#kinda representing the beginning and end

[alternautxyz]

i remember during the final boss of wandersong i didn't realize you were supposed to control the dream king's attacks to stop audrey so instead i just got kicked by her 20 times and that somehow meant the healthbar didn't even reach half.

when the next cutscene played and she killed him with one hit i was like no you didn't

[jakesimlover444]

𝑑𝘰𝑛‘𝘵 ℎ𝑎𝘵𝑒 𝘵ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑦𝑒𝑟 || 𝑙𝑒𝑒 ℎ𝑒𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑢𝑛𝑔 (𝑝𝘵 1) ౨ৎ

꒰ ꒱ྀི lee heeseung x fem!reader

☆゙ ↳ main masterlist

☆゙ ↳ prev | next

☆゙ ↳ synopsis: you don‘t want me? fine. the two of us can play that game.

the heartthrob of the campus had finally set his eyes on y/n. she was going to be his next victim, to fall for him and assume she can fix him moments before she finds herself ghosted. but y/n knew all too well…too bad she only captures heeseung‘s heart after beating him at his own game. that’s when she learns: don’t hate the player. hate the game.

☆゙ ↳ wc: 6741

☆゙ ↳ genre/warnings: a lil bit smutty, kinda fluff (?) cursing, sexual harassment (not from heeseung), heeseung tries to touch up reader, pining, fuckboy heeseung, y/n is a virgin, a few typos…if i missed anything pls lmk!!

"okay, okay, we‘ve had monica, brittany, and mina this week alone, yeah?" karina snickers, jotting down the names of lee heeseung‘s newest side quests.

the two best friends, karina and y/n, were huddled together in their university classroom (sitting the furthest away from everybody of course), as if they were little high schoolers gossiping about who kissed who.

however, what they were doing wasn’t far from immature, childish gossip. here, they were strategizing who lee heeseung—the school‘s fuckboy—would go for next. it was like a fun little game to the girls, the excitement of seeing how right their guesses could get making them giggle every time.

although it was only the beginning of sophomore year in uni, mr. fboy heeseung had already had his way with nearly half the school, so y/n and karina knew their time would come soon. the only difference between them being karina was open to a night with heeseung. no strings attached, of course. it’s been a month since her messy breakup with her former girlfriend yunjin, and she knew heeseung was the only person who‘d give her a good night with no feelings, guaranteed.

then there was y/n. not to say she’s "not like everyone else," she does find heeseung attractive and well, a little charming—she hates the idea of being with anyone "no strings attached." and heeseung‘s version of adding strings to his puppet was dating them for a week after hooking up before inevitably ghosting them. and unfortunately for y/n, that wasn’t enough.

y/n nods at karina‘s question, holding up three fingers to represent each of heeseung‘s playthings.

"and how about abby? the blonde one with big boobs? classic bimbo," y/n inquiries quietly, "have they gotten together yet?" karina lets out a noise similar to a "pfft" before nodding her head, answering. "a few times, actually. he really likes her.." karina trails off, shaking her head.

"i just…don‘t know who else.." y/n trails off, biting her thumb in thought. "bianca martinez?" karina nods.

"yeji?" karina nods once more.

"damn—minji?" and again, karina nods.

y/n lightly palms her face in disbelief.

"i guess this one will be a surprise, hm?" jokes karina, a playful smile lingering on her lips.

y/n sighs, defeated. "guess so."

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

"remember, guys! tutoring begins 3pm today! if you‘re late then your extra credit points are docked!" spoke mr. glenn as class ended, reminding y/n of her duty she needed to fulfill later on today as a top student. with a groan, she stood up and grabbed her baby pink bag, lightly slinging it over her shoulder.

"oh you‘ll be having fun teaching those dumbasses.." teased karina, tickling y/n‘s side with a grin as the two girls exited class together.

"ugh, i know.." laughed y/n as karina tickled her. "i‘m gonna be stuck here for two whole hours kari.." y/n whined, pouting as she leaned her head on karina‘s shoulder, walking towards their dorm room.

"you‘ll be okay, i‘ll buy you lots of food after, hm?" karina said as she stroked y/n‘s hair, feeling her head nod against her.

a couple hours later, y/n arrived inside mr. glenn‘s dim-lit classroom, ready (but annoyed) to teach a bunch of frat boys and sorority girls who are falling behind.

coming in with a fake smile, y/n shot mr. glenn a small wave as she strutted inside the classroom confidently, sitting down at the table sectioned off to help students with english. pulling out her phone, she laid her head down, scrolling through tiktok to pass time before students came in.

and just as she predicted, a student was already approaching her table for help.

"hey, beautiful.." spoke an almost familiar voice, tone sultry and flirtatious. "wanna help me get this english grade up?"

y/n looked up from her phone to meet eyes with the boy who was seemingly so eager to get his english grade up. but when y/n saw him, her breath slightly hitched and she had to clear her throat to regain her faintly lost composure. because being face to face with lee heeseung was not what she expected.

"um..heeseung.." y/n spoke hesitantly, grabbing her english textbook. swallowing, her elegant hands flipped page through page, trying to find the section they last left on in class.

"do you need help with what we‘ve recently been doing?" y/n asked, trying to ignore that sensual expression heeseung wore on his face.

"sure." heeseung shrugs. "i haven‘t been doing much in class…" he trails off, grabbing the textbook from y/n, his soft, pale hands brushing against hers.

y/n refused to show any reaction to heeseung‘s touch, which he took note of. poor y/n, she has no idea heeseung likes a challenge.

"well i can guide you through the notes we‘ve been taking this week on literary theory and textual interpretation. it sounds pretty difficult but i can guarantee you it’s easy." y/n‘s voice remained fairly monotone and pretty professional, heeseung‘s charm starting to wear off on her. that shyness from a minute ago was no longer present.

y/n grabbed her english notebook from her bag, opening it to a page filled with notes. heeseung scoffs as y/n opens her mouth to speak, interrupting her.

"oh, you‘re cute.." he smirks, laying his hands on her page of notes, tapping up and down with his finger.

"i didn’t want you to actually teach me, my dear." his voice lowers to that of a whisper. "i have a proposal." his lips curl up into a smile in contrast to y/n‘s frown.

"which is..?" y/n questions, her tone a bit irritated. she crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair.

"you do my work…and i‘ll pay you." heeseung speaks confidently.

"how much are we talking?" y/n asks, seemingly annoyed. but that doesn’t break heeseung‘s cocky demeanor.

"oh i‘m not talking about money, love.."

y/n can only roll her eyes at his suggestion, already knowing where this would go.

"i‘ll fuck you for every assignment you do, hm? whatever you want. there‘s nothing i haven‘t done, afterall." he slightly bites his lip, leaning back in his seat, now manspreading.

"and that’s exactly why i won‘t take up that offer…" y/n‘s voice holds a note of offense. "glad to know that’s what you think of me…" y/n rolls her eyes, completely finished putting up with heeseung‘s attitude, starting to pack her stuff up.

"oh, come on, baby. i‘m not saying you‘re a slut—i can tell you‘re a virgin. you‘re so uptight." heeseung gestures his hands towards himself. "i‘m offering you something over half the girls on campus would die for."

"heeseung, you don’t even know my name." y/n retorts, standing up to leave.

"y/n!! leaving so soon?" mr. glenn calls out, noticing y/n ready to leave.

y/n nods, telling mr. glenn she has an emergency at home. but before she walks off, heeseung grabs her wrist gently, but firm enough to turn her around, her eyes locked on his.

with a smirk heeseung says, "now i do, y/n."

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

with a groan, y/n slams shut her dorm room door, back pressed against it as she let out a frustrated sigh.

"damn, they really got you so bad you had to leave early, hm?" karina teases, putting down her phone and sitting up on her purple sheeted bed.

y/n hangs her head down, a vexed smile on her face as she let out a breathy laugh, making a piece of her hair fly slightly forward. she shot karina a knowing look.

"you won‘t fucking believe who the hell i had to tutor for like—five minutes today…"

y/n threw herself down on karina‘s bed, right next to the raven-haired girl.

"who?? oh my god — was it that one guy who practically stalked you last year?" karina lets out an unbelieved laugh.

y/n shakes her head. "no..this guy was somehow almost worse." she scoots ever so slightly closer. "lee fucking heeseung.." y/n snorts as she laughs, covering her giggles with her hands as karina mimics, both of the girls laughing in disbelief.

"no way! i doubt there was much tutoring going on…" karina says behind her hand that slightly muffled her words.

y/n shakes her head. "yeah. for lack of a better word at i least 'tutored' heeseung."

y/n sits up, holding air quotes around the word tutored.

"did he say anything? like…" karina lowers her voice to a whisper as if there were other people around. "does he wanna fuck you?"

y/n‘s eyes widen and she lets out a small gasp, slightly taken aback by the question her brown-eyed best friend asked her. but she quickly fixes herself, answering, "yeah. he offered to dick me down if i did his assignments…" y/n tossed herself back-down on karina‘s soft bed, laying flat as she looked up to the blank, white ceiling, eyeing the spinning fan.

"sooo..? did you take up the offer?" karina asks with the most curious tone, laying down indirectly on top of her best friend in order to pry an answer out.

"nooo.." y/n spoke shyly. "i don’t wanna lose my virginity to an asshole fuckboy." y/n scrunches her nose, disgusted at the idea.

"well if you won’t take him…" karina then slowly pointed to herself, suggesting that she should get a piece of hee.

y/n pushes karina‘s shoulder, causing the pale woman to fall on her back. y/n sits up. "no, karina. you need to get back with yunjin…you guys broke up for a stupid ass reason. she needs to realise you weren‘t flirting with another girl, and move on. with you…"

karina slowly moves her eyes down in the direction of her phone before she picks it up, hand grasping her silver case.

"about that…" karina‘s face shows mischief before showing y/n messages between karina and yunjin.

yunjin: i miss u, rina 🙁🙁 so much.

karina: yunjin, you broke up with me, if you want me back so bad you have me…

yunjin: maybe i do. but what you did wasn’t ok, rina. i hate that stupid bitch heather and you still spoke to her

karina: baby pls…i‘ll do anything to make it up to you, i am so so sorry..

yunjin: then let me come over tonight. then maybe you could show me how sorry you really are.

karina: fine…does around 9 work?

yunjin: yeah. get y/n out of there tho. i wanna be alone.

"oh my god…rina..!" y/n said, a bit shocked. "she misses you! this is good!"

karina curls her lips up a bit. "either that or she wants some pussy tonight."

y/n playfully rolls her eyes. "which you‘ll glady give her, i assume?"

karina hesitantly nods, a smile falling from her lips.

"well, i guess i‘ll be going out tonight.." y/n gets up, going towards her vanity to take her hair out of its pink claw clip, running her cream colour brush through her soft locks.

"maybe you could help out heeseung, hm?" karina goaded y/n.

y/n turned to karina with an unamused look, still brushing her hair. "never. i have better things i could do…" y/n trailed off, her expression softening when she realises that was a total lie. she really put her academics over everything, and outside of karina had a social life of almost zero.

"we both know that’s not true, y/n," spoke karina as if she were reading y/n‘s mind.

karina scoots, now sitting on the edge of her bed. "come on, y/n—you don’t have to fuck him, but you can fuck around with him, right? it‘ll be fun!"

y/n thinks for a moment, considering karina‘s words. "but i‘m not seductive—i wouldn’t know what to do! i can’t flirt.." y/n covers her face slightly, brush still in hand.

karina snickers. "y/n, he‘s already come onto you and gotten a piece of your attitude. if he didn’t want you, would he have approached you? think about it! you don’t have to be some master of seduction to woo heeseung."

y/n removed her hands, knowing deep down karina was right.

"but…i don’t know…how do i do something like that?"

"easy." karina smirks. "remember what i did to that guy dylan?"

y/n nods, intrigued. "lead heeseung on?"

"similar to that. tonight, you head over to his dorm—look cute but not too cute to where he knows you put in that effort for him. tell him that you‘re going to take him up on his offer, come inside and do some work." karina stands up, getting really into describing her plan. "let him tease you; get bold, tease him back…let him touch you, make you feel good, but only! only you get to feel good. as soon as he thinks he‘s getting what he wants…you‘re going to get up and leave, hm? he‘ll be wondering what the hell happened…and he‘ll yearn for you evermore." karina shrugs. "the rest is up to you."

god, y/n wondered why she was suddenly so excited.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

after contacting a mutual friend she and heeseung shared, karina was able to track down where heeseung‘s dorm was, making y/n realise just how real this happening all is.

and so with a five minute walk, y/n had her hair down and pin straight, wearing a matching baby pink, tightly knit matching set, hugging her body just right, her hips swaying so perfectly as she strutted down heeseung‘s hallway in her little ugg slides. with a tiny knock on his door, y/n took little breaths to calm her nerves. *you‘re not going all the way…* she had to remember.

after a small moment, y/n was greeted with heeseung‘s delicate face, a flirtatious smile forming on his lips as his eyes wandered over her.

"so you did want to see me afterall, y/n.." heeseung gazed at y/n‘s beautiful face, she was so stunning even without makeup…just curled lashes and clear lip gloss was all she needed to sparkle.

heeseung leaned against his doorway, his biceps flexed against the frame as he gestured y/n to come in.

without reacting to any of heeseung‘s words, y/n came into heeseung‘s dorm, surprised he was alone and without his friends or a hookup laying in his bed.

she stood near his desk as heeseung strode over to her, sitting at the chair paired with his desk.

"sorry, love…i have no extra chairs." heeseung sighs in mock apology.

"it‘s okay, i‘ll just stand," y/n politely smiles, placing her off-white shoulder bag on his desk, pulling out homework material.

heeseungs tsks, gently placing his hands on y/n‘s hips, gartering her attention.

"or you could always just sit on my lap.." heeseung toyed with the hem of y/n‘s pants, but she quickly smacked his veiny hand away.

"i‘m good." she gave a smug grin when she saw heeseung‘s slightly taken aback expression. he let out a small sigh, clearly growing frustrated.

"you‘re so uptight, you know that?" heeseung leaned back, his tone not angry but teasing.

y/n turned her body to face herseung. "oh yeah?" she placed a hand on her hip with a raised brow.

"yeah. you should relax. don’t you have a vibrator or something? i heard that can help…" he snickers at her shocked reaction.

"i don’t use those things—you‘re so crude!"

"ah..so your hands aren’t doing the job right?"

y/n feels her face heat up, blush creeping onto her cheeks.

"what i do isn’t your business, heeseung."

y/n‘s voice was firm, arms now crossed.

heeseung held up his hands in a surrendering motion, his legs much more visible to show off his manspread.

"you‘re right, you‘re right. i‘m just trying to offer my word of advice to a woman in need.."

y/n rolls her eyes. "i‘m here to teach you, heeseung! keep this up and you won’t get anything." she bends down so she is eye-level with the black haired boy, her eyes meeting his clearly turned on gaze. her voice was brash, and authoritative, her finger pointing at heeseung, her acrylic fingernail poking his solid chest every few words.

heeseung slightly bit his lip once he caught a glimpse down y/n‘s tight little jacket, her cleavage in perfect view. heeseung could only swallow, trying to not make it super obvious where his eyes were locked.

and lucky for him, y/n didn’t seem to notice as she stood back up, towering over heeseung‘s sitting figure.

"sit on my lap and i‘ll be good, hm? i‘ll leave you alone my dear y/n.." heeseung speaks quietly, gently patting his thigh.

y/n hesitates, thinking about karina‘s words—to just tease…make yourself feel good, then leave when he thinks he‘s getting something…

with those words in mind, y/n slowly lowers her round ass onto heeseung‘s thigh, sitting sideways on his lap. his hands immediately gripped y/n‘s waist, slowly caressing her slim sides up and down, fingertips ever so slightly reaching under her little jacket, gliding over her soft, bear skin. she shivered, the foreign feeling of his hands on her ignited something small within her. but she shakes any thoughts of pleasure out from her head, pulling out homework material from her bag, flipping through annotated packets and mindlessly organising them, just trying to distract herself from heeseung‘s hands trailing further up her torso.

"you almost done..?" heeseung asks quietly, his warm breath against y/n as he moved her hair away from her neck, whispering against the soft skin. y/n quivered, letting go of the packets she held. y/n nodded, clearing her throat as she adjusted herself on heeseung‘s lap. she heard a low groan fall from his lips, and she spun her head around with a small gasp, not believing what her ears just heard.

"did you just…?"

"yeah..sorry.." heeseung faintly whispered, sounding like he was holding something back. "that felt nice.." heeseung squeezed y/n‘s sides placidly, like he was giving her a massage.

y/n blinked in response for a moment before she practically scoffed, her assertive facade coming back to her. "fucking horndog…" she whispers, looking heeseung up and down like he was a vermon.

heeseung‘s grip tightened, groping her sides more aggressively in response, sucking in air through his teeth. "yeahhh…just for you, babe." heeseung chuckled breathily to himself.

y/n rolls her eyes, swatting heeseung‘s arm. "and every other girl you make eye contact with. surprised you don’t have an std by now.."

heeseung faintly flinched at y/n‘s little swat, not used to a woman defying him like this. but he didn’t mind. in fact, heeseung likes a chase sometimes.

"it’s called condoms, dude. i don’t go raw on anyone," he lets out that same chuckle from earlier.

"heeseung, i really don’t care," y/n retors, smacking his head with a packet. "now are you going to let me teach you or are you going to touch me all over this whole time?"

heeseung raises a brow, locking eyes with the girl on his lap. "i thought you were doing my assignments for me, babe. remember our deal?"

y/n shakes her head. "i pride myself in my teaching abilities. and i don’t want to fuck you.."

"oh come on, y/n. you‘re almost twenty and you‘re still a virgin…why not lose it?"

"how do you know i‘m a virgin..?" y/n‘s brows furrow in confusion.

"remember earlier in mr. glenn‘s tutoring session? i can just tell. you‘re so fucking uptight."

y/n makes a face similar to disgust. "being an uptight virgin is better than being a chill fucking whore like you."

heeseung only tittered, not offended by y/n‘s remark. "you don’t wanna loosen up?" he pulled y/n closer towards his body.

"not with you…" her voice grows quiet when she feels heeseung‘s arm wrap around her waist, hand snaking down, closer towards her pussy, his fingers trailing the hem of her tight little knit flare leggings that matched her cropped jacket.

her breath hitches as her back is now pressed up against heeseung‘s firm chest, both her legs straddling his left thigh, her ass cheek pressed against his growing erection.

a soft hum leaves y/n‘s lips when heeseung‘s fingers grow braver and dip into y/n‘s pants, middle finger gently pressing down on y/n‘s clit, applying just enough pressure to form a wet patch in y/n‘s panties which didn’t go unnoticed by heeseung, a smirk forming on his lips.

"you sure you don’t want my help?" heeseung snickers, his finger sliding down to feel the warm wetness in y/n‘s panties.

but y/n knew she couldn’t give in. y/n was smarter than to cave in to heeseung‘s smart talk and skilled hands. so she suppressed her moan and reluctantly grabbed heeseung‘s wrist, pulling his hand away from her pussy. she stood up and calmly grabbed her bag and packets, turning to face heeseung, who was visibly confused.

y/n could only smirk satisfactory with heeseung‘s reaction to rejection.

"clearly we aren’t on the same page, heeseung. i‘m leaving now—if you really want my help, get those hormones in check. maybe fuck a girl on your roster before seeing me." y/n politely smiles in contrast to her passive aggressive tone. and saying no more, y/n leaves heeseung‘s dorm, leaving him sitting there, absolutely dumbfounded a girl has actually rejected his advances. he watched y/n‘s figure stride away and leave before he ran his fingers through his hair, chuckling quietly to himself.

that was the first time heeseung didn’t get any action with a girl in his place, and the first time a girl seemed to hold zero attraction to him; and the very first time a girl challenged him, and made him want her more. y/n was more of a chase then heeseung thought. luckily for him he was determined, and a fast runner.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

y/n swung open the door to her dormitory, adrenaline rushing through her veins. she looked over at karina‘s bed and spotted the woman laying down with yunjin under the covers, and it was very apparent the two just slept together. she wasn’t taken aback, however. she had already knew the two would be together tonight.

y/n shook karina awake, not caring if she were naked or not. both karina and yunjin awoke, slightly startled at y/n‘s franticness. before either of the lovers could say anything, y/n spoke up.

"i did it! i did it—but there was barely any action, he sat me on his lap and tried touching my pussy but i left before much could happen!" y/n sounded a bit freaked out with a hint of excitement.

"who is she talking about..?" said yunjin groggily, rubbing her wide eyes.

"heeseung.." yawned karina. "y/n, that‘s good! you‘re probably the first girl in a long time to leave him hanging like that. best him at his own game, hm?" karina smiled, leaning up on her elbows.

y/n‘s face scrunches in slight frustration. "i know…but i‘m just..." she throws her bag down on her bed that‘s only a few feet from karina‘s.

"i‘m glad i did it…it was fun…but—i‘m just…" she sits down on her bed, looking at karina and yunjin. "i don’t know what comes next.."

yunjin and karina exchanged glances before karina speaks up. "you know what happens next?" y/n‘s face grows curious. karina continues. "you wait. you wait for him to chase you…and you‘re going to make him fall for you. and once he does…you leave him for good."

yunjin smirks. "damn karina, what‘d he do to you?"

"nothing. we‘re just bored.." karina looks back at yunjin, but there’s a hint of something beyond playfulness in her eyes.

and with that y/n went to sleep that night, unaware of just how much she had lee heeseung wrapped around her finger.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

one week later — psychology class. the only class y/n shared with lee heeseung.

y/n sat in her usual seat, putting down her bag under her feet after pulling out all her materials. she laid her tired head on her hand, analysing her notes from the last lecture.

and there was heeseung who came in early for once. he was always late (if he even decided to show up, that is), but this time he made sure he was there so he could score a spot next to the beautiful girl who left him so empty that night.

y/n was all that consumed heeseung‘s mind this past week. he didn’t want to be one to admit it, but heeseung hated how she had this effect on him all from not giving him what he wanted. his only goal in mind was to make y/n give in and fall in love with him, then run away just as he did to every other girl…because how dare this little tease leave him empty? nobody defies the lee heeseung like that.

it was only a matter of seconds before heeseung‘s eyes landed on his target. seeing y/n‘s beautiful, long hair flowing over her shoulder and her plump lips pouting in concentration, her slim legs crossed, her grey fold over leggings hugging her body perfectly, the little flare at the end hanging over her cute little winter boots that encased her bouncing feet. her little pink tank top form fitted her torso, causing her chest catch heeseung‘s attention immediately, making him think back to when he got that lovely glimpse down her top that night last week.

and with nothing else on his mind, determination set in and heeseung b-lined it towards the seat empty next to y/n, as more people started to fill the room.

y/n was slightly startled when an obstinate heeseung plopped himself down next to her, his eyes narrowed in on y/n‘s alarmed expression.

"missed me?" heeseung smirks, his voice laced with smugness.

"god you scared me…" y/n placed her hand over her heart. "but no, i didn’t miss you, heeseung."

heeseung leans in a bit closer, his big black jacket scrunching. "call me hee. everyone else does."

y/n shakes her head, her face going back to her notes. "i‘m alright, we‘re not close enough for me to give you a nickname."

heeseung scoffs, changing the subject to the point he originally wanted to talk about.

"why did you leave that night?"

y/n held back a smirk at the hint of desperation in heeseung‘s voice. the question alone enough to make her want to giggle in satisfaction.

"you were being unprofessional, heeseung. i was there to help tutor you, not have sex with you." her tone was pretty deadpan in contrast to the excitement growing inside of her at the thought heeseung was currently chasing after her.

"i could have made you feel good," heeseung says as he leans back in his chair, his hand coming up to play with strands of y/n‘s hair.

y/n ignores him, flipping through pages in her notebook.

"you‘re not any different from these other girls, you know…you‘re not special." his voice grew annoyed.

"what?" y/n turned her head to the side, her irritated expression apparent.

heeseung’s facial expression seemed satisfied at how he was getting under y/n‘s skin. "you‘re not special for not wanting me, y/n…" heeseung leans closer, his hand still on y/n‘s head. faces inches apart, heeseung‘s voice held somewhat of a threatening tone. "…because i‘ll make you want me." an intimidating smile played on heeseung‘s face, his eyes full of malice.

y/n slightly backed up, a small amount of real fear stirring in her chest.

"you‘re crazy…" her voice automatically came out a whisper, her eyes darting all around his face.

he leaned in and quickly pecked y/n‘s cheeks with his lips, his expression now softened, almost affectionate.

"only for you…" and as the psychology teacher mrs. danbury walked in, heeseung settled down along with the rest of the class, acting as if nothing happened.

y/n stayed taken a bit aback, her mind wandering off from the lesson every so often, thinking off heeseung‘s words.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

as class came to an end, heeseung stood up, standing next to y/n‘s sitting figure, and as she rose to walk out of the classroom, she was abruptly stopped by heeseung‘s tall body standing in front of her.

she didn’t need to speak. her confused face was all heeseung needed to start explaining.

"let me take you out." heeseung‘s voice was smooth.

"um…where?" y/n crossed her arms.

"there’s a little café down the street, hm? wanna go there?"

y/n thought for a moment, realising she could use this as an attempt for heeseung to truly fall for her.

"i mean…i am kinda hungry i guess." y/n shrugs, walking passed heeseung. "let’s go."

heeseung grabs y/n‘s wrist, forcing her to come back. he interlocked his fingers with hers, then continued walking.

"people are going to think we‘re a thing if you’re holding my hand…" y/n‘s eyes darted from their intertwined hands then up to heeseung, who only smirked.

"if we‘re together in general people are going to think we‘re a thing." he smirked down at the girl walking with him.

y/n rolled her eyes, "that’s not exactly what i want…i can‘t be seen as one of your little rotations."

heeseung put on a playfully hurt expression.

"that’s really all you think of me, huh? just some fuckboy?"

y/n nodded. "pretty much!" she shot him a soft smile, feigning affection.

heeseung only snickered in response, but when his own umber eyes looked into y/n‘s he couldn’t help but notice just how pretty she was as the sun beamed down on her skin.

entering the café, y/n took note of the strong smell of sweets and coffee blending together in the air, the other university students sitting inside studying under the dimly lit lights, creating a cozy atmosphere, perfect for a break after a day of long, draining university classes.

"this place is so cute…" y/n looked around at the wood panel walls, the faux candles lit all around and the large bookshelf next to the entryway, adding to the library-esq vibe of the café.

heeseung smiled at y/n‘s reaction, her look of awe causing him to feel a small little butterfly in his stomach, but he quickly swatted it away.

"you‘re paying, you invited me out." y/n points at heeseung as she walked up to the register to order, him trailing not too far behind.

"yes, ma‘am," heeseung teased, pulling out his wallet.

"can i have a caramel frappuccino with tapioca pearls, please?" y/n asked in her sweet voice—sounding just like honey.

"i‘ll just have a taro milk tea." said heeseung as he pulled out his credit card.

the cashier said dryly, "that‘ll be $13.85."

and as heeseung inserted his card, y/n slyly peaked over to get a good look at it, which didn’t go unnoticed by heeseung. he just let out a confused laugh. "what‘re you lookin‘ at?"

"your credit card number," replied y/n truthfully. "you said it was your goal to make me like you, and gift giving is my love language." y/n closed her eyes, placing her hands on her chest as she softly swayed her body side to side.

heeseung gently nudged y/n. "yeah, yeah, don’t get too ahead of yourself."

and as their boba was ready, y/n quickly grabbed her drink, placed the baby blue straw inside and immediately took a sip, reveling in the sweet, caramel flavour going down her throat. with a satisfied mmm sound, she started walking towards the door, leaving heeseung in a state of confusion.

"where are you going?" heeseung questioned, his brow slightly raised.

"i‘m going back to the dorm. you took me out like you wanted." y/n shrugged slightly.

"you know i‘m getting real tired of asking you that." heeseung smirked, sipping his tea.

y/n only smiled facetiously. "then give me a reason to stay." and with nothing else, y/n walked out, leaving heeseung once more dumbfounded.

and heeseung didn’t like this pattern he saw forming.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

y/n didn’t walk back to her dorm, though. she was going to hang out with karina at the mall. pulling out her baby pink iphone, y/n clicked karina‘s contact to come ask her to pick her up.

"where you at hoe?" joked y/n as soon as karina picked up.

karina laughed. "at yunjin‘s dorm. i‘m leaving now. where are you?" y/n could hear rustling on the other end.

"near that little café by school—i think it’s called makoko." y/n paused to look at the street name. "i‘m working the corner of rochester street. come pick me up when i‘m done with my next client."

karina playfully rolled her eyes at y/n‘s joke, her car‘s startup engine roaring in the background. "i‘ll be there soon. split some of that cash with me, hm?"

"of course. love ya!" y/n blew a kiss to her phone and karina reciprocated.

opening up instagram to kill time, y/n stood, leaning against the wall of a building while she waited for her best friend.

scrolling mindlessly, mind lost in the depths of liking her favourite celebrities‘ posts and judging her mutuals stories, she hardly noticed a tall male figure approach her rather menacingly.

"all alone?" the deep voice startled y/n, his tone callousing and scary. y/n slightly jumped back, her eyes suspiciously scanning the man up and down. but y/n doesn’t play with scary men like this.

"no, i‘m with somebody. your scary ass can leave now." she spoke sternly, taking slow backwards steps away from the dark haired man.

"i don’t see no one," the man smirked his big lips, a look of lust shining through his eyes as he stepped intimidatingly closer to y/n, following her.

"fuck off nasty ass hoe i don’t know who you think you are because i will rock your shit if you try something!" warned y/n with a fist forming, holding it up in the air like she was going to pop him in his face.

but before the creepy man could vocalise his thoughts, another male came up from behind him and punched the side of his head, making him stumble over, a gasp of shock leaving y/n‘s mouth upon seeing not only the violent action—but the person assaulting the creep—who was…heeseung?

"heeseung wh—" y/n was going to ask him why he was here, why he was defending her—but was overpowered by his aggressive shouting at the big, now less taunting man who was harassing her only moments ago.

"who the fuck do you think you are, hm!?" hesseung yells through gritted teeth, blowing punch after punch, blow after blow onto the man who was laying on the ground, his arms over his face in a defensive manner.

"keep your hands off her and your fucking mouth shut!" heeseung was practically seething at this point, his fists nowhere but the man‘s now bloody face.

y/n wasn’t going to tell heeseung to back off the man—if anything the man deserved it. so she watched from the sidelines, patiently observing, waiting for heeseung to finish.

and for a few more moments, after punching and kicking heeseung spat on the man‘s face as if he were a flithy vermon (which in any sane person‘s mind, including heeseung, that’s what he was equivalent to.)

heeseung marched towards y/n, his face still appearing angry. he aggressively gripped

y/n‘s wrist, yanking her, forcing her to follow heeseung from behind as he angrily started walking.

"in broad fucking daylight, is he insane?"

heeseung scoffed, talking mainly to himself, but y/n could hear.

"heeseung where are you taking me?" she slightly winced at the tight grip he held on her wrist.

"back to your dorm. where i thought you were going." heeseung‘s voice was practically a growl.

"heeseung—i have a ride i was waiting for to go to the mall. i can handle myself." y/n says as she tries to yank her wrist away from heeseung, but his grip only grew tighter.

"clearly you can’t. i wonder what would have happened to you if i hadn’t stepped in, hm?"

y/n only rolls her eyes in disbelief at heeseung‘s words.

"now give me your phone." heeseung holds out his hand towards y/n, still not looking at her.

"why?" she questions, visibly hesitant.

"just—just give it to me. or i‘ll take it myself." there was no indication heeseung was kidding in his tone. so y/n handed the boy in the grey hoodie her phone after opening it, and he went straight to her calls. he clicked on someone’s name before speaking,

"karina?" his tone stayed firm. "yeah, it’s heeseung. look, you‘re the one giving y/n a ride, yeah?" he paused, letting karina respond. "‘kay. i‘m taking y/n to that park not too far from campus. the one everyone hangs out at—pick her up there. something happened she can explain to you later." and without another word, heeseung hung up before opening y/n‘s contacts, adding a number. he handed y/n back her phone, open on the page of the brand new contact.

"my number," he spoke, tone softening slightly. "just to call or text me if anything else like this happens.." heeseung‘s voice held a hint of what y/n could be mistaking as affection…but there was a little bit of something other than coldness. almost like his reasoning was some excuse. she only nodded, murmuring a thank you as they arrived at the park everyone usually hangs out, called "the hill."

heeseung sat down on a cold, metal bench, y/n sitting close to him.

he immediately cupped y/n‘s face, tilting her head in every direction possible, eyes narrowing in on her soft features like he was analysing her. before y/n could protest, he asked, "are you okay? if he laid as much as a single finger on you, y/n, i‘m promising you i‘ll go back there and kill him with my bare hands."

y/n shook her head, a bit taken aback by heeseung‘s sudden protectiveness. her dainty hands stayed with a silent grip on heeseung‘s wrists that softly held her face.

"you should have let me take you home—i should have offered…i‘m so sorry, y/n…" heeseung adverted his gaze from the girl, guilt oozing from his voice.

"it’s alright, really," y/n started with a calm voice, her thumbs rubbing soft, soothing circles on the inside of heeseung‘s wrists, "nothing happened to me." she put on a soft, comforting smile, but it quickly faded when heeseung snapped.

"because i stepped in! y/n who knows what that guy was planning!?" he takes a deep breath to calm himself, voice struggling to stay steady. "what if he hurt you, hm? i don’t…i don’t want that to happen to you." his gaze lingered on y/n, his thumbs caressing the sides of y/n‘s face he was still holding.

"since when have you…" y/n pauses, trying to find the right words. "since when have you cared like that? about anyone?"

heeseung scoffed, his tone coming out offended. "just because i like to fuck around doesn’t make me a bad person, y/n—i would have stepped in and saved any girl that was happening to." his dark brown eyes lock with y/n‘s as if he was searching for something in the pools of her irises. "but you‘re the first girl i‘d go to this length for. the first one i have gone to this length for…if you were anyone else i would have just walked away as soon as i pulled that guy off you."

"why?" was all the stunned girl could manage to get out, her brows furrowed in more curiosity than confusion.

"there’s something about you, i‘ll admit. like a magnet that pulls me in. partly because you left me hanging last week—but just…" heeseung sighs. "the way you don’t want me—it makes me want you even more."

y/n simply laughs. "is this why you‘re being so nice to me?"

heeseung nodded.

"it’s a nice try, heeseung. but you‘re going to have to try a lot harder than give me some speech you‘ve given all your other flings."

and as if she were saved by the bell, y/n saw karina‘s little white toyota pull up to the car, a small honk coming from the vehicle catching both heeseung‘s and y/n‘s attention. she removed heeseung‘s wrists from her face and stood up.

"where are you going?" heeseung wondered, a hint of what almost seemed like panic laced in his voice.

"that really is all you ask me, huh?" y/n teased before walking off towards karina‘s car.

and with another sigh, heeseung slipped his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and slid down the bench so his neck was resting on the edge as he looked up to the blue sky.

it had only been a week since they met and this damn girl already had him wrapped around her finger.

what‘s wrong with him?

[highway-143]

attention seeker- nishimura riki scenarios

genre: fluff, smut, high school au, based on this ask

pairing: classmate!riki × fem!reader

taglist: @urlocalmultigroupfan @minkilicious @shyoko @vrusha01 @planetmarlowe (open taglist)

word count: 1.4k

now playing: so high school- taylor swift

a.n- tysm @kiromiix for the request! never really tried scenarios before so i hope this is okay!

tw: kissing, kinda nonchalant riki (ewewew imma cry) reader cant pick up anything he's putting down in the beginning lmfao, underage drinking, protected sex, a lil profanity

(mostly proofread)

all scenarios are fake and are not meant to represent any idol in the story. all characters are of age.

ᯓ★˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗⊹ ₊

classmate!riki who is nonchalant but also somehow manages to be the class clown.

classmate!riki who thought it was funny to put flour inside the cushion of the english teacher's chair on april fools day.

classmate!riki who got lunch detention for two weeks after the flour-covered teacher screamed at him in front of the whole class

classmate!riki who was obviously biting back laughter when she tried to dust the white powder off of herself

classmate!riki who from then on decided her nickname would be mrs. cocaine

classmate!riki who winked at you when he was sent to the principals office for being tardy again

classmate!riki who was randomly partnered with you in a history assignment

classmate!riki who rolled his eyes when he learned you were partners, but gave you his phone number as soon as possible

classmate!riki who you texted two days later, trying to schedule a time to work on the project together

you: hey, is this riki?

riki: yeah, y/n?

you: yeah you: when do you want to meet to work on the project?

riki: tomorrow at 4 in the library?

you: sounds good :)

classmate!riki who hid the fact that he was giddy just from texting you because he was with his friends

classmate!riki who showed up fifteen minutes early to the library just to make sure he looked interested

classmate!riki who was pretending to not care about the project but actually did.

classmate!riki who actually did work because he didn't want you to get a bad grade because of him

classmate!riki who helped on the project just enough so he looked invested but also little enough so he still looked nonchalant

classmate!riki who constantly fiddled with his earring because you constantly kept looking at it.

classmate!riki who grabbed the books from the top shelf that you couldn't reach by putting his hand on your shoulder and reaching up from behind you.

classmate!riki who's abs you could feel pressing into your back

classmate!riki who knew exactly what he was doing

classmate!riki who is so down bad for you, but doesn't really know how to get your attention other than making himself look cool

classmate!riki who enjoys messing with people, especially you

classmate!riki who you started to catch yourself thinking about when your mind wandered during library study sessions with your best friends

classmate!riki who you couldn't help thinking about at night

classmate!riki who caught you staring at him during english class for the seventeenth time that period

classmate!riki who made a funny face and got you in trouble for laughing during a test

classmate!riki who caught up to you in the hall after class and joked about you getting in trouble, but also offered to buy you coffee for the same thing.

classmate!riki who showed up at the library to work on the project with two starbucks cups in his hands because he knew you were tired.

classmate!riki who you confessed to out of sleep-deprivation and stress halfway through a project session, but was overjoyed that you actually ended up liking him

boyfriend!riki who brought you a coffee every morning after that

boyfriend!riki who got a job at the starbucks closest to your school just so he could take the early morning shift and bring you a drink for free every day

boyfriend!riki who hid that from the entire school besides you because he had a reputation to uphold

boyfriend!riki who took you to meet his parents three weeks into your relationship

boyfriend!riki who's sisters were the coolest people you had ever met

boyfriend!riki who's mom and dad treated you like a fourth child

boyfriend!riki who took his dog, bisco, to your house every night so you could take a walk together

boyfriend!riki who held your hand every time, even when he saw some of his friends at the park playing football

boyfriend!riki who just waved to them and kept listening to your story about your seventh grade teacher

boyfriend!riki who took you on your first real date to go see a meteor shower in the forest, renting an old pickup truck and putting a mattress and thick blackets in the back so you could lay there and make wishes on the shooting stars together

boyfriend!riki who turned his head to watch you as you pointed at the lights in the sky, admiring your beauty at night

boyfriend!riki who you noticed staring and turned to look at

boyfriend!riki who's first kiss was with you under the falling stars.

boyfriend!riki who didn't push more than that, respecting your boundaries

boyfriend!riki who fell asleep holding your hand on the mattress in the truck bed

boyfriend!riki who, for your first valentines day together, gave you a necklace with your and his initials engraved in tiny beads around a dainty chain

boyfriend!riki who put the necklace on for you, pulling your hair to the side, and almost crashed out when he saw your neck

boyfriend!riki who had to fight every urge not to kiss you there

boyfriend!riki who cheered the loudest when you received your diploma

boyfriend!riki who you cheered equally as loud for when he got his

boyfriend!riki who gave you the biggest hug ever when you threw your caps into the air

boyfriend!riki who kissed you hard in front of everyone

boyfriend!riki who didn't care about being nonchalant anymore

boyfriend!riki who threw an end of the year party for all the graduating 12th graders at your school

boyfriend!riki who knew his parents were going to be out of town that day

boyfriend!riki who was still a troublemaker and bribed his older sister to buy them beer by blackmail and a large sum of money

boyfriend!riki who you made promise you he wouldn't get drunk

boyfriend!riki who only had one sip of beer and realized it wasn't his thing

boyfriend!riki who lost control of the party and ran away to hide from it because it was too loud

boyfriend!riki who you found sitting on the edge of his bed, about to break down

boyfriend!riki who you sat next to and comforted until he felt better

boyfriend!riki who you helped clean up with the morning after the party

boyfriend!riki who ran as fast as he possibly could when he heard you scream from the backyard because you found one of his friends passed out on the patio table

boyfriend!riki who laughed about it later

boyfriend!riki who you hit on the shoulder because you actually thought the kid was dead

boyfriend!riki who always called you 'mom' when he was talking to bisco

boyfriend!riki who you started to really love

boyfriend!riki who had known he loved you since the night of your first date

boyfriend!riki who took you and bisco to the beach every week that summer

boyfriend!riki who always read books with you in the sand

boyfriend!riki who you took way too many pictures with every day

boyfriend!riki who you took to your house one day when your family went out of town

boyfriend!riki who wanted to be cool and confident, but was really just an anxious mess

boyfriend!riki who let you straddle his lap on your bed when he kissed you in absolute desire

boyfriend!riki who had kept a condom in his wallet for six months because he wanted to be ready when you were

boyfriend!riki who moaned every time you grinded against his dick

boyfriend!riki who flipped you over and took you in missionary for the first time, sliding his dick into your cunt with care

boyfriend!riki who praised you with almost every thrust, calling you beautiful and perfect

boyfriend!riki who hated that fucking condom

boyfriend!riki who powered through anyway, your sweet little moans the only thing keeping him in check

boyfriend!riki who begged for you to cum, just so he could feel your walls clench around his cock even harder

boyfriend!riki who kissed you when you did, his own seed spilling into the condom

boyfriend!riki who had no regrets

boyfriend!riki who you could never regret

boyfriend!riki who ended up proposing to you on your fourth anniversary, giving you a ring with a shooting star engraved on the inside of the band

husband!riki who never tried to be nonchalant again

ᯓ★˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗⊹ ₊

a.n- tysm for reading!!! this one was so cute to write omg where can i find a man like this ToT anyways taglist and asks are always open, and like/comment/reblog if you liked this fic!

masterlist you might also like: obsession- n.rk

[madlori]

On Tommy and narrative threads

So some fans who are vehemently anti-Tommy frequently use the talking point that they need to have Buck confront Tommy about his past behavior while under Gerrard, or have him find out about it if he doesn't already know, and that he should break up with him about it. Or they need some kind of reckoning to happen with Hen and Chim in order to move forward.

I'm 95% sure neither of those things are going to happen, and here is why: the show considers that narrative thread to be closed.

It has run its course. It's done. It's been resolved. As fans and viewers - and as many of us are fic readers and writers - we always want to see things hashed out onscreen in exhaustive detail but that's not practically possible. The narrative sometimes has to signal that threads are resolved in other ways, in the way characters act towards each other and speak about each other.

Throughout the course of the three Begins episodes in which he appears, the writers clearly selected Tommy to represent the "firefighter who acted kinda jerky but got better through personal growth and friendship with new people" narrative. By the end of Bobby Begins Again, this narrative is more or less complete, as we've now seen Tommy act to support Hen and also be accepted into a friendly relationship with both her and Chim, not to mention Bobby. When he reappears in season 7, nobody acts like he's anything other than a friend, and Chim outright admires him.

This is the conclusion of this thread, as far as the show is concerned. Did he ever sit down with Hen and Chim and make some big speech or have some big discussion about how he's learned and changed? Probably not. Those kinds of direct conversations sometimes do happen in reality, but more often than not, you just spend years working with someone and your opinion of them shifts as all of you change. And remember, Hen and Chim worked with Tommy for years before Bobby even showed up.

And ask yourself this question: if Hen and Chim have both moved on, and have accepted whatever direct or implicit apology Tommy offered, how is it Buck's business to decide that no, that's not good enough, HE'S going to demand some kind of restitution on their behalf? That's patronizing as fuck. These are people with their own agency who don't need Buck to advocate for them and exact some kind of retroactive revenge for something they're not even mad about anymore. Would he be upset that Tommy ever made off-color remarks, or was less than welcoming to people who are now his friends? Maybe. Is he upset that Eddie nearly killed a man? Is he filled with moral outrage and disappointment that Hen cheated on her wife? Chim physically assaulted him, and so did Bobby. Is he still holding that against them? Is he upset NOW that nobody's speaking up on HIS behalf when Gerrard targets him? Buck's an adult. He knows that people frequently look back on their past behavior and cringe at what jerks they were, himself included.

Tommy has several times alluded to being ashamed of his past actions. He knows the score. The message we're meant to take from those comments is that he's taken steps to not be that guy anymore. Need he flagellate himself forever? Does this need to cost him and Buck a relationship they both value? It can't have been easy to come from a terrible father, go into the army, then into the LAFD with a terrible captain, and then to meet people who challenged your behavior and made you want to be a better person. The fact that he became a better person is something he should be admired for, not punished.

[pastabaguette]

May I ask what the origin/inspiration for all your humanstuck names are? Big fan btw, very nice!

thanks for the question. let me first preface this by saying i know that some of these are a bit of a stretch. this is how my thought process worked when naming them. i know that some of them are simpler or less interesting than others.

arisa - spelled with the kanji (有沙), “have” and “sand”. sand in an hourglass represents time, her aspect.

maeda - doesn’t have any particular meaning that i thought of, it just sounded nice with her first name and was close enough to her original.

tavio - short for octavio, but everyone really just calls him by his nickname. octavio relates to the number eight, of course. he can never escape her :(

martínez - very common spanish last name. it’s derived from nitram, which is “martin” spelled backwards.

solomon-alexander - this really is his full name. he has two first names, keeping with his binary theme. it’s also a reference to the fandom joke of calling sollux “solluxander.”

carillo-perez - again, a double name. i like the way the double “l”s look.

kamesh - relates to lord krishna, who in turn is associated with leadership and compassion. these are also associated with karkat.

vanakar - it just sounded good to me phonetically in tandem with his first name, and plus it has the “kar” in it. his full name is a bit pokey, due to the harsh “k”s.

naipunya - associated with dexterity. it also has “nya” in it. i read somewhere that it also had an association with hunting, but i’m not certain of the validity of that source, since i didn’t see that much elsewhere.

lamba - also just sounded good with her first name. they kind of roll off the tongue, like a cat rolling on its back or perhaps playing with a ball. i like the “a” sounds.

khadijah - i’ve always thought this was a very graceful name. it’s also pretty heavily religious and feminine.

mariam - the same as maryam, but an alternate spelling. i thought it went better with her first name since they both have an “i” in them.

tessa - diminutive of theresa. i thought it sounded short and kinda playful.

perry - it wasn’t intentional, but this could be connected to perry mattfeld, who’s best known for playing a blind woman in “into the dark.” someone else pointed this out to me.

victoria - means “victory.” it’s pretty flashy, kind of “mean girl” sounding, and it still has that good “k” sound in there.

sadik - i thought it matched well. the “a”s in her first and last name make the same sound, and so do the “k”s.

ezequiel - meaning “strength of god.” can be likened to equius’s role as a lord english component, english being god in this case. it’s the portugeuse spelling, really just because i liked the “q”.

ziegler - sounded good, and it repeats the “ee” sound and the “l” sound from his first name.

gabriel - means “servant of god.” gamzee’s quite literally a servant of english.

macario - very similar in sound to makara.

edison - relating to thomas edison and eridan’s preoccupation with science. very similar to “eridan” in that it shares the beginning and end, as well as the same amount of syllables.

achari - also just kinda sounded nice.

fiona - i don’t really know how to explain it, but it sounded kind of “princessy” to me.

pierce - sounds cool. you could say a trident “pierces” things, but that’s kinda lame.

some of these might only make sense to me, sorry. a lot of them have to do with the pure sound of the word, which i’m not sure i articulated particularly well here. please let me know if i got the meaning wrong or if i’m misusing any of their names.

[reingkings]

Why do you ship inhun? Does the ship make sense? I don't kinda see it but I guess there is something between them, I'd really like to know your thoughts about it

Hmm. Interesting question. I do think they “make sense” in a shippable way.

Note that if you’re not into not-entirely-sane ships then it might not appeal to you. However, I can try to answer what appeals to me. I’ll try to put screen caps or links but ngl I’m not gonna try hunting down all of it. Here’s the manifesto:

1. The narrative casting them as character foils

So each character in the show often not only represent themselves, but to some extent the show’s themes. Since before Gi-hun becomes a victor, he is shown to be discongruent with the nature of the games. The first “true” meeting between In-ho and Gi-hun happens to be at this point in S1:

Mind you when this occurs, it’s after the gamemakers deliberately starve the players to incite violence between them. Deoksu/101 just killed a man. This outcome is exactly desired.

In a way this is a microcosm of the rest of their ideological struggle — that being whether or not humans are inherently selfish and cruel.

We later see the theme again during the last fight scene, when Gi-hun reaches his hand out to Sang-woo. Not only is this a moment of ultimate compassion, but for In-ho who we see is an avid lover of the arts. What else does this resemble?

The painting, The Creation of Adam. Aka the creation of man. (Stick with me on this, I promise I’ll explain).

Notice that this shot not only resembles the painting on a superficial level but in spirit. Adam is in repose and God is the one who reaches out, the one making the most effort to make a connection. In-ho’s face isn’t visible but imagine how he, looking down on it, feels at the very moment:

It’s giving new religion. Later on, In-ho will say something along these lines:

Race horses. And yet, besides his brother, at this point Gi-hun is the very first person In-ho takes his mask off for, something he does not do for even the VIPs. This scene also comes after he kills a guard because “when they find out who you are, you die.”

This treatment marks In-ho’s transition into seeing Gi-hun as his only equal (and yes, In-ho is arrogant that’s kind of his appeal, I don’t believe he thinks that highly of the VIPs either).

Another aspect is that in their final scene at Il-nam’s death bed, they are kind of marked at the inheritors of Il-nam’s system.

Gi-hun leaves Il-nam to witness his one failure. In-ho closes Il-Nam’s eyes.

So it’s the end of S1. We don’t know a lot about In-ho. However we can assume a few things. Both he and Gi-hun are both victors and victims of the oppressive system. Both of them went through anguish after their victory (In-ho’s is mostly inferred, but there’s a deleted scene paralleling Gi-hun’s). Both of them failed to save what mattered the most. Both of them can’t move on from the games and returned. They both abandoned everything in their life for this pursuit.

In a way, there is no other person in the world than can understand them more than the other.

And here is where the character foil aspect comes in. Despite their similarities, their character arcs are the opposite. Gi-hun at the beginning was kind but flawed, an impulsive gambler who could steal money from his mother and disappointed his daughter at many turns. In-ho seemingly was a well-loved, upright citizen who made sacrifices for his family.

And yet, of the two the one who became cruel and heartless was In-ho. The one who became more self-less and compassionate was Gi-hun.

How does In-ho react to meeting his polar opposite? It could easily be hatred or disdain. Instead it’s well, my next point.

2. In-ho’s subtextual obsession with Gi-hun

Season 2 within the games is when most of us really saw the ship’s potential but there are many hints beforehand.

I and others have made some posts about In-ho’s wildly inappropriate actions towards Gi-hun even in S1. Why does he have to stuff the bank card in Gi-hun’s mouth, why does he send the invitation through a bouquet of flowers (actually he sends this invitation twice), why does he decide to physically be there when meeting Gi-hun in a limo on his birthday? A day, mind you, that he needs to be prepping for the games. In-ho doesn’t have to be there, he literally talks to Gi-hun through a speaker he could be in a nice hotel room. Somehow, it’s important for him to be there.

Can this be read as anything but a fixation?

Even when he joins the game his sole focus is on Gi-hun. He makes a concerted effort for Gi-hun to like him (playing hero, baring his true wounds, defending him from the ire of other players, even coming up with an flimsy excuse because he slipped up and called Gi-hun by his name). If he wanted to torture Gi-hun, he could easily turn the players against him. According to the director, his goal is:

But in front of our eyes he does shit like this:

He even bullies his guards:

Does that look like a hit to you 😭 I dare anyone to say that a different player would have passed. Especially when In-ho interceded in the first place.

Another victim:

And the looks. so many looks. You’re not behind a camera anymore, In-ho. Gi-hun can see you.

The one that makes me laugh the most is in the last episode of S2. Gi-hun is stressed about the vote, trying to come up with a plan, and In-ho is staring so hard he’s not even blinking, to the point where Gi-hun has to look at him.

And then again. Gi-hun is explaining about the control room upstairs. Meanwhile, In-ho:

He doesn’t even glance up. He just stares at Gi-hun until Gi-hun finally looks at him. Honestly this isn’t even all of them but I don’t have everything saved.

And the ending. Honestly this part is a bit heartwrenching and I think a few of us fans ignore it (I do too), but I’m trying to contextualize canon here. It’s interesting that despite how dangerous Gi-hun is – causing the disruption of the game, killing guards, and aiming to end the games on the whole – In-ho does not kill him. He has plenty of opportunities to. He even shoots his own guards to keep Gi-hun alive (despite Gi-hun in that moment running the rebellion). But he shoots Jung-bae instead and gives Gi-hun this last lingering glance.

Arguably, you can say In-ho does all this because he is sadistic. However, if that were the sole reason, then he has 400+ people he could similarly torture every year. Hell, he could have joined the games any year he wanted, too.

If it’s just an ideological struggle, then Gi-hun lost when he decided to sacrifice the X players for the greater good. Then, we are left to wonder what else he can want with Gi-hun that he has kept him alive.

The fact that the motivations are never stated and are subtext adds a layer to how fans are free to interpret it. Lots of kindling for our fire.

(I’m not necessarily planning to prove if it’s canon in this part, it’s just a treatise on why we see their potential due to this subtext).

3. Gi-hun’s reciprocity

I think if it were just a one-sided fascinating then there would still be shippers but simply not as much. The part that hits with Inhun is that In-ho’s efforts are not necessarily “unrequited.”

In the beginning of Season 2, Gi-hun has no one. He had been isolated for three years. He has no friends. He has no home. Consider this heartwrenching shot:

Gi-hun’s on the phone, calling the only person in the world he has a connection to, and he can’t even say a word to her.

Even before this, he was largely unappreciated. His mother was disappointed in him. His ex-wife resents him. Jung-bae his friend did not help him in his time of need. Sae-byeok was only in his life for a few days, but she was rude to him for a good part of that. Sang-woo – well Sang-woo is complicated. I don’t think he meant everything he said in the fight before the end, but I do think Gi-hun is the last person on earth he wants to meet after his failures. No one really talks to him kindly besides Ali which is more of polite friendliness than looking after him.

So as a #1 Gi-hun fan, it’s really nice to see someone just genuinely seem to want Gi-hun there? Not as a last resort or as an alternative, but the first pick (in a twisted way).

And Gi-hun is so receptive to it? I made a post about this before, but Gihun is starved for affection and I don’t think all that used to being treated gently. Despite knowing In-ho for a short time, he seems so. He just kind of… opens like a flower?

The first time he laughs in this season is over In-ho’s corny last name joke.

The look in that scene in general:

How he reacts to In-ho calling by hist first name:

Or when In-ho confides in him about what happened with his wife:

Or this one, when he’s dealing with the guilt of misleading all the players, and In-ho says this:

But also the moment in mingle where Gi-hun is so worried about In-ho, Jung-bae has to drag him into a room before the timer runs out. He wanted to risk it all I tell you.

And then, when everyone is calling out to him, In-ho only calls out for Gi-hun’s attention. Literally he couldn’t care about the others. He bee-lines to Gi-hun.

Or how he looks when In-ho shoots the guard for him:

Look at his face, and In-ho’s face when he gives In-ho the gun. They’re going to kill me.

4. The versatility

Finally, this is more of a meta point but it’s kind of fun that this ship doesn’t always have to be that serious? We can go from writing about deep at times darker themes of obsession and manipulation and whatnot and then turn around and clown on them for being total losers with a crush (affectionate). Usually, it’s the same person doing it. Like me in this essay. We can also just make AUs with no squid games and still have the freedom with keep the parts we like (be it obsession or devotion or a mutual understanding) and toss out the rest, and they still make sense. They just always make sense (to me).

Honestly there are stuff I had leave out because it would just maybe at tad too long-winded (as if I didn’t talk your ear off lmao).

Again, this is not an argument on whether it’s canon or not, it’s just an explanation of fanon perspective.

[ronanlynchdefender]

The political stances of The Raven Cycle characters are so fascinating to me. You got Blue over here who is very much a progressive activist in the making. She recognizes things like misogyny and is not afraid to call those things out even when it concerns her closest friends. Because of that, I definitely see her as the type of activist who would be in the front lines at protests whether that be at the Capitol, college campuses, at the border, or as is the case in the dreamer trilogy, tied to a tree. She is the type of person who demands change in our current system and would demand it loudly and through acts of protest or civil disobedience.

Then you have Adam who displays no strong desire to change the system and whose only desire is to rise up in that system. He wants to climb the social ladder and assimilate to those of higher social status which is partially why he envies Gansey so much in the beginning because Gansey was born into it. Adam still tries to do this in the dreamer trilogy by essentially pretending to be a Gansey-like figure while at Harvard despite hating it. Eventually, Adam gives up on trying to belong within this higher social class and "climbing the ladder" but then strangely enough becomes a fed, which means just integrating into another form of hierarchy and power structure. And I feel like a more interesting arc would've been rejecting being a part of these societal systems altogether.

Which I suppose now leads us to Ronan who is a literal anarchist. He actually rejects all societal systems and rules and it permeates every aspect of his life. But actually, I shouldn't say all because there is one societal institution which he does enjoy partaking in: religion. With the exception of his catholicism, he does not engage in any other societal institution: education, law, politics. He hates it, in fact, It is antithetical to his being which is what makes his characterization so perfect because of course a gay farmer god would hate oppressive rules and structures (except for religion). That's not even mentioning that he is a canonical ecoterrorist that cost the US government a billion dollars. But what is really interesting about his character (and where his and Blue's political stances differ) is that because he rejects these systems he has no interest or stake in changing them. He'd sooner tear down the system than try to reform it.

And then there’s Gansey who doesn't seem to engage in politics and would rather spend his days reading his little Welsh books and going on his fun adventures. Of course, he is able to do this largely because he has the privilege to not worry about politics or social class. It seems that Blue's influence changes this as they are both chaining themselves to trees in protest during the dreamer trilogy. Other than that, I don't really have a lot to say about Gansey and his politics. But I find it very interesting that Maggie has created this close-knit group of characters with such varying relationships to how they view politics and social structures. I tried to draw out a 2-axis grid to show their differences, but I don't know if it really works because I feel like Gansey kinda screws it up but nevertheless I like how they each represent different ends of a spectrum sort of.

[aya-luri]

Am I the only one who doesn't associate Zekrom with Ingo and Reshiram with Emmet but do it the other way around? Well, perhaps this will become an unpopular opinion, but, if you stop to think about it there are quite a few points that can support this theory. Let's check them out! To begin with, it's the legendary dragon Zekrom the one who appears on the cover of the White version of the game, while Reshiram does the same on the Black version, which would indicate that they actually represent their opposite color. Such small detail is already important in itself, not just the basic color of the dragons per se. Also we all know that Zekrom's associated element is the electric type, like Emmet's Eeleektros, while Reshiram's is the fire type, like Ingo's Chandelure, both being the most representative pokemons of the Subway Bosses.

Although the issue of ideologies of each dragon is used to link them with each brother among the fandom, "ideals" being the one typically attributed to Ingo for his passionate way of encouraging trainers, while for Emmet it is the "truth" for his direct way of communicating, this could work much better the other way around. If we have learned anything from Ingo on Pokemon Legends Arceus, it is that this man is full of existential doubts that lead him to want to get closer to the player in order to know more about himself. That's it, the truth about his origins. But he already had some tendency to this type of behavior long before, as it was evident in the first Black & White games.

"Where is my destination? I've kept thinking, and I've learned one thing. That is, you cannot know what happens after winning without winning." Through such questions, Ingo seeks to reach a real conclusion, his own truths. And perhaps in our idealized image of him we forget that he can also be frank and direct, without the need to embellish words with lies.

"However, it is difficult to win unless you and your partner are in total sync." On the other hand, and as we have said before, the frankness with which Emmet expresses his opinions makes him look like an open-minded character, sincere, making this seem (for many people) to be his only notable characteristic, despite the fact that it's kinda obvious the way in which he greatly idealizes Pokémon battles.

"This time, I am really serious. Really serious. Because if a battle is not serious, it is not fun." He firmly believes that there is a way to go about Pokémon battles, and that way is by giving it your all in them, and in an ideal world, everyone would have fun battling just as he does, but this is not always the case. Emmet clearly expresses how he believes things should be, and he's also aware that his own victory may not only be due to his skill but also to circumstantial elements or, put another way, luck. So he also idealizes the player's own defeat when it occurs, having enough consideration to make it seem like something unfourtunate. Further proof that the fandom has been associating the wrong dragon with the wrong twin can be found in the legend of the twin heroes, where it was the oldest who pursued the truth, while the youngest pursued the concept of ideals.

This birth order also corresponds to Ingo and Emmet, Ingo being the eldest of the both and Emmet the youngest.

That's why despite being white, I think Reshiram suits to Ingo much better and the same for Emmet regarding the black dragon Zekrom. All of these points put together carry much more sense than simply thinking that each dragon's ideologies relates to a brother just by the main color of his outfit. Although this, in the end, does not have much relevance either, since canonically there is no relationship between these legendary Pokémon and the Subway bosses, other than the simple fact of playing with mere chromatic issues. Still, it's always fun to speculate, right?

[babygirljamietartts]

100% about the walnut mist! And think of S1 when hes back in Manchester, his hair is short and slicked back and hes wearing muted earth colours, its the most un-Jamie-like he looks the entire show. Then when hes back at Richmond he lets his hair grow and gets an earring and wears colours like a peacock! Its such a great way of telling the unsaid issues hes facing back in Manchester, compared to being comfortable in his own skin down in Richmond

exactly exactly exactly I think about this all the time.....I could talk for ages about how Jamie's arc is represented through clothing and how he presents himself like

Jamie's season 1 looks aren't stereotypically masculine, but they are very big-bad-boy kinda vibes. Mostly darker colors with really aggressive accents like the red in the second image + his godawful spiked up hair gel monstrosity.... All of it really screams 'tough guy' which is the image that Jamie is trying to impose.

At the end of season 1 + beginning of season 2, his looks are way more muted. Almost all black, and his hair is completely slicked back. There's really no personality to his looks when he's playing for manchester, like.... At all. This is the Jamie that James Sr wants - successful, untouchable, unemotional. (He's wearing a full black suit when he finds out that he's got nothing to go back to btw. He's dressed like he's going to a funeral. Do with this what you will.)

Comparatively, there's Jamie at the very beginning of his redemption arc, when he goes back to Richmond for the first time

he has a headband holding his hair back as compared to the front of his hair sticking up in season 1. He's literally holding back the tough guy persona.

And then we have Jamie after he's reconnected with the team, when he's no longer under his dad's influence and no longer under pressure to perform any certain way

His hair isn't spiked up or pulled back, it just hangs loose and is a little lighter. Softer. He wears more jewelry and colors and silly little vests. He's more expressive. Silly goofy personality on full blast. The most Jamiest of Jamies.

[criticallyinneedofadar]

Pls pls pls I have a request 🙏

Could you do (young) Elrond x fReader pls?

The reader is a Young Elleth who lives in Khazad-Dum and she's one of Diza's friends. Elrond meets her during a diner with Durin and he's kinda offended because Durin hide her from him for a long time. 👀

This was so fun to write! I would definitely be willing to continue the story of these two- maybe little one shots of cute moments? Let me know what you think!

A Flower Among Stone

The air in the dining hall of Khazad-dûm is thick with the rich scent of roasted meats, spiced roots, and the faint tang of molten metal from the forges below. Disa’s laughter rings out, a warm and vibrant melody that bounces off the carved stone walls, mingling with Durin’s hearty chuckles. You sit at the end of the long table, fingers idly tracing the etched patterns on the wooden cup before you, trying not to draw attention to yourself.

You’ve learned well enough that in Khazad-dûm, it’s best to let the Dwarves hold the spotlight. Your presence here has always been a delicate balance. Disa, with her boundless kindness, has made you feel more welcome than you’d dared hope. Durin, too, has treated you fairly, though his teasing often borders on exasperating.

But tonight is different.

The arrival of Elrond Peredhel, emissary of the High King, has shifted the mood. He’s seated across from you, his polished armor catching the warm light of the lanterns, his posture impeccable. His smile is practiced, though you can see the faint strain behind it. He has been nothing but polite to you, but not once has he addressed you directly.

It stings, though you try not to show it.

“I must say,” Elrond begins, his tone even but his gaze fixed on Durin, “it’s curious that in all our conversations, you never saw fit to mention the presence of another elf within your halls.”

Durin’s brow furrows. “Didn’t think I had to report every visitor to you, Peredhel.”

“Visitors are one thing,” Elrond replies, voice tightening, “but a representative of the Eldar? That seems… noteworthy.” His eyes flick to you for the first time, and though his words remain formal, there’s a shadow of accusation in them. “I trust your time here has been… informative”

Your shoulders stiffen. “It has,” you reply, meeting his gaze steadily. “Durin and Disa have been most gracious hosts.”

“And yet, the High King seemed unaware of your presence here,” Elrond counters, his words measured but pointed.

Disa’s fork clatters against her plate. “Oh, come now, Elrond,” she chides, her voice sharp but not unkind. “There’s no need for that tone. She’s been a dear friend to us, and if Durin didn’t mention her to you, that’s on him.”

Durin raises his hands in mock surrender. “You think I keep track of everything I say to the Peredhel? He’s lucky I remember his name half the time.”

Elrond’s jaw tightens, and you can see the effort it takes for him to keep his composure. “It is not a matter of names, Prince Durin. It is about trust and transparency.”

“And perhaps,” Disa interjects, leaning forward with a pointed look, “it’s about showing a bit of kindness to someone who’s done nothing to deserve your irritation.”

The tension at the table is palpable. You lower your gaze, wishing for the polished stone floor to swallow you whole. The rest of the meal passes in a strained silence, the usual warmth of Disa and Durin’s table replaced by a frosty discomfort.

You step lightly through the stone-carved corridors of Khazad-dûm, the tension from dinner still knotting your shoulders. The soft murmur of voices drifts from the dining hall behind you, and though you know it’s impolite to eavesdrop, you hesitate at the turn of the corridor.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Disa’s voice rings clear, her usual warmth sharpened into a reprimand.

“I beg your pardon?” Elrond’s measured tone holds an edge, though it lacks the hauteur one might expect from someone of his station.

“You heard me,” Disa retorts. “That poor girl has been nothing but respectful—more respectful than some, it seems.”

“I was merely—”

“You were rude,” Durin interjects, his deep voice gruff but not without humor. “Manners, Peredhel. Haven’t the elves mastered those yet?”

Elrond sighs audibly. “It was not my intent to offend. I was… taken off guard. I did not expect to walk into a situation so significant without any prior knowledge.”

“And that justifies putting her on the spot?” Disa presses. “She’s not some courtier at Gil-galad’s court, used to fancy words and sharp barbs. She’s young, Elrond, and far from home. You should know better.”

There’s a pause, heavy with unspoken meaning. When Elrond speaks again, his voice is lower, softer. “You are right, of course. My reaction was unworthy of her—or of me. I will apologize.”

“You’ll do more than that,” Disa replies. “You’ll mean it. And you’d better do it quickly, before she decides we Dwarves aren’t worth the trouble of enduring your bad behavior.”

A quiet chuckle escapes you before you can stop it. You press a hand to your mouth, feeling a guilty sort of satisfaction at hearing the great Elrond Peredhel, herald of the High King, being so thoroughly chastised.

Careful not to make any more noise, you step away and head toward one of the common areas, where the soft glow of lanterns and the steady hum of Khazad-dûm’s life offer a welcome reprieve.

The room you choose is warm and inviting, carved from the same sturdy stone as the rest of the mountain, with thick tapestries lining the walls to dampen the chill. A small fire burns in the hearth, its light dancing across the polished surface of a low table. A few Dwarves sit in quiet conversation nearby, nodding in greeting as you enter. You take a seat by the fire, pulling your cloak closer around your shoulders, and let the soothing atmosphere wash over you.

You don’t wait long.

Footsteps echo faintly down the corridor, precise and deliberate. You glance up to see Elrond appear in the doorway, his expression as composed as ever, though there’s a flicker of something almost sheepish in his eyes.

“May I join you?” he asks, his voice steady but less formal than before.

You incline your head, gesturing to the seat across from you. “If you wish.”

He sits gracefully, resting his hands on his knees as he regards you. “I owe you an apology,” he begins, his gaze meeting yours directly. “My behavior at dinner was unbecoming, and you bore the brunt of it without cause. For that, I am sorry.”

You study him for a moment, noting the sincerity in his tone. “Disa and Durin gave you quite the lecture, didn’t they?”

The corner of his mouth quirks upward, a fleeting smile. “They did. And rightly so.”

You laugh softly, leaning back in your chair. “Consider your apology accepted, then. Though I admit, it was amusing to hear them scold you.”

Elrond lets out a breath, almost a laugh himself. “It is not an experience I am accustomed to.”

“Perhaps it’s one you needed.”

His smile widens slightly, though it carries a hint of self-reflection. “Perhaps.”

For a moment, the two of you sit in companionable silence, the crackle of the fire filling the space between words. 

Elrond’s gaze, keen and thoughtful, settles on you with a quiet intensity as the firelight casts shadows across his features. “I find myself curious,” he begins, his tone gentler now. “What brought you to Khazad-dûm? It is… an uncommon place for an elf to reside.”

You take a moment to consider your words, the memory stirring a familiar ache in your chest. “Two years ago,” you begin, your voice steady despite the heaviness of the tale, “my mother and I were traveling to Eregion. We’d heard whispers of its beauty and hoped to visit the city.”

Elrond inclines his head slightly. “It is indeed beautiful, or it was the last I saw of it. Please, go on.”

You draw in a slow breath, the next part of the story weighing heavily. “We were nearing the borders when we were ambushed by orcs. They struck swiftly, without warning. My mother…” You pause, swallowing hard. “She did not survive. She gave her life so I could flee.”

Elrond’s expression softens, his sharp gaze clouded with sorrow. “I am sorry for your loss,” he says quietly.

“Thank you.” You offer him a faint smile, though it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “I was badly injured in the attack. I thought that would be my end, but one of the dwarves found me—not far from the mountain’s borders—and carried me back to Khazad-dûm.”

“The dwarves saved you?” His voice is tinged with surprise, though not disbelief.

“They did,” you confirm. “They nursed me back to health, though their methods were… slower than the healing arts I’d known among our people. Even now, I still bear the scar on my side.” You gesture toward your right side, feeling the faint pull of the old wound as you shift. “And my sword arm aches from time to time, especially in the cold.”

Elrond’s gaze drifts to your arm, a flicker of sympathy crossing his face. “And yet you chose to remain here?”

You nod. “I did. I owe them my life, and I’ve come to care for them deeply. Disa and Durin have been like family to me. I’ve stayed as long as they would have me.”

The silence stretches between you, heavy with unspoken thoughts. Elrond’s expression is unreadable, his sharp features softened by the glow of the firelight. Finally, he speaks.

“It is rare for one of our kind to form such bonds with the dwarves,” he says, his tone contemplative. “But perhaps it is in such rarities that the truest friendships are forged.”

You smile faintly, feeling the weight of his words. “The dwarves have a saying: ‘Stone endures.’ I think that’s true of friendship, too—if you’re willing to put in the work to shape it.”

Elrond’s lips quirk upward, the faintest hint of a smile. “Wise words. Perhaps I underestimated the lessons to be learned here.”

For a moment, the fire crackles softly between you, and you find yourself surprised by the ease that has crept into the conversation. Elrond’s demeanor, so guarded at dinner, has shifted, and you see not only the High King’s herald but a man of keen mind and deep feeling.

“Thank you,” he says at last, breaking the silence. “For sharing your story. It cannot have been easy.”

“It wasn’t,” you admit, meeting his gaze steadily. “But I’ve learned that some scars are worth bearing, even if they never truly fade.”

Elrond's gaze lingers on you thoughtfully, his expression warm but serious. “The pain in your shoulder—your sword arm—it lingers still, yes?”

You nod reluctantly, rolling your shoulder as if to test the ache. “Sometimes, especially when the air grows cold or I push myself too hard.”

“Then allow me to help,” he offers, his tone soft but insistent.

You blink in surprise. “Help? How?”

“I am trained in the healing arts,” he replies. “It is a skill I have honed over many centuries. Perhaps I can alleviate your discomfort.”

You hesitate, the idea of Elrond tending to you both unexpected and a little overwhelming. “I wouldn’t want to trouble you,” you say, your voice quiet.

“It is no trouble,” he insists. “Think of it as an apology—for my behavior earlier.”

His earnestness leaves you with little room to protest. With a nod, you agree, and he rises from his seat. “Come,” he says. “We’ll need a quieter space.”

Elrond leads you through the winding halls of Khazad-dûm, his stride purposeful but unhurried. You soon arrive at the guest chambers where he is staying, a spacious room within Durin and Disa’s home. The air inside is warmer, lit by a few softly glowing lanterns. A desk sits near the far wall, its surface neatly organized with parchment, ink, and a few books Elrond has brought with him.

He gestures to the chair by the desk. “Sit here,” he instructs gently.

You comply, settling into the chair as he gathers his thoughts. “The pain resides near your shoulder, does it not?”

“Yes,” you confirm, glancing over your shoulder at him. “It’s mostly where the orc’s blade struck, just below the collarbone.”

Elrond nods, his expression thoughtful. “I will need to see the injury,” he says, his tone careful and professional.

You take a steadying breath. “Of course.” With practiced ease, you reach for the straps of your dress, undoing them over your right shoulder and letting the fabric slip down to expose your back and shoulder.

The room is silent for a moment, save for the crackle of a distant hearth. You catch a flicker of movement in the polished steel that edges the desk—a faint blush rising to Elrond’s cheeks. He clears his throat softly, a sound that makes you smile to yourself despite the situation.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, regaining his composure.

His hands hover above your shoulder, close enough for you to feel the warmth radiating from them. He murmurs a few words in Sindarin, the lyrical quality of the language soothing in itself. Then, a gentle glow emanates from his palms, and you feel the magic begin to seep into your skin.

A soft gasp escapes you as the warmth spreads, soothing the tightness that has plagued you for so long. The ache fades, replaced by a sensation of lightness and relief you hadn’t thought possible.

“Are you in pain?” Elrond asks, his voice low and concerned.

“No,” you manage, your voice barely above a whisper. “It feels… better. So much better.”

He works for a few more moments, his touch light but steady. When he finally steps back, the glow fades, and the room feels quieter somehow.

“The injury was deeper than I anticipated,” he says, his brow furrowing slightly. “But I believe the worst of it has been mended. The pain should trouble you less now, if at all.”

You glance at him over your shoulder, pulling your dress back into place. “Thank you, Elrond. I didn’t realize how much I’d grown used to the discomfort until now.”

He inclines his head, a small smile playing at his lips. “It was the least I could do, after my earlier misstep. I hope this begins to mend more than just your shoulder.”

You smile back, warmth spreading in your chest. “I think it does.”

For a moment, you sit in companionable silence, the bond between you subtly shifting—like a thread of gold woven into the fabric of stone and steel. The warmth of his magic still lingers faintly, and you feel a cautious sense of ease settling between you. Gathering your courage, you glance at him and speak.

“There’s something I’d like to show you,” you begin hesitantly. “If you have the time. The dwarves have cultivated gardens deep within the mountain. They use mirrors and lenses to bring in light—it’s unlike anything I’ve seen before, even in my own lands.”

Elrond raises an intrigued brow, his expression softening further. “Gardens, within stone walls? That sounds remarkable. I would be honored to see them.”

Your smile grows, tentative but genuine. “Then I’ll show you. I think you’ll find they’re worth the journey.”

He nods, the hint of a smile on his lips, and for the first time, you sense that his earlier guardedness has given way to something deeper—an openness to the possibilities that this unexpected connection might hold.

[fligniuz]

when in luzern

luigi mangione x reader x m! OC

｡𖦹°‧ you and your boyfriend make a friend during your travels.

word count: 9.7k • nsfw • read on ao3

tag list : @mangionebabymama , @mangobabygirl , @jenisaswift13 , @mangionesdaisy , @iinfinitelimits , @daydreamingwithluigi , @mrs-cactus69 , @mashkatzi , @straw8berry , @bean-is-reading , @luigis-wetdream , @difensore-del-popolo , @contrarianshitstan , @lunacelia , @lilbadblueeee , @hiscalliope , @luiluvr (comment to be added)

warnings : an ATTEMPT at representing swiss german in fic…f! reader; m! OC; EXPLICIT; threesome (m/m/f); luigi lets it all hang out during a trip to switzerland; drug use (alcohol + weed); oral (m! + f! receiving); voyeurism + exhibitionism; unprotected (practice safe sex!!!!!!); bisexual train; SAY GEX (luigi tops); multiple penetration; come sharing (i think), fluff at the end

notes : hey…so like…idk how many of you are even gonna be into this and i’m expecting it to flop but…it’s pride month and i’ve been wanting to write this concept for a while so this is what you get from me i understand if you wanna skip out on this one it was mostly for me💚 if you DO read thank you very much and happy pride from your resident enby luiginator!!!!🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

P.S: if you need some help visualizing i kinda imagined galli looking a bit like this fine shyt who showed up for like 5 minutes of severance season 2 and then disappeared😩but you’re free to imagine him however you’d like <3

^ divider by cafekitsune

This guy playing the bagpipe at Neubad can’t keep his eyes off of you.

Or Luigi. Hard to say. 

He’s tall, a bit lanky, moving like he’s got the joints of an accordion, wearing way too much plaid, and donning a well-groomed mustache. You can’t guess the color of his eyes from this distance, but you know that they are sharp, brimming with energy and intent, focused entirely on…something in your vicinity. He could either be nineteen or thirty two. His fingers move quickly, gracefully—the head of the bagpipe’s chanter has pointy ears like that of a cat, painted with a tiny golden face. One word comes to mind: twinkish. An original invention.

He is mesmerizing, as is his stare. The music is just as hypnotic. The vibes are strong, and everyone in this venue—or, rather, former swimming pool—is feeling it. You’ve been walking around the streets of Lucerne looking for some plans to make, and when you heard the live music spilling from this cultural venue, the two of you instantly knew where you’d be spending your afternoon. You got lucky; two kind patrons offered up their front row seats on the way out, which you were quick to take.

So here you sit with your boyfriend, tapping your leg and swinging your head to the folksy rhythm filling your ears. Luigi seems to be enjoying himself, too; every so often you catch him looking toward you, the curve of his smile sneaking onto his face like a note passed under the table. He looks content. 

Right now, though, he leans over, his voice hardly louder than the music:

“Do you think that dude on the bagpipe has a problem with us?”

You shrug, still dancing in your seat. “Why would he?”

“I don’t know!” he says, brows furrowed. “Maybe he can sense that we’re Americans from that far away.”

“Or,” you rebut, grinning to yourself, “he just thinks we’re hot.”

He snorts. Nudges you with his elbow. “Yeah, okay. That would be all you. Not we.”

“How would you know?”

Luigi doesn’t answer, because the song has ended and the rows of seats behind you have risen with applause. You join them, standing up and whistling in admiration. From the corner of your eye you see your boyfriend cringing. The band thanks the crowd for joining—“merci vilmal!”—and begin to pack up their instruments, chatting amongst themselves in a cheerful blur of animated Swiss German. As people start to file out of the hollow impromptu stage, you grab Luigi’s hand and yank him toward you.

“C’mon,” you urge. “We gotta find out what the fuck this place even is.”

He laughs. “You’re nonstop.”

“You knew that already. Let’s go.”

Neubad is not only a place of culture—it is a shrine of fantastic craft beer.

You and Luigi are perched at the bar, chatting back-and-forth and nursing tall glasses of something thick and malty when someone approaches and takes the seat right next to yours with a sort of quiet confidence; as if they have done this very thing many times before.

Bagpipe Guy. 

Mr. Staring Problem himself. You could recognize those kinetic eyes anywhere—and you can see now that they are green, a beautiful, muted green that spills out from his pupils like moss on a stump. The kind of green that clings and shimmers. He says something, accent thick—question-shaped, most certainly, but you’d be better off trying to interpret braille.

He watches the confusion wash over your faces, and then laughs. It’s loud, booming and brave like a drumroll. 

“Ah,” he says. “English, yes?”

You and Luigi nod sheepishly.

“I asked how you two are doing tonight,” he clarifies.

“Oh!” You glance towards your boyfriend and smile, relieved to know you haven’t made fools of yourselves yet. “We’re doing well, thanks! Very well. We really loved your music.”

The man makes a face, one of apprehension. As if he is unconvinced. “Really? I feel that we weren’t our best tonight.”

Luigi laughs in surprise, projecting a thumb in your direction. “Nah. You guys killed it. She danced the whole time.”

You did. You know he saw.

Bagpipe Guy smiles. “Where are you two from?”

“America,” you both say simultaneously.

“I could have guessed,” he quips, nodding. “And your names?”

This time you take turns speaking.

“Very well!” he exclaims. He extends both of his hands for each of you to shake, but it looks more like he’s presenting an invisible feast. “I am Galli. It is a pleasure to meet you both.”

“Galli,” Luigi reiterates, like he’s trying it on for size. “You and your bagpipe have great chemistry.”

Galli laughs at that. “I call her Desideria! She is my better half.”

At that he points to the hard-shell case slung over his shoulders—you assume Desideria the Bagpipe lays beyond the metal and plastic. When Galli pats the head of it you imagine Desideria herself purring rhythmically inside. Luigi shares a laugh with you, takes a swig of his beer.

“What brings you both to Switzerland?” Galli asks.

“We wanted something more quiet and rustic,” Luigi explains. “And she has this fetish for Swiss cheese, so she wanted to try it straight from the source.”

“It’s true,” you affirm, nodding. “I will go to unspeakable lengths for a good fondue.”

Galli grins. “And the chocolate?”

You gasp in remembrance—of course you two have tried it. The finest, smoothest, creamiest delight that’s ever melted in your mouth is the Cailler bar you grabbed at one of the many souvenir shops the two of you have visited.

“Oh, the chocolate!” you exclaim, clasping a hand over your chest—a completely appropriate display of affection for such a religiously admired delicacy. “Absolutely bomb. Wait—how would you say it? Like, the Swiss way?”

“Mega fein!” Galli demonstrates, accentuating his words with a very serious chef’s kiss. You and Luigi repeat after him, emphasizing the ei diphthong and the soft ah, much to your new friend’s amusement.

Galli claps joyfully. “You guys are fun,” he says. “Usually, Americans, ehh…Loud. Rude. But no—you two have taste.”

Gesturing toward your boyfriend, you joke, “he thought you had a problem with us. He was like, ‘can he sense our American spirit from that far away?’ because you kept staring at us.”

“I didn’t say that,” Luigi protests, badly. Chump.

“Ah!” Galli nods. “I was staring...I apologize. How rude of me.”

You laugh, shaking off his sudden bashfulness. “We were just trying to figure out which one of us you had your eyes on.”

And then this eccentric, mustached, plaid-wearing, bagpipe-toting Swiss man pauses, glancing between the two of you as he rests his chin atop his clasped hands.

“You are mistaken,” he says. “I was staring at both of you.”

You’re not sure if Luigi looks at you first, or if you look at him—but what comes next is anticipant giggles from both of you, amusement and perhaps something more lingering in your gazes. Your cheeks are warm. Luigi’s are already pink.

“Are you drunk?” Galli asks, as casual as a yawn.

And then you’re laughing.

“Not yet,” Luigi says. You nod in agreement.

“Good,” says Galli. “I live close to here, on Sternegg. I have better liquor for you. Will you join me?”

Neither of you could possibly imagine finding better liquor than what’s at Neubad, and you have no idea where or what Sternegg is—but Galli is a local, and clearly a smart one. Should you trust a man you met not even ten minutes ago, after he stares at you for ninety minutes straight while serenading a room full of strangers with a cat-faced bagpipe? All signs point to...Plots, and they can’t be good. 

Galli, though…He doesn’t feel like a red flag. He’s an open door, a side quest, a detour. He has this way about him, and you know that Luigi can feel it too; you noticed it the moment he came to sit next to the two of you, the moment he started speaking in that eloquent Lucerne dialect. And besides—if anything were to go sour, Luigi could fold this twinkish fellow in half faster than Galli can say “figg di!”. You aren’t expecting disaster, though. Galli feels trustworthy. Galli feels like a friend.

Reaching beside you from under the bar, you squeeze Luigi’s thigh, your silent question heavy as water in the air.

He looks to you, a soft flush still painting his face, and nods.

“That sounds like a good plan, Galli,” you say. “How do we get to Sternegg?”

Sternegg, as it turns out, is simply a street just a few minutes out from Neubad, one that contains rows of homes not too similar and not too different; a cozy little suburb. Although Galli’s place seems small, it’s hiding a universe of eclecticism and adventure. One thing you notice right off the bat is that Galli is a bit of a maximalist—actually, a bit would be a disrespectful understatement. His walls are lined with framed artwork and souvenirs and hanging crosses (not in a “lowkey concerning/maybe paranoid” way; these crosses are carefully crafted and clearly hold both a spiritual and aesthetic significance). His cabinets are styled like framed paintings of winged cherubs, and atop them sits a collection of items: different styles of lamps, unlit candles, Godzilla encased in a glass display jar, sculpted bears wearing hiking gear. You find several instruments—namely a keyboard, a tie dye patterned cello, and a banjo. Just the living room alone is a collection of mementos from Galli’s clearly audacious existence, a museum of artistic wonder and space ripe for creation.

Happily, Galli leads you to the kitchen, a much more subtly fashioned room complete with decorative displays of fruit, moody lighting, and ceramic figures of a boy and girl dressed in traditional Alpine garb. It turns out, upon your inspection, that they are cookie jars; the tops of their heads screw off in an uncanny but charming manner, leaving the twins essentially scalped. You personally love the vibe. Nothing says “welcome to my kitchen!” like scalped people-shaped cookie jars.

Luigi is still busy kicking his shoes off by the time Galli is greeting you with a trio of glasses and what looks to be a bottle of red wine.

“This always impresses my guests,” he says, “so I do hope you two enjoy it.”

You take a closer look at the label: Racconti, by an indeed impressive sounding Cantina Mendrisio. 

“Sounds Italian,” you suggest.

“Did somebody say Italian?”

Luigi is now in the kitchen with you.

As Galli begins to pour the three of you a glass of Racconti, he smirks to himself. “It is Italian wine, yes. From Ticino.”

“Ticino?” you and Luigi repeat in unison.

Galli giggles, screws back on the top of the bottle. “An Italian region here in Switzerland, my friends. It is where we Swiss make our finest wine.”

He raises his glass, as if to make a toast, and you and Luigi mirror him.

“Ready?” Galli asks. “After me: Broscht!”

“Broscht!” you both repeat, clinking your glasses against Galli’s. After your cheers the three of you collectively sip, giggling back-and-forth.

“Alright,” Galli says, “come with me.”

At his word, the two of you follow Galli out of the kitchen and through the narrow hallways into his bedroom, full glasses in hand.

If what you’ve already seen wasn’t excellently elegant enough, Galli’s bedroom is nothing if not a suitable challenger. The atmosphere is a mix of grandma’s house and 70’s hippie pit, a melting pot of velvet surroundings and uniquely shaped rugs and well-fed houseplants—there are dainty wooden wardrobes with patterned slacks hanging from the doorknobs, multicolored throw pillows, IKEA boxes of records settled next to a truly jaw-dropping audio setup. But the centerpiece, of course, is Galli’s circle-shaped bed, perfectly plush and cradled by a golden frame; you instantly make a beeline for it, careful not to slosh your fancy Italian wine onto the rose-colored cushion.

The first thing Galli does upon entering does not surprise you. He walks right over to his collection of music and starts digging through the cache; he pulls out a record—Addio Alexandra—and skips to the second track, which lights up on his stereo’s display: “Ménage á trois”. 

Luigi takes his time looking around, while Galli focuses his attention on a small box on his nightstand.

“How do we feel about a smoke?” he asks, glancing up to gauge your reactions.

You sip your wine. Look toward Luigi.

Galli clarifies; in his hand is a grinder, making the kind of “smoke” in question more clear. The both of you nod.

“Excuse me,” he says, ushering over to the balcony door. 

As soon as you can feel the wind blowing into the room, you smell it: Galli is growing some dank shit on his balcony. You watch as he collects the bud from his plant and looks it over, returning back to the bed with a smile. 

You look at Luigi again. He’s still touring the room, eyes darting about like he’s in search of something.

“Do you read much, Galli?” he asks. He faces the bed, now, one hand perched on his hip. 

Ah. That’s what he was looking for.

As Galli stuffs some bud into his grinder and begins to twist, he shrugs. “I read sheet music. Not much more.”

“Luigi reads a lot,” you say. He nods in agreement, making his way toward the bed. 

“Yes?” Galli smiles, now carefully switching the flower to a thin rolling paper. “What else does Luigi do?”

Right then something clicks between the two of them that makes your brain short circuit and overload all at once—Galli’s eyes meet his, a quick but conspicuous glance, and Luigi blushes. He blushes and he smiles, his canine catching on his lip as he looks away with a low chuckle.

What the fuck was that?

“I’m pretty active,” Luigi says. “I’ve been really into running lately…Um, I dunno, baby, what else do I do?”

He looks to you now, face settled, as if that little hiccup just a moment ago was nothing but a bump in the night. It puzzles you that he can’t find much else to say about himself.

You sip your wine. “He can make a mean baked ziti.”

Galli giggles jovially, sealing the joint with a lick down one end of the paper. His eyebrows are raised with what must be surprise.

“A fellow Italian?” he asks, looking directly at Luigi.

“I kinda thought my name gave it away,” says Luigi, smirking shyly.

Befuddled, you murmur, “I thought you were Swiss?”

“Both!” Galli clarifies. “My parents are Italian-born—they moved to Lucerne when my mother was pregnant.”

“So you’re Swiss Italian.”

“I guess the mustache makes it pretty obvious, now that I look at it,” Luigi says. 

And he’s right; Galli slips the spliff between his lips and strokes his signature well-manicured mustache with both hands, using the tips of his fingers to twist the dull ends. Luigi laughs through a sip of his wine, and you join him, still slightly piqued at his boyish, seemingly charmed attitude towards Galli.

“I’ll be right back,” Galli says. “I left my lighter in the kitchen…”

The lean man is already up and about, turning down the hallway to retrieve it. The joint is still in his mouth.

You nudge Luigi’s bent knee with your foot.

“What?” he asks, face adorably peeved.

“What’s up with you and Galli?” you ask.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re acting weird,” you say, finishing what’s left of your drink. “You’re all blushy and…Weird.”

“I’m not blushy,” he shoots back, hushed, as if Galli is listening through the walls with his wine glass. “I don’t understand what you mean. I’m not being weird.”

“You are,” you rebut. “Do you like him?”

“What?”

“Do you like Galli?”

Luigi blinks. Sips. His hand is trembling, just slightly.

“I mean—I’m—I don’t know,” he stammers, looking away from you. “Do I like him? What does that mean?”

“You just seem, like…” you try to explain, struggling with the words as they escape, half-formed, from your mouth. “You seem enamored with him. I don’t know. You’d have to see it from my eyes.”

A beat passes as Luigi, too, finishes his wine. He sets his glass on his thigh and narrows his thick brows at you, eyes focused.

“What are you implying?” he pokes.

You don’t answer. Galli is returning, now holding a neon pink long-reach lighter in his hand. 

“Sorry, friends!” he says, attaining his seat on the bed. “I couldn’t find the right one, so we have to make this work.”

You stifle your laughter as Galli struggles to find a proper angle to light the joint—but he makes it work, taking a puff and retrieving the bottle of Racconti from his nightstand. As he pours the both of you a second glass, careful not to spill any on the bed, his lithe fingers pass the spliff to you, one sparkling green eye winking.

“Ladies first,” he jokes.

You giggle. Take a hit, sip from your glass. You feel as if you’re living a proper European life, sitting on this lavish bed drinking gourmet wine and smoking a Swiss Italian man’s weed with your boyfriend. Exhaling slowly, you hand the spliff to Luigi—and when he takes it from you, his fingers brush against yours in a way that feels delicate, purposeful. But then, he looks to Galli once more; his eyes flicker over with a hint of something you can’t identify, glancing back at the eccentric man who now leans against a mountain of pillows, watching the two of you with a grin that’s impossible to interpret.

Luigi coughs just once when he takes a toke. You decide to spare him the embarrassment of even acknowledging it.

“How long have you been growing, Galli?” you ask.

“Ahh…” he begins wistfully, taking the joint from Luigi. “It started in university. At first it was just an experiment, but then…I don’t know. I fell deeply in love with it. I like to watch beautiful things flourish.”

He’s not looking at the plants.

“University?” Luigi pipes in. “What’d you study?”

As you take your hit, Galli responds, “actually, try to guess.”

“Art history?” Luigi offers.

“Mortuary science,” you suggest.

Galli shakes his head, guffawing. And after a sip of wine, he provides: “Astrobiology.”

You look at Luigi. He is looking back at you.

“Astro…biology?” you repeat.

“It is exactly what it sounds like,” Galli adds. “The study of life in the universe.”

“Like…aliens?”

Luigi is laughing.

“I know, I know,” Galli says, his blunt teeth perfectly white beneath his lips. “You didn’t know that existed before I told you about it…But it’s real! And we didn’t just study…errr, ‘aliens’. We studied the origins of life and learned about early evolution. It is a very astounding discipline.”

Luigi nods, still smiling, but fascinated nonetheless. “No, I agree. That’s really cool. So why aren’t you, like, at NASA now?”

“That’s the thing,” Galli says. “I went into college not knowing what to do with myself. I settled on astrobiology because…It sounded cool. But then I met my friends, my bandmates, and I realized…What I wanted was to create, not to study creation.”

You smile, softened. “That’s profound, Galli.”

By now Luigi has the joint again. When he passes it to Galli, the Swiss devil himself asks, “what about you two? University?”

“Oh, yes,” you say. “Both of us. But Luigi especially.”

Luigi shrugs you off, but he knows just what to say next. “I went to the University of Pennsylvania.”

“University of Pennsylvania!” Galli repeats with pride. “That is a very prestigious school, no?”

You nod. “Very.”

“What did you study?” he asks, eyebrows raised in beguilement.

“Computer science,” Luigi answers.

“Very good!” Galli exclaims, taking a hit. “The only technology I understand is music. I am envious of your brain.”

“Wanna trade?” 

Galli has a laugh that lingers in your eardrums. It’s crisp and vivid, like watercolor on fresh paper, imprinted in the very electricity of your nervous system. You wonder if even the alcohol won’t let you forget it.

“You don’t like it?” he inquires, handing you the spliff.

“I do,” Luigi says. “I like code. I like to unravel things. Sometimes it just feels limiting.”

“Such is the way of life,” you murmur, smoke curling from the edges of your lips. 

Their eyes are on you. Both of them. Looking with scheme glistening behind their irises, faces blissfully relaxed. You pass the joint to Luigi; when he takes it, he strokes his fingers against yours once more—this time far more obvious, less hesitant. 

Something reeks of possibility.

You aren’t sure what shifted. Maybe it’s the alcohol you’re still drinking, or the pot you’re still smoking, both excessively European in strength—but a keen intuition tells you that this is something more than intoxicated tension. It’s raw and tugging at the edges of your connection. It’s fierce, screaming like a banshee underneath the shiny overlay of innocent fun. You ponder if either of them can feel it, too. You ponder how to swim through the ambiguous expectancy.

And, frankly, you aren’t sure how long the three of you sit talking back-and-forth, sharing the joint until it’s a roach and drinking until the room starts to feel a little too toasty. You aren’t sure of all the things that you discuss amongst yourselves. What you know for certain is the one question Luigi asks that flips the night on its head:

“Why did you invite us, Galli?”

Propped up against the high-backed, pillow-stacked headboard, your host—your new friend—smiles toothily at the both of you, mossy eyes shimmering.

“You two interested me,” he responds. “I like good company.”

And then, whether it’s the wine, the weed, or your own blatant disregard for manners, you pave the cement that forms the road of the night:

“You thought we were hot.”

Galli blinks.

Luigi delivers a gentle but firm slap to your arm, uttering your name in a scolding tone.

Galli laughs.

“You are not wrong,” he says. “But I didn’t want to…err, embarrass myself. Or frighten my guests, of course.”

You wish you could capture Luigi’s expression on camera. The subtle but palpable changes in his face are perhaps the most suitable highlight of the affair.

“We aren’t frightened,” you murmur, hand gliding up Luigi’s thigh. You squeeze him—promptly, but reassuringly. You turn to him. “Are we?”

He looks at you, looks you in the eyes, for the first proper time tonight. His face relaxes. His heart does, too.

He turns to Galli. “We aren’t,” he clarifies, voice soft, uncertain, still welcoming. “But what kind of company were you looking for?”

“You like to unravel things, Luigi,” Galli proposes, setting his wine glass on the nightstand. He leans forward. “Perhaps the three of us could unravel together. Would you all like that? With me?”

This time, you and Luigi don’t look at each other. 

You nod. Without thought, you nod. 

“We’ve never—” Luigi then adds, but he swallows the rest of his sentence quickly. Retries. “Uh, we don’t have…Much experience with this kind of thing.”

“That’s quite alright,” Galli says. “None needed.”

“Do you do this kind of thing often?” you ask. “Bring drunk tourist couples to your bedroom?”

He shakes his head, flippant. “Not really,” he answers. “I do not come across the opportunity often. Well…I do, but, err, I do not always like the candidates, I suppose.”

“But you like us?” Luigi interjects.

Galli nods. Smiles. “Yes. I do. Do you like me?”

“Yes,” you affirm.

Luigi nods in agreement, then parts his lips to mutter: “I’ve never been with another guy before.”

At this, Galli chuckles. “That’s also alright,” he assures Luigi, eyes gentle. “Would you like to be? Tonight?”

You look to him. He isn’t looking at you, but he’s clearly thinking.

Or perhaps he isn’t. He answers quickly:

“I mean…Why not try it?” Luigi responds, the leftovers of a smile creeping into his lips. “When in Lucerne, right?”

He means it to be funny, but none of you laugh. The fierce wails of your bond are far too loud to respond appropriately. You squeeze his thigh again, much like you did at Neubad, where you first met Galli. There are a few curious glances passed between the three of you. Then:

“Well, uh…How do you normally go about…Starting?” Luigi asks.

The Swiss devil next to the both of you is as nonchalant as ever, gently smirking as he speaks. “What would you two like?”

“I have an idea,” you blurt.

The boys turn to you in an instant. 

“Well, go on,” Galli goads, eyes wide and inquisitive.

Luigi’s hand presses against your back, rubbing encouragingly.

You smile. “I shouldn’t say…”

“You should,” Luigi suggests.

“Would it feel better if you whispered it to Luigi, and he relayed it back to me?” Galli offers, leaning in.

You consider. Nod. Galli beams. 

“Alright, then,” he says, relaxing back against the headboard once more. “No need to be shy.”

Palm pressed into Galli’s plush mattress, you lean over to whisper to Luigi, making a show of it by cupping your hand around where your lips nearly meet his ear. Galli watches closely with amusement.

Luigi’s eyebrows quirk as the syllables leave you. He turns to you, grinning.

“Is that what you want?” he asks.

You nod, blushing madly.

“Well, what?” Galli chimes in.

At that, Luigi speaks: “She wants to watch me suck you off.”

There is a glimmer of something adventurous in Galli’s eyes as he leans forward. “Is that so?” 

When he glances over at you, you nod again.

Galli smiles at Luigi. “Your lady is a firecracker.”

Your boyfriend flushes a little at that, laughing softly, dimples accentuated. 

“Well,” Galli says, “since we have a newcomer here…” 

He looks to Luigi, who lowers his head bashfully.

Galli continues: “I think we could use some warming up, yes?”

His slender hand begins to creep up Luigi’s thigh, enticing and suggestive—until Luigi crashes his lips into Galli’s, coaxing a noise of pleasant surprise from the leaner man. It’s a messy kiss: long strokes of tongue and the slick of spit, and you almost can’t believe your eyes, can’t believe that you’re really watching your boyfriend come to terms with something neither of you expected to confront this evening, or ever, for that matter. Your eyes widen with excitement as you watch Galli’s thin fingers tangle into Luigi’s curls, their mouths moving without any hint of hesitation or uncertainty. Leaning back against the headboard with a slight smile, you brush your fingers back-and-forth over your nipple through your cami, thoroughly enjoying the sight in front of you and the sounds that their kisses produce.

They go at this for a while, much longer than you anticipate; it’s just you easing into the moment with the slightest touch as you watch your boyfriend kiss another man, sloppy and unheeded, Galli licking into Luigi’s mouth with intent and drawing moans from the broader man that make you feel dizzy. When Galli parts Luigi’s lips with his tongue Luigi takes the opportunity to nibble at Galli, pulling back just a little, and Galli groans, smoothing his hand down Luigi’s shoulder blades. You start to think this night couldn’t get any more unpredictable.

As Luigi pulls away to catch some air their lips are still connected with saliva. Galli turns to you, notices your hand teasing yourself. 

“Liking the view?” he asks playfully.

“Oh, yes,” you nod. “Don’t mind me. Just gettin’ comfortable.”

You can see Luigi smiling sheepishly at that—a sweet little smile that slowly fades as he kisses Galli again, this time reaching forward to grip his waist. With the weed and the wine on top you’re starting to feel all fuzzy just watching them make out, Luigi’s brows furrowed in concentration as Galli slips his hand under your boyfriend’s shirt. God. Not in a million years would you have guessed that watching a folk music show at a cultural center would lead to you and your boyfriend in bed with another man, no less this specific man—but you’d be delusional to complain. The sight in front of you is something straight from porno. Galli moans when Luigi begins to kiss down the slender expanse of his pale neck, leaving wet marks and teases of teeth in his wake. At this point you decide to pull your shirt up and over your head, something that the boys are far too busy to notice, because they, too, are starting to strip; before you can blink Luigi is helping Galli out of his plaid-print vest and thin undershirt, their mouths wet and swollen with passion, lips pink and thoroughly used. Galli’s fingers trace the light freckles underneath Luigi’s eyes and you watch as fire ignites behind his statuesque face.

Glancing over to you briefly, they continue, leaving you to work the silk of your skirt down your legs. Galli’s slender hands reach for the hem of Luigi’s tee, lifting, revealing taut abs and perky nipples. Clearly you and Galli are of one mind—the Swiss man is quick to pinch at Luigi’s chest, eliciting a moan of surprise from your boyfriend. Luigi retaliates; he pushes Galli down onto his back and slots himself between the man’s legs, meeting his mouth with a bruising kiss and fumbling with his own belt buckle. You watch closely and begin to tease yourself through your panties as Luigi steps out of his khakis, earning a gasp from Galli.

“Gopfertelli,” he mumbles, eyes trained on the clearly pronounced tent in Luigi’s navy briefs.

Much of what Galli says in his native language sounds like gibberish to you—but this time it makes complete sense. 

Intimidation. Thirst. Shock. You can’t blame him.

As you’re rolling your underwear down your hips your boyfriend’s big hands meet the waistband of Galli’s corduroy pants, pulling them off swiftly along with his (unsurprisingly plaid) boxers. His cock springs free; Galli is slim, a bit skinny, and just the right size—not too big, not too small. Coincidentally quite perfect for a first-timer like Luigi, who seems subtly pleased with the sight in front of him; he leans forward and grasps Galli in his hand, pumping softly, hesitantly.

“I’ve never done this,” Luigi says, “so don’t expect much.”

Galli laughs, caresses his curly head. “Give me your best.” 

It’s fun to watch Luigi navigate a new situation. It’s just as fun to watch a proudly straight man take a cock in his fist and bring his mouth to the tip, tongue peeking out to lick tentatively at the slick slit. Galli brushes his fingers through Luigi’s hair and rests his head back, moaning softly as the larger man adjusts on his knees to slather more of his tongue over Galli’s cockhead. Holy shit. You’re really watching this. You have to resist the urge to pinch yourself, to ground yourself in any way, to convince yourself that this isn’t too sexy to be true.

As Luigi begins to ease the tip of Galli’s cock between his lips, you sneak a hand between your thighs, circling two fingers over your pulsing clit and watching intently as Luigi slowly strokes what he doesn’t have in his mouth. 

“Cazzo,” Galli whimpers. “That’s wonderful, Luigi.”

Luigi’s cheeks blossom pink at that, the same pretty shade of pink that you find on his full lips, and you slip a finger through your slick folds as he begins to properly suck on Galli’s length; your boyfriend widens his jaw to fit more into his mouth, those very same lips you adore kissing so much wrapped tight around the girth of him with only the smallest sign of struggle. When he pulls his head back Galli tugs at his curls, and Luigi moans, sending a delightful shock of vibration through Galli’s cockhead. You swear you can feel it in your clit. Your fingers glide lower, collecting your arousal and spreading it over your cunt, your movements obscenely obvious to the boys—but they hardly pay you any mind, with Luigi only looking in your direction momentarily before returning to the task at hand. Something about his concentration pumps you full of libido, shakes you to your core. Your boyfriend looks so good with a dick in his mouth.

Swirling your fingers over your erect clit once more, you can’t help but moan when Luigi manages to take more of Galli’s length, slowly but surely working every inch into his mouth. Your high washes over you in little waves of electricity as you watch Galli buck his hips, clawing at Luigi’s scalp and whispering Italian prayers to the heavens. His voice is like molasses in his throat; thick and whiny, so desperate, waging a war against itself. His dainty eyelashes flutter and he crooks his neck to look down at your boyfriend sucking him off, meeting his stone gaze. Galli’s cock bulges against Luigi’s cheek, his glans meeting pure smooth skin and mucosa, and Galli grips the edge of the bed, his chest heaving with each breath.

“Luigi,” he moans. Your two fingers are building a steady rhythm over your clit already, your thighs twitching with the beacons of pleasure that begin to cement in your body. 

Luigi licks his cockhead, presses his tongue into the crest of Galli’s slit. “Am I doing alright?” 

Chuckling, Galli caresses Luigi’s cheek. “It’s perfect,” he says. “Don’t stop.”

So Luigi doesn’t, and neither do you, teasing your entrance with your fingertips as Luigi takes Galli’s dick back into his mouth, using his large hand to spread his saliva down the length of it. His wrist tenses against his Fitbit when he squeezes the shaft, eyelids much more relaxed than when he started, like he’s slowly getting used to the tempo of it. Things are getting quite wet for you—well, more wet than you were already, anyway. Your fingers glisten and audibly slide together when you pull them away from your cunt; you angle your palm against your clit as you gently glide your middle finger inside yourself.

Things are getting quite wet for the boys, too. Luigi’s spit is making a mess of Galli’s cock, spilling from his lips and trickling down every inch. You wonder just how much he’s enjoying himself.

“God, fuck,” Galli murmurs, head lolling in your direction. “You like watching, Ängeli?” 

You nod, bottom lip trapped between your teeth. “He looks so perfect.”

“Yes,” he agrees, and Luigi raises his eyes, curious; Galli traces the slope of his wide nose and strokes the back of his head, further encouraging Luigi to lathe his tongue over Galli’s tip with vigor. “Such a darling little mouth. You are a lucky woman.”

Luigi groans at that, loud and rumbly in his chest. You curl your finger. 

The bedroom only feels hotter now, even with the breeze blowing through the open balcony door, and all you can do is spread your legs further and ease another finger into your cunt, giving the two men in front of you as much of a show as they can manage to watch in their current positions. Luigi works his hand down Galli’s girth and swirls his pointed pink tongue over Galli’s cockhead in this gentle, coy sort of way, his mouth loud and wet with slobber. The way your boyfriend’s lips curl and loosen around Galli’s dick is so intentional, so vivid, almost hypnotizing—when your fingertips press into your G-spot you moan aloud and the both of them join you, like a symphony of collective pleasure bouncing off the plaster walls. The trio of you make music in ways you wouldn’t have envisioned even with Galli’s stellar Italian wine. 

And when Luigi lowers his head as far as he can go, gagging as Galli breaches his throat, you and Galli keen in unison.

“Mio dio, non posso—” the man squeaks, gripping tight at Luigi’s curls, now damp with sweat. “Luigi, wait, please. I don’t want to come yet.”

So Luigi halts, lips pressed together, cheeks flushed—awfully puppy-like. You’ve seen the same face between your own thighs more times than you can count. 

Galli laughs. 

“Shit,” he sighs happily. “What a treat.”

Luigi smirks, and the heat of a thousand suns sparks a flame beneath his pupils. “Yeah? Was I alright?”

“More than,” Galli assures him. “Come here.”

They kiss again. This time it’s different, a little softer, more relaxed. Galli rests his hand on Luigi’s pec as he drags his lips over your boyfriend’s mouth, moaning against him, and Luigi’s blush is so bright that you think he might burst to pieces right here.

The ceiling seems to spin when you pull your hand away from your legs and shift to your knees, crawling over to the boys where they lay at the end of the bed. And predictably, when that curly head of hair spots you approaching, he instantly lurches toward you, in search of your lips, too.

But you’re curious. As Galli moves to take your previous spot at the headboard, you skim your hand over the fine hairs of Luigi’s happy trail, slipping beneath the waistband of his underwear to find…

Luigi is unspeakably hard in your palm. He’s straining against his boxer briefs, his cockhead engorged and clearly visible underneath the fabric. When you give him a gentle squeeze he dips his head into the crook of your neck and groans divinely, teeth grazing your bare shoulder. 

Yeah. You knew you were onto something.

“Did you enjoy that, Luigi?” you ask sweetly, tilting Luigi’s head up to meet his gaze. “You like blowing Galli?”

Those bambi eyes beam, both meek and undeniably obvious. “Yeah,” he mumbles, nodding. When he kisses you Galli moans deliciously.

“Did you like watching?” Luigi asks.

“Mhmm,” you hum. “I loved it. You’re really hot when you’re sucking dick.”

He smiles a little at that, grazing his nose against yours. “Who knew?”

From the headboard, Galli speaks: “Do you two mind if I watch now?”

You look over to the smaller man, grinning. “Whatcha gonna do, Galli?”

He smiles back at you. “I have an idea,” he says, the lilt of his voice mischievous.

“Yeah?”

“Do tell,” Luigi chimes in.

Galli’s face brims with wickedness. “I’m going to get myself ready so your boyfriend can fuck my ass while I fuck you.”

Luigi flushes, and you smirk devilishly. Turning to him, you ask, “would you like that, babe?”

He cheeses like the cat that got the cream. 

“I’m not opposed,” he says. “But I’ve never, uh…”

“He’s never fucked a dude,” you explain, looking back to Galli.

The Swiss man laughs cheerfully, opening a drawer of his nightstand to retrieve something. “Are you nervous, Lui?”

Luigi shrugs, still blushing madly. “A little, I guess. This is all pretty new for me. For us.”

You nod in agreement, squeezing his shoulder.

“Would playing with your lady make you more at ease?” Galli asks, now revealing what he’s grabbed from the nightstand: a bottle of lube.

Fleetingly, Luigi glances at you and smiles. “Yeah. I’d like that. Would you like watching?”

Galli nods. “Very much.”

You and Luigi have never had an audience before, obviously—so it feels a little awkward as he guides you to lay back on the bed, slotting himself between your legs and looking wistfully at your equally flushed face. You’ve never seen him more exposed. You love the way it looks on him.

And then he speaks: “Have you ever eaten pussy, Galli?”

You gasp as Luigi dips his fingers into your arousal, glancing over at Galli as the lean man slicks his own with lube. 

“Unfortunately, no,” Galli replies. “I’ve never gotten the chance.”

“It’s a treat,” Luigi murmurs, mirroring Galli’s language. “A real treat with this one.”

“Is that right?” 

Galli spreads his legs, links an arm under his knee and brings his wet fingers to his asshole. Luigi is leaning down, now, planting kisses to your forehead, the tip of your nose, your throat, between your tits; and you feel like you’re floating atop a cloud of pixie dust and your wildest dreams as he inches lower and lower, closer to your weeping cunt, where you’ve been aching for someone’s touch far longer than you have the brainpower to vocalize.

“She tastes like il miele più dolce,” he says, spreading the folds of your pussy with two fingers, teasing the hard nub of your clit with his thumb. “When I touch her here she sings for me.”

Laying back, Galli smirks. “Would you let me hear her symphony?”

Luigi doesn’t answer. He parts your thighs, shifting to flop onto his stomach and insert his face between them. Two slender fingers spread you once more; and then he licks, one long lick up from the opening of your cunt to your clit, his lips wrapping around you when he’s tasted all you have to offer with one stroke of his magic tongue. You shudder and moan and twist your fingers into his bouncy, damp curls, writhing against the rosy cushion as Luigi licks and sucks to his heart’s content.

Galli groans feverishly—you glance over, find him already working one lengthy finger inside of him, watching the both of you with admiration spilling from his nude lips. For a moment, one never ending, blissful moment, you lock eyes. His green irises and Luigi’s hot, wet tongue is all you know for an hour or so and it’s more intoxicating than any drug you’ve consumed tonight; it’s euphoric, liberating, so soft and so like home. You’ve never been happier. 

“Beautiful,” the Swiss man hums, toes curling into his plush bed. “She truly does sing.”

Luigi looks up at you from between your legs, long lashes fluttering like butterfly wings against your skin, chocolate eyes hazy with the sharpest lust. You shudder. The vulnerability of it all, of putting yourself and your boyfriend on display for a man you met today, riddles your body with gooseflesh in an instant—it’s as if Galli is an artist and the both of you his muses, acting in the nude for him to bring to life with every stroke of his brush. As Luigi slathers his tongue over your clitoral hood and through your delicate folds, Galli stretches himself further, sliding another finger into his ass and arching into his own touch. 

And then Luigi pulls away.

His mouth and stubble are sheen with your arousal, shameless proof of the night glistening on his face. He doesn’t bother to wipe his lips. He simply looks towards Galli, hands still holding your thighs apart, and mumbles huskily, “you like watching my girl, Galli?”

“I do,” Galli affirms, cock twitching. “Both of you. Such heavenly creatures.”

Luigi groans, diving back into you without hesitation, this time pressing his tongue against your hole oh so gently. Your legs shoot up with joy—and your heart stutters when he guides your thighs toward you, pushing them into your stomach to allow him better coverage. With the half-mind you still have left, you try to remember that the balcony door is open, that the entire city of Lucerne could hear you if you aren’t mindful of your volume; and alas, you cry out to the shimmering lake, to the Kapellbrücke, to the peaks of Pilatus and Rigi—you cry out to every Swiss and their brother that these men, these two men in this bed with you, have brought you to a level of pleasure so surreal and ethereal you’re terrified of your own capacity to withstand it. 

Moving his head back-and-forth against you, Luigi quickens his pace, licking at you faster and with more intensity than before; it’s now you realize that the stereo is still playing, the mellow soundwaves of slow Italian jazz jumping off the walls and flowing in the ground underneath, trilling through your fingers as they grip and pull at Luigi’s hair. It is a uniquely Mediterranean experience: a breeze whistles into the room, harmonizing with the soundtrack, all while two of the most gorgeous men you’ve laid eyes on sit naked and profoundly preoccupied with you. The world feels acceptably small. You begin to wonder if a threesome was all you needed to unlock the secrets of the universe.

Galli’s dick bobs with each thrust of his slick fingers, his pale mouth open and panting as his eyes focus in on Luigi’s ministrations between your legs. His eyes flit, encapsulated in enjoyment. He is a perfect picture of male beauty, of quiet, subtle aura. You nearly bite your tongue when he guides a third finger into his ass.

“Make her come, Luigi,” he says—you cannot decide if it’s an order or a plea. “Make her come for you.”

If there’s anything Luigi is good at, it’s exactly that. Tensing his shoulders, he brings his dexterous fingers to your entrance, gliding one, then two inside of your pussy with ease as he continues lapping at your clit. 

Galli grunts. “Perfäkt.”

Both men’s fingers move with surgical precision, each motivated by their own desires—and yet, they thrust in sync, like an orchestra of sin. It’s the most melodius sound you’ve ever heard.

“Fuck—” you whine, gasping. The collective noises and sensations of the boys exerting themselves punches the air from your lungs, leaves you shaky and gasping. “I’m, oh, oh, fuck…”

“Getting close?” Galli grins, jaw clenching.

You nod helplessly. Luigi moans as your claws sink into his scalp.

He curls his fingertips into your G-spot, pressing up into your most precious pearl effortlessly even with the distraction of Galli fingering himself—and that’s all it takes, really, because you aren’t sure if your body and let alone your mind could handle anything more. Sparks fly inside your bones as you come hard against Luigi’s mouth, howling like the wind and uttering a slur of curses with each pulse of your orgasm. He spectates with curious, proud eyes, hand still working you through the hills and peaks of your climax.

“My baby,” he murmurs, voice barely audible—but you hear him, even through your heaving breaths. “The prettiest girl.”

As he comes to meet your lips Galli turns back to the nightstand, digging through a drawer with his tongue cutely peeking out from between his lips. Luigi kisses you. Sweetly, generously; almost reassuringly. As if to check in on you. 

You cup his face in your hands, noses grazing. 

“I’m okay,” you whisper. “I’m really good. Are you?”

He nods, flushed and dazed—you almost think he’s never looked prettier. But he doesn’t answer you, not with words; he kisses you again, like only you and him exist, tugging on your lip as he pulls away.

“Cheib,” Galli spits from the headboard.

Both of you turn. “What’s wrong, Galli?” you ask.

For the first time tonight the Swiss man looks a little sheepish, like he’s miscalculated something: “I don’t have a rubber,” he admits, scratching his neck. “Err…It has been a while. Do either of you have one, perhaps?”

You look to Luigi. 

He frowns. “I wasn’t exactly expecting to be invited to a threesome while we were out. I’m sorry.”

Galli laughs at that, but the concern does not disentangle itself from his thin eyebrows.

“But…” Luigi starts again, glancing at you hesitantly. “We’re, um, both clean. Right?”

He’s looking at you. You clear your throat.

“Yeah,” you agree, nodding. “That’s right.”

“But we understand if you want to stop,” Luigi adds. 

Galli is quick to shake his head. “I…I think I am alright with that. If the both of you are.”

You nod in unison with Luigi.

“Then…” Galli peers behind himself suggestively, his smile creeping onto his face slowly. “Shall we?”

Luigi smiles coyly. “How is this gonna work?”

At that Galli leans forward, into Luigi, cupping his jaw and connecting their lips with hesitant desire. You watch as Luigi reciprocates; he sighs against Galli’s mouth, hands tentatively gripping the slimmer man’s waist, and the contrast between the span of Luigi’s fingers and the small curves of Galli’s hips has your chest feeling heavy and your cunt beating. When Luigi pulls away, he turns to you—the switch from Galli’s lips to yours feels a little awkward, clunky, but Galli’s mouth teases the crook of your neck as Luigi kisses you stupid and all you can think about is how giddy you feel right now.

You never knew that three people could somehow kiss at once. But by the grace of Gott you, Galli, and Luigi pass each other around with all the effort your high, wine drunk, sex-muddled minds can manage; you almost take turns, with Galli kissing Luigi, Luigi kissing you, and you kissing Galli time after time again. The streets of Lucerne must be empty by now. Compared to your surroundings back home, it’s much quieter, more subdued—you suppose the noise regulations must have something to do with that. All you hear is the occasional eerie call of a stray barn owl and the smacking of wet lips, the pure evidence of attraction playing out right in front of you. You could do this forever, you think.

And then Galli reaches for your arm, guiding you toward the headboard and pressing gently against your stomach.

“Lie down,” he directs. 

So you do, laying flat onto your back as Galli makes his way between your legs. Then, he reaches for Luigi, furls his fingers around your boyfriend’s thick bicep and guides him to join the line-up Galli has formed. 

It’s a train. Essentially.

Galli smiles with pride. “Wonderful. How is this for everyone?”

Luigi hums, and you nod, glancing back at the two men kneeling behind you. Galli is already stroking himself and Luigi’s face is overtaken with shyness, a quiet vulnerability, something boyish and sort of innocent. 

Reaching back to squeeze Luigi’s thigh, Galli murmurs, “I’m ready when you are, dolce amore.”

You don’t see much of what happens next—but you certainly hear it.

Galli hisses as Luigi presses inside of his ass, every inch an internal battle—and Luigi keens, loud and whiny, desperate in his throat. 

“Oh my god,” he gasps. “Oh, fuck, ‘s so tight, fuck…”

And then Galli’s cock is fucking you, swiftly and without much precision, his whimpering ringing in your ears as Luigi begins to drag his hips back-and-forth. 

Your boyfriend sounds like he’s falling apart. 

His face is hidden behind Galli’s shoulder blade, pumping mindlessly and rocking Galli forward and further into you. The voice that leaves him is wrecked, broken and put together again, an amalgamation of disbelief and awe and almost certainly ecstasy. As Galli starts to find his pace you reach around, groping his ass, feeling Luigi’s fuzzy thighs meet your fingers with each relentless snap of his hips. Both men groan deeply when you spread Galli’s asscheeks to the best of your abilities.

“Fuck!” Luigi grunts, pitch higher—you can hear each slap of his balls against Galli’s ass as he thrusts. “Feels so fuckin’ good, oh my god…”

You part your legs as wide as they can go and brush your toes against Luigi’s arms, desperate for any touch in your somewhat distanced positions; he smooths his hand down your calf, over the bottom of your foot, squeezing lightly. Galli is quick to pinch and tug at your pert nipples when you arch your back and bury your head into the mattress. The three of you move with the grace of synchronized swimmers and the improvisation of amateur porn, sloppy and unpracticed and so free, so consonant. You never want it to end.

Galli is murmuring under his breath, a haze of Italian swears and Swiss German pleas—his thumb rubs furiously at your clit, determined to please you. You tug at his sweaty, frazzled locks, pulling tight at the nape of his neck, and his hips stutter—and so you do it again, and again, and again, until he’s dragging his swollen lips down your throat and leaving heady purple and red bruises in their wake. Luigi grips the leaner man’s ass, fingernails pinching at pale, smooth skin, and Galli groans into your chest.

“You fuck me so good, Luigi,” Galli praises. “Così grande.”

Luigi grunts at that, teeth pinning down his bottom lip. 

You reach for his hand. Your fingers interlock, gripping fiercely, and Galli breaks just a little more: “Chöntisch,” he pleads, “chöntisch, please, please let me come…”

“Yeah?” Luigi teases. “You’re coming already?”

You brush the hair away from Galli’s forehead as he whimpers in confirmation, mouth hanging heavy with pants and gasps of exertion and enjoyment.

Growling, Luigi mutters, “I’m gonna come too. Your ass is so fucking tight.”

Your cunt squeezes Galli’s cock and he’s quick to pull out, stroking himself over your belly as Luigi continues to pound away at his ass. You replace his fingers on your cunt with your own and his orgasm leaves him in quick, thick spurts and full-body shudders, his once glorious voice unraveled and completely broken. You can only imagine the sensations Luigi must be experiencing; but you can certainly watch his reaction in real time, high definition, his face twisting and jaw tensing as he comes, filling Galli’s asshole.

“Fuck,” Luigi croaks. “Fuck.”

Their combined vocalizations quickly bring you to the edge, your throat creaking as you cry out. Luigi, still holding your hand, strokes his fingers over Galli’s slender hip, curling around his thigh. 

“Isn’t she perfect?” your boyfriend asks him, resting his head on Galli’s shoulder as both watch you come undone in front of them.

“Yes,” Galli agrees, smirking. “Il miele più dolce.”

For a few moments they just stay there, watching you come down, eyes curious and admiring; Galli’s eyelids are heavy with exhaustion, lashes fluttering with each blink, and Luigi looks no different than the many nights you’ve spent in post-coital bliss together, all relaxed hearts and Jello limbs. Your eyes focus in on the pool of sperm on your stomach—fresh trails of Galli left in his passion. Smiling, you use two fingers to scoop up the remains.

“Want a taste?” you ask, looking at Luigi. 

He flushes.

Galli laughs, raising a hand to stroke your boyfriend’s curls. “When in Lucerne, right?” he echoes, almost purring.

Slowly, Luigi leans forward to take your covered fingers into his mouth—he locks eyes with you, all pupils as he sucks and licks away, much like he did earlier with Galli’s dick. You spot no discomfort in his sculpted face. 

“Sweet,” he says simply when he pulls away. “You vegetarian?”

“Vegan,” Galli clarifies.

You could’ve guessed that. Luigi shrugs, face accepting.

And then you giggle. You giggle, and both men do too, collectively basking in your after sex glow, the gentle shifts of your face and voice. The bed feels invisible beneath you and all you can hear is the smooth breeze and their soft laughter, a harmony of pride and warmth and indulgence; mellowed arousal and drunkenness feel weighty in your bones, suddenly very aware of your desire for sleep. It’s peaceful. Silent. Everlasting, like a tight hug.

“Thank you, boys,” you sigh. “Thank you.”

As you cup both of their faces in your hands, they smile in tandem.

The train hums as it crawls up the steep mountain, abundant grassy hills and the occasional cow sweeping past the windows in a steady stream of image, color, and light. The sky is extraordinarily bright today; not a single cloud floats in sight, a clear and bouncy blue splayed atop the universe. A baby babbles to its mother in the booth behind you, much to the mother’s amusement. You smile at the sun. 

From beside you, Luigi squeezes your thigh.

You peel off your headphones. “Hm?”

“…I got something on my mind,” he says quietly. His book is shut against his lap. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

“What’s up?”

He clears his throat, adjusting in his seat. Like he’s nervous.

You brush your hand over his shoulder. “You can tell me anything, honey.”

“What happened the other night, with Galli,” he starts, “…did that, like…Mean anything?”

“What do you mean?” you ask, brows furrowed.

He sighs. “If I slept with a dude, does that…Make me bi?”

Oh. Oh. This poor thing.

You snort. “It doesn’t make you anything, Luigi. It just means you had a threesome.”

“A threesome with a guy.”

“Yeah,” you nod. “So?”

He blinks, as if the very prospect that his sexuality is trivial never crossed his mind.

“I mean…” he trails off, flicking the edge of his softcover back-and-forth. “Aren’t people who sleep with men and women bisexual?”

“Sometimes,” you say. “If they feel that way. Do you feel like you’re bisexual, Luigi?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Fingers fiddling with the curls at the front of his head, you offer him a gentle smile. “You don’t have to know, baby. It’s okay. Labels are stupid, anyway.”

“I mean—” he stutters, flustered. “I just know that…That I liked it. I liked what we did with Galli. What does that make me?”

You trail your hand downward, grazing his bicep, then interlocking your fingers with his.

“It makes you a man who had a threesome and enjoyed it,” you say.

“…That’s all?”

“Is that all you want it to be?”

He doesn’t answer. You caress his hand.

“You’re overthinking it,” you murmur, lips close to his ear. “There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with you, babe. Bi or not. I love you for the man you are, not for who you want to stick your dick in.”

He chuckles at that, squeezing you back. His head starts to loll against your shoulder.

“Okay,” he concedes. “Whatever you say.”

You grin. Kiss his hair. And as he rests his head against you, the thrum of the train slowly pulls you deep into a well-needed nap.

merci vilmal = “thanks a lot”

mega fein = “delicious/very tasty”

figg di! = “fuck you!”

broscht! = “cheers!”

gopfertelli = “god damn me”

cazzo = “fuck”

Ängeli = “little angel”

mio dio, non posso = “my god, i can’t”

il miele più dolce = “the sweetest honey”

perfäkt = “perfect” (i think…hard to find resources on swiss german☹️)

cheib = basically “darn” or “damn”

Gott = “God”

dolce amore = “sweet love”

così grande = “so big”

chöntisch = “please”

[warblogs17282]

The final panel has hit and come to an end, so come and join me as I breakdown the third panel, titled One Helluva Cast! (Part 2)

Everything important/note-worthy is included for your viewing pleasure!

As Rochelle Diamante previously confirmed in the TikTok seen below, Kesha will no longer be the voice of Beelzebub at all from now on, and in her place, Rochelle Diamante will be taking up the role of Beelzebub as both her singing and regular voice now, and this panel just reconfirmed that!

Sam Haft stated that pretty much every single character in helluva boss has a vastly different song style to the each of them, allowing Sam to both explore styles and genres he wouldn't have otherwise.

Beelzebub is getting a new music video in the future, they gave us the title of the music video as well, called Buzzin'!

Jason LaShea (Andrealphus' VA) stated that Andrealphus' brain is "kinda like the beginning of game of thrones", as in where he appears to be a Mastermind but in reality, there's some parts in his brain that are made of Play-Doh according to him lmao.

His VA also stated that according to his own interpretation, Andrealphus may actually be jealous of Stella, Jason also said later on in the panel that "Mother always loved you best.", so take that how you want to 👀.

Stella's VA also believes that Stella is a whiny brat at her heart, and not an evil genius.

Helluva Boss has announced that they have a new writer, and it's none other than Lyle Rath! He also wrote the short we saw that preview of yesterday as well!

Speaking of that short coming in late June, the name of the short has been confirmed and it is titled "It's Orphan Time"!

Lastly, Verosika merch is coming to hot topic next month! Plus pretty much every character that were represented throughout all the panels will eventually be getting their own hot topic merch as well at some point!

[bylerlvrfr]

for me its actually kinda crazy how people really think that the duffers are gonna make mileven endgame and mike be like "oh im straight sorry man". Like, hello?!?!??? Are we watching the same show?

Stranger Things its not this kind of series. Stranger Things always represented all sorts of people and talked abt important topics such as racism, homophobia, depression, mental health, etc.

We watched Will suffer the entire show. That kid was kidnapped, possessed, and spent YEARS loving his best friend just for him to end up alone without the love of his life???

Do y'all really think that they started the whole discussion about Will's sexually in the beginning and didn't make him fall in love with a unknown guy or whoever (they could do it) just for him to end up sad and alone?

Think about that for a second.

[ooooo-mcyt]

Scott and Joel's rivalry is so !!!

On Joel's end, I don't think Joel really hates Scott as much as he resents what Scott represents to him personally.

Joel's grudge against Scott really starts during Last Life, but as early as Third Life you can see the seeds being planted. Joel tries to steal Scott's cows, but Scott catches him and waves him off like nothing, and when Joel does eventually get cows from Scott, there's this calm sense that Scott isn't bothered by it. Joel burns Scott and Jimmy's wall and lies about it, and Scott's annoyed, but when all is settled Scott just announces, sounding almost pleased, that he'd known it was Joel all along and was glad to be validated in that after everyone else thought it was Scar.

From the beginning, there's this implication that even when Joel wins, Scott comes away from it mostly unaffected, or even validated in some way.

And then Last Life happens, and it's a hundred times worse. Joel antagonizes everyone this season, leaving death and chaos in his wake no matter where he does. Most players are angry, afraid, see Joel as one of the biggest threats on the server. But Scott just..doesn't. Joel kills Scott, but is killed immediately after. Joel blows up Scott's roof, just for Scott to criticize Joel's inefficient method. Joel covers Scott's base in lava, and Scott thanks him for the "defense", saying he kinda likes it. There are multiple scenes where Joel sneaks around Scott's base, trying to stay quiet, just to panic when Scott finds him. As if Joel, a red name, were the prey, needing to cower and hide from Scott!

Because Scott refuses to be afraid of Joel, because Scott never shows vulnerability, because Scott somehow always manages to make Joel feel small.

Since then, it's been consistent across seasons- Joel is..offput..when Scott is doing well, and Scott always seems to be doing well. Joel makes a point out of targeting Scott specifically at every turn, every chance he gets, wanting to see Scott fail.

It's not really..about Scott, though? Like yes, Joel hates how calm and confident Scott is, and he does find Scott genuinely infuriating. But I think it's always been less about Scott actually doing anything to wrong Joel and more about Joel's pride.

Joel is someone who cares a lot about how he effects people. He wants to have an impact, to be important in the eyes of others, whether by being able to frustrate them, having them admire him, or being able to intimidate them. Joel thrives off attention, for lack of a better word, and he hates Scott because Scott never seems effected by him, which is a sickening feeling for Joel. Though I'd honestly also say it's often good for Joel to have a target for his bloodlust, especially if he's using that target to work through personal insecurities too.

Scott's feelings toward Joel, on the other hand, are..complicated.

In Third Life, he really had no ill will toward Joel, to be honest. At the very beginning of the season, Scott sent Joel specifically (and nobody else) the location of his and Jimmy's base so Joel could come see them, because Scott wanted Joel there. Scott, on multiple occasions throughout the season, stops by to 'gossip' with Joel and give him information as well, and while Joel antagonizes Scott a few times, so does, like, everyone else, so Scott isn't really clocking Joel in specific as an enemy. By the end of the season, Scott and Joel are even fighting together, and Scott is openly unhappy when Joel dies (albeit not extremely so).

It's from Last Life on that Joel is really antagonizing Scott, but I think it'd be a stretch to say Scott really hates Joel. Sure, Joel can be a pain and get in the way, but I've also always got the sense that Scott- on a good day- kind of enjoys it. Scott is honestly amused by a lot of Joel's attempts against him. Not just in the condescending way when Scott wants to show he's unbothered, but also in the sense that Joel is just a really funny person and he's good at making Scott laugh.

Furthermore, Scott often sneaks through to the end of seasons with very little challenge just because people don't want to target him, and I get the sense that Scott gets a bit of a thrill out of Joel targeting him sometimes. Plus it's probably nice for Scott, who always feels the need to be the "responsible" one, to know he can be extra petty with Joel and it won't really matter (because joel will target him either way, so it's not like scott can make things much worse).

Which isn't to say Scott is completely unbothered by Joel. As I said before, Joel can be..frustrating, and even beyond that, Scott is someone who needs to always be in control of himself, so the few times Joel has genuinely won over Scott have probably been..hard to take in stride. As has the fact that Scott seemingly can't make an ally out of Joel, no matter what he does. Scott's main talent is his charisma, and having Joel be so resistant to it is genuinely offputting. A double edged sword where Scott is, in some ways, powerless, for once, but finds that to be fun as much as it is upsetting.

Overall, I don't think Joel and Scott hate each other at all. They're both very strong willed people. Joel needs to be able to effect people like he needs to breathe, but Scott refuses to lose control of himself most of the time, so they're offput by each other. But as much as they complain about one another, offputting doesn't always mean exclusively bad.

I think Joel likes Scott more than he'll ever admit, and it's honestly good for Joel to have someone to target his bloodlust onto. Joel resents the insecurities Scott represents, but he doesn't hate Scott, really.

And I think Scott likes Joel too, if Third Life is anything to go off of. Furthermore, I get the sense he almost enjoys the feeling of actually being challenged by someone who'll probably never be an ally. Even if it's frustrating.

Really, for being "enemies", I just get the sense they're almost good for each other in a lot of ways.

[imadhatt3r]

There's a sort of small personal story arc happening in Koujaku's route that I haven't seen talked about much, and it is one relating to Aoba's struggles with his masculinity and his perception as a man by others.

This story arc heavily deals with cultural gender norms and expectations, and so I will be working with them; This doesn't reflect my personal view on gender roles and expectations in real life. This is also not for or against any headcanons regarding any character's gender- I have no opinions on them or problems with people seeing any character as trans.

Okay, without further ado:

The moment where Koujaku and Aoba canonically meet for the first time happens during their childhood. Aoba was bullied by other children for his long hair and for "looking like a girl". Koujaku stepped in to protect him, thinking that Aoba's a girl, and was allegedly suprised when Aoba turned out to be a boy, but his attitude towards Aoba never changed.

This event clearly had a big influence on Aoba, on how he views himself, Koujaku, and how he thinks Koujaku views him. When we first meet Koujaku in-game, he is seen defending himself from a woman's overly protective boyfriend and being a charmer to her in turn when she apologizes for his behavior. It's established that Koujaku has a lot of female admirers, and a bit later it's revealed that he attracts a lot of men too, but moreso as a kind of role model/aspirational figure- that's why benishigure exists in the first place.

Aoba is shown to be annoyed or downright kinda scared of Koujaku's fans; Of course, it makes sense- Aoba is shown to be a private person that dislikes attention, but I believe that there is a second layer to all that- jealousy.

Aoba identifies as a man in-game and asserts it multiple times. He is aware of his gender. Koujaku is shown to be both flirty and chivalrous towards women around him- he spends time with them, initiates physical contact, compliments them etc. Aoba is always annoyed whenever he sees Koujaku doing that, but his reasons aren't fully clear- it seems like he feels like Koujaku's behavior is, in some way, fake, or that he just dislikes PDA in general. Aoba isn't jealous of the female attention Koujaku gets- he doesn't want to be in his place, because, as we established, he doesn't like being the center of attention. This isn't a dick measuring contest with Aoba being salty that he's coming up short.

Aoba is jealous of the women. He's the one who wants Koujaku to flirt with him, touch him, be chivalrous to him, protect him, but he believes that it will never happen, because Koujaku only acts this way towards women. Men want to be him, women want to be with him, but Aoba is neither; He's not a man who wants to be him, nor is he a woman who wants to be with him- there's not a place he can comfortably occupy, in his mind.

Mind you, I don't believe that he is aware of his feelings- hence his clusterfuck of an attempt to make Koujaku's flirting with women a bad thing. It's not coherent, it doesn't really make any internal sense, because Aoba has no idea he's even trying to lead himself away from something.

In the good ending, Koujaku briefly mentions that he thinks Aoba sleeps in so much because he wants to get his attention, and I can 100% see it as being true- Aoba doesn't know how to get Koujaku to treat him like he does women around him, so he chooses more covert ways to get that desired attention and care.

I also see Aoba's haircut to be symbolic/meaningful of his relation to his masculinity being percieved by others. Aoba's hair was the reason why he and Koujaku met as kids and established their friendship and later relationship. When they were cut, Aoba started to look more conventionally "masculine", and yet the haircut is also, in a way, representative of the beginning of his and Koujaku's relationship. It's because Koujaku doesn't care that Aoba is a man- hell, in the CD drama, he even admits that he's straight up attracted to Aoba's masculinity. If Koujaku liked Aoba BECAUSE he saw him as female-like, wouldn't he want to keep his hair long/feminine?

This is kinda explored in various extra material like the summer side story and valentine's day story- Aoba seems to believe that while Koujaku is with him out of love/attraction, he's being treated more as a novelty, a "girl-boy" that's going to be replaced by an "actual woman" one day. He's afraid that the chocolates he made for Koujaku for valentine's day will be seen as "gross", and he expects to see a mountain of chocolate given to Koujaku by women when he comes to his apartment. In the summer story, he expects Koujaku to deny their relationship when they're being harassed by drunk benishigure, and that he will be left behind when Koujaku is approached by female admirers. This never happens- Koujaku actually reassures Aoba that he's never going anywhere, and that Aoba has nothing to worry about. This is framed as Aoba being simply jealous, but I think that there is enough evidence to imply that his gender has a lot to do with it. We don’t know how would he react if Koujaku was approached by a man, but it's mentioned multiple times that it's seeing and thinking of Koujaku being surrounded by women gets Aoba down especially hard.

I feel like it's also important to look into the bad ending for Koujaku's route too, because if you look at it through that lense, you can see some interesting stuff. First and foremost, Shiroba is dressed in a sexualized version of the miko garb (miko are shinto shrine maidens, and they are exclusively women) that includes stockings, and his hair is just as long, if not longer, than Aoba's. He also has red tassels in his hair, right behind his ears, which sort of look like earrings. In short, it would almost appear like Shiroba is trying to look more "feminine" in order to appeal more to the way he percieved Koujaku's tastes- after all, Shiroba/Desire is all of Aoba's impulses, thoughts, and desires taken to the extreme. Aoba thought that Koujaku likes women and femininity, so Shiroba WILL make himself look as feminine as he can to make Koujaku like him more.

There's also the fact that, compared to their good end sex scene, Shiroba is much more... Placid. In the good end, Aoba speaks, he laughs, he laughs AT Koujaku, he tries to turn his head away but agrees to look at Koujaku in the end; He is an active participant who is willing to laugh at his partner (in a way) and make demands. In contrast, Shiroba mostly goes with what Koujaku wants to do; He participates to a degree, sure, but he allows Koujaku to bite him, lick his blood, and fuck him pretty violently without any sort of resistance. This might be a stretch, but it can be seen as Shiroba trying to play a more "feminine" role- which means being passive, allowing your (male) partner to do whatever he wants to do with you (even when it's painful or uncomfortable), and let him essentially use you as a receptacle of his emotions and bodily fluids.

This is a very narrow understand of conventional gender roles, but given that Shiroba is a being of extremes, it makes sense for him to see his own gender and dynamic with Koujaku as that simple and two-dimensional. This whole ending is all about misunderstood intentions/desires, so Shiroba is doing all he can to embody the most extreme conventional femininity in an attempt to appeal to Koujaku, while not having a clue that Koujaku was actually attracted to Aoba's masculinity.

The funniest part of it all is that Koujaku is actually a pretty feminine man himself; His very design blends masculine and feminine elements, which @asarigg points it out in her excellent essay on Koujaku, (among plenty other things), and the way he acts mixes masculinity and femininity too. However, Aoba either doesn't see it, or he treats Koujaku as a "special case"; It's probably the most clear in the scene in the CD drama where Aoba says that hairpins "usually" look bad on men (after Koujaku asked him if he'd like to wear one), but that Koujaku makes it work. The whole plotline/emotional core of this route centers on Aoba relying on his simplified image of Koujaku when it comes to how he thinks about him, only to be proven dead wrong and forced to confront how multi-layered of a person Koujaku is- to reject the image he made of him in his head as a child and make a new, more nuanced one as an adult.

When Aoba was a kid, he saw Koujaku as his hero, someone who protected him, watched over him; He was kind of his masculine ideal, someone he wanted to be when he'll be older. Now that they're adults, Aoba still sees Koujaku as someone hyper-masculine, whose feminine traits and behaviors are glossed over because Koujaku is "allowed to" be feminine a bit. The sad thing is that a lot of Koujaku's masculinity is kind of a ruse that was taken on as a defense mechanic, learned back when Koujaku was living in an abusive household, when he was a victim of abuse, saw abuse inflicted onto his mother, and was possibly forced to perform violence to some degree as means of "education" (things like learning to fight hand-to-hand or swordfighting).

Koujaku can fight because he tried to fight his abusive father and was trained to kill in the future, once he takes over the criminal empire. He flirts with women to fill the void he feels due to his rock bottom self-esteem and because he doesn't want to see women sad or mistreated after what he saw his mother go through. Koujaku's persona is carefully build and maintained, because all masculinity (or gender in general) is performed- this is what people around him expected him to be, that's what he was taught to be, and so he performs, even if it twists him up inside (we know he bottles up any negative emotions and doesn't share his struggles and trauma with anyone, which is also a part of toxic masculinity). It also seems like he's often out drinking with someone and he's a smoker- that's more of a theory, but people often find brief respite from their stress/unadressed emotions in substances, and while people of all genders do it, there seems to be a bigger social acceptance for men to indulge in order to "deal" with their problems and avoid showing "weakness" for just a bit longer.

The good thing is that Koujaku seems quite comfortable in his femininity. He loves his (stereotypically feminine) job, he remains kind and gentle to those who need it, he respects women around him and treats them well (even if that relationship is far from ideal of course), he's always considerate and caring towards Aoba, etc. It's interesting that despite liking and being attracted to Aoba's masculinity, he encourages him to branch out and seemingly embrace his own femininity more (he tells him he'd look nice in a hairpin, or that he'd love him no matter how he'd look like). I wonder if Koujaku found some kind of respite in his femininity back when he lived in his father's house and was potentially held to strict masculine gender roles enforced through violence.

It feels like one of these things that Aoba needs time to process and accept; In a couple years, he'll be doing deliveries with the most complex braid with flamboyant decorations and the most bitching eyeliner ever performed on Japanese soil.

[luka--lu]

Anthropological and philosophical analysis of Viktor’s story in Season 2 - Part I

Finally gathered thoughts that floated in my mind since Season 2 had ended. These will literally be my first posts ever, will be a bit chaotic, please be kind, I’m shy. But also very critical.

I’ll preface this by saying that I’m not a person with a disability. I cannot claim to know this experience, because I simply don’t. I love Viktor as a character and it so happens he has a disability, it’s something I always consider when engaging with his story. Besides, his story revolves around his disability since S1 Act 2 and he kind of falls into the trope of ‘disability as character motivation’, but he’s much more than that. And that’s what I want to explore in these posts.

My analytical approach is obviously influenced by my experience as an able-bodied person. I’ve had extensive courses on disability studies while at university and focused my bachelor’s thesis partially on disability representation in media (I focused on scars and ‘deformities’, something many Arcane characters have, but that’s perhaps for another post). To people out there who have disabilities and wish to engage with this post - please let me know your thoughts, I’m genuinely trying to learn more.

I want to stress that in my analysis I’m not saying Viktor is entirely ruined as a character or is bad disability representation. I analyse his story from the perspective of philosophical, cultural and social contexts, and through disability studies theory. I’m not an expert and certainly can't speak on behalf of people with disabilities, I'm talking as an anthropologist and enjoyer of storytelling and art.

That being said, I’ll try to make it coherent and divided by topics, because these’ll be long posts. Some thoughts are a bit disjointed, I’ll be sharing some of my ideas for how Viktor’s arc could’ve been improved. Hopefully it makes sense as a whole.

TRANSHUMANISM & POSTHUMANISIM

Transhumanism as a philosophy and social movement originates from the notion that many people are forced to live worse lives than necessary and can’t reach their full potential. One of the most important thinkers of transhumanism Julian Huxley argued that application of science can prevent poverty, illness and change the world for the better. He literally wrote that ‘the man can manage evolution’. 

Viktor represents transhumanist ideology in a way that, in Season 2, he literally can’t refuse the job - he was forced the moment Jayce fused him with the Hexcore. Sure, he could have refused to use its power now residing in his body. But the writers chose to disallow him that choice. So Viktor ‘heals’ Huck and begins his Jesus Era. Viktor later asks Singed if the doctor believes in fate, which is followed by Viktor declaring evolution has a course - superseding nature. This way Viktor exemplifies Huxley’s idea of what transhumanism is:

(...) whether he [man, as in human] is conscious of what he is doing or not, he is in point of fact determining the future direction of evolution (...). That is his inescapable destiny and the sooner he realizes it and starts believing in it, the better for all concerned. (Huxley, Transhumanism)

If the Hexcore was actually sentient and controlled Viktor, then I guess it’s the soul of Julian Huxley.

The same way Huxley's work was grounded in a desire to make the world a better place, so is Viktor’s. His dream of betterment of his people's lives was the primary motivation of Viktor’s character, but it got hijacked by the magical mumbo jumbo of the Hexcore and Arcane powers in S2. His transhumanist ideology wasn’t developed organically, the story just jumps to act 2 and then 3 without proper explanation as to why he turned to this philosophy so radically.

Important to add, Huxley was a eugenicist. Kinda wild to take transhumanist ideas and write Viktor’s, a disabled man’s arc, the way they did. Viktor wanted to use technology to change the world, but writers said: ‘hmm, what if… magic?? And eugenics! because he has internalised ableism now!’ But more on that later.

Central question regarding transhumanism is who decides what’s an enhancement and what’s a limitation. The short answer is: it’s a personal choice, we can use inventions to improve quality of life if we wish. Yes, some things can be a choice, but in reality it’s kind of compulsory, because the society is built in a way that demands conformity.

Viktor changed himself instead of trying to change the world the way he intended to in S1. His arc was derailed from his initial will to act for the society that needed positive change. Progress for Piltover meant technological advancement in the name of scientific and economic gain. In Viktor’s transhumanist vision progress is about extending the self - to live without suffering, to cure physical and mental afflictions of Zaunites. It goes beyond his motivation to cure his disease, his actions in S2 don’t fit his characterization in S1. This is why I believe inserting parts of his original League Lore into Arcane would have made an amazing story with transhumanism as background.

Good part of technology is that it gives us opportunities for different forms of embodiment. Embodiment, important in phenomenology and feminist studies, means how we experience ourselves as a living body that feels the world as we inhabit it -  how we experience it in connection to us, simultaneously being influenced and influencing the world. There’re plenty of theories that tackle this concept, but let me go the short way.

Transhumanist philosophers talk at length about progress in relation to embodiment. Critics ask questions about the ethical side: who’s gonna get to use the technology to enhance themselves? What about people who can’t afford technology used for the enhancement? How will technology influence the embodiment of certain people? Specifically, what does this philosophy say about disability?

I will talk more about disability in another section, but transhumanists consider physical disabilities as something open to changes. Different technologies can be used as mobility aids, advanced procedures could help with improving the standard of life for people with disabilities.

But there still remains a question: what kinds of disability are considered in need of improvement? If technology changes a disabled person's body so they can function similar to able-bodied people, then is the category of 'disabled' even relevant anymore? Is there a definite line when it comes to influencing the body with technology? What kind of progress do transhumanists actually seek and for whom?

We don't hear Viktor’s stance on ideas similar to transhumanist ones until his talk with Singed, but it's a bit convoluted and isn't developed well enough to be an interesting take on a very controversial and fascinating philosophy that is transhumanism. It’s only indirectly addressed at the end by Old Man Jenkins Viktor when he says ‘There’s no prize to perfection, only an end to pursuit’, meaning that the glorious evolution doesn't really have a destination, even though Viktor believed so.

The change transhumanists seek can never actually reach a final perfect end - who and when will decide what the end of human evolution looks like? What is the ultimate, trans- or even posthuman form we’re supposed to achieve? Arcane seems to argue that nobody will ever be able to decide, even with godlike powers and knowledge.

Old Man Jenkins Viktor calls back to primary belief of posthumanism, which Nietzshe wrote about:

Man is not the effect of some special purpose, of a will, an end; nor is he an object of an attempt to attain an ‘ideal of humanity’ or ‘an ideal of happiness’ or an ‘ideal of morality’. It is absurd to wish to devolve one’s essence on some end or other. We have invented the concept of ‘end’: in reality there is no end. (Nietzshe, Twilight of the Idols)

Posthumanism is another philosophy that provides an interesting context for analysing Viktor’s arc in S2. I first focused on transhumanism since his story originally involved using technology to change lives. But Viktor seems to mix transhumanism and posthumanism.

Posthumanism is more about getting rid of core values of humanism. it’s about going beyond what makes humans, well, humans, which is a lot of things (biology, culture, economy, science, politics, environment, religion, social relations ect.). Posthumanism states that humans aren’t really that special, and argues that there are many other creatures and things that are equally as innovative as humans. It’s a philosophy critiquing anthropocentrism. It dismisses the notion of humans as apex creatures that can control and bend the world to their needs and will. The will to extend ourselves and find power within us isn’t exclusively a human trait - all organisms and things on Earth have that potential (interesting that in the destroyed Piltover Jayce saw the flora and fauna still expanded at the top of the Hexgates).

Viktor’s story isn’t really about that, but it ties to posthumanism when Viktor declares that emotions clash with reason, humanity is a contradiction which causes destruction, so there’s the need to go beyond humanism. Viktor’s ideas about human nature aren't really posthuman. His thought as he was dying after Jayce's attack revolved around the humanist idea that humans actually have an unchangeable essence.

Posthumanism, as understood by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guatarri, states that there’s no essence of ‘humans’. There’s only the potentiality, which comes from an individual will to create oneself, apart from fixed rules of the world. Funny enough, Viktor speaks about similar ‘charge, potential, impulse', but I don’t think it’s in any way connected to Deleuze’s idea. The philosophy of Viktor in S2 seems all over the place with trans- and posthuman ideas underneath, but it's an interesting mix that I wanted to explore, even if only on surface level.

Deleuze is fucking difficult to understand, French philosophers are the demons that always kick my ass, but they had some good stuff to say. In Postscript on the Societies of Control Deleuze claims that society is made by machines, not only in technological sense, but also by different systems: social, political, economic, religious ect. Every system is a machine. In the case of Piltover and Zaun, the social and political machines categorize people and program them to inhabit certain identities and spaces. Human body is also a machine consisting of different anatomical systems. We are machines living in machines, the flow of information and experiences between us and the world is constant. In a way, even before Viktor tried to change everyone into machines, the world was already run by machines.

I also think that technological posthumanism is an amazing lens to analyse the usage of Hextech and its final destruction of the world in Arcane. Technological posthumanism states that humans use tools and technology as integral to our identity and functioning. Inventions are made by humans, but inventions also invent humans - we use tools, art, machines that extend us, that make us. Humans don’t make technology because they’re free and rational, rather they’re free and rational because they make technology.

Donna Haraway says we're already cyborgs, because tool-making and technology is always a part of our evolution - we incorporate the world into our bodies. We use tools, but according to posthumanism, tools use us in some sense, like a parasite. Interesting that Viktor becomes literally a mix of flesh and machine, influenced by the Hexcore.

Going further, posthumanist thinker Bernard Stiegler writes:

(...) the pursuit of the evolution of the living by other means than life - which is what the history of technics consists in, from the first flaked pebbles to today, a history that is also the history of humanity. (Stiegler, Technics and Time, 1)

Evolution's course is always directed by technology and tools. Stiegler asks: ‘Who’ or ‘what’ does the inventing? ‘Who’ or ‘what’ is invented?.

Jayce and Viktor invent Hextech. Piltover, City of Progress, is made by the development of Hextech. Hextech invents Piltover’s identity, makes its citizens and government free, rational, innovative and progressive, in opposition to Zaun, which supposedly lacks these traits. Is it really Viktor who causes the calamity in the end? Or is it Viktor and Jayce’s invention of Hextech that caused the end of Piltover? Was it humans using technology, or was it technology influencing humans? Technology can be human’s progression in evolution (as Viktor represented) but it can be the destruction of the world (as Jayce saw in the apocalyptic Piltover). There is no predestined essence or course, there is only the potentiality.

Viktor’s arc with the transhumanist/posthumanist Messiah plot fits a subgenre of these philosophies which states there’s a possibility of a Posthuman God. It means that humans, no longer limited by nature, flesh and emotions, will be able to grow into a god-like state of intelligence. It’s not about ascending to a literal god like Viktor did, but more about posthumans being so advanced and intelligent that modern-day humans wouldn’t be able to comprehend it. It is tied to Nietzshe’s Overman ideal, but that’s another long story.

Summing up, the writers butchered Viktor’s character and did something typical for the general transhumanist discourse. That our problems are technological, not political and social, it’s about science that changes our embodiment, and we need this change because the world is unfair. But why is it unfair? Too difficult of a question for the writers apparently… I'll be dissecting it further below.

* Interesting to add, transhumanists of today go as far as suggesting we’ll be able to upload our minds into computers/certain devices and this way live forever. Viktor sorta reminded me about that with his astral plane self. There was a movie with Johnny Depp with this idea, Transcendence. This movie is bad tho (*Wendy Williams voice* Guess who’s jealous of Viktor Arcane? … JOHNNY DEPP!)

DISABILITY

In The capacity of contract Stacy Clifford Simplican distinguishes two ways of thinking about disability: medical and social. Medical model means that people have a medical problem when we compare their state to fixed diagnostic norms. The social model is about how society creates disability by making the world adjusted to able-bodied people, while disability is an exception to the norm, an anomaly. 

What the social model explains is that the problem isn’t the disabled person’s body, the problem is that they didn’t have a chance to design the world that would accommodate everybody. Medical model is appealing to able-bodied people because it allows them to dismiss their anxieties connected to disability and the possibility of acquiring it. People would have to then face the fact that society is actually unfair, so the medical model allows thinking there’s a distinct difference between able-bodied ‘normal’ people and persons with disabilities. There is ‘us’ (able-bodied) and the Other.

The idea of a cultural Other is key in various theories, especially in post-colonial critical theories, disability studies, social stigma theory ect. It basically means that the dominant group considers everyone who’s an outsider or lacks certain attributes essential to the group, as inherently different, oftentimes meaning lesser, therefore considered ‘other than us’. The Other needs to be distinctly alien to the normative group or culture. In case of people with disabilities the line marking the difference is located in their bodies.

In season 2 Viktor literally crossed the line (haha see what i did there) by rejecting his disabled body and changing into the Machine Herald. By rejecting his embodiment, he wished to fit into the ‘perfect’ embodiment represented by the people of Piltover. However, I consider Machine Herald Viktor as the epitome of what Piltover society considers as the Other. At the end of S2, for people of Piltover the line between what’s worth saving and what’s dangerous yet again locates itself in the body of the Other. The body that originated from the embodiment of the disabled Zaunite.

Viktor’s body is central to his character. We see his embodiment is an experience of pain, struggle, not only physical (he feels his body eroding) and emotional, but also social, he’s a Zaunite in Piltover. He’s double stigmatised as an undercitizen and a disabled person. Theory of stigma tells us that problems disabled people experience oftentimes aren’t connected to the disability itself but to the unequal, negative approach, harmful representations and institutionalised practices that cause the stigmatisation. It all reveals itself in ableism. One of the most important authors of disability studies, Rosemary Garland-Thompson wrote at length about these topics, notably in Extraordinary bodies. I’ll be referring to her work a lot in this post.

Viktor changed his body in S1 and then again in S2, he became Machine Herald, what he thinks is ‘the most he’s ever been’. But Piltover still thinks of him as the Other, a threat - and we know that in their worldview ‘Zaunites’ equals ‘danger’. And here’s the thing - ‘disabled’ is a position you get in a concrete socioeconomic context.

Viktor’s Jesus arc and commune activities focus on ‘fixing’ people and allowing them to live on the outskirts, away from the stigmatising society. Paradoxically, he fixed Zaunites to be able-bodied, like Piltover’s society accepts, but Zaunites can’t join that society, they’re still on the outside. Arguably, they’re trying to create an alternative for the stigmatising society, a new ‘Herald’s vision’. But why does this vision involve getting rid of disabilities? 

‘Overcoming limitations’ isn't really about transforming the body. As Abigail Thorn said: ‘You're not gonna fix homelessness by turning homeless people into inspector Gadget’. Arcane S2 Viktor took the wrong angle on the whole ‘helping the Zaunites’ thing. The show for sure states that. And that makes me sad and mad because it’s just.. idk stupid? Viktor as he’s established in S1 is fiercely intelligent, has very strong morals and convictions. He acts recklessly and crosses ethical limits only when it comes to saving himself from literally dying. I don't see how he would go from ‘In pursuit of great we failed to do good’ to complete opposite and being SO misguided in act 2-3 in the 2nd season. They character assassinated him so hard it’s almost unbearable. Still love him, but gods, look how they massacred my boy. Anyway-

Viktor’s disability makes him significantly different from the rest of the cast - as Garland-Thompson wrote, the figure of Otherness is a result of interpreting and giving meaning to bodies. It gives categories and paradigms, which then give us identities. By making Viktor a person with disability the creators had the responsibility of understanding that their writing has real life consequences. Representation in art and media is a means of identification for real life people who relate to Viktor’s embodiment.

Disability is not only a physical state of being, a form of individual embodiment, but also an economic one. It’s true for Viktor - he self-described in S1 as ‘a poor cripple’, using the language of his oppressors, clearly to pinpoint how he’s perceived by the normative majority of Piltover. I’d argue this doesn’t tell us how he actually feels about his disability. We don't really get his thoughts on it. I see many people assuming he thinks of it as an imperfection from the start and point to S1 when he shies away from the spotlight and then more obviously in S2 Jayce basically confirms to the audience Viktor’s internalised ableism in The Speech.

But I’m not so convinced. Viktor in S1 strikes me as someone who hopes his work will talk for itself, so he doesn't crave the spotlight, but it absolutely could be argued that the reason he hides in shadows is to protect himself from the scrutiny of onlookers. It might be an argument for him thinking poorly about himself and Arcane is known for ‘show don't tell’, but I sort of… wish they told us?

Viktor talks about his disease and focuses on his incoming death, which is central to his character in S1 after act 1. Disability and actively dying are different things though, but in sociocultural contexts are often considered almost the same. It seems to me that the writers made such an assumption - treating Viktor’s leg and his disease interchangeably.

Viktor’s internalised ableism wasn't prominent, I'd say nonexistent, in S1, his focus was on preventing his death, not on getting rid of his disability. He experimented on his leg and tested its durability when running. Season 1 already established that it was the wrong choice (although the running scene is contradictory with its message because of the ‘victorious’ framing and music). Viktor changes his mind at the end of S1 and asks Jayce to destroy the Hexcore. Never, not once, in S1 Viktor declares that he wishes to help people of the Undercity with getting rid of disabilities or that he wants his own to go away. He only speaks about his general health deteriorating.

But then we get Jayce saying Viktor ‘always wanted to cure what he thought were weaknesses; his leg, his disease’. Um- no, not true? Viktor always wanted to invent things to make a change for the disenfranchised. He couldn't do so because of his terminal illness and Piltover’s politicians not giving a damn about Zaunites. We don't know how he feels about his disability apart from recognising it as a part of his social status as a Zaunite in Piltover. We get the scene when as a child he shows Singed his leg, meaning he can’t play with kids and is lonely. This could mean he’s either shunned or can't access places where kids play. That's an issue of accessibility and how disability is created by alienating disabled people. It’s not enough proof to argue that Viktor dislikes his disability to the point of wishing to fix it when he becomes an adult.

I argue that Viktor’s internalised ableism was forced onto him by the writers. This way they put the responsibility of dealing with ableism on the disabled individual instead of asking the real question: why is Viktor experiencing ableism in the first place? Why is it Viktor who has to bear the burden of injustice and feel bad about himself? Apart from the positive sentiment of ‘disability is a part of humanity and doesn’t mean you’re broken’, the message of the ending seems to be: 'it's sad you feel bad about yourself, you need to hear you’re valid and get over your internalised ableism or you’ll doom everybody, but we won’t be addressing systemic oppression you'd experienced'.

The feminist, lesbian, poet, mother, warrior and an icon Audre Lorde pointed out the issues that stigmatised people face, especially having to be representatives of their marginalised position, having to use their intellectual and emotional labor to address oppression. I can’t agree that Viktor taking on the labor of realising his internalised ableism thanks to Jayce’s Speech is amazing writing. His humanity was denied by the oppressors so much he ended up rejecting it all together? The framing of Viktor’s motivation after becoming Machine Herald is extremely detached from his original character’s. I can’t- it seems like they made him self-loath and cause harm just because the final battle would look cool?

I like Arcane’s message that erasing disability is like erasing humanity and love wins in the end. But it's so naive, because it’s done at the cost of the disabled character’s entire arc and positions him as the villain to a society of mostly able-bodied people. I don't vibe with that writing choice. If the writers had the guts and we didn't live in capitalism, maybe we’d get more seasons and something truly revolutionary.

Feminist scholars pointed out how people’s standpoints shape politics, how identity, personhood and body are cultural constructs that need to be questioned. Standpoint theory suggests that representation is always a political act and thus disability representation needs to be treated as such. I don't think Linke and others thought about it this way while writing Viktor. They created a great character though, so allow me to open my ao3 tab and look up canon divergent fics.

Because of Viktor’s arc in S2 becoming about having his autonomy revoked and his supposed internalised ableism, we unfortunately got an interpretation that Garland-Thomson notes as widely accepted - that physical disability is a part of lower social status and a personal tragedy. We could have had Viktor as a transformative example of a physically disabled person who exposes social institutions of power and questions the notion of othering as a rule that permeates the Zaun-Piltover conflict. For that to happen, it wouldn't be Jayce who affirmed Viktor as valid - it would be Viktor affirming himself.

And we know he had the capacity to do that. In S1 act 1 he’s self-confident and we know he got to Piltover thanks to his intellect and resilience. Why would he lose these parts of himself so radically in S2? I understand that he was severely depressed and dying, that did change his perception of self when his health deteriorated. Yet, I believe in S2 the acceptance Jayce talks about could have come from Viktor seeing his own value. Garland-Thomson calls it 'speaking with one’s voice’. To be seen and accepted means having autonomy and possibility to speak about our embodiment with other people. We don't get to see/hear Viktor do that. He speaks of his mortality and deteriorating body in the context of disease, not disability. And he doesn’t really react to Jayce’s Speech.

If the creators wanted a really empowering story about a disabled character, they needed to address that. According to Garland-Thomson, the body is a text that needs interpretation by their owners. Giving meaning to his body, affirming it (maybe choosing to change it only to stop himself from dying) would mean that Viktor frees himself from symbolic and systemic violence, and rebels against fantasies and anxiety projected onto him by the normative society. That would have been based as fuck.

I ship JayVik, but it doesn't mean The Speech is all fine. Jayce might understand some of Viktor’s struggles but he’ll never understand him fully. It’s true that Jayce experienced horrors beyond comprehension, saw how his dream destroyed the world, he starved, had to reflect on his decisions sitting in a dark cave and injured his leg. Him acquiring a disability to parallel Viktor is a very important moment, yet it’s not the same as knowing Viktor’s experience of embodiment.

Jayce didn't live with a disability all his life in the society that considered it as something inferior. Jayce didn't live with despair and desperation of struggling to prevent himself from dying of an illness caused by the actions of an oppressive state. Jayce’s speech is emotional and important for his relationship with Viktor, and I did get teary eyed when he expressed how much he adored Viktor. But they lost me with ‘fix weaknesses, your leg, disease, and there’s beauty in imperfections’.

The Speech is sweet on the surface level but it rubbed me the wrong way, because not only it didn't make sense with Viktor’s arc, but it also feels weird to say that disability and terminal illness are an imperfection in which there's beauty. Imperfection is a tad insensitive of a term in this context... Having Jayce - who was more privileged socially, essentially able-bodied all his life and acquired his disability only recently - say this to Viktor, is kind of an odd choice. I do see what they’re trying to say: such experiences shape us but they don't define us. That Jayce loved Viktor as a whole human being with every part as integral to who he is.

At the end Jayce frees Viktor from his loneliness. Lovely stuff and I like it on a personal level, altho the Speech was poorly worded. Narratively, it tells me that the disabled character needed another person to say he was all he needed to be from the start. But it ignores the social context of why Viktor was lonely. Jayce's speech shifts focus from systemic oppression and inaccessibility to interpersonal connection he had with Viktor and the emotional side of it. It's possible to both establish a loving bond and acknowledge the discrimination Viktor experienced. But that didn’t happen in the story.

Viktor’s actions as written in S2 seem to stem from an immense need for acceptance and a wish not to be lonely. Of course he has Jayce in the end. My JayVik side is kicking its feet in the air and giggling, but when I look at it from a representation perspective it's kind of bad. Jayce is after all a privileged man who has never experienced life long marginalisation, chronic pain and despair of accepting his death when there's so much work to do for a good cause. And he might have understood how lonely Viktor was, how Jayce neglected his partner but still, Jayce cannot fully get it if it's not his lived experience.

Viktor is defined by his body by the unfair society he exists in and it's impossible for him to ignore it, because that's what shapes him every day. It's understandable he’d want to be healthy but I dislike the ‘Magic Cure for disability’ trope they went with in S2 when Viktor merged with the Hexcore. The trope is widely considered regressive and even harmful when it comes to nuanced disability representation. Viktor's case isn't as obvious, so I'm not trying to pass any finite judgement here. But I generally don't vibe with it.

I wish we knew if there were people with disabilities or sensitivity readers at any stage of the creative process of making Arcane.

I’ll be referring to the topic of Viktor’s disability in other sections of my posts, so it’s not really the end of this subject.

THE RADICAL OTHER

As I wrote earlier, the concept of the Other is extremely important in anthropology. There’s a more expanded and emancipatory theory that I'd like to touch upon - the concept of Radical Otherness.

In itself, this concept is disruptive. When we’re faced with the Radical Other, we’re confused. We cannot relate to them, cannot ignore them, our predisposed opinions and structures of understanding are being postponed. It creates a cognitive dissonance, forces us to change perspective, create space for the Other and look for Otherness in ourselves. It can also cause bigger fear and cause us to alienate the Other even further than we initially did.

Experiencing Otherness touches our bodies and senses without us having prior notice of it. This experience disturbs us, it calls on us, it asks us to respond and to react. German philosopher, Bernhard Waldenfels writes in  Bodily experience between selfhood and otherness that people usually either welcome the Other as a guest or exclude the Other as an enemy. The Other is always transformed in a way that the normative society has disposal over them or they're available for the society's intentions. Radical Otherness, according to Waldenfels, is not available to anyone.

Viktor's disabled body is turned into a grotesque fusion of flesh and metal, then into an alien-like creature, not a cyborg which would be more in sync with transhumanist ideas of technological augmentation of the human body. The way Viktor looks in his god-like form is aesthetic but foreign.

What it means for disability visual representation is that Viktor either reinforces or rejects the sociopolitical relations that make the disability a kind of Otherness.

Interpreting Viktor the Machine Herald as rejecting oppressive notions, I’d say he symbolises what’s rebellious, exposing injustice and disrupting social order. He left Piltover behind and came back to cause a radical reinterpretation of the world. He looks absolutely different, strange, magical - and we know people of Piltover fear magic. But because he’s the villain and dies at the end, I'm more inclined to say the writers meant to show his transformation as a symbol of unpredictability, lack of stabilization, anarchy - and that’s both dangerous and brave.

Viktor as Machine Herald can be read as embodiment of personal freedom by rejection of cultural uniformisation. But if it were to be true, he should have rejected conformity while still disabled or at least not transform with Singed’s alchemy. By the time we reach the last episode his arc is a story of Piltover having to tame 'the freak’ as Garland-Thomson would describe it.

The freakiness of Machine Herald’s form is also an interesting choice, because it’s somewhat humanoid but unnatural. It reminds me of the practice of freak shows where people with unusual bodies and disabilities were displayed as freaks of nature, odd creatures. Able-bodied audience gawked at them and while looking in the face of the Others, they’d re-establish themselves as ‘the normal ones’. I hope you catch my drift and see how this is not a good look to have Viktor morph into an alien looking creature that all of Piltover fights in the end…

If I try to find positives in S2’s writing, I can speculate that Viktor becoming the Radical Other in an empowering sense would mean that he embodied an alternative to the status quo. Him leaving and in sense rebelling against domination of Piltover wouldn’t be an intellectual choice but a manifestation of his condition as a person. In this interpretation, his transformation is radical, it’s a positive marker of his individual story.

It’s still a story of oppression though - our Viktor doesn't save himself, Jayce does it for him. I’m not gonna be talking about Old Man Jenkins Viktor orchestrating everything to save himself by having Jayce sent on a mission to save main timeline Viktor. I’m focusing on the Viktor we got to know in S1. It’s beautiful to be seen and supported, the scene at the end was so loving and my AroAce ass relished it. I love JayVik, yeah, though I think the message of Viktor’s arc being so centered on Jayce’s affirmation of him made the message a bit less complex. They’re soulmates, your honor, but they’re so codependent it’s really toxic yaoi.

Jokes aside, it would be amazing if Viktor chose to become the radical Other. He’d make an autonomous decision to use his status of the Other as the ultimate ‘fuck you’ to the system. The system that overlooked him and prescribed him the identity of an undercitizen, ‘an outsider looking in’.

His arc would be even more profound if he recognised his internalised ableism and chose to become the Machine Herald the way he did in the League Lore. In League, his practices aren’t entirely ethical either, but that's besides the point. His decisions were made out of dissatisfaction with Piltover’s corrupt academia and politics, and the moral duty he felt to aid his fellow Zaunites in the face of calamities and everyday hardships. The old LOL Viktor is actually iconic for that.

The Arcane version of the Divorce arc could’ve made JayVik more complex if they let Viktor express disappointment with Jayce’s decision to weaponize Hextech and Council’s lack of interest in the Undercity’s issues. Then the 'our paths diverged long ago' would be more inpactful.

The character arc is a mess but I tried to reach and look for sth more interesting within it. I think the Radical Otherness of Machine Herald is a compelling angle. Not what writers intended, for sure not, I don’t think they taught anything through that deeply.

ENDING PART I...

I think it all could have been more interesting if Viktor wasn't influenced by Hexcore as we’re led to believe, because… this is cheap writing and yet again takes away his autonomy, which he was denied far too much in S2. The magical stuff took away from Viktor’s character and lost focus of his actual motivation.

I think what we got isn’t good enough, but I appreciate bits that can be read as more meaningful, that's where my idea for this 'essay' came from. I just wish the writers had the guts to let Viktor be angry, come back to Zaun, not do the cult stuff and just help people, join the rebellion, basically tell the Pilties: ‘I hope I confuse the hell out of you’.

That’s it for the first part of this analysis. Part 2 coming soon i guess. (Edit: Second paaaart here)

 literally me writing this fucking dissertation: