#this is also like. kind of how I actually think the world works..

[fipindustries]

When i told a friend of mine that hrt had reduced my sex drive considerably they said tjey found the notion somewhat terrifying given how absolutely horny and kinky i tend to come across on my dash which actually gave me plenty of food for thought.

On a purely physiological level i do masturbate a lot less and i do tend to never get boners. That is true. On the other hand i have become a lot more open about sexual topics and about my fetishes and sexual interests. But if i examine it i think that is more due to a cultural shift than any personal lifestyle changes.

I remember how nerd spaces used to be, at least the ones that i hung out at. The internet used to be a lot more prudish in many senses. Sex was more of a punchline than something you were ever honest or open about. The word in everyones lips was "pervert" we would throw the word pervert around like it was a summer sale. We would call people pervert for admitting to read sexy magazines, we would use the word pervert if someone thought about boobs at all. We had the fucking meme "ive seen enough hentai to know where this is going" and it was always used if like tentacles appeared in any kind of context.

People were supposed to be like coy around sexual issues. You were supposed to be a lot more apologetic and embarrassed if like any detail about your fantasies was ever revealed. It was a time when being a furry was considered the absolute nadir of sexual crimes. Another tired joke was the whole "when an X and a Y love each other very much..." and so that was kind of the attitude i adopted myself around those topics when i was younger.

It wasnt until i started hanging out in more recent queer spaces that there was a shift and suddenly being like openly, proudly, almost vulnerably degenerate became vouge. Where i started spending time in discord servers where passing your own nudes around was like the standard greeting. I gotta say i do appreciate this energy a heck of a lot more.

But also there were personal changes, 100%

Now porn hits different, it has much more of an emotional reaction than a physical one, so in my head is like "well, its less gross if im sharing it because it gave me weird feelings than if it gave me a boner". It feels more like an artistic statement than just being horny.

And also, and this one is a little sad, i feel less gulty about being horny as a woman than i did as a guy. Which is not how the world should work but its how it does.

[killerblueeyesxprettybluedude]

au where stiles works for a “pranks for hire” company, which was supposed to be perfect for his personality with its “spontaneous creative challenges” which are actually just incredibly stressful brick walls he gets to pick a way to run into, and “fun, laid-back workplace environment” which is actually just exhausting and actively eroding the last ounces of joy in his soul. at this point he’s completely emotionally checked out, but he can’t quit because student loans are a thing he inexplicably thought wouldn’t be a horrific looming nightmare for the rest of his life. his degree’s also actually useless, because after dad’s health scare stiles forgot how to concentrate on anything and basically failed out without actually failing. so, yeah, he’s an expert in bullshitting the right-ish enough answer to pass without actually learning anything. story of his life. 

the new guy he’s being sent to bully is possibly the gloomiest person in the entire world. it’s almost impressive how dour he is. like, before stiles’ brand of mayhem even slightly disrupted his life, he’s already angry about it somehow. like, intuitively. 

and, fuck this. stiles hates this fucking job, where he’s supposed to like—scale this guy’s wall, and sneak on to his porch, and ambush him and give him a heart attack. then: surprise! you’re on candid camera! want a photo? no, no, don’t kill me, keith set this up! keith, he’s like—he’s really worried about you. 

all so dourface can go, like, get off my lawn. and stiles can nod, like, hated again, that seems fair. sorry to ruin your day like this. you probably had a meal you were gonna heat up, you were gonna watch a movie. now you’re gonna shut your door and spend thirty minutes just getting your breath back. just going, what the fuck is wrong with people?

so. fun. stiles can totally see why people thought he was cut out for this! and it’s because they thought he was a psychopath. 

but that’s the claim, right, he’s not restricted to anything. he has freedom! to brainstorm creative solutions. 

the actual assignment, this time, is: play a stalker. hidden notes, weird calls. it’s gonna be so funny, dude.

dourface looks like he’s never had fun in his life. 

but, fine. notes, stiles can do notes. make it like, a game, kind of, make it interesting. or not mind-numbingly boring, at least. 

derek’s still a werewolf in this. and stiles startles him, and he wolfs out.

“holy shit,” stiles says. 

he's kind of paralyzed. kind of—not having a reaction at all.

“sorry, does your face just do this?” he says. “wait. have you looked like this the whole time?”

his eyes are just failing him, maybe. or maybe he’s going insane. 

delusions, right? visual, like, imaginings…

the guy’s just looking at him. his face settling back into a face again. 

the way you’d expect a face to be.

“sorry,” stiles says, and rubs his eye. “um, i think i’m going insane.”

the guy smiles at him. all teeth. 

“i don’t think you are.”

it’s almost a threat. except it’s not really threatening.

“um, thank you?” stiles says. “i think. for the vote of confidence in my sanity. really… really reasurring.” 

he rubs at his eye again. 

“and look at you and your totally normal face,” he says. “your too-attractive, not remotely monstrous visage. have you pissed off any witches lately? maybe, not letting them inside your father’s castle, i don’t know. and now you’re cursed if you don’t find your true love?”

the guy sighs.

“why are you in my house.” 

“right, right,” stiles says. “um, i was hired to prank you.”

“to prank me,” derek says.

“yup,” stiles says. “never do this job. i hate it. you think people are gonna be happy, and like, laughing all the time, but no. because it’s never funny, and they just think you’re a psychopath. what do you do?”

“what?”

“for work. what do you do,” stiles says. “might wanna look into it.”

derek laughs. “you wouldn’t.” 

“hitman,” stiles guesses. “killer of fun. lab rat.” derek stops laughing. “really?”

“it’s complicated.”

“it’s complicated,” stiles says. “is that why you’re, you know…” gesturing all around his face.

derek snorts. “no.”

“no,” stiles says. “so that’s just a complete coincidence.”

“not exactly.”

“not exactly,” stiles says. “so it’s like—an experiment gone wrong. wait, no.” snapping his fingers. “freak accident. and now you’re like, being studied to see how it happened.”

but derek’s back to especially grim. “oh my god. really?”

nothing from derek, or the stone statue that replaced him. “holy shit. that’s so fucked, dude.”

“still want my job?” derek says. 

“no,” stiles says. “maybe. is there an opening?”

derek looks at him.

“as like, a lab tech or something.”

“because you have the degree for that.”

“i don’t know, i could get it.” stiles throws his hands up. “i don’t know, dude, i’m desperate. secretary?”

“you’re serious,” derek says.

“very much so,” stiles says. “what, you think i wanna be pulling pranks for the rest of my life? hobbling around, scaring the shit out of teenagers.”

“what are you, like sixteen?”

“twenty-five,” stiles says, pulling himself up to his full height. “but thanks so much.”

“you’re wearing two hoodies and a disney sweatshirt.”

“i’m cold,” stiles says. “and my niece made that for me. it’s anna.”

derek looks at him. 

“from Frozen,” stiles says.

“i know what it’s from.” 

“okay, you seemed confused about it.” 

“that’s not what i’m confused about,” derek says.

he hesitates, and—it happens again.

“okay, wow,” stiles says. “i’m not crazy.”

“don’t count on it,” wolf-derek says. it’s a little muffled, because of the teeth. 

fangs, really. 

“look at those things,” stiles says vaguely. “are they sharp? i bet they’re so sharp.”

tilting his head, considering.

“actually, i bet they’re purely decorative,” he says. “like those horns some people get. or elf ears.”

“they’re not like elf ears.”

“no, no,” stiles agrees. “cat ears. catboy.”

derek lets out a huge sigh. 

“so dramatic,” stiles says. 

“you really don’t care about this.”

“that you’re a furry?” stiles says. derek sighs again. “not really. cool mods, though.”

“they’re not—” derek gives up. “are you gonna be coming back?”

“why?” stiles says. “do you want me to?”

he has to, anyway. still his job, no matter how lame it is.

how truly, completely unfunny.

“hi again,” stiles says. “um, i’m stalking you.”

he holds out the note. in cut-out magazine letters, it says, CREEPY MESSAGE! 

“i’m going for a kind of meta thing,” stiles says. “creative interpretation of the assignment.”

“someone assigned this to you?” derek says.

“yup, same job,” stiles says. “still sucks, by the way.” 

“were you tortured for six hours?” derek says.

“um, no,” stiles says. “maybe metaphorically? what are we talking about, ‘torture’?”

“forget it,” derek says. 

“no, no,” stiles says. “are you actually wolverine?”

derek rolls his eyes.

“well it’s a pleasure, as always,” stiles says. checking his watch. “looks like i’m gonna have to bully someone else soon.”

“already?”

“already,” stiles confirms. “believe it or not, i do not get paid to prank you and you alone. partners, roommates… old college buddies, exes. we do ‘em all.”

“exes,” derek says.

“yeah, why?” stiles says. “is that who’s pranking you?“

“you don’t know?”

“hey, i’m just the messenger,” stiles says. “the burnt out, deeply disinterested… you don’t need to know that. i’m so happy to be here, dude.”

“funny,” derek says. 

“i’m, like… this is my favorite job in the world,” stiles says. “i’m so lucky.”

“i get it.”

“dream job,” stiles says. “i know you’re so jealous.”

“do i need to explain what torture means?” 

“yes,” stiles says. “i have no idea, and i’d like to know how concerned to be. how illegal is this whole lab thing?”

derek shrugs.

“semi-illegal,” stiles says. “undocumented.”

derek shrugs again.

“is it government?” stiles says. “or, like, private company. or military.” considering. “or like, one guy in a lab coat, probing you.”

“very funny.”

“yep, i regretted that immediately,” stiles says. “so tasteless. and like, downplaying… what that actually means.”

“it’s not that,” derek says.

“well, that’s something,” stiles says. “always a silver lining. so, what is it?”

“well, there’s a basement—”

“oof,” stiles says. “nothing good happens in a basement. good science? no fucking way.” looking at him. “a basement of what, exactly?”

“a house,” derek says.

“a house,” stiles says. “you get tested on private property? no way you don’t end up dead.” 

“thanks for that.”

“in a basement,” stiles says. “yeah, this is nightmare fuel.” he brightens up, then. “can i come?”

“what?” derek says. 

“to like, observe,” stiles says. “as an observer. objective… peer review.” 

derek laughs. “good luck with that.”

“well you can get me in, you’re the testee,” stiles says. “the test subject. the main event.”

derek rolls his eyes.

“patient x,” stiles says. “patient zero.”

“they’re not making more of me.” 

“why not?” stiles says. “‘s not good for dogs to be lonely.”

derek rolls his eyes. “i’m not a dog.”

“or whatever,” stiles says. “cat-guys. no, their ears are pointy. what happens to your ears?”

“nothing,” derek says.

“i don’t believe you,” stiles says. “there was definitely… hair, or something. that wasn’t there before.” tilting his head, squinting. “or something changed shape…”

“take it easy.”

“sorry, sorry,” stiles says. “i just need, like, before and after pictures. for my Find-The-Difference brain.”

“spot the difference,” derek says.

“what?”

“it was Spot The Difference,” derek says. “in those magazines.”

“highlights,” stiles says, and derek nods. “yeah. good catch! anyway, i need that. just to, fully… like, appreciate what’s happening. when it happens.”

“i can’t take photos,” derek says.

“shut up,” stiles says. “like a vampire?”

“not like a vampire,” derek says. “my eyes flare.”

“like, red eye,” stiles says, and derek grabs his phone from his hand.

“whoa, hey!”

snaps a picture.

“whoa,” stiles says, staring at it. “laser eyes. okay.” 

derek snorts. “they’re not laser eyes.” 

“well i don’t know, what do you call them?”

derek looks at him. “there isn’t a name.” 

“just like, built in instagram filter,” stiles says. “built in bokeh effect.”

“you’re overthinking this.”

“i’m underthinking this,” stiles says. “i’m thinking about this the normal amount. how’s your vision?” 

derek scoffs. “better than yours.”

“i’m gonna start writing the stalker messages from over there,” stiles says. “‘BOO!’ in microscopic letters. long-distance startled.”

derek nods. “you do that.” 

“i will!” stiles says. “aw, man. i have to think about this.” 

silly string, something. or shaving cream, or tied-together balloons. 

“i’ll think of something,” he says. “it’s gonna be awesome.”

“and terrifying, of course,” derek says. finally taking stiles’ stalker note, tucking it in his jacket.

“oh yeah,” stiles says. trying to swallow down the sudden warm feeling. “that too.”

[ganondoodle]

as funny as this scene is ... toby and the team are very good at combining humor and serious things (or rather, the humor works so well bc it has a solid base? idk words) the longer i think about it the 'worse' it gets

even with them trash talking each other constantly its so obvious that they still care (they share so many phrases and themes you cant even tell who got what from whom.. though i suppose its more likely spamton got them from Tenna .... but also he would have had to be there for quite a while to have so many similarities) even if its complicated- and like, spamton kind of sounds so genuinely happy here?? and the fact he (if you have the dealmaker) comes out of your inventory on his own here when Tenna talks to himself about being at his lowest and wishing him back (more or less) is kinda heartbreaking to me????? for all i know (cut me some slack its been a long time) we dont know why spamton never came back or left in the first place (and there is the thought of ... would he have even been able to come back given that they are all tied to physical objects and to get Tenna to safety later -if you dont let him die- susie literally has to carry him away) and even if its some sense of resentment or pride or shame or something that made him stay away/avoid him, NOW that you got him here and he hears and sees this he actually makes a move????????

for all that spamton is weird and kinda fucked up for unkown(?) reasons, treated badly (even if for good reason(??) i dont remember everything of the first chapters) and everything im just so?? he could have just stayed in your inventory like hes done before but he doesnt

but you also cant really blame Tenna for reacting the way he does here (and yes i do think he knew it was spamton and the overblown reaction was mostly trying to think of soemthing to do bc HOW would you handle this?? and also i do think he could be petty about it but also maybe overreacting ... i know how it feels to overreact in weird ways ahaha- just .. i get it but, dude, why q-q)- you were hiding and he was talking to himself and then spamton just freakinge appears in front of him like that (when Tennas desperate attempt to avoid being thrown away fails, no matter how far he went, when everything is falling apart, when its kinda .. too late) after who knows how long of silence, knowing literally nothing about where he went or why (yet he still kept the pipis.......)---

and then how spamton says hes never gonna do that again, while understandably so and very funny in the moment, im just so .... the one time he actually does seem to try to reconnect (?) with someone he seems to have actually genuinely cared about he gets rejected like that (for also understandable reasons aaaaah) and swears to never try that again ......................................................

blaming each other for their downfall but still caring and then fumbling the one chance they get to meet again im so .............................................. fine about it.

(and not to derail but why .... why is it so easy to let Tenna disappear or die ..............?? even if you do all the nice things if you dont go to the hub after church (if thats possible, i dont ...actually know), or dont give him to mettaton, toriel throws him out and once it rains and hes outside its like the last chance to get him to safety (and most people would probably avoid going there before the church bc you are told to go home when its raining and most would then check everything else first and end up in the church at night.. skipping out on finding him outside in the rain and after that he is just gone??? (i think?)- ALSO if you dont recruit enough/are nice enough Susie says she still went back and searched for him in the dark world (i love her so much) but couldnt find him and the other NPCs refused to help out.................. the boarded up tv room in the hub??? arhj my heart man q-q .......... and when you actually break him the broken TV just stays in the room????????? at least spamton can just chill in your inventory nfjksbfshfkjnfksl)

((also also ...i found it weird you dont get to see susie help him in the dark world or the sealing of the fountain there, i know its at the end of the chapter and sth happens with Kris and the shelter but ... i think thats the only time we havent seen the actual sealing?? and then she tells you what happened if you interact with the TV instead ... i do love the highly missable dialog of her telling you she found and patched Tenna up with the help of the other NPCs if you got them all recruited though.... qwq))

(sorry these thoughts have been spiraling around sicne i woke up today and i literally could not concentrate on work at all bc i kept ... thinking about it .... either way these all all just current incoherent thoughts im throwing around........ i hope we get to see Tenna again later on, though i kind of doubt that)

[kjiscrawlingbackformore]

Peace - Act IV : Chaper two

Lottie Matthews x fem!reader

Masterlist | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Summary: Reader comes back to her hometown and transfers to Wiskayok High School after getting expelled from her previous high school. Follows Junior year into Senior year, all the way up to the crash. (Eventual NSFW mdni)

A/N: 🥺🥺🥺 lottie in this makes me soo 🧎🏽‍♀️‍➡️💔

Warnings: None

You were buzzing. Like actually, physically buzzing.

The paper trembled in your hand as you sat across from Mr. Weaver, his office still cluttered with stress balls shaped like planets and coffee cups filled with pens that didn’t work. He leaned back in his chair with that smug, knowing grin that made you want to roll your eyes and also kind of cry.

“Full ride,” he said, tapping the NYU acceptance letter like it was just some casual piece of mail. “Y/F/N Y/L/N, accepted into the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. That’s what we call a Big Deal.”

You couldn’t stop smiling. “You say that like you didn’t submit half my portfolio without telling me.”

“Oh, I absolutely did,” Weaver said, sipping from a mug that read World’s Okayest Counselor. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“And Mizzou,” You said, voice soft like you still didn’t quite believe it. “Honors program.”

Weaver arched an eyebrow. “Didn’t I tell you? You’re bigger than this town.”

You looked down at the second letter. The invitation was embossed in gold. It felt heavier than any other piece of paper you’d ever held. Like it might float you away if you stared too hard.

Weaver leaned forward, suddenly serious. “There’s one more thing I want you to look at.”

He slid a flyer across the desk. A national scholarship competition for journalism students. Competitive as hell. You scanned the fine print.

“Winner gets ten grand. That could cover flights, food, whatever the full ride won’t.”

You blinked, your breath getting caught in your throat. “You think I could win this?”

“I think you already won,” he said. “Now go prove it to yourself.”

You clutched the paper like it might disappear. “Thanks.”

“No problem, kid. Just don’t forget about us little people when you’re off winning Pulitzers.”

You rolled your eyes and laughed, heart full and throat tight. For a moment, you let herself believe in the version of you that Weaver saw. The one with a future.

You didn’t tell anyone.

You hadn’t meant to keep it a secret, not really. But it was easier that way. Let the good things stay quiet, tucked somewhere safe where no one could mess them up. Your acceptance into the Mizzou Honors Program stayed folded inside the front pocket of her binder, nestled between a French quiz and an article draft about the Yellowjackets’ qualifying win. It was safer there, invisible, untouched. Like, if you didn’t say it out loud, it wouldn’t get ruined.

So when Tai cornered you behind the bleachers after sixth period, your guard shot up.

“You,” Tai said, low and casual, “are full of shit.”

You shake your head in confusion, a bit jarred. “Excuse me?”

Tai tilted her head. “Honors program at Mizzou?”

You froze.

“I have cousins in Columbia,” Tai continued, smiling like it was a dare. “They’re in the program. Only ten out-of-state students get invited a year. You’re one of them?”

Your jaw tensed. “How do you even know that?”

Tai shrugged. “I know things.”

You narrowed your eyes. Tai held herself with this brazen confidence. But it was so intense and aggressive, you were unsure what she was trying to prove. “That supposed to scare me?”

"How the hell did you get into the Mizzou Honors Program?" Tai asked, arms crossed, voice pitched low but sharp.

You looked around before blinking. “What?”

“I’ve been trying to get flagged for that program since last spring. My mom’s already emailing alumni. I’m pre-law. You don’t even care about school.”

You bristled. “Gee, thanks.”

“I mean-come on, you’re, like, yearbook girl. Why the fuck are they courting you?”

You hesitated. You didnt even know why you felt inclined to tell her. Maybe it was so someone else could know. But despite yourself, you sigh, “Because I wrote an article that won a national contest. Because I’m not stupid. Because I’m trying.”

Tai studied you, eyes narrowed like she was solving a puzzle. “Did Weaver help you?”

You didn’t answer. You didn’t have to. Tai took a slow step closer. “Look. I need your help. I want in. I need in. My mom thinks if I don’t land this, I’m wasting her time. I need my application to scream ‘elite.’”

You raised an eyebrow. “So you’re coming to me... for help?”

“Don’t get smug,” Tai muttered. “But yeah. I need someone who’s done it. Someone who can write something good, something worthy of the honors program. Quietly.”

You shook her head, a scoff of disbelief tumbling off your lips. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Don’t act like you’re above it,” Tai snapped. “We all lie a little. You’re not exactly broadcasting your big future, are you?”

That hit too close to home. You looked away.

Tai exhaled and leaned against the brick wall, then added, too casually, “Besides. I know about you and Lottie.”

Your head snapped up.

Tai’s smirk turned razor sharp. “Thought you were being subtle? Lottie is not that slick, her eyes are way too expressive. Van’s not as oblivious as she acts. Van clocked that a mile away.”

You stared at her, heart thudding. If Tai was going to be a bitch. Fine. So could you. Because she is not about to corner you about Lottie as if you haven’t noticed the way Van melts around Tai. The way Tai stares a way too long when Van enters the room. Or how they somehow are always gone at the same time. And without even thinking, almost a shot in the dark. “And speaking of Van,” You said slowly, “that new bruise on your neck isn’t from soccer practice.”

Tai froze, jaw tightening. She didn’t say anything, and that was enough. Checkmate.

You tilted your head. “Guess we’re both full of surprises.”

Tai stepped in close again, low and lethal. “You breathe a word about me and Van to anyone and I will find a way to ruin your life. Mizzou, NYU, whatever—you’ll be lucky to get into community college.”

You didn’t flinch. Forcing yourself not to smile. “Noted.”

The air between them crackled, heavy with the weight of everything unsaid.

Then—

“Smalls!” a voice called, clean and cutting through the tension like a whistle.

Both girls turned to see Jackie Taylor approaching, soccer duffel slung over one shoulder, her golden-girl hair tied in a perfect braid.

Jackie looked between you both with careful curiosity. “Can I steal you for a second?”

Tai backed off without a word, stalking away like a storm cloud. You exhaled slowly. Jackie waited until Tai was out of earshot before speaking again. “Everything okay?”

You nodded, hoping to shake off the tension you felt from the conversation. “Peachy.”

Jackie half-smiled. “Weird energy.”

“School’s a weird place.”

Jackie shrugged, then handed you a crumpled sheet of paper. “Would you mind proofreading my Rutgers essay?”

You gave her a surprised glance. Your fingers grab the paper gently, like it were made of glass. Your heart clenched in your chest at the gesture. You and Jackie were tolerating each other at this point in the semester. Nothing of the friendship you used to have. So this felt like…like- “You trust me with that?”

“Of course I do. You’re a genius with words,” Jackie said. “Even when you’re quiet.”

You looked down at the paper. And without even thinking, you nod. “Sure. I’ll look it over tonight.”

Jackie’s hand brushed yours as she passed it off, fingers lingering just a second too long. “Thanks, Smalls.”

The way she said Smalls, was soft. You gave her a thin-lipped smile. And she gave you a wide, genuine one before you watched her walk away, the Rutgers logo sharp at the top of the page, Tai’s threat still buzzing in your ears, and your acceptance letters practically burning through your binder.

Secrets and futures. Lies and promises.

And somewhere in the middle of it all, you, just trying to keep your balance. With eyes trailing Lottie, her curls in two pigtails, and a quiet grin. She waves at you from the field, and you wave back. Before standing up, making a beeline back inside.

The late afternoon sun poured through your bedroom window, soft and golden against her messy bed. Her binder lay open in front of her, Jackie Taylor’s college essay printed in faded ink, full of crossed-out lines and margin notes. You chewed on the end of a pen, eyebrows furrowed as you reworded a clunky sentence about community leadership.

The floor creaked near the door.

You looked up to see Lottie standing there, still in her soccer gear, bag slung low on one shoulder. Her pigtails had started to unravel. She wasn’t smiling. It was rare when you both stayed at your home. But your aunt has been gone hitting almost two weeks tomorrow. And Lottie’s parents are home.

You straightened a little. “Hey baby.”

Lottie’s eyes flicked to the essay. “What’s that?”

You hesitated. “Jackie’s Rutgers thing. It’s like her college essay. She asked me to proofread it.”

Lottie didn’t move. “Why would you proofread it?”

You tried for a shrug. “Because I’m good at it? And she asked?”

Lottie’s silence filled the room like a rising tide. She came closer, dropped her bag to the floor with a thud. “That’s the second time she’s asked you for something like that.”

You tried not to flinch at her tone. Slowly you licked your lips. Sitting back, blinking. “Okay… and?”

Lottie crossed her arms. “You don’t think it’s weird?”

“Lottie…”

“She’s obsessed with you, baby. Everyone sees it.”

Your laugh was dry, almost tired. “She’s not obsessed.”

“She watches you like she’s trying to read your soul,” Lottie snapped. “And now she’s handing you her college essay to edit? That’s like handing you her ticket to her dreams on paper.”

“She needed help with grammar. Not a blood pact.”

Jackie was a lot of things. Obsessed with you? Was not one of them. The way she ignored you like the plague after that kiss was proof of it. Yet your eyes softened when you saw Lottie’s expression, a storm barely held behind her eyes. Not angry. Hurt.

You set the pen down and gave her full attention. Feeling your heart flutter and something else swish within your stomach in an ugly mix.

“Okay,” You said gently. “Let me just finish this paragraph. I promised her I’d look at it, and I don’t want to be that girl who bails mid-favor. But once I’m done, no more editing Jackie’s personal statements, okay?”

Lottie didn’t answer right away, then nodded once, stiffly. You felt something hurt in the way Lottie’s eyes didn’t meet yours.

“I’m serious,” you added. “I won’t do more than I should with her. You’re the one I—” You caught yourself. “You’re the one I want to be with.”

Lottie sat on the edge of the bed, eyes still on the essay. “Okay.”

But you heard it in her voice. A flicker of doubt you couldn’t blame her for. Jackie was too perfect, too calculating, and always close.

Still, you reached over and took Lottie’s hand in yours. “I’m yours,” you said quietly. “I’m your girl.”

Lottie squeezed your hand but didn’t reply. And it broke something in you. She was your sweet girl, and she looked so small. You frowned, you didn’t know what you could say to make it better.

It only made your mind wander to the things you haven’t said to her either. Like how that this was nothing compared to the actual secret you were keeping. That your acceptance letters to Mizzou, and NYU, were still sitting in your backpack, unread by anyone but you and Mr. Weaver. That you might actually move away one day.

Or that you and Jackie kissed last year. Your eyes widened at the memory and willed the intrusive ghost of Jackie’s lips out of your mind. Instead you focused on Lottie.

Lottie leaned against your shoulder, quiet. You placed a kiss on the top of her head. And pulled her legs onto your lap. Because you didn’t want to think about any of that. Your thumb softly rubbed the back of her hand, as your other hand held onto her knees.

She curled into you. And after a few minutes of silence. “Can we shower together?” Lottie asks softly.

You try to stop the small smile stretching onto your lips. You had only ever showered together two other times before and both times was after having slept together. But the way she relaxed into you. Let you wash her hair. You loved the closeness she let you have.

“Baby, we can do whatever you want.” You answered.

Lottie doesn’t say anything. You move yourself away from her to get a clear look at her face. She had a faraway look in her eyes. Like she was fighting to stay present. You grabbed her face softly, the pads of your thumbs caressing each side of the apples of her cheeks.

That made her look at you. Really, look at you. “Lot, baby. I’m all yours. There’s no one else I would rather shower with, sing off-key with on the way to school, or eat Burger King at midnight with. No one I’d rather kiss at a red light, cook grilled cheeses for, return stolen TJ Max clothes with, and do life with. It’s you and me Lot.”

Lottie nods, giving you a soft almost smile. You kiss her cheeks one at a time. Before moving to her nose, then the corner of her mouth, her forehead, all around her face, until finally placing a featherlight kiss on her lips.

When you pull away, Lottie’s face is flushed, and her eyes are glassy. Her grip on your shirt is a tight fist. “Me too. I think…my dad has been home more often. And when he’s there it just…I feel so off and broken. Not nearly good enough. And when I see you and her I wonder-“

“Baby, theres nothing to wonder about.” You say quickly. “Jackie…she’s a friend. But you? Fuck Lottie you’re everything.”

Lottie nods, and her eyes lock onto your lips. She presses her lips onto the corner of your mouth and then sighs. “I think I change my mind. I want to shower alone.”

You hum. “Okay, baby, whatever you want.”

“Can we cuddle after?” She asks quietly.

You chuckle, “It’s kinda the law to give me cuddles in my domain.”

That makes Lottie breathy laugh. “Right, I forgot. Was that before or after the eating me out part?”

“Great question, both actually.”

Lottie rolled her eyes, but a full smile was on her face, and it reached her eyes. That was a win. So you watched her go to take a shower, and you sighed alone in your room. And after a moment, you picked up the pen again, and started writing faster.

[7-deadly-cats-updates]

// IMPORTANT (KMS) ANNOUNCEMENT

for a shortened version, just read the bold paragraphs

hey guys <3

i’ve been thinking a lot about this lately and i think i’ve made the decision to stop using a scheduled upload day for KMS.

don’t worry, this isn’t a break or anything like that. chapters will still come, but just when they’re ready. maybe still every week, maybe every two weeks, maybe a little sooner, maybe a bit later – depending on how i feel.

i’ll still kinda aim for sundays, just because i like having that soft goal in mind, but if it ends up being earlier or later, so be it. i just wanna give myself that freedom.

and just fyi, i DON'T feel pressured by anyone. i actually love sharing this story weekly with you. it’s just that i’ve noticed how much time i spend during the week making sure a new chapter is done by sunday, and I end up putting a lot of pressure on myself.

i know i’ve said before that i kind of need that pressure to properly sit down and write but right now, i just really wanna give myself a bit more room.

and the main reason for this decision is also that i have other wips i’d love to work on too, and it’s been bothering me that i’ve been neglecting them because i’ve been so focused on KMS.

so yeah. this is just me letting you know that i'm changing my posting rhythm, NOT ending KMS or stuff like that.

i totally understand if some of you might feel a little disappointed about this. i do know that many of you have been looking forward to new chapters every sunday, and honestly that means the world to me. maybe it’ll still end up being weekly updates, who knows. but as some of you have probably noticed, the last few chapters have already been delayed by a couple days here and there.

so thank you. for sticking around, for being kind, for supporting me and this series. it really means everything and i hope you guys can understand <3

with that being said, i kindly ask everyone to be patient and please avoid asking when new updates will be dropping. i completely get the curiosity and excitement but stuff like that just stresses me out a little <3 i’ll try to give a heads-up whenever i have a post planned, though i can’t always promise it.

xx ᓚᘏᗢ

[naneun-no]

1. You get what you seek. And it shows that you have made it so that on your side that is all you see because you purposely seek it out. You do realize that on SM when you see post and go into comments sections, it’s different for everyone. You know this right?! You built your algorithm to be what you wanted it to be. I never see these things you guys speak of. On my side none of these things pop up. I didn’t build my algorithm with purposeful hate. That was all your own doing. Maybe it’s time to start over and build it with actual positivity because you and the rest sound like you’ve gone off the deep end.

2. Let me preface this with I am 🏳️‍🌈 and what you and the lot are doing is literally one of the most disrespectful and scary things you could do to someone who may be 🏳️‍🌈. “But we do it to show love and support!” Nope! You are doing damage and it’s scary. You literally scare us! Never actually taking the time to think of what this could do to them. You just want your “Ha Ha I was right!” point made. You can see it in all of your guys posts. They are just token to you and you have definitely proven that. You guys are the ones giving ammo to the people who hate us (and risking our lives, how do you not get that!?!! Especially the two grown men you are speaking about!

3. I say this sincerely but you (and the rest of you) need help. I highly recommend therapy because you have gone waaay past parasocial…… Others people opinions (which they are allowed to have, just like you have, and you’re stating they aren’t) should never matter to you this much. You are spending too much time in a world where you don’t even exist to them instead of living in the real world. You put more time and effort into their lives and those who hate them, than on your life. Do you deep dive your life this much? Do you deep dive current events this much? People are literally being slaughtered and dying all over the world right now. I understand the need to escape because of how bad the world is right now (trust me I get it) but you guys aren’t even diving into a good thing. If their lives make you happy then sure enjoy it and be happy but you and the lot seem to focus more on the hate and fighting than just staying in the happy bubble that has been created. Stay within the content and leave out all the rest. You are doing yourself and those guys a disservice doing all that. If you truly care about them, love them (like you claim), and care you wouldn’t be behaving this way. Report and block buttons exist for a reason!

4. This was probably a waste of time because you will all remain the same, but I tried. I wish people thought more of the consequences of their actions and especially what that does to those you are “fighting” for.

Hi, so, I’m gonna attempt to answer this in good faith, even though I don’t necessarily think it was asked in good faith (especially since you did it anonymously, but that’s cool. I turned on anons for the first time in years because I felt open to being challenged and discussing, and that’s what you brought). I am a fan of self-reflection, even though you (without knowing me at all) suggested that I’m not — so let’s give it a go.

1. Sorry… gotta ask. How did you come across this post exactly? You know, given the positivity and purity of your own algorithm?

Ah, I had to, sorry. But you see how it works?

I don’t “build my algorithm with purposeful hate” either. That was, in my opinion, an unnecessarily spiteful and self-congratulatory thing to say. I also wasn’t referring in my last post to hate — I was referring to the way that a lot of this fandom refuses to acknowledge Jimin and Jungkook’s particular closeness. Idk what kind of algorithm you want me to have, but given that I am responding to what “normal” army — presumably people like you — are saying, I don’t really get your point.

2. Okay, you’re 🏳️‍🌈. I’m going to give you a spoiler alert and let you know that a lot of “this lot” is 🏳️‍🌈. You might be aware that gay people are not a monolith.

For some people, the bond that they’ve seen between Jungkook and Jimin and the people that celebrate it has helped them find solace and encouragement and empowered them in their sexuality. I have had discussions about that with gay people on this very site. So while you evidently find this kind of shipping discourse a wholly bad thing, not every gay person does.

I think for a lot of gay people, when they witness and react to Jungkook and Jimin’s content, they have raised eyebrows and wonder if they are closeted. I’m bisexual myself, and I wondered about Jimin a long time ago, but idk. I could be wrong. I don’t think he’s particularly scared of being seen as bisexual, but maybe I am projecting.

I’m genuinely sorry that you felt scared or threatened by my post or my words. I did not intend what I said to be a scary thing, but if it felt that way to you regardless, I apologize. I have no desire to use any gay people (or any people period) as a token or a chess piece. To be honest, sometimes it can get kind of competitive on here when talking about different fandom takes, and you’re right about that. I don’t really see my most recent post as a “ha ha I win” post, I more just was sort of frustrated by the way people tend to refuse to talk about jikook in a normal way, in the way they would talk about any other celebrity duo — but in doing so, I suppose I end up not talking about them in a normal way myself. And that’s fair to call out!

When you say “what I’m doing is dangerous for them” I think I need to better understand what you mean. Genuinely. I’m not sure how saying “hm, I see something here but maybe I’m wrong” is dangerous. I have not spread or reposted any photos people took without their consent. I have not followed them (ever) or gone to where they are to take photos or share their location without their consent. I have not called for anyone to do them harm. In fact, maybe it will cheer you to hear that almost my entire algorithm is people shaming and discouraging others from sharing the intrusive photos and videos. And I agree.

If you’re suggesting that more people seeing content that points out that they may be gay will make more people think they’re gay, which would then make them more visible to people who may wish to harm them — okay. Maybe. I doubt that hateful, homophobic people are trolling the ship tags on tumblr, of all places, but maybe. I removed their names from the tags of the post so that only the ship names are tagged (so that people who are okay with encountering that kind of content will be the ones to see it. Hopefully. And the good people with good algorithms won’t).

Listen. I do not want to put them in danger. I am reacting to their public behavior and the language I see surrounding it. I posted this on a blog site that is generally a pretty safe space for the 🏳️‍🌈 intentionally. I do not post very much about them on X and I do not post at all about them elsewhere.

Still, I’m sorry to hear that you find my post exploitative or scary. If I may make an intrusive suggestion similar to the ones you made — maybe you should avoid this kind of discourse if it causes you distress. Then again, you wouldn’t get the ego boost of telling me all the ways I’m a yucky, bad, not as good as you person. So maybe keep it in the rotation.

3. Point number 3. It’s a big one. Most of it is absolutely none of your business, but I’m going to address it anyways. I’m also choosing to believe you meant this with the best of intentions and that the preachy, holier-than-thou tone was unintentional and just a product of how much better than me you think you are.

Which is fine, and I mean this genuinely: maybe you are healthier than me! Maybe whatever impulse drove you into a stranger’s inbox to anonymously recommend that they seek therapy is healthier than the impulse I had to rant on my own blog about a trend I’ve noticed in a fandom I’m a part of. If you are mentally healthier than me, please accept my congratulations. I wish you many warm cups of herbal tea while your feet touch grass and the sun shines on your cheeks. I wish that for everyone, really.

But anonymous hall monitor, hear me when I say this: You don’t know me at all.

I don’t know the two grown men I wrote about either — you’re right! I yap, and I rant, and I tap up silly essays with very little editing, but it actually is a lot less deep to me than it probably seems like it is. Know why? Because you happened to come to a place where this is the only thing I do. The title of the blog is “ranting & writing & shipping” or something to that effect. I have reserved this space specifically for silly fandom thoughts about two celebrities. In the same way that some people have blogs for Tom and Zendaya, and some have blogs about certain reality shows. I have never written about them in a way that suggests I know them in any way other than a fan “knows” an idol. I only ever make comments on the content they have shared with us through official channels. I may seem as though all I am is a brain dead, zombified shipper, but I am other things too. I just am not those things here, because I have reserved this little space for that.

Is it the healthiest of my hobbies? Probably not. You’re right about that. But rest assured, random stranger who does not know or care about me in any way, other than the moral high ground you awarded yourself at my expense — I do have other hobbies.

I actually do, believe it or not, “dive this deep” in my personal life. I do in fact stay informed on current events and I do in fact have hot takes on things other than this one topic. It’s just that this blog, which you somehow came across and then trolled for evidence to back up your anonymous takedown of me, is pretty much only about this one topic.

I get that you think you know me because you’ve read a few of my posts, but they are typically typed up in a whirlwind of random half-baked thoughts formed during an hour or so spent online and then never really thought of again. I’m a good writer, so maybe that makes you think I spend more time on these posts than I actually do. In actuality, I have spent far longer trying to fairly and without too much defensiveness respond to this ask. Believe me, if anything has inspired me to log off for the day, it’s you. So. Well done.

You so magnanimously suggested that “my lot” should choose to only see the positive and not engage with the negative. Setting aside the fact that PLENTY of my posts are positive, and about the music, and fashion, and hyping them up, you just haven’t seen those ones (darn it! Why didn’t your perfect algorithm show you my nice, happy posts? I promise they exist): If you’re taking issue with the overall tone of my last post — which was a bit sarcastic, a bit argumentative, I’ll give you that — then maybe my style just isn’t for you? I promise I am not having a bad day because people don’t see Jungkook and Jimin the exact same way I do. I promise I’m allowing people to have their opinions, even if my phrasing made you think I’m not. In fact, I’d argue that I might be more tolerant of different opinions than you are. Sure, I made a rant post on my own blog space about how I’m annoyed with a certain trend. But you’re the one who sought out my inbox and told me to seek help. So which one of us is less tolerant of an online stranger’s opinion?

4. I suspect this might have been a waste of my time, too. It’s why I closed anonymous asks years ago; because I got tired of hearing vitriol from strangers. But I like to imagine that we’re all real people, behind the screens, so here’s my good faith summary:

You’re right, I probably am too invested in a relationship that doesn’t involve me. I should have learned my lesson from Channing and Jenna (and Tia and Cory 😭) to stop getting invested in celeb relationships 😅. I actually have a long, unpublished draft about the obsessive culture of shipping in fandom, of which I am guilty! and how and why we become so hooked on this particular stimulus, and all the healthy and unhealthy results it can have, and blah blah blah.

But I don’t think you care about that. Because you don’t care about me. You don’t know me. You’re not a friend. You’re not someone who can provide tough love and tell me what I need to hear, because there is no love to begin with. Your ask reeked of judgement, and shaming, and accusatory finger-pointing, not of genuine concern. Your ask was to make you feel better, it was an outlet for the emotions my post brought up for you — nothing more.

You could have posted about the concerning trend of shipping in fandom on your own blog (and maybe you have, I don’t know). But instead you chose to come to the space I have for myself where I talk about BTS fandom and how it relates to two of the members and tell me I need to seek help. All because I pointed out that people don’t call Jimin and Jungkook best friends, when they clearly are.

You’re too invested too, babe. And that’s the beautiful hypocrisy of it all. “Don’t engage with the negative!!” While sending me a hateful ask. “Other people’s opinions shouldn’t matter to you this much!” How much? Enough to write a silly rant post, or enough to crawl into someone’s asks and accuse them of “not living in the real world”?

Maybe I am an embarrassing person for poring over shit that doesn’t concern me, for finding joy in a relationship I observe from afar. Maybe I’m a loser and I need to step back (I’ve stepped back before, I do it often. You wouldn’t know that, because you don’t know me). But I made a non-direct, untargeted rant post that you could have scrolled past. I was primarily just preaching to the choir. But you took it a step further by sending me a targeted, personal, insulting message designed to make me feel bad. Do you see the difference, in our two posts?

I think while I’m self-reflecting, maybe you should too.

[avatarofthearchives]

I actually think it's extremely important from a character standpoint that Jon and Martin bicker so much throughout Season 5.

From the standpoint of Martin's character: Martin is someone who's always been entangled by The Lonely. When we first met him he was passive, and kind, and really just wants to be liked despite Jon's irrational annoyance.

That's why it's so important that he learns to stand up for himself and advocate for his own feelings. Not just to anyone either, but to Jon, who he's always wanted the approval of.

If Martin bit his tongue and just went along with everything he wanted, then it would show that he hasn't grown a lot since the early seasons where he put "keeping the peace" over his own feelings. in this case his loud disagreement is a good thing because it means that he's grown into someone who's comfortable standing up for himself in his relationship.

From the standpoint of Jon's character: Jon need's someone to be willing to disagree with him in Season 5.

At the start of season 5, Jon has basically given up. He's wasting away in the cabin, blaming himself for the end of the world and thinking that he can't fix it. It's Martin's willingness to contradict Jon and go "I think there's still hope. I think there's still a world to be saved," that pushes him to get out of bed.

Then during the apocalypse when they start disagreeing on how to handle saving the world and the merits of vengeance, Jon still needs to have those disagreements. Both because those new relationship hurdles are a reminder of the human connection he's working to keep, but also because it forces him to consider a perspective that's not his own.

The Eye is chipping away at his humanity, and everyone else in the apocalypse is treating him like he's a God. He DESPERATELY needs someone to remind him " Hey. You aren't inherently right because you're The Archivist. Let's also consider other people's points of view," due the situation.

From a character standpoint I think a lot of Martin and Jon's arguing is actually a really interesting showcase to where they both are as people by Season 5 and indictive of their character development. Also they're in the apocalypse and that totally contributes.

[queersyourgender]

I just saw your Mateo x reader and it was amazing, could you write another?? This fic could be somthing like Mateo and reader are both nurses at the hospital in the ER, reader likes Mateo but knows he doesnt date people at work so she pushed it down and ignored the signs that mateo also liked her back, or a fic that's more angsty like reader works as a nurse and shes very sweet and kind to everyone, but her mother comes in and the readers mother is very nasty and starts yelling and verbally assaulting reader, after her mother is escorted out Mateo trys to help calm reader down from a panic attack

Boundaries — Mateo Diaz x F!Reader

Notes: Hmm I'm not sure how I feel about this one, so I'll let you guys be the judges! This fic takes a bit of both, but mostly the second prompt. Enjoy!

———

You feel her presence before she ever arrives.

Something about the entire morning has felt off to you. You don’t let on, of course. The Emergency Room is the last place to bring your weird, irrational fears with you to. Instead, you plaster on your smile, always genuine and eager to help, because that’s who you are. You wear your heart on your sleeve, and help heal everyone else’s in turn.

It’s not even noon when she arrives. You don’t know who it is at first, all you can see is that security is congregating near the waiting room doors. You figure it’s just impatient patients complaining about the wait again, until you hear the shouting.

The voice is unmistakably your mother’s, and suddenly you’re a child being scolded for breaking a glass while washing the dishes. The way you freeze in your tracks is embarrassing, but even worse than that is the way Mateo, your fellow ER nurse and your crush, walks into your back because of you suddenly stopping in the middle of the hallway. He says something that you don’t hear, because her shrill voice is the only thing reaching your ears.

And then her eyes land on you over one of the security guard’s shoulders. “You!” She shouts, suddenly invigorated with even more rage as she wrangles her way past the security and jabs an accusing finger in your face. “What makes you think you have the right?!”

Mateo jumps in front of you protectively, because how would he know that this yelling stranger is actually related to you? From the way her face is red with fury, spit flying from her mouth as she shouts at you, how could anyone possibly think this person allegedly loved you?

“You changed the locks on your door?! How dare you?!” She screeches at you, and you realize that you’d completely forgotten about that. Your mother liked to drop by unannounced, because she had no respect for your boundaries, but after your lock broke the other day, you were forced to change it, and you simply forgot to tell her.

She doesn’t seem to see it that way, though. Not that you can even get a word in to explain it. “You ungrateful, wretched little child! I care for you all your life, and this is how you repay me?!” Her voice gets louder, your heart beats faster, and you can feel everyone’s eyes on you connect the dots.

When she takes a step closer, you stammer and step back, nearly tripping on your own two feet to get away from her. This seems to spur security into using force to escort her out, grabbing her by the arms and pulling her away from you.

The world is narrowed down to the sound of her voice screaming at you growing further and further away, before suddenly, the emergency room is bathed in nothing but silence. The whiplash you get from that is too much, it’s too much, so you turn on your heel and run.

You run all the way to the ambulance bay, relieved to find it empty. Even if it wasn’t, that wouldn’t have stopped you from leaning against the wall and grasping at your chest tightly, your breaths coming in shallow pants as you try to control your racing heart.

You fail, and wind up sliding down the wall and dropping harshly onto the ground, your knees tucked to your chest and your arms pulled up over your head. It doesn’t help, making yourself small, but that’s what you do, because that’s what she wants.

Someone calls your name, and their voice is nowhere near as furious as hers had been. In fact, the voice that calls to you is a gentle one, one you know belongs to someone good, and it’s the only reason you open the eyes you’d squeezed shut.

Mateo is sitting before you, hands hovering but not quite touching as he looks at you with those stupidly gorgeous eyes of his. Even while you’re freaking out, all you can notice is how kind they are, how worriedly they watch you.

“Breathe with me,” he tells you, and you’re pretty sure you’d jump off a cliff if he asked, so you do. You watch his chest as it rises and falls and try to mimic the pattern of it, inhaling and exhaling deeper and slower with every cycle.

Once he’s certain you’re no longer hyperventilating, Mateo suddenly pulls you into a hug, which kind of startles you a little bit. “Shit, sorry, I should’ve…” He starts to mutter into your hair, but then trails off, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I just really needed to hold you.”

You blink. That didn’t sound like Mateo “I-don’t-date-coworkers” Diaz.

But you don’t complain, tucking your head underneath his chin and swallowing thickly. Not a word has left your mouth since this entire ordeal began, and in Mateo’s arms, you don’t feel the need to say anything now either. 

You just feel safe.

[ferronickel]

Looking Glasses Page 124

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Now where are we gonna get one of those?

Next page Thursday July 10th

Looking Glasses was conceived and written after Chapter 2. This meant that there would always be some inaccuracies after new chapters came out. With that in mind, I’ve included this chapter break to let future readers know the point at which Chapters 3 and 4 came out, and discuss some minor adjustments I’ll be making to the story to incorporate new information that we have now. 

I should start off by saying that, for the most part, I don’t have to change anything about Looking Glasses. While the new chapters introduced some ideas that run slightly counter to the concepts in the comic, nothing is so major that I feel like it changes the story of Looking Glasses. I have only felt the need to alter a single line in the story. I’m actually shocked at how well some of my ideas line up with new content or at least line up in a wish fulfillment kind of way (Susie wanting to watch movies and go to the festival with Ralsei). 

So here are the elements of Looking Glasses that may have some conflicts with the new chapters of Deltarune (spoilers obviously)

“We never figured out how to spare [a titan] without fighting before”

    I’m changing this line. I think it’s the most directly contradicted thing in the comic. In my defense, I thought we wouldn’t see titans until Chapter 6 at the earliest, and Looking Glasses would be done at that point. It’s an easy fix though. Let’s also assume that Ralsei isn’t worried about Titan Spawn or anything because they’re not in the dark world and titans work differently in the dark sea. 

Other minor conflicts that I thought I’d discuss

The ShadowCrystals/ShadowShards. 

    This was always a part of the comic that I knew wouldn’t line up with canon, but I needed some way for the darkners to visit the light world. I’m considering changing references to the shadowcrystals to purecrystals after some theories I’ve heard floating around that the purecrystal might let darkners go to the light world, but I’m going to leave it alone for now. 

In LG, Ralsei isn’t a Darkner, and did have interests and hobbies as a child

    Not much I can do about this, it’s fundamental to Looking Glasses as a story, and I think I can work with it. 

My version of the prophecy is different than the one we’ve seen in Chapter 4, and Ralsei’s attempts to sabotage it are different than how he approaches it in the game

    Again, not much I can do about this, so I’m going to keep up with the LG version. It’s not so far off canon as to be distracting, I hope. 

The titans being anything other than being of mindless destruction

    I actually don’t like that part of the game, I think the titans are much more interesting as entities with their own goals. I also have my doubts about Ralsei’s assertion that they’re mindless, given that Toby Fox tends not to do black and white villains, so nothing on that front will change. 

There’s potentially some weirdness with Susie and Dess working for Carol. 

    I don’t think this is exactly a problem, given that we don’t know what Carol is actually up to yet. Toby also has a tendency to rehabilitate his “villains” so I think it’s reasonable to Carol to end up in a place where Susie and Dess aren’t too uncomfortable working for her (also, I hope it’s clear that neither of them actually enjoys their jobs, they mostly stay there out of necessity).

The Roaring Knight is probably either Carol or Dess

    I’m just going to let that one play out and see where it goes. I’ve been cagey in the comic about discussing the Knight, because I suspected it was one of the two of them. I’m assuming that situation will be resolved in a way that lets the characters get to where they are in the comic. Some parts of LG have actually gained some more resonance now with that in mind. 

Anyway, that mostly boils down to “I’m not changing anything”. Looking Glasses was always meant to be a story exploring more out-there theories, and so I’m really surprised that it’s still fairly functional. I guess that’s the advantage of setting a story after the game is finished. If there’s anything else you’re curious about, or if you want to discuss parts of the new chapters, I’d love to chat about them! 

-Ferronickel

[lyricwritesprose]

Something came to me the other day while noodling around on a discord server, which is that the throuple is tied thematically to Preservation society, in that—as a society that values cooperation and interdependence—the ideal is that nobody has to be anyone's Only Support or Only One Who Can Help With That and they certainly don't have to be anyone's Only Savior.

(Is this another way in which Gurathin is Doing It Wrong why, yes. Yes, in fact he is. You have to understand that when I say that at this point I find Gurathin a deeply compelling character and perhaps even one of my faves, it is partly in sheer fascination at everything this Disaster Man is doing wrong and all the ways he needs to be slapped with a fish. Anyway.)

See, I happen to be monogamous, but I am also aware that modern monogamous relationships can deeply fuck people over, and part of that is because many people are not encouraged (men especially are in many ways outright discouraged) to seek and build support structures beyond that, and as a consequence? As a consequence we lean too hard and break each other. Our cultural roles tell us that women need to be endlessly capable of support and emotional management, that men need to be endlessly capable of competently repairing the situation, because you only ever get one person for that task. (Unless you break up and designate a whole new One Person.) Does it work? No the fuck it does not.

Preservation is not supposed to work like that.

And the throuple absolutely cannot work like that. Arada is not capable of endless emotional support because she's frankly kind of oblivious to where said support is even needed. Ratthi is not capable of endlessly competently repairing the situation because, um… *gestures frantically at Ratthi and hopes this is self-explanatory* For that matter Pin-Lee is not endlessly competent, nor an endless font of emotional wisdom, nor anything in between, and if you switch the roles around they don't work either. However. However, they don't have to be. It is not necessary or even desirable for any one person to be another's everything. The load gets distributed. Is it going to work in the long run, I have no idea—although the throuple scene last episode did seem like they were actually going to communicate a bit, which is a step. But I'm actually kind of rooting for them, because I like the idea of the three of them imperfectly propping each other up and it coming out to enough.

Which brings another thought, which is: given the degree to which the Corporation Rim have, not just a hyper-capitalist economy, but a hyper-capitalist ethic—how different will Corporate relationships be when we see them?

I think we got a hint with LeeBeeBee. "You buy it, you own it." I think relationships are either transactional—which is actually the better option—or possessive, and I don't mean that just in terms of jealousy, I mean in terms of someone "owns" or at least is set up as inherently superior to another. And not just in a kinky way.

(Yeah, Gurathin, you wet cat fuckup man, you're screwing that up too: deciding that you love someone because you see them as your superior and your leader is also not a Preservation value, have you in fact used your fucking therapy modules for anything besides staying off the sauce? What in fact is a therapy module? Does it help? If it does help, how bad off were you before? Many questions.)

So basically, I do believe that there is a great deal of thematic worldbuilding being shown by following the throuple—not just basic surface worldbuilding (like, group marriage is a thing, bisexuality is either normative or completely unremarkable, etc) but also stuff about how people are "supposed to" relate to the world around them and the people in it.

Unpopular opinion (I think), but I'm actually quite fond of Murderbot's disaster thrupple. I think it really shows us a lot about Preservation's cultural baseline. Lots of what we see them dealing with is new or life-threatening, and they're trying to adapt to it. But the thrupple is a slice of life sort of problem.

It gives us a window into how casual sex is allowed to be on Preservation (you can jump into bed with a coworker with no apparent fear on anyone's part that it's going to make work weird). Similarly, they're confident in the emotional communication to make sure everyone's okay.

In ASR, Murderbot mentions that pretty much all of PresAux is into someone else in PresAux, and it likes that this doesn't lead to any fights, but it doesn't really come into the story. The show brings it in. They can handle these weird relationships. They can deal with whatever the fuck this thrupple is, they can deal with Gurathin's feelings for Mensah, they can have all these very messy feelings right out there in the open and it's not going to ruin everything.

IDK, I just think it's a neat bit of insight into how much Preservation's people-first culture really does make their lives better and happier, even when they still have all the messiness inherent to being human.

[avaxbacot]

i’ve seen some parallel of luffy and law being compared to garp and sengoku, and yeah their interactions and dynamics were pretty similar. you can say sengoku treated rosinante like his son (he said it himself), and even though it doesn’t make him a “grandfather” for law (not that rosinante himself was a “father figure” for law, law referred corazon as his benefactor/savior only, not someone that he looked up as a father), there’s still a connection between law and sengoku through rosinante.

and now i’m thinking “wow sengoku was such a fraud”

i’ve seen garp getting his slander enough and he deserved it, i think sengoku deserved his lashing too because i wasn’t seeing enough, not helping that i’ve been seeing a lot of marine propaganda on twitter lately for some weird reasons (i can understand if people like some marine characters but the tweets sound like actual world government propaganda, i don’t know if it’s a satire or what but yeah some people are actually serious lol)

from the doffy-law-cora flashback, we learned that sengoku found rosinante as a kid and he adopted him, and later rosinante turned into becoming a marine. i’ve seen some takes about how rosinante should be a revolutionary instead, the reason i’ve seen is because he’s the opposite of his brother that obviously loved being a celestial dragon and wanted to gain all that glory back, but in the end of the day rosinante became a marine, an opposite of doflamingo who was a pirate. 

and it got me thinking…. i feel like there’s no scene where rosinante even said or thought that the celestial dragon was in the wrong side of history, he never acknowledged “yeah i was born a celestial dragon and they’re all monsters”, he only ever referred doffy as THE monster specifically, he even said that his parents were kind people (i mean he’s not wrong), and don’t get me wrong, rosinante was a good person (okay hot take here, he’s indeed a good person but he’s not the kindest either, he’s pretty fucked in the head too lol), but the only time he made a reference to his CD root was when he mentioned about the will of D being the enemies of gods, and that’s it—and to note law himself wasn’t aware that the “gods” were meant to be the CD, he just found out doflamingo and rosinante were one 13 years later.

so yeah, rosinante was a marine commander, sengoku claimed that rosinante had a strong sense in justice so then he became a marine, but i mean we didn’t even know the details of it, like in the end rosinante still worked under the government that served the CD, the group he was a part of but then abandoned him. rosinante sure was not like doflamingo and definitely grew up to have compassion to others, but he never explicitly said he was completely against the CD as a whole either, most of his anger towards doflamingo was personal, he was younger than doflamingo that he might understand less about what’s  going on in their childhood, he was just sure that he didn’t want to be like his brother and chose a different path. i can see that he still had a little bias, but i didn’t mean in it in a way that rosinante still thought it was okay to have slave when he grew up, he just believed becoming a marine was the right path because he grew up seeing sengoku as his role model, it never really came through him that the marine was still the institution that worked under the CD.

i am also 100% sure that sengoku was the one who actually convinced rosinante to take a path as a marine like he was because he believed it was the true “justice”, just like how garp did to his son and grandsons. remember that garp, sengoku, and tsuru were the legends of the marine, the three of them were long time friends who had been through so much together and you could see they tried to get their family into the marine: garp tried but he failed, tsuru was confirmed to have a granddaughter who was a marine (maybe her child was also a marine), and sengoku had rosinante as a marine. sengoku taught rosinante his views and as a kid rosinante believed the marine was the justice, why not? sengoku saved him and raised him like a son, it was a noble job, unlike his brother, he would also become one because sengoku made him believe it was the right choice.

then we learned that garp didn’t like the CD, he didn’t even want to be an admiral because if he did he would have to work directly under them. it got me thinking, since garp and sengoku (also tsuru) were friends and it seemed like they actually shared the same views and values, it meant that sengoku didn’t really like the CD either right? like who the hell in their right mind—especially with how prideful they were about the true justice—seeing a slavery in front of their eyes and thought “oh yeah it wasn’t a problem since the ones who did the slavery was the noble i worked for”? be for real. but sengoku actually took the admiral position and then became a fleet admiral, so he did work under the CD directly. we never knew how he actually felt about it, but if he also shared the same values and beliefs as garp, was he not a bit ashamed? he might have conflicted feelings about it too maybe?

ooppss, sorry forget that he never questioned the government wrongdoings lmao.

all those decades working as a marine and even reached the highest position, he never thought to change the system at all, just followed orders that were given, and the conclusion he got before retiring was “yeah i’m tired of this shit, i’m out”. but he….. didn’t completely out, did he? he was still working under the marine as what… some senior inspector general or something like that. if i were him i would be just completely out tbh especially on that age, like there’s no reason for me to still be connected with the marine, and don’t tell me someone as influential as him couldn’t escape the marine because the world government wouldn’t let him, if kuzan could do that i thought it wasn’t a problem, sengoku could definitely retire and be out of the marine for good. did he still think he might have a chance to change it ? he couldn’t even do that as FLEET ADMIRAL. or maybe he just liked still being involved with them? you are near the graveyard just fucking retire old man, go to some nice island in south blue, get a new hobby that is not war crime.

then i remember about rosinante again. rosinante had told sengoku about his mission to cure law’s disease and it made him to stop spying the donquixote family in awhile. we already know what happened next, with the ope ope no mi, doflamingo killed rosinante, and law ran away.

i believed the event of the ope ope no mi was the turning point for rosinante. when law asked him if he was a marine, he lied “I’M NOT A DAMN MARINE” for the reason that we learned later he didn’t want law to hate him. he was also aware that he would be an enemy of everyone if he stole the ope ope no mi, including the marine, the institution he worked for, the institution he once believed was justice. but in the end he chose to betray it for a sick annoying kid he didn’t even get along with, just because he cared about law, and of course rosinante grew to love law. i also believe, at this moment, rosinante finally realized how flawed and unfair the system was, after 6 months trying to find a cure for a sick child, seeing he got rejected and even insulted because the propaganda about the amber lead that was spread by the world government, he genuinely felt hurt for the kid, he’s ready to betray not only doflamingo but also the marine, because he knew both sides had failed law, and he didn’t hesitate to do the right thing after he realized he wasn’t actually on the “right” side as he always thought he was.

but even after that event, sengoku, who seemed to be really sad over his son’s death,  didn’t even do anything regarding that? if he actually cared and loved rosinante, wouldn’t he search for a kid that rosinante tried to save? he was an admiral at that point, he had the power and the connection to do that. but nope, he did nothing. and then i think maybe it was for the best because if sengoku actually found law and raised him, he would also make him a marine, especially with having that ope ope no mi power, there’s no way the world government would let go of law. but still, it just made sengoku look like he didn’t even try to do something as what he valued for.

and don’t get me started with how the hell he couldn’t do anything about doflamingo being a warlord. okay maybe he really couldn’t do anything since all those secrets doffy knew about mary geoise, but really? after all that he still kept working in that corrupt institution without even trying to change a bit of it? rosinante, his son, whom he raised, didn’t even hesitate to leave the marine and indirectly disobeying his dad’s wishes just to do the right thing, but why it was so hard for sengoku to do the same thing? maybe sengoku was right, rosinante indeed had the true justice in him but it wasn’t just about being a damn marine. 

i would give sengoku a credit that he didn’t capture law and let him free, he also told law about how he didn’t need to find a reason why rosinante loved him, i still think it was the most beautiful thing to say and law needed that. but beside that, he’s just as fraudulent as garp, maybe that’s why they are besties. i know i know, these characterization was actually not unrealistic, it is actually very realistic for garp and sengoku, a lot of people in authority thought they did something right or tried to change the system from the inside just to end up doing nothing, and it what makes them interesting as characters. but i will still call them a fraud because i can, this is what agenda piece for right?

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Honestly, I feel every time the show and its creator attempt to explain away a plothole or issue it only makes things worse. The time Astruc tried to explain why Gabriel completely dropped going after all the exposed temps after Optigami.

According to him, Gabriel doesn't do the same plan twice, and when people brought up Mr. Pigeon, Astruc claimed that Gabriel came up with 72 unique plans involving that akuma... which like if he's able to come up with that many "unique" plans for mr pigeon of all things, then surely Gabriel could have come up with at least five different plans involving the exposed temps or hell attempt to rework the plans that he nearly succeeded with or the ones that only failed due to outside factors

That's one of my favorite quotes from the writers because it's just so absurd. Dude, don't try to justify it in universe! Just say, "It's an episodic kids show and we want to keep the plots interesting while also having them stand alone, so we don't repeat ideas even if the character would probably do that in the real world."

Like it or not, the show's format is a reasonable explanation for why the show works the way it does. There are times when it makes sense to prioritize story format over lore. That's especially true when it comes to episodic content as the overarching story isn't supposed to be the main draw in episodic content. It's supposed to be a bonus feature if it even exists! That's one of Miraculous' big problems as your ask shows.

Because the show keeps including these big dramatic ideas, a lot of people are here for the story first and not to have fun with the akuma of the week even though the show's format means that it's only going to be satisfying at the episodic level. The overarching plots the writers have chosen just don't work in this format which is why the fandom is dying off. People are realizing that they're never going to get a satisfying ending to this mess because the format won't allow it.

The temp hero reveal is a perfect example of this. That's too big a thing to just forget about! It's going to make people question the format in a way other almost-wins don't! Gabriel not repeating Scarlet Moth or Style Queen doesn't feel like an insane move because those akumas weren't anything all that special. They were just more epic versions of his usual akumas. On the other hand, Gabriel giving up on going after the temp heroes after one try seems insane because that's not his standard plan! It's something new with much higher stakes so it makes no sense for him to give up so easily. He keeps trying to get the ladybug and the black cat, why wouldn't he keep trying to use the temp heroes? That makes no sense for his character!

The reason he stops is because the show's format isn't suited to it. It's much harder to write standalone episodes that deal with the temp hero issue. It's too serialized and too complex. That's why it was dropped like it was your standard one-off akuma even though it's not your standard one-off akuma. It's also why Gabriel learning about Marichat was dropped and why the teachers forgot about Lila's lying disease and why the class collectively gained amnesia about Lila being Ladybug's bff when Alya learned Ladybug's identity. All of these things were introduced to make individual episodes epic, not because the writers could actually tell the kind of story that owned these epic moments.

All of this is why I'd actually agree that Gabriel "not repeating plans" is a genuine flaw even though it's an inherent part of how an episodic formula show works. Not repeating plans makes perfect sense for the show's format, but it doesn't make sense for the stakes and plot beats the show included. If the show hadn't chosen the plots it did, then I'd call this a nitpick. Because the show chose more serious plots, it's a flaw. The fix is to either change the show's format or to stop having plot points that require serialization. I don't think the show is going to do either of those things any time soon.

As a quick final note, sometime the best response to a criticism is to just own that the criticism is fair, but that addressing it would completely destroy the show's structure, so the person needs to either accept the flaw or watch a different show. If it weren't for Miraculous' chosen plot beats, then that would be my response to this criticism. I'm only going hard on this one because the show set itself up to fail. This is why you can't just throw cool shit into your story if you want to tell a good story. You have to think this stuff through, but Miraculous' writers don't seem interested in doing that.

[takaraphoenix]

The Hale Pack

I've been thinking a lot about it lately. I've worked a lot with just throwing everyone into the Hale Pack, ignoring the True Alpha nonsense and having it just be one big happy pack. But they can as well be split up, the Hale Pack can co-exist alongside the McCall Pack without interfering with the canon pack's lineup or plotlines. Whether the Hale Pack moves somewhere else to live or still exists in Beacon Hills, they have been individually removed from the canon pack to the point that I can fully gather em all up into the Hale Pack by season four while leaving Scott all the betas he does have at that point.

Peter, Derek and Cora, the obvious ones. The Hales.

Peter's whole deal is, quite frankly, so damn vague in canon that it's pathetic. Is he actually considered part of Scott's pack...? But Scott keeps claiming that he doesn't trust Peter, so it's not very likely. So is Peter canonically an omega just lurking around the McCall territory? It's weird, it's contradictory to the lore, it makes no sense. Let's just keep the Hale Pack going and say Peter is part of that and then Scott doesn't have to trust Peter, because Peter doesn't have to be part of his pack.

Derek's pack situation is honestly nearly as vague as Peter's. He left Beacon Hills after he lost his Alpha spark, but then returns to... play mentor to Scott... because a vision of his dead mom told him to... What in the world were the writers smoking when they made that decision. But after that, after the possession? Kate takes Derek and Scott only notices weeks later that he's been taken so even though the McCall Pack goes to search for Derek and free him, the fact that they didn't notice him gone for so long makes it obvious that Derek isn't part of the McCall Pack. He's an ally, at best. So... a packless omega on the territory, again. It's great how conveniently the becoming-feral-if-packless thing works only when the writers want to, huh. So why not keep the Hale Pack around to solve that plothole. As a member of the Hale Pack, he could totally mentor Scott, why not.

Cora was... why.... Hng. I remain so mad by how underdeveloped and underused she was. Derek gave up the Hale Alpha spark to save her life and then she's written off and Derek doesn't even stay with her (listen, I would have hated to permanently lose Derek, but from a narrative point, him returning to Beacon Hills after conceding the territory to an in-over-his-head teenager after it had been Hale land for centuries and then being forced to mentor the teenager who was now the special Chosen One to protect the lands was just... not rewarding for Derek's character. Derek getting to be happy and start anew with his sister would have, quite frankly, felt more rewarding for Derek). They should have come back from South America together, she should have stayed on their family's lands and in her family's pack. (Recasts exist!! Even if an actress leaves, you could theoretically cast another one of the hundreds of thousands of conventionally attractive brunette white girl actresses that Hollywood have to offer!! It might have been an adjustment, but believe me, we would have lived and had come to accept Cora-with-a-new-face.)

Boyd, Erica and Isaac are also a given, considering that they're the OG betas to the new Hale Pack.

I don't need to go on a long tangent on this one: Boyd and Erica deserved to live, they deserved better than what they got in canon. So they live, in my heart and in my fics, and continue being part of the Hale Pack.

And Isaac, the one beta wolf who joins the McCall Pack, being written out after only half a season in the pack was just... unhinged to me. (Even more so when Chris returned alone without him. Like, I'm sorry, did you just take a legal minor into another country, without having any kind of guardianship over him, and then left him there. What.) So why shouldn't he get to be part of the Hale Pack again.

And Jackson. The fourth beta Derek turned. Canonically also part of the Hale Pack - as Lydia pointed out, Derek taught him about being a werewolf over the summer, before he left for London. So even if just for a brief time, Jackson was a member of the pack. We just didn't get to see it. (I am, once again, weeping about this show's inability to just recast when an actor leaves. They set up so much potential, literally all of season 2 was about Jackson... and then he's just gone. Unhinged behavior on the writers' part.)

This is where my much beloved 'the Hale Pack moves to London' comes into play, because we can just move them all over to London, where Jackson lives, and be a pack over there. But, again, it doesn't have to be London, it could still be in Beacon Hills, Jackson could just not leave.

Special shout-out to the last member of the Hale Pack who, ironically enough, is the only non-wolf and the only one who does pose a problem by actually being McCall Pack to the end in canon.

Stiles.

Because in season 2, Scott and Stiles do join the Hale Pack. And they work together, as one pack. And then Scott betrays Derek and tells him that Derek was never his Alpha. But... Scott doesn't actually speak for Stiles, and Stiles had no idea about this ruse. He joined the Hale Pack in good faith. Now, how that works out in the story, whether Stiles has dual pack-membership on account of being human, or if he leaves one pack for the other, or if there is only one pack and we never dissolve the Hale Pack to begin with, doesn't matter. He's in it.

This is the Hale Pack, to me. The one I'm clinging onto. the one I keep together. I might add more members, various members, depending on where the story takes me, on how much divergence I am playing with, but at their core, the people who were canonically members of the Hale Pack? They are the Hale Pack, to me.

[twilightofthesandwiches]

i don't think carol can be the knight because the knight would actively die from being in the light world for that long, especially in daylight, and carol was not showing any signs of physiological pain when we saw her

and it can't be rudy either because his pain is too long term to be accounted for

...

You see, a big reason why I always try to keep an open mind and remember all the information we just don't have yet, is that it's very likely that at this point in the story, any theory about the Big Endgame Revelations will include a few unconfirmed assumptions or probable-but-not-confirmed implications ... and when one is extremely attached and emotionally invested in a theory, it's very easy to lose focus on what has been actually textually confirmed in the text, what is a probable implication and what is just a headcanon at this point.

That is to say, there is no definite textual evidence right now that the Knight would die or experience pain from being in the Light World for a prolonged period of time.

It's true that the moments that are confirmed to be them operating in the Light World (moving the captured Undyne to the Shelter Dark World, making the First and Third Sanctuaries and probably hiding behind that door in the Church) are extremely brief, and Ralsei does point out that the Knight tend to only operate in the Dark Worlds

And speaks as if sealing the Fountain will basically take care of the Knight problem for now.... But we have no way to know if that means "the Knight cannot sustain themself for long in the Light World so they'll have to flee back to the Shelter" or if it's more like how Susie clearly interpreted the line, that in the Light World the Knight is kind of a loser who is genuinely afraid of getting jumped by two teenagers.

... Or it could be something else entirely that's making the Knight run and hide from Kris and Susie in the Light World. When Susie started talking about how if the Fountain is sealed "it's over" for the Knight, they just started laughing. She took it as confirmation that she's right... but...

(And of course, it's important to remember that another factor in Ralsei saying what he did is that he's actually trying to urge Susie and Kris to seal that Fountain as soon as possible in the hopes they can avoid seeing Final Prophecy, so his observation is inherently biased as well)

At this moment we have nothing to even establish the possibility of a being who is Lightner enough to be in the Light World for any amount of time and create Dark Fountains, but also has to be in the Dark World to survive. That's just not a thing that Exists in our current understanding of Light and Dark. It's absolutely not an unreasonable assumption to make, and I highly doubt that we finished learning all there is to know about how Light and Dark work. After all, we didn't know of the possibility of the Dark resurrecting Lightners as Darkners before Gerson showed up either.

But... it's important to remember that this is an assumption that came mostly as explanation and support for folks' "Dess is the Knight" theories. (Similar to how "Rudy is the Knight" folks have their own theories as to how the Dark World could temporarily cure his illness). It's not confirmed in the text yet. The fact that it's probable that we'll get some new revelations that break our current understanding of how Light and Dark works also means that we can't fully expect how they'll be broken.

Again, I am trying to keep an open mind. It is entirely possible that Dess is the Knight as a being stuck between being a Lightner and a Darkner. It's possible that Dess is the Knight but she's also just an ordinary Lightner and there's a totally different explanation to her behavior. It's possible that Dess and/or the Knight are this sort of oxymoronic metaphysical being while also being totally separate entities. It's possible that Dess is the Knight while a totally different kind of oxymoronic metaphysical being than what any of us could imagine.... There is so much we can speculate on, and so little we can definitely disprove.

Anyone can pick whatever Theory seems compelling and solid to them at the moment, but it's still important to distinguish what we know, what we don't and what we assume.

[serenadeonacanoe]

Untitled, 2025 (GD x OFC) Chapter 8: Fluff

Pairing: G-Dragon/Kwon Jiyong x OFC Genre/Warnings: Slow Burn, Tour Life, fluffyfluff, yearning, eventual smut, 2014 ==> 2020 ==> 2025.

It’s 2025 and the King of K-Pop is back. He and his music are everywhere. On the charts, all over social media and smack in the middle of Maddie’s work schedule. Sometimes she still can’t believe this is her actual job now - documenting the chaos behind the scenes and trying to make sure no one on his team gets lost, bruised or accidentally starts a viral scandal.

What’s even harder to believe? That she and Jiyong met five years ago. Actually… scratch that. They met ten years ago too. Time has a weird sense of humor like that and things get blurry when you’re busy, nostalgic, and maybe just a little bit smitten. Also, life throws more daisies your way than you’d expect.

Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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Chapter 8 March 2020, Jiyong “Why don’t you ever call me when you’re sober?” Daisy had asked after she picked up. Her voice wasn’t sharp, just curious. And she had answered, after all, so it wasn’t an accusation. Still, Jiyong didn’t know how to respond right away.

She wasn’t wrong. Most of his calls came in the evenings, when the house was quiet and the wine had started to blur the edges. It wasn’t that he needed to be drunk to talk to her. But it made things easier. Gave him the courage to flirt, to say things he might not if his thoughts were crystal clear. He could be shy and then again bold, sometimes both. With her it took turns.

He had promised himself it wouldn’t go that far again. He’d written entire songs about how badly he’d fucked things up. Even that song was about her, in a way. She didn’t know, of course. And maybe it didn’t matter now. But still, he’d told himself not to get too close. Not again.

And yet, there he was.

When Daisy was around, even just on the screen, he liked who he was. As selfish as that sounded, wasn’t that what everyone wanted? To feel good? To be less tangled up in their own mind? Around her, he was less nervous, less restless, less full of noise. Still a mess maybe, but one that could believe in things again. She made him laugh. She challenged him, gently. She didn’t take bullshit. She was kind and driven and had the kind of face that made everything else fall quiet. Of course he liked her.

“Hm… never thought about it that way.” he murmured and pushed his wine glass aside. She gave a small smile. “It’s fine. I was just wondering.” “I don’t have a real answer. But… let’s not drink then tonight. Let’s just watch a movie or something. If you already ate?” She nodded and leaned back on her couch. “What are we watching?” “Your choice. Last one I picked. All up to you.”

Later, after she had fallen asleep - and after he had pretended to - Jiyong just stared at the camera for a while. He let out a quiet sigh, trying not to move too much just in case she wasn’t quite gone. She looked peaceful like that, curled up under her blanket, her laptop dimming the edges of her face.

It was probably still a bad idea. He hated that thought. Hated how it sat in his chest. The truth was, he wasn’t ready. Even after everything - the therapy, the journaling, the working on himself - some parts still felt fragile. And as much as he didn’t want to hurt her, he knew the odds. That knowledge made his heart ache more than he could say.

So, as gently as he could, he closed the laptop. The call ended. The screen went dark. Jiyong sat there in silence. Then reached for the wine glass again, trying not to think too much. Trying not to want what he knew he wasn’t supposed to touch.

March 2025 A couple of days have passed. “Soon” means something entirely different in G-Dragon world. Even though there are technically two whole weeks without much promotion, that doesn’t mean the machine isn’t running at full speed. Tour begins at the end of the month and everyone’s trying to prepare while also pretending to rest. Jiyong left for photoshoots a few days ago, mixed in with pre-recordings and who knows what else. It’s not publicised, so I’m not around and for once I actually had a few days off. I told myself I wouldn’t check the schedule. And yet. I’m here. At his apartment. Feeding his cats. And feeling just a little bit annoyed. When I first saw the message about the maid being sick, I didn’t think of the cats right away. But after a round of colleague messages, it became clear that they hadn’t been fed all day. With so many people around, it should’ve been a simple fix, but apparently not. Everyone’s either with Ji or out of town, or just… not responding. Someone suggested asking his mum, which made me protest and volunteer on the spot. Begrudgingly. So that’s how I ended up sitting on the kitchen floor, dishing out extra big portions for the beasts. “It’s not your fault.” I mutter while patting Iye. “You’re my favorite, but don’t tell the others.” I could have left already, but now that I’m here I’m tired and a little soft. It’s so quiet. Usually, I’m here for work and it’s chaos. Lights, voices, wardrobe racks rolling around. But right now the lights are low, the only sounds are the cats purring and the soft hum of floor heating. I look around. He didn’t live here yet back in 2020. But still, there are so many things I recognized when I first came here a couple months ago. Every corner, every piece of furniture, every soft absurd detail somehow screams Jiyong. And suddenly I miss him. Have missed him. He’s been sending cute texts, sure, but I want him back. Tomorrow we were supposed to hang out properly. Finally a night for just us. I keep thinking about it and it makes me almost giddy.

Then a door opens. Several voices. Luggage wheels. Commotion. I shriek and crouch like an idiot, assuming it’s an intruder. But no, it’s half the team. And Ji.

He slows when he sees me. Stops. His face softens, then folds into confusion. Maybe they hadn’t seen my message yet. Without a word, he drops to the floor next to me. He’s all focus, eyes on the cats. He’s furious. Quiet, contained, but furious. One of the managers thanks me quickly and asks if the cats are okay. I wave it off. “They’re fine.” Then it’s chaos. Bags, noise, coffee orders, checklists. People scrambling to reorganize whatever sudden change of plans brought them back a whole day early. And Ji? Ji doesn’t care. Not about the plan, not about the hour. These are his babies. He strokes them, one by one and I watch the tension flicker in his jaw. “Sorry” I murmur, eyes still down. “That wasn’t well organized.” “What? No… I mean, don’t apologize. It’s not your fault.” He looks up, surprised. I offer a small smile, not sure if he understands how much I mean it. He’s still fidgeting minutes later, his shoulders too tight, the furrow between his brows refusing to leave. “If you want to get out of here” I say gently “just let me know.” He hesitates. Looks at the cats. Then the team. The controlled storm that’s taking over his home. And then he nods. Quietly. Picks up a bag and gives a few instructions. Minutes later, we’re in my dingy little car, driving through the city night. Oh no. My apartment. This is so not what I planned for our first evening together. There’s laundry on the floor. I have nothing fun to drink. The vibe was supposed to be… curated. I was supposed to do the everything shower. Now I’m just in my cat-rescue clothes and sweatpants. But then I glance over. He’s staring out the window, profile shadowed under his hood. His hands are curled into fists in his lap. He looks small. Not weak, just worn down. Like he needs a pause. So I stop worrying about my place. “Hey. It’s okay now. They’re fine.” I reach over, gently touch his hand. He jumps slightly, pulled from whatever spiral he was in. For a second I think I shouldn’t have said anything, but then he takes my hand. Squeezes. Nods. We stay like that in silence until we pull into my building. He keeps his mask on, hood pulled low. Inside, I babble. “Okay, so… it’s small. Very small. And I wasn’t expecting company.” He touches my shoulder gently as he steps in behind me, calming me this time. “It smells like you.” he says softly. “Oh god, I should open a window.” “No. I mean… it’s nice. Like your laundry detergent and… you.” I look at the pile of clean clothes I never finished folding earlier and feel genuinely grateful for it. Better than the lingering scent of microwaved leftovers.

We’re both stiff. Neither of us knows exactly what to do with this sudden change in setting. Then he speaks. “Aish, I had such a vision for tomorrow.” I glance over, step closer. “What do you mean?” He smiles, slow and a little sheepish. “I had it all planned. Flowers. Food. A playlist. I knew what I wanted to wear…” His voice trails off like he’s embarrassed. “You made plans?” “Is that bad?” “No. It’s… super sweet.” He grins. “Well. I can be.” There’s a hint of shyness underneath his usual charm and it makes my chest ache in the best way. “We can still do all that tomorrow.” I say. “Like… the real date. Tonight doesn’t count. This is just… hiding.” “Hiding. I like that. Like we’re stealing time.” It’s a little cheesy. But it fits. I grin and kiss him. Finally. He smiles against my lips, one hand on my face, the other ghosting over my waist. He feels warmer now. Like the tension’s started to melt. His hair is wild beneath his hood, his lips soft and familiar.

“Thank you” he murmurs. “For looking after the kittens. I don’t know why but… I just lost it a bit on the way here.” I nod. I don’t fully get it. But I get him. He asks if he can take a shower and I use the time to panic-tidy. Dishes vanish into the washer. Laundry gets hidden. Fresh sheets go on the bed. I’m not done in time. He walks into my bedroom in just his boxers, wet hair in all directions and I practically combust. I thrust a sweater at him like it’s armor and he smirks because I’m being very obvious. The sweater says SLEEPY in giant letters. It’s a gift from my mum. Mortifying. But on him? A little too tight and adorable. He knows it, too. His tongue flicks across his lower lip when he sees my face. “I like it here.” he announces, tugging at the sleeves. “You do?” “I do.”

He helps me with the duvet cover, clumsily but with heart and then hugs me mid-task. The hug is so warm because of the blanket, I don’t even care about the abandoned bed sheet anymore. Later, over shared leftovers and even later brushed teeth, the nerves start to fade. This won’t be the night for sex. But when he flops into my bed and I see him nestled in my ridiculous flower sheets, all thoughts of worry vanish.

I slip in beside him. He opens his arms like it’s the most natural thing in the world. My heart feels like it beats out of rhythm, overwhelmed by something simple and quiet and good. “Please don’t feel weird about your place being smaller than mine.” He suddenly says, rather quietly. I nod against his chest.

I know he’s not just talking about the apartment. And I get it. I am cuddling a multi-millionaire right now and the thought alone is crazy, but I don’t want to compare myself to him in those regards. He can have as many pretty jewels as he wants. I am not really into them for myself so I don’t care about his either. But I really do care about HIM a lot.

Holding him like this feels like something rare. Something soft and needed. And maybe we didn’t plan any of this. But I think… we both needed to be exactly here. Almost shy, I glance up at him, trying to catch a glimpse of his pretty face without getting caught. It doesn’t work. He notices and when our eyes meet, his smile curls soft and slow, like it was waiting just for me. He leans in and kisses me gently. It’s not dramatic like the kiss in the snow, not heated like the one at the party. But it’s my favorite. Because I feel safe. Completely. Like I could breathe him in and exhale all the worry. Even as the kiss deepens, it never pushes past that line. We giggle against each other’s mouths. We kiss a bit more, then settle back into each other, watching the city drift from evening into night. He must be exhausted and yet he’s still here, still wide-eyed. His eyelids flutter occasionally, fighting sleep. But tonight feels too precious to surrender. Not just yet.

And it reminds me of something. “Remember when you fell asleep on Zoom with me?” It was back in 2020, after we stopped pretending to cook together and just started calling because we wanted to. Wine glasses, couches, lazy conversations. The yearning between us never voiced, but so tangible it shimmered on screen. Meeting in person hadn’t been an option. With his level of fame, even a masked, distanced walk would have been a risk. So our calls were strangely safe. Nothing could happen. That night we had both collapsed on our respective couches to watch a movie. It wasn’t great, but I insisted on finishing it. He looked so cozy - blanket over his chest, a cat in his arm, face completely relaxed. Eventually he had dozed off and I’d kept watching him, for longer than I’d ever admit. It had felt safe. Secret. I fell asleep too, somewhere between the credits and his quiet breathing. The next morning my tablet was dead, the call cut off without ceremony. He nods when I mention it. Then lets out a sigh and closes his eyes. “What?” I ask, brows raised. “I have to admit something… I wasn’t really sleeping.” I blink. “Wait, what?” He starts playing with my hair, voice low. “I was tired, sure, but I saw myself in the camera and thought I looked kind of cute. Like, cozy-cute. So I… faked it a bit. I thought if you saw me falling asleep like that, maybe you’d think I was cute too. I squinted a few times to check if you were watching…” My mouth drops open. Shut. Up. “No…” I say, as if that could undo the whole thing.

He laughs, a little embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I was crushing on you. Really hard. I just wanted you to… I don’t know. Crush on me too.” I stare at him, half flabbergasted, half impressed.“ You mean to tell me… in the end, you were the one watching me fall asleep?” He shrugs, then nods. His hand moves to my cheek, soft and deliberate. “Does it help if I tell you you were actually fucking adorable? You looked so peaceful and happy and all I wanted to do was reach through the screen. Like this.” The side of his thumb traces along my cheekbone and I smile despite myself. “A little.” I say. It’s a lie. It helps a lot. “You mad?” he asks, but I shake my head. “Nah. That was ages ago. And… I wanted you to like me too. I just didn’t overthink it like you did.” We both laugh, leaning into the warmth again.

It’s not like I didn’t know he liked me. Not then, not now. We had been obvious. But the way he phrazes it is so innocent sounding almost. Very different than the summer heat filled atmosphere surrounding us like tension when we first met. But hearing him say it out loud still stirs something in my chest. “You know I had a crush on you too, right?” I say. He nods slowly. “I do. I think we both sucked at hiding that. But I was also scared. Scared of fucking it up again.” I stay quiet for a beat. “Are you now?” He inhales deeply, eyes focused on the ceiling. “I mean… yeah. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t cross my mind. I’ve done a lot of work. Like, real work. For the first time in forever I feel like… myself. But yeah, I’m still scared.”

He says it so quietly, but I hear every syllable. He’s lying here in my tiny bed, wearing my slightly ridiculous sweater, wrapped in a flowery duvet. And somehow it feels like he’s offering me his bare soul, no filter. “Are you scared of me?” he asks eventually. His eyes are layered with so many things - hope, pain, regret, want. And when I shake my head with a small smile, I mean it. Of course I’m scared we could mess this up. Of course there’s history, wounds, uncertainties. But I’m not scared of him. “No. I trust you.” And just like that, his whole face lights up. Like I’d turned on the sun inside him. “But you should be scared of me.” I add with a mock-serious tone. “I’m pretty terrifying.” He scoffs and pulls me in tighter, laughter rumbling through his chest. It turns into a full cuddle fight, arms and legs and blankets and giggles, both of us desperate to get closer. Eventually, everything settles. The lights dim. The city pulses faintly outside. And when we fall asleep, it’s not one of us pretending or watching the other. It’s both of us. Together. Just two tired people wrapped in warmth and soft sheets. And something that finally feels real.

Getting him out of bed the next morning is absolute torture. Ji is still completely wiped and not exactly an early riser to begin with. I, on the other hand, kind of am. Begrudgingly I check my phone and see they only start at 9 AM. I’m still officially off, but somehow I’m the one who has to make him wake and kick him out of my bed. Which feels impossible, especially when he knows exactly how to make that task as difficult as humanly possible. He whines. He clings. He buries himself deeper into the sheets and declares, dramatically, that this is the best bed in the world and that he’s too tired to function. With a sigh, I give him ten more minutes while I start a pot of coffee and brush my teeth. And maybe take a sneaky photo of him - draped in my blanket, one arm wrapped around a pillow, his lips parted slightly in sleep. I want to remember this. The soft side of him, tangled in my space like he belongs there. But eventually, I get a tiny bit annoyed. Because this is my day off. Climbing back onto the bed, I reach for the duvet he's guarding and say, “Ji, get out. I’m not your mother or your staff right now, I’m your...” I stop. Uhm. What was I going to say? That catches his attention. One eye opens, then the other. A grin starts to tug at the corners of his lips  - sheepish, playful, like he’s very interested in how I’m going to finish that sentence. I freeze. Still kneeling there, hands mid-duvet, heart thudding a little harder than I want it to. He stretches, finally sitting up, light blonde hair sticking out in every direction. “My… Daisy? You’re my Daisy?” I smirk, lips pressed together as I nod once. He kisses me good morning like it’s the most natural thing in the world, soft and sleepy and sweet, before disappearing into the bathroom. It’s easier to let him go a bit later because he is already late and... I will see him again tonight.

Tons of fluff, smut up next. ;) What do you all think? <3

[vamphorica]

How do you think Mello reconciled his faith with the existence of Shinigamis who kill people to extend their own lifespan? Do you think he took he took that as evidence other beings like angels might exist or did he take that as a challenge to his faith? How did he fit them within his own belief system?

oh this is the question of all time, i love nothing more than talking about Mello's religious identity in contrast to well, everything in canon (as you can tell, i'm very popular at parties). i think it's such a shame people don't interrogate his potential faith when it adds another very complex layer to his character and how he behaves in the manga and anime. i will mention that i briefly touched on it here, but i wrote that post a while ago, and i'm happy to talk about it in more detail now.

purely from personal circumstances, i have known a lot of people who have been able to still reconcile their religious beliefs with things that are if not contradictory, certainly still go against some core principles of that belief. this is to be expected; humans are inherently hypocritical, and convenience will always have a massive influence on our opinions. hell, politically, there are many things i agree with, but don't put into practice. same applies for religion. there's catholics in my family who want me to read their tarot because they ardently believe in it as much as they do the trinity.

now the reason i bring this up isn't to get unnecessarily philosophical, but more so to say that i do not think that the existence of Shinigami would be enough to necessarily disrupt one's faith. they are absolutely gods in their own right, purely looking at this from the canon perspective, but they undoubtedly possess very human attitudes. compare Ryuk and Light for a moment – if you swapped them so that Ryuk was the human who picked up the Death Note and Light was the Shinigami haunting him, i personally think it matches the archetypes for their characters more fluently (which is why I love Death Note – if fucks with general literary expectations in many different ways). i don't want to get into an entire debate about whether God made Shinigami, especially because Shinigami are important Japanese deities and it is certainly not my place to suggest otherwise, but what is important to note with the interpretation of them in the context of Death Note is that they are flawed characters. if you follow a religion which claims that your God is perfect (which i think all Christian denominations typically accept), Sidoh, Ryuk and Rem would not be the kind of Gods you'd probably accept as an alternate reality to your strongly held convictions of who God is to you.

i do like the idea that Mello had to contend with his beliefs in some capacity, however. he is strangely calm about Sidoh's arrival (his freak out is relatively brief compared to L's, for example), and i am certain much of the information regarding the Death Note and how it works is difficult to really align with a monotheistic belief. however, i do also think being religious (or spiritual, at the very least) does sometimes give people an ability to interpret the inconceivable better than those who might try and explore things through a rational viewpoint. Mello could very well have had a crisis of faith, but i also think it would have given him more of an acceptance towards the supernatural. whether he saw the Shinigami as legitimate Gods or a product of a world in which one God creates everything, i think judging by the way he actually ends up scaring Sidoh, we can tell he is not threatened by their existence in quite the same manner as almost every other character in the series.

i think it is interesting that you bring up angels because i think that is a very apt comparison you could make in considering how Mello interprets Shinigami in accordance with his beliefs. divine creatures that are spiritually significant but don't necessarily contradict the ultimate importance of God. i do wonder if Mello would treat an angel in the same way as he does with Sidoh, but i guess that would be slightly dependent on several factors, haha.

what i like about headcanoning Mello as Catholic (despite not currently identifying with the religion myself) is that Mello is undeniably an underdog, a child who grows up being continually told that he is lesser, and as a direct result becomes involved in crime to prove himself worthy of a title that realistically, he was never going to have a chance to adopt. there's something about having a character so disadvantaged and also so unapologetically immoral being religious that is fascinating, because it not only begs the question as to how they reconcile their actions with their faith, but also how they hold onto that faith in spite of the horrors that they no doubt have witnessed and been involved in. Mello matures drastically after the Mafia base explosion, and another reason his death is so upsetting is because there's the potential for redemption that remains unexplored. a character such as Mello having faith creates a certain degree of appreciation that, despite the contradictory lifestyle, it is still an important aspect of his character. of course, if you still think he wears a rosary because it makes him look cunty or whatever, that's still a valid interpretation, but i do think discussing it seriously and considering the implications is more interesting, honestly.

anyway, another long post – i'll stop before i start quoting Bible verses in the anime boy analysis post. thank you for the ask! ♡