#the world shattering around him in a metaphorical and literal sense

[chrisrin]

hey! question for the court.

who goes through more trauma, john homestuck egbert or jonathan magnus archives sims?

[emmcarstairs]

The Heroine's Journey: Lucy MacLean

“The feminine journey is a journey in which the hero gathers the courage to face death and endure the transformation toward being reborn as a complete being in charge of her own life.” — 45 Master Characters

In her book 45 Master Characters, Victoria Schmidt outlines the steps and phases in the Feminine Journey as seen in many traditional stories such as myths and fairy tales. Unlike The Hero’s Journey, which focuses on the external, The Heroine’s Journey is about inner exploration.

In the following analysis, I will examine Lucy MacLean’s journey so far in Fallout (2024). I believe it will be interesting to identify at what stage she is by the end of S1 which will give us an idea of what likely awaits her in S2.

Note: This analysis is written for fun. It is my own reading of the character and her journey. You’re welcome to have your own. Spoilers ahead!

Schmidt’s Heroine’s Journey has nine stages:

ACT 1 Containment:

1. The Illusion of the Perfect World

2. The Betrayal or Realisation

3. The Awakening or Preparing for the Journey

4. The Descent – Passing the Gates of Judgement

ACT 2 Transformation:

5. The Eye of the Storm

6. Death – All Is Lost

7. Support

ACT 3 Emergence:

8. Rebirth – The Moment of Truth

9. Full Circle – The Return to the Perfect World

The Illusion of Perfect World

ACT 1

2. The Betrayal or Realization

In the first episode, we meet Lucy content in Vault 33. We are shown a whole montage of her perfect life in her perfect shelter. It’s designed to protect her. Outside is dangerous but in her bubble, she is safe and sound. But is this good enough?

Despite her obvious naivety, we get a sense she is after something else. In her first scene, she applies for marriage, which is telling of her being on the threshold of adolescence and adulthood. Now, if marriage is really what she is after, or if it is something she relies on to fit in the community she lives in, is up for debate.

The thing is, the heroine knows deep down that her little world is not perfect. And she subconsciously seeks freedom so she can exercise her growth. Perhaps the prospect of marriage is the closest to freedom she has known in the vault. Or perhaps it is the thrill of meeting someone from outside her containment. In any case, she wants change; her shelter has turned into a cage.

Here comes the moment when Lucy’s perfect world is shattered. On her wedding night, right after the consummation of marriage (the symbolic passing to adulthood), she is betrayed by her husband. This is the so-called “inciting incident”. He turns out to be a raider from the surface. Now, not only is she betrayed by him personally, but she is betrayed by her idea of the outside world. He is her first conscious contact with the world outside the vault. And it is a far cry from what she has believed in.

Not only that but the danger has breached the walls of her shelter; she can’t ignore it. It turns out that her perfect world and the system she has lived in are broken. Her attempt at freedom ends with her husband’s hands around her neck. The history and ethics lessons have done little to prepare her for this. So a part of her begins to wonder what actually lies out there.

To top it off, her father, who is an Overseer and the biggest authority by her glass bubble’s standards, is drugged and taken hostage before her own eyes. She encounters the villain for the first time in the face of Moldaver. With her convictions shattered and her dad gone, she must make a choice.

3. The Awakening, or Preparing for the Journey

Lucy’s world is in ruins, metaphorically and literally. The others’ refusal to send a search party only reinforces the idea that her world has let her down. This is her awakening. She decides to take the active road and do something about it herself, hoping to rebuild what was lost.

From the story’s perspective, she has to find her dad. But as screenwriter Robertson-Dworet puts it: “As much as she leaves to find her father in the pilot, she also wants to fuckin' know what's out that door.” Moldaver also remarks in the final episode that Lucy’s curiosity greatly motivates her to leave the vault.

Given the raiders’ attack and with no established authority to prohibit her from doing so, she ventures to do just that. With the help of Norm and Chet, she gathers tools and prepares for the journey. What she isn’t aware of but will soon find out is that no material tools will help her with what’s waiting outside. She has yet to learn to trust herself and her qualities which will ultimately help her. It’s time for the trial by fire.

4. The Descent – Passing the Gates of Judgement

ACT 2

The descent may not be a literal one. In Lucy’s case, it’s ascent. She looks behind her as the door is closed and locked. There is no way back, only ahead. Often, the descent is about passing the gates of the Underworld. One of the first shots outside the vault shows us bones and a skull on the ground. The Wasteland is very much portrayed as the Underworld with its own set of rules.

From here on, the real journey begins. The heroine faces the consequences of her life-changing decision in the form of tests that will determine her worth. She might be advised to return to her perfect world, as Dr. Siggi Wilzig does after she lights the bonfire. After she refuses, he tells her that she will have to adapt and become a "different animal altogether," summarising the point of this stage of transformation in her journey. 

She will then try to use the tools she has at her disposal—literal and metaphorical—but they won’t work. With each encounter, she will lose weapons or belongings until she is left with nothing of the things she thought would help her. Think of the filtered water Lucy loses or how her dart doesn’t work against the Ghoul. She begins to look progressively worse as her jumpsuit gets dirtier and bloodier. She even loses her trigger finger. 

The heroine may also face societal prejudice. Lucy is stunned by people’s opinions about Vault dwellers and Vault ideals in general. She is being proven again and again that her sensibilities, HR manuals, and ethics don’t work in the Wastes. 

The heroine has to rely on her courage and instincts. She must let go of all control and surrender herself to the descent. After being stripped of everything, she must face her demons. Lucy strives to always do the right thing, but she needs to embrace the fact the fact that the right thing doesn’t always come in a neat little package. The world is more than right and wrong.

I believe the scene that best illustrates the first time Lucy actively trusts her instincts and by doing so, survives on her own, is Super Duper Mart. She uses threats, uses a makeshift weapon, holds a hostage (it’s a robot but still, it’s a big step for her), and most significantly, for the first time, murders another to ensure her own survival. Even though Martha had no humanity left, her murder is important in Lucy’s journey because her death becomes synonymous with doing the right thing, not for a cause or the greater good, but for Lucy herself. 

5. The Eye of the Storm

She emerges victorious with her bloodied face and tank top, and this is the most disheveled state in which we have seen her. By helping out the Ghoul, she is the victor not only in terms of survival but also in terms of morality. She shows him that she is morally superior to him. She’s successfully beaten her demons this time without losing sight of her golden rule. 

Still, it has taken a lot out of her to survive. The heroine feels weary, reminiscing about easier times. She seeks to find the familiar comfort she once had and may consequently settle for something she doesn’t really want. 

After this mini-climax, the heroine evaluates and comes to terms with what just happened. She concludes that she handled things well. Having survived the danger, she gains a false sense of security. In Lucy’s journey, this stage coincides with her meeting Max and their experience in Vault 4. 

Finally, Lucy finds a person she can trust. The world feels a tad bit better with someone by her side. At the same time, she dreams of going back to her own perfect little world. It’s so lucky that they end up in another vault!

While Max discovers the joys of living a simple life, it’s interesting to observe Lucy’s behavior. Although she feels safe for a moment, she starts noticing the people and things around her. She’s become more perceptive than before. Try as she might, she can’t go back to her old ways due to her experience on the surface. She wants to feel safe, she wants to sleep with Max; she wants life to be simple again. But she can’t help but look twice over her shoulder. She feels uneasy and grows suspicious of everything around her. It’s the newly found survivor in her screaming at her to get out. 

Eventually, Lucy learns that she has made the wrong assumptions about Vault 4 because of her ignorance and her raw instincts. They leave the vault unscathed, with Lucy fantasizing about a future with her and Max living together back in her perfect world. Soon they find the head but are forced to separate. Lucy gets the head, the kiss, and the promise that Max will find her in Vault 33. It looks like the journey is nearing its end. But it’s only the beginning. 

6. Death – All Is Lost

The heroine believes that her journey will soon be over, but it is time for her to face her biggest fear yet. Lucy delivers the head and finds her dad, thinking they can safely go back to how things were. Then, all of a sudden, her world is spun on its axis once more. 

Schmidt notes that few female protagonists make it past the stage of their “death”. Some of them die in the literal sense, some go back to their old lives defeated, and others fall into a spiral of depression. I believe this is Lucy’s final stage in S1. What will become of her in S2? Let’s speculate!

She learns about her mother’s fate and about what her father did to Shady Sands. And perhaps most jarring to her is that her father really believes that he’s done the right thing by dropping a bomb over a thriving city. Lucy’s role model turns out to be a fraud. The ideals she has lived and fought for, too. And it’s Moldaver, the villain, who seems to be on the right side of the story, despite her murdering her fellow people. It looks like the world isn’t simply divided into right and wrong after all.

This is the ultimate betrayal that leaves the heroine’s thoughts in inner turmoil. She feels humiliated and confused. All this time, she’s lived in a perfectly constructed lie. The events build up to her mercy killing her own mother, which is exactly what the Ghoul did to Roger in front of her. Purnell says: "She's learned from him. She has turned into him." She faces the death of her old self.

7. Support

ACT 3 Emergence:

The heroine’s journey is about building bridges between the individual and the group. Her inner awakening leads to her being more open to the help of others and helping them in turn. She isn’t afraid of betrayal anymore because, at the end of the day, she has herself.

In Lucy’s final scenes in S1, we actually see the beginning of this stage with the Ghoul offering her to travel with him and find out more about the past. She leaves Max behind and goes with the Ghoul. According to Schmidt, it’s during this stage that the protagonist will accept herself as she is and go on to share her knowledge with others. She will define her own world without an external authority. Her journey of self-discovery will guide the others around her to make amends with their own problems. 

We have already seen the Ghoul’s influence on Lucy. In S2, I believe we’ll see how Lucy affects the Ghoul for the better by balancing his sharp edges. But before that, she will need his help to get herself up on her feet so that she can be reborn and come full circle in a new perfect world.

Thanks for reading and I'd love to hear your thoughts!

[yourlocaltreesimp]

niiiice, been wanting to request stuff from you; your posts kept me going through this hectic week lmaooo

In this case, can I request a Four x chubby reader fluff? Mans been through a lot recently and needs to lay down and I have enough plush for him and/or the colors. Maybe even give him a massage? I just know his shoulders ache from all that smithing and swingin his sword around, I know mine does and all I've done is sit through lectures :")))))

-- altumsomnum

ofc, ofc! @altumsomnum

Tw: Nothing really, It’s fluff!

A well earned break

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Four was a busy man, that went without saying. He manned the repairing for weapons, kept a lot of the morale up, and -although as chaotic as his brothers- occasionally acted as a voice of reason. But a voice of reason is only good if there’s someone there to listen, morale often ran low with the manner of their journey and ‘goddamnit wild- I just made that!’ can only be said so many times. Burnout was an end to his exhaustion more than he’d often admit, so much energy spent and not enough time to replenish he often found himself bargaining between what he wanted and what others did. From commissions, to Heroism and now to travelling. And when both forces got too strong, all he was left with was discoordination. Both in the literal and metaphorical sense. The colours each trying to find their own way out of a problem only solved when united and his schedules slowly slipping from their norms.

That is where he found himself, staring blankly at the iron in his hands as he tried to bring himself to any conclusion as to what he should do with it. The familiar sight of his home was a welcome change, proud to see the world he grew ever so familiar with surrounding himself oncemore. The work, however, held no grace nor mind to this. It built and built, leaving him with a growing list of responsibilities. But there was only so much his drained mind could do. He sighed, setting the metal down and stretching out his overly tense shoulders, knowing that it didn’t do much to ease. The piles of stuff kept adding and adding until eventually, he slipped. Well, crashed rather. Directly into you. He stumbled back on his feet, trying all he could to right himself. The chatter in the back of his mind went quiet. A silence he had been not accustomed to in years.

“Oh! Four, i’m sorry.” You offered a kind, polite smile sending his mind into its frenzy once more.

‘apologise, dumbass. You just ran right into them! What, you’re just gonna stand and stare at them?’

‘Awe look at them! They’re so cute. And they’re smile? Stars above, I feel better.’

‘Look, just apologise and move on, we’ve got too much to do to get hung up on this.’

‘But come onnn! They’re so nice, and they won’t mind if we borrowed them for a bit.’

‘A break would be nice.’

“Four?” You inquired softly, trying to understand the state of him. He looked dazed and confused almost. His eyes weighed down by a lack of sleep, hair ruffled behind his headband

“I’m sorry, i’m just-“ Four tried to pick between the forces, to let himself be cared for or to care for others.

“Tired?” Your voice was soft, trying not to invade into the silence surrounding you too much. You gently grasped one of his hands as he solemnly nodded, taking the path to his room. He followed, eyes focused on here your hands joined, fingers entwined. You layed down first on the bad, allowing him to sprawl out overtop of you. He melted into you, letting himself burrow into you so he could finally relax. There were times you were insecure about your weight, so deeply instilled in the way the world viewed. But it was as if Four never saw you that way. Or perhaps that he did, but held no care. For his mind -shattered as it be- ans heart yearned to be with you. And that was never a choice he’d debated. He pressed a few soft kisses to your collarbone, nearly on the brink of sleep. You let your hands move from his waist, along his back and up to his shoulders. You kneeded out his sore muscles and let one of your hands tangle in his hair. It was then he truly just… let go. He curled into you, relaxing fully into you with a groan. He was asleep within ten minutes, clinging tightly to you. He knew what he wanted his next project to be, a lovely ring for you.

[toastys]

I have a really out-there theory that The Pale itself is symbolically/metaphorically/allegorically/a physical manifestation of the influence of The Players of Disco Elysium. The Pale wiggled its way into Harry's comatose, bender-beaten brain and shattered him into twenty-six different pieces for the Players to convene with. Strap in cause this is a Long One.

The Pale is often described as 'consisting of' everything that has ever happened in Elysium's past - the memories of everyone you meet, speech, radio waves, etc - it would make sense that it would be almost completely inaccessible to the Player as its own plot device. You can't just dip your head into Elysium's Lore Sauna to learn everything immediately... In a sense, you have amnesia too, and are learning everything with Harry as the catalyst. He is an unreliable narrator in an extremely specific position in the world - as a cop stuck on a case in a destitute part of Insulinde - allowing you to absorb the worldbuilding little by little instead of slamming you in the face with all of history at once.

Elysium is giant, but not infinite. Not even the people who live in Elysium know what it looks like from above. The Pale acts as a physical barrier around the most important parts of this world, and is eating away at it - much like the Player absorbs its geography, politics, and cultural sensibilities to utilise to the best of their abilities through Harry. Dora and Harry's past being inaccessible due to physical or mental manifestations of the Pale is another way of motivating the Player to shape Harry into someone new, as You are all he has now.

(She'll be coming soon. Le Retour. One day I will return to your side.)

The rest is out-of-bounds. Dora is not even seen in the game, since Harry's subconscious can only see her as Dolores Dei, ramming home the fact that Dora is long gone from Harry's life and the realities of poverty he must face. Dolores Dei was killed 300 years ago by a person she was close to after being perceived as something inhuman, and the bourgeois are not human.

Dora is middle class, and using this, she has literally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually transcended from the love she became disillusioned with. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with Harry because she thought he 'looked cool' during a brief economic boom. When the economy went to shit and the shit that made Harry look cool became outdated and tacky, she jumped ship using her class status. Harry is haunted by this - she is eternally leaving him in his dreams (his subconscious saying: 'why couldn't you take me with you?'). This mirrors the upper-class vacating Revachol, that was once the capital of the world, not once but twice. However, after everything, Shivers can still take the letter from you. The city proclaims her love for you. She finds you coat to keep you warm. You can't get Dora back; you couldn't even save yourself from crashing and burning - but the city needs you.

^ Key phrase 'Let me'. Implying that Harry of all people could kill it via neglect, and that Harry of all people could stop a fucking nuke from dropping on it. Shivers - the City, the Pale itself - could have taken Harry's memories away; the memories that drove him to attempt suicide - and replaced it with voices which guide him (however flawed) and an outside influence so far removed from Elysium that it can see beyond its outermost walls. The Player, baby.

Furthermore, the Pale is often implicated to be made up of alternative universes that contain events that never happened in whatever current playthrough...

This supports the idea that the Pale - and the resident pale-brained Inland Empire - is at least unconsciously aware of future events. Inland Empire deals in both Harry's inaccessible past and every future that could happen. Furthermore, could this imply that the route in which Kim survives the Tribunal and makes it to the island with Harry is the 'canon' series of events?

So, the Pale - which eats away at the fabric of Elysium - contains information from alternative timelines, and the future? Sounds a little like a Player's cumulative knowledge coming into Elysium to influence events that would otherwise remain unaffected... This would track with Harry's record of Knowing Shit that he definitely has no way of finding out, or even just 'can-opening' people. It's an essential gameplay mechanic turned into a pseudo-supra-natural ability. Other characters pointedly cannot read people's minds, see things that are happening miles away as if they were there themselves, or slow down time enough to make thought-out decisions in the blink of an eye. The Player, combined with Harry's Skills, may be a kind of lightning-rod for the Pale's container of near-infinite information. Of course, it is fallible, but it can also be excruciatingly accurate - so much so that you can freak people out by knowing or predicting shit. The Pale gives voice to Revachol via Shivers; voice to the RCM via EDC; and voice to the inner minds of the people around Harry via Empathy. The way Harry's brain is organised at all (via lists/trees) is genuinely an RPG mechanic based around extracting as much information as possible... Like the Pale. Human can-opener, sending facts straight back into the Player.

^ See, Kim? Harry can teleport... By the Player glitching him with game mechanics. So, the Pale is the out-of-bounds area inaccessible to characters? Where you have to travel through a physical 'loading screen' skybox of nothing that can do nothing but repeat other areas of Elysium?

I enjoy reading about people speculating on Harry's potential status as an Innocence, while also acknowledging the fact that every Innocence that has ever existed was elected from already-high-status by a politically-motivated court. There have probably existed people with Harry's/ previous Innocence's abilities all throughout history, but were simply never going to go anywhere due to their social standing. Dolores Dei was technically a nepo baby, and built a cult that absolved her of every crime against humanity via religion and political absolutism. A husband who vanished from history, as if his only purpose was to introduce her to the court. Her influence was a part of her Innocence- people were caught in the spell of her (funded) intelligence and (happenstance) beauty. There is another theory that Innocences were Player characters in different genres of games that all took place in Elysium: the Perikarnassian as a 'civilisation builder'; Francongero as a 'dark ages royalist military simulation'; Dolores Dei as a 'political strategy' (maybe Innocence Sola as a representation of the eventual disillusionment of Elysium in Moralism as a religion and the Innocentic system as a whole?). Wouldn't it make sense for the entire world to revolve around the Player? Wouldn't it make sense for them to have a massive outward impact, the future and history seemingly manifesting itself through them? Through the choices they make - the ways they choose to play the game, against an antagonist, and towards a victory that only they can see?

Wouldn't it be natural for Dolores Dei's assassination be the result of Her Player not investing enough skill points into 'appearing human to outsiders'?

^ The bourgeois are not human. 'We were supposed to come up with this ourselves!" - a reference to Dolores Dei pulling the future out of the Pale; from future universes where she never existed and retconning inventions into this one. Inland Empire who?

Appearing so perfect that she seemed inhuman worked for a while. People adored her, submitted to her. But, it eventually backfired.

An Innocence of Humanism - Humanism being a ideological strategy to increase the population and produce more expensive goods? Gaining EXP?

At the same time, using her wiles and her 'Army of Humanity' to crush and slaughter any dissenters to her rule? Holding tin soldiers between her fingers... The most 'socially secluded' and 'least self-aware' - perhaps secluded to prevent a game over? Un-self-aware because her consciousness is literally separate from Elysium? Is her assassination fundamentally detrimental to Elysium, the world coasting on the Player's absence like a softlocked game? Is Disco Elysium taking place in a 'game over'? 'Elysium' is the word for the resting place of dead gods...

Harry, without the Player, has made an absolutely clusterfuck of his life out of grief. It cannot be discounted, however, that he was an incredible detective. 216 cases cleared, earning the reputation of being a 'human-can-opener'; knowing things that he has no feasible way of knowing; carving a path across Martinaise and taking in every tiny little thing related to the case. From the Phasmid-traps to the Maybells. Perhaps pre-amnesia Harry even knew about the sniper, throwing his shoe through the window to gaud Iosef into shooting again.

^ Harry's parallels to Dolores Dei? Her toy soldiers, his human cans... Appearing out of nowhere and causing an avalanche, people both attracted to and terrified of them. The difference being - Harry's in a detective game where you start playing as a poor, ugly, drunk, amnesiac cop - and Dolores' political strategy where you begin climbing the ranks of the richest of the rich as a beautiful and immensely educated woman. Harry's scared of his own supra-natural abilities to the point where he doesn't even want to think about how they work? Talk about a sequel....

Who fucking knows what was going through Harry's head before the game started. It doesn't matter. All we know is that we now have an option to combat past-Harry's declaration of 'getting worse'. And we can save-scum this shit as many times as we want until we succeed, with a precinct of voices to converse with when it is necessary to read between the lines or take an action. We even know how likely it is for Harry to succeed at something, down to the percentage. In real life, we might have something of a clue about how likely it is to make a jump or whatever, but Harry's got it down to a percentile. Because he's a goddamn RPG main character, and the Pale cleared out the room for us in his head since Elysium needs another Innocence. One who is not 'innocent' of anything at all. One who is an absolute dumpster-fire drenched in flammable alcohol, representing the culmination of Revachol at this point in history. Born in a place where people go to die, contracting a disease that everyone was too poor to be vaccinated against, catching the momentary fancy of a richer upper-class only to be vacated and haunted into a recession fueled by addiction and poverty - now, reborn and rising and able to prevent his death in as many ways as the game allows us to.

^ Access to hidden places and circulation among those who are hidden - is this referring to his uncannily good detective work, and the trust and information he is able to can-open from those in hiding from one thing or another? 'Hidden places' could even refer to the future (or things otherwise unrevealed to most people), in this context. 'Hidden people' could be those who have been so downtrodden by capitalism that they are essentially nobodies - trapped in spirals of poverty, addiction, etc, - just like Harry. He is able to converse with them on semi-equal footing because of this.

His status within the RCM and whatever special treatments he socially benefits from is apparently paramount in him saving Revachol. Perhaps the RCM will become less of a tool used by the Coalition and more of a People's Army, fighting foreign control. A free Revachol. Not everyone in the RCM is a fan of this whole 'Moralism' thing...

'ONE DAY I WILL RETURN TO YOUR SIDE', burning in fuel that Harry lights with a tiny spark, written to be seen by the Coalition Warships above by a young revolutionary. The flames warm them both. We don't know how exactly Harry will stop the nuke from falling on Revachol - it could be something as little as a butterfly effect decision he takes, or as big as playing a leading role in Le Retour. A plea from the city to be vigilant. A stack of boxes, representing all of history, holding for a small moment with the help of Harry. Something beautiful is going to happen.

This one kind of got away from me, so thank you for reading all of it. What I think I really want to say is that our determination and hope to see the HANGED MAN through to the end is for us to witness all of Recachol's bloody history and fall in love with it anyway. To want to make it better, even a tiny little decaying part of it like Martinaise. Even a broken, objectively terrible man like Harrier Du Bois. Disco Elysium was meant to be only a prelude to a bigger series of games; a taster of the wider world. Sadly, we'll probably never get anything like that due to the original artists who created this world being fired from ZA/UM. But I don't think we'll stop loving or dreaming of this wonderful story and the characters who inhabit it. Capitalism can't kill an idea, after all.

^ Thank you to these people for planting this girthy idea in my head. I need a lie down.

[treblrebl]

Bones: Patterns and Precedents

Almost a year after Lucifer ended, I decided to follow the Morningstar’s advice and binge Bones. Since the Devil has great taste, B&B certainly helped to soothe the heartache left by the show’s ending and its corresponding choices. Bones introduced me to another host of interesting, complex female characters, and I amused myself heartily with the thought of the Catholic altar boy interacting with the literal biblical Devil.

(And let’s be honest, fending off Satanic overtures because there’s no way Lucifer wouldn’t be head-over-heels attracted by Seeley Booth)

Streaming an older show years after its’ last airing date reveals certain patterns and dimensions to characters which would likely not have been apparent in the show’s original episodic run. Some of the most prevalent fan takes about Brennan and Booth around 2010-2011 are quite surprising, as are the general perceptions of the titular characters. Sometimes it’s understandable – weekly episodes along with the usual season hiatuses don’t really translate well to a continuous, consistent narrative in the viewer’s mind. Other times I wonder if some of the popular takes would hold water if replicated in a current show.

With that out of the way, here are some subtle patterns which seemed to jump out at me.

Brennan’s most defining relationship pre-Booth is not Sully, but Stires.

To an objective eye, Michael Stires absolutely is a creep who took advantage of Brennan’s naivete. But he is also the quintessential brilliant young professor, a certified expert in her chosen field. To Brennan, who has always only known ostracization from her peers for her genius, he is the one person who not only appreciated, but actively honed her brilliance and talent. From the perspective of a young Brennan, he is her guide, her champion, and her coach. Her relationship with him isn’t a surprise and starts to make much more sense once we are introduced to Russ.

For the longest time, Russ was Brennan’s male role model. The older brother with his own significant social capital who had no qualms extending his metaphorical protective wing over his socially marginalised little sister. The brother whose support and protection she had absolute faith in – until the day he disappeared, shattering her heart, her trust and whatever little was left of her world in one fell swoop. It would have been devastating for any neurotypical teenager, but for Brennan it was almost catastrophic.

Is it thus any wonder that Brennan’s first serious ‘relationship’ was with an older man who was her teacher in every way, and in some ways, I’m sure acted as a protector? It was obvious that in contrast to all other subsequent relationships where Brennan pulled the trigger, it was Stires who taught her that emotions were illogical distractions and have no place in a truly efficient relationship. Brennan’s survival drive had already repressed most of her emotional centers, strong as they were, and Stires’ teachings solidified her transactional view of relationships. This stands her in good stead when Stires finally shows his true colors – she was genuinely pleased to see him again initially. His betrayal put things into perspective for her and cemented her ambivalent view on relationships.

Sully on the other hand, was very clearly only a transitory figure in Brennan’s life. By Season 2, Brennan was already infatuated with Booth. Their emotional connection is yet to reach its peak, but it is there, and the physical attraction has been smoldering from the very beginning. The Girl in the Gator takes place immediately after the final Epps episode, and Booth’s infamous ‘line’ conversation. It’s only when you watch the episodes in sequence that you realise how deeply she internalised that proclamation. It was a knee-jerk reaction by Booth, brought about by his own fears and insecurities, but Brennan had no way of knowing that. From her perspective, she wants him, but he doesn’t want her back, and that’s that.

So, what happens when Sully comes on the scene? Here’s a guy who at least on the surface has all of Booth’s best qualities. He’s also an FBI agent, charming, interesting and a genuinely good guy. He’s respectful of Brennan’s abilities. And in contrast to Booth, he is open about his interest in her. Naturally, Brennan projects all the confusing Booth feelings she doesn’t have an outlet for on Sully. He doesn’t have Booth’s formidable history with her, nor does he challenge her the way Booth does. He doesn’t have that ineffable connection – but he is deferential, kind, and good to her in the short time they were together. In the end though, he doesn’t imprint on her anywhere.

I do think Gordon Gordon had it exactly right when he said that Brennan’s inability to lead a purposeless life is what made her refuse Sully’s proposal to sail away with him. What he didn’t add was that she had already found a shared life purpose with Booth, and a connection which existed on its’ own plane, beyond any labels. Before either of them could define it as love, they both knew it was the most important connection they would ever have with another person.

(Additionally, I find the fan discourse that Sully was wrong for leaving her behind utterly hypocritical – it was clear that his dream was a long standing one, and a relationship of a few weeks, irrespective of the pull, should never come in the way of that.)

[thisblogisblank]

THE AR!WUBBOXES ARE FUCKIGN F I N ALLY DONE

Okay so before going into this, important info to know: so during the war, the Epics were created by Galvana to defend their home islands, and were boxed and hidden in preparation. However, Galvana y'know. Died, and they were never activated. Common and Rare later found out about their existence, and set out to activate them all again.

NOW ONTO THE BIOS

"Common, the eldest and firstborn (first created?) Wubbox, was designed to output insane levels of electricity, capable of blowing out entire cities with just a fraction of his power. After the war, he was left a shaken mess, and lost his sense of trust in almost everything, say for his closest compatriots. Behind his cold, defensive exterior, however, lies a nurturing, loving creature, willing to risk himself to save those he cares for. Just pray you don’t end up on the underside of his metallic boots, like a certain someone."

"If you hear the crackling of electricity and ear-shattering garbled computer lingo, then you’ve most likely come across Rare, the second oldest Wubbox in existence. After being assaulted by his own mother, he was left severely damaged, holding onto life by a thread - but he doesn’t let that get in the way of singing his (metaphorical) heart out! This Wubbox is full of love for anything and everything, living life to its fullest; he even learned to harness the power of the Rift, so he can cross dimensions and explore - with the supervision of his slightly finicky older brother."

"The daintiest of the Epics, the Epic Plant Wubbox Evergreene is known for his serene, pacifistic nature. Small-ish and nimble, he is fit to navigate the viney overgrowth of plant island without destroying it in the process. However, do not take his kindness for weakness, for despite his diminutive stature and gentle soul, he takes his job as protector of Plant Island seriously, and, even with his distaste for violence, will defend his home with his life."

"Is it cold outside? Maybe, but that’s just how flurry, the Epic Wubbox of Cold Island, likes it! Gentle, and selfless, he looks over the snowy Tundra he reigns over with a careful, if heavy, eye. Much like many of Cold Island’s resident monsters, Flurry is quite dozy and cuddly, and spends his spare time napping or simply resting in the center of the island. Flurry was designed with built-in heating, to keep him from freezing over in the midst of battle, but nowadays it serves a new purpose - to warm up monsters who lack enough fur, feathers, or blubber to withstand their harsh environment."

"While most things on and around Air Island are eye-catching and flashy, the most extravagant creature there is Skydancer, the resident Epic Wubbox. With his stunning colors and melodic song, there’s no wonder why he’s the centerpiece of the island more often than not.Those colors and wings aren't just for show, though. His bright patterns are designed to disorient enemies, and his wings are powerful enough to stir up tornadoes! Despite literally being built for the spotlight, however, Skydancer is quite shy and bashful, and prefers to stay away from the attention as much as possible. Though, just like his human-world counterparts, Skydancer is territorial and, if pushed, will respond to threats with aggression. You know what they say, even a worm, or, in this case, a caterpillar, will turn."

"Inarguably the most animalistic of the Wubboxes, Leviathan (or Levi for short) takes great joy in startling unsuspecting monsters. With his huge form, sharp teeth and ability to swim completely silently, it’s no surprise that he’s good at what he does! One of Galvana’s proudest creations, Levi is over 100 feet tall, but can swim as quick as a torpedo in the water, and can decimate an entire fleet of ships in seconds! However, his size and weight does make him a tad clunky on land - like a fish out of water. Despite his fearsome appearance and abilities, this hyperactive Wubbox is among the friendliest, and loves just having a fun time with the other residents of Water Island, who are just as beastly as he is.. In a good way, of course!"

"Despite all of the other Wubboxes turning over a new leaf, there’s one that still hasn’t quite let go of his war-ready, violent tendencies, and that is Inferno, the Epic Wubbox of Earth Island. With saliva of molten metal, and sharp claws perpetually at the ready, this robotic monster is prepared to fight anything, anywhere, anytime, even if it doesn’t pose much of a threat at all - yeah, his awakening was kind of a mess, and the Monster Handlers’ documentation of him even more so. He’s able to be tamed with one thing and one thing only, though: the very monsters he’s designed to protect. His greatest fear is accidentally harming one of the Earth Island creatures, and softens up considerably around them to avoid one of his iconic outbursts ending in tragedy. So if you want to be safe from any and all threats, try and be accepted as one of Inferno’s very own, and absolutely nothing will be able to get to you."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And there they are!!!!!! I'm sorry this took so long, I had to write 7 bios and digitize 7 fullbodies, it was h e l l. The Celestials should be next but like.. that's 12 fullbodies and bios, and frankly I'll just save that for summer.

Like always, if you have any questions about em, just lemme know!!!! I'm happy to answer any and all of em :]

[semi-imaginary-place]

FFXVI Rewrite Part 2: Jill, Clive, and Joshua, Changing the Timeline

I want to continue Jill's established character as someone who gave up everything from her dignity to her morals to protect the women of Rosaria. She too is being crushed under the weight of her guilt of what she did under the Ironblood but she would still be determined to protect the people she had sworn to protect. While Clive is running around chasing Joshua and coming to terms with himself, Jill is plotting a rescue effort to Iron. This then comes to an intersection with Cid's plans to destroy the Mothercrystals. For Clive, he has just seen first hand what a decade under imperial rule has done to Rosaria, he sees its people standing up for their nation, and so him contacting his uncle Byron isn't only reconnecting with the only family he has left, it’s not only about stopping the Blights, it's about Rosaria and reclaiming for Rosarians the lives and freedom they had lost. I also do want to add to this section a quest where Cid tests and confirms that crystals are leeching aether from the land and causing Blight. Clive and Jill can also open up and bond over their shared crushing guilt. Both of them have killed large amounts of people with their eikons (though more deliberately in Jill's case), both of them of have been exploited as tools of war by their conquerors/captors. So while Clive is running around, at some parts Jill is pursuing her own agenda.

The next chapter is the assault on Iron and emancipation of the Rosarian women at Drake’s Breath. Clive is still the player character; it is plot important that Joshua and Clive are the only playable characters because Ifrit and Phoenix were once one eikon. However, while Clive might be the player and perspective character, Jill is the main character for this section, her actions drive the plot here. The party splits with Jill securing an escape route for the women with Torgal while Cid and Clive cut a path for the Mothercrystal and cause a distraction for Jill. They meet back up at the Drake’s Breath and Jill kills the priests like she deserves. During the boss fight Clive has to run around stabilizing the area and escape route while fighting off minor enemies while Jill fights the boss in the background. Additionally, Jill is the one to strike and break the Mothercrystal. Iron makes better sense at a first assault because the main power struggle in the game is between Dhalmek and Sanbreque, with Waloed waiting for a hint of weakness in Storm. Meanwhile Iron is more of a side player and so their weakening does not affect Valisthea's power balance as much as going after any of the other Mother Crystals. Jill reminds me of one of those bulls that been raised in iron shackles, the adult bull is more than strong enough to break free but because it was too weak to do so when it was younger, it stopped trying. Likewise, Jill's shackles are not of iron but they bind her all the tighter and this arc is about her breaking free and remembering that she is powerful both literally and metaphorically.

I'm changing the Mothercrystal lore in the game. Ultima came into conflict with the dragons in ancient times. In a last bid to stop Ultima, the Eldest Dragon shattered their body into the Mothercrystals to act as a seal on Ultima. The Mothercrystals drain aether from the land in order to power the seal on Ultima, but as the land is running out of aether the seals are weakening. The Blight was an unforeseen side effect of the seals. When Ultima breaks free, they then repurpose the accumulated aether from the crystals to power to their world creation spell. There used to be 8 Mothercrystals total. Now there are just 5: Drake's Breath in the Iron, Drake's Head in Sanbreque, Drake's Fang in Dhalmek, Drake's Tail in Crystalline, Drake's Spine in Waloed. Even on the map on the official FFXVI website other unknown structures can be seen in central Ash for example, 3 Mothercrystals have been lost to time. The Ten Thousand Tomes confirms Dzemekys Falls is the former location of a Mothercrystal, Drake’s Eye in the Northern Territories, Drake’s Horn in Southern Ash. The relatively recent fall of Drake’s Eye in addition to the spread of the Blight is what drove the Northern incursions into Rosaria, resource scarcity driven conflict, the exact same conditions that Elwin used to justify his proposed invasion. For Dzemekys I’m keeping that humanity angered Ultima and were smote but I’m changing that it was a Mothercrystal and changing the location of the last Mothercrystal (Drake's Wing? Drake's Claw?) to perhaps eastern Ash, islands off the coast of Ash, or central Storm near where the original Hideaway was.

When Drake's Breath is destroyed the first of the seals on Ultima is released and the beginning of the doomsday apocalyptic phenomena start happening although slightly differently in this rewrite. First is the activation of Fallen ruins, second the activation of the robots, third the wraiths, fourth more and stronger fallen and aether creatures as well as the beginning of aetherfloods. Then finally when the 5th and final Mothercrystal is destroyed and the final seal broken, all hell breaks loose and the apocalypse is unleashed upon Valisthea, aetheric storms cloud the skies and aetherfloods spread across the lands. Unlike in the game where the sky changes and the aetherfloods appear after the 4th Mothercrystal (Twinside), here the changes happen after the 5th (Waloed).

Like in the actual game when the First Mothercrystal's heart is destroyed, a portal opens with a partial Ultima that the party fights. As the party is overpowered but before Cid can go sacrifice himself, Joshua intervenes saving them but is unable to kill Ultima. I am dropping Joshua sealing part of Ultima inside himself because that had no effect on the story, that plot thread went no where in the end. Joshua as well as the Rosarian women are returned to Rosaria where they are reunited with their families, Joshua and Byron included though Joshua hides from the other Rosarians. This furthers the Rosaria subplot we seen in the game with Martha and Eastpool and the Guardians of the Flame.

A change I am contemplating is reinstating a party system into this story. This game doesn't feel JRPG enough, where's my party system? These would be AI controlled characters but players would be able to choose how many characters besides Clive are active at once with a maximum of 3. Some characters will be unavailable for certain parts of the game like Jote would not be available for eikon fights. Clive is your classic JRPG sword boy the main damage dealer. Jill is the true all-rounder with physical and magic attacks. Joshua is the healer and he's like wet tissue, he has decent magic. Jote is the tank with some support abilities but little offense. Cid is another damage dealer with big hits. Torgal is the only character that can't be incapacitated, he attacks, he heals, but most importantly he's a good boy (unlocks magic later in the game). I never said the party was balanced. Or maybe not, implementing this would be a pain as FFXVI isn't character focused so explaining why party members aren't there sounds annoying.

In this story the brothers are reunited much earlier so that their relationship can develop. Clive and Joshua's relationship is the core of the game The game starts and ends with them. Their relationship is what kicks off the plot of the game from Ifrit berserking to Clive seeking revenge unknowingly against himself. They are plot critical with plot critical powers, that Ifrit and Phoenix are the eikon of Fire split into two beings and the intended vessel to cast Ultima. And yet despite the relationship being at the center of the game, so little is done with them. Joshua is away for most of the game with Clive not knowing he survived and after they are reunited nothing is done with them. The earlier reunion gives time for Joshua and Clive to reacquaint themselves with each other. The last time Clive saw Joshua he was a 10 year old boy, the Joshua before him now is a man and in many ways a stranger. Clive never got to be there as Joshua grew from boy to man, he will have forever missed that part of his brother's life. And not only did Clive think he has lost Joshua, he thought that he was the one who killed him. The same murder against whom his quest for vengeance has been his sole reason for living for the last decade.

Another reason for the added time before the timeskip is to develop Jill and her relationships. Jill is also weighed down by massive guilt over the things she has done for Iron. Before Drake's Breath she is much more closed off and her arc with Clive is mostly about lost childhood friends because just like Joshua she and Clive are now very different and very traumatized. So pre-Drake's Breath it is about stumbling when this didn't before because they don't fit together like they used to and learning to reacquaint themselves with each other. After Iron, Jill finds closure in dealing a massive blow to Iron, killing the zealot who tortured her and enslaved the Rosarians, and freeing the enslaved Rosarians. She begins to open up after this and bonds with Clive over their shared experiences. In many ways during the missing years Jill and Clive's experiences have been similar though Jill's have been worse. Both were kidnapped as children and enslaved as weapons of war, forced to fight for the very people who enacted violence against them. To both their masters Jill and Clive were expendable tools to be exploited until no more use could be squeezed out of them and they died of overwork. Both of them see themselves as monsters over the many deaths they have caused as Dominants. The difference being that Clive fought to stay alive so that he could complete his revenge against Ifrit while Jill fought in what was probably a futile effort to protect the Rosarian women and children she had sworn to take under her wing. Jill also killed on a much larger scale in eikon battles and was likely treated worse given she was given no armor or equipment and her clothes were in tatters. Clive and Jill were also treated as subhuman by their oppressors. For a decade Jill shouldered the role of protector and champion all on her own, but through Clive and Joshua and most importantly Cid she comes to terms that she need not fight on her own, and with that realization she makes Clive her Vassal because together they can do more than each would have done alone. So before the timeskip Clive gets Phoenix as a teenager, Ifrit when he returns to Phoenix Gate, Garuda after defeating Benedrikta, Leviathan after proving himself worthy to its Dominant, and Ramuh at Drake’s Head as Cid’s dying wish. One place to put Shiva would be at the end of the first part of Jill’s arc here during the lead up to Leviathan, but there’s another place I am considering.

The next arc I am completely making up because not having Leviathan in the game throws off the elemental balance on a meta level and having all 8 would be significant in Gnosticism. Joshua is following a lead on someone who might know of Ultima, the Dominant of Leviathan and semi-rogue champion of the Crystalline Dominion. I am making this arc for several reasons. The unexplained absence of Leviathan/Dominant of Water while also establishing 8 eikons and elements was always strange, why bothering establishing 8 elements and corresponding eikons if its never explained what happened to Leviathan, and Leviathan is a classic Final Fantasy staple so it's strange that it is missing. I also always found the Crystal Dominion's neutral zone reasoning to be a bit weak, for example in real life Switzerland has a reputation of neutrality because of its difficult geography and history of shooting down all aircraft regardless of affiliation, there has to be something to back up the Crystaline Dominion because just crystal export. Giving them a Dominant gives them the military power to back up their sovereignty, and their Dominant flying the coop also significantly weakens their position and further explains Sanbreque's later invasion. Leviathan's Dominant of Water is hanging out in the Southern Isles fighting sea monsters for fun and so this offers the opportunity to introduce Cid as a master engineer as well as introduce Mid and the Enterprise. The game never establishes Cid as an engineer, we only hear about it after he's dead from Mid and that is such awkward storytelling as well as a missed opportunity. The build up to Leviathan is Joshua tracking down the precise location while Cid and Mid build the Enterprsie together. We only meet Mid after the timeskip in the actual game and we don't know how old she is. Aso, she's adopted so getting the ages just right isn't that important, and kid genius is already an established character archetype so what's one more. This would necessitate a younger model for Mid but I think it is worth it. In this story Mid builds the seaship the Enterprise here with Cid to create a callback in the final arc when she builds an airship of the same name this time without her dad. Leviathan's Dominant couldn't stand the Crystalline Dominion but is the opposite of cooperative and things escalate to a fight with Clive at severe disadvantage since priming puts the ship in danger of burning and sinking. I'm not a fight choreographer I don't know maybe they evaporate all the water in a shallow sea and then beat up Leviathan. However, she would rather die than stand down, but as she dies she spits they are fools if they think getting rid of crystals will solve all their problems. With Leviathan’s fall, Twinsides’ position weakens as they can no longer pretend to have the protection of an eikon.

Next is Oriflamme and Drake's Head, things happen similarly to in the game with Sanbreque breaking treaty to invade the Crystalline Dominion and abandon Oriflamme. This is Ultima's second appearance as another of their seals is released and they grow in power. Stronger now Ultima makes a bid to take possession of Clive and Ultima, once again he is stopped but this time at the expense of Cid. Cid dies later in this story than in the actual game because he's a great character and I wanted more time with him, to build his relationship with Mid, to show his engineering prowess instead of just being told. Since Joshua joins earlier in this story the more time allows Cid to help mentor Joshua too, in reckoning with his father's dream and legacy and how despite Rosaria falling, Joshua can honor his father's work by helping the Hideaway and Bearers. This extra time before the timeskip has also allowed Clive and Joshua to reconcile with each other. They have each lived 10 years apart from each other with only their memories, they are both changed men and it would have taken time to reconcile the old and the new and form a new relationship. The sovereignty of Rosaria is no more, both of them are nameless outlaws out against the world, and they have both seen much of the world. The children they were no longer exist and now they have to stumble through all that together.

In the game, the 5 year timeskip was mostly pointless, it had very little effect on anything, so little changed that a lot of things felt frozen in time. Thus, I am greatly reducing the timeskip to about 6-12 months. The expansion of the pre-timeskip period was partly to establish Clive's major relationships like Jill and Joshua so then when the timeskip happened change could be seen. In this story whereas before the timeskip those relationships were just starting and we see the first few steps of development, after the timeskip they have solidified, Clive has settled into the new Jill and the new Joshua. Removing the 5 year timeskip also removes Joshua's inexplicable avoidance of Clive which happens in the original game. So sorry no dilf 30 something Clive, or at least not in the main story. Clive is about 26 by this point. Despite aging the characters down especially after the timeskip I think the story still works partly because most of the characters are adults already but primarily because the amount of trauma and hardship these characters have gone through would have aged them.

Read this in one long post

Read this in parts: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 .

[marginaletchings]

Apropos of nothing, but I’ve always been bothered by people calling Alan Wake an abuser and a violent man. I really think that narrative does him a disservice as a character and is also a really fucked up thing to imply about a writer who is clearly struggling with depression.

Especially with the AW DLC, where he’s going through the Dark Place--it read to me like a metaphor for the emotional turmoil of having constructed and finished a big creative project, only to feel yourself fall from the height and joy of completion, to the low you crash into when that joy begins to fade.

We’ve never seen him hit Alice, there’s no implications that he’s done so; nor do we see him being aggressive toward her physically or emotionally... except in cases where there is actual conflict, and it’s escalated. If he’d been struggling creatively after his last books for years, started drinking to self-medicate, it makes sense that he’d go out and party, to try and escape. it makes sense that he’d punch out a paparazzo--those people are fucking vultures. And it makes sense that Alice doesn’t know what to do as she watches her husband seemingly turn into someone else. That’s what it’s like watching someone descend into emotional and mental turmoil. I would know--I’ve experienced that on both sides, and I’ve been in therapy for nearly 20 years.

I know, I know--there’s Mr. Scratch. And to me, Mr. Scratch is an almost cartoonish distillation of the dregs of someone’s very worst qualities, dialed up to 11. That’s what the Dark Place does, it draws out the darkness, feeds it, feeds ON it, perpetuates it to perpetuate itself.

Do I think he is an accurate reflection of Alan? No. Not at all. The thing with depression is it takes what we feel about ourselves, much like the Dark Place, and magnifies those things--it warps and distorts how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. I know this through therapy and having lived through trying to shatter those illusions with cognitive behavioral therapy, literally rewiring how I previously learned to cope.

When in that turmoil, your brain can go to very dark places. That doesn’t mean that’s the culmination of who and what you are. Every single person is capable of terrible, awful things, and of good, wonderful things, too. Alan is quite literally trapped in what I interpret as a metaphor for what can become a years’ long or even lifelong battle against his own mind and the shadows within.

I would also recommend checking out Carl Jung’s archetypes, and it wouldn’t surprise me that Scratch is basically Alan’s Shadow. The more you push your Shadow away, the stronger it is. And the more you accept it, learn to live with it, understand it, the more you can find balance. (Literally laid out in the lyrics of Balance Slays the Demon.) Makes sense that Remedy would do that, considering they showed their interest in Jung to a high degree in Control.

One last thing: 

Yes, he was an asshole trying to get away from Alice when the power went out.

But I get why he did it. In an emotionally charged situation, his fight or flight kicked in. His first instinct was to run, to isolate.

I actually feel that Alice was way out of line being duplicitous and trying to get him committed to Dr. Hartman’s “lodge” under the guise of a vacation. Alan was actually looking forward to having some R&R away from the noise of home and fame, a chance to relax and let go and spend time with his wife.

And then she surprises him with the typewriter and it’s like. Are you kidding me? He wants to get away and refresh. He’s clearly been hurting and needs to get away from writing, not have it forced on him when he’s let his guard down because you deceived him with what he thought was a non-working vacation.

The last thing you need to be doing is weakening the trust between yourself and someone who is losing stability and struggling creatively. Be honest with them, lovingly, be kind and nurturing. And most importantly, give them reputable, professional help but understand that whether they accept that help has to be their choice, NOT yours, and not something you can trick them into doing. Alice was incredibly, painfully well-intentioned, but it was one of the absolutely worst things she could’ve done.

[museenkuss]

Omg what's your story graph?

It’s @ Augenstern :) (maybe I’ll have to change it to Museenkuss to stay on brand, but that’s where we’re currently at)

And you didn’t ask but the review is in German (it was a German book) and rereading it now made me giggle, so, if you want, here’s a translation of my review of “der Teezauberer” (the tea magician) by Ewald Arenz:

A tiny bit of context on the book since I give absolutely none (very stream of consciousness review): guy sells tea, adores tea and loves tea. He has a wife (who mostly appears sleeping next to him) and a child (no name) that he loves, maybe, and fantasises about leaving and/or cheating on the whole book before deciding to stop cheating in the end. He has magic powers that change the temperature of the room when he reads about tea. As he lives through his midlife crisis (at 30), he starts thinking there’s no more magic in the world etc and he should just leave his family to live with “the woman from Portugal” whom he read about as a kid and dreamt about ever since. Instead, he cheats on his wife with a bunch of other women. The world around him changes as he becomes more depressed, everyone starts dressing like historical figures (and mafia bosses…? That was so absurd) and riding horses, steam trains pop up etc etc. the magical realism could’ve been fun if the book had been written by someone else. I get what it was trying to do (love conquers all and doesn’t have to be perfect), but it sucked. Anyhow:

“He should’ve just written a book about tea and tea history, because it wasn’t enough for fiction [as in, the author didn’t have the means to write fiction]. In itself some ideas have potential (the concept of people magically change based on an inner force/need), but the execution was poor.

‘Whenever the protagonist reads or speaks certain words, the world around him changes’ — It seems as if the author has read inkheart, and now pretends he came up with the idea himself. Unfortunately it lacks the charm of inkheart. Everything is thrown together arbitrarily, the plot lags and falters. Yea is ordered desperately, only to be ignored for ages, then all tea cups are shattered and the longer-after tea is copied perfectly in a heroic session of tea-mixing. No stakes, no satisfying conclusion — and that’s a constant feature of all those vaguely interconnected episodes. Then the little pedophilic episode at the circus in the fog? It’s all very senseless.

But the worst part is how perfectly the book mirrors its own shortcomings. One [<- makes sense in German as a way to politely avoid saying “the author”] is ALMOST self aware enough to realise that none of the characters have any sense or purpose outside of being extras in this book about the protagonist. Nobody loved the protagonists brother as much as the protagonist, which is why we only learn about his existence on his funeral (on page 70), in a speech that’s about the main character. Then he is subsequently never mentioned again. His name? Age? Personality? Doesn’t matter.

All in all — a book about a protagonist who fantasises about cheating on his wife without qualities who adores him for no reason with a bunch of cliches. A domina who can only be tamed by him (and loves him). A literal dream woman (who loves him). A child? (That loves him).

And all of this written in a very kitschy writing style, packed full of metaphors that don’t make sense most of the time (someone peels themselves out of the fog as if out of fabric?).

Unfortunate.”

[gloriouswhispers]

Name: Jet Venom Jacob Dempsey

Age & Birthday: 33 years old, December 26th

Gender/Pronouns: cis man, he/him

Birthplace: Salem, MA

Species: Witch

Connection to Asphodel and/or the Syndicate: Family

Job/role: Attending / Instructor

Positive personality traits: outgoing, generous, focused

Negative personality traits: jealous, particular, selfish

ABOUT

Jacob's story begins in Salem, Massachusetts where he and his siblings were raised in the renowned Dempsey Coven. At first a respectable name led by their mother, Ophelia. The coven had ties within the Syndicate and Asphodel which later, only meant one thing. The coven's descent into darkness became the story people think of when they hear the name Dempsey. How the name is now synonymous with abyssal magic. But for Jacob and his brother and sisters, it was their reality. Ophelia claimed to be plagued by visions and delusions, and the coven became more like an isolated cult. Every ritual and practice was nothing but an excuse for torture, leaving all of them with scars in the most literal and metaphorical sense. While his sisters liked the bottle as a coping mechanism, Jacob and his brother sought solace from powder and pills to escape the hell of their lives.

The turning point only came when Jacob and his siblings were older and they united, summoning a power to combat the darkness that had consumed their mother. The battle was fierce, leaving the coven shattered and many lives lost. The story that remains is not quite accurate, many believing Ophelia was crazed and the ritual mistakenly ended with death. How the Dempsey siblings were lucky to survive it.

The four of them remained together after that, leaving Salem behind as they started new lives with all the best intention in the world. For Jacob, his salvation came in the form of music and changing his name to forever be known as Jet Venom, the frontman of the metal band Obsidian. But, as the band climbed to new heights, so did Jet's addictions and his name was known for all the wrong reasons. His constant visits to rehab became a running joke as he'd relapse within weeks of leaving. A rockstar lifestyle from the outside looking in, but a closer look showed a struggling soul that was tortured by his own mind.

As Obsidian's star began to fade, along with Jet facing the end of his relationship with Seraphina, he voluntarily checked himself into a rehab facility in California. Just a week before everything began to change for the prominent families involved in The Syndicate. He's emerged again to New York with a determination for a true new start but isn't surprised to find himself caught within the deceit and unearthed secrets around him. How convenient it was for him to leave before everything happened, especially considering Jet has always had very vocal opinions about a lot of the families.

[comradekatara]

the gaang + how well they would do on the infinity train?

this is suuuper hard because there are so many factors to take into consideration. first is obviously the train itself. the train's function in a metanarrative sense is to serve as a vehicle for storytelling, dissecting & deconstructing the process of a narrative and how a character's arc is propelled by their circumstances. the train supposedly functions to improve its passengers, and yet we also know that The Train is a deeply flawed mechanism that can corrupt and further traumatize its passengers just as much as it can "fix" them. when the train invites you in with the single-minded goal of getting your number to zero, assuming you ever disembark, you're probably gonna be left with even more trauma than when you arrived, or at the very least, weirder trauma.

grace wanted to be seen, but instead of learning to value herself for her own intrinsic worth instead of relying on validation from those around her, she was enabled by that validation and literally started a cult. likewise, since jet is basically a less heinous version of simon, i see him taking a similar path to the apex (though he would of course name them the freedom fighters) trying to overthrow the tyrannical one-one and reinstate the True Conductor. he would think his path is righteous. he would think he is protecting those kids from evil. who knows what would happen once he learns the truth.

then there is the matter of what the train wants from you. the train arrives at a pivotal moment in one's life, when they are at an emotional crossroads and need a catalyst for growth. for example, jesse's problem was relatively small (because he is perfect) but hurting his brother caused him emotional turmoil nonetheless, so the train stepped in. this means that to answer this question properly, i would have to answer not only when the train arrives for them, but why, and seeing that every single atla character carries massive amounts of baggage (most of it flavors of trauma that infinity train has not addressed), this proves extremely difficult. i have to identify the most narratively satisfying moment in each character's lives to have the train arrive, and then i have to make assumptions about which cars would propel them which way (emotionally). you're asking me to outline nine different fanfictions.

only jet's character feels similar enough to any of the characters we've seen in infinity train for me to even have an inkling as to what path he would take. while sokka and tulip are quite similar as people (rational, scientific yet creative thinkers who over-rely on logic over feeling, are deeply loyal, and instinctually blame themselves for the problems caused by others), their character arcs themselves have little in common. both aang and hazel experience a tragic loss of pure, childhood innocence (which is why i cry over both of them every day), but in relatively dissimilar ways (at least appa gets to return to aang). min-gi and zuko are both pressured by their upbringings to conform to a standard that makes them miserable to please their parents, only to ultimately embrace their own passion & truth... but not only do those arcs play out completely differently, zuko and min-gi are completely different people, and if anything, zuko's approach to life is far more like ryan's (ie, jumping off a cliff and hoping he lands on his feet).

but what i think you're really asking, at the end of the day, is how emotionally mature, self-aware, and capable of positive growth is each atla character? because how am i supposed to know what the train would do to their psyches, considering each external situation would shape them differently, and unless i'm supposed to meticulously craft fanfiction for each one of them (which i wouldn't be opposed to doing, but only for one character, i simply cannot do all nine – also, i'm surprised infinity train AUs aren't more common, but then again i'm not particularly familiar with fanficition, so maybe it is!), it would only be an approximation, in which i identify their core problem (which again, is not how real people work, or even how atla characters work, but how The Train works) and then analyze how long it would take for each of them to solve said problem.

so, that was a very long-winded preface. without further ado:

aang's main problem is that he keeps running away from his problems, which is to say, distracting himself from the enormity of his grief. personally, i would say his coping mechanism isn't the worst. after all, he experiences so much world-shattering pain in such a short span of time, and he does deserve to preserve his childhood and his innocence for as long as possible. but, for the purposes of the narrative, the train must necessarily disagree. he must confront his grief head-on, without distracting himself from it or flying into a destructive rage that he'd only regret later. it also depends on who his companions are. with katara by his side, he can get through anything (and vice versa), but it's unclear who will be there to guide him through his pain. that said, i know he'd make it through okay. he's aang. he has to.

katara lives in a fairytale. like i said with aang, that's not really a bad thing. she's a great kid with big dreams and a big heart. she wants to save the world, and – guess what! – she does. but living in a storybook strips one's worldview of the nuances of life, not simply the harsh realities of the world, but also the full extent of one's personhood, outside of simply the black and white worldview of heroes and villains. katara's apotheosis is when she confronts yon rha, looks him in the eyes, and sees a human being staring back at her, another human being. she is no longer in a revenge tale. she is out of stories to tell herself. (life doesn't make narrative sense.) ironically, the train is a metaphor for storytelling, so katara coming to realize that she isn't in a story would both be confusingly meta and also fucking brilliant (if i do say so, personally). i don't know how exactly it would play out, but by god i would pay to see it.

in many ways, sokka is remarkably open-minded, and in many ways, sokka is extremely stubborn. i think he'd come to terms with his own emotional growth (which would be rooted in learning his own self-worth) faster than he'd come to terms with the train itself. "okay, fine, yeah, i deserve love regardless of what i can do for other people, but WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS PLACE?!?!?" his journey through the train is actually everyone else's dream experience on the train. passengers and denizens alike keep falling in love with him (or at the very least, admiring him more than they've ever admired anyone they've ever met), but he doesn't even notice because he's too busy being extremely suspicious of everything he comes into contact with. yes, he'll solve your problems and puzzles and help people and make meaningful connections and eventually he might start to realize that he is worth something even when he's alone, even (especially) when he's being unconventional or "weird" or "selfish." but even once he does get his door, does he walk through it? oh no, he takes it apart and tries to figure out how it just created a fucking portal. so while he would technically "do" quite well, he is never leaving that fucking train. rip sokka.

well, toph needs to learn to accept and embrace her own vulnerability. she definitely goes through that same crystal karaoke car tulip did. that, or the train just tortures her by putting her in increasingly more painful situations in which she must ask for help. but that's too awful to even think about, so i'm just gonna say she has to sing karaoke.

zuko needs to learn to trust his instincts and his own internal moral compass instead of the external pressures being forced upon him by his Father (capital F to emphasize that his nation & his father – aka the patriarchy – are one & the same for him, lmao). and he would fail. a lot. but eventually he would realize that his number goes down when he lets himself be himself, and he would leave the train happy. he probably also gets a bunch of cute little talking animal companions to guide him through. he deserves it.

the train appears to suki while she's having a breakdown in solitary confinement at the boiling rock. she finds healthy ways to cope with being put through hell while on the train, and by the time she gets off, she's being let out of solitary. it is a very rewarding experience, and one that she can swear wasn't just some hallucination. she's constantly telling herself yes, of course it was just a hallucination.... but still... it felt so real....

if i had to diagnose azula with one singular problem that plagues her at the core of her very being, it would have to be her fear of rejection. but it's not good enough to just keep having train cars reject azula, she has to accept that rejection, instead of just intimidating people into submission after the fact. she needs to understand why she is being rejected, and be fine with it, and learn from it, instead of letting her lack of universal perfection in every area anyone could ever excel in shake her to her very core. when ty lee proved that she secured the affections of dumb stupid boys better than azula ever could, she did an arson to cope (which of course is still very valid of her uwu). azula needs to learn to come in second place, third place, even last place, and shrug it off, think to herself, "hopefully i'll do better next time, and if not, that's okay also," and once that happens, everything else will fall into place. though maybe she could read bell hooks or smth at some point on the train cuz i think that could help too.

mai needs to stop being so goddamn depressed all the time. has she tried lexapro, or perhaps using a lightbox in winter? her favorite coping mechanism, knives, only helps her feel something some of the time, but most (if not all) of the time she's still being expected to play a part. has she tried, like, being herself? i heard from zuko (you know, the guy? from the train?) that "being yourself" works wonders. so the train gives her that opportunity. and she actually even enjoys herself for once in her miserable fucking life.

omg there must've been some sort of mistake ty lee was totally sent here by accident because she's actually super happy all the time and doesn't have any problems!!!!!!!! jk, can u even imagine? ty lee hates her life too, she just doesn't go around advertising it like mai does with her big dyke boots and depressing eyeliner. but apparently she also needs to learn how to "be herself," whatever that means. as if life isn't a constant performance, you know, like jacques said or whatever. she sees mai on the train. she rolls her big beautiful brown eyes. "oh god, not you too."

[k-s-morgan]

Hi! This isn’t an ask, but more of a rambling that I deemed too long for the comments, that stems from your post claiming Book of Circus as your favourite Black Butler episodes. and to that I say - YES. Book of Murder is a masterpiece. It houses one of my favourite scenes - the one where Sebastian says: "This wasn't a scenario decided by God or fate, but one decided on by my master, with timing decided by my master. I was killed by the criminal expected by my master, by the Hione who came to torment my master", which really captures the essence of whole 'Ciel vs God' dynamic that's woven into the duration of the show.

Throughout the plot, there are three major instances in which an offering is made to Ciel - offerings of redemption. The first is from Angela - a chance to purify himself and have an afterlife - which he so vehemently rejects in the knowledge that he quite literally *is* his darkness, and therefore refuses to rid himself of it.

The second is comes from Abberline in his death, where in his final words he tells Ciel he has a chance to take back his future. And Ciel has to watch him die with the knowledge that he has already made up his mind about his fate. I don't think he's so affected because he regrets selling his soul. I don't think he suddenly wants to live, or no longer wishes for revenge. But I believe the reason he is so affected by Abberline's death is because he holds a sentimentality for him that is not dissimilar to the one he feels for Elizabeth. Ciel is cruel, I don't think he regrets the steps he has taken to get to this point, nor the ones he knows he must take in the future. But though he is cruel, I believe he has a sort of fond curiosity for the untainted goodness that characterises those like Abberline and Elizabeth. Like you said before, he feels condescension towards the man perhaps due to the naivety his blind heroism implies, but I think his attachments to him come from an underlying curiosity to see if such goodness can exist in such a corrupted world - a silent hope to be proven wrong in his cynicism. When Abberline dies, that very hope he didn't even know he had gets shattered. It brings about a sort of forced perspective that makes Ciel question himself in ways we haven't seen before.

Abberline's death had been avoidable and it was certainly in vain. Abberline had died for someone who had already made up his mind - someone who had rejected God once before and would do it time and time again as proven in the anime. Ciel is such an interesting character because, although he is dark, he still values the light and makes some sort of effort to preserve it in spite of the contempt he feels for them. It is the thought of dying in vain that seems to bother him so greatly, not death itself. No, Abberline dying isn't enough for him to want to live again, or to even think about throwing away his revenge - that was never in question. But it is enough to extinguish the lingering flicker of hope he had for humanity (despite being so distanced from term himself).

This, combined with the disappointment he feels at Sebastian's actions, causes the existential haze of uncertainty that leads to the third and final offering. And the most surprising thing is that this offering comes from Sebastian himself. He senses the doubt in Ciel and, like every thought the boy experiences, fails to understand it. He mistakes it for him second-guessing his revenge and decides to discontinue their contract. But he isn't angry - that much is clear. Instead, he wishes him to "forget everything and have pleasant dreams", with a rather wistful expression on his face. What this line ends up reading as is a bittersweet  goodbye from the demon - an offering for Ciel to let go of his revenge and find happiness in the afterlife with his now soon approaching death.  There is almost a strong disappointment in him, but is not resentful of it - Ciel is human and he can't keep expecting him not to be. His offering almost acts as a thank you for the moments of excitement their contract had given his monotone life and I believe that is why he makes it.

He sticks around to see if Ciel accepts his offer, though already expecting him to, and is there to witness the very moment the boy rejects it. Gone is the uncertainty of Abberline's death and the Paris crisis, and Ciel, the Earl of Phantomhive, returns to him - sharper, colder, more ruthless than ever. Sebastian realises his misjudgement and returns to his side, ready for the final battle. Killing an angel. It's laughably symbolic.

The rejections of God, the evasion of the Hope Diamond's curse (where he even wore two rings as if to taunt the fates), the references in Book of Murder - they all depict this metaphorical sort of battle between Ciel and God. And the ending of Kuroshitsuji II is the depicts how he triumphs over fate, claiming his rightful place as an immortalised creature of Hell.

I know I've gone on a bit of a tangent here in your inbox, but that one quote from Book of Murder is so symbolic to me in the way it sets up the comparison between Ciel and God (in which 'God' represents power over fate).

Before I sign off, though, I just want to make light of the existence of the show's final offering, occurring in the last few minutes of the series. This last offering has nothing too do with God, nothing to do with any complex battle between the Phantomhive and fate, but is much simpler than that. In fact, the final offering of the show comes from Ciel, and he gives it to Sebastian - it's almost poetic, is it not?

"Are you sure you don't want to pull it any tighter?"

In this single, unassuming line, Ciel is asking Sebastian if he wants to kill him, and release himself from the eternal contract they've found themselves in. Such a noble and dignified soul as Ciel would always be sure to make through on his word and, despite the loophole that now extends their contract, he would still be willing to let Sebastian kill him should he wish to do so. The man may no longer be able to take his soul, but the boy can still give the order to kill him and free himself. Ciel's respect for Sebastian is complex and contradictory at times, but what never changes is his willingness to die by his hands and see through to his side of the contract.

“Is it over? The one who plunged me into bottomless darkness… I don’t even know why she did it.”

In the episode where Angela is crushed by the Church, Ciel offers his soul to Sebastian. Even when unsatisfied with the result, his unwavering nobility led him to make good on their deal and fulfil his end of the contract. The earl faced the demon, his expression calm, and with a steady voice said “A promise is a promise. Take it.”

This unwavering dignity and nobility he holds in himself I believe is the reason for this offering and Sebastian's turn to reject it is almost a 'love confession' (as you have brought me to see it) in itself.

As a final sort of note - I just wanted to let you know that, since reading your reply to my comment on TGSTLTH (from a while ago), I brought myself to rewatch Kuroshitsuji II with your interpretation in mind and ended up really enjoying it. You've singlehandedly made me do a complete 180 on a season I previously hated - looks like I had just watched it from the wrong perspective. So, for that, I thank you

Hey! Sorry for getting to your ask just now. I absolutely loved it :D And yes, Book of Murder is a masterpiece - I still remember watching it for the first time. It was late at night, I had to go to bed, everyone was sleeping, but I kept watching because stopping just wasn't an option, I had to know what happened next.

Ciel vs God is such an interesting topic. In some ways, Ciel and Sebastian exist in their own universe where there is no place for anyone else. There is a God aka Ciel and a demon aka Sebastian. And they are both allies and adversaries at the same time - they are tormenting each other and uniting to torment others.

I agree absolutely that Ciel holds a fondness for certain people, with Lizzy and Abberline being a good example. He has a degree of contempt and irritation for them, but they do mean something to him. Ciel's curiosity is a big and detached thing, and this places him on Sebastian's level in such an interesting way because sometimes it's almost like Ciel isn't human himself - humanity intrigues him as if he doesn't belong to it. His fascination with the light just underlines his affinity with the darkness.

I have many thoughts about Ciel's behavior during the days following Abberline's death, and you certainly introduced many excellent points! My general opinion on Ciel's motives is... complicated. I agree that he never felt like really giving up his revenge and trying to live a 'happy' life - he knew it's not for him at that stage already. However, I feel like Abberline's parting words affected him a lot, even if briefly. When Abberline tells him that he can start everything from the beginning, Ciel sounds absolutely heartbroken when he confesses, "I don't have a future." The way he acts later, telling Sebastian to stop and not kill the angel, hesitating, reinforces this idea to me. I think you described it best - Ciel is having an existential crisis. It's not like he suddenly regrets his decisions, but he's temporary unanchored and unsure what he wants and what he should do. Having a dream where Abberline urges him to give up his hatred also seems to affect Ciel, but it's so telling that he wakes up and immediately says, "Sebastian." It's a fascinating arc and I can't wait to explore it.

I love your words about three offerings - so true. And I'm so happy you liked S2 when watching it from a new perspective! I used to be so confused as to why people hated it: it's not perfect, but I thought it was amazing in many ways, especially its bittersweet ending.

[fandom-space-princess]

The Game of Us

Rating: T (gen, no warnings)

Chapter 2: Gabriel

A crevice splits the earth, clean through the center of the circular clearing. Beyond the crevice a woman is seated on a low stone. Her eyes are covered by a crimson blindfold, the only color he has yet seen in this realm. It stands in sharp contrast to her bone-white skin and hair, a slash of silken blood by which to obscure her vision.

Though he makes no sound, she smiles as he approaches. “Michael.” The sound of her voice fills him with a nameless relief. He has never heard that voice, and still, he knows her like a heartbeat.

Read below the cut, or on AO3

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Upstream, the path breaks away from the river, and turns inland among low rolling foothills. Memory of a memory: for the living, these hills would have been warm and verdant, groves of olive trees. As it is, this murky reflection of life is still the closest Michael has come to the world since his descent into this desolate realm. Part of him, the part that stirs accusations like betrayal and failure in his mind like water circling a drain, yearns to lose himself in the embrace of it. To sink back beneath the surface and go no further.

He presses on.

As the path narrows and twists among the trees, air heavy with the scents of forest and the distant sea, Michael hears the low murmur of a crowd. The sounds grow more distinct as he climbs. This too is strange: human crowds have no place here, in an inhuman afterlife. When at last the tree line breaks and the path spills abruptly into a clearing, he stares uncomprehending for long moments, absorbing the sight before him.

This was a temple, once. Ages gone, this would have been a marvel of solemn grandeur. Now only ruins remain, although they are surrounded by the spectral aura of the structures they must once have been. Looked at straight on, Michael sees crumbling plinths, broken marble columns supporting the remnants of ornate entablature around a circle of grass and shattered stone. If he squints, however, the afterimages come into sharper relief. Haunted by the ghosts of architecture long fallen to ruin, this place yet remembers what it was.

It is haunted by more than that.

************************************

The rough amphitheater in which he finds himself is crowded. Shades mill nearby, shadowy and indistinct, seated or standing and whispering among themselves. Their numbers are beyond counting: thousands, perhaps? More? He takes them for human, at first, or the memory of human. But then one’s perambulations lead it toward him, and before he can think to move the shade passes straight through him. It continues on without acknowledgement, and he is overcome by a sense of deep unease.

The creature had felt... angelic. Mindless, unthinking, but unmistakable for anything but grace, rather than soul.

The focal point of the shades lies ahead, at the base of the crumbling colonnade. A crevice splits the earth, clean through the center of the circular clearing. Beyond the crevice a woman is seated on a low stone. Her eyes are covered by a crimson blindfold, the only color he has yet seen in this realm. It stands in sharp contrast to her bone-white skin and hair, a slash of silken blood by which to obscure her vision.

Though he makes no sound, she smiles as he approaches. “Michael.” The sound of her voice fills him with a nameless relief. He has never heard that voice, and still, he knows her like a heartbeat.

He steps across the crevice in one long stride. As he does, he can’t help but look down and into it: the same frigid black waters that had led him here rumble past beneath the crust of rock at its lip. Michael settles beside the stone, facing outward into the theatre, mimicking her. “Gabriel. You’re... what are you doing here?”

“Oh, you know. Taking in the scenery.”

One of the shades cuts free of the larger mass of figures. It drifts closer, apparently with purpose, and when it reaches the bare earth opposite Gabriel, it kneels. Michael regards it with wary curiosity.

“They’re here for prophecy,” Gabriel supplies, in response to his unspoken inquiry. “The humans used to come to this place to lay offerings before their fortunetellers. I visited, once or twice. Way back when.” She hums, head bowed slightly, hands folded motionless in her lap. “I liked it better then. Much more lively. This incarnation lacks a certain je ne sais quoi.”

She turns her attention to the shade before her, unseeing but knowing, somehow, that it waits there.

The shade bows low in deference. Tell me what tomorrow holds for me, it asks, voice fleeting as an autumn breeze.

“An interesting question,” she replies. Her words are warm and indulgent. “What did today hold for you? If you’re willing to tell me, I’d like to know.”

The shade appears puzzled by the request. Nevertheless, it responds. I saw a death, at the end of a silver blade. Light and pain before, only smoke and ash after. A falling, a sinking, into the darkness and the silence. And then a rising, awakening, only to see the death again. Over and over I saw the death, until I grew heavy with dread, and found myself here. It pauses its recitation, suddenly pensive. I think the death was mine.

She opens her hands before her, palms up, a sweeping gesture that invites the shade to continue. A texture along her wrist glimmers, unexpected. For the first time, Michael looks closely at Gabriel’s form. Minute scales swirl along patches of her skin. They are pearlescent and smooth, softly aglow under the ever-present half-light.

“Tell me more. What did you learn from it? How did it make you feel?”

The shade mutters on, its voice rising and falling in cadence with the rush of water at their feet. Eventually it tapers off, settling back on its heels. It seems less substantial than before, in a way Michael finds difficult to define, ethereal form wispy and unburdened. Gabriel inclines her head in acknowledgement, and the spirit fades away, melting back into the crowd.

“You aren’t a prophet, Gabriel,” Michael observes. She tilts her head toward him, grinning. In her mouth he sees the flash of fangs.

“No,” she agrees readily. “I’m not. But I am a messenger. Or I was. And this place has such interesting ways of making its points. Metaphorical, if not necessarily colorful.” She smiles again, chuckles at her own joke.

“But you offered no guidance. No message, prophetic or otherwise.”

“Oh, Mikey. Always so literal-minded. But you’re right. Being here has given me so much to think about. Maybe it’s time I stopped with the talking, and took up listening.”

She uncrosses her legs from the stone, and moves to kneel on the ground before it. Her knees push out over the cusp of the crevice. Her feet emerge from beneath the fraying edge of her skirt, clawed and scaled. Michael extends a hand tentatively. Brushes the tips of his fingers along the scales at the curve of her ankle, feeling the staticky-smooth keratinous edges. She reaches out, and takes his hand in her own. Squeezes once, then lets it fall away.

“Brother?” Michael asks, although he’s not entirely certain what it is he seeks to hear from her.

“I woke up in this form.” She shrugs. “I could change it, if I wanted, but I think it suits my current occupation. She lived here, once. A nuisance to pretty much everybody in the area, this creature was killed for the mischief and misfortunes she inflicted on the region’s inhabitants and their livestock. Her bones were laid into the foundations when it was built. Now she sleeps, and she listens.” She shivers. “That’s her judgement. That’s her penance.”

“Why is any of this here, Gabriel? Do you know? A being awoke me on the shore, told me to find you. It says it needs us—that we must move on from here. It wasn’t the Shadow. I don’t know what it was.”

She laughs aloud at that, a sound that rings out in echoes, vanishing among the shades. “You really don’t know? Bro, that’s unobservant even for you. You just have to listen harder. Knowledge is easy to come by here, if you pay attention. As for the river, this river—” She leans down to trail her fingers through the crest of a wave. Flicks the water playfully at Michael. “Old man always had a sense for theatrics. ‘Behold, for before you lies the river Styx.’ As good a way as any to make his point. River of judgement: either it makes you invulnerable, or poisons you, and the only way to find out which you get is to roll the dice.”

Michael is silent for several long seconds, something icy and desperate in his throat. Finally: “Will you go, then? Move on, to whatever awaits us next?”

Gabriel’s hands rise to the sides of her face. She draws the blindfold delicately up and off, silk trickling through her fingers like river water. She blinks back at Michael. Her pupils are slitted, snakelike.

Ignoring his question, she takes his chin in her hand. Appraises him, gently tilting his head this way and that as she studies the image he wears. “Still carrying that torch, huh? Well, I won’t deny that he was good for you. But maybe raise your gaze a little, ok?” Her thumb strokes over his cheek, once, and her lips quirk into an affectionate half-smile. Then her hand falls away, and she turns, studying the water. “You don’t have to keep defining yourself by what you were, or what you did. You can choose something else, you know?”

She inhales deeply, steadying herself. Michael can only watch as, trembling faintly, she dips her hands into the waters of the Styx. Drawing her cupped hands to her mouth, she glances back at him one final time.

“But then, what do I know? I’ve carried out enough judgement for one lifetime. See you on the other side, Mike.”

She lowers her mouth to the water, and drinks, and dissolves away into the mist.

************************************

(Chapter notes:

- The form Gabriel has taken in this chapter is the body of the Delphyne, the half-serpent maiden who is said to have inhabited the caves in the upper slopes of Mount Parnassus. Her death at the hands of Apollo is associated with the founding of Delphi, the location which serves as the primary inspiration for this scene.)

[nesta-stan]

Acosf Theory: Nesta being kidnapped by the Mortal Queens will be a major plot point.

We all already know that the queens are going to play a major role from the synopsis. I think that specifically it will be the youngest Queen who will act as Nesta's main antagonist. She is the perfect character to act as a foil for Nesta.

Lets start with the younger queen herself.

"And the youngest two queens … One was perhaps a few years older than me, black-haired and black-eyed, careful cunning oozing from every pore as she surveyed us.

"The youngest queen, the dark-haired one, smiled slightly. Arrogant youth"

Here we see a few similarities between Nesta and that Queen. She is arrogant, "Cunning", proud, and about the same age as Nesta. They were both made into things they didn't want to be. To the Queen, Nesta has everything she wanted; she got the youth the power, and the money.

“The youngest one—that pinched-faced bitch—went into the Cauldron first. Practically trampled the others to get in after it saw what it did to you and your sister.”

Stone screamed beneath twin sets of talons. “But the Cauldron … Oh, it knew that something had been taken from it. Not sentient, but … it knew. It was furious. And when that young queen went in …”

The Ravens laughed. Laughed as the slope leveled out and we found ourselves at the bottom of the library.

“Oh, it gave her immortality. It made her Fae. But since something had been taken from it … the Cauldron took what she valued most. Her youth.” They sniggered again. “A young woman went in … but a withered crone came out.”

And from the catacombs of my memory, Elain’s voice sounded: I saw young hands

wither with age.

“The other queens won’t go into the Cauldron for terror of the same happening now. And the youngest one … Oh, you should hear how she talks, Nesta Archeron. The things she wants to do to you when Hybern is done …”

The Queen is angry at Nesta and Nesta is angry at the Queens. I'm going to be honest, when it comes to SJM's main villains like the king of hybern they seem to be one dimensional but this Queen's circumstances can be what forces Nesta to look further at her own. This Queen is what Nesta might have been. She might even be a deciding factor on who Nesta chooses to become.

Why this would make Nesta going to the Illyrian mountains make more sense

"She wasn’t stupid—she knew there had been unrest, both in Prythian and on the continent, since the war had ended. Knew some Fae territories were pushing their new limits on what they could get away with in terms of territory claims and how they treated humans."

These are Nesta's thoughts before going to see her sister in the sneak peak. I, and a lot of others, have never been able to wrap our heads around how the Illyrian mountains could ever be a good place for Nesta. Yes, a lot of people use the excuse "it's for her healing" but there is never any reasoning behind why illyria?

The mortal Queens know about Velaris. If Feyre and the inner circle have caught on to a plan to kidnap Nesta, than it makes sense that they would try to hide her away somewhere safe. Especially since she is basically helpless on her own. Cassian is the only character, besides Feyre, that cares about Nesta's well being and Illyria is filled with soldiers ready to fight at a moment's notice, while Velaris isn't. It is also where she can train. This threat has probably made Feyre realize how defenseless her sister is and to give her a fighting chance, she forces Nesta to train.

Now, let's talk about the "Ally" the synopsis mentioned. I think it's the Illyrians. That's how she still ends up captured. They betray Cassian and offer his mate to the mortal Queens. Though we all refer to this as Nesta's book, it's Cassian’s too. The Illyrians are closest to his heart. So it makes sense that they are included in his Arc. He has long been bad mouthed and treated as lowly for his status but he never stopped loving his people. Instead he internalized it, but what happens when the woman of his affections suffers because of that hatred? It would be the perfect tool to force Cassian to self-reflect on who he is and what he stands for. Can he choose between his people and his love?

This ties in with the snow queen theory

I actually first thought of this when reevaluating the theory that the story that will work as an inspiration for this book is the Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson. There are three versions of that story that all could potentially tie into to Acofas. The original, Frozen, and the 2002 movie remake.

Frozen because it is the tale of two sisters coming together after years of estrangement. (Feyre and Nesta obviously). 

I put the 2002 version in their because in that version of the story has "Lady's" portraying and ruling over each season. Their is a spring witch, summer princess (cresseida) , Autumn thief, and then the snow queen(Vivian?). Meaning more characters might play more roles in this story. I did see alot of wanting Nesta to travel to the other courts.

Now for the original, which probably looks like it has the most connection to Acosf. The story is short and easy to find online. In short, it's about a girl Named Gerda who goes on a quest to find Kay, her childhood friend. A magic mirror created by the devil , that I'm not going into detail much but it's basically the Ouroboros, is shattered and falls into the eyes and heart of young Kay. (Snow Queen also speculated to have a shard in her heart) This makes him cruel to his sister like friend over the next year till he is kidnapped by the snow queen.

This story ties in for multiple reasons. I think hear the mirror is replaced by the Cauldron. Both the Mortal Queen and Nesta were made and neither or happy about it. This being the "glass shard that froze their hearts." And the Mortal Queen being the Snow Queen who kidnapped Kay, or Nesta. Also, Kay is cruel to Gerda for a year before he is taken and it's been a year since the war.

Now let's look at this Quote.

“Little Kay was quite blue, yes nearly black with cold; but he did not observe it, for she had kissed away all feeling of cold from his body, and his heart was a lump of ice. He was dragging along some pointed flat pieces of ice, which he laid together in all possible ways, for he wanted to make something with them; just as we have little flat pieces of wood to make geometrical figures with, called the Chinese Puzzle. Kay made all sorts of figures, the most complicated, for it was an ice-puzzle for the understanding. In his eyes the figures were extraordinarily beautiful, and of the utmost importance; for the bit of glass which was in his eye caused this. He found whole figures which represented a written word; but he never could manage to represent just the word he wanted—that word was “eternity”; and the Snow Queen had said, “If you can discover that figure, you shall be your own master, and I will make you a present of the whole world and a pair of new skates.” But he could not find it out.”

I always interpreted that if this was going to inspire something in Acotar it would be Metaphorical. That the injuries Kay suffers would be how Nesta let herself fall apart and the puzzle that he needed to spell eternity for could be how Nesta still doesn't know what to do with her immortal life.

But what if it's literally? What if the Queen captures Nesta and tries to use her powers to fix her. The Queen was also granted immortality. What if Kay figuring out how to spell eternity is Nesta figuring out how to fix the young Queen. And the injuries are of being black and blue are from the queens torchering her?

Sjm's habits.

Sjm always has a habit of making her characters go through even deeper shit, once they finally healed. It would make sense that she would throw us another curve ball like this. She did something similar with Aelin in Koa, and she has reused some points before. Like Aedion and Lysandra taking Nessian's "till the next life".

Also, alot of people don't like Nesta and having even worse charecters be introduced to make the others look better is so in Sjm style. Just in the way that Tamlin and Eris make Rhysand look like a Saint, having the mortal Queen be the "bad" version of Nesta would help people see her in a better light.

I tried to look at this in the way of, What will make these Charecters question themselves and their motives the most. This was my conclusion.

This is just what I came up with, if you have any differing thoughts or ideas I would love to hear them. 

@heylittlemissy @sjm-things 

[sasorikigai]

Cyndthia on her hands and knees, begging. "Please, Mister Scorpion! Please don't kill my boss! He's just a goofster, a silly demon man with his tiddies out. He didn't mean to ruin your life and curse you to eternal hellfire! It was a prank!"

Random Inbox Shenanigans || @valourie, regarding @venefikus || always accepting!

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 || The fury in his blood runs cyanic, its white-hot flames sinking into his bones as the unquieted wrath explosively discharges in the wreathing flurries of his swift blade. And with every breath, Scorpion threatens to dismember and cleave the wicked sorcerer’s bones and drain all the marrow surrounding them. The rushing, spiked adrenaline embeds to the wraith’s every nerve, legs pumping to a pace faster than what his already nimble and swift footing can be seen. 

Scorpion is no longer vulnerable, lest his bloodstained, excruciating trauma drips from the bone arena of his skull, screaming of retaliation and righteous justice. Lest he no longer staggers into the earth with grief, for his catalytic awakening through vehement revelation of Quan Chi’s wicked and cunning manipulation, to utilize Hanzo Hasashi’s unjustly death as the unsettled grotesqueness of barbaric massacre had slaughtered all things resembling humanity, in both literal and metaphorical sense. 

The tragedy had wired Scorpion’s veins with magmatic potency and power, lest his still vulnerable human flesh felt every excruciating contort and mangling of his flesh, his bones and marrow spilling and shattering like melted glass and shards of it, long disintegrated even before his incorporeal body could rebuild itself up. Once, Quan Chi, in the form of Sub-Zero had ended him in the cold, indifferent rage of ice, moving slow and with purpose, long had reshaped Hanzo Hasashi’s world in an immediate, rapid exsanguination that would cause Scorpion to writhe of his own stifling, ireful rage. Scorpion’s teeth clenches, and arm raised to tighten the flaming chains around the wicked sorcerer’s head, as the swirling conflagration becomes the very manifestation of whipping winds of his vindictive wrath. 

“You will never fathom to understand why I go through all of this. I refuse to falter and slump as the ocean of anger suddenly stills. Quan Chi’s death will only ameliorate my eternal pain, and let unjustly slaughtered Shirai Ryu and my family to rest in peace,” the wraith is still fury personified, this cold anger, stilling him in the silent bubbling of magma, before the ensuing eruption will swallow Quan Chi whole, and de-spine him in awe-destruction. 

Millions of maelstrom thoughts elucidate the unsaid vehemence of Scorpion’s sentiments, as Quan Chi’s disintegrated bones and ash and dusted flesh scatter beneath the burning determination of the wraith’s gaze. Fire is his opus, his burning vengeance, the calming fluidity of the control and ardor he once had. Thus his rot will become as ravenously hungry and cruel as the benefactor turned mortal enemy, and Scorpion shall always respond anyone who sides with the architect of his suffering with the same cruelty. 

“His wickedness has leaked into my universe I made, and if you side along Quan Chi to burn it down further in such asinine obliviousness, then you too, deserve my murderous fury that will render you naught.”  ▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 ||

[vanillafrog]

This Is Going To Hurt (But Let It)

Pairing: Javier Peña/You (f!reader)

Summary: Was it smart to have feelings for Javier? Probably not but at least it's one sided... or maybe not?

Word Count: 3,591

Warnings: Smut!!!! and fluff. Unprotected sex (wrap ya meat before you beat some cheeks), Office sex, Quickie, Soft!Javi 

A/N: I say let Javi be soft so it is done.

It wasn’t right to feel like a foreigner in your own heart but you did. There was no more room for yourself. There was only him. 

In every crevice. In every nook and cranny of your heart. There was only Javier Peña. 

From the very moment your eyes met, you knew he was a dangerous man. His eyes were soft with something painful behind them. His posture held a false sense of relaxation. An observant eye could easily notice how he was tensed in a way only a man who had lived this life could ever be. 

He was so dangerous with his chain smoking and cheap whiskey. His aviators and button ups. The way he handled a gun like it was second nature. Javier Peña was down right criminal. 

Yet, here you were months into working as his assistant finding yourself no longer your own. 

You don’t know when you lost yourself to him. It was probably between the small lingering touches he left and the polite “thank you”s he gave you whenever you brought him something. Maybe it was the late nights working with him to shift through papers and documents. 

It didn’t matter when really. In the end, it was just a result you had to deal with. Had to hide in order for your life to not shatter into pieces of what once was. 

There were days much like this one where Javier would run away and curse. Days where his anger got the best of him, where he was just pissed at the world. You wish you could say these days were few and far in between but there was no point in lying about who he is. 

Javier is made of anger. He is made of untouchable smoke. What was once a man attainable and real became a living metaphor.

Javier was just a lost soul that made you just as lost as him.

He had run out of the office just before noon in a rush to do something you have no idea of. Most likely something dangerous that only Javier would willingly run head first into. The office at this point didn’t react to his theatrics like they used to. Perhaps they have grown just as used to Javier as you had. Maybe they didn’t care how he got the job done as long as it got finished. 

Just like every other time he left, you stayed behind. You tidied his work space up from the literal pigpen it was even though you already knew it was going to turn into chaos again the moment he came back. It was the little things, you reminded yourself. 

You weren’t no fancy DEA agent but being able to assist Javier in any way even if it was just cleaning made you feel important. More important than just someone to go and grab coffee at the drop of a dime. It made you feel as though you were apart of the investigating team like little you used to dream about in a life you no longer lived. 

On days like these, you would stay in the office way pass your clock out time to wait for Javier. He always came back to his desk. Usually picking up whiskey and a new pack of cigarettes on his way. Some days you could convince him to go home and get some rest (though even with those nights, Javier was always back at the office before you). The others you sat with him while he read just to keep him company.

He once asked you why you did it. He even said something along the lines of “You know your job isn’t to babysit me, right?” At the time, you didn’t really have an answer as to why you did it. You just did. So you responded with a shrug and continued on organizing files.

Tonight, Javier came back earlier than you expected. You were pulled out of your novel when he walked in without his whiskey. He seemed somewhat livid still which was concerning. Usually he was more than calmed down at this point.

Javier stood in the doorway of his office, his fists clenching and unclenching as he stared at you sitting comfortably behind his desk. His face was impassive but his eyes were dark. There was something in him that looked… unhinged. 

  Standing up while holding eye contact, you gulped. You weren’t practically afraid of Javier doing something to you. He would never lay a hand on you no matter how angry he was. Hell, you wouldn’t even call the shiver traveling up your spine fear. It was a reaction of extreme concern… and arousal.

The latter being a usual reaction to being in Javier’s presence.

“You okay, Javi?” You ask him gently, walking slowly over to him as though he was a rabid animal. Maybe he was. 

He didn’t say anything, just watched your every move. His posture was more tensed than usual and his breathing seemed to still be erratic. Part of you didn’t want to touch him, afraid that it would release something in him. Whatever that something could be.

So you chose to stand two feet away from him and just look up at his face. It wasn’t unusual for him to shrug off your concerns. It was second nature at this point. Yet, he didn’t seem like he was shrugging you off. He just stood there, breathing deeply with his fists clenched to his side.

“Javi?” Your voice came out a little louder in hopes of snapping him out of his state. All it did was make him close those two feet in-between you. You refused to step back. He had tried to intimidate you this way before when you first started working for him. It didn’t work then and it wasn’t going to work now, no matter how your mind screamed at you to step away from him. 

“Why are you still here?” Javier sounded raspy, as though he had come back from a screaming match. Not that that would surprise you in any way.

“I’m always here when you get back.” You said to him softly. “Since when have I not?”

Javier doesn’t respond. He just steps closer until your head is rolled back onto your shoulders so you can keep eye contact and his torso is pressed against yours. His dark eyes search for something in yours. An answer to a question he never spoke aloud, afraid of what you’ll say to him.

For a few moments, the only sounds in the room was the ever spinning ceiling fan and Javier’s breaths. You could’ve swore your quick paced heart beat was also audible. He just stood there. No facial expression that you could read and no words to ease away your growing concerns about his mental health. You briefly wondered as you gazed back at him if you could somehow convince him to see a therapist.

The answer was no and you knew it.

As though not to frighten you, Javier slowly lifted his hands onto your hips. The only reaction he got was your eyebrow scrunching together in confusion. He dipped his head down and softly dragged his nose down the crease. Your breath hitched as he continued until the tips of your noses touched. 

One hand dragged up from your hip to your waist as he softly asked, “Is this okay?” You simply nodded, stunned beyond belief. “I need to hear you say it, mi cielito.”

“Yes.” When did you get so breathy? 

Javier hummed. His hand on your hip traveled around and up your back until it was pressed between your shoulders. He dragged his nose down the side of yours, pressing it into your cheek for a moment. Your breathing started to pick up as his noticeably calmed. After lingering for a good moment, he trailed back up to your nose and pressed his lips gently to the corner of your mouth.

You inhaled sharply, your hands reaching out on their own will to grab Javier’s sides. He glided his mouth over yours. His lips barely touched you but your body lit into flames. 

Javier, who is dangerous and calloused and rough around the edges, was touching you so sweetly. Caresses that were feather like kisses from heaven above. The same man who didn’t hesitate to shoot a crook hesitated to touch you, to seal your lips together. To start something you both would have no choice but to finish. Something you both will never truly be able to forget.

There were millions of things out there that could quicken your pulse. But that glide of his mouth over yours stopped your heart completely before it stuttered back up. Whatever you were going to have with Javier, whatever this could be was going to hurt. Yet, you didn’t care for it. Let it hurt for what comes out of this would be greater than any pain you could ever know.

With that surge confidence, you pressed your lips gently into Javier’s. You let your eyes close, savoring the feel of him. His grip around you tightened as he pressed his lips harder into yours. The hand between your shoulders trailed up to tangle into the hair at the base of your neck as he pulled. 

You moaned and he took advantage of it, his expert tongue entering your mouth to explore. The grip you had on his sides moved to his lower back where you dug your nails into him when he twirled your tongue with his. He groaned at the sharp pain.

Leading your backwards until your lower back hit the desk, he pulled away from you. “Tell me to stop and I leave.” His eyes were filled with a fire you seen before when he looked at you. A fire you never knew the context of until now. “I leave and we forget this ever happened.”

“I don’t want to ever forget you.” The words tumbled out of your mouth without a filter. You weren’t really embarrassed though. If you had truly put some thought behind them, you would’ve said the same thing.

“Bebé, do you know how badly I burn for you?” He pulled your mouth back against his, devouring whatever your answer would’ve been.

Javier grabbed the back of your thighs and lifted you onto his desk. Your legs spread to make room for him that he happily nestled his hips into. The hard evidence of his arousal pressed to you. Fuck he was big. Not that that was surprising. He practically walked dick first.

As his tongue tangled with yours, you buried your hands into his thick locks. They were so soft. The hairs at the back of his neck, near the base, were slightly damp with sweat. His curls would get stuck on your fingers whenever you ran through them causing you to pull on his hair. He didn’t seem to mind.

If anything, it seemed the pain turned him on more. His kissed turned more incessant and one of his hands moved to palm at your covered breast. You whined into his mouth, pushing your chest into his hand. More. You needed more of him.

You removed your hands from his hair to begin pushing your own skirt up to your waist. Javier stepped away from you then. 

“Why-“ you began to complain until you noticed his eyes on your now exposed underwear.

“Take it all off or I’ll tear it off you.” The shiver from earlier return. You hesitated for a moment, allowing your head to catch up to what was happening. “You still have time to stop this.” Your eyes snapped back to his. How could he think you would want to stop? 

You maintained eye contact as you began to unbutton your blouse. “Why would I want to stop?” Your voice came out more sultry than you thought possible.

“I’m not a good man.” Javier answered instantly. This made you pause at the last button.

“What?” You asked him.

“I’m not a good man,” he said again. “I might just ruin you.” For a moment, you just stared at him as though he had grown a second head. You knew he was a dangerous man to get involved with but never, and you did mean never, did you think he was anything other than a good man. He helped save lives. He was polite and asked for consent. Sure, he could be rude sometimes. Obnoxious even. But everyone had their poorer qualities to them.

“I want you to,” you finally said to him. With the last button popped, you shrugged your blouse off, taking your bra with it. “I don’t know how you don’t see it but if I didn’t think- know- you were a good man, I wouldn’t have been interested in you for as long as I have been.”  The skirt was bunched up completely on your waist as you lifted your legs up to slide your underwear down. “Now,” confidence was coming back. “The real question is, do you want to stop this?”

“Fuck no,” he growled out. Once your legs were back down on the desk, Javier pushed them open to get back into his position. “It’s late and you need to get up earlier tomorrow.” He peppered your neck in kisses.

“A- and?” You stammered out.

“This is going to have to be quick but I’ll make it up to next time.” Next time. Your heart almost exploded. It wasn’t a secret that Javier enjoyed one night stands so knowing that he wanted you more than once was something you couldn’t process fully at the moment. Not with him sucking at your pulse.

“That’s more than fine.” He pulled away from your neck, kissing you intensely. His right hand trailed up your inner thigh before meeting your slick folds. You keened as he spread the slick around. Javier trailed up and began to rub tight circles on your clit. 

His left hand worked on his belt. It took you a second to notice his struggle with the pleasure he was giving you but once you did, you reached your shaky hands out and helped him. Unbuttoning the jeans and pulling down the zipper, you noticed the thick bush of pubes. He wasn’t wearing any underwear. 

Pushing down his jeans, his cock sprung out. You instantly whimpered when you saw him. The bastard chuckled and took his hand away from your core. Your lips parted as you watched him rub your slick along his cock with one hand and remove the gun from the back of his pants with the other. Noticing your increased breathing at the sight of his gun, Javier smirked.

“Next time, bebé.” He set it down on the desk before rubbing his length across your pussy. Your hips bucked up. “Think you can take me like this.” 

His cock was large, larger than any you have taken in the past. You also hadn’t had sex in a good while. With the new job and infatuation on Javier, there wasn’t much fooling around you could do. However, there was no way you weren’t going to take him, all of him, right then and there.

“Just go slow.” He hummed and pressed a soft kiss to the tip of your nose before lining up. You both moaned as he pushed in. The stretch was bordering on pain but god, there was nothing like this. After a few inches, he paused halfway and that you were grateful. It gave you the chance to take a breather. 

The grip he had on your hips was going to leave bruises but you welcomed them with open arms. Any remainder of this, of Javier, was a gift. 

With a deep breath, Javier pushed the rest of the way in. All the air in your lungs was knocked out and you whined as he ground his pubic bone into yours. His cock pressed snuggly into your cervix, making your toes curl. Javier nuzzled his face into your neck as he waited for your to adjust to him. The rough brush of his mustache grounding you.

Bucking your hips into his, you signaled for him to move. He moved his face from your neck and inches away from yours. His dark eyes pierced into yours as he slowly drew his length from you. Your mouth fell up as you felt every ridge and vein of him rub across you perfectly. When it was only the tip left in, Javier pushed back into you hard.

You squeaked at the sudden movement. Instantly he set a rough and fast pace that you melted into. Your nails dug into his shoulders to try to settle yourself. But you couldn’t. The pleasure he was giving you was too intense. 

“So good to me,” Javier said, flicking your nose with his. “Getting all cockdumb for me, àngel.” You stupidly nodded while trying to pull him closer to you. He moved in, moving his hips in upwards thrusts that hit your g spot. A loud moan left your mouth and your walls tightened around him. “There it is,” he mumbled to himself.

The closer you got to orgasm, the more your body felt like it was on the verge of a supernova. Him inside must’ve been what poets spoke about when they wrote of intertwining souls. This was something extraordinary. This was what universes were made of, you were certain of it. 

“Please,” you begged him, grinding your hips to meet his frantically. 

“You’re gonna cum for me?” He moved his grip from your hips to around your back, one trailing up to hold your neck while the other firmly panted itself on your lower back. “You’re gonna be good for me and soak my cock? Show me how much you love it when I fuck you? Hm?” God, he had a mouth on him.

“Yes, yes, please!” A smirk grew on his face as he ground his pubic bone into yours, letting the coarse hairs there rub against your clit.

“Then go ahead.” That was all you needed. Your body locked up and galaxies crashed into one another. Your walls fluttered around his cock that continued to push into you, lengthening your orgasm. 

It took a moment for you to come back to Earth. The over sensitivity of him fucking you bringing you back to the present. You let out a sob when his pace began to get rougher and more frantic. Javier let out a few cusses before suddenly pulling out. The hand that was once on your neck moved to furiously rub his cock.

His eyebrows were furrowed, showing the lovely crease formed between them. You wanted to kiss it. So you did. One hand went to hold the back of his head in place, the other one gripping his shoulder to give you the leverage to lean up.

The soft graze set him over the edge. He loudly moaned your name as his spent spread across your thighs. His breathing was erratic as he jerked himself to near oversensitivity then he dropped his hand back onto your hip. 

There weren’t any sounds in the room besides your heavy breathing and the sounds of the fan. There were no typewriting clicks or mindless chatter. It was just the two of you holding each other as though you would float away without the other. Maybe you would. Maybe if Javier let you go right now, you would float into the sun and burn. Though you knew that Javier would never let anything happen to you. It wasn’t in his nature.

When he finally moved away, you were able to look at him clearly. He was sweaty and under the harsh fluorescent lights, he seemed to have a glow to him. His eyes met yours and you couldn’t help but to smile at him. His lips twitched in a betrayal of happiness before he patted your hip.

“Get dressed so I can get you home.” Javier pulled away to help you find your clothes only to pause when you spoke.

“My home or yours?” 

He stood back in front of you with your underwear in hand. He didn’t respond yet, just grabbed your legs and helped you back into them. You grimaced slightly at the feeling of the soaked underwear but it was better than walking without them. Though you had a feeling that Javier wouldn’t have cared either way.

“I was thinking yours,” he finally answered when he held your blouse out to you. “It’s closer.”

“Are you going to stay with me?” You asked as you straightened out your skirt.

“If you’ll let me.” Carefully climbing off the desk, you draped yourself against Javier. 

“I would like it a lot.” You pecked his lips and pulled away before he could deepen the kiss. “I would like you there every night,” you offered with a shy smile.

A blush spread across Javier’s face as he pulled away from you. You watched him as he fixed his appearance up, not at all offended that he didn’t respond. He wasn’t used to affection and he needed to mull over his thoughts for a while. You couldn’t help but bite your lip to hide your smile as he reached out to grab your hand and pull you out of the office.

It was weird to feel like a foreigner in your own heart but you felt right at home in Javier’s and you hoped he felt as comfortable in yours.