#it was just an illusion of course; in retrospect i see that it was always inevitable

[andromeda3116]

for some unfathomable reason, i've been thinking a lot lately about this insane comedic original story i started when i was first at college and didn't have internet, way back in 2008, and i went back and tracked it down (on Ye Olde LiveJournal, which hauntingly still exists in the aether) and like. i still kinda have a fondness for it. it's ridiculous and extremely 2008, both in terms of being dated and in terms of who i was a person then, but i still kinda wish i'd ever finished it. the idea has milled about in my head of actually handling the concept now, as an adult, but tbh, i don't think it would really translate into my style now. it just exists as an artifact of my sense of humor circa age seventeen.

i can still remember being the person who wrote it, sitting in that dorm at that desk on that dinosaur laptop and you know, sometimes i still miss her.

[armandssilkshirt]

Wip wednesday, for a fic I’m tentatively titling: such sweet sorrow

I haven’t written fic for a big fandom like this in years atp and I don’t know how to navigate fandom space anymore! Anyway!

-

The plane ticket arrives in a sleek, cream envelope, inscribed with his name and nothing else, written out in neat, precise block capitals. Daniel takes note of several things immediately, of varying levels of importance and with varying degrees of incredulity:

The Vampire Armand knows his address, and either hand delivered the ticket himself, or puppeteered one of his neighbors or delivery guys into doing so on his behalf. By extension, either he was close by, or has been in near enough vicinity to get someone else to do his bidding, just waiting to ruin Daniel’s perfectly good Tuesday afternoon. It occurs to Daniel, too, that the plane ticket is Armand purposefully tipping his hand. The likelihood that he’s still around, watching him receive his spontaneous gift right now through a goddamn crack in the wall or some other gross invasion of privacy, is significantly greater than zero. He always did like to see a plan through to the end, after all. This is unlikely to be the exception.

The timing of the ticket itself is also more than disquieting, and not likely to be a coincidence. Daniel signed off an all his last approvals two days ago, and is now waiting on his publisher and agent to get back to him with details about the proposed marketing campaign and book tour, as well as hear back from the designer’s mock up for the cover, which he can comment on, but not, apparently veto. In publishing, Daniel has long learned you need to pick your battles and let the book speak for itself. Everyone’s going to think he’s clinically insane anyway, who cares if the art department intern who gets shoved this job gets a little carried away with it. Anyway—Daniel’s work is mostly done, and from here till the promotional calendar, it’s pretty much dead time. Armand has been listening. As far as ‘Congrats on completing your book!’ presents go, Daniel’s had better but he’s also had worse, too—his ex-wife served him divorce papers after his last one—so Daniel will take the plane ticket, actually. And Armand knows that if he’s going to take a vacation, now would be the time to do it. He wonders if his emails are accessible, or if Armand’s just been playing it old-school, standing on his balcony listening to him bitch out his editor, instead. He supposes he should be grateful that he’s been allowed the short lull beforehand, and that the ticket is booked a week in advance, enough notice to tie up any loose ends in New York that he might need to attend to. Considerate, really, Daniel has to admit.

All of which is to say, of course, that any illusions Daniel had been laboring under about the safety of his own home—the ignorance is bliss attitude he’d adopted since he’d stumbled through his front door two months ago, still shaking the Dubai wall dust off his shirt—are shattered. He’s attracted an undead stalker, and you can’t exactly take a restraining order out on those guys. It’s a bitch, because Daniel really did like this apartment, too. Even if Armand isn’t here to kill him—the plane ticket seems to suggest he at least has a different location in mind—that isn’t to say some other vampire won’t try to beat him to the job, and decide to turn his living room into a morgue as some sort of warning if/when he happens to not be at home. Maybe he should drape a sheet over his couch. He’s spilled enough red wine over it to know it stains like hell.

Charles De Gaulle airport is unexpected, but in a split second retrospect, he guesses it shouldn’t be. Obviously, Armand wants to rehash the story, spin his own series of events, even if he was too late to try to edit the first book, and he’s dramatic enough to want to walk the streets he spilled with blood while he does it. Daniel hasn’t been to Europe in a while. He remembers Paris in October as being beautiful; the turning of the leaves running crimson and orange through the city, cool and crisp but not yet so bitter as to be unpleasant. He could have picked worse places to stage his temper tantrum. Daniel can also understand him wanting to get out of the metropolitan maze of Dubai, and the penthouse that might as well have been a prison tower, though for whom, Daniel’s now not sure.

Which brings him to the shock of the ticket itself, and Armand’s unwelcome but now obvious presence in his life. When Daniel picked up his few belongings and high-tailed it out of the penthouse before any more rubble could fall on his head, literally or figuratively, Armand had been hunched in on himself, tucked against the baseboard, plaster hanging like teardrops onto the black of his eyelashes. Even with the baleful look in his eyes, he’d seemed, to Daniel, like a boy—suddenly forced to stop playing dress up and close the costume-box lid. Smaller, younger, both fearful and indignant at his newfound nakedness. Ready to lash out, of course, but also on the precipice of caving in. An unstable death star. Perhaps it would have been too easy, but he’d wondered if Armand might, as one last act of self-sacrificing spite, find himself a fire to throw himself into, hoping to haunt Louis as Lestat did. He’d even been half-expecting it. That he didn’t is almost more concerning. It suggests that Armand has unfinished business. If it’s with Daniel, for ruining his shambolic supernatural marriage, then Daniel supposes Paris is as nice a place to die as any. Hopefully Armand will dispose of his body efficiently. He’d hate for his daughters to have to pay for posthumous repatriation. That would be a terrible reason to go into credit card debt.

Lastly, with an almost amused observation, he notes that the handwriting on the envelope is not the same as the writing in the margins of the script he flung down like a hand grenade on that table weeks ago. Armand’s writing there had sprawled across the page, the loops of his cursive proving to be his noose. That he’s decided to adopt a new style is unsurprising. As a professional chameleon and an evidenced control freak, it makes sense that Armand would pay attention to details enough to change this aspect too. This is Armand reinventing himself; a signifier of the new start he’s trying to establish and the distance he’s trying to put between himself and his past crimes. In comparison to the writing on the script, this new style is careful, takes up little space, and is officiously self-aware. Deceptively nondescript. It almost makes Daniel laugh. Armand’s relying on him knowing who the envelope is from anyway, so the change in signature is nothing but set-dressing.

Well, not quite—the very last thing he observes, with some belated horror and disappointment aimed squarely at himself—is that immediately, Daniel knows he’s going to take the ticket. It’s barely a conscious decision. There’s precedent, of course—he’s already jumped on a plane in an ongoing pandemic to go on an ill-advised research trip. Armand could be reasonably sure he’d roll the dice and go for another. He tries to argue with the part of himself that screams it’s the height of stupidity to take another risk in exactly the same way, that, actually, staying would only be shoving his head in the sand. He’s made himself a target, or he’s about to when publication rolls around, and Armand might turn out to be the least of his problems, in the long run. Why not see what he wants in the meantime? And besides—isn’t it better the Devil you know? 

[shamanfox]

You never really said much—just the empty hum of conformed rituals, drifting like smoke from your mind, haunting the sweat-filled dreams that stained your nights. I used to listen, but now, in retrospect, it was all hot air, circling around ideas that weren’t really your own. They were borrowed, worn thin, like a mantra you didn’t fully understand but clung to for security.

And that mirror of yours—bright white, gleaming with the smile of perfection. It hid the stain of your Jim Jones Kool-Aid grin well, didn’t it? You went through your fluoride-free toothpaste with religious fervor, buying it from that purist store at five times the price, because of course, that’s what you do when you’re striving for something… holier. You scrubbed your teeth clean, but what were you really hiding? All while serving another stir-fry to your children, pretending you were nourishing their souls as well as their bodies.

That last part—your children—it threw me off. It was as if, in your insistence on doing the right thing, you revealed a fracture. A part of you, still a child yourself, hiding in the corners of a church just before the bell rang. Only this time, no one saw. No one but you, and the bottle of whiskey you tucked away. And that crack pipe—altering your consciousness in secret, while you planned to wrap yourself in holy robes later, to purify the guilt.

I wonder if you know I’m writing about you now, sitting there with those wide eyes, mouth gaping, skeletal in your anorexic attempt to erase yourself. I’m not saying I hate you—no, that’s too easy. What I hate is that we’re born into this world at all, just to struggle for a truth that always seems out of reach. And in that struggle, you—like so many—conform to the rituals, thinking if you just follow the steps, you’ll rise above the rest. You’ll become something more.

But then there are people like me, the ones who smiled back, who took a chance and stepped into the cold shadow of illusion. We were the ones who let the darkness consume us, who listened when it whispered the “facts.”

Those facts, like how your life is nothing but a cold, cheap story, rattling on like a broken typewriter, drowning in its own nonsense. And the fact that you—you, with your gleaming, toothpaste-polished smile—you are an asshole.

It’s hard to admit this, being the flowery-eyed idealist that I am. I’ve always wanted to believe in something better, to see the light behind the facade. But when teeth gleam as bright as yours, I can’t help but wonder… just how much toothpaste did it take to hide that Jim Jones smile?

[donnapalude]

There's something strange about the development of the relationship among Louis, Claudia and Lestat that has struck me since episode 4 and I couldn't really articulate it.

Bear with me this is a bit long.

The inciting incident that sets the stage for Claudia's more contentious relationship with Lestat is Charlie's death. You can see there was tension and Louis was the favourite even before that, but we never see Lestat be this cruel with her up until that point. And it seems a bit out of nowhere in retrospect. Not that he isn't capable of it, because of course he is. But it got me wondering what got him there. Why the hell was he that damn angry?

There could be many answers of course. Maybe they wanted to portray that he just doesn't care about her and that he is projecting his traumas on her by "teaching" her this "lesson". But, imo, that seems a bit inconsistent with his behaviour before and after. Moreover the way he acts in the scene where Claudia brings Charlie's body home is almost - I don't know how to pinpoint it exactly, but almost exasperated. Like he has been stewing on this particular issue for a bit and biting his tongue about it. Even the glance he shoots to Louis over Claudia's head, really reads strongly as a pretty pissed "I told you so". It just doesn't look like a sudden burst of anger to me.

And it got me thinking that, from what we know: 1) Louis was somewhat aware about Charlie (he knew about the flowers and he must have been suspicious about Claudia shutting him out of her mind for the first time over them); 2) I can't for the life of me believe that Louis and Lestat, having known that Claudia was involved with a human, wouldn't be worried about it.

Maybe (almost definitely) I'm reading too much into this, but I think that Louis and Lestat knew about Charlie. They fought about what to do. Lestat probably advocated for some strong action, at the very least to forbid Claudia to see him again. Louis agreed it was dangerous, but he already felt guilty enough robbing Claudia of her life, he probably wanted her to feel a degree of normalcy. I can see this being an ugly fight. And I can see this being the beginning of the famous bursting of the illusion of happiness, with Lestat being confronted with the reality that he was not Louis priority anymore. But I think Lestat relented, because the danger if Claudia did kill Charlie was not that much in the end and it would do well to her and Louis to learn to listen to him more in the future. And then what happened happened.

I know this is a reach and there's no proof about this. Probably never will be. But the point is that - even if Lestat can be horrible and cruel to the people he loves - he rarely is outside the framework of his own fucked-up triggers. Him being extremely pissed out of indignation and petty exasperation and wanting to reassert his power and also make Claudia pay for the strife she caused between him and Louis just rings more true to me than him going off the rails at random. It's not like when Claudia was dropping bodies left and right, what she did with Charlie was not that dangerous for their safety in New Orleans. Reread in this light, the whole scene just feels more organic to me, less disjointed. Otherwise I always feel like I am missing a bit, like there are gaps.

All of this is of course not to excuse Lestat - I just think this is yet again Louis not showing us part of the narrative to justify himself. In loving Claudia despite her unnatural existence. And in allowing Claudia's hate for Lestat to run unchecked when - once again - he was maybe more of an active participant in her misery than he let on. And Lestat was maybe - once again - the unwilling accomplice that got the burnt of it all because his reactions are so all-around awful that he just makes it very easy.

[diaryoftheunidropout]

DAY 561

It's been a while! Today is September 15th 2024 and it's been 561 days since I dropped out. Quite unbelievable it's been so long, if you ask me.

The month of June went by incredibly fast. It was a rollercoaster of emotions and retrospectively, it's the greatest adventure of my life so far! I won't go into all the details because I'm editing my vlog at the moment and it already tells the story of that trip in a quite detailed way, but I would at least like to go over some bits of it, especially the emotional aspect of it.

I left Paris with a lot of anxieties around how it would all go, but as soon as I met up with my travel partner, my anxieties were eased. The start of the journey was EXTREMELY rough because of the camping and living conditions, which I wasn't used to. What hurt the most, I think, was realizing there were SO many more fans in Europe than I would have ever imagined. At the start of the tour, we'd never manage to be the first to camp, which I thought was absolutely insane and caught me so off guard, leaving me disappointed. I soon realized that me doing the entire tour wouldn't make me as "special" as I thought it would. For months before the trip, I'd been idealizing it all: I'd always be the first anyway, and it'd be easy to stand out because no one would be doing more or as much... But in fact, there were people doing as much, and I realized I really wasn't that "special" and it hurt. It hurt so badly at the beginning and I was questioning whether or not this was all worth it and I was TERRIFIED I'd only feel worse and worse. But you know, after about 3 days, I realized that I had gotten it all wrong. My illusions and daydreams had pushed me to believe the only reason that made this trip worth it was because their eyes would be on me. And OF COURSE that aspect was nice and it was true to some extent. I refuse to believe I didn't leave some kind of long-lasting impression on them during that tour (and even during the previous tour, apparently), and knowing that they SEE ME is important to me these days, even though I didn't even think it was a possibility just two years ago. But after a few days of feeling like shit I realized... Doing "the most" isn't what matters or isn't what SHOULD matter. What really matters is me going to these shows and having the fucking time of my life. And I did. I truly did.

Every day was a party. We were constantly on the move, constantly busy, constantly meeting new people, constantly excited about the next show. It was, as I had expected, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It wasn't as dreamy as the previous tour had been. In 2023, I had been on literal cloud 9 the whole time. This year, I sometimes struggled to find my balance between all the pain and hardships of camping and constantly being on the move and exhausted, and the pleasure and joy of seeing them and dancing and singing my heart our every night. But after just a few days I did and I was certain of what I was doing and that it was right.

It was very different to the 2023 tour, it was very different to what I had imagined in some aspects, but it was amazing and I'd do it again. Maybe differently (better) now that I have the knowledge and experience, but I'd do it again! I'm so grateful we never had any major issues while travelling. All went incredibly smoothly, except some minor problems that we were able to fix quickly. I was terrified of having to miss a show because of planes or trains or buses getting cancelled, or missing a connection, or something like that... But no! After all, we had VERY thoroughly planned everything and had backups and two pretty functional brains...

When I got home, though... Well, it was kind of what I had expected. Missing them big time, feeling down, having no motivation for anything... July and August slipped away in a matter of seconds. I just bedrotted those months away, unfortunately. September is pretty much the same so far, I'm afraid. Never too late though?

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but I started going to therapy again, I think in late May? At first I wasn't a big fan of my therapist but he turned out to have a way of working that was ok for me. When I came back from my trip, I kept on going to sessions every week and by the end of August they started feeling unhelpful. Except the last session before my therapist went on holidays. During that session, he made me realize that one of my biggest issues is that I hate myself and that's why I self-sabotage and lack confidence. I know it's crazy that, as self-aware as I am, I had never really realized it. But I do now, and I know the voice telling me I'm worthless isn't just sick, it's also evil. But a lot of days it's hard to tell it to shut up.

My mom has a situationship. Or boyfriend. I don't really know what they are and I also don't really want to know. All I know is that whenever they're together my mom basically ignores me. So that's every weekend, pretty much. She has expressed some regret over it because she knows it breaks my heart, but the way she apologized let me understand that, while she was kind of sorry, it would happen again for her own good. And it did. It's weirdly painful and comforting to know she has someone else to rely on these days. Makes me think that if I were to die, she'd have a reason to keep on going without me, so it's a bit of a weight off my shoulders.

The other day, I started panicking when I realized almost nothing around me were belongings I had when my dad was still alive. It was a strange feeling, how so much changes in so little time. There are periods of my life where I can't actually tell if he was still alive or not. Like, to me it's so obvious he knows I love Good Omens and Heartstopper and that I was a Worldwide Girl, but these are all things that came into my life or happened AFTER his death. I'm sure he knows, though. He's still around. But that time of my life with him feels like several lifetimes ago that are starting to feel like more of a dream, and less of a reality. This Sunday morning when I woke up, I thought of how it's been several years since I last sat at our living room table for Sunday lunch with my parents. There was a day I sat there for the last time, not knowing it would be the last ever.

I'm not even 20 yet and I already feel so nostalgic for the past. I'm terrified of growing old because I feel like time and my whole life are slipping away through my fingers like sand and there's nothing I can do to stop it or slow it down. I close my eyes in May and wake up in September and I'm like "WHERE did all that time go? And why is my life changing so much and also not at all?"

I feel so stuck. I want a way out of this. By this, I mean this situation where I don't work, rely on my family's generosity for money, and live in constant fear I won't have enough money to see my favorite band again. Money is the one thought that lives in my mind obsessively. Everything eventually revolves around money, because all of my distractions (collecting merchandise, going to concerts or events, travelling...) rely on MONEY.

Please dear Universe, let me have money, lots of them. I can't handle all this worry. I just want to live a sweet life...

[abyssalpriest]

30 Days of Them #5

Describe your God as something that occurs in nature.

Dreaming.

I was talking earlier to myself, doing the dishes, about whether gods incarnate or not, which in my experience is a certain yes. Specifically I was using the example that I've come across people confirmed by the gods I know as being incarnations of them, one of whom was someone I met in a dream once (and who I have met on other occasions, I just don't remember too well), an incarnation of Leviathan's known to us as Genghis Khan. I met him in Lev's Mind on this occasion, which came across to my sleeping body as a dream but had that very distinct realness of "this is not a self-produced dream but a dreamlike vision into other things" to it. He was sitting in front of me with a few of his associates laughing amused at modern technology, specifically a phone I think, looking at memes on it or something. He's a figure, now that I work with Leviathan specifically as a Sky Father and with our resonant connection to the skies, that's in the background every so often still caught up and entwined with Lev's programming and 5D chess plans as our group refers to them. He's interwoven himself with Lev's very being - possession is a two-way process and so is opening yourself up to the spirit you're an incarnation of... But that's besides the point.

I got talking about what this incarnation feels like specifically because I started talking about his energy, how he has a very interesting and powerful energy but interesting in the way that I never expect it, or it's better to say I always expect him to feel different. It's playful almost, intelligent like a hawk that watches and watches when you think it's going to dive at you, not soft as in gentle but soft as in self-contained and... Intelligent. Sparkling with a keen sense of humour, like someone who knows much too much about how the world works to be phased or bothered by you; he feels like a towering, black-scaled dragon blowing shaped smoke rings weaving themselves into clouds and looking down at you with half-lidded smiling eyes and a sharp-toothed grin. You can tell he very clearly has the gateway to Lev - Tengri - wide open. They are energetically the same source in two different incarnations.

You can see through him the powerful Day Sky, but very specifically the Day Sky like the deep dreaming Universe... Which brings me to the topic. Lev was around as I'd made him breakfast, eggs and soldiers with steamed teriyaki salmon, an odd but good cultural mergence we planned out together; he was walking through to the kitchen I was doing the dishes in in the Astral to get water from my tap when he overheard me talking to myself about this. He asked me when I shied away from talking about this life in front of him to repeat what I was saying, to tell me what he felt like as I was saying - and oh boy, you can tell when the two of them are connected. Lev may have asked but this life's energy was seeping out of him - in retrospect, they're both good at hiding when being extremely obvious, it didn't click at the time that the two of them were playing. There's this mischievous, happy or content, self-understanding, self-content really, air and a smooth power to them. I repeated it. I said he feels like you, you when you feel like yourself feel like you're dreaming. You are dreaming.

I don't think I've ever addressed Lev as the Great Blue Sky in regards to the connection to dreaming... Probably because dreaming is a hard topic for me.

I've said before he seems to be conscious in other levels of consciousness. Of course he is, Digambara, the ascetic meditative Shiva, the vibrant blue radiating shivling, the ever-presence of consciousness, the one who is consciousness in illusion... He is so extensive, woven into this reality like splintering meteors love and merge in passion-dances with the womb of this reality and fall into existence. The god of patterns, of similarity and distinction, the storyteller. He is the dream and dreamer: submerged in his own blue waters, he is the waters and the ascetic so deep in meditation within them that his breaths extend over the entire span of the Universe so he will never drown in it... Or, like the nightmare: he is submerged in his own blood, terrific and visceral and wide-eyed.

He showed me the Day Sky as a deep sleeping thing, the Material equivalent to the Mental dreaming state, the dream itself.

He is so gentle, so abstract, woven by goddesses' hands into this reality, lying asleep with a soft smile written on his face. 

He's head of this war between his people and the Others for a reason. His brain encompasses the Sky itself, his thoughts and consciousness like lightning through it, processing like dreams do a thousand ways of competing, a thousand ways of being breached and penetrated and a thousand ways of drinking blood. He processes through simulation, he is the intelligence of nature itself, he knows himself - reality - so well that his thoughts are as autonomous and fast as the firings of neurons in the dreaming state bridging endless creative scenes to one another through pure intellect. His eyes are woven throughout his entire self... He told me that he was woven into this plane, I feel it. The Sky is within everything. 

He speaks through fiction, which he's referred to directly as dreaming. He speaks through symbolism, through masks, representations, a thousand angles of five thousand lines and the infinite number of possibilities those add up to...

He is encompassing. He is the low hum of a distracted body, one distracted by its own existence watching the light-show that arises from the intersection of Mental and Material, watching the dreaming body of god... To know God is to be God, and so he both dreams and is the dream, both Digambara and the Sky... That word keeps echoing in my head, Digambara, Digambara, what more naked form is there in the world than the dreaming self? What is more sky-clad than to be surrounded by the smooth and seducing Day Sky, the dream itself?

[andswarwrites]

Day 6

I'm going to tell a few personal stories this month, and this is the first of them: how S- and I became "S- and Stacey".  For context, tomorrow is our sixteen year anniversary.  S-'s parents are going to have a sleepover with N-. So S- and I will get to spend tomorrow and the day after together.  S- likes to get take out or take me to a restaurant, I like to just hang out with him, anywhere.  We've already given one another several gifts.  But we're like that all year long, we just step it up around this time.

I met S- twenty years ago, more or less.  I was a teenager and he was in his twenties.  To be exact he is eight years older than me.  My family was helping my sister move, and there was a lull before the work began, so I was outside talking to a friendly guy, when he looked up and said "Hey, S-!" and I turned to see this tall, dark-haired goofball sliding across a large patch of ice in the parking lot of my sister's building.  He had nice eyes, a big smile, and a baby face.  He introduced himself, and joined the conversation.

The whole time we were helping with the moving, S- hovered around me, and I felt at ease with him.  As a child, I'd always clicked with boys.  Not all boys, of course, but I also didn't click with all girls.  In my teens, though, I started to be self-conscious around "guys", and I was no longer natural with them, my behavior was forced and, in retrospect, just embarrassing.  That was never the case with S-.  He made me laugh, he was a good listener, he and I had a lot in common.

Despite the age difference, we had enough mutual friends that we would see each other when we would go see movies, and when we'd go to a coffee place after the movie, he and I would often end up sitting near each other.  That situation evolved into my parents trusting him to give me and my friends rides to parties.  Meanwhile, I was growing up, and one day I was no longer a cute little kid in S-'s eyes.  He noticed that I was pretty attractive.  I was completely oblivious to my feelings for him.

I'd had a pretty potent crush on someone else for a few years.  There's a quote from a movie I love, the remake of Sabrina (1995): "Illusions are dangerous people, they have no flaws."  I thought if I "loved" someone hard enough, they would eventually love me back.  Notice how I put "loved" in quotation marks, because there is such a big difference between infatuation and real, honest love.  The whole time I was chasing the illusion, real love was budding in me, but I was completely unaware of it.

Until.  Usually, when S- came to pick me up in his car, I would end up sitting in the passenger seat, next to him.  But when we also picked up one of his close friends, that friend called shot gun, and I was relegated to the back seat.  I was not happy about it, even though the back seat was perfectly comfortable.  I was like Sheldon Cooper being forced out of his "spot", and I realized that the reason it was my "spot", was because I wanted to sit next to S-.  I wanted to be able to look over and see his profile as he drove.

I'd always friend-zoned S-, possibly because he never hid his enthusiasm for my company.  When I appeared, he would make a beeline, with a huge grin on his face.  He still gravitates to me, even now.  And now, I finally appreciate this tendency of his.  Funnily enough, while I had a crush on another guy, S- had a crush on another girl.  So we each considered the other a good friend, even though we had such amazing chemistry.  And we got closer and closer as friends with each passing year.

I now had my own car, and a job at a little retail store, and I didn't bother to pack myself a lunch, because I thought skipping the midday meal would help me to lose weight.  I had a little Nokia flip phone and I had given my number to S-, and he called, and for some reason I confided that I had skipped lunch and I was hungry.  He was on his way home from work, and the place where I worked was on the way, so he stopped, got me some food, and brought it to me.  From that day on, he'd check in to make sure I was eating, and since I wasn't, he'd bring me food.  I got used to having him stop in every day to see me.

We were texting one another, seeing one another, I was falling for him hard.  But he wasn't asking me out.  And there's no other word for it, I had been rejected recently.  I didn't have the courage to ask him what his intentions were, even though they were pretty obvious.  So one night he texted me: "I just saw a shooting star!"; so I asked: "What did you wish for?"  He replied: "I'll tell you tomorrow."  I couldn't wait for tomorrow.  I was sure I knew what he was going to say.

When he joined me, just as my shift was almost over (by the way, I always worked alone in that little shop, and in the evenings we had the place to ourselves), there was a little bit of awkwardness.  He tried to get the words out, and he was just too shy.  Finally, he said: "Well if you'd wished on a star, what would you have wished for?"  Now, I'm a forthright person and I go after what I want, but my heart was still healing from that dumb crush.  Nevertheless, I just went for it, and said: "I'd wish I could go out with you."

"Really?" S- asked.  "Really," I replied, and thew my arms around his neck.  I closed the store, we went to a nearby coffee place, ordered two hot chocolates and sat talking.  And the rest, as they say, is history.  If I were to describe us in one word, I would use "inseparable."  Friends first.  Friends always.  We’ve had some pretty rough patches.  At times I worried we weren't going to make it through certain storms.  But with each upheaval, we've come to know one another better and better, we've seen how to support one another in more and more loving ways.  I'm confident that I have found my life's partner.  My one and only.

[radiosandrecordings]

I am feeling... Strangely vindicated, by what Martin said this episode about how their whole relationship is just kind of built on a trauma bond. I think it’s always bugged me when people describe them as soulmates, because so much of jmart to me is that they’re not. As much as they love each other, that love is a choice. They don’t always click, they get on each other’s nerves and argue and don’t get each other’s jokes but they still love each other. Yes it’s as a product of their circumstances, but that love doesn’t make it any less real. 

(Under the cut because oh lordy this one got long apparently) 

I think to summarise my own feelings on it, I am legitimately going to have to quote a fanfiction here. One of the first TMA fics I read when it was still updating was Weaver, a superhero style Web!Martin au that I still recommend because it’s wonderful, if a little outdated plot and characterisation wise because it was posting two years ago. But a line that always stuck with me was (spoilers) in the chapter in which Spider-Martin gets de-masked and Jon finds out who he is (It’s also the love confession chapter. For obvious reasons.) 

“If it were a different world, one where the Weaver didn’t exist, maybe Jon would never have fallen for Martin. But that isn’t the world they’re in. They’re in this one, and in this one, Jon has fallen for Martin. There’s no doubt about that.”

And I did not like this at the time! Because I was a little more naïve about romance at the time and I really felt that that took away from it instead of adding to it. I thought that Jon’s admittance that in a different timeline he wouldn’t have loved Martin was a sign of weakness, that because they weren’t ‘perfect soulmates’ then it was... I don’t know how to phrase it better than in meme format: “I’m going to get a bad grade in relationship, something that is both possible to achieve and normal to fear”. That even if they were entirely happy together that this was a flaw and meant it wasn’t the 100% run Perfect Storybook Romance I thought I wanted to read. Obviously since then I’ve realised that’s all bullshit and this is actually a lovely line because it’s stating that he does love him, here and now. And this is what canon reiterates to us in 199: 

MARTIN: But we wouldn’t have, would we? Been together I mean. [....] Face it, John, it took almost two years of crisis and trauma to even make us compatible. And that sucks. But here we are. And I don’t want it to be for nothing. I won’t let it.

And I just... Love that Martin is aware of that. He’s never been under any illusions about his relationship with Jon. Of course we don’t know if it’s actually true because we don’t know these timelines, we cannot get a solid answer (Unless 200 REALLY pulls it out of the bag and shows us. After all, Martin did say “Their own Martin” when listing things that the other universes probably had). Jon doesn’t seem to like this idea, being confused at first, then rejecting that he hated Martin, and then trying to divert the topic, so maybe they would work, or at least Jon is looking back retrospectively and seeing ways he could have changed to make it so he was more aware of his feelings, but hindsight is 2020 and rose coloured glasses y’know. 

Plus, Martin himself admits in 186 that he knows most of the reason Jon hated him was projection of his fear: 

MARTIN: Hey, to be fair, he still kind of hated me back then. I’m really not sure it would have been the time to take my shot. ALSO MARTIN: Fair. He was projecting hard. Between us, that guy’s got some real issues. MARTIN: Hey! Pretty sure we love ‘that guy’. ALSO MARTIN: Yeah, and all his many, many problems.

So Martin here is already showing his “I am aware Jon hated me” cards, but Martin’s inner self is also going “Yeah, but also, he did have a reason”, which is odd since it makes it seem like the internal Martin, who was generally much more open and blunt about harsh truths that episode, is the one actually defending Jon.

So with Jon’s rejection of the sentiment, I don’t think we can take it as a definitive truth that they wouldn’t work in another timeline. I think it might just implicate they wouldn’t work in the dynamic they had before. Martin is right in that I don’t think that would have worked out without the layers of trauma bringing them together. Jon seems to think, though possibly through flawed hindsight, that they could have. Personally I’m interpreting it as they could work if, as Jon said, “If we had just... met. Been together, without all of this.”, ‘this’ entailing the institute as well, meeting as peers somewhere else without all of the weight of That bearing down on Jon, affecting him even in a mundane capacity before becoming a supernatural one. 

I’m glad it’s in there though. The way I had described Jonmartin before is that they’re not soulmates, by any capacity. But, if you want to assign them a romantic trope of that type, red string of fate might just work. Because they don’t match, not perfectly, but they always had each other, and really, there was no doubt that they wouldn’t end up together in some capacity. And I like that it gives a layer of self-awareness to Martin! I am so glad for every line and interaction that kicks back against early season characterisation, or fanon misinterpretation, that he’s naïve or just a love interest. It gives him this really lovely bit of depth that he, the one who was always painted more as the lovestruck one than Jon “What Are Feelings” Sims, is the one hyperaware of their status to each other than Jon, who seems to want to convince himself that they were always meant to be, whether that statement is true or not. 

[autismlou]

autism and loneliness. i guess

i have people in my live that i can rely on. people that love me. i know that. but everyone feels lonely sometimes and as i have learned, its even more common among autistics.

so here are my thoughts-

my mind is commonly preoccupied with a lot of stuff. it is nothing i am not aware of but still nothing i can change.

it’s annoying.

i need to connect on a deep level with people regularly, it really helps me regenerate but im not in a place where this is possible.

nobody is able to really connect with every person they spend time with, but i have to. i can’t just sit around people who don’t feel the need to really understand someone.

of course i need to be understood by my loved ones or it could be dangerous, i am still autistic .

maybe i just can’t wrap my head around how NT´s actually enjoy spending time with random people just to not be alone.

that sounds genuinely terrible and sad. but i can’t really feel bad for anyone dealing with this and not realizing that they are miserable because they never connect with anybody on a deep level.

when i was arguably the most alone in my life, i longed for friends. groups of people that have fun and just love each other. but groups are rearly loving, as i sadly learned the hard way.

groups build smaller groups because there are always people that will gravitate to each other and that is understandable but why are they then part of a bigger group?

i never and probably will never understand why people hang out with someone they don’t like, invite them to party’s, take pictures with them. why?

it is a front.

it almost always is.

but you only realize it after you already get know everyone, maybe even really started liking some people. you start to understand that you never really knew anybody.

i felt like most of them liked me, some didn’t like me for that. but in the end i didn’t really like anybody.

i never liked the sneakiness, the bad mouthing behind the back. but this always happens in big groups of people. and there will always be someone in the group who will just use you. because you thought that you are genuine friends.

sad truth of people pleasers. undiagnosed autism is just that.

i am really good at giving advice because i am very straightforward. if you get the lou treatment, you know it will be helpful for you.

i love striving for a peaceful live and try to help others with this goal. but most people don’t really change.

they like to get my great advice, everybody always loved telling me their problems but when it came to change?

most just repeated their harmful patterns and let me give them the next special and loving talk to.

it was always heartbreaking for me. in this time of my life i degraded myself to a „healer and helper“

i was stuck in a loop of if i do good, good will happen to me. but it didn’t.

best friends that i made in that time turned out to be miserable, egotistical people with no drive to get better. not even an idea of what was wrong.

even though i tried, which retrospectively doesn’t really makes any sense at all.

in the end i mourned the good memory’s while the other person just turned to their brigade of „friends“.

i turned myself into a blank, toxic positivity fueled, mixed with a deep and strong fear of abandonment open book, so everybody would be comfortable writing down their trauma and dump me to next emotionally stunted individual. just for me to have the illusion of having connection. i had, but they never did.

so after dreaming about and experiencing the pleasures and definitive horrors of big friend groups, where we at?

still lonely of course.

even tough, like i said I have people in my life that i connect on that deep level with, they are of course not always available.

my best friend moved out of our hometown and now we see each other maybe once every 3 moths after seeing each other everyday for i guess 13+ years.

my partner lives in a different city and we see each other maybe once a week, but he had covid and then went on vacation. so they are gone now too for quite some time.

that’s it. these are the people i really need. and not one of them will ever now how much.

but i will. i will feel the hard stinging of the tightness in the back of my throat. maybe i will already cry, maybe the stinging will get so painful that there is no other option than to cry.

i will remember how it feels to get hugged by them and to just talk, because i dint talk to anyone then myself in the last 4 days. and cry again.

i am not able to watch them have fun in any way because it will hurt me so bad. because i will always be the only one knowing how much it hurts me to love them from afar.

sometimes i find it scary, but maybe because my mom told me when i was younger that i will scare my loved ones away with my intense feelings.

there are rarely people that relate. and that’s kinda even more scary.

i always feel stupid when i get emotional if my partner is about to leave. my brain tells me that im grown and shouldn’t cry and that as soon that they are gone, my object permanence issues kick in and it will be fine. but i also know deep down, that i will be alone. and that i will wait until they are back.

and none of them will now that that’s how love feels to me most of the time.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Delight in Misery (ao3) - part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7

- Chapter 8: Interlude -

Author note: This chapter is an interlude that contains JC/LWJ adult content. It can be skipped without impacting the remainder of the story.

-

“This is an idea so stupid that I can’t believe Wei Wuxian wasn’t that one to think of it,” Jiang Cheng said.

Lan Wangji didn’t disagree. If either of them had any sense whatsoever, they’d call off this whole idea before it was too late and they did something that permanently damaged the delicate balance of the life they’d built together forever – and they had, somehow, built a life together, cobbled together out of convenience and tragedy and the fact that no one else in this rotten world would understand what it was to miss someone like Wei Wuxian.

It was utter recklessness to throw it away for – what? Indulging some curiosity? Killing some time out of boredom, now that the Lotus Pier had finally quieted down enough for Jiang Cheng to no longer need to work from sunrise until sunset? Now that Lan Wangji didn’t have to hide himself away at all hours, afraid that someone would see him coming and going?

“You don’t even like me like that,” Jiang Cheng complained mutinously, and glared when Lan Wangji nodded in confirmation. “Wow. Thanks a lot.”

“We don’t have to proceed,” Lan Wangji pointed out.

“No, we’re doing this,” Jiang Cheng said at once, because he was contrary down to the last inch of him. “Take off your clothing already. No matter what the Lan sect may think, there are circumstances that call for not wearing four layers of clothing, and sex is definitely one of them.”

Because that was what they were apparently doing.

This was all Mo Xuanyu’s fault for leaving his books lying around – Jiang Cheng had finally succumbed to pressure and ordered his steward to get some for him – and in particular a spring book with pictures that went beyond the merely suggestive into the explicit. Jiang Cheng had picked it up while neatening up the room and gawked for enough time to make a cup of tea; when Lan Wangji had politely asked if he’d perhaps been abruptly struck blind by the contents and, if so, if there was any medicine he would like Lan Wangji to fetch for him, Jiang Cheng had instead turned to him and said, very frankly, “This cannot be a thing people actually do.”

Lan Wangji had, with great patience and an expression of intense suffering, held out his hands for the book.

The years following his awkward initial interaction with Wei Wuxian – the discovery of his own inclinations, the confirmation that they were irrevocably set in that way, his eventual acceptance of that fact – had led him to explore the more idiosyncratic portions of the Lan library. He was no longer the boy that had spluttered and cursed when tricked into looking at some (fairly run of the mill, in retrospect) pornography.

“Mm,” he’d said after a brief examination. “Real.”

“Impossible. Why would anyone -?”

Lan Wangji hadn’t bothered to dignify that with a response.

“It can’t possibly feel good,” Jiang Cheng had protested.

Lan Wangji had graced him with a pitying look. He hadn’t experienced the act in question with another person, of course, but his older brother had been perhaps unduly interested in ensuring that Lan Wangji had access to anything he might need to assuage his curiosity regarding his unorthodox affections, and, well, the Lan sect did always value a thorough approach to learning.

In other words, he’d read a lot.

It might have been left at that, a casual conversation between friends, except that Lan Wangji must have been suddenly possessed by the spirit of Wei Wuxian because he felt compelled to add, “Not that you would ever have a chance to find out.”

And that, of course, was that; once Jiang Cheng’s competitive instincts were awakened, there was absolutely nothing for it but a test to determine who was right.

Little details as to whether or not Jiang Cheng was even attracted to men enough for the question even to matter were dismissed as irrelevant.

And that was how they’d ended up here. About to go to bed. Together.

Though – perhaps that wasn’t exactly how it had started.

Perhaps it had started earlier, when Jiang Cheng had started helping Lan Wangji with those very particular physical reactions he’d had during the period he’d been too weak to do it himself, or perhaps when he’d continued to help him with it long after the trauma of it was no longer so near as to make it impossible for him to use his hands on himself.

Perhaps Lan Wangji should have been the one to stop that – the one to say no, no more, it’s unnecessary, thank you. But in those years of seclusion he had seen so few people, and seen Jiang Cheng most of all; he hadn’t quite been able to give up the desire for the touch of a human hand against his skin. To give up the intimacy of the act, for all that Jiang Cheng routinely brought him to completion as casually as if he were merely rebandaging his wounds, was simply impossible. Nothing could detract from the satisfaction he obtained, even if Jiang Cheng often spent the time talking about something else entirely, complaining about his day or a particularly irritating set of paperwork.

(There was a period in which Lan Wangji had briefly started to develop unsavory connections to the subject of dam rebuilding – luckily the dam project had ended before it had become a real problem.)

At minimum Lan Wangji should have put a stop to it once he was no longer secluded: when he had Lan Xichen’s embraces, gentle nudges from visiting Lan disciples, all the regular physical contact he had grown up with, and now all the casual affection that passed between Jiang sect disciples, of which he was considered an honorary member…it was more than enough to satisfy any skin hunger that might have been compelling him to continue with that inappropriate behavior that neither of them saw as important enough to name.

It had become a habit by then, though, a part of the routine, and the Lan sect thrived on routine.

“You have to remove yours as well,” he reminded Jiang Cheng, folding his clothing up neatly. If they had been lovers, perhaps Jiang Cheng would have been staring at him at this moment – perhaps he would have been tracing Lan Wangji’s body with his eyes, hunger and anticipation on his features – but they weren’t lovers. They were just friends, and that was why Jiang Cheng was fighting to get his shoe off (it had grown too small after too many washings and was starting to fall apart but he inexplicably refused to get new ones) instead of examining a body he’d seen naked a thousand times already during Lan Wangji’s slow recovery. “Do you –”

“If you offer to assist me, I will punch you,” Jiang Cheng threatened, and finally got the shoe off. “And if I hear one word about me needing to replace it –”

“You do.”

“It’s fine. It does the job! What else do you want from a shoe, damnit?” The other shoe was removed. “Leave me alone. I don’t need your help.”

The rest of his clothing came afterwards, tossed casually onto a chair, and Lan Wangji watched out of lack of anything better to do. In the years that had passed he had also seen Jiang Cheng’s body many times, an inevitable result of living across from each other in a place as hot as Yunmeng. Jiang Cheng was undeniably beautiful, all long lines and slender, his flesh marred by the discipline whip as Lan Wangji’s own had been, although in much lower quantity.

No, Lan Wangji concluded. This would not be the problem he had almost been concerned that it would be. For all that Lan Wangji’s heart belonged to Wei Wuxian and always would, his body had no objection to the idea of trying out something new.

“I assume at least some help is not unwelcome,” Lan Wangji said dryly, standing and walking over to put his hand on Jiang Cheng’s cock. At Jiang Cheng’s mild exclamation, Lan Wangji arched his eyebrows. “You can’t even do this? I may have overestimated your bravery.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jiang Cheng said, although he was clearly flustered; he reached out to assist Lan Wangji in the same manner. His palm was callused and warm, as always; Lan Wangji’s cock stirred at once at the familiar stimulus. “It’s been a while since it was someone else, that’s all.”

“You’ve had experience?”

“There’s no need to sound so skeptical about it. I was a teenager once too, you know; Wei Wuxian and I – hey, watch it!”

Lan Wangji relaxed his grip apologetically. “You did for Wei Ying as you do for me?” he asked, and didn’t even care when Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes at his obvious and immediate fascination. It was a good thing that neither of them had any illusions about Wei Wuxian’s role in their friendship, the ghost of him that hung over it all; if they pretended otherwise, they might have hurt each other. “How did he..?”

“You’re not seriously asking me that question,” Jiang Cheng said, but of course Lan Wangji was.

Jiang Cheng glared at him, but Lan Wangji was patient, and as with all things relating to Jiang Cheng, his patience was rewarded.

“You’re a little more direct,” Jiang Cheng finally said, rolling his eyes once again to demonstrate how ridiculous he thought Lan Wangji was being. “You like long strokes, like this, very purposeful – his preference was a bit more playful. A bit of teasing around the head, like this, and then a bit with the thumb…listen, if you’re going to turn that shade of red this quickly, we’re going to have to call this whole idea off.”

“I can do more than once.”

“I’ll give you the whole rundown another time, you pervert,” Jiang Cheng promised, and Lan Wangji’s cock twitched at the thought of it. “Can we please focus on proving you horribly wrong already?”

“I’m not wrong.”

“So you say.”

Lan Wangji rolled his eyes and resumed moving his hand on Jiang Cheng’s cock. It felt nice in his hand, filling out as he stroked it. “Why?” he asked after a moment.

“Why what? Why did Wei Wuxian and I get each other off?”

“En.”

“We were young and stupid, obviously,” Jiang Cheng said. “He was my shixiong. We shared everything, figured everything out together…it wasn’t that weird, okay? It was just lending a friendly hand. Literally.”

Lan Wangji could imagine it. The scene sprang up fully formed in his eyes: Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian as he remembered them from the Cloud Recesses, cheeks still a little fat with youth and glistening from perspiration from the humid Yunmeng air, sitting together side-by-side on a bed with their hands in each other’s laps. Perhaps even the bed he slept in now, or Jiang Cheng’s. And perhaps even back then Jiang Cheng liked to talk of other things while he was performing the chore – his lessons, perhaps.

Perhaps they’d even done it for each other while they’d been at the Cloud Recesses…

“Did you do anything more?” he asked, licking suddenly dry lips.

Jiang Cheng blinked at him. “Like what?”

Perhaps it was petty to use their conversation as an excuse to step forward into Jiang Cheng’s personal space, to use his free hand to rub up and down his chest and tweak his nipples, to use teeth and tongue liberally on his neck, on his shoulder, his collarbone, until Jiang Cheng’s knees had grown so weak from surprise and pleasure that Lan Wangji had to loop his arm around his waist to help support him –

But if there was one thing Jiang Cheng had taught him in all these years, it was that there were times when being petty was the best possible option.

“Can I use my mouth on you?” he asked, and took the incoherent spluttering and vague hand-waving he received as a yes. “Sit down on the bed and lean back.”

Jiang Cheng obeyed without a single complaint, which Lan Wangji accepted as the compliment it was.

“I think I can definitively say no, just so you know,” he observed as Lan Wangji lowered himself down to his knees. “I did not do anything like this with Wei Wuxian.”

“Did you ever want to?” Lan Wangji asked, mildly curious, and then he leaned down and put his mouth on Jiang Cheng’s cock.

“Am I supposed to be having a conversation with you about this?” Jiang Cheng demanded, thrashing underneath his ministrations. Lan Wangji had to hold his hips down with his hands, using a little force. “Now?”

Lan Wangji purposefully stopped moving.

“You are a piece of shit, you know that?” Fingers made their way into Lan Wangji’s hair, careful to avoid his forehead ribbon as they lightly tugged – hmm, that was rather nice, actually. Lan Wangji mentally noted down the preference. “Fine. Ugh. No, I didn’t. It wasn’t like that. It really did just start out innocent, you know. Us being boys and all, measuring the difference in size and all –”

Jiang Cheng paused and rolled his eyes down at Lan Wangji, who had perhaps overly demonstrated his interested in hearing more.

“– yes, you obsessed stalker, I’m getting there. He was longer, I was wider; we called it a tie. Later on, we got drunk and started talking about how we were both worried that we were doing it wrong, except, you know, that would have been way too embarrassing…you know how we were. It turned into a dumb sort of competition about who could do it better, which one of us was the one doing it wrong, who was doing it right – we got into a lot of stupid contests like that.”

A brief pause.

“Don’t say that I’m stating the obvious.”

Lan Wangji’s mouth was full, which was probably the only reason he wasn’t. He really had lost all sense of self-control when it came to deliberately irritating Jiang Cheng, and he wasn’t sure when that had happened. His uncle would be disappointed in him again.

Good.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Jiang Cheng muttered. He’d gotten into the groove of things, his hips rocking slightly as Lan Wangji sucked him, careful not to go too far or too fast for fear of making Lan Wangji gag again – though to be fair, that had been mostly Lan Wangji’s fault for being overly ambitious in trying to take him in too deep that time. The real thing really wasn’t anything like the jade pillar he’d practiced on. “This is ridiculous. You’d better never expect me to do this for you. No way.”

Lan Wangji didn’t bother responding.

“I mean, I guess if my hands were broken. It’s not like I couldn’t do it. I’ve put worse things in my mouth, over the years.”

No response was necessary. Jiang Cheng’s complex about needing to be the best at everything – or at least skilled enough to be respected – was truly a fearsome thing.

Though speaking of which...

Lan Wangji reached with one hand to pull over the small packet of thickened, scented oil that he’d obtained long ago, dipping his fingers into it and working one finger, then another, into Jiang Cheng.

“How do you even think of these things?” Jiang Cheng complained, because he wouldn’t be Jiang Cheng if he didn’t complain. “You must have done nothing but read spring books day and night – hey, wait! What are you doing? I’m going to be the one on top! Not you!”

Lan Wangji hummed and removed his mouth – Jiang Cheng whined in complaint – and then lifted one of Jiang Cheng’s legs, pressing his cock against him. He didn’t get a fist in the face, even when he rocked back and forth teasingly, his cock sliding right up to Jiang Cheng’s slicked-up entrance and then away.

“…just go ahead and do it already!”

Lan Wangji’s analytical mind temporarily blanked out when he pushed inside. It was hot and tight around him, squeezing him – it felt good. Very good.

“Fuck,” Jiang Cheng said. His voice was a little unstable, almost breathy. “Fuck.”

“If you insist,” Lan Wangji said, and began moving his hips before Jiang Cheng could correct him. Jiang Cheng grunted as if the sound had been punched out of him. Fucked out of him. “How is it?”

“Why are you asking me, don’t you already – Lan Wangji. You said the picture in the book was realistic.”

Lan Wangji hummed in agreement.

“I assumed that meant you’d done it before.”

That seemed like a Jiang Cheng problem.

“Lan Wangji! Are you saying you don’t know what you’re doing?!”

“I’ve read a lot of spring books,” Lan Wangji said dryly, and started to really put his back into it, long thrusts that felt fantastic to him and from the looks of it not all that bad to Jiang Cheng, either. After a few thrusts, he apparently hit the place described in the books, if he were judging by Jiang Cheng’s sudden moans and a notable increasing in generalized cursing, as opposed to cursing his name in specific.

Lan Wangji finished first, which increased the amount of cursing by a significant degree.

“I can’t believe you –!”

“Would you like to finish in my mouth?”

“It is,” Jiang Cheng hissed at him, “the very least you could do!”

Jiang Cheng was much less polite this time as he fucked his way into Lan Wangji’s mouth, his hands firmly gripping Lan Wangji’s hair and pulling him into place, forcing his way deeper with brutal snaps of his hips.

Despite having recently been wrung dry, Lan Wangji’s cock did its best to give an interested twitch, and Lan Wangji noted that down as well. Perhaps next time he should encourage Jiang Cheng to be the one on top, to see if he would enjoy the sensation more if it was someone else doing the fucking rather than a toy carved out of jade. After all, Jiang Cheng had certainly responded well enough to it.

Lan Wangji was moderately sure there would be another time. Jiang Cheng was not a man motivated by sex – remarkably so, in fact. If anything, he seemed to view physical pleasure, even at his own hand, as a perfectly decent activity, but nothing worth kicking up a fuss over, little different from a massage or a round of acupuncture; neither something especially desirable nor repulsive. As Jiang Cheng himself had admitted, he hadn’t experienced the touch of another since his youthful experimentation with Wei Wuxian, even though Lan Wangji was well aware that he’d received plenty of offers from all types of types of people over the years, and yet the lack hadn’t seemed to bother him.

If not for Lan Wangji, he probably would have continued on with his life without thinking about it any further, either, except perhaps in the theoretical box in his mind that he’d earmarked for having a wife, which he seemed to want only because everyone was expected to want a wife.

That competitive streak again.

But he did have Lan Wangji, who was not naturally inclined towards abstinence, and now that they’d opened the door to having a friendship that included certain additional benefits, he had no intention of shutting that door absent any indication from Jiang Cheng that it no longer suited him.

After all, Jiang Cheng might yet have a wife one day, assuming a patient enough marvel could be found – but Lan Wangji was a Lan, born and bred true, and he would only have one love in his life; he had fallen long ago, chosen long ago. Wei Wuxian was gone, and he would never regret it, nor love another. It had been living with Jiang Cheng, being friends with him, that had taught him to remember joy; what was this, then, but more of the same?

Of course, that was assuming that Jiang Cheng would agree in the future to sate Lan Wangji’s rather prodigious appetites with more than just his hand. He might not. After all, it really wasn’t his area of interest –

“Fuck,” Jiang Cheng abruptly said.

Lan Wangji, who was fetching a wet cloth, turned to look at him.

Jiang Cheng was propped up on his elbows, scowling bitterly. “You know what,” he said. “We didn’t even manage to do the right position! The one in the spring book was more – more twisty – you know – with the leg up in the air like that –”

“…mm,” Lan Wangji said. “We’ll do better next time.”

“You’re smirking,” Jiang Cheng said suspiciously. “Why are you smirking? What are you up to?!”

“Nothing,” Lan Wangji said peaceably, putting down the cloth and picking up the oil. “You’re right.”

“Of course I’m right! I’m – I’m not usually right. Or at least, you don’t normally admit it when I’m right. What am I right about?”

“Did it wrong,” Lan Wangji said, and settled down again. “Need to try again.”

“Try – wait, now? Already?! You can’t be serious!”

Lan Wangji started rearranging limbs. “You’re already prepared,” he pointed out. “‘Avoid needless waste.’”

“Don’t you quote your Lan sect rules at me, Lan Wangji! You’re inhuman! You’re – ah!”

He’d slid right in that time, Lan Wangji observed, all at once in a single smooth slide that made Jiang Cheng moan and his cock start to fill up again; the ease of it must be due to how relaxed Jiang Cheng’s body was after he’d come, and the slickness of both the oil left behind and the new amount he’d added. Definitely a different experience from the previous time, but equally enjoyable.

Well, as he’d said before – the Lan sect always did value a thorough approach to learning.

[yourfinalbow]

hi lol this is totally random but based on a harry potter post you just reblogged and you can completely ignore me if you want, but do you think snape deserved better, or are you a quote unquote "snape apologist"? I'm genuinely curious cuz I've come across a lot of different opinions on severus. Again, feel free to ignore :)

This ended up way longer than it needed to be, and I apologize for that lmao.

Hi! Hmmm I have many mixed opinions on this. First we have to talk about which Snape. Book!Snape is actually kind of an asshole, and not in the fun way. (Way more than I remembered.) But but but Alan Rickman!Snape I like a lot.

And no I'm not mentioning Snape from TCC. That was not Snape and that world was not Harry Potter.

Snape is an interesting character because of how flawed and layered he is.

(Putting a cut because it's so long, and tw for non-detailed mentions/reference to abuse, as well as both trauma and death.)

He wasn't born in a very good household, which I can definitely see as being a reason for why he is who he is. (A reason, not an excuse. Those are two extremely different things.) You look at Sirius, who also came from a horrible household, yet he managed to dig himself out of the mud and make his own path for himself. (Though I have many angsty headcanons for the thoughts he has and being afraid of what he will do and in turn his own mind. WolfStar solidarity. Neither one of them know what they are truly capable of, and both are completely afraid to find out.

Ahem sorry I got a little distracted there.

During the Marauder's era, Snape wasn't a good person in general, but he tried to be nice to Lily. (One of the only exceptions he made.) That being said, (sorry, going on a tangent again), it does not excuse what the Marauders did. As much as they are, in my humble opinion, JK's greatest creation, they should be held accountable for both the prank, and dangling Snape upside down. (Though Remus does make a few good points in their defense later, it's still not an excuse.) Two wrongs never make a right.

Snape doesn't deny Lily's claims at him wanting to join a supremacy group, nor does he say he isn't friends with Death Eaters.

It's clear through the flashbacks we're given that Snape is apathetic in the face of innocent people dying, but once again Lily is the exception.

Dumbledore defends Snape by saying it wasn't his fault that Harry's parents are dead. I actually semi-agree with this. On one hand, he was directly at fault, but on the other hand he had no way of knowing. As a severe Loki apologist, I do not blame Loki for Frigga's death. He may have led the dark elves to her, but he didn't know it was her she was sending them to. That's the comparison I make in my mind, and so I don't completely blame him like other people do. (One could also make the argument that Sirius is to blame. Sirius, who is 100% my favorite character in the entire franchise, gave the secret keeper job to Peter, thinking it would be safer with him. However, he had no ill will or malicious intentions towards Lily, James, and Harry, so I don't blame him.)

All that being said, Snape not only would have been fine with random people dying, he also didn't care whether or not James and Harry lived.

For context:

(Dumbledore is speaking, right after Snape comes to him for help.)

"You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child?" They can die, as long as you have what you want?"

Snape said nothing, but merely looked up at Dumbledore.

He has a strange relationship with Lily. He obviously loves her, but not enough to want to stop Voldemort from killing the two things that bring her the most amount of happiness. It's clear he doesn't care about anyone except for Lily. Which on some level, I can understand why. When people have traumatic childhoods, they tend to hold on to a person that was there for them. Sometimes it can be the hands of the person who caused them pain in the first place, but other times it is another person who was there for him. He holds Lily's opinions of himself higher than anybody else, and he holds Lily above anybody else, and I think this can be attributed to some sort of trauma response, which is why his love for her is so unusual. That doesn't mean I think he should be fine with killing innocent people.

On the topic of trauma, I think joining the Death Eaters was another response to this, as well as a result of what kind of family he had.

Similar to both Harry and Voldemort, Snape much preferred Hogwarts to where he lived, and such the castle became his home more than his house ever was.

The Death Eaters could offer him something he had never been offered before. He belonged to something. In his own, twisted, traumatic mindset, he might have even almost seen the Death Eaters as a family. Not consciously of course, but there was definitely a feeling of belonging they gave him.

And there's something to be said about the fact that many serial killers in real life come from an abusive family. I don't pretend to understand the minds of someone who can do something so vile, but I have watched enough Criminal Minds episodes to know what they long for is control.

So being apart of this supremacy group, even though he was a half-blood himself and undoubtedly didn't entirely share Voldermort's racist beliefs, gave him both control and something he belonged to.

It's not an excuse, but it's a reason.

Alternatively, you can look at it through a quote from the most recent episode of Loki.

"It's part of the illusion. It's a cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear."

So it's also possible that when he was a kid, he thought being a villain was the only way to prevent others from being one to him.

Ok sorry, back on the chronological track.

So he agrees to change sides and work with Dumbledore. (Who must see just how distraught Snape was over Lily's death, to trust him immediately.)

Snape spends most of Harry's time at Hogwarts humiliating his own students. He particularly calls out Harry and his friends a lot, but I can definitely see this being a defence mechanism. He assumes Harry is James and reverts back to what we talked about earlier. (Becoming the villain so nobody else has a chance.)

But but but, he does a lot of good throughout the books. Snape mutters the countercurse, saving Harry from Quirrell during the Quidditch match. He then actually referees at the next match, preventing anything from happening altogether.

In retrospective, we see that he spends most of the first book helping Dumbledore by protecting the stone, and helping Lily by protecting Harry.

Now I could go through and list the goods and the bads of Snape throughout the entire series, but I have neither the time nor the patience, and I think you get the point.

(Except I would like the mention that Snape becomes a double agent for Dumbledore in book four, and risks his life every single day by constantly betraying Voldermort, and never once does he use this as a way to double cross Dumbledore. This was actually probably really hard on him. You can assume that having to pretend to be a Death Eater means he had to do some despicable things just so he didn't blow his cover. If he really has changed by this time, which I would like to think he has, is a lot of added guilt to live with.)

(I would also mention that he tried to save Sirius in book five, but... *falls on floor dramatically* I don't want to think about it.)

Severus Snape's time comes to the end in book seven. At the hands of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, his death is a valiant act of sacrifice. Protecting the living and defending the honour of the fallen.

So, he has done a lot of bad in his lifetime, but by the time we as readers get to know him, his fundamental set of beliefs have begun to change. Through the eyes of what started as an eleven year old boy, you can definitely see that even after this he wasn't necessarily a good person.

And that's because his good is behind the scenes. He's good on a larger scale. He's chosen the light over darkness, but in his everyday life he's still the scared, traumatized little kid he's always been.

And him being this way has reasons, but these reasons are not excuses.

Sorry anon, this kind of turned into a long winded review of the entire character. I know that's not really what you asked, so I'll sum it up in a final few sentences sentence.

Yes. I wish Snape had gotten to live. Not because I'm necessarily a "Snape apologist", but because I find his character interesting, and seeing his reaction to his sacrifice could have been a really good read. Also Harry coming up and thanking him would have been really touching, and as a cherry on top maybe we could have gotten to read Harry apologizing for his father. Maybe even Snape sharing memories of Lily?! (Sorry that might have gotten a little to fanfic-y.)

That being said, his death being a final sacrifice towards the good of everyone, and a final testimony to his change of heart, was -- and I'll give JK credit just this once -- good storytelling, and a good way to end it.

Also I like movie!Snape because fuck yeah he's just so awesome.

If anyone has anything to add/take away, or they just want to discuss the wonder that was Alan Rickman, let me know! (Ask/Comment/Reblog/Etc.)

[side-effect-of-the-meds]

I know it’s not what you usually write, but could you do hc’s for Nicky / Aaron / Neil learning the actual timeline for Andrew and Roland’s “relationship” and then completely cutting Roland out of their lives? Bonus points if Neil like, kills or calls up Ichirou to kill him :) thanks :) I need closure :)

Don’t we all, babe? Here’s a lil something for your trouble

“How old were you when you lost your virginity,” Andrew read off the block. All the Upperclassmen, save Renee leaned forward in anticipation. Amidst the flood of articles published upon Andrew’s admittance to Easthaven, the media had muddled much of the story in regards to the entire Pre-Thanksgiving Fiasco. While Neil had taken the time to clear things up with the Upperclassmen, he’d left out a lot of the details, namely Andrew’s history of trauma. 

“It’s none of y’alls fucking buisness-” Aaron started. 

“Seven.” It was as though someone had sucked all the air out of the room. “He was dating my foster mother. She knew what he was doing. So long as she got her check, she didn’t care.”

Folding his hands in his lap in an attempt to sate his urge to reach out, Neil let his eyes go out of focus. Every single fiber of his being ached to touch Andrew. For eight months, Andrew had stood by his side, quelling his every urge to run despite the looming threat of his father. Even after Nathan’s death, Neil had bolted awake in the middle of nights, iching to cut and run. Every single time, Andrew had hooked a hand behind his neck, drawn him close, muttered quiet reassurances until he’d smoothed over all of Neil’s ragged edges. Admitting this could not be easy for Andrew. Why he’d even done it, Neil didn’t know but he wished that he could offer Andrew with at least a fraction of the support he’d provided him in the last year. By nothing short of a miracle, he was granted the opportunity to. 

Andrew’s arm dropped from off the couch back, settling across Neil’s shoulders. Immediately, Neil felt himself relax. 

“How old were you when you chose to have sex for the first time?” Nicky asked, hesitantly. That wasn’t a distinction anyone should ever have to draw and it cut Neil deeper than any of his father’s knives. 

“Seventeen,” Andrew answered. The Foxes collectively exhaled. In South Carolina, the age of consent was sixteen. It probably wasn’t a good call to grant hormonally charged teens the legal ability to consent to sex but what were they going to do? Have sex with an adult? 

“Who was it?” Nicky asked. Aaron groaned, clapping his hands over his ears. 

“Roland,” Andrew admitted. The second the name left his lips, Nicky’s smile faltered. Aaron’s hands dropped away, his brows knitting together as they always did when he was sorting through something. 

“No way,” Nicky laughed but it was false cheer. Concern welled in Neil’s chest. “Andrew, when you were seventeen, Roland was…”

“Twenty-three,” Aaron said. His voice was empty, devoid of all the fury painting his features. “He was twenty-three years old and you were a child.”

“I’m more than capable of making my own-” Andrew started.

“No you fucking weren’t!” Aaron roared. “He was your boss. Not only was he older than you, he was in a place of power.” Once more, a pregnant silence fell over the Foxes. None of the Upperclassmen nor Kevin deigned to intervene. 

“Aaron-” Andrew began.

“No,” he snapped. “I don’t- I can’t,” Aaron said as he rocketed out of his seat. Storming through, he knocked into the table and sent the jenga tower toppling. 

“How about we call it a night?” Matt asked. He didn’t wait for an answer before he began clearing away the blocks. Renee moved next, clearing up the glasses and coaxing Dan and Allison to help her with the dishes. Nicky stood, his movements mechanical as he made his way from the room. Kevin followed him out in silence. It wasn’t until everyone had left the room that Andrew moved. Unfurling from where he’d curled up on the couch, he drew his arm back from around Neil and stood. 

“Andrew,” Neil called quietly. There was something poisonous in the gaze he turned on Neil but it did nothing to deter him. “He wasn’t just older or your boss. He didn’t respect you.” Andrew’s lips curled in a snarl. “You had to handcuff him just to keep his hands off you.” Neil’s voice broke near the end but he didn’t care. It seemed to break something in Andrew too.His apathetic facade fell back into place but there were cracks in it now. From the slump of his shoulders to the muscle ticking in his jaw, Neil could see how their words had affected him. Andrew didn’t believe in regret for it was the result of shame and guilt. Surely, he felt neither of those things now. There was no shame in sating his desires. All teens had them. There was no guilt in it either. He wasn’t the one that had done anything wrong. 

Fishing his cigarettes out of his pocket, Andrew slipped one out of the carton and lit it up. He headed out the door with Neil at his heels. They parted ways at the door to their room, Andrew headed for the stairwell in search of some time to clear his head and Neil headed for their bed to give him the space he undoubtedly needed. 

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“How was y’alls weekend?” Bee asked, chipper as ever. “I heard you forwent the usual Columbia outing in favor of going to one of Dan’s game night.” Aaron’s heart stumbled. A wave of anger washed over him, thinly veiling the anguish beneath. Seven. Andrew had been hurting since he was seven. Not only that, but he’d allowed the unthinkable.

“How can you stand him?” Aaron asked, his body trembled as he struggled to contain his anger. 

“How can you stand her?” Andrew countered. As always, he looked entirely uninterested in the proceedings. He was slumped down in his chair, absently stirring his hot chocolate. 

“Tilda didn’t rape me.” Bee sat a little straighter. Immediately, her gaze flicked towards Andrew. Aaron watched as Andrew set his cup back onto the desk. 

“I trust Neil.” 

“Like you trusted Roland?” Aaron’s voice came out sounding cold, empty, and nothing like himself. Fury lit up Andrew’s face. “He was twenty-three, Andrew. An adult! You were seventeen. What the fuck were you thinking?” A heavy silence settled over them. Bee always gave the boys a few minutes to cool down or pick up the conversation without her own intervention. Just as she opened her mouth, Andrew spoke.

“It was the first time I’d felt in control of things,” he said finally. “Everyone was always taking what they wanted from me. My… arrangement with Roland was purely transactional. I got him off and I got to feel like I was in control.” Andrew picked his mug back up from the desk. Aaron watched as he drained it in one go. “In retrospect, I see that I wasn’t. My sense of control was an illusion that Roland allowed me to maintain so that he could get what he wanted.” 

“That’s a very interesting insight, Andrew,” Bee remarked. She made several notes on her clipboard as Aaron digested his brother’s words. That was all they had time for. The two of them allowed Bee to walk them to the door of the clinic and drove back to the court in silence. 

Despite it being the middle of practice, Nicky was standing in the parking lot. 

“Hey,” he said, plastering a smile to his face at the twins’ approach. 

“What are you doing?” Aaron asked. He watched as a shiver ran down his cousin’s spine at the chilly tone. 

“I left the flash drive with all my old photos of Erik at the house a while ago. I’ve gotta go grab it so I can make him a video for our 7th anniversary! Kevin’s letting me borrow his car too. How was Bee?” Neither of the twins answered. “Alright, good talk!” Nicky called after them.

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

Good talk indeed. It seemed that neither of the twins suspected a thing. Cutting the engine on, Nicky peeled out of the lot. A month after Riko’s death, the Ravens had sent his old car to Kevin. They’d said that, as his brother and closest family member, Kevin should be the one to inherit all his belongings. Of course, their intentions weren’t as pure as the media portrayed them to be. Every single one of Riko’s belongings served as a reminder of Kevin’s time in the Nest. 

The Foxes had held a bonfire on the beach in which they’d burnt all of it. Neil had attended as well. From what Nicky had managed to wring from him, his mother had died on a beach and Neil had been forced to burn her body. 

“It won’t be easy,” Neil had admitted, “but I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” The smile that had stretched across his had been so undeniably fox-like that Nicky had done a double take. 

It was nice seeing Neil smile. It was even nicer to see the way Andrew relaxed around him. The two of them had been forged in the hellfires of their upbringings into the most wicked blades in the Fox arsenal. But that didn’t mean they were invincible. Even the sharpest of knives could be scratched and chipped and, eventually, broken. 

Ever since Andrew first arrived in Columbia, Nicky had sworn he’d protect his cousins to the best of his abilities. He’d never once managed it. In fact, more often than not, Andrew was the one protecting him. It was time he paid him back for it. 

Nicky pulled into the parking lot of the ramshackle apartments at the edge of Columbia in record time. Atop his car, lounged a familiar figure. 

“Nicky?” Roland called as he sat up. His eyes were red and he reeked of weed. “What are you doing all the way out here without Andrew?” Nicky could feel his blood boiling beneath his skin. 

“When did you start sleeping with him?” Nicky asked, struggling to keep his voice steady. Roland’s brows knitted together as he thought.

“Started maybe… four years ago? It ended as soon as your little runner joined the line, though. Shame,” Roland said, sliding off the trunk of his car, “Andrew was the best I’d ever had.” 

“Do you know how old he was?” Nicky demanded. There was no hiding the way it trembled now. 

“He was seventeen.” The answer was immediate and it knocked the air out of Nicky’s lungs. “He was legal,” Roland said with a shrug. The old one two, he heard Matt say in his head. It suddenly struck Nicky that Roland was older than he was. 

“He was a child,” Nicky roared. “My child!” Before he even realized, Nicky had closed the space between them. His hand came up, curled in a fist. The jarring pain of his own knuckles connecting with the side of Roland’s jaw knocked him back into his body. 

“What the fuck, Nicky-” Roland started but, as he looked up from where he’d fallen, terror washed over his face. 

“Don’t you ever speak to me or my boys again,” Nicky snarled. The drive back passed in a blur. Making his way up the stairs mechanically, Nicky headed back to his own room. When he opened the door, he found Andrew settled on the couch with Neil in his lap and a controller in his hands. Aaron was stretched out on the other couch, watching the screen. 

“Can’t wait to lose a fourth time, can you, Minyard?” Matt taunted. 

“Fuck off, Boyd,” Andrew snapped. Aaron laughed, warm and bright, and the sound filled the room. Nicky watched as Andrew’s gaze flicked over to his brother, the ghost of a smile flickering across his mouth. My boys, Nicky thought with a smile. 

“Come on, Nicky,” Matt called. “I need someone who’ll put up a real challenge.” 

“Get ready to have that fine ass of yours handed to you,” Nicky shot back. 

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

“You’ve missed quite a few birthdays,” Neil said, offhandedly. 

“That’s a helluva birthday present, Abram,” the man on the other end of the line remarked. 

“It is,” Neil agreed. The man huffed an exaggerated sigh. 

“Fine. You’ll have Roland’s head by the end of the week.” 

“Thanks, Uncle Stuart,” Neil said. He could feel the cruel smile curling his lips but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He was one of the monsters after all.

[formulatrash]

Lewis just got his 7th title. I'm happy for him.

Me too. What Lewis has done is so almost incomprehensibly titanic, in any sport, that it feels like something that needs contextualising again and again.

It’s easy, if you remember Lewis in the hybrid era, in Mercedes, since Rosberg left - whatever the recency is that creates the illusion it’s almost straightforward for him to perform at this extraordinary level - to minimise his achievements, even if you don’t intend to. Lewis now is a force of nature so impossible to rival that it wouldn’t really matter if you gave everyone GP3 cars and told them to go, the rest of the field would just be closer together behind him. 

I am, as Tumblr constantly likes to remind me, very old - nearly as old as Lewis himself - so I remember him arriving in the junior formulas and hoping that he’d get to F1. He was goofy and nerdy and awkward and a bit of a gamer - actually way more like Lando than you’d believe, in retrospect but he had this burning, furious defiance that he was going to get there and win. Because that was what he needed, to overcome the barriers and my god, there were a lot of people openly saying what they try to at least code these days, back then.

Lewis when he was young was a Verstappen-esque firecracker of teammate beef. I don’t know that anyone other than maybe Max could have taken on Alonso, at that point, in his junior year - he’d destroy Nelson Piquet Jr, despite all his weight of racing heritage, the next - and it took a level of pretended self-assurance that I don’t think Lewis had, then, at all.

He’d proven himself all the way up, was still proving it. Licking his and McLaren’s wounds, meekly apologising after the end of the spygate scandal he’d had nothing to do with while Fernando pranced off from the smouldering remnants, there were plenty of people who were so pleased to see Lewis humbled. 

He took the championship, instead. Which made a lot of people very angry, despite really it only being Felipe Massa who had a right to be. It was very underrated, in the British press; made more striking because Jenson Button’s win, the following season, really wasn’t and the ludicrous bar that Lewis would have to jump to prove himself was moved again.

Not just good enough for F1. Not just good enough to take on a two-time champion. Not just good enough to become a champion himself in his second season. Lewis was regarded as a sort of curious celebrity most people barely considered an athlete or British, in the press.

He’s never gone a single season without winning a race. Even in dog cars, biding his time for an opportunity. Olden times McLaren was a different, dysfunctional beast to the one Andreas Seidl has somehow steered back to success and especially the Dennis era was run with a pretty iron fist* so it wasn’t necessarily somewhere the drivers had much ability to steer developing the car and you can see how badly that affected them in the KERS and ERS era. 

Comparatively, joining Mercedes, Lewis walked into an opportunity where instead of having to furiously fight for that, he could work on it as a project for the whole team. People really underestimate how hard he works, in terms of factory hours and how it wasn’t always the fastest car. 

The team pitted him and Nico against each other to force the project forwards and that turned into a destructive mess, backfiring on them quite badly. It’s probably the worst call Mercedes have made, in their modern F1 existence, although a cynic would say: it worked.

Yes, they trod a line of near-implosion for years that was only steadied by Nico’s retirement but they became, unquestionably, the best, in the inter-garage arms race. Lewis didn’t necessarily become a better driver in the sense of having more brilliant race craft for it but things like qualifying laps, at which he is now without doubt the GOAT, became so crucial that he learned to take on more and more feedback from engineers without ever forgetting it. 

When they tell them, on the radio, that their teammate is finding more speed through corner X and braking later - and they’ll show them more detailed telemetry - then Lewis can, like any driver, take that on and do it. But he can also make hundreds of micro-adjustments per lap without ever forgetting them or dropping one - again, they all can do it, sometimes, perfectly but he just doesn’t ever not. 

Since 2016 he’s been able to grow as a driver without being in the pressure-cooker of mind games with his teammate and that shows, too. A more outward-looking, globally-focussed Lewis, a Lewis who’s more comfortable sharing elements of himself, treating himself less like an industrial espionage project.

(some irony, for a man who started his career amidst spy gate)

If Lewis was a white boy from a millionaire or billionaire family, his achievements in sporting terms would still be staggering. He’s neither of those things, so they’re placed on a different scale.

It is now, even for the most racist, the most close-minded alleged fan of the sport, impossible to deny that he has the records on paper. They can’t take away the seven titles and 94 wins, no matter how they try to minimise them. The bar that was constantly set higher has been met and exceeded and a driver who, for a lot of years, looked set to be a one-off champion whose brilliance could be more easily swept away as a footnote to diversity, has become the benchmark against whom other achievements can be measured. 

That Lewis did that despite the odds against him? The racists won’t see that and sadly can and do try to deny it but that is a world-changing, sport-transforming moment that’s been a decade-and-a-half in the making, since F1 started looking achievable for him. 

Lewis has nothing left to prove, so all that furious energy he’s used for years to get this will take other outlets - he still, after all, as everyone, has a lot to change. I am so excited to get to work in the sport during this era, to see what kind of transformative effects he’ll have, has already had. The work shouldn’t be on Lewis and mustn’t be on him alone but you do absolutely fucking love to see it getting done.

Anyway, I’m so proud of him. I’m so astounded by the skill and focus - the relentless pursuit that’s driven him all this time and that isn’t diminished at all by having got here. I truly believe Lewis is gonna carry on awhile yet and it’s fucking exciting just to think about what we’re going to witness this short-ass nerd kid who looked kind of sulky and defensive in press conferences for years do.

(and, of course, the first driver accused of being a social media poseur who didn’t pay enough attention to the sport. Plus ca change...)

*This is a really petty example but you had to wear a tie if you went to MTC, as a visiting journalist, in the beforetime. 

[rotten-games]

In honor of TDOV can you give us insight to the trans ROs experiences with being trans?

I’m late for this because it was a work day yesterday but I’ll answer it anyway because time is an illusion.

Warning for discussion of gender dysphoria

Lokeira: Lokeira didn’t actually realise he was trans until after he left home (at, maybe 19). It wasn’t that he was stifled--though that could very well have been the case in many respects--there were one or two other trans people that he grew up with, however, he never really identified with their experiences perhaps because from the day he was born he was told he had to be a very specific way just due to circumstances wildly outside of his control (This is not agab-related, but poetic cinema and all that). Due to this, he never really had the time or space to really acknowledge that he felt different than what everyone told him he was, or even explore that difference. All he ever really knew regarding who he was in himself was that there was a very deep discomfort that seemed to follow him wherever he went; it wasn’t with any specific parts of him, it was all of him to the extent that he had trouble determining sometimes if who he looked at in the mirror was really him.

Then he left home, cut contact with his family and siblings, and all the people who said he had to be a certain way. He was happier for it, all things considered, but that discomfort still lingered whenever he gave himself even a moment to think too hard about it. Honestly the ‘oh’ moment for Lokeira was a case of someone ‘mistaking’ him for a man and realising he liked it. Obviously it took some serious self-reflection to come to the conclusion that maybe he was a man after all, but eventually he accepted it and basically used all the coin he’d saved up from his job to fund his transition.

That being said, he has no plans of doing anything past hormones and top surgery. The dysphoria was mostly in regards to how people saw him and, well, his chest. To some extent, that discomfort still lingers in some ways; the scars on his chest are a reminder of just why he had to do it, and his voice is constantly cracking like the bastard it is, but knowing himself like he does relieves a lot of the pressure he felt growing up, even if it’s only one aspect of his life.

Ettia: For a very long time, centuries, in fact, Ettia was very unhappy. She had known she was trans for a long time, a very long time before she did anything to go through with a transition. Of course, for a God, that would have been as easy as simply shifting her appearance to better reflect her identity, Wykk would have helped her with all the intricacies if she’d only asked, but one thing stopped her for a long time.

The people.

Oh, Golding had gone through the process of ensuring the holy scriptures and everyone within the faith knew he was a man, but Ettia--or Arior--wasn’t certain she was so strong. She loved her people, she loved the mortals more than her sibling Gods could ever fathom, and some suspect she loved them more than her own brother, but being her true self was something that scared her endlessly. There would be pushback. She knew that just as well as Golding did, but she knew, eventually, she wouldn’t be able to hide herself away.

So, after some very sharp words with Adeliah, she appeared to a few select, incredibly important mortals to set the record straight. It took years for the religion to completely acknowledge her as a woman, but bit by bit her old name was replaced and forgotten by time, and Arior was born anew. Or so the scriptures say.

Korrin: Korrin’s experiences may have been a bit different; they realised they were non-binary during the process of Mikah’s own transition. It wasn’t a huge, life-shattering realisation--in retrospect it made sense--and they didn’t even really talk about it for some time since they were, and are, comfortable with all manner of pronouns, however, it soon became clear that wasn’t going to be something they could maintain. They told Mikah first, and with their permission he told everyone else.

Korrin loves who they are--at least in regards to the transness of themself. They love being trans and they love being non-binary, and don’t see a reason to stifle it to make other (cis) people comfortable. They wear what they want to better reflect who they are and they don’t particularly care if it clashes or makes them look a certain way. They know who they are and they’re the type who won’t let anyone change that for anything, though people have certainly tried.

Spotter: Spotter was one of those people who knew they were some description of trans since they were incredibly young. Of course, they didn’t always have the words for it, nor did they always know they were non-binary. They always had horrible dysphoria that tended to come and go; some days they’d barely be able to get out of bed, while others they were all but distant worries, which often confused them and made them question whether they were truly ‘trans enough’.

Truthfully, Spotter fluctuated between she/her and he/him pronouns for quite a few years, at first thinking they must have been binary trans until they realised maybe they didn’t have to be either. This realisation didn’t come up on its own, some kid in the gang they were in questioned who they were and, really, all Spotter could say was, “I don’t know. Neither, I guess.” It was partially a joke at the time. Until it wasn’t.

Spotter has always sort of wanted to go on hormones, though any other procedure after that is still uncertain for them. It’s not due to a lack of want, but more due to a lack of funds and uncertainty about whether or not that will actually change anything about the way they see themself.

[hoyaanae]

The beautiful dialogue of Lovely Us

Ep 01

"Once people become parents, their memory begins to become biased. They always remember they are their children's most reliable parents, but often forget that they are also children loved by their own parents. When they are waiting for their children to come back home, they forget that their own parents are also waiting for their return in a similar mood."

"When I'm absent from the concert, my idol won't know or feel sad. But when I don't go back to accompany my mom to celebrate her birthday, she'll know it. I don't want to make her sad."

Ep 02

"A lot of things are good at hide and seek - the old scarf I bought last year, the new eraser, Mom's favorite sewing needle, and a feeling of heartbeat for someone. We try to find them, but in vain. Then when we give it up, they just appear somewhere unexpected - on the back of the chair, in the book, in the cotton thread, and behind my back.

Human heart beats 60 to 100 times per minute on average. That day, I failed to count my heartbeat per minute. Even the water droplets falling from the umbrella were disrupted together with me. The joy, the thrill and the butterfly in the stomach converged into the restless heartbeats. On this raining day, a girl's heart beat 101 times in a minute."

Ep 03

"Huang Chengzi, why is the starry sky beautiful? Do you think it is because of the brightest star? Of course, everyone might say "Look, the Venus" while pointing at the brightest one. However, for those stars shining together and forming the Big Dipper and Orion, don't they look beautiful? They cannot be described as a foil. Anyway, I think some stars that keep shining might be more beautiful than the brightest one however dark they are."

Ep 07

"The audio frequency of the sound when a snowflake falls on the water surface is over 50,000 Hz. Because it falls beyond human beings' hearing range, this snowy day is still so quiet that it seems I can only hear my own heartbeat and that it seems there is only me and the person in front of me on this planet with a population of 6.6 billion. I hope this world can be noiser so that I can pretend that I've never discovered this secret."

"Do you have such a feeling? People around you always tell you that you are already standing on the top of the mountain, but when clouds and mist scatter, you find there is another higher peak waiting for you. After going out, I've found there are so many people who work harder and are more excellent than me. It's just like in an originally easy marathon race, I suddenly find all the people around are sprinting. So, I must run faster. Otherwise, others will surpass me. I'm a little bit out of breath."

"At the age of 17, we all have our own secrets. We are trying to hide those secrets, but they are still going to be discovered. We are unwilling to admit those secrets, but the more we conceal them, the more conspicuous they become. We are very clear about those secrets, but eventually, we are still willing to turn them into memories. And these secrets that cannot be told, are found so similar to each other after a long time. It turns out they are all about unexpected feelings for someone."

Ep 08

"I've always been content with what I have and I'm in need of nothing. I can remember what I read and I'm surrounded by nice people. My life has always been smooth and I thought the life that had been planned was not bad for me. Just like a sailing ship, with enough food, I didn't look forward to rains and storms. I just wanted to follow the prescribed route and go back fo the safe zone of the harbor in the end. That was my perfect ending. But from the very beginning, you've been determined to brave the storm and to see the bigger world. Wind and rain can't knock you down and the waves can't overturn you. You've shown me a life course that's completely different from mine. So, since her dream is to explore this world, I just can't let her go through it alone. Zhu Jinxiao, I like you."

"At the age of 17, the first habit developed by boys is to hide their affections. They think that the probability is just 0.01, so they put on the emperor's new clothes, trying to hide their affections with magic. But affections are not that easy to hide. Even if the probability is pretty low, it will be revealed at a certain moment. So on that rainy night, while looking at her back, he found that the most obvious evidence of falling in love with her was the feeling of easement in his heart and the smile on his face when he looked at her."

Ep 09

"In the past, we always felt a year with 365 days was exceedingly long, but only when it comes to this moment do we understand that we become one year older all of a sudden. The significance of spending the Spring Festival, extending from ancient times to the present, is shining brightly like fireworks, giving us the courage to heal each other many times. And then we can have a new start. It doesn't matter that you can't eat steaming hot dishes. It doesn't matter that you perhaps don't know the secret hidden in the couplet. It doesn't matter that you listen to your grandma's nagging sometimes. Even if it takes too long on the way back, as long as there are people we care about, we won't be lonely. We will return to the home we are familiar with."

Ep 10

"Actually we never forget the happy hours with our parents in childhood. Maybe the so-called alienation is because we walk so fast while our parents are staying where they are. One meter, a hundred meters, a kilometer. The distance becomes farther and farther until we can't hear them calling us. That's why we mistakenly think love is silent. So while we are confused, our parents feel the same too. They are confused about how they can give us their deep love in a smart manner."

"Those who love hiding their feelings most in this world are fathers. They hide their inarticulate concerns in warm lights. In every precious certificate of merit, they put their unmentionable encouragement. Besides, there are many silent surprises they carefully arrange in every day when we are marching to the future. They firmly care about us with such silent fathers' love, and we firmly love them."

Ep 11

"We think that many things and many people in this world can wait til tomorrow. So when you pause it or when you turn around, you think that everything will still be the same tomorrow, or you won't even realize this hope in your mind, because you think tomorrow should be the same as today. And you think nothing will change as time flies by. But this time, the moment you let go and turned around, some things completely changed. The sun went down and before it rises again, some people will leave you forever. We always thought that there would be a big ceremony to say goodbye, so we keep waiting for a warm hug, a refreshing drink, and a heartfelt goodbye. But in the end, we realized that most goodbyes in our lives are all silent."

Ep 12

"At that silent corner in my mind, there are a number of weird illusions. For example, can I become Alice who enters the wonderland with White Rabbit? For example, can I become the little girl who enters the forest with Totoro? For example, is there some special switch in this box which can teleport me? No, none of them exist. There's no flying dragons or knights, and I'm not the heroine of some comics for girls, either. However, the only thing I'm sure about is that this escape greatly shocks my world. My palms would sweat, and my sight would be indistinct. Then my view becomes narrower and narrower until there's room for only one person in my eyes. After a long time, I know such a moment is named adventure, in which the one in your eyes is irreplaceable."

Ep 13

"In the summer of 2008, in retrospect, the most impressive thing may not be the world-famous Olympic Games, but the silly things we did because we were fearless. What is shining and unexpected is everything that is closely related to friendship. We wanted to pick the brightest stars and make the most beautiful wishes, so we became the bravest boys and girls. While crying and laughing, with the bond between each other, toward the most beautiful end of youth, we keep running all the way and never stop."

"The familiar chirping of cicadas on summer nights, the familiar bear doll who must lean by the lamb, the familiar lovely girl who frowns even when she sleeps, and the 17-year-old time wrapped by the sense of familiarity never seem to have changed. The only difference is that when I look at the familiar him, I feel a flurry and uneasiness that I have never expected."

Ep 14

"That night, it was the first time I found there's magic hidden in my mom's smile. Those feelings between adults and children which I thought are hard to express in words don't have to be spoken out. They can be understood through her smile. Indeed, adults don't often say I love you, and seldom say sorry. But it doesn't matter. Action speaks louder than explanation. There's no need to express deep feelings in words. If you stand there quietly, you can automatically receive all their love for you."

"There are many new days like today. Today, he holds my hand. Today, he holds me in his arms. Today, he carries me on his back and runs in the street in the early morning. Many days with him like today will eventually become my unforgettable past days. I'll remember days like today for a long time."

Ep 15

"In the last hundred days, I heard countless times "Hurry up to walk! Hurry up to eat! Hurry up to take the notes! And hurry up to go to the toilet." But it's strange. When you try to seize time by the forelock, it goes faster. Then after the exams, we graduated."

"I just want to be an ordinary person. I'll live on a small fruit stand in the future or continue your small shop, which makes me happy. This is life. It's my own choice and I will bear the results. Different people have different dreams. Let those extraordinary people be extraordinary. I just want to be a happy and ordinary person."

"Friendship means so much to us. It brings us close, and makes me flinch, so sometimes we just tell ourselves that as long as we're together, I can be just a friend of hers. But the taxi that I failed to catch, the phone calls that have been hung up, the time that's flying and my restless heart are telling me eagerly that in this world, both love and friendship are important. Every detail related to you is reminding me that we can't be just friends. So when it's still not too late, I have to tell you the things that I want to tell you as soon as possible. Huang Chengzi, I like you."

Ep 16

"In this world, it seems like all wishes have a guardian. Wishing wells, shooting stars, the aquarium's white whale. They're all hiding in the corners of the universe caressing the sorrow of loving someone alone. It's just that the god of happiness can't bless everyone out there. They let some people be happy and their wishes come true, and let some be sad, but they can't admit how sad they really are. The feeling of being in love is like a butterfly gently flapping its wings, that stirs up a hurricane in people's hearts. The second you realize it, then there's no escape."

"That's you when you're happy. And that's you when you're mad. Over there is the jealous you, and you when you're being naughty and pretending to cry. I was just going to draw one to start with, but every expression you have is floating around in my head, and I really love every single one of them."

"I've never been afraid of growing up. And I've never worried that growing up would be lonely. Not because I'm so strong, but because I have faith that I will never be alone. The guy who held my hand will continue to grow up closely together with me. The guy who's in my diary and I in his, will exchange even more secrets in the future. All of us have walked together through the years and will continue to walk together farther into the future. This world never lets lovely people down, and we are all lovely."

[2manyfandoms2count]

You can count on me (I will be there for you)

Is this plot I see appearing this week? 👀 There’s a hint of a plan, at least... And the return of “Marichat”

Hope you enjoy!

Part 1 | Part 2 | AO3

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Chapter 3

There’s a definite pause after her question, during which Adrien leans in, as if he expects her to elaborate. His expression is indecipherable, although it seems like there’s something akin to glee in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Adrien, I really would love to share this information with you.” She bites her lower lip and clutches the skirt of her dress. “But… you’re already doing so much for me, I don’t want to put you in any more danger than you might already be in, now that you’re married to me. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

Her words seem to jolt him. His hand flies to hers and stops it from wrinkling her dress.

“Oh. Right, of course. It’s okay, I understand.” He smiles gently and gets up, brushing invisible dust from his trousers. “I’ll find him, don’t worry.”

He holds out a hand and Marinette looks at it in confusion.

“I’d feel better if you waited for him inside, with people around. I’ll tell Chat Noir to knock on the window.”

“You’re right, that would make more sense.” She appreciates the fact that he’s so level-headed. He would be, not having been hit with what she knows. It’s good, she supposes. It compensates for her own muddled mind.

Adrien helps her up, and together they head back inside.

He insists on getting her a drink (apple juice - he says it would keep her hydrated, and provide some well-needed sugar, had she even eaten anything since breakfast?) before heading off, and Marinette is grateful she has something in her hands as she wraps her head around the new information.

Firstly, Gabriel Agreste had been carrying a butterfly envelope in his pocket. Which means that he is very probably involved in the letters she has been receiving.

Secondly, Nathalie was all too quick to dispose of it when it fell out. Meaning that she must have known what it contains, too. Which means they must both be behind the letters.

What have I married into? Marinette thinks, swirling her drink absentmindedly. Did we really send me straight into the lion’s den?  

She’s about to wonder whether Adrien knows about it all when there’s a knock on the window behind her. She unties the heavy curtains from their decorative knobs to allow them to fall in front of the panes and conceal the balcony. The press is here, she wouldn’t want to spring a scandal on Adrien by having herself seen with another man barely an hour after the ceremony.

“You know, Bug, this is technically the second balcony meeting we’ve had today, and despite the whole staged aspect of this wedding, I’d think that would be a little much if we were in a play.” Her partner smirks as she closes the window behind her.

“Good thing we’re not, then.” Her reply comes out a little more bitter than she’d anticipated.

Chat Noir tilts his head inquisitively at her tone, but doesn’t comment on it. “I have to say, I didn’t think you’d need my assistance so soon. Is there trouble in Paradise, already?”

“Apparently the mystery butterfly letter person is here today.” She cuts to the chase as she starts pacing. “And I think they’re actually two people.”

Chat Noir tenses. “Why didn’t you tell Adrien? He wouldn’t have left you all alone while he came to get me.”

“First of all, I wasn’t ‘all alone’,” she air-quotes, “I was inside. Second of all, you know very well I can’t tell him exactly what’s going on.” She sighs. “Especially not now, when I suspect the people who are after me are his father and Nathalie.”

“What?” Chat Noir’s legs buckle under him and he props down on the bannister, all colour draining from his face.

So it really is bad luck to see your bride before the wedding, he thinks bitterly as he tries to steady his breathing.

“Chaton, are you alright?” Marinette rushes to his side and takes his hands in hers.

“Yeah, don’t worry.” He smiles up at her weakly. “I haven’t had much to eat, and, well… That’s quite the suspicion.”

“I know.” Much to his disappointment, she lets go of his hands to hide her face in hers. “Which is why I really can’t tell Adrien about it until I’ve gotten more information. It would crush him.”

“That’s very considerate of you.” There’s a certain dryness in his voice, which Marinette interprets as judgement for not sharing what she knows with her new husband.

In fact, Chat Noir is thinking that he actually wouldn’t be that surprised if his father was involved in something fishy; he’s miffed that it targeted Ladybug, but it did enable him to marry her in the end, so… Oh father, why must you always make things so complicated?

“We can’t just go dumping stuff like that on him! Hey, remember how I married you for security? Well turns out the threat was your dad and his assistant all along!” Marinette interrupts his thoughts, gesturing sarcastically.

“Yes, I see how that would be problematic.” He replies calmly. His mind races as he tries to grasp at any retrospective sign of his father’s activities, but it keeps drawing blanks. “Are you absolutely sure of what you’re claiming? Not that I don’t trust you or your instincts, just, you know…” He adds quickly when he sees her slightly offended frown.

“Well, he had the exact same envelope as the ones I’ve been receiving in his coat pocket.” She starts counting on her fingers.

“A white one?” Chat Noir probes, frowning as he recalls the envelope his father had given Marinette earlier. That can’t be it, he thinks, they’re too common. And why would he give the envelope directly to his target? Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of blackmail?

“No, the purple butterflies one.” Marinette ploughs on, oblivious to Chat Noir’s apparent excellent knowledge of the scene that had unfolded earlier. She’d kept him in the dark when it came to the details of her correspondence, thinking they would be able to look at it later, but the plan, and then the wedding preparations, had taken over all of their time. “It could be a coincidence, but, really, he and Nathalie seemed quite spooked that I’d seen it.”

“Yeah, that was a little suspicious.” Chat Noir strokes his chin pensively. “So, we think my fa- I mean, my fur-iend!” he catches himself before he can say too much, and Marinette rolls her eyes at the pun, “Gabriel Agreste is the one behind the letters. What do we do next?”

“Investigate?” Marinette suggests after a slight pause, that has them both looking at the ground as they think. “I have the Miraculous box with me, we could get Max to open a portal to the Agreste Mansion for us and...”

“Today?” Chat interrupts her.

“I mean… The sooner we take care of it, the sooner I’ll be able to tell Adrien about it, and the better I’ll sleep.” She gets up and leans against the bannister, arms crossed over her chest.

“That makes sense.” Chat says, mirroring her. He would have preferred his wedding day to go differently, but he supposes there is something quite exciting about making progress on the blackmail case with a wedding going on in the background. “I can go and get the box for you. Is it still in your sewing box?” He whispers, taking out his baton and getting ready to vault up to Marinette’s temporary room.

Marinette grabs him by the tail to hold him back.

“What about Adrien, though?”

“What about him?” He is confused. Why would she mention him now?

“Well, wouldn’t we need him to give us directions at the Mansion? To make our search more efficient?”

Shoot, he thinks. She would have a point, if he and Adrien were two different people. “Er…” He trails off, trying to find a good excuse as to why Adrien should definitely not come with them to the Mansion. That would unnecessarily overcomplicate the situation. “Well, it’s best if he doesn’t know about the specifics of where we’re going. Unless you want to tell him all about your suspicions?” He raises his eyebrows.

“You’re right, I’d rather not.” Marinette ponders. “He can’t stay here all alone though. People would probably talk about my absence.”

“Which is where Rena Rouge can step in?” Chat Noir ventures. “She can set up an illusion of you.” And me, by the same occasion - I'll just need to get to her before you can, he adds silently.

“Oh yes, of course! You genius.” She stands on her tiptoes and plants a kiss on his cheek. He blushes in response. “Okay, what it doesn’t solve, though, is us not having directions in the Mansion.”

“Relax, Bugaboo.” She shoots him a stern look. “Hey, I agreed my Lady wasn’t appropriate anymore, but you never said anything about Bugaboo." He raises his hands defensively. "Anyway, fear not, I’m Adrien’s friend in real life, remember? I’ve actually spent quite a bit of time at his place, we snuck around a lot as kids.”

Marinette looks at him a little weirdly. Of all the years she’s known Adrien, he has never mentioned a childhood friend, apart from Chloé.

“Really?”

“Yep.” He says, popping the p sound.

She pouts as she thinks. “So Adrien stays here with Alya, and you play tour guide.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay.” She nods, but she continues before Chat can think the plan will be straightforward. “I’d still like to talk to Adrien and explain that we need to go somewhere, though. And I’d like for you to be there, too. We owe that to him, at least.”

Well, this is becoming tricky. Guess I’ll need Rena sooner than anticipated. “Fair enough. Let me go and get the Miraculous box first, and I’ll grab him on my way back. Meet you back here after the toasts?”

“Oh. The toasts.” Marinette facepalms. Just when things were becoming interesting, the wedding just had to get in the way. There was still a bit of time before the toasts, but clearly not enough to put the whole plan into motion. “Sounds good. See you in a bit, then.”

Chat Noir salutes her and jumps off the balcony. A thought crosses her mind as she watches him vault away and she opens the door to get back to the reception area. Maybe Chat Noir is Félix. He is here today, after all, and was involved in quite a lot of shenanigans with Adrien as children. She supposes he might bear some kind of resemblance to Chat Noir, if you squint. And if you remember that someone can be very different in public and in private. She almost gags at the thought, though, before remembering that she can’t judge the person behind the mask. She loves him no matter who he is.

Please don’t be Félix, though, she prays as she comes back inside the room.