the situation. Bringing your finger to his mouth, he wraps his pillowy lips around the tip of your finger and sucks with a gentle pressure. You watch him unabashedly, completely mesmerized by the way he jumped into action, how his cheeks draw in from the suction. 

Your eyes lock when he looks up from your hand, sensing your eyes already on him, his thumbs drawing circles over your wrist, soothing over your racing pulse, as he continues to suck at the fleshy pad of your finger. It feels nearly overwhelming, the fierceness of his warm brown eyes has an inebriating feeling blooming inside you. 

A gasp shoots through your throat at the feeling of his tongue slightly flicks over the part of your finger that is in his mouth, pressing the back of your other hand against your lips, embarrassed by your reaction to the erogenous sensation. 

The whole thing is over as quickly as it began. Joel is pulling your finger from his lips, his grip still holding on to your wrist as he lowers your arm down to your side. You watch as the tip of his tongue breaches his lips, his pointer finger and thumb picking at the small little thorn that was once lodged into your skin, now resting on his tongue. He rubs his lips together almost nervously, the weight of the whole situation kind of sinking in. 

“Got it!” He rasps, holding the annoying culprit up between his fingers. 

“How did you know that would work? I usually have to dig those out with tweezers. That was— wow, thank you.” 

“I get splinters regularly— I’m a carpenter. Sometimes when I’m out on the job, gotta use what you have. I hope I didn’t make you feel uncomfortable, just knew it needed to come out— the last thing you want is an infected finger.” He rubs nervously at the back of his neck, hoping he didn’t over step in anyway. 

“No! Not uncomfortable in the slightest!! Thank you, seriously. Rose thorns can cause a mean infection too. I appreciate it—“ 

“I leave for two minutes and you’ve already moved onto second base with the guy?!” Ellie announces her reemergence, holding the first aid kit in her hands and a grossed out look on her face. 

“Ellie!” Your body runs cold, completely mortified, ready to crawl into the nearest hole. 

“He had your finger in his mouth— probably more like rounding to third if I’m being honest.”

You grab the kit from her hands, setting it on the counter, turning to see Joel still rooted in the same spot with his hands tucked into his front pockets and a tinge of red across his cheeks. 

“I’m so sorry! Sometimes I think my daughter forgets she has a filter and that she can actively choose to use it before she speaks.” You try to make sure he isn’t the one who feels uncomfortable now. 

“Adopted daughter, actually.” You roll your eyes at her need for technicalities. Adopted, yes, but daughter nonetheless. “Also, in case you were wondering, cause I’m sure you are, she’s single.”

“Ellie!” You look back at her with a sternness in your voice, eyes blown wide in hopes she picks up that she can stop at any point in time. Turning back to Joel, you mouth an ‘I’m sorry’, your shoulders dropping in defeat. 

There’s an awkward silence that settles over the three of you. Joel looks like he doesn’t really seem to know how to diffuse the awkwardness at hand, Ellie has a shit eating grin she wears proudly when she knows she’s embarrassed you just enough, and you simply would like to evaporate into thin air. 

“So, this is the part where you give your relationship status to her— makes this whole ‘her finger in your mouth’ thing feel a little less weird for all of us.” She has a point. You had been wondering that very thing, but how were you supposed to bring it up when he’s sucking a thorn out of your finger with his gorgeous mouth. 

“Single— very much single.” He laughs at how forward she is, knowing she’s just looking out for you. “I do have a daughter, probably about your age too.”

“What, your wife die or something?” Ellie asks with zero hesitation. 

“No. Just an ole fashion divorce. Anythin’ else you wanna to know?” He looks to Ellie, ready for whatever comes next. 

She studies Joel for a beat, “Nope, that’s all.” 

You release the breath you hadn’t realized you were holding, grateful to what ever greater power decided to switch Ellie’s filter back on. 

Ellie turns to head to the back room, where she had previously been working on her homework, but turns on her heels in the process to look back at Joel and you.

“One last thing, she needs to be wined and dined before you even think about kissing her.” Then she's gone before you can say anything else. 

The awkwardness creeps back into the room, you’re not really sure how to come back from all of that. You open the first aid box, rifling through the contents for a cleaning pad and small bandage.

“She seems like a fun kid.” Joel decides to take the lead, watching you swipe the alcohol pad over your finger. 

“She is— she definitely keeps me on my toes at all times. But, she’s got a big heart under all her sarcasm.” You tell him. You grab for the bandage, but Joel beats you to it, snagging it off the table and ripping it open before you get the chance. 

You hold your finger out in front of you, ready for him to wrap it up properly for you, but instead of sticking gauze, your wounded finger is met with his plush lips for a few seconds.

“Obviously, a kiss to make it better.” He smiles again and you melt, biting at your lower lip as he wraps the dressing around your finger. 

“Thank you, Joel.”

“Speaking of daughters— mine is the reason I came here in the first place. I was wanting to get this arrangement for her. She passed a test she’d been stressin’ about. Thought I’d get her a little something to celebrate her.” Joel points to the flowers on the cash stand that he had been holding earlier, grabbing his wallet out of his back pocket and pulling out his credit card ready to pay. 

“They’re on the house today.” You tell him as you walk up to your computer, imputing the information to zero out the sale. 

“No— no, I can’t let you do that. Lemme pay for them please. Least I can do for all your time and talent you put in.” Holding his card out to you, insisting he pay in full. 

“You practically saved my life,” A slight exaggeration, but he laughs anyway. “How about you come here for all your flowers in the future, instead of my competitors, and we’ll call it even.” 

“I can do that. I might just have a need for flowers soon then, I’m sure I can find an excuse to come back for more— you think you can handle that?” 

“Yeah— I can handle that.” Handing him the vase of flowers, hoping he does find an excuse to come back and tell you how much his daughter enjoyed them. 

Joel walks a few feet in the direction of the door then stops, turning back to see you’re already busily back to work with a handful of flowers. He says your name, falling from his lips like sweet honey, and you don’t think you could ever get tired of him saying it the way he does. “I’ll be seein’ you around. Try to be safe until then, m’kay?” 

“See you around Joel. I’ll keep the injuries to a minimum until then.”

“I’d prefer no injuries at all, actually.” 

“I’ll do my best.” 

You exchange goodbyes, watching him cross the street and get settled into his truck from the store front window. You’re not sure why you miss him, having only just met, but there’s a longing that’s started to burn inside your heart. 

Joel’s truck merges onto the road, he takes one last glance in your direction, his hand thrown out the window waving at you as he drives off, planning his next visit so he can see you again. 

next

[moonsunlovers]

Hi! Nobody is going to read this probably lol as I’m new in this app (not in Jikook world though). But I just wanted to point out a little detail that not a lot of people is talking about regarding the watch thing.

When we talk about theories I like to try to be the more impartial and clinic possible. I don’t like to get carried by my own desires to see any Jikook manifestation in their little acts because sometimes there’s nothing there, just us missing them and their bond deeply. But sometimes too, there’s some things that you can not explain at all. And this is one of this cases.

When I saw this morning people talking about the watch thing the first thing I thought was “please, don’t be like those shippers outside that are desperate to prove anything, we don’t need that”, but then I stopped and read carefully and objectively the facts that people where putting on the table. And I must say that, after thinking logically at it, it doesn’t make sense that Jimin had his watch with a completely different time zone in his live, a different time that coincidently it’s Junkook’s birth time. On his birthday. Suspicious.

Specially if the obvious justification is automatically discarded. “He must have wear that watch when he traveled to another time zone and did not set the time correctly when he came back”. Yeah, sure, that was my first thought, but then I realized. When you change your time zone you change hours, not minutes. You add or rest hours depending on which country you are traveling, like from Korea to US, that you have to change like 12 hours on the clock, but the minutes stays the same. So how can we explain that when Jimin started the live in Korea was 20.54 but his watch said 15.23??? As I said, it doesn’t make sense, because if it was because of a time zone then it should be 8.54, not 15.23 (and I say 8.54 because is the time that his watch should read in case he has the time zone of NY, -12h).

You can see in the following picture the time zones of my place of reference (European time zone), you add hours in the case of Seoul, or rest hours in the case of New York, but the minutes still the same.

What other theory could it be? The watch doesn’t work properly? It didn’t seam so as it worked perfectly in the live. The watch battery stopped working, he changed it and forgot to change the time? Could be, but isn’t the normal thing to automatically correct the time once you get your watch to work properly again?? I don’t know, call me crazy but Jimin is a person that gives a lot of attention on the details, specially when we are talking about his appearance and complements such as rings, earrings, watches… I would find it really strange that he didn’t have everything on point.

So… the other explanation is that it was on purpose, just a little detail for the ones who know to what you should pay attention to. Jimin and Jungkook have used numerology before. We have seen it in their t-shirt’s, in festa things and interviews, in mentions in their concerts, in tweets posted at specific hours… It’s nothing new, if you follow Jikook closely you must know it.

Another thing that we should take into account is that Jimin didn’t wear the watch in the Dior event. He put it specifically to do the live at home. He told us that after it he was going to wash up, remove his make up and rest, so we suppose he wasn’t going to go anywhere. Why would you put your watch to stay at home, alone, just to do a live? The only logical answer is that he wanted us to see it, otherwise nobody arrives at home changes clothes and decides to put your expensive watch again just to sit on a chair an spend some time on the internet with army.

Is it really unbelievable that Jimin made a little reference to Jungkook’s birth on his birthday? Is it really unbelievable when he just came to Weverse on live just to show us his mood lamp and tell us to wish him a happy birthday? Honestly my friends, they had made more bold and incredible things and still here we are. It wouldn’t be the first nor the last time they do something mind blowing to let us know that something is going on with them, so even if this is just coincidence or it was totally on purpose I must say that I’m here for all of it.

[coconutcordiale]

misconceptions

pairing- jake 'hangman' seresin x female!reader x bradley 'rooster' bradshaw (no use of y/n)

synopsis-

“You know, on account of your whole aggressively heterosexual, toxically masculine, 'I'm God’s gift to women' thing.”

Only Hangman is shameless enough to be offended at something so obvious. “I’m not aggressively heterosexual.”

warnings- 18+ minors DNI, (& glen don't read this shit please i'm embarrassed), allusions to previous threesome (m/f/f), voyeurism, implied threesome (f/m/m), public teasing, you prob shouldn't fuck in cars while they're moving bc seat belts/safety but this is self indulgent so let me live, fingering, edging, crying, praise kink, oral (f receiving), soft dom bradley, not so soft (but not really mean) jake, light dumbification/ degradation/ something along those lines, brat tamer boys, established rooster x reader relationship

length- 3.7k idk why my pwp is like this god help me when i finish something that's more than banter & smut again it'll be a billion words

an- I WAS working on something that didn't have smut but then miles posted that fucking picture- blame him. so here we go again...I don't...know what this is and i actually kind of hate it but i need it out of my brain. I'm sure rooster x hangman x reader has been done to death but I made an allusion to it in up to no good and well. yeah. so technically this is a sequel to that but you don't need to read that first because any illusion of plot in this is just a means for smut. *hides and blushes like a slut*

I want to say the entire premise of this is crack but my guy friends have convos like this at the bar all the time so who knows. I mean it's still ridiculous but...idk also the working title of this was bob fucks even though he's not even it and I thought that was amusing

“Knockout, five o’clock,” Payback mutters, looking behind you and Jake. “Looks like she’s got her sights set on you, Seresin.”

Jake manages a quick look over his shoulder, smirking when he turns back around because she is, in fact, gorgeous and beelining straight for his side of the table.

He rolls his shoulders back and winks at the group. You make a fake gagging noise purely out of reflex and nothing else, you swear, contemplating going up to the bar for another drink just so you don’t have to bear witness to this. You’re about to get up when you catch a very feminine hand out of the corner of your eye, going to tap you lightly on the shoulder.

“Hey,” the girl says, sidling up to you and immediately turning her back to Jake. “Where’s Bradley?”

Oh.

“Still on base,” you reply, quickly smiling in recognition. “It’s good to see you, Ash, you look good.”

“I’ll say,” Ashley answers, eyeing you up and down. She raises an eyebrow when her gaze gets to the hem of your sundress that’s resting a little high on your thigh. “I’m in town for a few days, come find me later if he makes it up here tonight.”

You duck your head, fighting the blush rising up your neck. “Maybe, I’ll let you know.”

“Please do.” Ashley winks, running her hand down your arm to the inside of your wrist, just this side of too familiar. She gives you a quick squeeze with delicate fingers and you hope no one notices the goosebumps raising on your arms before she turns on her heel to disappear back into the crowd.

You stare decidedly at your beer after Ashley saunters away, feeling everyone’s eyes on you and wanting to avoid this conversation as long as possible.

When you finally look up Phoenix is clearly fighting back a giggle, but her eyes are directed to the right of you, at Hangman.

“What the fuck was that?” He finally croaks after a few beats of awkward silence, mouth dry.

Phoenix reaches over to smack him upside the head. “You can’t really be this stupid.”

Jake is pretty sure he isn’t but he’s also kind of thinks he might be having a stroke.

“Always thought you guys were so boring,” he says dumbly, mouth agape.

Phoenix sighs, like she can’t comprehend how she ended up surrounded by so little intelligence, leaning over again to close Jake’s jaw. “Don’t mind him, up until two minutes ago he thought you and Rooster only banged in missionary.”

You blink.

You can’t believe that just came out of her mouth so casually.

You’re going to kill Rooster for not being here to endure this with you.

“Why…have you been speculating about how Rooster and I fuck?” You ask finally, slowly, pretty sure you don’t want to know the answer. Lack of self-preservation makes you ask anyways.

“Well, there had to be some sort of explanation for why it’s so easy for you to rile him up,” Jake declares, voice going a little high.

Huh.

Terrible logic but you suppose that could’ve been worse.

Still. This is a discussion you have negative interest in having. In public. With all your friends right here. With Hangman, of all people.

“Can we talk about something else? Like, literally anything else?” You don't want to beg, but this entire conversation is making your leg twitch.

“Nope,” Payback answers immediately. “We need more information.”

“We have questions,” Fanboy concurs.

You want to crawl under the table.

“I have questions too,” you shoot back instead, figuring you'll try going on the offensive. “Why do you guys want to know about our sex life? Because I’ve heard way too much from your girlfriends and I now have to live with that horrifying knowledge for the rest of my life. Why would you want those details voluntarily?”

Phoenix hums in agreement and you’re overwhelmed with the urge to hug her.

“Is that right, sweets?” Jake grins, clearly having recovered somewhat.

“Not you, Jake," you shoot back. "Thank God you haven’t dated anyone long enough for me to become friends with her.”

You studiously do not mention that he’s probably the only one you might welcome salacious details about.

“Because the rest of us aren’t having threesomes,” Payback adds, ignoring the blonde. “We’re jealous.”

You cough, averting eye contact. “Well, some of you are.”

They’re all staring at you again and you shrug. “Look, Bob fucks, not my fault the rest of you don’t.”

Jake has hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete on his temporary recovery, chunked the laptop that operates his brain out the window, and is now definitely having a stroke.

“You…and Bob?”

You scrub your hand across your face, not sure how much more of this high-pitched Hangman you can handle tonight. It’s making you edgy. “Not with me. Keep it together, pretty boy.”

Normally, you’d rejoice in the slight pink tinge gracing Jake’s cheekbones when you call him pretty boy, in one upping Hangman for a second, even if you’re the only one that notices. Tonight, it only scatters anxiety through your bloodstream.

At this point you decide to just get up and leave the table. It’s probably for the best.

“Are you gonna make it?” Phoenix asks Jake after you’ve made your way to the bar.

“No,” he answers petulantly.

•••

Hangman looks decidedly more like his usual self lounging across from you and Rooster in the booth you've taken to hiding in and you're silently thanking the whiskey he's switched to for it.

He's a pain in the ass, sure, but when he's not bantering with you, you're not even sure what to do with him. Shrill is not a word you thought you'd ever have to use to describe him, you're practically trembling at the memory of it.

All that means you're smiling, a little wicked, while you lean into the warmth of Rooster’s body. “Don’t worry, Hang, no one expects you to have a threesome unless it’s with two other girls.”

His eyes nearly bulge out of his head and you bite back a snicker. Direct hit. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

When you’re pretty sure you’re not going to laugh directly in his face, you wave your hand dismissively, hoping the wild hand gesture captures Jake’s whole air. “You know, on account of your whole aggressively heterosexual, toxically masculine, ‘I’m God’s gift to women’ thing.”

Only Hangman is shameless enough to be offended at something so obvious. “I’m not aggressively heterosexual.”

“Twenty bucks your tongue is down some poor girls throat by the end of the night.”

“That’s called having game,” he retorts. “I’ll have you know I’m a very enlightened man. Good to know you pay so much attention to my conquests though, sweets.”

He winks and you immediately wonder why you were grateful for his mood shift.

“Conquests, seriously?” You fight back a gag. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about, Jake.”

You hope the use of his real name emphasizes your disappointment in him.

Rooster’s gaze is flitting back and forth between you two like he’s watching a tennis match, expression calculating. “I don’t know that I feel like calling Ashley tonight.”

Both of your mouths snap shut when you register what he just said.

Where did that come from?

“Well, that figures, little bird. I’m surprised you knew what to do with both of them the first time around.” Hangman grins around his glass before taking another sip of whiskey.

Rooster rolls his eyes, but otherwise waves off the dig. “I just think there’s something else princess might enjoy a little more.”

You immediately feel heat rising to your cheeks. That explains his abrupt timing.

“Rooster,” you manage to grit out, warning in your tone as you tighten your fingers on his thigh.

He ignores you, because he knows you. Knows what you secretly want, what you’re too embarrassed to say out loud, too proud to admit. If you weren't so busy being uncomfortable you'd have warmth spreading through your chest at the knowledge that he just wants to take care of you, give you what you need.

Rooster runs his hand up your bare thigh, playing with the hem of your dress, and it sends a jolt of electricity through you before immediately blowing a fuse in your willpower.

“Come on, baby," he murmurs. "Don’t you want to tell him what we talked about the other day? After the beach?”

Crimson is painting itself across your cheekbones, you’re sure of it.

Recognition crosses Hangman’s face and he clears his throat, which is suddenly dry.

“Talk about me a lot while you’re fucking your girl, Bradshaw?” He taunts, but there’s something thick in his voice, something rapidly glazing over his bright eyes.

“Rooster,” you say again, but this time it comes out a little whinier, a little more abashed.

“Baby, it’s okay,” Rooster soothes you, gentle and doting, because he always knows how to make you melt like butter. “I see how he looks at you.”

Hangman fiddles with the rim of his rocks glass, but he doesn’t deny it.

If you were more present in this moment, if you weren’t so distracted by the need suddenly, insistently thrumming through your body, by Rooster’s hand burning on your thigh; you might be amused at this role reversal, Rooster calm, collected and bordering on cocky, while Hangman shifts across from you, curiosity making him jumpy in his seat.

Rooster’s mustache tickles your cheek as he runs his mouth across you, mouth moving to latch onto the sensitive spot below your ear. Your lips part of their own accord as you feel him move his hand under the skirt of your dress, brushing his knuckles against where you’re already soaking through your panties.

Meeting the green eyes across from you feels hot like burning and you tuck your face into Rooster’s neck to hide from it, biting your lip to keep from letting out the truly obscene noise that’s bubbling in your chest. “Can we please go home, babe?”

He chuckles, hooking a finger under your chin so you’re forced to meet his gaze, tilting his head in the direction of the man across from you. “That depends. Are you gonna be a good girl for him, baby?”

Well, Rooster certainly isn't waiting patiently on his perch tonight then, is he?

Your breath hitches, everything in your body going still for a moment when you hear him, before words come tumbling out of your mouth.

“Yes, yes, yes, I promise, Bradley, please,” you whine softly, fingers gripping the edge of his open shirt, looking for something, anything to keep you grounded.

“Jesus,” you hear faintly from the other side of the table. When you look up you catch Jake’s eyes, pupils blown so wide they’re practically black.

Your boyfriend’s lips twitch upwards, but he’s not looking at you. Instead, he’s turned towards the blonde, while his fingers continue running up and down your clothed slit. “Gorgeous like this, isn’t she?”

“Christ, Bradshaw. Understatement of the year. What a nice surprise this is.”

“Only gets better the more you tease her,” he promises.

“I’m right here,” you protest, narrowing your eyes at the two men. You’re aiming for annoyed but you’re pretty sure the words come out petulant instead. If you were standing you might even stomp your foot.

“I’m so sorry, baby. Are you feeling a little ignored?” Bradley coos with a quick peck to your cheek, hint of condescension in his tone.

Jake shoots you a wicked grin, mischief lighting up his face. “Should’ve known you’d be a fuckin’ brat.”

“Bratty girls don’t deserve to get what they want, do they?” Bradley asks Jake, but his eyes are on you.

You pout, looking up at him and trying to look as cute as possible, hoping an innocent expression might get you out of this little predicament.

It usually works on Bradley, but Jake just snickers from his side of the booth.

“No, they don’t. Not sure they deserve to wear panties either.”

“The man makes a good point,” Bradley agrees, tearing his attention from your imploring eyes.

Distantly, you’re glad he’s angled his body to block you from the rest of the bar, because Bradley is working baby blue lace down your hips, lifting you slightly in the process, before settling you back down with your feet in Jake’s lap under the table.

Jake sends a cheeky wink your direction as his hand runs up the inside of your leg, squeezing your calf, then thigh in a way that could really only be described as affectionate, which sends shivers down your body right to your core. He pulls your panties the rest of the way down, letting you catch a glimpse of his fingers running over them before he puts them in his pocket.

“Drenched those, didn’t you darlin’?” He drawls, as he stares you dead in the eyes and licks your slick from his fingers.

Your mouth drops open of its own accord and before you even have a chance to recover you feel fingers pressing against your bundle of nerves. Thankfully, Bradley kisses you a moment later, swallowing the moan that leaves your lips. “Shh, we don’t want everyone to hear, do we?”

“Fuck, she’d probably like that, wouldn't she?”

You blink slowly, eyes struggling to focus as they move between the two men.

Bradley smirks. “Poor baby, lost your words already?”

Your brain has been wiped clean so you can only mewl quietly in response.

“Think she might be obedient enough to go, now,” Jake offers.

You’re pretty sure you look drunk as you stumble outside, Bradley supporting you with an arm around your waist, nearly carrying you out.

When you reach the car, he turns to deposit you into the other man's arms. “Just don’t let her come till we get home, yeah?”

Jake grins. “Sure thing, Bradshaw.”

The moment you’re in the back of the Bronco Jake is all over you, pulling you in for a rough kiss.

He manhandles you onto his lap, pulling your back against his front as his hand slides up to your jaw, forcing your attention to Bradley in the driver’s seat.

You meet Bradley’s stare in the rearview mirror, and he grins, clearly enjoying how debauched you look in Jake’s lap, as much as he can while driving, anyways. Your mouth parts as Jake trails his down the side of your neck, across your shoulder, leaving red bite marks as he goes.

You’re thinking about how powerful Jake looks behind you, completely unbothered by your boyfriend’s eyes constantly darting from the road to the mirror to watch you both, when his hand slides underneath your dress, bunching it up and out of his way, leaving you bare against his pants.

“Fuck,” Jake groans, fingers flicking expertly at your entrance. “You’re so fucking wet, sweetheart.”

You can’t help but blush, head ducking down as you focus on the wispy material of your dress falling haphazardly off your chest, breaking your gaze from the front of the car.

“Jake,” you whimper, grinding back onto his lap.

He clucks a noise of disapproval and your stomach rolls unpleasantly at the idea that you’ve disappointed him already. “Let him watch your pretty mouth moan my name, sugar.”

You snap your head back up at his words, rushing to comply, rushing to be good, only to meet cheeky, dark eyes in the mirror. Your mouth drops open as Jake eases a finger into you, gaze fixed on Bradley as heat washes over you.

Jake adds another finger, and then twists, while his thumb rubs insistent figure eights along your aching clit. If you had any sense, you might be bashful at how your legs are already shaking where they’re bracketed around his.

You vaguely remember Bradley’s instructions before getting in the car, but you can’t help the pleading falling from your lips anyways.

“Wanna come, Jake, please, please, need it,” you whine, squirming in his lap, on his fingers, against the bruising hold his other hand has on your hip. You can’t get comfortable, can’t stop moving, it’s not enough, you need more.

He chuckles, the sound mocking, bordering on mean, and you can’t help but shudder at the way it shoots heat right through you.

“I could let you come all over my fingers,” he muses languidly, pressing slow circles on your clit, like you have all the time in the world in the back of Bradley’s bronco. The yes, please, is on the tip of your tongue when he continues, words hot in your ear. “Or I could edge you with my mouth until you cry.”

You and Bradley suck in simultaneous sharp breaths at Jake’s words and you can practically feel the amusement radiating from him.

“Sweetheart, you gonna tell me what you want?”

You’re biting your lip to keep the obscene noises threatening to tear from you muffled, teeth so tight on your swollen lip you’re surprised you haven’t drawn blood.

His fingers still after a few torturous seconds of you attempting to remember how to make decisions. You could do that, at one point in your life, you think.

“Asked you a question.”

Frustrated, your eyebrows knit together as you try to form words. “Jake.”

He grazes his teeth across your neck, and you can feel that infamous smirk against your skin. “As pretty as you sound saying it, my name is not the answer.”

“I…fuck, Jake, I don’t—” you mewl brokenly, hands going to his arms, pushing, gripping, hoping you can get him to move again, give you what you need.

“Seem to remember you promising you’d be good for me.” Jake continues, as if you haven’t spoken at all and there’s a steely edge in his tone that sends another wave of heat straight to your core.

“Sorry, sorry, Jake please, sorry, can be, I swear,” you babble. Your voice sounds foreign to you, high and whiny like it might crack and break if you don’t get his approval.

“Be a good girl and tell me what you want, then.”

You’re flushing with embarrassment at this, you know what you want, but it doesn’t make your cheeks flame any less to have to admit it. “Your mouth, please, Jake need your mouth on me…”

“Good choice, darlin’,” he murmurs, lifting you up and laying you down on your back as he bends to put your legs over his shoulders, kneeling impossibly in the backseat. “Knew a slutty little thing like you wouldn’t be satisfied until you were wrecked.”

He must be really flexible, you think helplessly, before his tongue licks a stripe up your slit and drives every other remaining thought from your body.

He works those thick fingers into you again, curling them at the same time he wraps his lips around your clit and sucks.

Your back arches involuntarily, stars suddenly dancing across your vision. Worked up as you are he brings you to the edge quickly, and you stupidly think he might actually let you go over.

Just as your whines are hitting their crescendo, just when you’re so close you can practically taste it—he pulls back, mouth suddenly moving down your hip, away from where you want him, fingers retreating to leave you clenching around nothing. The noise you make in response is obscenely close to a wail, bringing tears to your eyes.

You blink them back hard, determined not to let Jake win so quickly.

He nips the inside of your thigh, making you spasm in surprise. As soon as you’ve come down from the sheer disappointment and not a second later, he’s back on you, lips and fingers working determinedly to wind you up again.

Jake continues his little routine, one, two, three more times until you’re sobbing, unable to hold the tears back as they leak from the corners of your eyes. Your hands are tight in his hair, trying to keep his mouth on you, terrified of him stopping and leaving you frustrated and aching again.

Hazily, you’re aware that the car isn’t moving anymore, that if you turn your head a little to the left you can see Bradley biting his lips and white knuckling the steering wheel, eyes fixed on you in the mirror still. That there’s nonsense pouring from your mouth in between the cries, as you writhe against Jake’s face, I need, Jake please, please, I can’t, Jakejakejake, I—

“You can let go for him, baby.” You hear Bradley’s deep voice cutting through the fog in your mind.

His words tingle across your skin, at the tip of every nerve ending, as your muscles start contracting, giving in to what you’ve been begging for since you got in the car. It crashes into you, an avalanche rumbling through your body, back arching in a moment of pure perfection. And all that’s left is a glowing, fuzzy feeling, warmth spreading through your chest like you just finished a shot of whiskey.

“Jesus,” Jake whispers as you come down, mouth trailing softly up your stomach, your chest and across your jaw, to brush your lips. “Fuck, sweetheart, such a good girl for me.” His words are muffled as you taste the tang of yourself on his mouth and wrecked as you are you still preen at his praise.

The driver’s side door opens and shuts with a definitive thud, pulling you and Jake out of your stupor. He gives you one last peck before dragging your dress back down, although you suffer from no misconceptions that it’ll help you look any less debauched.

You let yourself be tugged out of the car and into Jake’s arms, limbs leaden and slow on your way to your front door as your brain catches up with your body. You list against him, eyes fluttering closed as Bradley digs around for his keys. Once he opens the door he turns to you, smirking at the dazed expression washed over your features, the lazy blinks as you try to focus your eyes.

“Aw, baby, you can’t be tired already,” Bradley coos, reaching up to hold your face and affectionately running his thumbs over your cheekbones, wiping away any errant tears. “We’re just getting started.”

[nikethestatue]

Copy and paste from a friend who started shipping Gwynriel after running across bigger accounts who ship gwynriel (she gave me permission to share):

I’m sad and I feel foolish. I finished HOFAS last night and although Elain wasn’t in the book, I see how Sarah completely set Elain up to be the next female main character. I read a lot about how Gwyn would play a pivotal role in the crossover to set her up as the next main character and there was nothing even suggested about Gwyn or her role. We did see Elain’s potential suggested with Nesta’s involvement given we saw her capabilities with made weapons and the trove and she was made just like Elain in the cauldron. I now agree with what you said about Gwyn not being setup to carry a book given there isn’t a way forward after reading HOFAS without an Archeron sister as the main character. It makes logical sense for it to be Elain.

About the Today show interview:

I read it. Ugh. She basically said, without saying, we’re going to explore mating bonds in the next book and how some are not good and characters will choose love over an assigned partner. I had hopes that the Elucien bond would pan out and I thought Sarah was totally on board with mates always being right and endgame. I like Lucien so I hope he has a HEA. It’s so obvious that she’s going to have a rejected mate bond between Elain and Lucien after reading that though (sighhhh).

And…

Right- she made it clear the books are lead by women and Gwyn isn’t ready to lead a book. Elain is and it’s well established in HOFAS. This interview solidifies it.

And…

I feel very conflicted. I see a lot of potential for an Elriel book and although I don’t really like Elain, I’m open. It’s pretty obvious where all of this is going.

I think no comment is needed. Your friend said everything that needed to be said. Plain and simple. Even if she doesn't like Elain. It's obvious.

[maxybabyy]

Sequel to this maxiel ‘too hot to handle’ au (soft cw for COVID mention and implied unsafe travelling)

Daniel has been living in Max’s London apartment for four months when Max signs on as a Red Bull affiliate sim racer. And Daniel is so happy for him, of course he is. With his newfound celebrity status back in the Netherlands and now this, Max is free to do whatever the hell he wants. But Daniel. Daniel hasn’t really been doing much since ‘too hot to handle’ wrapped up. He does the the odd appearance at events, started up a cameo account, but with Max’s recent breakout, he starts to feel a bit lost, envious that he isn’t getting the same opportunities.

So when he’s offered a spot on the newest season of ‘The Circle’, he accepts.

Max freaks out when he tells him. They’re in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, and if Daniel leaves now, he won’t get back into the country, won’t come back. It causes the biggest fight they’ve ever had.

Max doesn’t yell, but it’s a hard conversation to have, and when Max leaves in frustration, Daniel doesn’t know what to do with himself. Because he has to leave, he can’t not go. He’s in his fucking thirties, and for an influencer like him, that’s pretty much ancient.

Max drives him to the airport, kisses him too wet and tearful. He tells Daniel that he loves him, begs him not to go, and when Daniel doesn’t, turns on his heels and leaves.

Quarantining for the show is tough.

Before Max, Daniel lived on his own in LA, but somehow, the last year has made him unable to be alone. Max still texts him, pictures of the cats, his set-up at the Red Bull facilities, his latest attempt at culinary disaster, but they don’t call.

To make matters worse, Daniel doesn’t win the show. His alliances are quick to get picked apart, and while Jesse – a gorgeous model from Austin, Texas – keeps flirting with him, it doesn’t feel right to flirt back even though he and Max aren’t together anymore. In the end, they call him a catfish and vote him out – a shitty end to an even shittier situation.

He’s offered some gigs around LA, nothing huge but enough to get him on the right lists. And then Netflix approaches him again, this time with their latest dating show – ‘Perfect match’.

He doesn’t say yes right away, knows the implications it will have for his and Max’s relationship, how obvious it will become that they’ve broken up. But like, Daniel isn’t looking for love – already knows where it is, where it was – this is just something that he has to do if he wants to stay relevant.

When you've been on one dating show, you’ve been on them all, Daniel reckons. The cast reminds him too much of the people they met on ‘Too Hot to Handle’ with the added bonus of inflated egos. Even the villa looks the same too, nice but bland with all cultural influence stripped away.

At the end of the first night, he matches with Gabby, a marketing lead from Seattle who has three brothers and loves to surf. She’s sweet and very pretty, touches his arm with her tiny hand when he makes her laugh, and Daniel thinks he wouldn’t mind spending the rest of the weeks getting to know her.

They’re hanging out by the pool, day drinking and chatting. It’s freeing in a way Daniel hasn’t felt since ‘too hot to handle’, since before COVID hit. He loved hanging with Max, with the cats in their apartment and late-night Zoom sessions with Blake and Scotty. But it’s different like this, being around people. 

He’s only loosely paying attention when the conversation picks up, “Gabby, you were on ‘Love is blind’, right?” Amy, from a season of ‘The Circle’ before Daniel’s, asks. “So you’re like ready for the real deal, huh? Marriage and all.”

“I mean, that’s why we’re all here, isn’t it?” Gabby says and laughs. “To find our perfect match of course.” Her hand has found its way to Daniel’s leg, slim fingers loose around his ankle, and Daniel doesn’t think, he can’t –

He forces himself to breathe, to laugh along with the crowd and not jerk his leg out of her grip. He waits another few minutes – at least one, it has to be – before he gets up to get another drink. If he lets himself be pulled into a game of beer pong inside, then no one has to know.

With his mind back in the game, Daniel and Gabby win the second challenge of the show and have to send two people off on dates. Daniel is still stuck on the hot peppers he had to eat when Gabby says, “Oh, this guy is cute, in like. An odd sort of way.”

Her nose crinkles when Daniel looks over, laughs at the way it transforms her entire face. “I don’t think that’s a –“ he starts to say when his mouth suddenly slams shut. Because the guy that she’s pointing to, this odd but beautiful creature is Max. His Max. Max Verstappen who is supposed to be back in the UK, test driving fucking Formula One cars.

They don’t pick Max, settles on some guy from a show Daniel hasn’t watched. But it doesn’t matter in the end; Max checks in two challenges later, on the heels of a date with another ‘too hot to handle’ contestant.

They don’t talk.

Max doesn’t approach him, doesn’t even look at him as his date introduces him to the rest of the house. Daniel wouldn’t even know where to start, so he doesn’t. Their season is still new enough that a lot of the people haven’t watched it, don’t know how big of a deal it is that Max isn’t glued to his side.

Gabby kisses his cheek, says, “I’m going to bed, don’t be too late, okay?” and Daniel nods, smiles and takes another sip of his beer, “I’ll be right up, yeah?”

Max isn’t around, but Daniel cannot imagine he’s matched with anyone here, and maybe that’s for the best too. He’ll be sent home, and maybe – maybe then when they’re both back in London, they can talk.

He’s halfway up the stairs when there’s a shout from one of the rooms, the one he’s been living in with Gabby, so he speeds up, takes the stairs two steps of the time until he’s out of breath and leaning against the door frame.

Max is staring at him from the corner of the room, and he looks fucking pissed. Pissed that he had to come all the way over here to get Daniel home, pissed that Daniel agreed to yet another dating show to find his fucking ‘perfect match’ when Max is right here waiting for him.

Daniel doesn’t know what to say. Max still hasn’t said a word to him, staring at him like he’s livid, but a producer is hovering awkwardly around in case it gets violet.

The producer is about to pull Max away when Daniel turns to Gabby and tells her that he chooses Max.

Everyone but Max is stunned. The poor woman, who just wanted to go to sleep, reaches for his hand, tells him softly: “That’s not how this works, Dan. It’s the girls choosing tonight. This is my room, you know this.” Gabby actually genuinely likes him, knows if she doesn’t choose him tonight, they will have to send him home.

But Daniel can’t not choose Max, so he lets himself be pulled from the room, Max’s hand firm on his wrist as they make it down the stairs. The producer doesn’t know what to do with them either, so they point them in the direction of the couch and tell them they’ll figure it out in the morning.

They aren’t sent home.

Max is still pissed, but he is of course Daniel’s perfect match, knows him better than most of these people even know themselves, so they crush all the compatibility challenges. (“This is of course Daniel’s tweet.” “’Tripping balls.’ Always Daniel will say this.” “These emojis are Daniel’s also.”)

They still don’t talk. Daniel is getting increasingly skittish because he doesn’t know where they stand, or how to act around Max.

Then they lose a challenge.

The host tells them they’re playing a version of Seven Minutes in Heaven, that they all have to kiss each other and rate each other’s kisses and the couple with the highest aggregated score will win. Daniel is too distracted to kiss anyone, barely shakes through it when it’s finally his and Max’s turn – their eyes are covered, but Daniel would know him blind, by the way he tastes and the shape of his lips – the worst kiss they’ve ever shared, and it’s still better than any of the other people Daniel’s kissed. Max’s score was equally terrible, reflected only by the fact that he had to be judged by straight guys.

With Maxiel’s streak of winning everything they touch, the couple sees it as their opportunity to split them up, so they send Max off on a date with someone new.

And Daniel’s not. He isn’t worried. Max has made it clear that he is Daniel’s match. He doesn’t watch reality television, and this human centipede of washed-up influencers won’t affect him. Except when Max gets back, it isn’t some ‘Ultimatum’ reject or a celebrity realtor on his arm.

As seen on some Monaco-based dating show, but intimately more known by the two for his presence on ‘Drive to Survive’ because of his brother, Charles looks absolutely enamoured with Max as they walk through the house together.

Max, who’s been starved for any conversation that wasn’t about who could name-drop the biggest celebrity, glues himself to Charles’ side and doesn’t let go.

He still comes back to Daniel’s bed at night, and suddenly Daniel cannot wait any longer. “What are you even doing, Maxy?” He asks, head held in frustrated hands. “Why are you here? Why are you – what are you doing flirting with Charles Leclerc? This has to be the pettiest – “

“This is of course what you want, no?” Max says, too calm for the fucking mood in the room. “Always you want to win, and this I can do.”

“Max, what?” Daniel says, “I don’t just want to win. That’s not –“

“Because if you’re here to find your perfect match, but did not tell me, there is of course no reason I’m here also.”

Daniel is not about to have an emotional breakdown on television (his mum and sister watch everything he does, and they don’t need to see him cry), so he drags Max to a dead spot one of the other matches had found looking for hook-up spots.

Max is still pissed but he listens to Daniel explain how he’d felt back then, lost in their relationship and envious of the offers Max had gotten, how: “I’m getting old, Maxy.”

“You’re not old,” Max says, quick and indignant, natural in his defence of Daniel.

“I am, Maxy.” He says, laughs in a way that’s supposed to be fun and cute, but must drip of self-deprecation. “I’m the oldest one here, and soon they won’t want me anymore. Then what am I supposed to do?”

Max has given little thought to Daniel’s crippling fear of getting older because he of course wants Daniel always, will always think he is handsome. He also doesn’t understand Daniel’s obsession with being famous – an influencer, as the fucking Netflix producer had called him when he contacted him to say Daniel was coming on the show, and would he like to come too? –  but he knows Daniel loves what he does, and feeling like he’s failing at that must be terrible.

“Always you should tell me this,” Max says softly, reaches for him until Daniel falls into him. “If it was this important to you, then of course I will support you.”

Daniel breathes out, lets the last of his tension bleed from his body. “I know, Maxy. I was just, I don’t know. Maybe I was embarrassed? You had all this going for you, and I was just at home playing with the cats.”

“Never you should feel like this, Daniel.” Max says and hugs him tighter. “I am so proud of you, and if this is what you want, then you should have it always.”

“While I was in LA, after I did ‘the circle’, someone told me they might have a job for me. Like a pilot season or some shit,” Daniel tells him softly, rests his head on Max’s chest to listen to his heart beating. “It would be out in Austin, but like, it should only be a month, maybe two. But I thought like, maybe if it made sense with Red Bull, you could come with me?”

“Of course, Daniel.” Max is quick to say. “This long-distance thing, I think, is not for us. Always I want to be with you.”

“Yeah, me too,” Daniel says and kisses Max, long and deep just like that first time. “Love you, Maxy.”

“I love you too, Daniel.” Max says, kisses him again before he stands up. “Now, let’s go so we can win this show also.”

[transgortash]

Ketheric catching Gortash pretending to be a corpse while Dark Urge rails him on his desk?

so i got uh, WAY too into this, which is probably obvious in the writing.

warnings for necrophilia roleplay, impractical use of real human blood, and gortash being a really weird fucker.

(i plan on writing ketheric/gortash next, it may act as a sequel 👀)

He doesn’t question where the Urge procured that jar of blood. He knows better than that.

And he definitely knows better than to wear his usual outfit - he’s in white plainclothes, ones he’d considered throwing away on account of them not being nauseatingly expensive. Durge had asked for white. 

Gortash is sitting on the top of his desk, his partner leaning forward in his chair, cradling that jar like it’s wholly human and not just the liquids of one (or many?). The Urge stands up to press a fleeting kiss to his forehead, and places his hand over gortash’s collarbones, just exposed by the shirt. Swipes his thumb across the front of his neck, slow and deliberate, with a nearly imperceptible tremble like he’d die to do it for real.

When the Urge sets the now-empty jar on the floor, his hand busies itself in Gortash’s hair. Pulls so hard it’s clear that his grip is what’s in charge, not Gortash’s ability to hold his own head up. There’s a look in his eyes that is simultaneously wild and analytical. Gortash gives him a couple weak, shivering breaths, feigns a look of death-fear in his eyes. He thinks about this truly being the last image he ever sees, and genuinely gets a little breathless. Durge’s hand releases, and he drops lifelessly back against the desk.

In their fantasy, this is where he slits Gortash’s throat.

He pours the blood down from his neck, lets it run its crimson course down his chest, seeping into white fabric. It’s just about cool, but Gortash takes the time to imagine if it were his blood, hot and willing. 

There’s a bit of blood that’s trickled down the groove of his pelvis - it’s that and his natural slick that Durge uses to push one, then two, fingers into his cunt. Gortash stifles a moan and just barely resists clenching around the ingress, playing the part. Not quite perfect, but judging by Durge’s heavy breaths already being audible, he’s doing more than well enough.

His head hits it with an unpleasant thud – but a corpse doesn’t complain. A corpse doesn’t react when its defiler pulls off its pants, its underwear. And a corpse certainly isn’t wet from this already.

It doesn’t come naturally to lie there and take a good fingering without moving a muscle - he’s got hands to use, a mouth to snark with. But this fantasy is so fucking heady and heavy on him that he can keep himself still. He’s just concentrating on keeping his chest level, minimising the evidence of his respiration. 

Durge has been more focused on stretching him out, fingers working in scissoring motions that are almost wonderfully painful, rather than utilising that sweet spot for his pleasure. So when he pulls out, it’s an indication not that either of them are satisfied - but that Gortash can just about take him. He wonders with sick glee how far gone the urge is into their game when he manhandles him, shoving his body further along the desk and hooking his hands under the backs of his knees. the bevel of the desk now cradles the base of Gortash’s skull. It's uncomfortable. he’s so fucking turned on.

The way he fucks his cunt is different. there’s no slow, gauging push in, no adjustments to get the rhythm just right; he slides in to the hilt with one continuous motion, and sets the first of few paces. It doesn’t burn, but Gortash is just tight enough for the stretch to be a little rough around the edges. and, by the Black Hand of Bane, is it good.

He is effectively being used, filling little more purpose than a snuffed fleshlight. He prays the urge will forgive him one euphoric little twitch around his cock. It’s getting more difficult to stay quiet by the second, but he’s - he’s dead as a doornail, a warm hole that won’t be warm for long, fuck.

Durge gets closer and more enthusiastic, thrusts speeding up, manoeuvring Gortash’s body carelessly. He’s pushed back again and his head’s almost completely tipped back, giving him an inverted view of the room. His arm slips off the desk and dangles beside. It pulls on his shoulder a little unpleasantly, and the blood will start rushing to his head. But he’s lost in the sick joy of being lifeless for the one person he’d give more than his own body & heart to.

Gortash wonders if his mind will completely give in, too - shut off and become every bit as still as his body. He's about to find out, let his eyes roll into the back of his head, and then through his last glimpse there's someone, there's someone fucking standing in the room.

Gortash sits up so fast that he does a real number on his blood pressure, heartbeat a pounding throb in his head. He very stubbornly ignores it because there are worse things to worry about. Not giving the Urge time to react on his own and pull out, giving the man a good shove on the hip until he gets the message.

"The guards were told very clearly that any intruders were to be dispatched without hesi–"

Of course, standing there, is Myrkul's favourite bitch, General Thorm. With his eyes wide, momentarily stricken, and very clearly on Gortash's bloodstained front.

Of course the guards wouldn't have been able to stop him. The wretched, indomitable husk he is. 

Gortash shoves the bloodwet hem of his shirt down to cover his crotch, barely just perched on the end of his desk. He's suddenly caught in the middle of two men staring each other down like statues with granite grudges.

And then the Dark Urge puts his hand on Gortash's thigh.

"You're interrupting something," the Urge says, and gortash genuinely wants to cackle at that. That's stating the obvious.

"I'm tempted to invoke the names of the Eight on the pair of you," is what Thorm manages out, "but holiness is a far cry from us all.”

He's starkly infuriating with that low, level voice. This would be much easier if Ketheric were raising a hand to cover his eyes, or at the very least looking away; but he’s just looking. Gortash wonders if he was fooled for a second, if he thought he was genuinely casting his eyes on the corpse of Bane’s chosen. He wonders if ketheric would’ve liked that.

"You are incomprehensibly lucky that i am only telling you to leave, rather than setting my friend here on you.” Gortash says hotly, better ironing out the quiver in his voice as he speaks. He’s half-naked, covered in what is likely the blood of innocents, and thinking about General Thorm the victim of the wrath of his Bhaalspawn. He’d be vicious. and, unlike Gortash himself, Yhorm could take it.

“I'm aware. He seems focused on you, anyway.” Ketheric says, and when he turns to leave, he has the audacity to let his gaze linger. Gortash feels faintly sick, but it’s not all bitter scorn.

[dreambeloved]

you don't think that the snaps were sent to someone else? he's said on his twitter that he had relations with someone over age back in 2020, from where I'm standing it looks very much like that person was possibly nat, who has admitted recently that she's been in contact with the people behind the burner.

not to mention that the evidence of the alleged exchanges between dream and the victim are images of screenshots of screenshots of a video of someones phone.

I just think it's way too soon to go throwing everything away, he hasn't even released his video yet!

much love and i hope you're ok <3.

There are over 50 asks in my inbox right now, but this one is actually worded kindly, so I’ll answer. Believe what you want of course, I’m not here to harass people into seeing things the way I see them, but just an explanation on the way I view it.

It’s very clear to me that he lied about who he sent those snaps to when everything is put together. At first, I wanted to attribute it to just forgetting who they were sent to, or mixing people up- but the way he went about proving that lie is what makes it obvious that this isn’t some mix-up.

To start, I want to point out that both the burner account and Nat (who Dream says is the actual recipient of those snaps) have denied Nat’s involvement with the burner beyond sharing the “chia seeds” discord screenshots. She also provided proof (linked here) that she hasn’t been in contact with him on snap since 2019. (burner account confirmation linked here).

Now, when he provided proof of Nat being the recipient, he provided this screenshot (seen below on the left). It should be noted that the “Sam” in discussion was a mutual between them both on Twitter, and not his ex, like some think. In the screenshot Nat provided (seen below on the right), there are voice memos that were either edited out or deleted before Dream posted them. Nat also provided videos (linked here) to show that the messages are authentic.

Okay I’m going off on a tangent here. I don’t have the energy to go through every little piece, so for now, here’s my conclusion for the Nat thing. To me at least, it very clearly isn’t her. But if the actual recipient of those videos wasn’t someone that shouldn’t have been sent them in the first place, why go to such lengths to claim so? Why go through all the trouble of bringing in someone completely uninvolved if there was nothing wrong with it in the first place? Even as a stan, I could admit that he has a thing about lying at first when he’s in the wrong, so all this just feels like the final nail.

Now, even if this was just some elaborate set-up to get him cancelled, I still find it really uncomfortable and strange that he sent something like that to a fan anyways? I feel like a lot of people forget the whole power imbalance aspect when it comes to youtubers with their fans. The fact that he has so many intimate relationships with stans/fans strikes me as weird whether they’re legal or not.

That’s all I have for now, at least on the “could be Nat” situation. There are a Lot of asks and messages that I don’t have the energy to go through, so I’ll probably make a final post and then never look in my notifs again.

[cookii-moon]

So fam, you seem to like to talk about ghost Cole. So tell me, how would you rewrite dotd? :)

I love talking about ghost Cole you are correct

The obvious first step is make it a season like it was supposed to be. DotD was just too short to set up much and the filler fight scenes didn’t help it. You could also have a longer special or a movie. Either or works.

The second is we should’ve gotten to see more of Cole BEING a ghost before we got to see him not being a ghost. I think the Chinese version did some parts of DotD better in that regard because we did at least get to see an exclusive intro where the ninja are training together. Cole gets knocked into a rack and suddenly they leave without him. We also get to know it’s happened before because if iirc he says smthn along the lines of “not again..” which did a better job of setting things up than the English version.

Have him use his ghosty powers for stuff to showcase the positives before having the ninja forget about him more and more as the episodes go on until the viewer is firmly aware something is VERY wrong and this isn’t just a cute holiday season. It starts with minor things you wouldn’t notice and gets more and more intense as the show goes on until Cole is forced to recognize he’s being forgotten.

It then becomes a race against time for Cole to find a way out of it before it’s too late, perhaps along with some of Yang’s trickery along the way? He also slowly grows to have a spite for Yang. Maybe you could also explore some of the duality between the side of him that’s used to being a ghost and the side of him that wants to be human again. Maybe the lines of life and death have blurred for him now that he’s fading, and Morro is trying to guide him (he probably has no clue it’s Morro until the end lol) to make up for his mistakes. Mostly because I think Spirit/Sandstorm duo would be fun to explore plus Morro shouldn’t be gone from DotD completely.

Obviously eventually he’d break and go to Yangs temple again. Morbid curiosity? He finally found a way? He’s just salty? Who knows!

I don’t think releasing the villains would serve any real purpose tbh. The ninja have already forgotten him and having former enemies pop up would only cause suspicion, plus it leads to the filler fight scenes, their only real purpose in the story anyways was fan service.

Anyways I want the fight scenes with yangs students to be more exciting. I want full on ghost brawls where they’re flying all over the place and fighting mid air and zipping through obstacles and walls and possessing weapons n stuff like cmon. We were robbed!!

As much as I love Ghost Cole I don’t think he’d stay a ghost. They had a point it DOES make him too overpowered in the long run and kinda means you have to write around it all the time when introducing stakes. It’s kind of already showcased a lot in the fandom where people will write fics in which he’s in a situation that shouldn’t really affect him as a ghost at all, but he’s still affected since you can’t put water everywhere and it’s hard to account for everything.

I do think he deserves the right to be permanently AFFECTED by his time as a ghost and it should be addressed more often. I want Cole to have a full blown panic attack when he and Jay go in the swamp to rescue the workers in S7. I want his lava arms and their connection to his time as a ghost and how he feels about them to be explored. I want various side effects to rear their head like him collapsing from exhaustion in the middle of a mission because he’s not used to sleeping or him struggling in a fight because he has to completely relearn his old fighting style. I want Vangelis to use his past to toy with him via necromancy and he’s absolutely terrified of going back to that life again or being stuck under his control because of the stupid leftover ghost traits.

Obviously this is just a concept, though who knows, maybe there’ll be a Spectral Flight sequel some day when I finish writing it. It probably wouldn’t be canon, but it’s a fun idea 👀

[criminalskies]

I just read walk me home and I like it except why does hotch fit in to reader’s clothes? He is giant! He couldn’t fit one shoulder and his head in to my clothes. That one glaring obvious detail ruined the immersive read for me. Why not write that those were y/ns dad clothes or brother clothes! Makes way more sense. Plus he would look so silly in care bear pj anyway

I’m sorry to have ruined the experience for you but I’ve gotten this complaint a few times so I’m just gonna address it more broadly. Here are a couple things

1. I am 6’6”. I am two metres tall. Forgive me for wanting to see myself in reader even the smallest bit.

2 I stated reader’s pyjamas were OVERSIZED on them. This leaves it pretty open to interpretation for anyone bigger than the average ten year old to feel included in a size range that could realistically fit hotch.

3. Not everyone has a dad or a brother and that seems like a bigger, more upsetting detail than your vague body size being off the mark.

4. I am not apologising for my choice. This feeling you have where suddenly the illusion is gone, and all your dreams of reader being just like you are shattered? I know that feeling very well. Most plus size readers know that feeling pretty well, because whenever y’all write “he picks you up and throws you onto the bed” or “you jump onto his waist, legs locking around him as he holds you up” or “his usually tight shirt now hangs over your frame to the mid thigh” no, no and no. none of that is possible for us. But we do something called using our imaginations; or we use the escape key. We don’t message authors saying they’ve ruined our reading experience because the truth is you can’t cater to everyone. I really try, and I’m sorry if I missed the mark for you.

I will go and gladly mark this fic as being plus!size!reader if you want me to, but that seems a little bit excessive, considering none of the fics I’m talking about are marked as petite or mid-size reader. I hope you get what I’m saying here, that while I’m sorry you couldn’t see yourself in reader, I was attempting to include as many people as possible with my writing choices.

Plus! If you cannot even use your big wide imagination to even CONSIDER someone your size even owning such a giant, disgusting set of clothes that fit A FAIRLY AVERAGE SIZED MAN. Then maybe my account just isn’t for you.

I have genuinely had three or four people say this same stupid thing to me that it was sooooo unrealistic to have reader’s OVERSIZED clothing fit hotch. I’m sorry it wasn’t immersive for you, but please, use your imagination for one second. We all do it every day.

[dramavixen]

For those who aren’t quite over An Ancient Love Song – the story from Lu Yuan’s perspective

Hello all! This will be a translation of two videos by Bilibili creator 小城问路家 that I found to be exquisite character analyses. I considered subtitling them, but I don’t want to rip the videos from his platform and I think they still work effectively in essay form. If you understand Chinese/have a Bilibili account, I highly recommend giving these videos some support:

Part 1 | Part 2

Below begins the full translation. FYI, I’ll be editing content where necessary to make this read better. I also recommend having a snack and some water at the ready because this is going to be quite lengthy.

Viewers are all aware that this drama is presented from Shen Buyan’s perspective. From his point of view, the instances in which he travels back are separated by a very short period of time. Between some leaps, there isn’t any separation at all. What that means is that his and Lu Yuan’s situations are drastically different.

When it comes to Lu Yuan, there are large periods of “empty” time in between Shen Buyan’s time leaps. Three years, five years, ten years, and then the rest of her life. Likely, the production team became aware of this problem and created a special episode that retells the story from elderly Lu Yuan’s perspective. But perhaps due to financial and time length restrictions, this special episode more so uses material from the full drama and plays it in reverse while incorporating elderly Lu Yuan’s narration in key moments.

What viewers should understand is that that episode is told from elderly Lu Yuan’s perspective, who has access to an omniscient point of view. She already knows about this entire story.

Meanwhile, what I think really appeals to us as viewers about this story are those long periods of waiting. During those three, five, ten years that Lu Yuan spends waiting, her understanding of the story isn’t actually complete. We can’t use an omniscient perspective to understand Lu Yuan. She only experiences small bits at a time, and she also refuses Shen Buyan’s attempts to reveal more details to her. When I rewatched the show from Lu Yuan’s perspective and ignored omniscient knowledge, I discovered all the little details that the director and writers slipped into the show.

Jing Ping Year 30: Lu Yuan, 18 years old

Let’s start from when Shen Buyan traveled to when Lu Yuan was 18 years old. At this time, Shen Buyan is carrying the regret of not fulfilling his promise to stay with her. He has come back in a very frail condition and encounters Lu Yuan. Then the following exchange occurs between Lu Yuan and Shen Buyan—remember this scene, as it will become relevant later:

LY: You recognize me? What is the matter? Why are you crying? SBY: Someone’s waiting for me. But I went the wrong way.

18-year-old Lu Yuan sings the following lines of poetry as she returns home. These lines also appear in prior parts of the plot:

At first, when we set out, The willows were fresh and green; Now, when we shall be returning, The snow will be falling in clouds.

Translation from the Chinese Text Initiative of the University of Virginia

This poem comes from the Classic of Poetry's "Caiwei," which tells the story of a soldier who is enlisted into battle at a faraway border. In the endlessly long years of war, he expresses longing for his family. These lines discreetly touch on the drama's three main themes: the cruelty of war, longing for your beloved, and prolonged periods of waiting.

Shen Buyan first decides to keep his distance from Lu Yuan. But when he discovers that she's being mistreated, he still reveals himself to pass knowledge on to Lu Yuan.

Some of his teachings are more obvious foreshadowing, like hiding secret codes in music or when he teaches her things about the nations that are beyond the time period's understanding—even though it isn't explicitly said, we can still guess that in addition to geography, he teaches her all about economic and military matters. Hence, he gives her what she will need to become the mother of the emperor who will unify the nine nations.

Aside from that, the first lesson that he teaches her is to "understand larger truths from smaller signs." When we first watch, we might see this teaching is foreshadowing for when Lu Yuan later takes down the husbandry official—it's through this lesson that she discovers the official is secretly selling military horses to Beilie.

But I think the lesson is mainly a prelude for the rest of the drama. When people talk about this show, they all say that Lu Yuan is a wise and intelligent female lead. I think that everything started with this lesson of "understanding larger truths from smaller signs," because it explains how later—be it with Shen Buyan's time travel or her battles with Li Yong—she's able to understand everything. This includes how, through very small details, she will deduce the truth of the reversed timelines. It's a huge reason why Lu Yuan is able to become the person she is at the very end.

After Shen Buyan finishes teaching her and she defeats the official, Shen Buyan decides to end things and leave. However, Lu Yuan bravely expresses herself and manages to obtain for them a period of time in which the two of them are happily together. But with the start of war, Li Yong sees potential in Lu Yuan and recruits her as a spy to go to Beilie. She says goodbye to Shen Buyan, and ends this first time leap.

In this first leap, I think two details that should be noted are:

Lu Yuan remembers every little thing that Shen Buyan tells her. Specifically, she remembers every little thing from their time together. After a pair of lovers separate and think about each other afterward, aside from looking at physical belongings (like the jade or the konghou), they're likely to spend more time remembering all their tiny interactions with each other. So every detail throughout this first leap is something that Lu Yuan can recall clearly. This is very important to remember for later, when we observe how she changes.

In the three years during which Lu Yuan searches for Shen Buyan, she makes use of the chancellor's connections and resources. In the drama, she says that after completing her mission, she continuously searched for him. During her search for him, she follows Li Yong to Jiangdu. As Li Yong's intelligence director, the information available must be incredibly thorough and it also covers intelligence about all nations. You can assume that she used that intelligence to look for him through an exchange that comes later:

Where have you been all these years? I searched for you for so long. They all said they could not find someone like you. They did not know of you.

We can largely assume that the results of her searches tell her that no such person as "Shen Buyan" ever existed. So in these three years, Lu Yuan must be suspecting whether or not "Shen Buyan" was a real person or who he actually was.

What must Lu Yuan feel as she searches for him? I think we can mainly interpret that at this point, Lu Yuan views him as her first love. If, in this kind of relationship, Shen Buyan never turns up again, we can presume that Lu Yuan would house it away in her heart forever as her first love before moving on to live the rest of her life.

This can be deduced because when Lu Yuan is 18, the difference between this time and her later years is that she doesn't know that Shen Buyan will come back. Plainly, there are no such promises between them. The only thing that exists is the period of time that they spend together. She asks Shen Buyan to wait for her, but when she comes back, she finds that Shen Buyan didn't wait. She wouldn't think that Shen Buyan "disappeared," she would think that he "left." He left without promising to return.

Then, in the following three years, he doesn't contact her at all. So mainly, Lu Yuan would think, He left. Has he forgotten me?

Based on this, you can guess why in her older years, she recalls meeting him again at 21 like this:

Three years later—on the day of the Shangsi Festival—when I thought that everything was simply a beautiful dream from my youth, he suddenly appeared before me once more.

When we think about her in those three years, she must be missing Shen Buyan. But she also wonders whether Shen Buyan has forgotten all about her. If Shen Buyan hadn't returned, she would have preserved him in her memory forever, but she also would have started a new life.

--

Yuanqi Year 1: Lu Yuan, 21 years old

While it's fairly easy to understand Lu Yuan's perspective from when she's 18, it gets much more complicated in the second time leap. Let's first summarize how it goes:

Right when Shen Buyan arrives, he intends to kill Li Yong. After Lu Yuan stops him, the two of them enter into some disagreements. Ultimately, Shen Buyan gives up on his plans before going with Lu Yuan to their home in Nanmeng Lake. They spend some peaceful and happy times together, with Shen Buyan respecting her decisions.

Then he returns with her to persuade the young Emperor against his movements north, and they later witness Li Yong's betrayal and his role in incapacitating the Emperor. Throughout this time, Lu Yuan discovers instances in which Shen Buyan doesn't remember certain things that occurred in their relationship. Afterward, Lu Yuan decides to move to the palace. Shen Buyan fully intends on following her there.

The scene of the rainy night in which he disappears from the carriage is widely recognized as an intensely sad one, but I have a different perspective on it.

First, let's look at the overall progression of this second time leap. We know that Lu Yuan has discovered the existence of the reversed timelines. When she realizes that Shen Buyan doesn't remember the fruit tree or the jade, she'll then think about the words that Shen Buyan spoke in his sleep before and put everything together. That's when she realizes that they're trapped in reversed timelines.

I do think that she only understands it at surface-level and hasn't yet thought about it in more depth. Like how realization dawns on us as we watch the last episode, she more so only recognizes the foundation of things.

My second thought is based on the first. In the rainy scene of the carriage, why do we all find it to be a very sad scene? One part of it is that Shen Buyan promises to stay with her, but can't follow through. He suddenly disappears without explanation. The second point is that Lu Yuan doesn't know exactly what has become of Shen Buyan, even if she knows that he's disappeared. That she's in pain and turmoil, but she doesn't know how he feels.

We can guess that Lu Yuan overturns these doubts at a later point: when she's in the rain looking for him, she ultimately has to get up on her own and take the carriage herself to the palace. After this, five years pass.

In these five years, she knows much more than she did in the previous three. She knows for sure that Shen Buyan is from the future. She knows with certainty that he had no choice in disappearing. So over the next five years, she will eventually deduce that how they parted from one another when she was 21 was also how they met when she was 18.

She'll think, Why was it that back when I was 18, Shen Buyan was in such awful condition? It was like he had been through hell and back. He was completely frail and kept calling her name.

At 18, she couldn't understand why. But after five years, locked in the palace, after spending every night thinking about it, she will eventually figure it out: While I searched for him in the rain, he had not wanted to leave. And when he returned by the river, he was in the same condition that I had been in—no, even worse.

So the reasons for which we deem the rainy scene will be resolved as she thinks everything over. She will realize that he felt just as awful as she did in that moment, and that perhaps he searched for her even more desperately than she did for him. I think after realizing this, Lu Yuan smiled truly, from the bottom of her heart.

In actuality, the director also borrows 18-year-old Lu Yuan in their first meeting to tell Shen Buyan what 21-year-old Lu Yuan wants to say:

Look at the state you are in. I think that she definitely would not blame you!

My third thought is that over these five years and through her understanding of the reversed timelines, taking into account details from the two times that they met, she will be able to conclude that their very first meeting did not happen in this time leap. Since she didn't recognize Shen Buyan when she was 18, then when Shen Buyan first meets her in the future, he won't recognize her either. Thus, while their relationship is bound to begin at some point in between, it can't be when she's 21. That's because when they first reunite during this time leap, the two of them are clearly already in love with one another—even though Shen Buyan doesn't know about events from when she's 18, he still loves her already in this second time leap.

With this, you can tell why Lu Yuan will ultimately stick to this decision:

Shen Buyan. If there truly will be a next time, I would rather we not recognize one another.

It's easy to interpret this as her being hurt severely by his departure, but I think the deeper meaning is that when she puts together the puzzle of her meeting Shen Buyan at 18 and 21, this is a decision that will protect Shen Buyan. She's thinking about how to change his fate. Just as Shen Buyan once did to her when she was 18, she wants to leave him, pretend that she doesn't know him so they can avoid their entire relationship from beginning at all. She knows that as soon as it does, they'll end up hurting each other.

This drama is quite symmetrical. Shen Buyan leaving Lu Yuan to protect her and Lu Yuan's decision to do the same after five years' worth of consideration are parallel:

LY: Since you clearly do not wish to leave, why can you not stay? SBY: For efforts that will not lead to any results, what is the point in forcing them?

SBY: Lady Lu! What do I need to do for you to believe me? LY: Do not follow me. If you continue, I will no longer remain so polite.

Without me, she seems to be happier.

I am afraid the more that I care about him, the more I should not reunite with him.

So over these five years, she has concluded that Shen Buyan never forgot her, but instead he had no choice but to leave when she was 18 due to the reversed timelines. So every doubt she had over the last five and previous three years has been resolved.

When we think about those first three years, she waited for nothing since there was nothing promised. But in these five years, she has something to look forward to. Unlike before, she now knows for sure that she and Shen Buyan will meet again. But unlike the next leap where she knows that it will take 10 years for Shen Buyan to return, in these five years, she doesn't know how long it will take for him to come back. Shen Buyan doesn't tell her—not this time, nor when she was 18.

However, based on experience, she can guess that since their first and second meetings both took place during the Shangsi Festival, then the next time they meet will also be on the day of the Shangsi Festival. You can imagine that in these five years, during every Shangsi Festival, Lu Yuan is hoping to see him again. Maybe she walks on the street or goes to places they've been before to wait for him. But he doesn't appear until Yuanqi Year 5.

In these five years, Lu Yuan's thought process must be incredibly complicated. She has a lot of time to think about things like, How did we meet before? Why did you appear in my life? Why did we grow so attached to each other?"

At the same time, she's in a lot of pain, as she'll recall later at 26:

Each time, I harbored expectations. Yet they were shattered every time. But still, I held a little hope.

She knows very clearly that the two of them cannot be together and that they're destined to come to an end, but she can't help it. She can't control her feelings. Or, she has no way of leaving her feelings behind.

I think that these five years are much harder for Lu Yuan to endure than the previous three. Whereas in those first three years she viewed Shen Buyan as a typical romance partner, within these five years, the most painful part is having to part ways.

When two people begin growing closer, being together is part of it, but leaving one another might be the bigger part. So when they've already experienced parting from one another, the experience of a happy reunion will brand this love of theirs into Lu Yuan's life. She'll feel more and more that fate is toying with them, that it's ensuring that the two of them will never be together. That sense of fate will push her to miss him even more intensely and await their next meeting with even more anticipation.

But alongside this expectation, she may return to Nanmeng Lake and see the wish Shen Buyan made to change her fate. At this point she'll think, I want to change your fate too. Maybe I cannot change whether or not you return, but I can change whether or not you fall in love with me. By not letting you fall in love with me, by pretending to be a stranger, I can lessen your pain.

Now when you think about their interactions when she's 26 and pretends not to recognize him, you'll discover that it's actually a very sad arc.

--

Yuanqi Year 5: Lu Yuan, 26 years old

When Lu Yuan is 26, the progression of the plot is that by the time Shen Buyan arrives, Lu Yuan has already decided to ignore him. But as chance would have it, Shen Buyan saves the Emperor and follows them into the palace. Li Yong begins the battle at Huofeng Fort. Shen Buyan wants to go to battle with Lu Yuan to change Lu Shi's fate. They'll assume that they've successfully prevented Lu Shi from dying, and then they'll go to Nanmeng Lake. That is when they discover Lu Shi's fate hasn't changed at all, and Lu Yuan uses the Phoenix Tablet to take the position of Empress. Together, Lu Yuan and Shen Buyan confront the enemy outside of city walls—then Lu Yuan and Yi Hua are captured to the palace. The time leap ends when Shen Buyan takes the arrowhead from Yi Hua to assassinate Li Yong.

Let's take note of some details in this third time leap. First is that Shen Buyan makes a promise to stay. At this point, Lu Yuan doesn't say anything. Take note of her expression:

SBY: I've decided. No matter how difficult it is, I will stay here and face everything with you, together.

Based on what Lu Yuan is aware of at this point, she previously heard Shen Buyan say something similar during that rainy night in the carriage. Right after he did so, he immediately disappeared—this became a very painful memory.

But now that she's hearing it again, she doesn't say anything that would point that out. You can tell why based on something she says later:

SBY: Since I have told you so much, you should tell me too. In our past, what exactly did we go through? LY: I cannot tell you that. Otherwise, once you meet the me of the past, everything you do will be too purposeful. It will not reflect your true feelings.

Then, Shen Buyan tries to assassinate Li Yong and disappears again. We know that Lu Yuan will endure 10 years of waiting.

But in these 10 years, she has something to wait for. Shen Buyan very, very clearly tells her that they'll meet again on the day of the Shangsi Festival. And within these 10 years, she will put together the events of what has happened during this leap and the previous two.

First, she'll understand why when she was 21, Shen Buyan tried to kill Li Yong immediately after arriving in the timeline. That was because right before he disappeared when she was 26, he tried to assassinate Li Yong in Lu Yuan and Yi Hua's stead. Li Yong held them as prisoners, planned Lu Shi's death, and caused the Emperor to become mentally disabled, so the first thing Shen Buyan desperately needed to do back when Lu Yuan was 21 was kill Li Yong.

Lu Yuan will remember that at the time, she rebuked him for it. That was possibly their one and only argument, but now she understands why he acted as he did. And she'll think, How ridiculous of me, that I stopped him. That I did not believe him.

Even though while she was 21, she found out why Shen Buyan wanted to kill Li Yong when she witnessed what Li Yong did to the Emperor, she didn't yet know why killing Li Yong was the very first thing Shen Buyan wanted to do. Now she does.

The second thing of note is that through this leap, she now knows how they came to love each other—more accurately, how Shen Buyan fell in love with her. She knows that the next time they meet will be a time when Shen Buyan isn't in love with her. That's because when they first meet in this leap, Shen Buyan calls her "Your Majesty." At that point, their relationship was more so him reporting his knowledge to an Empress, so there was no love to speak of.

Lu Yuan learns that the reason Shen Buyan falls in love with her during this time leap is that while Shen Buyan intended on going to take Lu Shi's place in Liuli Valley, Lu Yuan ends up taking Shen Buyan's place. That is the start of his feelings for her.

During this time leap, there's an interesting parallel that can be drawn: Lu Yuan is doing to Shen Buyan what Shen Buyan did to her when she was 18; that is, trying to end things between them. But ultimately, neither of them succeed. What provides the parallel for their shared failure are two hug scenes:

1. 26-year-old Lu Yuan obviously loves Shen Buyan very deeply, but she pretends to be distant and pretends to not know him. She keeps this up until the incident in Liuli Valley, where they come to the conclusion that they can change fate.

2. Compare the above to when Lu Yuan was 18 and Shen Buyan very clearly loved her, but still pretended that there was nothing between them and tried to leave. It was only when Lu Yuan told him that even if she had only 10 days left to live, she would still want to be with the person she loved that they reconcile with another hug.

There's something additional here that will let us see the actors and directors' attention to detail. Throughout Lu Yuan's life from when she was 18 to when she's 26, there are a total of four hug scenes:

18-years-old: Shen Buyan is full of sorrow and wants to leave. Though he embraces her, Lu Yuan is still crying:

21-years-old: There are two hugs, during both of which Lu Yuan is happy, but still visibly concerned that Shen Buyan will leave again:

26-years-old: They embrace one another and Lu Yuan believes that they have changed fate, meaning that Shen Buyan can truly stay with her. This is the only hug in which Lu Yuan is completely happy:

Let's now take a look at Lu Yuan's life between the ages of 26 and 36. Before disappearing, Shen Buyan tells her to "keep living."

I think this line has a very deep meaning. In a short period of time, Lu Yuan has witnessed the deaths of her little brother and her lover. They both die in her arms.

LY: I have already lost Lu Shi. I cannot lose you too.

For the sake of the country, she marries someone she doesn't love, yet she still becomes the hateful "Demon Empress" in everyone's eyes. If it weren't for Shen Buyan's words and his 10-year promise, if it weren't for Shen Buyan telling her to keep living, if it weren't for the thought that Shen Buyan's sacrifice won her the opportunity to end the war...it's greatly possible that Lu Yuan couldn't have lived on.

We can also feel exactly how difficult it is for Lu Yuan in these ten years. Even though she has no longer has the military support of her brother, she slowly grows while tolerating it all. She gradually forces Li Yong from a position of great power to fleeing to Beilie with the city defense map. In these ten years, she also puts her soul into raising and teaching Chu Tongchang. She must pass down all the knowledge she gained from Shen Buyan to Chu Tongchang—after all, this child is the direction and hope that Shen Buyan brought to her in this latest time leap.

In these ten years, she also walks without hesitation toward her destiny. She now understands everything about the story of her and Shen Buyan. When she thinks about all their short encounters, she will remember that even though Shen Buyan does not have memories of the times they spent together, he still has feelings for her while respecting her decisions. From the very beginning, he has been someone who will sacrifice himself to protect her—even when he didn't have feelings for her.

To Lu Yuan, someone who maintains such a pure heart at every moment and who is constantly trying to change her fate will inevitably move her over and over again. All of these beautiful yet painful memories support her lonely self and become her motivation to keep moving forward in the palace.

So although these ten years are long, Lu Yuan waits and prepares amidst her sorrow for the Shangsi Festival that she and Shen Buyan promised to each other.

Knowing that he would arrive in ten years gave me endless hope in those long days.

--

Yuanqi Year 15: Lu Yuan, 36 years old

36-year-old Lu Yuan meets Shen Buyan, who views her as a stranger. For answers to three of his questions, she exchanges three favors: changing his clothes, having a meal, and roaming about the festival. After a brief reunion, Lu Yuan uses the information that Shen Buyan gave her ten years prior to corner Li Yong. She blocks an arrow for Shen Buyan and ends this time leap. Out of all the time leaps, this is the shortest one, but the amount of emotion in it is the deepest and most enduring.

Let's look at these three favors. When we watch the show, we think that these are things Lu Yuan is completing based on what she always wanted to do with Shen Buyan during the Shangsi Festival. Of course, this is the first level of meaning.

We know that within the last ten years, based on the information that Shen Buyan provided her when she was 26 and his attitude toward her, she will conclude that this next meeting of theirs will be very short. Then she'll think back to the time when she didn't recognize Shen Buyan and how he treated her back then.

Lu Yuan knows that she won't have the same amount of time as he did. When Shen Buyan met her for the last time, he left behind knowledge, the konghou, and the jade. Through these, he gave her things to reminisce over during her future days of sorrow. So, she also wants to leave something for Shen Buyan.

She thinks about how in the days that she spent getting older, the one thing she kept wondering was whether Shen Buyan still loved her. Hence, she wants to find some way to tell the future Shen Buyan that in these ten years, she was constantly thinking about him.

Of course, an overly direct confession to someone who doesn't know you will only scare them. She must think of alternatives. I believe that in the three favors, aside from fulfilling her own wishes, they also contain all the things that Lu Yuan wants to tell Shen Buyan.

1. Changing clothes: These clothes are ones that Lu Yuan made for Shen Buyan when she was 18, but she was never able to give them to him. When she was 21 and they went back to Nanmeng Lake, the director took care to give a close-up of Lu Yuan packing up these same clothes.

Top: 18-year-old Lu Yuan sewing the clothes - Bottom: 21-year-old Lu Yuan packing them up

She brought them to Nanmeng Lake, so why is it that she still didn't manage to give them to him? When we think of the possibilities, we have to consider that making clothes by hand in ancient times was typically done with the intention of giving them to lovers or husbands. You can think of this as a method that women could use to more directly confess to someone within a conservative society. Lu Yuan has also always been someone to whom such rituals are important, as displayed by this scene from when she was 18:

LY: I finally have the opportunity to tell you. You still owe me one last lesson. I hope that after that lesson is complete, we can find a place with just the two of us so I can tell you.

When she was 21, even though they were together, Lu Yuan was preoccupied with how to convince the Emperor against war. Not to mention, she also thought that Shen Buyan wouldn't be leaving again. What she wanted was to give him the clothes properly, after they managed to persuade the Emperor. But we all know what happened.

I don't think that the gifting of clothes is a simple gesture. In the Classic of Poetry that she and Shen Buyan use as a code book, there's a poem called "Zhengfeng Ziyi." It talks about the feelings of a wife as she makes clothes for her husband, representing the way that women in ancient times expressed love. By finally giving Shen Buyan these clothes, Lu Yuan believes that later—when Shen Buyan will go over the Classic of Poetry with her 18-year-old self—he will then understand the silent confession of her 36-year-old self.

And when we look at her pained expression in this scene, we can imagine that from the moment she finished the clothes, she has pictured personally giving them to Shen Buyan and seeing him wear them an infinite amount of times.

SBY: How did she know my height and measurements?

2. Having a meal: We know that Lu Yuan made the food, but what I want to focus on is how the act of having a meal represents Lu Yuan's attachment to Nanmeng Lake.

Nanmeng Lake was a part of every prior story of theirs. The beginning of their story took place at Nanmeng Lake. She also requests to Chu Tongchang that she be buried there. So she really hoped that she and Shen Buyan could go back there together.

But she knows that their reunion will be very short, and she also has to remain in Jiangdu to counter Li Yong. Knowing that they can't go back, she could instead make food from Nanmeng Lake.

In the past, it was always Shen Buyan and Yi Hua who would grill fish for her. I think that over the last ten years, Lu Yuan practiced cooking this meal repeatedly. Because she knows that once Shen Buyan goes to the past, he will understand what she wanted to tell him through this meal: "Although I am in the palace, my favorite food is still that simple food from Nanmeng Lake. Although I gave up our love over and over again for the sake of my country, all I really want from the bottom of my heart is to go home with you. I wanted to do as you asked when I was 21, and settle down with you at Nanmeng Lake."

SBY: Are you willing to leave Jinghua House and Jingdu to settle down at Nanmeng Lake and stay with one another?

3. Roaming the Shangsi Festival: 21-year-old Lu Yuan's dream was to spend Shangsi Festival on the streets with Shen Buyan. 36-year-old Lu Yuan takes a willow branch to drive calamities away from Shen Buyan.

In this scene, Lu Yuan hasn't actually told him everything about this tradition. To complete her explanation, the director and writers borrow the voice of an old town crier in every successive time leap:

I wish that all of Dasheng's people may drive away calamity from themselves, and welcome the return of their beloved!

Yes, Lu Yuan only tells Shen Buyan half of the tradition. What she leaves out is also the answer to his last question:

LY: My regret is not being able to spend the Shangsi Festival with someone. SBY: Who? LY: Is that your third question? You will find out next time.

The answer is: "May you avoid calamities. I have welcomed the return of my beloved."

I think these favors form the best method that Lu Yuan can come up with that both wouldn't disturb Shen Buyan and also express all of the longing and love she has felt in these ten years.

With this, the time leaps forming the main story are effectively over. To Lu Yuan, these four encounters with Shen Buyan encapsulate all the love in her life. Each encounter was shorter than the last, and each time she had to wait longer. I think she doesn't regret meeting Shen Buyan, but she grieves that she keeps waiting longer and longer and loves him deeper and deeper, yet their periods of reunion are shorter and shorter. She laments that they never went back to Nanmeng Lake and that they couldn't say a proper farewell.

--

The remainder of Lu Yuan's life

The first shot after the time leaps is of Yuanqi Year 20, where Lu Yuan is hanging another wish tablet, on which she has wished to meet Shen Buyan one more time. The second shot is of 56-year-old Lu Yuan sitting atop the city gate, where she sees Shen Buyan in the last moment of her life before she jumps down.

A few details: in the scene where Lu Yuan is hanging the wish tablet, take note that like Yi Hua, she is in mourning clothes. Aside from the death of Lu Shi that occurred when she was 26, I think that when she was 36, she also started mourning for Shen Buyan. Because in her heart, Shen Buyan was her lover and husband.

Important to note is that at this time, we're still tracking the years by the Yuanqi calendar. "Yuanqi Year 20" means that Emperor Yuanqi hasn't died yet. In a time when the Emperor isn't dead, the Empress dressing in mourning clothes must have caused her to be on the receiving end of much negative sentiment.

The second detail is that Lu Yuan believes that fate has changed since she didn't die that night in the palace. In actuality, her fate hasn't changed at all. It's just that when Shen Buyan left, he didn't know that her death was fake, so from his understanding, he always thought that she died after being struck by the arrow. Maybe Lu Yuan considered that, but in all her years of waiting, she needed a reason to keep going.

The third detail is that after the time leap from when she was 36, she has waited for Shen Buyan for 20 years. Her biggest question in these 20 years must have been, "Does Shen Buyan still think of me?" She kept missing him, but she knows that it's probably only been a few months to Shen Buyan. Compared to the separation that death brings, the more distant separation comes with time. She doesn't know whether or not Shen Buyan will forget her in the time to come, or if he'll still miss her.

I tend to think that Lu Yuan never arrives at the answer to this question as she approaches the end of her life. A lot of people think that 56-year-old Lu Yuan remembers that she met Shen Buyan when she was 6. I don't think that this is logical, especially since she doesn't address these memories directly in her narration of the special episode. So I believe that she struggles with this question until she dies.

The fourth detail is with the old woman who sold the jade to Shen Buyan. Her life's duty is to give the jade to someone called Shen Buyan and tell him to hang a wish tablet. Her request for him to do so is also quite insistent.

When some viewers discovered that this old woman isn't Lu Yuan, they felt a bit disappointed. But if you think about the context of this woman being a descendant of the Chu family, it makes the story even more impactful.

We all know that Lu Yuan doesn't have any descendants, but Yi Hua, who she considers family, also doesn't. Only her adopted child Chu Tongchang does. We can deduce that Lu Yuan spends the rest of her life thinking of Shen Buyan and must repeatedly tell Chu Tongchang that the jade and the wish tablet request must to be passed down to his descendants. And we can see that this will become the most important duty of the entire Chu family. Otherwise, how could her requests survive so many years until modern-day?

The fifth detail is regarding elderly Lu Yuan and the konghou with the snapped string. My personal take on this is that when elderly Lu Yuan saw Shen Buyan when he traveled for the very first time, "I miss you" was what she wanted to tell him. At this point in time, Shen Buyan doesn't know anything. But once he experiences everything and sees that konghou with a snapped string being excavated, he will understand that the ancient love song Lu Yuan played that day and her breaking a string upon seeing him will have been her saying "I miss you" before she jumped.

SBY: I do not understand either. How about you tell me? LY: I...miss you.

When Lu Yuan leaps down from the city gate, aside from it being an act to take responsibility for all the nation's anger, it can also be considered a form of liberation. I think that after witnessing the deaths of Lu Shi and Shen Buyan, she had already considered dying, but two things kept her going: one being that she had to raise and teach Chu Tongchang, another being that she had to wait for Shen Buyan.

But in 56-year-old Lu Yuan's life, Chu Tongchang is already an adult who can handle himself. She's waited for Shen Buyan for 20 years, and he hasn't shown up. She can let go now. Yet her sincerity proves fruitful, because in her last moments, she sees Shen Buyan again.

In that scene of the rainy carriage night when Lu Yuan was 21, she said the following to Shen Buyan:

You and I have different duties. With our different duties, we walk in different directions.

Lu Yuan's duty is to end a tumultuous period and raise an emperor who will unify the nine nations. Shen Buyan's duty is to track history and restore Lu Yuan's good name.

Lu Yuan of the past never cared about the burden of the mark "Demon Empress." Shen Buyan of the past never cared about the Sheng nation's fate. With that, they were destined to move in opposite directions. But as time passes and they near the end of their lives, they have both slowly changed their previous perspectives and eventually end up on the same page.

Lu Yuan was always protecting Shen Buyan. Physically, but more so emotionally. Apart from when she was 18 and 21 and didn't know the truth of their situation, she constantly restrained herself starting at 26. She did so toward the lover of hers for 5 years, 10 years, even if it meant each reunion could possibly be the end of any beginnings.

Shen Buyan was also always protecting Lu Yuan. With a very average physique, he stood up for her in the middle of danger and revolt. During war, he was willing to take her brother's place in facing death. In the palace, he attempted to assassinate Li Yong to protect Lu Yuan and Yi Hua, buying Lu Yuan 10 years' worth of time to repair the nation of Sheng.

Aside from protecting her, Shen Buyan also respected her choices. Once he learned of 18-year-old Lu Yuan's wishes to depart for Beilie—even though he knew this was the last time he would see her—he respected her choice and said nothing but his last farewell. I think this is the true meaning of Shen Buyan's name (T/N: "Buyan" literally means "without speaking").

LY: See you again! Wait for me! You have to wait for me! SBY: See you again!

Now that we're at the end of the story, I want to interpret her line of "I have grievances, but no regrets."

She doesn't regret meeting Shen Buyan. It's in her persistence in leaving behind something for Shen Buyan before she dies.

She doesn't regret showing courage. In each short encounter she had with Shen Buyan, as an ordinary woman during a conservative time period, she still bravely expressed her own feelings. She didn't let any meeting of theirs simply slip by.

She doesn't regret that she spent her life lamenting a lost love. In the last episode, they describe that Lu Yuan was buried in Nanmeng Lake. Buried alongside her were the konghou and the sheet music for a love song. She spent her whole life performing and interpreting this ancient love.

She also doesn't regret giving up family, love, and her own life for the sake of her country.

As for her grievances, I believe we already know what those are.

[feraltuxedo]

Saving Face

New fic alert! My contribution for this year's @fandomtrumpshate auction is live - a five part human AU featuring author Crowley and faceblind bookseller Aziraphale.

Saving Face by FeralTuxedo E, 1/5 chapters Summary: Bookseller Aziraphale has never had much of a green thumb, but when radio host A.J. Crowley's new book about houseplants arrives at the shop, he makes an effort to sell as many copies as possible. His job is on the line, after all. And a mysterious redheaded customer with a penchant for vandalism isn’t helping.

I was prompted by @comicgeekery to write a meet-cute get together fic in that setting and with Aziraphale's prosopagnosia complicating things. Since I have the condition, too, I was all over that idea. You can check out an excerpt from the first chapter below the cut:

Abandoning his mug of tea, Aziraphale stepped out onto the shop floor, where the redhead was perusing the display table with the new arrivals.

‘I wouldn’t get that one if I were you. Dreadful slog all throughout the second half and the killer couldn’t be more obvious if she walked around with a bloodstained knife in her hand.’

The man’s sunglasses flashed at him as he looked up with that mixture of delight and apprehension that had baffled Aziraphale for weeks now. Every time this particular customer sauntered into the shop, nerves barely concealed behind the swagger, he appeared rather more interested in the shop assistant than the books he was half-heartedly browsing.

It had taken a while for Aziraphale to acknowledge the flirting, even after Newt had made several allusions to it. But by the time he’d summarised every single Bond novel to the man, noticed him hanging onto his every word, only for him to off-handedly comment that he’d already read them all, he’d cottoned on. Which was for the best, or he would have been more than irritated by what Gabriel no doubt considered a colossal waste of his shop staff’s time.

‘D’you read all the books you sell?’ the customer asked now, mouth twitching at the corners.

‘Goodness, no. If only. That would be the quickest way to get my notice handed to me.’

‘Right.’ The man’s eyebrows shot above the stark line of his sunglasses, surprise evident on his sharp features. ‘Isn’t this your shop?’

The absurdity of the idea made Aziraphale laugh.

‘Mine? Oh no, far from it. I am but a humble shop assistant.’

He tapped the name badge pinned to his chest. The man didn’t look at it, but fumbled with the book in his hands.

‘Right, sorry. Just thought… ‘cause you’re in here all the time…’

‘I’m the only full-time staff member,’ Aziraphale explained. ‘Everyone else is part-time, except for the manager, and he works upstairs.’

He pointed at the ceiling, beyond which Gabriel sat in his first-floor office, presumably doing very little. Aziraphale preferred it that way. Once or twice each day, he would descend the stairs into the staff room to make a snide comment about sales figures or the correct way to lay out a shop window, and then disappear again.

‘Though, if I might be so bold as to admit, with him very much busy with his accounts—’ Aziraphale put the last word in air quotes— ‘I’m mostly left to do as I please. Which is for the best, really. If my manager was in charge of the displays, you’d see nothing but How to Win Friends and Influence People. I’m sure it’s the only book he’s ever read, not that it’s done him much good.’

The man’s laughter rang through the shop bright as a bell. Entirely charming. Encouraged, Aziraphale took a step closer and looked back over his shoulder to make sure Newt was not lurking in the doorway to the staff room. He gathered all his resolve, and to his own surprise, his smile was as steady as his voice when he spoke.

‘I was wondering, actually, if I might take you out for a coffee. There’s a lovely little place just around the corner, and I can take my break as early as in half an hour. I just need to let my colleague know. The thing is, I’d love to talk more about books with you. Or anything else, for that matter.’

The man stared at him through dark lenses, a deep frown forming beneath his widow’s peak. Well, that wasn’t at all a good sign. Had Aziraphale misread the signals? Was he being a creep?

This moment of building panic was interrupted by Newt, who stomped onto the shop floor with an armful of new releases.

‘Was it you who ordered a whole box of Yelling at Plants by A.J. Crowley?’

Aziraphale, grateful for the distraction, whipped around to relieve Newt of some of the books precariously balanced in his grip. They were bound in a striking black and green cover, with the title embossed in gold. Eye-catching.

‘Yes, I did. How exciting, I didn’t realise they’d already be here. We must clear a space for them, maybe over here?’

He bustled over to the large table in the centre and directed Newt to dump the pile of books on top of it. Prime real estate. As soon as the shop was empty, he’d make it look all nice. And then sneak a look at the book itself. He had been rather looking forward to this one.

Newt regarded the books with a shake of the head.

‘How on earth are we meant to shift thirty copies of a gardening book? Are you actually trying to get us both sacked?’

‘Don’t be silly. This is not just any gardening book. It’s A.J. Crowley’s literary debut.’

This statement was only met with confusion.

‘You don’t know him? Yelling at Plants, every Saturday morning on Radio 4?’

Lovely way to wake up, with the silky voice of A.J. Crowley coming through the airwaves, much less choleric than the name of the show suggested.

‘My nan listens to Radio 4,’ Newt said derisively.

‘Your nan clearly has better taste than you.’

[cerebralinvasion]

hello!I read your yandere reader x dazai fic and I freaking love it!May we have a yandere reader x chuuya fic this time?Pretty please?❤❤

shared (chuuya x yandere reader)

notes: thank you so much for asking nicely and sorry for how long it took for me to get to it! this fic has the reader leaning a little bit more towards an obsessive and stalker yandere than possessive i hope that’s okay!! also i wrote and edited this while i was kinda tired i hope there aren’t too many mistakes </3

trigger warnings: yanderes, obsessive behavior, mild stalking

you sat, perched on the chair in your living room. shared living room. shared because you lived with him. perhaps it was early in the relationship for that. you just began dating only a few months ago after all. but you’ve had your sights set on him for much longer than that. and with just a wee bit of guilt tripping it was surprising easy to get chuuya to cave. he knew just how much you loved him (or at least thought he knew, it’s unlikely he’d ever be able to full process how deep your obsession for him goes) and he figured sharing an apartment with you couldn’t exactly hurt. so you moved in together. but that’s not the issue right now.

the issue is that it’s three in the morning and chuuya isn’t here. you know what he does for a living, of course you do. you know everything about him. what kind of partner would you be if you weren’t even aware of something as obvious as him working in the port mafia? so it’s natural that he would be out late. and it was possibly also natural for a partner to be worried that their boyfriend was out at three am with no explanation. but you weren’t just an average level of worried.

you knew he had a mission tonight. he was supposed to be at the targets location at 11:00pm. chuuya’s ability’s efficiency and quickness to kill probably would have meant it’d only take him a couple seconds at most to have them dead. but of course he actually had to sneak around all those well placed bodyguards, unless he just barged in and took them down with his strength. the latter of which would most likely take longer as a result of the gunshots and commotion disturbing the area. you’d taken account of many possibilities and scenarios such as this. it was likely that you were far more prepared for this attack than the target possibly could have been, perhaps even more than chuuya was himself. but none of your predictions led to him being out this late.

you were frantic with worry. you didn’t really care much for chuuya killing others or working for the mafia. you were only bothered because he was out there doing it without you. and now he was off even later into the night than you had expected? this was awful. what if he was hurt? dead? or worse: off with someone else. sneaking them on cute little dates instead of you!? perish the thought. he hadn’t picked up any of your calls or answered any texts. you tracker on his phone was no longer giving a location. did he manage to figure it out and turn it off? would he be mad? you were so worried. so you stayed, sat in your little chair in the living room. not a single light on. completely drenched in darkness. tired and fighting to keep your eyes open. waiting, as long as it would take. for him to come back.

click

you instantly perked up at the sound of the door creaking open. and chuuya flicking on a light as he entered. he was home!

“chuuya!!!” you quickly burst from your seat and hurdled over to chuuya wrapping your arms tightly around his form. “oh thank god! you’re okay! you weren’t picking up my calls or responding to my texts i was so worried!”

“huh? oh shit my bad. my phone died.” chuuya spoke trying to reassure you. but the tiredness in his voice was clear. he sounded exhausted.

“chuu chuu…” you whined out, a nickname he would die before letting anybody but you call him. he’d certainly protested at your silly pet names at first but eventually he had grown used to them. “you had me worried sick just where have you been?” you pulled back to hold eye contact with him.

“babe you know i can’t talk about work with you.” your expression hardened. right of course he couldn’t. he was a mafia executive after all. or at least that’s what he really was. if you hadn’t been so prying you wouldn’t have looked past him telling you that he worked for the government. but of course you knew the truth. you would always know every piece of information that came with chuuya.

“oh… okay. just. please. try not to leave me again. i hate it. i hate it whenever i’m not near you. it’s already so hard to not keep you all for myself. don’t make me do something drastic. please.” you stared at him, unblinking for a couple of seconds and chuuya froze. he knew you’d get like this sometimes and he never quite understood what you meant by it. but he didn’t want to upset you. so he simply nodded.

“right… um we should get to bed then. it’s getting pretty late.”

you smiled nodding and held chuuya’s hand in your own as you made your way to your shared bedroom.

[gumnut-logic]

Waking up was a fifty-fifty situation. Fifty percent of the time it sucked and this rise and shine definitely fell onto that side of the scale.

He was cramped. All of him was cramped. What the hell? A groan and he attempted to unfold his body.

“Oooh, Virg, don’t break yourself.”

Gordon.

What?

He pushed his eyes open and was immediately blinded by sunlight on white walls. Ugh. There was a reason why he had blackout curtains in his room on the Island. A blink and a scrunched-up face and, augh, pain shot up his neck and bounced around his brain. What the hell was he doing sleeping in a chair?

“That’s right. Hold that position.” Something electronic beeped. “Woo, that’s a good one. Definitely saving that for the archives.”

What?

His brain was its usual slow self upon waking. It took several solid attempts to recall where he was and how he had gotten there.

Scott.

His shirt on fire.

Hot chocolate.

His room.

A shower.

Sleep.

Tracy Two.

The hospital.

Gordon asleep.

Waiting.

And now.

The conclusion was obvious. He had fallen asleep, too.

In the chair.

Ow.

“You gonna hold that face much longer, bro? I’m expecting a wind change at any moment.”

“Shut up, Gordon.” Now that came out raspier than an un-greased chainsaw.

“Ho, and hello to you, too, dear brother.”

He forced his eyes open, blinking at the light in the room. Gordon had a grin on his face brighter than the sun. His tablet was also in his hand.

Virgil eyed him. “What are you doing?”

“Enjoying some entertainment. Why?”

“What entertainment?”

“Did you know that that scar between your eyebrows has a following?”

“A what?”

Gordon’s grin was ready to split his face in half. “Oh, you were asleep just long enough for me to set up a social media account for Thunderscar Two the Triumphant. He already has over five thousand followers and has only been live for, oh, fifteen minutes.”

“What?”

Moving hurt like hell and Virgil groaned, but Gordon obliged by turning his tablet around to show a series of photos titled The Many Moods of Thunderscar Two. The photos consisted of various shots of Virgil’s eyebrows. There was even a short video of those eyebrows bouncing up and down...it was the most recent and the number of likes was still going up.

“Ooh, we just hit six thousand. Wow, I never knew you were that popular, Virg.” A laugh. “Hah, Vegetina wants to kiss your scar all better.” Gordon cackled. Maniacally. Like a villain from a B-grade movie.

“Gordon, what the hell?”

“Do that again.”

“What?”

That same electronic beep. “Niiice. They’ll love this one.” Gordon busied himself with his tablet. “Two does Dopey. Sleep is the enemy.” His brother was prodding his tablet. “Posted. Aaaah, they definitely love you, Virg.”

Virgil resisted the urge to rip the tablet from his brother’s hands. Exasperation or anger or not, the playing field was not level. He bit his lip instead. “You are not in a position to escape, Gordon. Are you sure you want to challenge me?”

“Challenge you? I should kick your ass.” And all the humour disappeared.

“What?” He appeared to be saying that a lot.

The tablet was dropped to the bed covers. “What have you been playing at, Virgil? I haven’t seen hide or hair of you since I’ve been here.”

Oh.

“Sorry. Busy.”

“Doesn’t cut it, Virg.” Gordon picked up the tablet again. Another electronic beep and his brother stabbed at the glass. “Scott’s the busiest of us all. Yet he’s been here nearly every day.”

The thought of the flight time his brother must be clocking up hurt somewhere deep in his gut.

“Sorry.”

“Virg, I don’t want you to say you’re sorry. I want to know what is wrong. This isn’t you.” He stabbed at the tablet again. “This, however, is bonafide Thunderscar. Look at that frown.” The tablet came up and yet another photo was gaining likes by the moment. Followers were clocking eight thousand and rising.

He ignored it. Couldn’t really do anything else. “Gordon, I don’t know. I am sorry.” He was still tired. “Just wanted to fix your ‘bird.”

“At the exclusion of everything else?”

Virgil shrugged. He hardly understood it himself. “Just wanted to help you.”

Gordon reached out with his good hand and grabbed at his fingers. Surprised, Virgil let him have them.

“You know you’ve thrown us all for a loop. You’re the steadfast one, Virg. The one everyone else leans on. You disappear and Scott falls on his face...and if you’ve seen his face lately it appears he’s been dragging it around on the ground. Now, John. Do you realise I had to yell at him the other day? That has always been your job, bro, but you haven’t been playing.” A bit lip and Virgil was confronted by a pair of unusually earnest russet brown eyes. “I’m going to be fine, Virg. I’ll be home soon, out of the reach of the local vampires, and I’ll need you to be you. Virgil the Rock, my big bro. Four can wait. I’m not going to need her for a while.”

And there it was, the heart of the matter. Something must have shown on his face, because Gordon yanked him closer to the bed. Virgil didn’t miss the wince that bounced across his brother’s face at the movement. Shit.

“Careful, Gords.” His hand landed on top of his brother’s, sandwiching it between his two.

“There you are.” It was quiet, whispered, and Gordon was still staring up at him. “That’s my big bro. The big softie who will be playing me the piano when I get home whether I like it or not.”

“You like it.” Virgil frowned at him.

Gordon smiled. “Yes, I do.”

-o-o-o-

His brother demanded he stay to keep him company and Virgil found himself holed up with a maniac with a camera and an obsession with his eyebrows. But they talked. Shared. Gordon fell asleep eventually and Virgil was left alone with the tablet, watching the followers count pass the one million mark. Twenty-five photos of his eyebrows, that scar in every single one.

He should be annoyed. He should be yelling. But instead he sat there listening to his brother’s soft breathing and stared at pictures of his own forehead.

Something had lifted.

His heart felt lighter.

He didn’t know what or why, but the how was sleeping beside him wrapped in bandages.

Gordon was a goofball. A loveable goofball. Seeing him hurt...

Virgil closed his eyes.

The door opened quietly and Scott peered into the room.

Placing the tablet on the bedside table, Virgil quietly walked over to his brother, nudging him gently back out and following him through. He closed the door silently behind him.

“Virg? You okay?”

Virgil didn’t answer him, not really sure what to say. Instead he grabbed his brother in a hug and buried his face on his shoulder.

Scott grunted as Virgil hit him with a little more enthusiasm than he had planned, but immediately wrapped his arms around him. “Hey.”

Virgil just held him tighter.

“He’s going to be okay.”

“I know.” Muffled.

“We’re going to be okay.”

“I know.”

Scott apparently ran out of words because for the next minute or so, neither of them said anything. Virgil just clung to his brother.

The foot traffic around them was ignored.

Eventually Virgil pulled away. He found he couldn’t look Scott in the eye. It wasn’t embarrassment, but it was.

“Virg?” Blue eyes seeking. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t know where to put his hands.

Pressure on his shoulder, he looked up and was caught by that blue. “You hungry?”

And suddenly he was. A single nod. “What about Gordon?”

“Grandma and Alan will be here in a moment. Kayo and Penny will be by later. He’ll have company. We can come back later.” The hand on his shoulder slipped around to a one-armed hug. “C’mon, let’s get some nutrition into that stubborn ass of yours before Grandma gets hold of you. One look and you’re locked up with home remedies for a week.”

He couldn’t help, but smile a little, and, with a prod, fell into step with his big brother.

-o-o-o-

“You know, if I had known they would be this popular, I would have started this site years ago. We could be millionaires.”

Virgil didn’t even bother to look up at his little brother. Head first in Four’s thruster assembly, he stuck out a hand. “We’re billionaires, Gords. Hand me that wrench, please.”

“This one?”

“I can’t see what you’re holding up.”

A chunk of metal landed in his hand. It felt about right. Folding his arm proved it to be right. Jamming it around the stubborn bolt, he gave it a shove.

“I know we are, Virg. Can’t really miss it. But this would be for something special.”

“You’re talking about a series of photos of my eyebrows.”

“They are very popular eyebrows. That scar has been nominated for president.”

“Considering most politicians, my scar would probably be just as effective.” An electronic beep. “If you start putting pictures of my butt online, the Gordon Tracy Hall of Embarrassment will go live immediately.”

“Hah, what have you got on me that could possibly outrank anything I have on you.”

Virgil didn’t say a thing. He simply straightened, yanked his phone out of his back pocket, searched a moment and, with a smirk, held it up for Gordon to see.

It was most satisfactory to see his brother’s eyes widen in shock. “You wouldn’t.”

“One picture of my butt and the world discovers this.”

“Okay, okay, I get the message.” An electronic beep. “And Thunderscar is triumphant!”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “All monetary gain goes to charity.”

“Already set up. You are rehabilitating the Supreme Barrier Reef as we speak.”

He stared at his tablet absorbed brother. Perched in his hoverchair, the man was still pale, still wrapped in plaster and bandages. Virgil would have to see him back to his room shortly as his stamina just wasn’t there yet, but he had to admit, to have him home and safe and...here...

“Good to have you here, Gords.”

Gordon looked up at him and grinned. “Great to be here in the presence of Thunderscar the Magnificent.”

Another eyeroll. “I thought he was ‘The Triumphant’.”

“Only when I let him.”

“Oh, really.”

“Yes, really.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re always welcome.”

“Well, hand me that screwdriver so I can finish this off and send her for coating tomorrow.”

Gordon grabbed the tool and handed it to him. “Painting?”

“Yep, which pink would you prefer?”

“Virgil.”

“Yes?”

A pause. “Love you, bro.”

Virgil blinked and turned back to find his brother eyeing him.

A small smile. “Love you, too.” A shrug. “But she’s still gonna be pink.”

The sound of Gordon’s laughter meant more to him than he could express.

-o-o-o-

[whisker-biscuit]

The Lines We Cross: Chapter 23

Inside the Stronghold

--------------------------------------------------

Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.

--------------------------------------------------

It was a long, shameful walk back to the ruined village.

Carmelita trudged through snow and wreckage, only aware enough of her surroundings to avoid the lights of guards and the occasional patch of ice. She was covered in dust, powder, and rubble that together created a grimy film to her clothing and her hair and her pistol. Everything she touched was left dirtied, marked by her presence as well as her failure.

She barely noticed any of it; her mind was still dead-set focused on the encounter she had just had with Cooper. Frustration over him slipping away warred against the discrepancies she had seen that made her analyze every second of their interaction. The way he had acted towards her at first, so unaffected by their falling out, had been an obvious diversion that had nevertheless gotten her blood boiling and falling right into it. His legitimate anger over her assumption that he’d had anything to do with the avalanche was not nearly as surprising, but what had convinced her he wasn’t involved – begrudging as she was to admit it – was the legitimate hurt in his eyes that she knew from experience he could not truly fake. And his last words to her…

A distant flash of light caught her attention. She squinted into the dark and realized it was a Morse Code signal from one of her officers, telling her where it was safe to return to. Well, telling her and her team, but guilt sunk in deep as it struck her that she had no idea where they were or if they were safe. She hadn’t seen any sign of them since she’d abandoned them on top of that temple to rush after Cooper.

Already-swirling emotions suddenly had a heaping dose of dread in the mix as the fox headed for the blinking light. When she was close enough to start making out buried buildings, she took her own flashlight out and began turning it on and off in a return signal, waiting until the other light changed to affirmation before continuing any further.

The last thing she needed in this shitty night was for one of her own to accidentally shoot her because they thought she was an enemy. That would really just be the cherry on top.

“Inspector Fox!” Three officers approached her with speed, all looking relieved to see her. The one who had called out paused a moment to take in her haggard, dusty appearance. “Are you injured?”

“I’m fine,” she managed to say without any bitterness. The same could not be said for exhaustion. “I just got caught up in the outskirts of a collapsing statue. It – I got separated from the team I went in with. Have any of them come back this way?”

They all shook their heads, but the leading officer clarified before her heart could drop into her stomach. “We’ve been maintaining radio updates from them since your separation. Everyone is accounted for, and they’re still working through the Panda King’s territory. It’s been slow-going success, though, and we were debating whether to send more people in.”

Carmelita could hear the fishing in the tone; now that she was back, they were hoping she would make the decision for them. She stalled for time by brushing stone powder off her coat sleeves and peered past them towards the truck where town refuges were still being tended to.

“What’s the status here?”

“All injuries have been stabilized, but there’s only so much we can do with limited resources. Some of the civilians have started asking if we’ll take them down the mountain to a hospital, or at least into the nearest city that isn’t under King’s direct hold.”

She started doing the math in her head. There was enough room for about twenty people in the truck if they were packed shoulder to shoulder, which meant several trips. “How long would it take to ferry everyone down?”

“The driver estimated at least three or four hours with the return trips, but that will depend on road conditions.”

Everyone reflexively glanced up at the sky. It was already starting to snow again. Inspector Fox rubbed her gloved hands together to stave off the chill in her stiff fingers.

“Let me go see for myself how they’re all doing,” she announced after a moment. “Our priority is to get these people to safety. Has anyone called the nearest police department, Interpol or local or otherwise?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Someone get on that right away, then.” It was easier to walk with less shame when she was giving simple orders. The fox could almost ignore it entirely. “Ask for more manpower to come up the mountain with first responders, but don’t mention anything about the Panda King. Just a natural disaster with survivors that need tending to.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Two of her subordinates branched off to do as instructed without any hesitation. It made her terrible spirits lift just the tiniest amount. The one who remained stayed at her side as she approached the truck and the makeshift refugee camp surrounding it.

As reported, none of the survivors seemed at immediate risk of death anymore, but they huddled together against the chill of the deepening night and there was not a single face that didn’t look absolutely miserable. Carmelita recalculated travel time against the growing snowfall. The conclusion she came to was what her instincts had been leaning towards since the beginning – the lost time searching for King was a loss they were just going to have to take for the sake of these civilians.

“I need someone who can translate for me,” she called to the remainder of her team. “Tell everyone here that we’ll start taking people down the mountain. Start filling the truck with those that are most injured.”

As the decision was relayed and the villagers started doing as instructed, directed by officers, there was a sudden flash of light in the sky. Everyone turned at once to see a giant mass of fireworks speeding through the air, and immediately the survivors began crying out, understandably terrified that the crime lord was aware of their presence and had decided to finish what he’d started.

Carmelita believed it too for a single heart-stopping moment, right up until she realized that instead of coming towards the buried town, the rockets were heading towards the Panda King’s distant fortress instead. As it arced upwards to avoid hitting the head of the statue and exploded harmlessly in a flash of uncoordinated color, she saw a dark shape illuminated by the blaze careen through one of the statue’s eyes.

This far away, there was no way to see the same ringed tail that had tipped her off the last time, but she knew it could be no one else. The fireworks strapped to his back had been part of a plan after all, and not just for the sake of stealing from King.

Sly had made it inside the fortress. She was running out of time to catch up before he disappeared again.

Before she could do a single thing about her heart now beating rapidly in her chest, an officer appeared in her line of vision with a confused expression.

“There’s a call for you from Interpol HQ, Inspector.”

The fox looked over, blinking in surprise at the radio being offered to her. Suddenly afraid that Barkley was waiting on the other end to chew her out for doing something wrong – or for somehow finding out about Sly Cooper – she took it gingerly and held it up to her ear with trepidation.

“This is Inspector Fox.”

“Hi Inspector, it’s Winthorp!”

Never in her life did she think she’d feel relief at hearing that voice, but here she was. “Winthorp. What time is it over in Paris right now?”

“Not important,” he dismissed, sounding excited and impatient. “What’s important is that case you asked me to work on – the one about Conner Cooper?”

Carmelita’s breath caught in her throat. She turned around to face the destroyed town as if to ward off anyone who might be eavesdropping even though her entire team was busy.

“Uh, yeah. Did you find out what happened to that missing report?”

“No, but I have better news! I got in contact with Inspector Pennington, and she still had her own copy of it! Turns out she always kept records for herself and never tossed anything, even after she’d retired from the force. Crazy, right?”

“With that woman? I can believe it.” She pressed the transmitter a little closer against her ear. “What was on it?”

“You’re not going to believe this.” Winthorp paused, probably for dramatic effect, but all it did was make her want to reach through the radio and strangle him until he finally continued. “Conner Cooper had a kid!”

It took a lot more acting talent than she probably possessed to act shocked. Thank goodness the otter couldn’t see her face. “Oh – wow. What happened to hi – to them?”

“According to Inspector Pennington’s notes, her team found a birth certificate and a bunch of homeschooling records, as well as several framed pictures. It was a son who had just turned eight when the murder happened. Apparently his legal name was ‘Sly’, which is just nuts. Who names their kid that?”

(“It’s just – an unusual name. Unique. ‘Sly’. Do you have a last name just as unique to go with it?”

“Nope. And I’m not telling it to you, so don’t bother asking.”

“Why not?”

“Names have power. Truth be told…I’m not the biggest fan of mine.”)

Carmelita bit her lip. “Yeah. Crazy. Was there anything else? Do we know what happened to him?”

“I asked the retired inspector about that, cause nothing was mentioned in the report. She told me she theorized that Cooper’s son either escaped the night his parents were killed and ended up on the streets somewhere, or that the intruders found him and killed him too. She said it’s always puzzled her why they never found his body, though.”

“That’s…a lot to process.”

“I know, right? Could you imagine if there was another Cooper out there, continuing the family’s thieving legacy, and we didn’t even know?”

The fox looked back up towards the Panda King’s fortress. Then she looked towards the truck, where other officers were pulling infiltration equipment out to make room for more civilians to sit inside.

One of the things that was set out and aside was her jetpack – still fully stocked with fuel.

“Hey, Winthorp? Thanks for the update, but I have to go.”

“It’s my pleasure! Good luck taking down another Fiendish Five member!”

She hung up and made a beeline for the jetpack. The officers who had put it down in the snow looked up at her approach.

“Ma’am?”

“I have an idea,” she said, already picking the jetpack up to strap it against her back. “But I need you all to trust me, and I need to know I can trust you.”

The rest of her team grouped around her, hearing the no-nonsense tone to her voice. They all waited patiently for her to elaborate without ever asking their own questions, and she was grateful for it.

“I think I know exactly where the Panda King is, and I want to go after him while we still have the element of surprise.” The lie came easily, and with less guilt this time. Carmelita refused to think about why. “If I can trust you all to take care of the survivors here, then I’m going to infiltrate that giant stone statue by myself.”

A few glances were shared, but none looked dubious or worried. Just Interpol officers processing their superior’s plan.

“You can trust us, Inspector Fox. We can handle things on this end.” Someone finally spoke up, sounding confident both in themselves and in her. The nods of agreement to that statement almost made her teary-eyed. “What should we tell the team that’s still in the criminal’s territory?”

“Tell them to head towards the fortress at its base,” the fox answered without hesitation. “If they come in from there and I come in from the top, we’ll cut off all of King’s escape routes at once.”

“Roger.”

“Thank you for your belief in me, men. I’m proud to work with you all.”

A radio was tossed her way. She caught it with ease and clipped it to her belt beside her holster. Then she lifted her head high, surveying the officers who had finally come to respect her.

“I swear to you: one way or another, this ends tonight.”

--------------------------------------------------

After successfully losing Inspector Fox, Sly had doubled back three times just to be sure there was no chance for her to pick up his trail again. It had been a tedious but necessary process, and by the time he was certain he was safe from being tailed, he had already started searching for the best place to put his plan into action.

The spot he chose was a tall, secluded bluff that was as close to the stone statue as he could manage without risking a guard’s flashlight swinging his way. Snow was falling at a rapid pace, but he paid it no mind as he pulled all seven fireworks off his back. One by one he stacked them on top of each other, binding the fuses together in a tightly-woven knot. Once he was certain all of them were secure, he began carefully positioning the amalgamation of firepower in the direction of the fortress.

It took nearly ten minutes for him to be satisfied with his aim; he wasn’t an engineer or even very good at math, but this stunt couldn’t afford any cut corners or he’d be dead before he ever reached his target. When the rockets had been pointed as accurately as he could possibly eyeball them, the raccoon took the matchbox out of his pocket and lit the knotted fuse. Then he wrapped his hands around the body of the biggest firework, held it above his head, and sprinted towards the sheer side of the bluff.

He had timed it perfectly – just as the hiss of every fuse disappearing simultaneously into the rockets’ bases made his ears perk, he jumped off the edge. There was a single second of freefall before his arms were jerked into the air above him so harshly that it nearly dislocated them. He held onto the homemade jetpack for dear life as it flew in a beautiful, deadly arc straight for the stone head.

And went higher. And higher. And higher.

Sly swung his dangling legs forward and let go of the fireworks, falling in an arc towards the left eye window of the statue. It was barely in time as there was a sudden explosion of noise and heat at his back, propelling him even faster than he’d estimated as the rocket bundle finally blew itself apart in a blinding light display. He was headed towards the window – the closed window – like he himself was a rocket, and he had just enough time to throw his arms over his face as his body shot straight through it. Glass pelted his fur and ripped at his clothes, and he tumbled head-over-heels onto hard, cold ground, skidding to a stop on his side while curled into a ball.

It was with a painful sense of déjà vu that he uncurled and began to stand, reminded of his rough jump into Mz. Ruby’s lair as his body immediately protested all movement. Shallow cuts lined the skin of his head that he hadn’t been able to shield from the violent entry, evident both in pain and the feeling of wetness in his fur, and he could see tears in his hoodie sleeves when he glanced down to make sure his hands hadn’t suffered similar injuries. A pang of remorse ran through him at the sight of the yellow fabric ruined by the broken window. This had been a gift, and here he was destroying it.

Then he forcefully reminded himself that it didn’t matter what happened to it; not when the gifter no longer mattered to him.

The room he had landed in was devoid of people or alarms when he finally had the sense to look around. The raccoon counted his blessings for the sudden turn of luck as he did a quick three-sixty spin and saw a large, bulky safe on an opposite wall. Immediately he rushed over, ready to repeat the process of cracking it like he had all the others, but his fingers froze a centimeter from metal as he stared at a keypad instead of a dial. Even worse, the keypad wasn’t made up of numbers but of an unusual set of symbols. They nagged at the back of his brain, familiar yet undecipherable, and the raccoon let out a quiet curse as he realized that he’d seen something like them before in the Thievius Raccoonus.

Notes from his ancestors of an ancient language that was just as incomprehensible to them as it was now to him. Speculation of it being some kind of bird dialect that was lost to time and lack of speakers. Rioichi and a few other intellectual-type Coopers had tried to interpret it, but they hadn’t gotten very far without basic sentences or even a full alphabet to go off of.

There was no doubt in Sly’s mind who this language benefited, or why he was seeing it on the massive safe here and now, and it made that cold fear creep up his spine again. He stuffed it down before it could paralyze him for a second time.

Frustrated but not deterred, his eyes landed on the single door leading to the rest of the fortress, and he checked it without any hesitation. When it proved unlocked, he quietly slipped through with his cane in-hand, choosing a direction at random to search for the Panda King’s private chambers. If there was ever a place that held the code to open that safe, it would be there, and if he were really lucky then the panda’s own stolen pages would be right next to that code.

King’s, and Clockwerk’s. Only two left and then this would all be over. It would be worth the heartache, and the pain, and the constant terror of being caught. Sly clung to that sentiment as tightly as he did his weapon as he crept through the heart of his enemy’s lair.

There were no guards to be found in the fortress. Even the staff had been reduced to a skeleton crew, making it all too easy to avoid them while the raccoon picked locks and searched rooms and overturned every conceivable hiding place. There was no rhyme or reason to the layout of the place, and his memory of everything was foggy, but he consoled himself with the reminder that he didn’t have a timer on his back like when he’d been with the Inspector. Sure, she was already traipsing about King’s territory, but the chances of her knowing he was inside the statue – and finding a way up herself without getting caught, to boot – were slim to none. It was better that he’d shed the dead weight of her presence for this last stretch. It made things so much less complicated.

He clung to that sentiment, too.

Another turn or two, and Sly was finally in familiar territory. He nearly stumbled as he halted in place, staring at the wallpaper and hanging portraits and Chinese décor that hadn’t changed since the last time he’d been here five years ago. Entranced, he pressed his left hand to the wall and traced the groove there where a ten-year-old him had punched it in a fit of anger. No one had been there to witness it, and apparently no one had noticed the dent it had left. It was probably one of the only remaining reminders of his life here. No doubt King had removed everything else after the raccoon had gone to officially work for the Five.

A few meters down, he could see the door to his old room. Sly shuffled over to gape at it with a pit in his stomach that he couldn’t identify. The door was devoid of the heavy-duty lock that had kept him trapped inside at night to prevent escape; more evidence to his theory that the panda hadn’t wanted Sly’s past presence to linger in his precious stronghold.

Against his better judgement, he began to quietly slide the door open – and then stopped immediately as his keen eyes caught the dark interior.

Jing was in his room.

Sly stilled halfway through the doorway, but she had not noticed him. She was facing away from him, kneeling in front of a small shrine she had placed on his old dresser to which she seemed to be praying to by the clasp of her hands and the bowing of her head. Her eyes were closed, but he could see clearly the troubled pinch of her face as her lips moved rapidly in a silent request.

For a long moment, he simply watched the panda while she prayed with his foot still hovering where he had been about to place it in his old room. It wasn’t fear of disrupting her actions that kept him from getting her attention, nor was it why he remained perfectly still as he studied every centimeter of her body language, committing it to memory as best he could.

When he finally did move, it was only to slip carefully back out into the hall and silently slide the door closed behind him again so that she would be none the wiser to his presence. The raccoon stared at the shadow cast by her silhouette through the thin wall. Then he turned on his heel and continued onward, fighting every fiber in his body to go back.

It was better this way. For both of them.

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When Carmelita touched down on the other side of the shattered window and powered down her jetpack, she was a little surprised to find a completely-intact safe sitting in the room with her. Sly Cooper had definitely come through this way, so why had he left such an enticing prize alone when it was in such easy reach?

She shook her head and refused to examine the bulky thing. There was no use trying to rationalize the irrational mind of a criminal. Finding the answer to that question could come after she had apprehended both him and the Panda King, and they had too much of a head start for her to stop and scrutinize every discrepancy in the environment. Instead, she left the empty room to begin prowling the grounds in search of the ringtail.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before she found herself hopelessly lost. Inspector Fox didn’t know whether the long hallway she turned a corner into was one she’d already been in before, or if the layout was simply identical to the last four she’d passed, but it was doing nothing to help her nerves or her confidence as she continued to find the exact same décor over and over again while encountering not a soul. Not a hide nor hair of Cooper, or King, or any of the latter’s employees. It was eerie, like she’d stepped into a nightmare or the setting of a ghost story.

Just as she was starting to wonder whether there was any merit to backtracking to the room with the safe to regain her bearings, the sudden heavy arrival of multiple footsteps somewhere nearby had her tensing up. She had forgotten to reload her shock pistol before running off for the statue, blinded by her determination to stay on the raccoon’s trail while it was fresh, and while she wasn’t at risk of running out of bullets any time soon, it still meant she had to be frugal with her shots until at least the Panda King was incapacitated.

A large group of guards, or staff, or whoever was coming this way would only deplete her resources and cause enough of a ruckus to bring even more along. Carmelita quickly found the nearest unlocked door and slipped past it, closing it behind her and holding her breath as she listened to the unknown gang travel by unaware on the other side of the wall.

The fur on the back of her neck prickled. Someone else was in this room.

The fox whirled around with her weapon at the ready, prepared to bark orders for surrender at whoever she came face to face with. Then the words died abruptly on her tongue as she stared at who had startled her.

A teenage girl stared back.

“Who are you?” The young panda asked in a quiet voice with the same accent that Sly had, albeit much stronger. She clutched her hands to her chest as if to protect herself from the weapon pointed at her.

“I’m – I –” Carmelita lowered her pistol, dumbfounded by the turn of events and struggling to figure out the best course of action. Of all the things she’d expected to find in King’s personal hideout, it wasn’t anything close to this. “I’m an Inspector from Interpol.”

The girl tilted her head at the title but otherwise didn’t seem surprised. She looked Inspector Fox up and down as though she were staring directly into her heart. “You’re the woman from Sly’s pictures.”

That statement jolted her so badly that her weapon came right back up, on full alert again. Amazingly, the panda didn’t even flinch.

“What the hell does that mean? How do you know him?” Carmelita growled, unable to help herself. She was sick of getting more questions than answers when it came to that damn raccoon. “Who are you?”

The teen stared at the gun before her eyes slowly lifted to meet Carmelita’s. “My name is Jing King. I assume you are here to arrest my father.”

Father bounced around inside the fox’s skull like a lit firework. For some reason, it didn’t stun her as badly as the knowledge that this girl – the Panda King’s daughter, apparently �� knew Sly.

“Okay. Jing. Yes, I’m here to arrest your f-father.” The word was strange to say. Never in her life would she have pictured the homicidal, pyro-loving criminal to have a child. “But you still haven’t answered my other question; how do you know Sly Cooper?”

There was a long pause, and the inspector could practically see the calculations running through the panda’s head – determining how much information to reveal about herself that wouldn’t put her at risk. It was a hesitancy Carmelita knew all too well from a very different source.

“…He is my brother,” she finally said. “In a manner of speaking.”

Inspector Fox blanched. “What?”

“It was not by his choice, however.” Despite her shock, Carmelita caught the hard, protective edge to the younger girl’s voice. “Sly was brought here against his will and raised by my father for a time. If he had been allowed to choose his own path, he never would have gone down this one.”

Jing was speaking rapidly, sounding almost desperate to say her piece before the fox could recover from being blindsided. The inspector registered her words on a level separate from the rest of her mind; a mind that was currently spinning so badly she was amazed it hadn’t flown right off.

“– actually in his old room,” the teenager continued, unaware that she had been almost completely tuned out. “You are welcome to look around to confirm my words if that would help you believe his innocence.”

Innocence. It was like a magic password had been spoken – Carmelita blinked back to herself, face setting into a pinched frown as she finally glanced around the room for the first time. There was no believing in any innocence when it came to Sly Cooper. He had already shown his true colors.

But still, she humored the girl, if only to lower the risk of her alerting her father to the inspector’s presence.

They were in a bedroom, almost completely cleared of anything except for a stripped futon on the floor and an old dresser covered in photo frames. She could feel the panda’s eyes on her as she carefully padded over to see what was in those frames, curiosity momentarily overriding her callousness, and picked up one to wipe away the dust obscuring the picture inside.

She nearly dropped the thing.

It was Sly – the young Sly she had seen in that single cracked photo frame from the crime scene of the Cooper home, but that was where the similarities ended. Instead of smiling with a balloon in his hand and his parents on either side, this Sly – around the same age, as far as she could tell – was standing straight-backed with bags under his eyes and a scowl on his face. He seemed to not have realized the picture was being taken, as his gaze was off to the left side towards something out of frame. One arm was curled around his middle, and the other was wrapped protectively around a much younger Jing King, who was peering over his shoulder at whatever had caught his attention. She looked tired but not unhappy; a stark contrast to the raccoon beside her.

Carmelita was so engrossed by the details in the photo that she didn’t even hear the teenager come up next to her, and almost dropped the frame again when she spoke.

“That picture was taken about a year after he came to live with us.” Jing’s voice was mournful and tinged with wistfulness. “I had just recovered from being very sick, and that was the first time I was allowed out of my room in weeks. Sly refused to leave my side the whole day.”

The fox looked down at the photo again. The anger in the young raccoon’s eyes was visible; just as potent back then as it was in the brief glimpses that she’d seen from him in the present.

A missing body at a crime scene. Missing records from a secure case file. An entire missing existence that should have been documented as soon as it was known. A few things clicked into place all at once.

“…You said something about him being here against his will,” Carmelita began slowly, not because she was having trouble putting the pieces together but because she could already see the picture it was forming, and it was starting to make her sick. “How old was – how long ago did that happen?”

“It was eleven years ago that he was brought here. He was eight.”

She wanted to scream. She wanted to shoot something. She wanted to march right back to Interpol and demand to know how they had lost the knowledge of the continuation of Cooper’s bloodline. Why they hadn’t worked harder to find him all those years ago.

How deep did this go? Who had removed confidential reports just to ensure Sly remained off the radar? How many people did the Fiendish Five have on the inside? Why had they gone out of their way to keep a child alive for all these years when it had never, ever aligned with their modus operandi?

How much did Sly know? Why did he risk getting caught by his kidnappers with every step he took back into their domain? What exactly was it –

“They all took something from me. And with you, I knew there was a chance to get it back.”

– that he was so desperate to get back?

Inspector Fox whirled on Jing King so fast it made the teenager flinch, but there wasn’t enough time to care. She grabbed the girl by the shoulders, staring up at wide, startled eyes that reflected her own wide, manic ones.

“Whatever you know, tell me.” She demanded. “About Sly and your father and his cohorts and anything else.”

Jing was frozen, gaze darting back and forth across the older woman’s face in a desperate attempt to read it. “What…what would you do with such knowledge?”

“Everything I can to see that justice is done.” The fox lifted her chin, deadly serious in every line of her body. She had never been so sure of anything in her life as she was in what she was promising now. “To right every wrong that has been done by the Panda King, and the Fiendish Five, and even beyond that. I will not rest until they can never harm anyone ever again, but to do that, I need to know exactly what is going on. I need to know about Sly Cooper.”

The girl still looked uncertain. Carmelita closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and finally let out what she had not dared to since the confession that had shattered her heart.

“Please, Jing.” When she opened her eyes again, the wetness there was as real as her conviction. “You mentioned his innocence. I want to believe that, but I’m not – I can’t – I’m an officer of the law, and I’ve seen him break it several times over. I need to be convinced that there’s a good enough reason he’s done all of that. You have to convince me, or else I can’t help either of you. Please convince me.”

Her fingers tightened against Jing’s shoulders.

“Please.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from the panda as they stared at each other; one who deeply loved Sly Cooper because of her upbringing, and one who wanted to in spite of it.

“…Okay.”

Giant hands reached up to grasp her own. The look in Jing’s eyes was haunted, and yet there was an iron will hiding behind it; the same unyielding spirit that Sly had held in all the time Carmelita had known him.

“Okay. I’ll tell you everything.”

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A/N: The alternate title of this chapter is "The Author Struggles with Time-Blindness at the Best of Times and the Holidays Ruined Her Routine Entirely". I'm just glad I was able to get it done and posted before Christmas double-whammied me. Fingers crossed I can get back into my original weekly rhythm, cause next chapter is going to be a doozy and a half.

Anywho, thanks for your patience, and hope you enjoyed!

[loving-n0t-heyting]

What actually is your take on sex work and decriminalization and legalization?

not a gotchya, promise! You usually have good takes and I'm curious

Idk!! My overall experience with the topic is that each side makes terrible arguments refusing to address the screamingly obvious actual problems at hand and announces that the other side is full of mentally ill power hungry misogynists

The obvious reason to criminalise purchasing sex is that a) it is a particularly intimate, damaging, and unnecessary form of economic exploitation in ways that are hard to get around by working condition improvements and b) the criminalisation promises to reduce the amount that it actually happens. The big reason not to criminalise purchasing sex is that it makes things harder for those still selling sex who do not really have a choice without giving them improved opportunities elsewhere. How to balance these two out is a largely empirical question idk how to settle without looking a lot more into it

(B) is obviously pretty crucial! If Nordic style criminalisation did not reduce rates of purchasing sex, it would be unambiguously transparently bad. And it does seem to reduce rates of selling sex at least somewhat! The numbers I’ve found comparing Germany to the nordics, for example, give about 10x higher a share of the population involved in SW (tho this is complicated by a high rate of the workers being immigrants largely attracted specifically bc of the lack of legal restrictions on the sex market there). This should be front and centre in pro-Nordic arguments, yet afaict it really isn’t: they mostly just hammer home very emphatically that selling sex is generally pretty terrible and degrading and exploitative. You frequently get the sense that reducing the sale of sex weighs less heavily on a lot of their minds than opportunities for punishing johns

This tbf does comport with the fact this side tends to attract some truly repulsive authoritarian bigoted lunatics, including some of the biggest names!

On the other side, I see endless rehashings of basic libertarian arguments against all forms of labour regulation except this time as applied specifically to the sex market and bizarrely juxtaposed with inveighing against the evils of capitalism. It makes perfect sense that those forced to sell prohibited wage labour are often worse off than they would be if purchasing the labour were legalised, since then they would have access to law enforcement and the light of day and vetting mechanisms etc. But, to be completely blunt, prohibiting the purchase of that labour (child labour, for example) is not for those who will sadly and to some extent inevitably slip under the regulations: it’s for the ppl spared from the work thru the regulation! Which might seem harsh but it’s a lot less harsh than the Dickensian nightmare of working conditions under laissez faire capitalism. This is why it is confused to ask which set of policies is better for sex workers: there are different and differently sized classes of ppl who will be selling sex under the different proposed regimes; you have to take into account those who would be selling sex under full legalisation but aren’t under a Nordic style system. Ofc the other part of the libertarian argument here is the fully general “revealed preference reasons prove it’s Pareto inferior and therefore wrong to prohibit [form of trade]” but presumably yk how I feel about that. Maybe there are special reasons to think the argument succeeds in this case where it fails in others! But that’s a mostly empirical question I have not looked enough into

Same goes for personal testimonials about how this or that form of customer service work (or whatever) are worse and more degrading to the speaker than selling sex and they should not be patronisingly forced to accept society’s determination of which is worse: it’s just a special case of the general libertarian argument that it’s paternalistic and reductive to pick and choose which working conditions are and are not intolerable, these preferences vary by individual and should be settled by the price mechanism, etc etc. Unless there are specific reasons to think this reasoning applies here you should give these the same credence as you do for arbitrary similar ultraliberal antiregulatory arguments

Do not like it when socialists start sounding like antifa!rothbard!! Not at all!!

All of this is complicated by the fact there is a small class of sex workers who benefit straightforwardly from criminalisation of either the selling or purchasing of sex, whose voices you can a priori expect to be more prominent, namely SWers with adequate resources to handle the personal and legal risks of sex work, who for one reason or another are not deterred by the stigma. These sex workers can expect to benefit from the reduced supply, while having the resources to cope with the risk coming from the legal framework suppressing that supply in the first place. I’m not sure how exactly to think about this class of sex workers but it’s smth that keeps cropping up anytime I look into the topic in any detail

My instinct in all of this is to say, I need to read more firsthand accounts and academic scholarship and Serious policy research. But like, centering ~lived experience~ is basically impossible without some way of systematising and collating it, which is exactly what’s at issue. And ime academic/policy work tends not to address the stuff that really seems critical to me? Dworkin and mackinnon just read to me most of the time like more eloquent and detailed versions of their (proudly bigoted and statistically indifferent) lesser online imitators, for example

All of which is to say, idk, seems like a really hard question I’m glad my answer is not settling!