#As a writer myself I can relate to him and I love him

[i-write-things]

I'm just imagining how Elliot would react when he hears the farmer passed out in the mines. I imagine he's maybe hunched over a writing desk, candle by his side as he revels in the cozy writing atmosphere he created. Then suddenly, he gets word that his dear farmer passed out in the mines all battered up and bruised. I can see just a shocked writer face as he drops his writing utensil. After three seconds of utter shock and no one moving, he rushes out the door, faster than his legs have ran for probably ever. When he arrives at the hospital, he's all over Harvey, asking if you're ok, when you'll be out, if there's anything he can do, ect. The man sits in the waiting room anxiously waiting, his knee bouncing and his clenched fist hiding his nervous mouth chewing away at his bottom lip. Finally, when he sees you come out of the room, he rushes to you and starts questioning you. Are you ok? How much do you hurt? How sore are you? Why were you out in the mines like that if you could get this hurt? While he questions you, he gently examines your arm and face as if he was the doctor and not Harvey. After you reassure him three times that you're fine, the fear and worry fade. Then he gets a little upset, asking why you were being so reckless and things of that nature. Oh, you are getting the lecture the entire time he escorts you back to the farm. He also forces you to rest in bed. Oh, no no no. You're not moving from that spot. It doesn't matter what you're doing, you're staying there. You've done enough. He grabs you whatever you need, like food, water, ect. It isn't until your about to sleep that he tucks you in with a sigh, and apologizes for his behavior. He didn't mean to react so harshly, but you mean so much to him, he hopes you understand. But you're still not off the hook. He clings to you side for the next two days. Married? Good, he watches you from the house, and if you show any signs of soreness, he takes over and tells you to head inside while he tends the farm. Only dating? He'll visit you as often as possible, at least ten times daily. Oh, and there's no way in hell he's letting you go back in the mines until he is certain you'll be ok. After maybe two weeks at least will he begrudgingly let you go after he stocks you up on Energy Tonics and snacks. And don't you dare hesitate to leave the mines if you feel weak or tired. Because he'll start the process all over again. Please, please try to take care of yourself. The poor author doesn't need that kind of stress, his hair will fall out, and he loves his hair.

#Stardew valley #Stardew valley x reader #Elliott Stardew valley #Elliott x reader #Elliott x reader stardew valley #Elliott x farmer #farmer reader #injured reader #poor elliott doesn't need that kind of stress #I write for you #As a writer myself I can relate to him and I love him #I married him and I still love this man to this day

[timeisacephalopod]

I've kinda seen some pushback to the idea of representation in media and I don't necessarily think it's bad to point out actual rights are more important than Disney's thousandth first gay character that's fine, but I've had a LOT of people comment on my works about asexual characters and tell me what I wrote changed their life-and it's always that phrase- because they now have the language to describe what they feel. I've had people who ARENT ace or aro comment that what I wrote finally made a concept they didn't understand make sense, or that the way I explained things was interesting and enlightening and I'm kind of a mediocre writer who hasn't written anything in ages.

Like idk, if reading something from a writer who is fucking around and only somewhat talented can genuinely impact someone because they've not seen anything like them reflected back at them in life or media I don't think pushing for representation in media is as "needless" as some people seem to think and caring about that doesn't mean you don't care about more "important" (although if you think seeing people like you in media ISNT important it's because you already have that representation or are privileged enough to not care if you do, in which case maybe pipe down) stuff. Hell, I even got a Facebook message ages ago from someone who found a comment I left in an ace group about QPR's and what they meant to me and how I perceived them and the person no joke said what I wrote two years before they even found it changed their life forever because they finally knew what kind of relationship they actually wanted.

So like sure, of course there's always bigger fish to fry them diversity in media (you know, like diversity in real life lol) but I don't think it's as frivolous as some people are beginning to act like it is. At least not if you're an aspec person it's not, I STILL don't see ace characters almost ever and I'll bet my whole everything if I asked a writer of a show why they'd tell me that EVERYONE has to be in a sexual relationship and characters that aren't won't sell and are boring- I say this because in film school I had a teacher TELL ME every character needed to basically be sex obsessed and when I pointed out a GREAT MANY CHARACTERS are not revolved around sex (Supernatural stars two brothers, I pointed out) and when she asked if I had love interests I was like ??? That doesn't matter- using my aforementioned supernatural example almost all their love interests die or get mind wiped because at the end of the day that's not what the story was about. So actually I think writers who act like that teacher need like 50 reality checks, and representation in stories isn't unimportant and also support indie writers you'll probably find more funky shit there then Disney anyway lmao.

And also even the asexual characters I DO see in media don't remind me at all of myself even if I appreciate the effort, but they never feel real or genuine and their sexuality doesn't get a lot of exploration so 🤷🏻‍♀️ I actually could use more media focused on characters that I can genuinely see my sexuality reflected in in a meaningful and narratively impactful way because I've got nothing.

#winters ramblings #todd from bojack horseman im sure is SOMEONES version of asexuality but i dont see ANYTHING of myself in him #great character dont get me wrong but not relatable to me on any level including our shared sexuality #sex ed got a bit closer with their brief ace character although maybe she got more exploration in season three or four?? #the latest one i havent watched lmao. but being closer and having a moment wjere shes told shes not broken #while DEEPLY vindicating isnt necessarily all im looking for either #like i wamt a REAL character thats ace or aro or both thats written by people who UNDERSTAND what theyre writting #not just well meaning people who dont know what theyre doing its kind of tiring #also idk why theres no dating shows with gay men because reality dating shows are ALL ABOUT who fucks who and who gets together #gay men would be hooking up ALL OVER THE PLACE and the DRAMA youd think reality tv freaks would be SALIVATING #but no none of that lmao. just ru pauls drag race and thats great it is like its not my bag but people love it #back on yrack though the weord blowback representation is getting is strange and its VERY clear to me #the people writing those posts havent gotten dozens on dozens of messages from people like them who found their writing #and haf their life altered forever for the better because someone who KNOWS what theyre talking about wrote a character like them #and it opened doors they never knew existed. doesnt even need to happen with fiction either i had a friend i had in toronto #tell me the info i sent to her on being aromantic changed her life- THAT'S the phrase i keep getting thats TELLING- because it describefld #described** how shes felt her whole life but didnt have words for. how frivolous IS representation if im getting these messages? #not very i dont think if some rsndom indie fic writer who hadnt written anything substantial in years can change someones life #REPEATEDLY might i add. ive been getting a LOT of messages like this lately and seeing this new bramd of discourse latetly too #like maybe YALL have enough that you dont care anymore but speak for your fucking selves

[centrally-unplanned]

The thing about morality is that it only matters when it's real. Discussions of rules or norms for what is right or wrong are almost always, at some level, illusions, approximating reality and guiding decisions in an uncertain world - which does not make them useless, just contextual. Profaning god in your bedroom can never be “wrong” - there is no one to hear you, no one to be hurt by it. You can only show something is really wrong from the intentions of the actions and their results.

So with that out of the way, lets talk about Knives Chau - and specifically, how the comic vs the anime handled that part of the story.

Scott Pilgrim vs The Reification of Dating a High Schooler

There is an extremely pervasive meme in Scott Pilgrim discourse that our titular Scott is a scumbag. Our returning whipping boy the Kotaku article loves this idea, describing Scott’s “detestable behavior” and wondering “was it too subtle the first time about Scott being an absolute shitbag?”. There is this viral headline screenshot from an interview floating around right now riding that same line:

Which is, of course, pretty much false. Its up to you in the end, “shitbag” is a subjective description, but the story just isn’t about events that would be described that way. Its the story of a guy getting over an awful ex, hurting some people, then meeting a new person, and realizing step-by-step what it takes to be their partner and levelling up as a person each time he does. He starts off broken, and Ramona of course is just as broken - getting better is their mutual arc. And its fundamentally about relationship drama - those stakes don’t make you a scumbag lol, just clueless, unless you are terminally online and don’t know what real stakes are.

I will let O’Malley get the last word in with his quote the writer of that interview is hilariously trying to torture into his headline:

There's a bit of, like, young people see Scott Pilgrim a certain way, and, you know, there's a lot of, like, 18-19-year-old fans that are really judgmental of the character. They're like, "Oh, he's a bad person. I would never do that." But I always tell them, like, get back to me when you're 25 or 30, tell me how your 20s went. Were you a bad person? Everyone has to make choices and do things in life that maybe they're not going to be proud of later.

Scott is a scumbag the way everyone is - you yourself will likely commit similar sins; that at least seems to be the authorial intent, and I agree with it.

So how does dating Knives Chau slot into this?

Despite the memes, age, in fact, is just a number - two consenting people dating does not a sin make. The reason dating underage people is bad is because of its consequences, not the categorical imperative. So what are the consequences of dating Knives Chau in the comic?

Knives is, as a consequence of dating a guy who is simply via his age able to appear so much cooler than her peers to her, absolutely obsessed with Scott. She worships his band:

She starts aping his taste in music and interests; she slots herself into his circle of friends, who don’t relate to her, even after their breakup (often drinking her way through it):

She totally spirals after he cheats on her and leaves her, blaming everyone but him; she is wounded and hurt for months, a year, over a relationship that lasted weeks:

Knives Chau is a literal poster child for why you should not date a high schooler. She is, at every turn, emotionally not ready to date someone who is not at her own level of social development, and is deeply affected by it. It is, sometimes, played for laughs - that is the nature of the comic, everything is played for laughs, but I would have given it a bit more dramatic space myself - but over the course of the story Scott himself realizes how much of an ass he was to her, and how he didn’t take what happened seriously.

The reason I view this with charity is what Scott did to lead to this - he met a cute girl on the bus! He was deeply hurt and kind of numb in life, and found someone who was safe and easy to talk to. He never attempts to kiss her (she starts trying to kiss him which he repeatedly rejects) they don’t even hold hands, and it lasted a few weeks. He knew deep down, pretty much immediately, it was fake:

Then he met an actual person he liked, and with some browbeating from Wallace agreed to break up with her, but chickened out for a day. Then the next day he decides to break up with her, and she drops the L bomb before he can, so he instantly ends it. It is really awkward for everyone involved.

Pushing off an awkward and uncomfortable conversation resulting from a dumb decision you made on a whim for a week - god I relate to that, that’s everyone! If you think it isn’t you I think you're lying. Its why this relationship is so interesting in the comic - Scott is always one step removed from it, putting it at abeyance, and the fact that something so minor to him is so destructive to her is a really good portrait of how these kinds of things happen. Its so easy to hurt someone when you don’t even know what the stakes are, and when its coming not from malice, but from weakness. Its a very good portrayal of a bad relationship because its bad in a relatable way, even if as a story is a bit more dramatic than is typical. And its a great portrayal of how fraught age gaps can be - this bad relationship is part of what makes the comic a good story.

But its 2023, we don’t give a shit about any of that anymore!

O’Malley in the same interview discusses the cultural shift around these kind of relationships:

I felt like in this day and age, I had to provide clarity on that [relationship]. Because when I wrote the first books, I took it for granted that people would understand that dating a high schooler was a bad thing. But on the internet, in this day and age, people are like, "He's dating a high schooler. That's terrible!" Like, that's pretty much what I say on page 1 of the book. But I try to spell it out a little bit more this time.

He isn’t telling the full story though - it was bad in 2004, but not bad the way it is today. Its dubiousness was mitigated by its frequency; people were doing this kind of shit all the time. Scott Pilgrim is a bass guitarist in an indie band; fucking groupies is like built into the cover charge. Half the problem Scott has in dating Knives is that she is the wrong kind of 17-year-old - had Scott met her at 1 am in the aftermath of a Born Ruffian’s concert at the Whippet Lounge knocking down shots off the back of her fake ID, no one would have even noticed. Hell, no one does notice; there is someone who actually makes out with a drunk 17-year-old Knives Chau in the comic Scott Pilgrim, and isn’t Scott Pilgrim:

No one cares about Kim’s inebriated petting session here; that is 10% because she is a Girl and Girls Can’t Be Predators, 40% because she isn’t the main character, and 50% because Kim Pine’s dating history is not a useful proxy battleground for GamerGate-adjacent nerd culture wars in ~2014; but that is road that goes directly to hell, so let's veer back.

The point, of course, is that in 2004 this is a crime flecked with normality, something your friend would do and you would maybe just cock an eyebrow at:

Its not that in discourse today - it is radically more condemned. It is not a contextual sin, but an original sin. It underwent a process I am calling reification - where it goes from being just a shifting descriptor of reality, to a thing in itself, with a defined (reified) meaning. And to be clear, that is in a lot ways on net a good thing? The reality is that, despite everyone’s protestations, there are today thousands of 17-year-olds taking the L line out to a gig at the Brooklyn Steel and going down on a 25-year-old guy they just met in a back alley off Frost St who swears he’s a “drummer in a sick new band” that played here “just last week”, he promises, and she is having a great time, bragging to her friends about how hot his tattoo was, and then shipping herself off to Cornell next year to start on her pre-med track with barely a memory. But for every dozen of those, there is at least one person who is deeply, deeply hurt, a Knives Chau who never deserved this. The rest can have a slightly worse time, its probably worth it.

That does not make it a categorical imperative, though - the reification has masked that truth. The crime comes from the context - those other girls aren’t victims, they would laugh at you for suggesting they were. But in 2023, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is no longer concerned with context. It is telling you, right to your face, that Scott is a bad dude. Over and over and over - jokes from the Evil League about “wow, I thought we were evil”, its not subtle.

Yet meanwhile, Knives Chau is, like, fine? She dates Scott, is totally into him, and then literally in the middle of his funeral forgets about him for Envy crashing it:

Picks up the bass and has yuri-inflected playtime with Kim the literal next day:

And less than a week later is pitching an off-broadway musical adaption of Scott’s life to a billionaire Matthew Patel - I can’t explain that okay, I’m as confused as you are.

She is mad at Scott, sure, but she is over it in a matter of days. Hell, notice how she was already a fan of the Clash at Demonhead now? There is no scene of Scott introducing her to his kind of music. He didn’t change her. By the end she is a member of his band and they are totally chill:

This is, again, about a week or two later.

Knives is not an important character in this show, way less than in the original, this is no grand sin. But I still find it very interesting: O’Malley is wrong. He “spells it out” way less in this version when it comes to the actual consequences of Scott’s actions. Everyone’s verbal condemnations are substitutes to replace the real damage his actions dealt in the comic. Scott is a better person this time, in a world that has universally agreed he is worse (still not a good move ofc). Even Scott’s moment of apology to Knives about their dating is so tepid its almost Straussian:

Its ‘frowned upon’…which is not the same thing as saying it was wrong! I don’t think this is intentional, its just funny, but its a nice capstone nevertheless.

And it had to be this way, not just for media in general, but for Scott Pilgrim in particular. Not only are sexual crimes far more reified today, but Scott Pilgrim’s sin of dating a high schooler is reified as well - its the first piece of discourse everyone encounters about it. Its the ur-debate of the franchise. The idea of actively engaging on this point, and digging deeper into it…its too hot, too controversial. Way better to shy away from it, disown it. The discourse wrote this part of the script over the course of a decade; its not something the creatives had any say in.

Honestly they should have just gone all the way - just make Knives 19. Then how tepid it is wouldn’t be a distraction anymore. Scott can just be an asshole for cheating on her, that would work fine. If you aren’t going to commit to the reality of these things, you shouldn’t bother with it at all.

#scott pilgrim #essay

[fuckyeahdindjarin]

Grays II

Frankie Morales x f!reader

{ Grays - Part I | Grays Masterlist | Main Masterlist }

Rating: E (18+ only)

Summary: Leaning in close, you hiss in his ear, ‘You’re getting laid tonight if it kills me, Morales.’

Warnings: Insecure Frankie in need of self-love comes with his own warning, Reader is a hairstylist and has a related nickname, matchmaking elements, meddlesome mother, lots of teasing, not-quite-friends to lovers dynamics, mentions of hair, gratuitous descriptions of the male body, oral sex (F and M receiving), protected sex, dirty talk.

Word count: 8.5k

Notes: It's here - 4 months later! First of all, thank you so much for the love for Grays Part I. I still can't quite believe the reaction to Frankie and Shiv, you guys sure know how to make a writer feel special 🥰 This one was so much fun to write, and nervous as I am posting this follow-up, I'm telling myself to let go of my insecurities and just enjoy it because that's what it's all about. I hope y'all will have a good time at this wedding with the gang 😘

Francisco Morales likes to think of himself as a reasonably competent man. 

He can pilot a helicopter under intense enemy fire. He can take out a target from miles away in the tightest of spots. 

But he can’t do his fucking hair.

He glares at himself in the mirror. He can’t put his finger on it, it just doesn’t look like how you did it. He’s already washed it out and started over twice, and for a second, he considers driving to your salon. A quick glance at his watch tells him it’s far too late for that now.

Leaning over the sink, he says to his reflection, ‘Focus, pendejo. You can do it.’

He’s a pilot for fuck’s sake. He’s a man of procedure, he can follow steps. He just needs to break it down.

Hair half-dry - check.

Hair mousse applied - check.

Now he just needs to dry his hair all the way and style it - but the how is where it gets hazy. 

Frankie closes his eyes and casts his mind back to your salon. He’s sitting in the chair and you’re standing behind him. He wills himself to recall what you were doing with your hands, but all he remembers is the scrape of your of your fingertips on his scalp, the ghost of your breath on the back of his neck, and then -

Don’t be gentle, Francisco. C’mon, harder, deeper - don’t hold back.

He scrubs a frustrated palm down his face when his cock twitches in his haphazardly ironed dress pants, not for the first time… hell, not even the fourth time since he left your salon on Wednesday afternoon.

‘Goddamnit,’ he bites out, dropping the hairdryer with a clunk and grips the porcelain sink. He needs to calm the fuck down. 

He didn’t ask for - this, whatever this is. You’re you. You’re Shiv. The loudmouth with the wild hair he’s known since fifth grade. The fourth wheel at guys’ drinks when Will can’t make it. A relentless tease on a good day, and downright insufferable when you get enough tequila in you.

And quite possibly, the only person who’s ever driven him to the brink of unconsciousness with just the touch of their bare hands.

Frankie pinches the bridge of his nose. Maybe you’re right. It has been a while since he’s been with a woman. He just needs to get laid at the wedding, get this weird tension out of his system. And then hopefully, he’ll be able to go to sleep without being kept up by you telling him to go harder, deeper -

By the time he gets his head out of his ass, it’s too late for second-guessing. He rakes his fingers through his hair, sets it with hairspray, and quickly rubs the beard oil he bought in town yesterday into his whiskers. He takes a moment to look himself over while he clumsily does up the tie he borrowed from Pope.

This is as good as it’s gonna get.

He’s the designated driver tonight. By some miracle, he’s only five minutes late when he cruises into Pope’s driveway, where all three of the boys are waiting and sipping on beers.

‘Damn Fish, you look good,’ crows Santi as he climbs into the passenger seat, patting him on the shoulder. ‘You should get your hair cut at Shiv’s from now on.’

‘Only if you keep paying for it,’ retorts Frankie while he backs out of the driveway. He pauses as he changes gears, and adds in a grumble. ‘She’s making me use shampoo and conditioner.’

Pope barks in laughter, twisting in his seat to give Benny a knowing grin. ‘Someone had to, you caveman.’

The younger Miller brother ribs good-naturedly, ‘You ready for some action tonight, Fish? I brought some extra rubbers just in case.’

Meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror, Frankie rips into him mercilessly. ‘You know your small ass condoms don’t fit me, Benjamin.’ 

The car erupts with playful jeers, and the corner of his mouth lifts into a crooked smile as he palms the steering wheel.

‘That’s some fighting talk, Fish!’ goads Santi, punching him on the arm.

Will joins in the banter. ‘You better watch out, little bro. Big Dick Morales came out swinging tonight.’

Benny grins. ‘Ok, I see how it is. Let’s make it interesting, Fish. Whoever picks up a one night stand first wins a hundred bucks.’

Frankie shrugs in mock nonchalance and quips, ‘I mean, I can use the cash. Shampoo ain’t cheap.’

Benny chuckles and clasps his shoulder. ‘You’re on, man.’

It’s eight on the dot when you lock up the salon. While you did RSVP for wedding drinks - opting out of the sit-down dinner earlier in the evening - you hadn’t planned on actually going. But it seems like the whole town did, you’ve barely had two customers walk through the door all afternoon. 

So you let Ashton go home early, and after a quick snack, you take your time getting ready. Might as well have a Saturday night out - your first in many months.

The hotel is just a short Uber ride away. When you climb out of the car, you bite your bottom lip at the unfamiliar tension humming under your skin.

Nerves.

You’re nervous.

And worse, you know exactly what you’re nervous about. 

Or more precisely - who.

‘Pull it together, Shiv,’ you mutter under your breath. Steeling yourself, you stride into the hotel.

From his vantage point at the bar, Benny watches in amusement as Frankie glances towards the doors of the reception hall yet again. He doubts the pilot even knows he’s doing it, or at the very least, he doesn’t think that anyone would notice.

Grabbing his beer, Benny sidles up to his friend. ‘Looking for something, Fish?’

Frankie takes a sip of his Coke and feigns nonchalance. ‘Yeah, looking to win that hundred bucks from you.’

‘Dunno ‘bout that. I don’t see you trying very hard.’

‘Biding my time, Miller. Just make sure you have enough cash to -’ 

When Frankie breaks off in the middle of his sentence, Benny doesn’t need to look to wager a guess what caught his attention.

Turning around as you approach, he flings his arms out to give you a hug, eyeing you up and down appreciatively. ‘Babe, look at you all dressed up! Doesn’t she look nice, Fish?’

In lieu of an answer, Frankie stares intently at some invisible spot over your shoulder until Benny elbows him right in his stomach, jerking him out of his trance. ‘Fish?’

Frankie clears his throat and stutters. ‘Um. I - I don’t know.’

You arch an eyebrow at him. ‘You don’t know if I look nice?’

Benny has to stopper his mouth with beer so he doesn’t laugh out loud at the panic on Frankie’s face as he fumbles for a response. ‘I mean. Um, nice… pants?’

‘It’s a jumpsuit, Morales. Try to keep up,’ you reply and take two steps towards him, which has him backpedalling so fast that he upsets the table behind him, sending half-empty glasses spilling wine all over the white tablecloth.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he growls at you like a cornered stray.

Your eyes roll to the back of your head as you pull him upright by his tie. ‘Is he ok, Ben? He’s even jumpier than usual.’

‘Well, it’s a funny night for him. Watching his ex get married and all.’

‘I swear to God, Benjamin Miller, if you don’t shut the fuck up -’ 

‘Pipe down, Morales, we’re just messing with you,’ you shush him, tugging on his slightly skewed shirt collar to set it straight. ‘Can’t believe you own a tie.’

‘Borrowed it from Pope,’ he grunts without making eye contact.

Smoothing the lapels of his slightly crumpled suit jacket, you probe, ‘You’ve been using shampoo and conditioner like I asked?’

Frankie huffs a dry laugh. ‘I don’t remember you asking.’

‘Someone’s mouthy tonight,’ you tease. ‘And the beard oil?’

He concedes with a sigh. ‘Yes, Shiv.’

‘You look good, Francisco,’ you grin and reach up to push his curls back from his eyes.

He looks away as he admits, ‘Took three fucking tries.’

At least he holds still when you make small adjustments to his hair, shoulders stiff with hands stuffed deep into his pockets. You catch yourself missing the way he leaned into your touch in your salon, and you have to forcefully push that thought away as you push your fingers through the roots to boost the volume. His curls feel softer already than you remember them, with a noticeably healthier sheen. 

After a final rustle to loosen up his fringe, you wink at him. ‘Mark my words, the bride will rue the day she dumped your ass when she sees you.’

A voice from behind you interrupts. ‘It’s a bit too late for that now, isn’t it?’

Trading a look with Frankie, who gives you a sarcastic thumbs up, you put on a smile and turn on your heels. ‘Mrs. Morales, it’s been too long!’

‘I see you haven’t dyed my son’s hair like I requested,’ she says by way of a greeting, drawing you into an embrace.

Frankie’s taunt is so quiet that you nearly miss it. ‘Told you she’d come after you.’

Without skipping a beat, you elbow him in the ribs, ignoring his pained oomph from behind you. ‘You look wonderful tonight, ma’am.’ 

‘You can’t sweet talk your way out of my question, young lady.’

You cross your arms with a sigh. ‘I didn’t dye it because he looks good with the grays.’ 

‘Well, I don’t think so.’

‘In my professional opinion, he does,’ you retort pointedly.

‘If he looks so good, why is he still single?’

Frankie throws his hands up in exasperation. ‘Gee, thanks a lot ma.’

You turn to Benny, who has been silently watching you two spar. ‘What do you think, Miller?’

He dithers, eyes darting around in desperation until he spots Santi and his older brother coming back from the bar. ‘Look! Here are the guys, let’s ask them!’

‘Ask us what?’ asks Santi, giving you a kiss on the cheek and a glass of bubbly.

‘Do you think my son looks good with the grays?’

Your eyebrow twitches when Mrs. Morales carelessly ruffles his hair to emphasise her point. To your surprise, Frankie bats her away with an irritated ma!, before hastily rearranging it.

‘Your honest opinion, if you please,’ you add.

The boys hum and haw, sipping their beers and shooting uncertain looks between you and Mrs. Morales, clearly uncomfortable being caught in the middle. Upping the heat, you narrow your eyes at them, and Will folds first. 

‘Yeah, I mean - he looks good,’ he mumbles, avoiding the Morales matriarch's glare.

‘Pope?’ you prompt.

‘Cabrón rocking those grays,’ he nods supportively.

‘Ben?’

‘Uh huh,’ he replies vaguely, but at your menacing glare, clarifies, ‘Yes, I meant - yes, ma’am.’

Mrs. Morales scoffs. ‘They’re men, what do they know! I don’t see him catching any girls’ attention.’

Ah, that’s the easy part. You look around, scanning the crowds - and bingo, you see a brunette staring openly from across the dance floor. You hold up a finger for dramatic effect. ‘Excuse me for one second.’

Frankie looks ready for the earth to swallow him whole by the time you return with the said woman in tow. Pointing straight at him, you ask, ‘Lucy, this is Frankie. Do you think he’s hot with the grays?’

To her credit, she’s a good sport, and plays along with a cheeky wink. ‘Yeah, he is. You wanna dance, handsome?’

‘Yes, he absolutely does!’ you answer quickly before he can get a word in.

‘What the fuck, Shiv?’ Frankie seethes through clenched teeth, literally digging his heels in, but to his despair, his shoes skid uselessly on the tiled surface as you push him towards the dancefloor with this complete stranger. 

Leaning in close, you hiss in his ear, ‘You’re getting laid tonight if it kills me, Morales.’

‘Have fun, Fish!’ calls out Pope impishly, which earns him an emphatic middle finger. 

You beam at Mrs. Morales smugly. ‘And that’s how it’s done.’

‘You better keep it up, young lady,’ she says over her shoulder as she turns to leave.

You raise your drink. ‘Don’t you worry, Mrs M. I promise you - he’ll be leaving with his future wife tonight!’

Santi is minding his own business, sipping on his beer as he stakes out the ladies, when a hand shoots out from nowhere and snatches the bottle from him.

‘What the fuck, man?!’ he bristles indignantly.

Frankie polishes off the drink in one mouthful, before slamming it onto the table and demanding, ‘Where’s Shiv? I’m done. I’m not fucking dancing with anyone else.’

Pope jerks his thumb to the other side of the room. ‘She’s arguing with your mother.’

Frankie flops into a chair, the dress shoes that he never wears are pinching his feet and he fights the urge to kick them off. He folds his arms across his chest petulantly, one palm over his mouth as his eyes wander across the hall to you, where you’re gesturing madly at his ma, embroiled in an impassioned discussion, probably still about his damn hair.

You’re all dressed up tonight, which is new to him - he’s only ever seen you in jeans when you go out drinking with them, and he’s certainly never seen so much of you. The ‘jumpsuit’ (he learns something new every day) is black and cut low both front and back, and fuck, all he sees is soft skin and the dip of your curves and red lipstick -

Pope must have nipped to the bar while he wasn’t looking, and a fresh bottle of beer appears under his nose. Glancing up at his best friend, Frankie mutters, ‘Thanks.’

‘You can’t marry her, Fish.’

He chokes violently at the casual non-sequitur, spraying beer everywhere. ‘What the fuck, Pope.’

Santi beams. ‘You got that look on your face, man. I’ve seen that look before.’

‘I don’t have a look on my face.’

He chuckles, mostly to himself. 'Damn, I really should've seen this coming.'

‘What are you even on about -’ Looking up, Frankie spots you making your way over and panics. ‘Shut the fuck up, pendejo.’

‘Why aren’t you dancing, my little debutante?’ you ask when you come within earshot.

Santi chortles and takes his leave, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘Good luck, Fish.’

You sink into the empty seat next to him and he deliberately twists his body away from you, drinking deeply from his bottle to drown out Santi’s words ringing in his ears. 

‘So, I heard you have a bet going on with Benny. I want splitsies if you win.’

Frankie rolls his eyes, staring resolutely anywhere but at the swell of your cleavage. ‘No.’

‘40/60.’

‘Fuck off, Shiv.’

‘30/70?’ you counter-offer.

He sighs. ‘You’re impossible.’

Ignoring him, you jump up with a happy squeak when someone Frankie vaguely recognises as a girl who used to be in your class approaches with a shy smile. You pull her close by the crook of her arm and ask, ‘Morales, you remember Sadie?’

He tries not to scowl too openly as he too gets on his feet. ‘Sure, hi Sadie.’

Herding them towards the dancefloor, you grin, ‘Go dance, get reacquainted.’

As he passes by you, Frankie grits his teeth and curls his fingers into the meat of his palms to crush the urge to reach out and touch you. 

But it’s easier to fall into your well-rehearsed roles, to toe the line that has been drawn in the sand since you were teenagers. And easier is certainly the safer option when it comes to you.

So he throws you a deliberate glare over his shoulder, with a deadpanned, ‘I hate you.’

You blow him a kiss and grin wider.

Frankie can’t hold back a relieved sigh when the interminably long song finally ends, and the woman he’s dancing with - he won’t even pretend he remembers her name - tucks his phone back into the pocket of his jacket after tapping in her number. ‘Call me, gorgeous.’

He stopped counting after the eighth woman you shepherded his way. This is it. He’s not above hiding in the toilets if that’s what it takes to make this stop.

Except he’s not quick enough. He spots you out of the corner of his eye, marching straight towards him with a fresh glass of water and a look of purpose on your face.

He doesn’t exactly know what came over him. He could probably blame it on the one and a half beers that he downed, or being pushed to the end of his tether. Whatever it is, there’s something he has to say to you, and it can’t wait.

You push the glass into his grasp. ‘Here, hydrate.’

‘Shiv -’

You’ve already swivelled around, your focus somewhere else. ‘Where is she? She was literally just behind me -’

‘Shiv -’

‘Mind you, she’s a sweet girl, but clearly not the brightest tool in the -’

His patience snaps, and he barks, ‘Shiv!’

You spin around, brow furrowed in confusion, and snarl back, ‘What?’

Frankie pauses, and you blink as his warm eyes hold yours. On an exhale, he says, ‘You look nice tonight.’

You’re vaguely aware that your jaw has gone slack, but only because his eyes follow the movement, dropping to your mouth. He considers you for a moment, head tipping just slightly to the side as he watches you. Then, satisfied that he has your attention, he brings the glass of water to his lips, throwing his head back as he drinks. 

Your breath catches in your throat when his Adam’s apple bobs with his swallow, before he leisurely swipes his lips with the back of his hand.

Except in your mind, it’s not water that he’s wiping from his mouth.

In a perfectly mirrored imitation of what transpired between you earlier in the evening, he takes two measured steps forward, prompting you to back up against the table behind you. The tinkle of glasses falling over hardly registers in the back of your mind. 

The fabric of his suit is cool on your skin, brushing your bare arm as he looms over you, so broad and warm. Though his front barely makes contact, your peripheral vision gives and all you can see is him.

‘What are you doing?’ you croak the same words back at him, hating the way your voice shakes.

Frankie smiles - really smiles at you, with no colour of the usual irony or sarcasm. Warmth settles into the creases in the corners of his eyes as he holds up the empty glass. ‘Just putting my glass away,’ he says coolly, an edge of cockiness at your tragically obvious reaction to him.

You feel your cheeks heat up as he does just that - the back of his hand bumping into your forearm as he moves, the breadth of him pinning you against the table. He doesn’t pull away, clearly basking in the way the tables have well and truly turned -

‘Hi! You must be Frankie, I’m Jan.’

Frankie squeezes his eyes shut in irritation at the voice behind him, nostrils flaring as he collects himself. A resigned smile tugs at his lips, and he tips forward, his words grazing your ear. ‘Catch you later, Shiv.’

You only let your knees buckle when he’s safely out of sight.

You’ve barely stepped back into the reception hall from a much needed bathroom break to clear your head when someone grabs you by the arm, tugging you onto the dancefloor.

‘Benny!’ You reprimand, stumbling over your feet. ‘I’m busy.’

‘Relax, Shiv. Frankie can survive on his own for a second.’

‘You’re just jealous that he’s hogging all the ladies’ attention.’

He scoffs, palms on your waist as he sways to the music. ‘He has an unfair advantage, ok? How do I compete with the bride’s ex?’

Clasping your hands around Benny’s neck, you catch Frankie’s eye over his shoulder. You wink at him casually, having somewhat recovered your bravado - it’s easier to pretend from a distance anyway. He rolls his eyes at you over Jan’s head, but he doesn’t look away, watching you with a hint of something you can’t quite make out.

Glancing up at Benny, you ask a tad bashfully, ‘I know we give Frankie a hard time about all this, but is he - ok?’

‘Why don’t you ask him yourself?’

You hesitate. ‘Well, we’re not exactly that kind of friends.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know, the kind who sit around having heart-to-hearts and painting their nails.’

He raises an eyebrow. ‘What kind of friends are you, then?’ 

‘I don’t know, he probably doesn’t even count me as one,’ you admit. ‘He barely tolerates me on a good day.’

Benny shoots you a cryptic look, but before you can quiz him on it, he changes the subject abruptly. ‘Can I swing by the salon tomorrow morning? I have a promotional shoot at half past eleven.’

‘As long as you bring donuts and coffee.’

He twirls you around. ‘Deal.’

Frankie slinks out of the hotel, somehow managing to dodge both you and his mother on his way out, which he takes as a win.

It’s cold outside. He inhales deeply and feels it burn down his throat. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he watches his breath mist in front of his face, savouring the quiet.

‘Hey.’

His shoulders stiffen. He knows he should’ve been the bigger man. Should’ve sought her out first, to congratulate her.

Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve.

When he turns around eventually, she smiles brightly at him, her engagement ring catching the lights.

Closing the space between them, he presses a kiss to her cheek. ‘Congratulations. You look beautiful.’

‘Thank you,’ she replies. ‘I’m glad you came. Your mum too - it was a long way to travel.’

His gaze falls to his shoes. ‘Yeah, well. You know she loves you.’

‘How are you?’ she presses on, always one for polite conversation. ‘Are you seeing anyone?’

Frankie shrugs but doesn’t answer.

‘Just because it didn’t work between us doesn’t mean I want you to be happy.’

He nods slowly. ‘I appreciate that.’

She points behind her. ‘Well, I should go back inside.’

‘Of course. I’m happy for you,’ he says. And he means it.

The hotel doors swing open, and Frankie looks up at the sharp clack of heels on the concrete. You pause at the sight of them by the curb.

‘Are you leaving, Shiv?’ the bride laments as you walk over to give her a hug.

‘I am, I’m afraid, gotta open up shop early tomorrow,’ you pull back. ‘Come by the salon any time, my treat.’

Once the bride is out of earshot, you turn to Frankie, hands on hips. ‘Alright, no more shirking, Morales. Get your ass back in there, your mother is on my case again.’

He folds his arms across his chest. ‘Oh no, I’m not going back in there without you.’

You sigh dramatically. ‘Am I the only one in this town who’s not scared of your mother?’

‘You should be,’ he snorts, then nods towards the parking lot. ‘C’mon, I’ll give you a lift.’

Taken aback by his offer, you hesitate. ‘Um - I thought you were the designated driver for the guys tonight.’

He brushes off your concerns with an easy shrug. ‘I’ll come back to get them after I drop you off.’ 

Typical Frankie - he walks off without even glancing back to see if you’re coming with him.

You smile to yourself and follow.

You must be drunker than you realised, because you’re staring. Again. For what must be the fifth time in the ten-minute drive.

It’s a lot of staring, even for you.

His jacket lies abandoned in the backseat, his tie jostled loose and the top two buttons of his shirt unfastened, sleeves bunched up to his elbows. You watch from the corner of your eye as his left hand grips the top of the steering wheel steady, fingers flexing every now and then on straight stretches of road.

As if you’re not already discreetly squeezing your thighs together, he’s also rubbing his right palm idly on his leg, the innocent rustle of fabric against skin getting you far too hot and bothered under the metaphorical collar. 

And then - your eyes trail higher - settling on the heavy bulge at the top of his spread thighs.

Fuck. You’re definitely drunk.

You mull silently to yourself that you actually prefer him in his beat-up jeans and threadbare t-shirts before catching yourself. You weren’t aware you had any preferences when it comes to Frankie Morales. And you have no business doing so.

Clearing your throat, you break the tense silence. Well, tense for you, anyway. He seems completely oblivious to your inner strife.

‘I’m sorry you didn’t win the bet.’

His lips quirk, but he keeps his eyes on the road.

‘I had another five girls lined up for you, you know.’

He scoffs. ‘No, thank you.’

You reach over to punch him on the arm playfully. ‘C’mon, you know you enjoyed the attention, Morales.’

‘You don’t know me very well, do you?’ he peers at you.

You make a face of disbelief. ‘If you hated it that much, why did you go along with it?’

Cruising into your street, his truck rolls to a smooth stop outside your salon. Frankie kills the ignition, then turns towards you. His answer is simple, and hits you right between the ribs. 

‘Because you wanted me to.’

You force a chuckle in a weak attempt to lighten the mood. ‘Since when did you care about what I wanted?’

He smooths his palm over the steering wheel and holds your gaze. ‘Sometime when I wasn’t looking.’

It would be simpler to pretend you didn’t understand what he means. To brush off this pull between you as a champagne-induced episode that you could sleep off. If you did, you could still show up at Tuesday nights drinks next week as if nothing has changed, and carry on.

It would be simpler. So you ask -

‘Do you want to come in for a nightcap?’

Frankie follows two steps behind you as you grapple with the keys on the doorstep. Once inside, the salon is quiet, and you strategically turn on the lights by the backwash, the semi-darkness making it more homey than it would have been if fully lit up. 

‘I would invite you upstairs -’ you pause and add hastily, ‘I don’t mean upstairs like, upstairs in that way - it’s just that my apartment is tiny, and the backwash is the closest thing I have to a couch. Are you okay with beer?’

‘Beer’s good, thanks,’ he answers. ‘Need a hand?’

You shake your head vehemently. ‘Oh god, please no - it’s a disaster upstairs. I’ll be right back.’

The rickety stairs creak loudly under your heels, and once you let yourself into your studio, you fall back heavily on the door, taking a second to catch your breath.

You invited him inside. 

He said yes.

You leap into action, shoving all your dirty laundry into the already full hamper. You try not to think too hard about why you’re cleaning up, you just hope you’re not making too much of a ruckus while you’re at it - because you have a boy waiting for you downstairs. 

Francisco Morales, of all people.

Despite having been in each other’s lives since high school, you’re pretty sure you’ve never been alone with him. Not even once. There’s always a buffer with Pope on his side, Benny on yours, and Will in the middle. And while some find Frankie hard to read, you’ve always known exactly how to act around him. You have an unwritten playbook - you bait him with cheap jokes, more often than not joining forces with Benny to gang up on him. He rolls his eyes and snaps at you to shut up. It’s the longest running show in town.

But this? Alone, after his ex’s wedding, in your salon? You’re going off-script and off-piste. Dangerous enough on a good day; outright stupid after a night of drinking.

Frankie is quick to help when you reappear, armed with beer and a bag of ice, using the backwash sink as a makeshift cooler. Your shoes clatter onto the floor as you settle in the chair next to his. Hugging your knees, you hold out your bottle, which he clinks with his.

‘Did you have fun tonight?’ you ask, rather mundanely.

‘As much fun as one is expected to have at an ex’s wedding,’ he answers with a sardonic smile. Taking a sip of beer, he adds, ‘Gotta admit, you winding up my ma pretty much made up for it.’

‘That never gets old,’ you smirk. ‘Although, I promised your mother you’d leave with your future wife tonight - so that’s a bust.’

You startle when Frankie chokes on his beer, his eyes visibly watering as he thumps a fist on his chest. When you ask if he’s ok, he won’t meet your gaze, downing more of his beer.

Not thinking anything of it, you move on. ‘You know, she sent a bunch of customers my way when I first opened up the salon.’

His voice is still a bit tight from his coughing fit. ‘And I’m sure she’ll deny it till the day she dies.’

‘I can’t figure her out,’ you admit. ‘I can’t decide if she hates me or not.’

‘She doesn’t hate you. She just doesn’t understand you.’

You hum, unconvinced.

He nudges your knee with his. ‘She was really proud of you when you opened the salon, you know.’

You toss him a sidelong glance. ‘You talk to your mum about me?’

He’s ambiguous in his answer. ‘She asks after you sometimes.’

‘And how would you have anything to say to her? We’re not exactly bosom buddies.’

Frankie concedes with a wry smile, ‘Benny talks.’

‘Ha!’ you laugh, echoing his words from a few days ago back at him. ‘Benjamin fucking Miller.’

He goes quiet for a second, looking around your salon as if taking stock. ‘It’s pretty amazing that you’ve built all this.’

The unexpected compliment catches you blindsided. You reply diplomatically, ‘Ashton helps me loads.’

Frankie’s eyes widen in feigned surprise. ‘Are you going humble on me now? What have you done to Shiv?’

‘Shut up,’ you grumble good-naturedly, adding, ‘Ben tells me you’re doing really well yourself.’

‘Yeah. I got promoted at work last month, and I’m saving up for a house,’ he replies, a hint of pride in his voice. ‘Things are looking up.’

‘You’re actually acknowledging your achievements?’ you gasp in mock outrage. ‘What have you done to Francisco Morales?’

With a shrug, he leans forward to put his empty beer bottle in the sink, but he doesn’t sit back. Instead, he sways even closer, one palm landing on the leather of your seat next to your knee, eyes darting to your lips. His voice is deep as he rasps, ‘Can I kiss you?’

It would be so easy to say yes, but when have you ever made things easy for yourself? 

Instead, you blurt out, ‘Why?’

Frankie looks amused, like he expected this from you. Slowly, not wanting to spook you, he gently plucks the beer that you’ve barely drunk from your grasp.

‘Because all fucking night, while you were throwing woman after woman at me, I just wanted to have a drink with you.’

He leans in close. 

You stop breathing.

‘Because since Wednesday, every time I wash my hair, I get hard thinking of you touching me.’

Closer still.

Your lungs ache.

‘And because when you told me to go harder, deeper - I nearly lost my fucking mind.’

He’s hovering over you now, and you can almost taste the bitter sweetness of the beer on his breath. He smirks at you, but there’s only warmth and mischief in it when he teases, ‘Speechless for once?’

‘Shut up, Morales,’ you breathe and grab him by the collar of his shirt.

And then you’re kissing him. You’re kissing Frankie, and he’s kissing you back.

It’s messy, and disorientating, and you clumsily fumble over each other until he’s sitting up in one of the chairs, with your thighs on either side of his narrow hips as you straddle him. He’s licking up into your mouth, sucking on your bottom lip, his hands gripping your sides almost painfully hard.

‘Is this really happening?’ you garble into his lips, ripping off his tie and undoing his shirt buttons as fast as your shaking fingers allow you to.

‘If you want it,’ he mumbles back, loath to pull back from you even for a second to shuck off his shirt. ‘If you want me.’

He kisses you wet and insistent, but he doesn’t push you, waiting for you to make up your mind. Reaching behind you, you tug on the tie that holds your jumpsuit together with a decisive pull, letting the fabric ripple down your bare front and pool around your waist.

Frankie bites his bottom lip so hard it goes white. ‘Fuck,’ he cusses, his grip on your hips twitching as he stares at your tits. ‘Can I, please -?’

‘Touch me, Francisco.’

Your poor second-hand Ikea bed that Benny helped set up when you moved in was not made for this.

This being the way Frankie effortlessly tosses you onto the mattress, his arms flexing with an easy strength that goes straight to your head, as you stare giddily up at him.

His hair - your handiwork - has been well and truly undone, errant strands falling over his eyes as he watches you, his broad frame looming over the foot of the bed. He pulls at his belt, which falls open with a careless clink, and he makes quick work of his now crumpled trousers, kicking them off impatiently.

Your head is swimming, yet somehow, you muster the strength to shuffle towards the edge of the bed, rearranging yourself to sit on your haunches, knees folded neatly beneath you. Boldly, you reach out to slide his dark boxers down his hips, and they fall around his knees and onto the floor. His cock springs free, half-hard and heavy, and Frankie swallows thickly as you tilt your face towards him.

‘I want to suck your cock.’

His eyes close as if he’s in pain, nostrils flaring at your words. Taking advantage of his distraction, you wrap one careful hand around his length, and he jerks violently at the first velvety slide of your palm against him. 

‘Fuck, Shiv -’ he chokes, eyes flying open at the contact, pupils completely blown. He protests weakly, ‘No, stop, need to get you off first -’

You shoot him a lopsided smile, pumping him slowly, your pulse racing at the way you feel him swell in your grasp. ‘Can we not argue this one time?’

You lean forward and, holding his gaze, flatten your tongue and lick your way up the underside of his cock. His breath stutters, one big hand moving to cradle the back of your head, his eyes wide and almost frantic as you press open-mouthed kisses on his sensitive flesh.

With an insolent grin, you tease, ‘You’re a big boy, aren’t you, Morales?’

He whimpers, and you know you have him.

His size is obvious by sight, but you really feel it in the pressure bearing down on the hinge of your jaw as you sink down on his cock, fighting to squeeze the girth of him into your mouth. The guttural groan from Frankie makes your pussy clench, and he tastes like he looks - clean, and all man. 

There’s no way you can take all of him, but you’ll be damned if you don’t try. He’s hot under your touch, muscles pulled taut with tension that you can feel thrumming under his skin as you take your time with him. Focusing on your breathing and relaxing your throat, you bob patiently up and down on him, slicking up his length with your spit, working him slightly deeper with every stroke - until you’re so full of him that you gag, hard.

Frankie is slack-jawed when you release him with an obscenely wet pop, spit trailing from your lips to the swollen tip of his cock, eyes wild as swipes his thumb across your puffy bottom lip. 

‘You’re beautiful,’ he declares, almost solemnly.

Slinking down his front, one hand securely around the base of his cock, you take him between your lips again, moaning at the salty taste of his precum, which makes him quake above you. As you swallow his length and pump your fist in tandem, your spit wetting your fingers, you peer up at him through your lashes - nothing could’ve prepared you for the utter wreckage that you find on his face. 

His lips are pulled back, baring his tidy teeth into a snarl as he very clearly struggles to hold himself back from fucking your mouth. You feel every bump and vein in his cock with each descent, the wet squelches filling in the gaps of his low grunts and moans. His grip in your hair stings as he starts panting in earnest above you, and somehow he gets even harder on your tongue, making it harder to breathe - 

‘Stop, stop,’ he wheezes suddenly, pulling back in a hasty retreat that has you whining at the sudden loss of him. ‘C’mere.’

He practically hauls you up against him, kissing you deeply, delving into your mouth to taste the bitterness of himself on your tongue. The world tilts on its axis when he tips you back onto the bed, and holding himself above you, he peels the jumpsuit off, leaving you in just your panties.

‘Gonna eat you out, baby,’ he drawls by your ear, trailing one palm up your body, which stops at your tits and squeezes. ‘Get you good and ready to take my big cock. How does that sound?’

‘Fuck, yes, Frankie, please,’ you beg.

There’s no shyness when he pushes your legs up and apart, and instead of taking your panties off, he hooks a finger under the thin fabric and pulls it to the side, his eyes darkening as he stares down at you.

‘So pretty,’ he praises you lowly. Holding your breath as he sinks onto his front, you breathe heavily in anticipation as his shoulders slot neatly underneath your legs. ‘Look at how wet you are for me. All this from sucking my cock?’

You nod frantically. ‘Frankie -’

Straight to the point as always, he ducks his dark head and drags the broad of his tongue over your clit - and you’re gone.

Admittedly, you have not had the best experiences with your exes. There was always too much gratuitous moaning and too little finesse, and afterwards, they always act like they deserve a medal for failing to get you off. But even if your past lovers had been more adequate in the field, you’re sure it still wouldn’t have prepared you for this. 

Frankie goes about it with a quiet focus that veers on reverential, the intensity in his dark eyes watching you makes your knees weak. He’s obviously picking up signs and reactions from you and adjusting his game plan accordingly, the pilot in him clearly in the driver’s seat. 

Not that he’s silent - far from it, you feel the reverberation in your core with every satisfied  hum deep in his chest, and the occasional, muttered fuck, so wet, want more in between licks and groans. But there’s nothing performative or showy about it, just a forthright competency that has you hurtling towards a toe-curling orgasm.

‘Frankie,’ you whine when you feel it about to hit. ‘Frankie Frankie Frankie -’

‘Eyes on me,’ he slurs against your sopping folds, and you listen - for once - watching him watch you fall apart on his tongue, thrashing in his hold as he grips you harder to keep you in place while he laps you up, until the burn of his patchy beard on your inner thighs makes you arch away from him from overstimulation.

Your pussy is still fluttering when he sinks two thick fingers into you, and he hisses at the way it clenches around him as he fucks you, leaving his digits slicked and slippery.

‘So tight, baby,’ he declares through gritted teeth, working you open for him. ‘Gonna feel so fucking good on my cock.’

You point towards the nightstand. ‘First drawer,’ you pant.

Needing no further prompting, Frankie yanks your panties off and flings the soaked scrap of fabric over his shoulder, then lunges at the cupboard where the condoms are. You scrape your nails over his thighs as he kneels over you, his usually steady hands visibly trembling as he tears into the wrapper and rolls the rubber over his heavy cock. He watches you with hooded eyes and settles between your legs, kissing you desperately as the swollen tip of him nudges at your entrance.

‘Ready?’ he asks, nose skimming yours sweetly.

You wind your arms around his neck, holding him close. ‘Fuck me, Frankie.’

The first push is a tight squeeze, and you can’t help the wince at the slight pinch as he sinks into you slowly. With a grunt of effort, he buries face into the slope of your neck and breathes, ‘Fuuuuck. You ok?’

‘Give me a second,’ you gasp, feeling your walls throb tightly around his length. ‘You’re so big, Frankie.’

He tangles his tongue with yours lazily in a deep kiss, before brushing his way down your throat and sucking on one nipple, making you cry out. He murmurs against your skin, ‘I know, but you’re doing so well for me, baby.’

Shifting your hips, Frankie groans when you slide him in deeper, the friction making you quiver beneath him. ‘Move, Frankie, please.’

He starts carefully, his strokes measured and deliberate, making sure you feel every inch of him as he draws back then sinks back in, exhaling shakily. ‘You feel so fucking good.’

‘Harder,’ you demand when you feel your pussy relax around him. ‘Fuck me harder.’

‘Shit,’ he growls and snaps his hips, drawing a squeal from you as he hits somewhere deep inside. You wrap your legs around his waist, bracing yourself as he drives into you again and again and again, the bedframe hitting the wall with each thrust.

‘So good, Frankie,’ you plead in between hard pants. ‘Keep going. Don’t stop -’

Looking up at him, you admire the way his hair falls over his eyes, swaying with his movement. Absent-mindedly, your fingers wander into his curls and his reaction is instant - he cries out, arching into your touch, his hips faltering as he seems to lose his rhythm. ‘Oh fuck, baby, been thinking about those hands all fucking week, just wanted to feel you touch me again -’

As wrecked as you are on his cock, you smile at his confession and slide your hands languidly in his locks, dragging your nails on his scalp, your chest swelling with pride when you watch his face - dazed and completely wrecked - fucking you so hard that you’re sure the bed is about to break.

When he finds his voice again, it’s your real name that slips past his lips. ‘Gonna cum so hard, oh fuck - I’m gonna -’

Frankie’s thrusting frantically into you, eyes screwed shut until his hips stutter and then - after one perfect moment of stillness suspended in time - shudder after shudder thunder through his body, your name a broken record as he spills into the condom, his scratchy baritone moaning into your neck as the frenzied energy bleeds out of him.

His weight pins you to the bed as he catches his breath, and you play with his curls gently, basking in the rumbling purr in his chest as you run the strands between your fingers. Eventually, gathering himself, he rolls off you to let you breathe, tying the condom neatly and tossing it into the trash can.

For a second, Frankie lies on his side, watching you quietly. You watch him back, casting your gaze over the curls stuck to his sweaty forehead and his broad outline backlit by your nightstand light. Before self-consciousness can settle into the small distance between you, he cracks a smile and quips, ‘You did say I’d get laid even if it killed you.’

You laugh, which makes him grin. One strong arm reaches out to tuck you into his side, securely beneath the duvet. You hum at the tickle of his beard on the back of your neck and the steady rise and fall of his chest behind you.

Right on the cusp of sleep, you sass, ‘Guess you’ll have to split the winnings with me after all.’

Any other day, you would’ve woken up if you heard someone on the stairwell. Hell, you’d hear if they were knocking on the salon door downstairs.

When you’re rudely shaken awake by frantic knocking on the studio door, you realise it’s because your hearing has been impaired by the side of a very warm body smooshed into your ear.

‘Shiv! Open up! I need to leave in fifteen minutes for my photoshoot!’

‘Shit,’ you croak, throat dry, limbs flailing as you try to sit up. ‘I forgot about Benny.’

‘Fuck him’, grouses Frankie, pulling you back into his arms, eyes still closed.

‘I can’t, I promised to help him with his hair. Fuck, do we need to hide you, or -’

‘The door’s thin, Shiv, I can hear him. And we put two and two together when you guys disappeared last night. We're pretty, but we ain't dumb!’

Frankie lets you go with a grumbled Benjamin fucking Miller under his breath, but he visibly perks up when you stumble out of bed naked.

You half-jokingly shield your boobs from his view. ‘Are you perving on me, Morales?’

He smirks, leaning back into the pillows with his hands folded behind his head while he eyes you appreciatively. It’s not fair how his triceps flex deliciously with the movement. ‘Why bother covering up? I’ve seen everything already.’

Trying - and failing - to shoot him a stern scowl, you pull on a robe and yank the door open, nearly careening backwards at the sight of Benny’s grinning face right in the doorway. 

‘Since when did you bang paying customers?’ he demands in lieu of a good morning.

You roll your eyes and usher him downstairs. ‘He’s not a paying customer. He’s on Pope’s tab.’

Benny flops into his usual chair, making it squeak, one eyebrow up as he does the air quotes. ‘Well, I guess we now know what kind of friends you guys are.’

‘Shut up, Miller,’ you gripe, but your mouth twists into a grin, giving you away as you set up.

‘Damn, that good, huh?’ he laughs. ‘I mean, Fish does have a rep, but I've never had insider confirmation.’

You point your styling scissors at him menacingly. ‘Shut up, or I won’t be held responsible if my hands slip by accident.’

Benny feeds you a sugar donut while you work quickly, trimming the ends before styling it, going for a tousled bed head look. You hear the water pipes run upstairs and the carpeted floors creak when Frankie gets up. Trying to play it cool, you only briefly glance up, catching a glimpse of him in the mirror as he makes his way down the stairs in his rumpled shirt and trousers, zipping up the fly when he reaches the bottom.

‘Morning, stud,’ sing-songs Benny, which earns him a slap on the head. ‘Ow! What the fuck, Shiv!’

Frankie loiters behind you for a second, scratching the back of his neck, before pulling you to one side. Not that it affords you much privacy anyway, with Benny wriggling his eyebrows impertinently at the two of you in the mirror.

‘I - uh -,’ he starts haltingly, one hand rubbing at the silver patch in his beard sheepishly. ‘I had a really good time last night.’

‘Yeah, me too,’ you smile.

His voice dipping lower, he asks, ‘Can I take you out to dinner sometime?’

Benny, being the shithead that he is, interjects loudly. ‘Hey lovebirds, I’m kind of on the clock here, if you don’t mind -’

‘She’ll get to you when she gets to you, Benjamin,’ snaps Frankie, one hand on his hip and the other pointing a stern finger at him.

Something about him being so assertive sends heat running up and down your spine. Stepping into his space - beaming when he doesn’t back away - you smooth a palm over the front of his shirt, unintentionally catching the rabbiting of his heart underneath.

‘I don’t know,’ you shrug nonchalantly. ‘Do you intend to come back as a cash-paying customer?’

His eyes flash with want, one hand closing around your hip and he leans down to let his heated words brush by your ear. ‘Not if I can keep paying in other ways.’

Reaching up, you run a hand through his curls, preening at the way he closes his eyes at your touch. ‘Alright then, take me to dinner, Francisco.’

Peering around you, Frankie barks, ‘Miller, I’m cashing in on our bet.’

‘Fuck’s sake. I was hoping you’d forgotten about that,’ he gripes, digging into his wallet reluctantly.

Swiping the bill from Benny, Frankie winks at you before pressing a lingering kiss to the corner of your mouth - chaste, but charged with meaning. ‘Looks like you paid for your own dinner, Shiv.’

With a roll of your eyes, you shake your head and playfully push him towards the door. ‘Get outta here before I change my mind!’

‘Yeah right - as if you would now that you know what you’ll be missing.’

You’re not sure which makes your jaw drop - his cocksure declaration or the roguish confidence with which he walks out the door. In either case, Benny howls with laughter as you struggle to stay on your feet, your kneecaps having been rendered completely useless.

Just as Frankie climbs into his truck, Ashton whistles to a stop outside the salon on his wheels. Jaw dropping at the sight of the disheveled pilot nodding at him through the windscreen, he abandons his bike right on the curb and dashes into the salon, the door banging against the wall as he rushes in.

‘Excuse me - what the fuck did I just miss?’ he demands frantically.

You roll your eyes. ‘Calm down, Ashton, it’s not what it looks like -’

‘It’s exactly what it looks like,’ interrupts Benny as he starts singing. ‘Shiv and Frankie sitting in a tree, F-U-C-K-I-’

He breaks off with a yelp when you stuff a donut into his mouth to shut him up, sugar flying everywhere as Ashton picks you up and spins you around, squealing like a banshee the entire time.

‘You guys are the fucking worst,’ you laugh, out of breath by the time Ashton lets you go.

Glancing outside, where Frankie is still parked watching the whole embarrassing episode, he gives you one last wink and an amused grin before he pulls away from the curb.

In an almost exact repeat of the scene from a few days ago, Ashton joins you at the window, and the two of you watch, shoulder to shoulder, as Frankie smoothly steers his truck out of your street.

‘He even drives sexy,’ sighs Ashton dreamily. Nudging you in the side, he adds slyly, ‘You’re in so much trouble, Shiv.’

You grin. You know you are - and luckily, it’s not a spot of bother that you’ll be in a hurry getting out of anytime soon.

Notes: I'm so excited to have finally completed this little two-shot. The two of them have been hanging out in my head all these months, it feels amazing to finally yeet this part into the world! Thank you so much for reading, I hope you had as much fun as I did with these two 🥰 Reblogs and comments are always greatly appreciated ❤️

Now that I've got you here, if you want more of Shiv, I wrote some silly little drabbles of her hair appointments with our handsome Pedro boys for a recent milestone celebration. There are also some fun thoughts that came out of an impromptu Grays sleepover we had last week 🤍

I'm sure we'll see more of Shiv and Frankie somewhere down the line. For now, thank you again, I love you all so much ❤️

#fuckyeahgrays2 #frankie morales fanfiction #frankie morales x you #frankie morales x f!reader #frankie morales x fem!reader #frankie morales x female reader #frankie morales smut #frankie morales twoshot #frankie catfish morales fanfic #triple frontier fanfiction #francisco morales #frankie friday

[howdoyouwhiskit]

*deep breath* so I’ve been meaning to make a big post about House re:mobility aids and chronic pain treatment for a LONG time so here we go this is gonna be a long ride that probably won’t make a lot of sense in regards to a linear narrative so buckle up motherfuckers

Disclaimer: I am disabled, have chronic pain, and am an ambulatory mobility aid user. I have experience using a cane, forearm crutches, a rollator, and a walker. I understand everyone’s experiences are different. I am writing this from my personal experience with mobility aids which may influence some interpretations of things

Let’s start with the obvious one, House uses his cane wrong. They recognize this in canon. It isn’t simply a case of “oh the show writers were lazy and it’s never mentioned.” What I haven’t seen people discuss is that using a cane the way House does (in my experience anyways) fucking hurts. It isn’t comfortable at all. It feels awkward and clunky and at least personally within a few minutes of using a cane in that fashion my *entire body* hurts. Plus, it doesn’t even really help take the pressure off of my leg pain.

Given the all of him there’s two conclusions that I’d like to make about this (and remember this isn’t canon, just simply my interpretation as a disabled person):

It’s very obvious that House has Feelings about mobility aids. Society can often make people think that using mobility aids is a weakness. Admitting something is wrong. House very clearly doesn’t like to do either of those things. I personally have incredibly complicated feelings about mobility aids that I can’t even begin to put into words. I see myself in House in this regard.

I can’t help but think that him using his cane incorrectly is some fucked up form of self punishment. It’s been brought up in canon that House has a tendency to self harm in various ways. I don’t think that people realizing that him using a cane incorrectly could be related. For those who are unfamiliar, using any mobility aid (even a cane) incorrectly can cause damage. I do not claim to be a doctor but I imagine that House would be dealing with back and shoulder issues at minimum from using his cane the way he does.

The next thought I have is something I think about a lot. It’s clear House’s pain fluctuates, as it does for a lot of chronic pain patients. What I don’t see a lot of people talking about is realistically he could fluctuate mobility aids with the fluctuations of his pain. Yes, I understand there are limitations within his career as a doctor, but this is House MD were talking about there isn’t exactly always exact medical realism is there? I just can’t help but wonder, what would House’s life look like, if he let himself use something other than a cane?

I know there’s an episode where House does use a wheelchair for access to an accessible parking space, and I really really wish they expanded upon this more in canon. Personally, I think House needing to be (but not necessarily acting on it) a part time ambulatory wheelchair user makes sense.

I’ve read some fic/headcanons about House needing a wheelchair (Berber it be due to an advancement in disability or as an acceptance of his current disability) yet everyone talks about him using a shitty hospital grade chair. He’s a doctor who probably has great insurance plus a lofty department head paycheck. If House were in a position to have a wheelchair, he could very very easily access a top of the line custom made chair.

I understand the representation of the standard hospital chair often comes from a place of ignorance about custom wheelchairs, I really do. I just think that the concept of using a hospital chair permanently can cloud the judgement of if it’s truly a “bad thing” or not. Hospital wheelchairs are fucking uncomfortable and not easy to use. A custom chair, when built right, is none of these things.

Just, I’d love more House fanwork that embraces the idea of mobility aids. No, I don’t mean make House randomly decide “oh I’m gonna accept help now” and make him OOC. No, I mean let’s actually dive into House’s feelings about mobility aids, create some fanworks where maybe he works through some of his internalized ableism and self hatred and lets himself be accommodated. I hate seeing fic after fic that makes it seem like it’s some tragedy that House needs crutches or a walker or wheelchair. I want it to be normalized. Disability can be progressive and that’s just life. Yes, it’s upsetting. Yes, it can be sad to those involved. No, it doesn’t mean the end of the world.

Now I think it’s time to talk in regards to the treatment of his chronic pain, outside of the way he accommodates his mobility. I think that, while this is probably related to the writers wanting to stick to the “addicted to Vicodin” plot line, House’s pain management in the series, sucks, to put it lightly. I’ve been to multiple pain management programs (both at formal PM clinics and informal PM done by other specialists) and any doctor worth their salt would have had him on some sort of nerve pain medication and probably some form of muscle relaxer from the very beginning. While, yes, one could argue that House is on these medications and it’s just not mentioned, I really really don’t think that’s the case. You could also argue that he may have been offered these things, and simply refused them. This could very well be the case. However, that doesn’t erase the fact that these things could be helpful.

When House is off Vicodin, they have him substantiating off of exclusively ibuprofen. I’ve had chronic pain bad enough to need opioids treated with high doses of ibuprofen and in my personal experience, it doesn’t do shit. It just upsets your stomach and risks kidney issues and doesn’t actually help with the pain. The fact that just because he deals with addiction he doesn’t get proper pain management is BONKERS to me.

I understand that they were, within the shows canon, attempting to claim that at least some of the pain was psychological. Just because someone’s pain is psychological doesn’t mean you do not treat it. There are plenty of ways to treat psychological pain. Again, one could argue that House simply refused. Again, I’d say that you might be right.

You notice that I say that House very realistically could’ve refused various treatments that could make his life better. Just like how it is with his cane, I believe this is an effort at self punishment. If these efforts at self punishment are conscious or not is genuinely up to you. I personally view it as unconscious, but again, as I said in the beginning, I’m interpreting this the way I see things.

Anyways, just needed to get my thoughts out there, as a crippled person who’s been obsessed with House since before they realized that their chronic pain wasn’t normal. Since before they realized that the word disabled was something that could be applied to them.

Feel free to reply to this with thoughts or questions and y'all are more than welcome to DM me to pick my brain about this!

#i have many feelings #i have many thoughts #chomping at the bit wanting to scream #these have been in my brain for years thanks for asking #house md #hate crimes md #gregory house

[leverage-ot3]

Is leverage redemption worth watching? I love Leverage but idk if i could enjoy the show if hardison isn't in most episodes or if the reboot sells out in some way.

okay so I showed up to this ask like four months late with a smoothie so I'm sorry about that BUT

does redemption have it's flaws? yes, I will be the first to admit that!

however, as someone who deeply loves leverage, the characters and what the show stands for, I still can find myself enjoying redemption.

there's one post that's in my drafts talking about the differences between the og and redemption and the so-called universe physics (how logic works in both shows and how they are the same/differ) and there are definitely some differences. there are some really good posts comparing them in the tags and I'll try to tag them as watch redemption when they come up!

I'm going to be really honest right now and say that (no shade) I feel like redemption s1-2 were lacking because john rogers was not a main writer for them. devlin and the others are great and know their stuff, but redemption was missing some of the grit (balanced with everything else) that the original run had. redemption is more fun and lighthearted (where the og was still fun and had comedic elements but also had a more jaded perspective). I think part of that change is the absence of nate as a character and what he brought to the table, but the other part of that is very much the way the show is written overall

I have seen some criticism about parker being a caricature of what she was in the original run (ex: how she goes to a child's psychologist and uses puppets sometimes, is overtly weird, more loud about stuff, etc) BUT I will say that I think there's some nuance to that

I don't think the child psychiatrist thing is infantalizing- some methods of therapy work for people more than others and that is me speaking as someone who works in mental health. if play therapy and stuff like that work for you as an adult, good for you! whatever works for you is more than enough the overtly and loudly being weird thing I really do think can be taken either way. in the original run part of parker's character progression was that she was learning how to interact with people normally (or at least more efficiently), but her being more out about that now can be taken as she is more comfortable in her skin and acting like she wants because she is surrounded by people who love and support her. maybe she doesn't want to (or have to!) mask all the time and I don't see a problem with that

HOWEVER! there are certain criticisms that are related to her characterizations and overlaps with her autism and I don't want to speak over the autism community about those aspects and how they have manifested in her character in redemption so I'm leaving it there

as for the hardison being absent aspect- I was REALLY afraid of that at first BUT the loss isn't so deeply impactful when you have characters like breanna and harry added to the mix. I went in ambivalent about harry and excited to have breanna (a canon queer) joining the team, but I have come to love and cherish both of them dearly and wouldn't want to replace them or lose them as characters in this found family ensemble. I think the writers handled aldis' packed schedule really well and even though he isn't there in most episodes, his presence is still very much around. parker and eliot talk about him and reference him when he's gone. so do sophie and breanna, even harry. he isn't on the screen but the relationships he's formed with the other characters and the impact he's had on them is very evident.

there are some takes from users about whether or not the ot3 was queerbait, un-canoned, etc in redemption. I have a lot of thoughts about it and a lot of them are incomprehensible but what I can say is that I have renewed hopes for the progression and canon development of their relationship now that john rogers is back as the main writer for s3

#leverage #leverage redemption #eliot spencer #parker #alec hardison #leverage ot3 #parker x hardison x eliot #leverage redemption s3 #breanna casey #harry wilson #character appreciation #watch leverage #watch redemption #jackie talks #mine #asks #answered asks #open-source-anarch3y #i tried to write the best i could but i have a bad cold and I am technically working rn so this was the best i could do :/

[softxsuki]

Urgent req!

I've been breaking down lately because of the urge to cvt myself . Those breakdowns usually end up with me hitting and punching myself or my walls. I've been clean for idk how long yet but was wondering if you could do a fic with Mikey and Drake related to it. Thanks !

Love your gifs btw:))

Mikey and Draken (Separate) Comfort Reader Who Has A Breakdown

Pairings: Mikey x Gn!Reader, Draken x Gn!Reader

Warnings: mentions of self harm, bloody knuckles, punching walls, punching yourself

Genre: Comfort

Post-Type: Headcanons

Word Count: 480

Summary: In which Mikey and Draken comfort you after seeing you breakdown

[A/N: Sorry for writing this so late, October was such a busy month for me. The Holiday season is so hectic BJFEA. I'm also struggling with writers block which is probably evident in my writing, but if you're still around, I hope this helps a bit :)]

Mikey:

Mikey knows first hand what it feels like to be in a bad place mentally

After all he’s lost so many precious people in his life, leaving him feeling empty

Until he met you, you were his second chance at life, and he really would do anything to keep you safe

He knows about your history with self harm and was very worried at first, scared that you’d do it again and leave him just like everyone else

But he saw how well you were doing and was proud of how far you’d come being clean

Though when you fall into those urges again, leading you to breakdown, he’s by your side

Bloody knuckles and bruises on your own body have him beyond scared, but he tries to stay calm to be he there for you

“Hit me instead if you feel that way, please. I don’t want to see you hurt, especially about something that I have no control over. Just take it out on me, I can handle it”

He’s desperate to take the inner turmoil away from you, he’d face it all if it meant you could feel better

Becomes extra clingy in the next few days until those urges cease, but just let him do his thing, he’s worried he’ll lose you, Mikey will be back to normal eventually 

Everything he does, despite how suffocating it may feel at first, comes from a place of love and care for you, he’d do anything, and I mean anything to help you feel better, just tell him how he can help

Draken:

Draken catches you mid-wall punch and grabs your wrist to stop you from hitting the wall any longer, a pained expression on his face at the state of your knuckles

“That’s not how we deal with things,” He says stoically, millions of thoughts going through his mind, picking through what would be the best thing to say to you now

When it comes to you, he’s hesitant with his words even though he’s usually great with his advice, he’s scared he’ll say the wrong thing when it comes to you so he doesn’t verbally express himself often

Instead he sticks to silently wrapping up your wounds, eyebrows furrowed in concentration–he’s not mad at you, just concerned and wondering how he can help

He knows about your past and considering your actions, he assumes you’re probably struggling again, so he just hugs you

“Don’t struggle alone, come to me first before acting on your own like this, please”

He keeps an eye on you and tries to bring you around with him whenever he has to go out, in an attempt to distract you until he can help you get rid of those urges

Draken manages to stay calm and collected though which is very helpful, so I’m sure you’d feel comfortable coming to him about anything after that

REQUESTS ARE OPEN :)

Posted: 11/5/2023

#tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo rev x reader #mikey x reader #manjiro x reader #draken x reader #ken ryuuguji x reader #tokyo revengers x you #tokyo rev x you #tokyo rev x y/n #mikey x y/n #mikey x you #manjiro x y/n #manjiro x you #draken x you #draken x y/n #ken ryuuguji x you #manjiro sano #ken ryuuguji #tokyo revengers headcanons #tokyo rev headcanons #mikey headcanon #manjiro headcanons #draken headcanons

[the-s1lly-corner]

Hello again! I'm the anon who first requested reader with a tail. And honestly, I'm pleasantly surprised that many people (especially you, dear writer!!!) liked this idea. If you don't mind, then I would like to expand my request related to the tailed reader a little. Let's say they have a pretty long tail, with which they can do various things, including lifting things or even people. How about the fact that the reader remains the same emotionless in appearance, but they furtively hug/lift/hold/wrap around the waist of their loved ones (Caine, Jax, Kinger (people like them more, hehe)) with a tail. Not with hands, but with tail!! Why? Who knows...

Also, my dear writer, please don't force yourself to write all the time! You need rest, like everyone else. Drink more water and rest more often.

Please and thank you <3

Caine, Jax, and Kinger x stoic!reader who has a prehensile tail!

ueueueue im so happy you and everyone else are enjoying the tailed reader thing !!! i think i might answer this request then write something for myself then take a shower; not sure if im going to answer anything else for today since i still have some stuff i need to get done but !!

CAINE:

im actually writing these in reverse order, and similar to jax there isnt much to be said that wasnt already said in the original </3... i think he would love this tail more than the other, though, both because he thinks its cool how you can just. do things with it, plus it just works as an extra limb... makes hugs and cuddling more fun!

JAX:

probably has grabbed your tail and wrapped it around himself at least once because "i was cold" (insert the shit eating grin).. honestly depending on how long and bendy your tail is you could probably wrap it around him a few times and keep him in place since hes so skinny.. not much to be said that wasnt already said in the original, im afraid!

KINGER:

writing kingers part first real quick!! i think he would get startled the first handful of times when you wrap your tail around him to pull him close... since hes not really... expecting it... but i think overtime he gets used to it and even welcomes it! loves when you wrap your tail around him while you two are sitting in the pillow fort and just. existing with one another... doesnt mind that you arent very emotive, actually i think if you were over emotive it would stress him out... though your lack of emotion did make him paranoid at first, with him fearing that you were planning something... but nope! he finds out thats just how you are and hes accepting of it!

#tadc x reader #the amazing digital circus x reader #digital circus x reader #jax x reader #caine x reader #kinger x reader

[akq96618]

[ 💜💛🖤❤🤍💙]

+

(this is just my rambles , pls scroll if u dont want to read jdakjsa ;-;)

ok i'm not good at it, but i'll try to be more serious.

King Ohger is my first sentai after about…10? 11? years since i watch toku as a kid (for sentai, i used to watch shinkenger and power rangers dino force). I start to watch toku again last year because of KR Den-O, simply just bcs i want to rewatch one of my fav childhood tv program. And i cried a lot, not just because of den-o's story but also I remember that I still love toku as much as little me back then

after finished den-o, i crave for more toku to watch, then my older sister told me there's this super sentai that all of the sentai is leaders/kings ((SHE HAVEN'T WATCH KINGOH UNTIL THIS VERY DAY DESPITE BEING ONE OF MY REASON TO WATCH KINGOH, I HATE HER////jk i love u sis)). I didn't watch kingoh while it's ongoing, i binge watch it from ep 1 while it's around eps 20-25. And i regret nothing, i feel a lot of emotions, be it's the good one or even the bad one. I laugh and I cry. I didn't live for 2000 years like jeramie, but i relate to him about dealing with grief and keep everything to yourself bcs you don't want others to worry about you. And the happiness of finally found someone you can rely on, someone that won't say anything but will pat your shoulder and reminds you that they will be on your side no matter what.

I learn a lot of thing from other king too, i learn to be kind from gira and himeno, i learn that it's okay to not care about what people say and be myself the way i am from rita, i learn to stands for what's wrong and didn't back down like yanma, and kaguragi uhm…* shake hands with kagu * yes ur my buddy bro (i swear i have one thing i relate to kagu, i just don't want to tell what it is-)

people can call it 'childish show' (my friend said that when i tell them abt kingoh and kr ;-; that's why i stopped telling abt toku to others and just keep my excitement to myself) and they're still right, but still, kingoh is special to me.

I was ready to be alone on this (I always be), i draw fanarts because i want and i like them so much, and didn't expect at all that i'll found other people that excited about the same thing like me. thank you to everyone who liked, reblog, comment, send asks, i can't always answer everything, but pls know that i appreciate every single of you,

artist, writers, gif maker, friends, everyone.

one day will come the day that my interest maybe will fade away. Until that day come, I'll enjoy my time here and drawing what i want. (((actually this applied to my other fandom too ;-;))))

for you who read this so far, thank u again <3

+ pls have this happy spiders, they're my favorites from all of the finale moments ;-;

#ohsama sentai kingohger #king ohger #gira hastie #yanma gust #jeramie brasieri #kaguragi dybowski #rita kaniska #himeno ran #nephila idmonarak ne #my art #this actually the art i submitted for the ko thankyou card :"> #i don't have the energy to draw a lot of people again.. maybe later

[kaus-quietis]

BSD Fyodor Dostoyevsky: an in-depth character analysis

“Человек есть тайна. Ее надо разгадать, и ежели будешь ее разгадывать всю жизнь, то не говори, что потерял время; я занимаюсь этой тайной, ибо хочу быть человеком.” / “Man is an enigma. It must be unravelled, and if you will unravel it your entire life, then do not say that you have wasted time; I occupy myself with that enigma, because I want to be human.” – the writer Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, in a letter to his older brother, Mikhail (St. Petersburg, 16 August 1839)

The purpose of this post is to present and analyse information related to Bungou Stray Dogs’ Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s personality and methodology. Softer than shadow, unsolved and endless, Fyodor may as well “hide” his soul under our very eyes and we still would not know if that is the “real” him. This is my promised Fedya essay, an info-gathering analysis masterpost I hope you will enjoy and find useful for contemplating and coming to understand his complex character a little bit better.

Warning: merciless BSD manga spoilers. Literally spoiling everything. Also, this is an unbelievably long post (20200+ words). Have some lovely tea, listen to Rachmaninoff, and read in serene leisure or endlessly curious passion.

Last update: November 2022. 20.200+ words. The BSD manga reached ch105, the BSD anime completed season 3, while season 4 is announced for January 2023. Please refer to my original post (this one) in the future, as I could add updates periodically when new chapters release (or so I hope). Please note that I am using the official English translations for chapters 1-94 unless stated otherwise. I am eternally grateful for all fan translations. Lastly, please note that in this essay I will not focus on: 1) connections to F.M. Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment or other literary works; 2) connections to F.M. Dostoyevsky’s biography / personal life; 3) possibilities of what Fyodor’s ability could be; 4) the philosophical and ethical side of Fyodor’s motives. All these would require vast separate posts entirely (who knows, I might write them too one day). My intention is to offer guidance in decyphering what Fyodor’s personality is truly like, as well as how his methods and tactics play a role into shaping said personality or BSD’s plot. Last note: in this essay, quite frequently, I am making references to other beautiful posts written by BSD fans, tagging them and linking to their posts. If you are tagged and want me to remove the tag, please send me a message via ask box and I will edit the tag out.

Sections:

A. Let the hand of God guide you: Fyodor and hand / arm symbolism

B. He understands human nature deeply, if not perfectly

C. He values independence and (most probably) his co-workers

D. No confirmation yet that he is brainwashing others and why this is relevant

E. He loves and lives for entertainment

F. Humble, not arrogant. Self-proclaimed god or servant of God?

G. A strange divergence inside Fyodor. Is he a singularity?

H. Soft, discreet, graceful, yet playfully dramatic. His body language in the manga, in comparison to the anime

A. Let the hand of God guide you: Fyodor and hand / arm symbolism

When it comes to Fyodor’s character, even choosing a starting point for our discussion about him might prove challenging. For all we know so far, he is a Russian man with a completely unknown past, he appears to be in his 20s, just a pinch shorter than Dazai (as @kaikaikitanmp3​​ showed here), elegant, alluring and ambiguously sickly (see section H for more on his self-proclaimed anemia and overall physique). Until we get more canon manga information on his personal profile, I propose we start from something that already has numerous ties to Fyodor’s character, a symbol we can present the many meanings of, only to abandon us to our roaming thoughts later. This symbol is that of the hand, and, before that, the closely-related symbol of the arm.

Embrace of all. A symbol of both power and protection, the human arm represents the instrument to apply justice and punishment, to rule and to guide. Not only that, but as a symbol of a human’s strength and capacity to act, its image becomes that of vitality itself. To open one’s arms is an act of invocation, raising them to the sky – an act of calling for divine blessing, but this welcoming gesture also renders a person wide-open and vulnerable, receptive and embracing. A certain humbleness and vulnerability is involved in this gesture, because only then one can wholly accept what stands before or above them, let them in, understand and feel them. This willingness to embrace alterity, when represented in art or various media, can be of different nuances, thus triggering different responses in the viewer: it can be soothing, heartwarming, comforting, just as it can be unnerving, constraining, intrusive even for even just suggesting such embrace. It is no wonder we see this gesture in how Ango apparently imagines Fyodor (ch78). While his arms are covered by his coat, his open hands, as of darkness, extend towards the viewer. This image appears as Ango concluded that Atsushi getting shot by Nathaniel, later falling unconscious in Anne’s room, was part of Fyodor’s plan. How this plan covered and embraced that outcome is portrayed as unsettling, therefore making good use of the negative values of such body language and symbols. Together with the ch63 panel where Fyodor’s faceless silhouette is shown with his open hands turned towards his chest, each finger pulling a thin string, this example, too, suggests the idea of Fyodor’s influence and interference being disturbingly omnipresent, this time with the hand gesture emphasizing the hidden character of his plans. A different example, of Fyodor conveying openness through body language, specifically showing his palms to someone while even opening his arms in a welcoming manner, is when he was negotiating with Mushitaro in ch55, offering to end his imprisonment in exchange for Mushitaro playing a role in Fyodor’s Cannibalistic Mutual Destruction operation. At that moment, Fyodor’s gesture conveyed the sincere character of his offer, made more impactful by being accompanied by much gesticulation on Fyodor’s part during the whole scene (more on Fyodor’s rhetorical use of expressive gestures in section H).

Honesty and harmlessness. The symbol of the hand also represents human ability to act, putting a start or an end to action, as well as having the freedom to act. Just like the arm, the hand is a symbol of power, justice and dominance, as well as guidance and bestowing blessings. Open palms, much like open arms, convey the message of having no ill will, no hidden secrets, thus presenting oneself in an open, vulnerable position, but also one allowing reception of the other, and, in the case of the open hands, showing willingness to share, as the hand’s different “powers” are almost as numerous as human actions themselves: to contain, to take away, to keep hidden, to harm, to mend, to unite, to divide, to guide, to give. The meanings of these, melted together, would all still accurately be applicable to Fyodor’s character, who, in the most general sense, just like Dazai’s character or even more so, represents the complexity of human nature, so rich in paradoxes, so ultimately impenetrable. Now, showing your hands, and especially showing your palms or inner part of your arms (interior side of the wrists and upper arms, for example), means showing you have no ill intent (based on how, for example, since ancient times, such a posture simply showed the other that you do not carry any weapons). Hence, in this line of thought, we can approach the scene where Fyodor showed his fragile hand and wrist to Ace in ch42. It has a double meaning in this scenario: firstly, Fyodor is indeed honest and open, he does not have an ill intent, because his hidden purpose, in itself, addresses the greater good of humanity; secondly, Fyodor’s intent becomes “ill” only when related to Ace himself, who saw Fyodor as a threat and was ready to deny Fyodor his personhood, as he did with all his subordinates, who became his slaves or, rather, his disposeable objects and instruments. In so many of BSD’s events and organisational dynamics, it is evident how relativity rules the verdict we as readers can give to various groups or characters. BSD features excellent examples of grey morality everywhere, and the problem of whether Fyodor is good or evil is no exception. It is all relative to a past and a future we do not know yet, while still maintaing a certain unnerving, dark side that undeniably accompanies Fyodor’s character at each step. The reader is then immediately reminded of this dark, threatening side of Fyodor’s, as he concluded the ennumeration of his physical and circumstational disadvantages with the abrupt “So how about this? I’ll kill you instead”.  And while I did call this subsection “honesty and harmlessness”, everyone is conscious of Fyodor’s potential to harm at any time, most characters living in anticipation of being harmed by him, and yet we still have no clear idea how he applies physical harm (including death), despite having valuable depictions of how subtly he can exert mental and emotional harm, or simply influence, on others (more on that in the following sections). That being said, despite Fyodor calling humans sinful and foolish and expressing his desire to “purify” them (ch46, Fyodor: “Man is sinful and foolish. Even if they know it is all an artifice, they cannot help but kill each other. Someone must purify them for those sins”), we never see him acting like he hates or is disgusted by humans, nor like he forcefully wants to change how they behave. The latter reminds us of the thin line between plain manipulation (a thing Fyodor does when necessary for his larger strategic moves, as he has done in ch47 with fake Pushkin and the children or in ch75 with Sigma) and exerting oppressive corrective behaviour upon others (a thing we never see Fyodor doing, as he never changes the people he interacts with, who they are and what they value; see sections B and C). In fact, his openness to human nature in general is highlighted, for instance, in his interactions with Nikolai and in the way he talks about Sigma (see section C). Opposite traits blend perfectly into Fyodor’s character in most subtle ways, as I intend to prove by the end of this essay, so let us continue gathering such examples on the way, across all sections.

Bestowing blessings. In the manga, Fyodor was shown using a very specific hand gesture when using his ability on Karma, thus openly depicted only in ch42 so far. The same gesture, prepared but changed into one of covering Mushitaro’s head with its palm, appeared in ch56 in a hallucination, when Mushitaro was forced into a corner by Ranpo’s blackmailing, which for Mushitaro triggered images of Fyodor (more on this below). To me, this peculiar hand gesture is like a mixture of different acts I witnessed or experienced in religious contexts (to clarify my background, I’m slavic, Orthodox, and Eastern European, no “expert” in religions but fascinated by sacred rituals), and by this I mean specifically acts of blessing and chrismation done by priests. 1) Blessing marks bestowing holiness or invoking the divine will and protection upon a person (but also places, objects etc.), and is done in several ways: when one-handed and by a (consecrated) priest, using the right hand, with the finger positions spelling out the letters “IC XC” (for Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Jesus Christ in Greek), the same sign being done with both hands when the gesture is two-handed; when one-handed and by a secular (also done between regular people occasionally), making the sign of the cross over someone or something using the thumb and index + middle finger stretched outwards, similar to the finger positions when making the sign of the cross on oneself. Fyodor’s hand position is most similar to the latter in this case, albeit with a sinister twist: Fyodor seems to use his left hand for the gesture. A different gesture for blessing, in this specific meaning mostly starting with the New Testament, is putting one’s hands over someone. There, this gesture is closely linked to the miraculous healings bestowed by Christ (as in Luke, 13, 13), and, after His ascension, keeping its relation to healing and bestowing the Holy Spirit, to the duty quite literally left in the hands of the apostles (as in Acts, 8, 17). 2) Chrismation is a Christian sacrament, where, in short, the priest anoints another person with the holy chrism, a ritualic ointment, while making the sign of the cross over specific body parts, each being a symbol of something, starting with the forehead (where the blessing of the mind is bestowed). Chrism itself, a common element in Mediterrean and Middle-East religious practices since ancient times, gained a particularly important role in Christianity, being used very often, in both baptismal and funeral rites, as well as sacraments (chrismation and acts of consecration). It symbolizes divine benediction, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but also bestowing power and glory (in the context of coronations or such). Each time the author of the benediction is considered to be the divinity, whereas the one who applies the chrism on the other is a mediator between the earthly and the holy. Notably, this use in baptisms and funerals marks an associations with beginnings and endings, life and death. To me, Fyodor’s hand gesture when using his ability, particularly the gentle touch of another’s forehead, always looked similar to the act of anointing someone with chrism (though it is not usually done directly with the fingers, but with a little brush or one half of the ointment’s recipient), and in line with his canon dialogues, we could say what he bestows is “the great silence”, “the salvation of death”, which can turn into the blessing of a meaningful, peaceful death, bone-chilling nonetheless, such as in Karma’s case (ch42, see section B where I expand upon this). This gesture links Fyodor’s character to the image of a mediator, the role of “the right hand of God”, carrying out a mission that can be regarded as holy (based on Fyodor’s use of religious vocabulary), although we still lack canon material to fully establish whether that is only a trait of his way of speech or indeed a hint for his motives’ origins (see section F).

Threat and manipulation, relative examples. Later, in ch56, Ranpo hit Mushitaro’s most profound, personal weakspot by adopting Fyodor’s type of manipulation, in the form of a one-time bargain with emotional pressure, an offer he could not refuse (Ranpo would have releaved a truth Mushitaro did not want to make public if Mushitaro did not accept Ranpo’s terms; see also @looking-for-stray-dogs ’s post here). However, given that we already saw Fyodor offering Mushitaro a deal in ch55, there is a noticeable difference between Fyodor’s and Ranpo’s deal here, which, in my opinion, shows that Ranpo cannot immitate Fyodor completely (or refuses to) while he also imagines him as a much worse person than Fyodor can be deduced to be, in fact, strictly based on his interaction with Mushitaro. In ch55, it is shown that Fyodor simply offered to free Mushitaro from the basement he was locked in, in exchange for Mushitaro using his ability serving Fyodor’s Mutual Destruction plan once. This deal was fulfilled and their interactions ceased. I would call this a case of pragmatic manipulation, because Fyodor did not profit of Mushitaro’s feelings or past, he only offered freedom from Mushitaro’s cell. By contrast, Ranpo, assuming Fyodor works only (and especially) with emotional manipulation, simply blackmailed Mushitaro into turning himself in. Of course, Fyodor is capable of emotional manipulation (as in Sigma’s and Nikolai’s cases, see section B, but also section H below), but he can also manipulate others not even bringing their emotions into the discussion (as in Mushitaro’s case). By limiting his assumptions to emotional manipulation, Ranpo may be walking down a dangerous path, disregarding the full spectre of Fyodor’s methods. Assuming Fyodor is “the worst person possible” by default could also prove to be a wrong approach, as it is easier and convenient to conclude on that for others, but assumes too much about Fyodor and adds a rigid label on him, one that Fyodor can exploit later. In fact, we saw he already did once, by giving the worst relationship advice on purpose in ch64, in Meursault, when Dazai asked for said advice within Fyodor’s “All-smiles Problem-solving Roooooundtable” (and yet, this, together with Dazai’s lines, were shaped that way for the purpose of establishing the terms of their secret code, as I shall argue below, in section C). Meursault guards are portrayed monitoring Fyodor and Dazai, whom they consider “demons” of crime, expecting them to be exactly the worst souless manipulator and the worst flirtacious lunatic respectively. I would like to thank Eliott @stories-from-saint-petersburg for discussing this scene with me in-depth and putting this aspect of it into very fitting words I shall copy below. Besides the ideas presented here, see also section C for this brilliant scene’s actual meaning, according to what I could deduce further.

Eliott: “But also, they know they are filmed and that people are listening to them. So it would make sense to give answers that are more far from their characters, to confuse or not to give too much info to their jailors. Just like they switch to code when speaking about more serious things. That’d make sense in a strategy where you have to deceive your opponent, the opponent being Meursault. If they both give shit answers (and the answers that are expected from them), then the way they make up their plans will be still more difficult to find out by the prison.”

There is more to be inspected in Mushitaro’s ch56 hallucination of Fyodor covering his head with his palm. For this, I shall leave a different discussion I had with Eliott below:

Lav: “One difference is that Karma (ch42) actually experiences that touch. He sees Fedya's hand, he feels the touch of his fingers. It happened as an event in his life. In comparison, Mushi (ch56) sees this image when Ranpo blackmails him into turning himself in, as Ranpo makes a speech about using the methods of a demon to reach his goal (debatable, I will expand on this when the time is right). Apparently, Ranpo's speech triggers an emotional reaction in Mushi, who then imagines Fedya reaching towards him, making the same gesture he did to Karma, and the panels are white, while the end of this vision (Fedya placing his whole hand over Mushi's head) is in black.” Eliott: “Can’t it simply show the effect Fedya had on Mushi? A feeling of being oppressed and trapped, or something akin to control from a mind that’s greater than his? To me it looks like an allegory of manipulation, but not especially like an ability or something akin to it.” Eliott: “If Mushi saw Fedya use his ability, then he knows his touch means death. Anyway, he knows Fedya is dangerous. Touching someone’s head is a common symbol for either intimacy, fondness or manipulation. Mushi probably knows he can end up killed, and this is a fear that can explain this imagery, and even the manipulation he’s subjected to. The fear of dying is a good motivation for someone. Furthermore, he is still traumatized by the death of his dear friend, so it’d make sense this is very impactful for him, either death or being near / in danger of it? Also, Fedya here looks like how his friend is depicted graphically.” Eliott: “<So,> he doesn’t have to <have experienced this physically before>! Imagining someone threatening touch you is frightening, even if you don’t know they can kill you with one touch. And when speaking of being trapped / manipulated, it’s quite logical to imagine the person that has you trapped touching you, it’s an oppressive image either way.” Lav: “True. (…) One detail that supports this <that Mushi only hallucinated without previously witnessing Fedya’s gesture> is how in Karma’s case Fedya stretched out two fingers (index and middle) to his forehead, much like in a blessing gesture, while Mushi imagines a hand with all fingers fully extended towards his forehead. Also the death touch to Mushi is done with the right hand, while for Karma it’s the left hand??” Eliott: “I still don’t understand that gkflg, I’m wondering if the artist just forgot to draw one right hand ahah”.

Important unexplained details. Everyone’s ability in Dead Apple has an ability gem located on their forehead except: Atsushi’s tiger (nape), Akutagawa’s Rashomon (inside its chest), arguably Dazai’s No Longer Human (inside his chest), and most importantly here Fyodor’s Crime and Punishment (the back of his right hand). Another note, out of all the abilities, only Mori’s Elise, Fukuzawa’s All Men Are Equal and Fyodor’s Crime and Punishment are able to talk or heard talking. One detail unique to Fyodor’s ability and Mori’s ability, though, is that they each have real eyes with irises and pupils, as if they are human, and not just an ability with empty, glowing yellow eyes like in all the other cases, except Atsushi’s tiger. One could surely speculate on why exactly Crime and Punishment has its ability gem placed on its hand, but I want to move on to other topics in this essay. Lastly, on Fyodor’s motto, “Let the hand of God guide you”, see section G.

B. He understands human nature deeply, if not perfectly

Contrary to the popular opinion that Fyodor does not have an ounce of humanity in him or that he cannot understand nor feel human emotions, the canon presents evidence that Fyodor understands other humans and their emotions profoundly. Let us keep in mind the definition of empathy (“the ability to understand other people’s feelings and problems”), as well as the fact that there are different types of empathy, such as affective empathy or cognitive empathy (the latter applying to Fyodor the best). Instead of speculating that Fyodor completely lacks empathy (a lack psychopaths share, and Fyodor’s case proves to be much too complex to simply throw into that spectrum and call it a day; see @tecchous-thicc-buttocks​​ ’s post here, where OP not only has a great post, but also a smashing username AND a superb N.V. Gogol reference in their blog description to laugh your heart out to), I invite you to explore exactly the opposite, namely the idea that he has capacity for perfect empathy and uses it instrumentally to make it suitable for his plans. The canon material showed us many situations that support this (too), as we shall see below.

Fyodor “connects” with others mentally, emotionally and / or spiritually in such an accurate way, that this skill of his is portrayed as bone-chillingly sinister, in scenarios holding starkly contrasting ideas. It is not just about analytically deducing what a person would do next or what would objectively motivate that person, Fyodor knows the depths of people’s hearts, as can be seen in his discussions with Karma, Shibusawa, Nikolai, and the way Fyodor talks about Sigma. I shall present each case in detail in what follows, made into a list of people whose problems Fyodor saw through and responded to adequately.

Karma’s problem was of intellectual nature: to die a slave or a free man, and how those are mutually-exclusive conditions, in regard to which Karma recognized himself trapped in the first condition (slave), but was later “transported” into the second condition (free man) by the circumtances and type of death Fyodor “granted” him. Frequently rationalizing each situation in his inner monologues, pondering each factor and possible outcome analytically and in admirable control of his emotions (as seen throughout the entire ch42), Karma explored, so to say, the “syllogisms” behind what was happening to him too: I want to be saved + I am a bad person + saviours do not save bad persons => I will never be saved; OR I am a bad person + I am not a free person + a saviour can free me by saving me + saviours do not save bad persons => I will never be a free person. Even if the concepts belong to morality discourse, Karma’s approach is straightforward and logical, therefore there is no scene of him begging Fyodor for help, freedom or vengeance, as well as no scene of him even running away from Fyodor: despite being frightened, he was able to withstand his irrational reaction and sought knowledge and clarifications through conversation even in the face of the Demon. Karma was a person who rationalized and accepted his personal condition, and he was all the more shocked that this “slave” condition was dissolved by the events caused by Fyodor. Although Karma had to be killed so that no trace was left by Fyodor, what deserves attention is, on one hand, the fulfillment on Karma’s dying face (dying as a free man), and, on the other hand, how Fyodor gave him privacy when he gave his last breath, as Fyodor is portrayed looking directly at Karma only after he passed away. The fact that Fyodor is portrayed as looking at Karma’s lifeless body afterwards at all can be interpreted as Fyodor contemplating Karma’s end, especially given how in ch42 all background elements vanish in this particular panel, deepening the solemnity of the moment (as @linkspooky​ noted too, together with Fyodor’s understanding and acknowledgement of Karma as a person, worthy of sharing knowledge with, here). And yet the anime (S3ep4) did not insist on this manga panel at all, skipping it entirely. The prayer that Fyodor offered for Karma at the end (“May your soul find salvation… released from the yoke of sin”), while facing him (unlike in the anime, where Fyodor does not look at Karma at all) was the conclusion of Fyodor’s solemn meditation, and I find it a shame that the anime did not linger on this aspect. This scene blends a merciful death with a necessary crime, such contrasts being typical to Fyodor’s character. This prayer for Karma may in fact not be the only one Fyodor offered to those he led to their death by necessity: indeed, Fyodor’s cello recital in front of a captured Katsura in ch47 may have served the same purpose. Given that Fyodor informed fake Pushkin about Atsushi and Kunikida’s arrival, via the telephone, in real-time, we can assume Fyodor knew exactly when the two Agency members clashed with the armed children and when the little girl triggered the detonation of her grenades. After replying to Katsura’s remark, meeting Katsura with the impenetrable grin typical to both him and Dazai, Fyodor recommenced playing with closed eyes and no smile (thus fully immersed), unlike in the anime (S3ep9), where Fyodor never stopped playing in order to talk with Katsura, yet him stopping to play the cello just for that is, in my opinion, very important, as I will try to show here. Fyodor’s cello recital ended with him offering a prayer, which at its end addressed specifically all children of the world (ch47, “Joy to the world… and blessings to all its children”). Therefore, the cello scene carries solemnity, thoughtfulness and emotion, contrasting with the violent sight of the dead children breaking Kunikida’s spirit, and in this light Fyodor’s recital (which Katsura himself did not understand the purpose of, as he was clueless about what was happening outside) becomes a musical prayer for the sacrificed souls. Once again, despite being terribly beautiful in animation and sound indeed, it is a pity the anime depicted this scene in a weirdly ecstatic and stereotypically evil way, giving Fyodor a demonic gaze and grin, as well as making Fyodor face Katsura while playing, despite Fyodor not being turned towards Katsura at all in the manga (ch47), given how he looked at Katsura over his right shoulder (Fyodor’s body position further supports the idea that the recital was not meant for Katsura). As a closing note here, the anime added a specific detail at the scene’s end, one I personally would consider mischaracterization: in the anime, Fyodor broke his cello after the recital, and yet this never happened in the manga, and now we can guess why (Fyodor prays for his innocent victims). See section H for more on Fyodor’s overall gentleness, as well as my previous post about the cello scene here.

Sigma’s problem is of emotional nature: for a man without a past, lacking life itself before he found himself “existing” directly as a young adult (I assume he is a young adult), he was most desperate to fulfill his most basic and primary emotional needs, i.e. having a safe place to call his “home” and belonging to people whom he can call “family”. These are exactly the things Fyodor offered to Sigma right from the start, as if anticipating his arrival in that state, but Fyodor also praised and described Sigma for Dazai (ch75) in a very positive, heartfelt way that also implies Fyodor’s admiration for Sigma, as well as acknowledges a certain superiority Sigma has, even compared to Fyodor and Dazai themselves. Depending on the true nature of Fyodor’s relation to Sigma, as well as Sigma’s true nature in itself, I assume this point here will change in nuance in the future, but in the present the canon tells Fyodor has read Sigma’s heart like an open book. I refrain from adding more to this paragraph until new chapters give me new ground for it.

Nikolai’s problem is of philosophical and spiritual nature: the very fact that Fyodor could understand Nikolai’s core problem, his central existential dilemma, not to mention how quickly Fyodor grasped it, is something that both elevated and destabilized Nikolai. Fyodor rightfully explained that Nikolai fights God “in order to lose sight of himself” (ch78), which, theologically-speaking, is very much accurate from a Christian perspective: a human’s highest and final goal is to “see God”, to return to where man was exiled from (heaven, the Fatherland or patria in Latin, the future heavenly Jerusalem etc.) and, once there, to contemplate God eternally, finally reunited with their Creator and seeing “face to face” (see 1 Corinthians 13:12). That is, because there is where man’s real nature lies, where it came from and belongs to, but also man being created in the image and likeness of God (see Genesis 1:26), together with a Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophical legacy, led to a tradition of interpretations (part of our overall cultural heritage) where man’s divine part (or God himself) resides deep within the human soul: therefore, introspection or contemplating one’s own self holds incredible importance. Nikolai fighting God “in order to lose sight of himself” is a very well-chosen line for Fyodor and a great way of presenting (a glimpse of) the depth of Nikolai’s soul to the readers, one that opens many possible interpretations, not just the one offered above. Nonetheless, Fyodor’s response is particularly disturbing, because he calmly stated what frightens and enrages Nikolai the most: the fact that the sight of God is, in the end, the sight of himself, his true self, and “fighting against God” inevitably becomes “fighting against himself” too. So what is left when Nikolai fights against this truth? What is left must be what is unique to Nikolai as a being, if there is anything like that at all. So far in the manga, it seems Nikolai struggles desperately with the concept of the “omniscient God”, who possesses knowledge of past, present and future as well, which opens the particular Pandora’s box of “predetermination vs human free will”, a monstruous philosophical problem as old as time (or at least heavily discussed ever since Ancient Greek philosophy and Early Christianity too). One must note that, by answering like this, Fyodor essentially denied Nikolai the success of his mission, but granted him the rare gift or rare curse of being fully understood by someone else. One truth too much, the resulting emotional impact on Nikolai was disastruous, as Nikolai appears to be a person of high sensitivity, very susceptible to the power of words and how they plant ideas in his mind. Even if Fyodor’s response is not malicious in words (see, however, section H, about the meaning of the tilt of his head and how this scene is an example of intentional emotional manipulation), this interaction was profoundly unhealthy and destabilizing for Nikolai, which I would argue is well in the spirit of N.V. Gogol’s characters, having their spirits frequently broken by the most mundane things which nonetheless go beyond what they are capable to live with (read The Overcoat, Nevsky Prospekt first half, even Diary of a Madman).

Shibusawa’s problem was of personal nature, linked to his past: not only the Mayoi cards, but also the entirety of the Dead Apple movie make it clear that Shibusawa and Fyodor were long-time acquaintances before the fog incident in Yokohama happened. The most objective proof on this are Shibusawa’s words themselves, when telling Fyodor (in the Draconia room, in Dazai’s presence) that it was thanks to Fyodor selling information to Shibusawa that the fog incidents could happen, and in Yokohama too at such an impresive scale. Since Shibusawa told Dazai he did not find “having friends” necessary (since everyone was like a open book to him), I will refrain from calling the personal relationship between Fyodor and Shibusawa “friendship”. Now then, later on, despite being surprised by the ability-gathering Dragon event triggering after he approached Dazai’s “ability gem”, Shibusawa was not angry nor shocked when Fyodor cut his throat: Shibusawa immediately realized he found his most important personal memory as a consequence of Fyodor killing him or, rather, Fyodor “granting” him death once again. Here, too, two contrasting images combine: 1) Fyodor offering “death” as a “gift” or “blessing” that gives Shibusawa exactly what he needed most, and 2) Fyodor essentially killing his old acquaintance, but with the twist that Fyodor was aware Shibusawa would not die yet, quite the contrary – as a result of Fyodor putting a fragment of the crystal that gathers all abilities on the skull’s forehead (as a “small gift”, as Fyodor called it), Shibusawa was revived and enjoyed one last “epic battle” and then died a truly fulfilled person. In fact, Dazai predicted this outcome in the very first scene with the three of them at the table in Dead Apple, telling Shibusawa he is the one in need of “salvation”: Shibusawa then asked Dazai “And exactly who do you propose could save me?”, to which Dazai answered “Who knows? An angel, perhaps? Or, maybe, a demon” (then Fyodor enters the scene; note that I cite the dub version and that, at the end of Shibusawa’s and Atsushi’s battle, Shibusawa’s last words to Atsushi were “(…) The meaning of that man’s <Fyodor’s> words. I understand all of it now. It’s you! You must be the angel who has come to save me”). Anyway, the movie leaves several interesting questions unaswered: could Fyodor have granted death to Shibusawa, and therefore give him his most important memory back, at any time, or was the whole Yokohama setting necessary? If the latter, was it necessary for Shibusawa or necessary for Fyodor, and Fyodor acted only when their distinct goals aligned? In any case, allow me to expose something very intriguing in the next lines. After Fyodor granted Shibusawa death by cutting his throat in a single swift knife attack, the moment Shibusawa’s memory of his first death returned overlapped with the moment Atsushi’s memory of the same event returned to him as well. In the flashback, Shibusawa stated that he conducted those ability extraction experiments on Atsushi – specifically, Shibusawa pressed the switch – because “a Russian man” told him Atsushi’s “power was coveted by every gifted in the world”. Later, Shibusawa added “the Russian’s name was Fyodor”. This makes all events align in such a way that one could speculate Fyodor was leading Shibusawa and everyone involved with him (Ango and the government) down that precise path we see reach its end in the Dead Apple movie. This makes Fyodor’s words from ch42 all the more relevant: “People can be so simple… They truly believe they are thinking for themselves. (…) They don’t want to think they’re being led by the nose”; or, in S3ep4’s dub: “People are eager to believe that they are acting with free will, that they know best. (…) We all loathe to believe we can be controlled”. One last thing to note and analyse here: as Fyodor walked away alone on the hallway and the Dragon got unleashed, he had a “conversation” with Shibusawa’s skull:

Fyodor (sub): “I’ll tell you an interesting fact, in celebration of you finding a friend in me.” Fyodor (dub): “In thanks of our newfound friendship, I’ll offer you a bite from the apple of knowledge.”

Fyodor and his ability then delivered their famous “I am crime. I am punishment” dialogue. While there are significant wording differences between the versions cited above, how Fyodor referred to “friendship” here is mocking and ironic, so the nature of the bond between him and Shibusawa (beyond that of “informant and information buyer”) remains debatable. It is beautiful how the dub version of the line offers a splendid example of godly and demonic imagery blending in the character of Fyodor. In a Christian cultural context, two precise ideas come to mind simultaneously when hearing Fyodor’s line: 1) it was God who created everything, including the first humans (Adam, then Eve) in Eden, amongst all the fruit-bearing trees, giving them rules as to what they could consume or not (the power and authority “to offer” something rightfully was God’s, being the one to give and take away, to reference  Job, 1, 21), but also 2) it was the Devil who “offered” Eve such a bite, tempting her through suggesting she should eat from the forbidden fruits of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (the infamous “suggestion” was the Devil’s, making a forbidden “offer” that was actually a transgression). It is unclear to which of these two ideas Fyodor is closer, and it may as well be possible he is equally close to both, further encompasing contradicting traits. Nonetheless, given that Karma himself introduced the yet unresolved theme of “transcending human nature” and “transcending good and evil” in relation to Fyodor’s character (ch42, Karma: “Ace was evil, but this guy isn’t even that. He’s some kind of nirvana. Something that transcends mankind itself…”), this particular line from Dead Apple supports Karma’s observations and how Fyodor’s character combines the ideas of creator and destroyer, like @looking-for-stray-dogs put into beautiful words here. This only becomes more interesting when we consider the archetype or role of the “servant of God”, which Fyodor consciously claims to fulfill (see section F below).

Kunikida: Yes, you read that correctly. While Ivan and Nathaniel are, as of now, total wildcards and I do not have enough information as to objectively describe their situation or how Fyodor won them over or “read their souls”, Kunikida’s case is the perfect example of Fyodor’s understanding of a person being so deep and accurate that he knew exactly what actions would cause them to break and render them useless for a significant period of time. Moreover, Kunikida’s case becomes even more intriguing if we remember that Fyodor successfully read his nature without even meeting him. Well, that would be the introduction to this minisection about Kunikida, but frankly I did not have enough time nor energy to dig deeper into this as of now. Perhaps in the future I will update this part with information and links to several great analysis posts I am sure Kunikida fans wrote out already, with their whole heart in them.

These examples share the fact that Fyodor accurately reads the intellectual (Karma), emotional (Sigma), philosophical and spiritual (Nikolai) layers of the human heart, as well as is capable of perfectly adapting to one’s personal baggage on the long term (Shibusawa). This means he posseses an extraordinary capacity for empathy, but, as he never loses his composure (except for small instances of surprise or adrenaline rush, like in ch46 and ch53), his willpower controls every single gesture and reaction he makes, which makes him a terrifying foe who has complete control over himself, never overreacts and thus seems soulless (ch42). His understanding of human nature fiels his skill to deduce future actions and thoughts of other people, which in turn may deepen Fyodor’s individualism or trigger his eventual alienation (paired with perceiving humans as “boring” because they are predictable, to which Dazai disagreed in ch77, albeit it must be noted that this is only an assumption Dazai made about Fyodor, that is not entirely supported by the canon dialogues; see section E), as well as encourage Fyodor to use others as predictable (and therefore reliable) pawns in his plans. Again, Fyodor’s character combines two very contrasting yet interdependent things in his strategies: acknowledging others as humans (with individual problems) firstly, and using them as instruments when necessary, on that basis (as Fyodor becomes their problem-solver). This shows both how versatile and accepting Fyodor is as a thinker and leader (see also section C). Theoretically speaking, could Fyodor use Dazai as a pawn, if Dazai is completely alien from being human? But that would open another massive collective essay on what is going on inside Dazai’s soul and mind, as the fandom so often and so admirably tried to figure out already. Personally, I am a firm believer in Dazai’s humanity, and if Fyodor can indeed understand it all the way to its core, then one may wonder if Dazai’s humanity will be his downfall.

C. He values independence and (most probably) his co-workers

Continuing on the previous paragraph’s line of thought, here’s the catch: it is important to keep in mind that Fyodor nevertheless seems to treat certain “pawns” differently, perhaps considering them closer to him in some regard. People Fyodor refers to as “his staff” (and, in ch64, the faces of Ivan and Pushkin appear as examples) may be a matter of genuine concern to him, enough so that Fyodor asks Dazai how to make his subordinates less dependent on Fyodor: “My staff show no independence. All they do is wait for orders. How can I make them into good workers who take the initiative?” (ch64). To me, this question, even just as a light-hearted example for the sake of their shared prison mindgames, is plain shocking coming from someone always thought of as using people like tools and discarding them like broken puppets. As a first thought, to my stupefaction, Fyodor really took into consideration the independence of even his lower-ranking “pawns” as something worthy of a question, and valuable enough as to lament its lack. However, on later inspection I came to understand that Fyodor’s entire “roooooundtable” session from ch64 is in fact more like an icosahedron with razor-sharp edges (I mean, complex and slick), and can be taken both or either literally (like in this section I took Fyodor’s words literally) or figuratively, assuming Fyodor and Dazai’s answers as being each a substitution for something else entirely. Until I reach that point further down this section, there are more examples that refer to Fyodor’s perception of his co-workers (note: for the manga, my points of reference are the official English translations):

1) in Dead Apple, Fyodor celebrated what he called the “newfound friendship” between him and Shibusawa in Dead Apple, thus calling Shibusawa a “friend”, which is further supported if we take into consideration certain BSD Mayoi card descriptions (“Dragon Head Feud” card description, or “Bundled up” card quote: “Oh my, it seems that Dazai-kun and Nakajima Atsushi-kun have managed to evade us today. Well, if Shibusawa-kun is happy, then I'm happy. I'm his friend, after all.”); however, if put back in the larger context, the benevolent character of this statement is debatable (see section B);

2) in ch42, Fyodor told Ace “My friends have taken over the outside corridors”, thus directly referring to his Rats in the House of the Dead as “friends”, even if the fact itself was a lie to pressure Ace towards his suicide;

3) in ch95.5, silently agreed to considering Nikolai a friend when Dazai complimented Nikolai’s prison game idea. There are two instances where Dazai mocked Fyodor about having a nice friend in Nikolai, both of them in this chapter, and only in the second one Fyodor played along, agreeing to Dazai’s claim, but one has to bear in mind that the two could have been mocking each other in both instances:

Nikolai, ch95.5 (fan translation): “The wish to save my friend is indeed very difficult to falter. That’s why I need to shatter this determination, such to prove the free will of homo sapiens!” Dazai: “Seems like… you have a nice friend…” Fyodor: “…” – Nikolai (after a few lines): “From now on, you two will be participating in a jail break duel!” Dazai: “You indeed have a very good friend.” Fyodor: “I know, right?”

Leaving the debate open as to whether Fyodor is genuine when using the term “friend” overall (see also bsd-bibliophile’s post here, further inspecting Fyodor and Nikolai’s interactions, as well as mentioning one instance of the term “friend”, used by Fyodor for Pushkin, being present in the fan translation, but not in the original Japanese text per se), all this information nonetheless supports the fact that Fyodor himself may not be oppressive towards others, and that his methods rather rely on communication, negotiation and manipulation. Indeed, strangely enough, for example when approaching someone new with the intent to work with them, Fyodor’s ways are all “clean talk”: no torture, no physical abuse, no threats, no intimidation or humiliation, no blood as of now (on the possibility of brainwashing, see section D below). Instead, Fyodor becomes the ideal smooth-talker and deal-maker when first recruiting others, perfectly reading into their soul and appealing to their most intimate desires (see section B above, as well as @gold-pavilion​​ / akai-koutei ’s post here /oldhere, and there was a beautiful addition by @/goddessesofeverything here, but all reblogs of the original post were deleted and I cry). When approaching a clear target, however, there can be freshly spilt blood, for example 1) Mori getting stabbed (ch46), 2) Katai getting shot (ch49), and 3) Shibusawa getting his throat cut open (Dead Apple), in each case the action being done directly by Fyodor (firing the gun or holding the respective knives with his own hands). Lastly, if we take into consideration how Fyodor played along with Nikolai’s puns in vol.14’s omake, and how highly and affectionately he spoke about Sigma in ch74 and ch75, Fyodor’s actual dynamics with his subordinates or fellow Decay of the Angel members could potentially surprise the reader in future updates, because his polite and discreet nature do not seem to be a mere façade.

Another point needs to be addressed here, and it is whether or not we can safely use the word “care” to sum up Fyodor’s relationship towards his close co-workers (thank you, Sel @oddeyesight​​, for your questions that led me towards considering this aspect in more detail). First of all, one needs to acknowledge there are persons Fyodor worked with and then disposed of in the most indubitable way, like the mafioso he forced information from in ch51, indirectly all children in ch47 and directly the little girl with the grenades, whom he talked to via telephone prior to the events. Secondly, compared to them, there are characters that are closer to Fyodor, which Fyodor refers to as “friends” (so far, this applies to Pushkin, Ivan, Nathaniel, and indirectly consenting to calling Nikolai a friend; see the paragraph above). Looking at definitions of the noun “care” – “the process of looking after someone” and “the process of doing things to keep something in good condition and working correctly” (Longman dictionary) – the first definition I give as an example here can imply affection, whereas the second definition does not, and refers to an impartial instrumental approach. So far, from what I gathered, there is no canon basis to claim Fyodor cares about someone else in the first definition’s sense, only in the second. Until future manga chapters may or may not change this, I propose looking at Fyodor from another viewpoint: in relation to the antonym of “care” (neglect), and a closely-related noun, indifference. For this task I propose starting with the following scene from ch74, when Dazai deduced the Sky Casino’s origin and purpose:

Dazai: “It was made for two goals. As a base for the next terror attack and as “payment” for the use of Sigma’s skill. …Never waste a thing, do you?” Fyodor: “Our boss does hate to be wasteful.”

By saying “Never waste a thing, do you?”, Dazai implied that Fyodor executed all the steps he deduced, yet Fyodor shaked this claim off, directing Dazai’s remark toward someone Fyodor called “our boss”. We, as readers, naturally think of Fukuchi, who is the leader of the Decay of the Angel in title, but I dare say the entire fandom does not buy this, as in everything else Fyodor still acts like the puppeteer determining the actions of all the group’s members, whether they know it (Nikolai and Sigma) or not (Fukuchi probably and Bram). Fyodor humbling himself and downplaying his importance is a recurring behaviour of his, in varying depictions such as in ch46 (Fyodor to Dazai: “I will not be the one who will bring down your two groups. It will be you yourselves”), in ch73’s cover artwork of Sigma holding cards (where Fyodor is not an Ace, not even a King, he is but a Jack of Spades), in ch77 (Fyodor to Dazai: “Me? I didn’t do anything. I just sat here and prayed… and those prayers were answered”; see section F for more). This aside, hiding the identity of Fyodor’s “boss” had at least two purposes: 1) keeping Fukuchi’s double identity hidden (both the Hunting Dogs leader and the Decay of the Angel leader) and 2) redirecting not only Dazai’s, but our attention too. Since Fyodor and Dazai imagine their actions as if within a mental game of chess, let us reconsider the fates of Fyodor’s pieces so far, which include both the Decay of the Angel members and the Rats in the House of the Dead:

1) Pushkin was apparently captured and eliminated from the “chess game” (lost piece, used and then captured by the enemy in ch53), and yet he is alive and well, even shamelessly spilling information to Ranpo to save his own skin, while being interrogated (ch54), providing him with the lead on Mushitaro. Despite leaking information, so far nobody was sent to “clean” Pushkin off the table (as in Mushitaro’s case, whom Nikolai said he was assigned to kill off at the end of ch56). Pushkin leaking information may be intentional as part of Fyodor’s plans, which means Pushkin’s role likely did not meet its end yet.

2) Ivan was apparently captured and eliminated from the “chess game” (lost piece, used and then captured by the enemy in ch53), and yet Ivan survived and is probably held somewhere alive; also, Ivan’s loyalty and “happiness” never wavered, not even when in Rashomon’s tight grip (ch53), which means his trust in Fyodor remained unchanged and he did not abandon his role of Fyodor’s servant and “head chamberlain” (ch52).

3) Mushitaro was, most probably, really supposed to die (sacrificed piece, used and then disposed of: died in an exploding car after Nikolai’s surprise attack in ch56), yet he is still alive, last seen (iirc) safe in Poe’s mansion in ch78.5 (vol.18 bonus chapter at the end). Since Fyodor sent Nikolai to dispose of Mushitaro, it is rather clear Fyodor was not indifferent to Mushitaro staying alive, and now this is a loose end, one where Mushitaro survived and we do not know if this scenario has already been integrated in one of Fyodor’s larger schemes or if it will serve against Fyodor somehow later.

4) Nikolai was apparently supposed to die (sacrificed piece, used and then disposed of: sawed in half in ch58), and yet he is very much alive and already influenced the current events of the manga drastically. Furthermore, in ch95.5, when Nikolai started explaining his prison game, Fyodor replied “So that’s what you’re planning”, as if the two already agreed upon Nikolai doing “something”, and apparently that “something” remained a surprise to Fyodor, hence his reply was phrased as a conclusion. Note how Nikolai’s action remaining a surprise reinforce Nikolai’s freedom and agency, and Fyodor allowed this and played along, despite how accurate to his character it would be to have deduced Nikolai’s possible actions already. Then again, it could be that Fyodor knew that Nikolai had to hear precisely that kind of reaction, in order to continue playing a role Fyodor secretly predicted for him. Later, in ch98, after Nikolai’s prison game started, when Fyodor was waiting for Chuuya to arrive, Nikolai asked him “It’s been five minutes since the game started. You aren’t gonna move? Can I take that to assume… your pieces are already moving?”. If Nikolai’s prison game is an independent consequence of him independently choosing not to die, then why would Nikolai smile as if in agreement with Fyodor, supposing that everything went as planned? The problem of free will remains unresolved and tightly knit into Nikolai’s character even in the current events.

5) Sigma was apparently supposed to die (sacrificed piece, used and then disposed of: shot by Nathaniel in ch76), and just like Nikolai he is very much alive and playing a crucial role still unknown to us (in a conversation with Alex @vampireonastick​​ I suggested that Sigma being on Dazai’s side of the prison game might be a well-disguised infiltration strategy already planned out by Fyodor, with whom Nikolai cooperates on this, despite Nikolai’s “sidequest” to kill Fyodor); we have an important hint as to how Sigma’s death was never required by Fyodor’s plan: the “roooooundtable” from ch64. It is indeed highly probable that the entire “all-smiles problem-solving rooooundtable” session proposed and moderated by Fyodor was his masked suggestion (masked from the guards!) of creating a unique substitution code that only he and Dazai would be able to communicate in, as @fantastic-rambles analysed more in-depth here. And just like @mydearestt​​ noticed in this post here that, through his reply, Dazai in fact referred to his plan to make the Agency move, the same can be assumed in Fyodor’s case. To remember the dialogue, I shall copy the revelant part here below:

Dazai: “Me next. “I tried asking the café waitress out, but she won’t bend an inch. What should I do?” Fyodor: “Make her lose her job and home, trick her family into disowning her and she’s bound to come crawling to you.”

I propose reading this sequence as referring to Sigma entirely, because: 1) Sigma, much like a waitress, was contained and bound to his workplace, the casino, unwilling to leave once there, no matter who asked; 2) Fyodor set up the entire scenario of making Sigma lose his job AND home in the most literal sense by completely destabilizing the casino; 3) by doing unbecoming irreversible actions, Sigma secured his own family rejecting him, and all ties were cut with Sigma’s “death”, yet Sigma survived – equally destabilized, he ended up in a situation where, if Fyodor would have granted him another wish, Sigma would not have refused, naturally seeking the one person who may still have power to grant wishes as grand and Sigma’s, and that is still Fyodor, who both gave and took Sigma’s home. This being said, like Alex @vampireonastick​ theorized in their post here, I strongly believe Dazai strategically manipulates Sigma in the prison game, “shaping” him to defy Fyodor, the person he would otherwise “crawl back to”. However, since Fyodor chooses his words with utmost care all the time, no matter if truthful or deceiving, I personally doubt Fyodor would carelessly share his strategy (disguised as the grimest relationship advice) without it already being implemented into a larger scheme, in which Dazai acts upon the words he hears from Fyodor (and Dazai already did so twice in this arc, firstly by choosing Sigma, secondly by “building up” Sigma for his eventual refusal of Fyodor). What Dazai perhaps does not expect is the fact that Fyodor himself already talked to Sigma in ways that reinforce Sigma’s agency: for example, in ch73, Fyodor directly told Sigma that, should the Hunting Dogs attack the casino, Sigma should run as he would have no chance of winning; Sigma, on the contrary, remembering Fyodor’s words – not once, but twice in the chapter –, was pushed only more vehemently to defending his casino, thus acting on his own and defying Fyodor already, a reaction Fyodor most likely anticipated when making Sigma hear his “advice as a co-worker” (in Fyodor’s own words, ch73). In the end, regardless of the content of Fyodor’s words, it seems his kidnapper from ch42 offered honest advice to Karma: “Watch out… If you talk to him, he’ll pluck your mind out”. Despite how there is no proof of an actual “plucking of the mind” action yet (see section D), Fyodor’s words (often, if not always) twist the minds of those around him in a way that, paradoxically, both acknowledges and denies them their free will, encouraging decisions that seem free to the agent, but are already predicted and known to Fyodor (and in this, I must admit, Fyodor bears a resemblance to an omniscient god; however, his canon dialogues often convey a different role, a tension I discus in section F). In this light, I wonder if Dazai had this behaviour before too and acted upon words he heard from Fyodor in previous instances, such as the Mutual Destruction arc.

6) Nathaniel was apparently eliminated from the “chess game” entirely (sacrificed piece, used and then disposed of: captured in Anne’s room of no return in ch76), yet this does not imply he is dead, which begs the question if Anne’s room, the Agency’s only true safe space, is now compromised, as me and Alex wondered here (see also the reblogs and replies to their post).

One thing I want to remark here is that, despite how clear it is that Fyodor “moved” all these “chess pieces” already (only number 3 to 6 are relevant in this case), in ch76, right after Nathaniel got captured, as Atsushi and Lucy were celebrating their victory, Ango explained to them how the events at the casino were no victory, and how instead everything played as Fyodor has planned, claiming that Fyodor has not made any move yet:

Ango, ch76: “We lost because you let Sigma die. Now we have no leads to the Page. And… the Hunting Dogs saw us try to rescue him. In their eyes, that likely looked like the Detective Agency helping their terrorist allies. Our plan failed and we’ve only sowed more doubt. This is likely exactly as Dostoyevsky planned. Frankly… I can’t stop shaking. Until now, he moved none of his pawns and gave us no room to deal with him. (…)”

As I shall leave Ango analysis to Alex @vampireonastick​ like in this post here, I will return to the fact that so far the only true “chess piece” that Fyodor ever truly let die was Shibusawa. Then, to sum up, when his co-workers fulfilled their purpose and no use nor entertainment can be obtained from them anymore, Fyodor’s pattern seems to be leaving said co-workers with apparent indifference to their well-being, often abandoning them in a state or situation that is destructive to them (Shibusawa is the clearest example, but it applies to all other aforementioned characters as well). However, the twist is that none of these characters did reach the end of their assigned roles yet (and we may wonder if they will ever do that), given that Pushkin, Ivan, Nikolai, Sigma, Nathaniel and even Mushitaro are all alive and healthy. Consindering all this, the way BSD is narrated becomes even more interesting, because the reader would naturally project treating others as expendable on Fyodor, where in fact it is more accurate to Dazai’s character to act this way (and he did and does act that way, as @linkspooky​ pointed out in detail in their post here). Back to Fyodor’s “our boss does hate to be wasteful” line, while still just an interpretation, it would make sense that Fyodor refers to himself or his ability (if it’s a separate conscious being, see section G) as “our boss”, because all this information suggests that Fyodor himself hates to be wasteful, and that, excepting Shibusawa, Fyodor never wasted even a single pawn of his. That means Fyodor never neglects his co-workers (whom he calls friends!) and is never truly indifferent to them, albeit in an instrumental way, given that there is no proof yet that Fyodor’s care towards his co-workers is affectionate in nature. Let us close this section with a treat, though: in ch51 and ch53, there are two panels of a teacup with three teaspoons to its left. Differing greatly from the anime, albeit delivering the same subtle deception, these three teaspoons help in fooling the reader into thinking that Ivan poured tea in Fyodor’s cup, placed the teacup in front of him and then Fyodor consumed that tea, together with the jam that filled all three teaspoons at first (ch51). Given that 1) Ivan prepared the tea with three teaspoons of jam and 2) at the restaurant, Fyodor drank his tea exactly like that, with three teaspoons of jam, from this we can deduce Ivan is very familiar with Fyodor’s tea-drinking habits, which in turn leads us to the very likely idea that Fyodor and Ivan (if not also together with other members of the Rats in the House of the Dead) frequently had tea together, or Ivan prepared tea for Fyodor often enough to memorize his precise habits. The latter would support Ivan’s self-proclaimed status as Fyodor’s “head chamberlain” (ch52), suggesting that their group lived as family and / or nobility in the same house, if the definition of “chamberlain” is taken into consideration (Longman Dictionary: “chamberlain, an important official who managed the house of a king or queen in the past”).

D. No confirmation yet that he is brainwashing others and why this is relevant

Speaking of his methods of acquiring new collaborators, so far, it is most certain that Fyodor is not brainwashing people: not Fukuchi, not Nikolai, not Sigma, not Karma, not Pushkin, and certainly not the little girl with the grenades, even though the anime depicted the scene differently (in the manga’s ch47, a flashback appears where Fyodor talks to the little girl via telephone, thus he does not simply appear in her clouded mind like in the anime’s S3ep9).

But two characters Fyodor works with are in a very ambiguous position as of now: Ivan and Nathaniel. To begin with, Ivan’s case is very tricky at the moment. In ch53, he openly told Akutagawa that “my master cut out all the parts of his brain that feel unhappiness”. What can I say except our dear Vanya here is a lil’ crazy. I find his replies rather unreliable at the moment, because he is the only Fyodor-subordinate who is behaving like an intoxicated bacchant for now. While the ch53 quote is singular and, therefore, I cannot make anything of it, there is another thing that needs to be considered: in ch52, as he was walking away from Akutagawa and Atsushi, Ivan told them “I will not forget you. …No… You will now serve as part of my master’s joyful order”, but immediately after that he added “after 10 more steps, I will most likely forget your faces”. Apparent self-contradiction aside, whether he meant “forget your faces” literally or not, Nathaniel, too, went through an apparent mind-reset, as he did not recognize Akutagawa in ch46 and appears to have lost his entire personality except for his devotion to Margaret Mitchell and his determination to save her life. Now, mind-resetting and brainwashing are not the same, and removing a part of one’s brain or mind that is responsible for a specific emotion is, likewise, something entirely different. The manga did not give us further examples of similar things that Fyodor apparently had a role to play in, so I cannot present anything new here, only speculation. We also do not know if these effects are caused by Fyodor himself (without using his ability at all, much like he could simply talk Ace into his own suicide in ch42) or Fyodor’s ability specifically. This simply limits my current analysis of Fyodor’s methods to the beforementioned “communication, negotiation, manipulation” trio, which is not dependent nor related to his ability, and I will update these parts if the manga later reveals that Fyodor did indeed mold the conscience or minds of other people into whatever shape or state he desired. Until then, he is literally just a genius smooth-talker, and I refrain from making rash affirmations or going into more speculation here.

E. He loves and lives for entertainment

So many canon lines convey Fyodor’s love for entertainment. It is more specifically entertainment in a “good literature” sense, meaning conflict, tension, intensity of will and emotions, devotion, despair and generally human beings fighting for their needs or to solve their problems of many different, often opposing kinds. Let us take Fyodor’s own words as references. First of all, at the beginning of the Dead Apple movie, as younger Chuuya destroyes the entire building in which he and Dazai found Shibusawa the first time, Fyodor watched the scene from a safe distance, on top of a building. All he did was “absorb” the whole event with utter satisfaction, concluding the scene with his line “This is too much fun”. The motif is repeated several times in the Dead Apple movie, linking his own enjoyment of whatever chaos unfolds to “fun” and “entertainment”, so this line is not the sole evidence that entertainment is greatly valued by Fyodor, as it is the thing opposed to boredom, which constantly eats away at his and Dazai’s hearts because of their superhuman intellect. As Fyodor was getting the two most important ability gems ready for his and Dazai’s plan, Fyodor tells Dazai “Would you not agree that the more entertainment there is, the better?” (dub); moreover, at the end of the movie, his lines highlight the privileged spot of “entertainment” in his understanding of the world around him again:

Fyodor (sub): “Everything is but entertainment. But in order to end this world, rife with crime and punishment, I do need that book. The blank novel sleeping in this town.” Fyodor (dub):“Everything is just entertainment. However, this world is so rife with crime and punishment… In order to finally end it, I do need that novel. This special book that sleeps somewhere within this city.”

However, paying close attention to his words, we need to consider the possibility that in this instance Dead Apple either contradicts or deceives the watcher greatly, because in the manga Fyodor’s goal is clearly referring to “saving the world”, not “ending the world” (see also section G, near the end, for more on Fyodor’s possible motivation).

Now, in the manga (ch63), Fyodor stated that he openly refused to devise a perfect plan (as demanded by another Decay of the Angel member, possibly Fukuchi) because perfection is boring (Fyodor, ch63: “A Decay comrade asked me for the perfect plan… but perfect is so boring. I won’t be able to view the karma of humanity like this”). While at first glance one could be surprised by this statement, especially considering that “God prefers perfection and harmony”, in Fyodor’s own words from ch77 (see section G where I expand on this specifically), both lines (perfection is boring + God favours perfection) could potentially be extremely deceiving: since the Agency knows Fyodor is involved in crafting the Decay of the Angel’s plan, it is probably this implication that leads, for example, Kyouka in ch63 to tell Atsushi that their plan is “extensive and flawless”, and Atsushi’s inner monologue, as a response, appears together with a panel of a faceless Fyodor pulling strained strings in the darkness. If everyone expects Fyodor to be perfect and to create flawless strategies, an opponent like Dazai could include unpredictable, irrational or impulsive actions in his own strategies to outsmart him, as Dazai describes his appreciative acknowledgement of this behaviour he finds in other people (Dazai to Fyodor, ch77: “What’s driving the world are those in the storm of accidental events who scream, run and spill blood. Faced with their souls, you and I should be petrified with fear”; more on this specific dialogue in the next paragraph). But knowing this reaction would be triggered, Fyodor could always integrate imperfections in his plans, leaving his opponents with the impression that they act in the right way, on their free will, when in fact nothing they do has not been already considered by Fyodor (holding true to his lines from ch42). Personality-wise, the “perfection is boring” line becomes relevant if (and only if) Fyodor really, truly means it literally, and 1) does not say it just to tell what his opponent(s) (or the reader themselves) would want or expect to hear, without meaning it, or 2) does not say it as some kind of reverse-psychology, without personal attachment, to trigger predictable reactions in his opponent(s) (again, see section G for a continuation of this particular discussion). As a last example to support the idea of Fyodor loving entertainment, finding both fun and beauty in it, when a very shocked Dazai was asking Fyodor about the reason (“for what?”) for his stupefying strategic moves (the coin bombs, staging the casino as the battleground etc.), Fyodor only replied “Isn’t it more beautiful that way?”.

Now, ch77 presents us with a dialogue between Fyodor and Dazai which seems easy to understand at first, but becomes increasingly complex the more one dwells on it. To remember the full context clearly again, I shall sum it up and add the full relevant quote here: after Fyodor told Dazai that “God favours perfection and harmony”, after which it is confirmed that the Page was also used for changing all the world’s police and investigative agencies not to act upon evidence of someone framing the Agency, a parallel is shown with Tachihara who, inside his heart, decided to finally identify fully as part of the Port Mafia, exiting the inner state of being a Hunting Dog (military police force), thus existing the Page’s influence. Tachihara’s situation exemplifies what Dazai then explains to Fyodor:

Dazai, ch77: “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Siding with God sure didn’t teach you much!” Fyodor: “…Let’s hear it.” Dazai: “‘Perfection and harmony’? To God, those amount to a hill of beans. I saw it many times. All HE offers is happenstance and absurdity. A weakness… shared by the two of us… For all our ingenious plans, in the end we’ve wound up here, in a deep-level prison. What’s driving the world are those in the storm of accidental events who scream, run and spill blood. Faced with their souls, you and I should be petrified with fear. (after POV change to Tachihara) You’re right. People are sinful and foolish. But… they aren’t as boring as you think they are.”

In Dazai’s dialogue, I put in bold two quotes that need to be inspected. The first one refers to Dazai pointing out a weakness the two geniuses share, which refers to the primacy of the accidental in reality, as opposed to the predictability both Fyodor and Dazai operate with in all their plans, which can make the world seem trapped in an inescapable causality rationally-accesible to those with an intellect such as theirs. Dazai “bets” against Fyodor on this cruel primacy of “happenstance and absurdity”, where reason fails to follow the exact consequences of each event or human action, and yet the nuances and risks of this “bet” I already exposed in the paragraph above. In this context, Dazai seems indeed to talk about this weakness in an admirative, even hopeful tone, despite the fact that he shares it; for a brilliant exposition on Dazai (both the author and his BSD counterpart) in relation to sin and weakness, I wholeheartedly recommend reading Kat’s (@pompompurin1028​​) essay here. When Dazai stated this, a flashback to Odasaku’s fight with André Gide is shown, which can be interpreted as that one time Dazai’s predictions held true, yet still Odasaku chose to fight Gide, fully aware of the end, driven only by what I would call here human subjective drive. Such human subjective drive, independent from reason and logic, is what awakened in Tachihara as well: if Odasaku served as an example of “defeating” Dazai by exploiting his vulnerability to the (uncontrollable) accidental, then Tachihara served as an example of “defeating” Fyodor’s precautious plans by unexpectedly exiting the Page’s influence. In the end, this parallel can become unbalanced if Fyodor already included this kind of variables in his plans and works not ignoring, but embracing human individuality and spontaneity, which I would argue is (paradoxically) more likely the case, for what I exposed in sections B and C. 

As for the second quote I put in bold, there are at least the following examples that render Dazai’s assumption (that Fyodor considers people boring) untrue: 1) in ch75, Fyodor openly praised Sigma, carefully examining his personal torment, placing him not only above the Hunting Dogs, but also above Dazai and himself, as well as “all of creation” ; 2) in ch78, in a flashback, as a reaction to (presumably listening to) Nikolai’s inner struggle, Fyodor replied “That’s wonderful”, smiling and tilting his head (see section B, as well as H for the significance of the tilt of the head); 3) in ch80, Fyodor described the Agency “as beautiful as the evening sunlight (…)”. If people are indeed boring to Fyodor, he would not find their struggles and states worthy of deeper consideration, lengthy speeches of praise or expressive, poetic comparisons (admittedly with a dash of pity and sarcasm towards the fate of the Agency). So far, Fyodor is never shown expressing boredom in the presence of other people, quite the contrary: he is shown expressing sincere interest, as if each human is a case study, an enigma to be unravelled, much like Fyodor himself is to me, and to us within the BSD community (therefore I chose that specific fragment from F.M. Dostoyevsky’s letters to start my essay with, as a motto; there is much more to be said about that, but I reserve that for another possible future essay, where it would be necessary to discuss Fyodor’s character in light of his corresponding author’s biography, personality and literary works as a whole). And so, I would argue that to Fyodor humans are not boring, but providers of entertainment worthy of attention and inspection, even more so when they play a role in his plans (and it seems everybody is playing on a stage set by Fyodor so far).

Fyodor is also quite fond of not only perceiving events or circumstances as games (like his mental chess game with Dazai in prison, starting in ch63, always mirroring the course of everyone’s actions outside), but also proposing this approach to others (his rooooundtable in ch64 and his card guessing contest with Ace in ch42), albeit not carelessly, as each time such – yeah, I cannot avoid it at this point, I’m a gamer myself, here it comes *inhales deeply* – each time such gamer approach has a multifaceted utility and never strays from serving Fyodor’s two main purposes, achieving his plan to cleanse the world of abilities, and having fun (yes). Killing boredom via playing games, especially when in the company of a person on the same level, seems to be the first move Fyodor does when faced with monotony (even in vol. 20’scredit page, where Fyodor said “I’m bored. Let’s play twenty questions”, even if Dazai immediately delivers the final answer “Snow White”, and thus Fyodor retracted his idea with “Actually let’s not”, as Dazai’s superhuman intellect killed the fun too fast).

To look into two examples just a bit more, in ch64, during his roooooundtable with Dazai, Fyodor suggested “Next, let’s ask a question at the same time”, which appeared to be innocently fun, because it challenges two persons, in this case a native and a non-native speaker of Japanese, to coordinate their spelling just for the amusement of simultaneity; then, in ch97, as Nikolai’s deadly prison game was about to start, Fyodor lamented the outcome he was confidently foreseeing: “Yet losing a chess opponent in the next 30 minutes is still quite sad”, saying this teasingly, still talking as if in the context of his and Dazai’s mental chess game. On a last, entertaining note, because why not, this entire section might as well serve as proof that Fyodor is cat-coded, just like Dazai (see @wintertaurus​​ ’s post here, where they scientifically prove this, I don’t make the rules), despite being the leader of the Rats in the House of the Dead, and so one more fine example of a fictional INTJ further strengthens the definition of INTJs as “human cats”.

F. Humble, not arrogant. Self-proclaimed god or servant of God?

Starting with the latter half of this section’s title, that is a very tricky subject, in fact, because we as manga readers can observe both 1) one line that established a connection early-on between Fyodor and calling himself “a god” if God is dead and 2) many lines by which Fyodor is actually displaying behaviour and speech akin to a self-aware servant of God. Let us begin with the first one. So, in the first chapter dedicated to showing Fyodor to the readers in more detail (ch42), and only in the original Japanese version and the fan translation, the first page of the chapter together with the last page feature a quote from F.M. Dostoyevsky’s Demons. The quote put together is “If God does not exist, I am a god”, which is part of a dialogue by the character Alexei Nilych Kirilov (“Если нет бога, то я бог”, see Part Three, chapter VI, II). Perhaps a beautiful coincidence, but in this exact wording that the fan translation chose, the quote also appears in Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus, chapter “Absurd Creation”, subchapter “Kirilov”, where the French author discusses F.M. Dostoyevsky’s Demons and the mentioned character, Alexei Nilych Kirilov. There, Camus calls that line “Kirilov’s premise”. In retrospect, this is a very puzzling line to appear associated with Fyodor, or rather appear as spoken or thought by him, giving the ambiguity of the quote’s placement on the pages. It is also puzzling because until now BSD gave us a character who seems like a better candidate for using that quote or being a reference to Kirilov, and by that I mean of course Nikolai. Moreover, the way Fyodor talks about or mentions God in dialogues that are clearly spoken by him later (I shall discuss examples in the paragraphs and sections below) very much conveys the message that Fyodor does not think God is dead, invoking him over and over (whether he is referring to the Judeo-Christian God or simply “a god” is not yet addressed in the manga). Still, the most striking information about this quote remains the fact that it is not featured in the official English translation at all. For comparison, I shall put an image with the last page in both versions below, and you can see the scan of the Japanese first page of ch42 here.

As we are walking on quicksand with this one, let us move on to the second point I mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph, about Fyodor as a servant of God. Because of his mission, of which he speaks as if it is of a higher calling, of divine nature, Fyodor also appears to see himself as a servant, namely a servant of God (servus Dei). He has the mind and the skill to carry out a mission of divine proportions (for us readers still an ambiguous goal: Fyodor, ch46: “And I will use that Book to make a world free of sin and skill users”, where “skill” means the same as “ability” and “gift”, as the fandom is used to these terms more). This, in turn, could have made him develop a strong sense of responsibility and a feeling of authority. As we are currently following the “servant” train of thought, these (sense of responsibility and authority) are not to be confused with what is called a “god-complex”, a slang expression which loosely corresponds to different actual psychological disorders such as narcissistic personality disorder, a thing Fyodor does not display core traits of. As of now, Fyodor remains surprisingly humble, discreet and respectfully formal both in speech (see @looking-for-stray-dogs’s posts here and here) and in gestures (see section H, on Fyodor’s body language), he acknowledges the possibility of imperfections and even welcomes them (ch63), he was never portrayed as becoming irritated at others (except his eyes expressing either anger or furious determination, as Dazai attempts to drown him and Chuuya in ch101), he is not a show-off and is indifferent to being adored or agreed with, and he knows how to take criticism elegantly when Dazai holds different opinions or outwits him. It is true that his grandiose “divine” goal, his frequent use of manipulation, and his apparent omnisciency and unbreakable composure give enough space to speculate regarding an underlying “god-complex” in his character (together with the ambiguous use of the quote discussed in the paragraph above), but the reader must acknowledge that, in all his replies, Fyodor refers to himself as if to a servant of God par excellence, as is the most evident in his ch77 reply to Dazai: “Me? I didn’t do anything. I just sat here and prayed… and those prayers were answered”. 

This direct self-characterization, too, plays against him having an actual “god-complex”. I would say that, by building on the humble yet powerful servus Dei image, if at all intentional, Asagiri presents us a far more complex character in Fyodor. For example, one of the many important subjects in Biblical exegesis, since the beginning centuries of Christianity, was how Jesus Christ, the Son of God, took upon himself the role of servant of God (see Philippians, 2, 6-7), but also of all humans (see the Washing of the Feet), and so humility and divine power become two closely tied ideas. In the manga’s context, Fyodor’s own humility can also have an added disturbing effect on the reader because of the implied power that coexists with it.

On the topic of the “arrogant villain” stereotype, I myself cannot find instances where Fyodor is, per se, arrogant. Longman Dictionary defines “arrogant” as “behaving in an unpleasant or rude way because you think you are more important than other people”, but we know for a fact that Fyodor behaves far from rude and unpleasant to others. Quite the contrary, he is humble and considerate, as can be deduced from his way of using the Japanese language (see the references linked in the paragraph above). He is never portrayed denigrating, humiliating or belittling someone else thus far. What is true is that Fyodor considers his goal (and not necessarily himself unless the manga reveals the opposite in the future) superior to anyone and anything on Earth, and this accentuates his heavy use of smooth manipulation instead of inflating his ego, actually hiding his true self behind more and more layers of words and actions he uses out of necessity to reach his higher goal. If we speculate that Fyodor is indeed (Orthodox) Christian and familiar with this doctrine, then it would be no surprise why Fyodor would cultivate humility instead of pride in general, as pride (superbia) is the beginning of all sin (Sirach, 10, 15) and when pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom (Proverbs, 11, 3). To sum up, I cannot find any manga panel where Fyodor is acting in an arrogant way, so I reached the conclusion that anything related to his arrogance, his stubbornness, his rudeness or, by extension, his superiority-complex is headcanon-territory at least for now. Only in chess did Dazai mention the “maliciousness” of Fyodor’s move while playing mental chess with him (ch72), and this malicious trait can refer to the bold and shocking way in which Fyodor attacks by directly using his King instead of other chess pieces (for a detail exposition of their chess moves, see @blackandwhitemusician​ ’s post here). Interestingly, Fyodor does indeed reply with “Malice is the greatest fruit God ever gave to man”, yet from what I gathered so far we still have yet to see a true act of malice from Fyodor, that is, an malicious action done for the sake of malice itself, and not for the sake of his higher goal demanding sacrifices or attacks on rival organizations. Lastly, from the current content one can safely deduce Fyodor is individualistic (in contrast to Dazai who seems to learn to rely on others, but once again I shall point to @linkspooky​’s post here to underline how, as they said, “Dazai doesn’t work together with others, he manipulates for the greater good”, emphasis in bold mine), but it would take more manga updates to make a step further and pinpoint Fyodor’s egoism or narcissism if he has any of these traits at all in himself, and not in how others portray him when they think about him (how Atsushi imagines him in ch63, or Ango in ch77, or Ranpo in ch95). Not only does Fyodor break antagonist stereotypes with these traits, but – still keeping the quote analyzed in the beginning of this section in mind – he continues to embody shockingly contrasting ideas all within himself, which takes us to the next section of this essay.

G. A strange divergence inside Fyodor. Is he a singularity?

Before I reach the point I want to present here, I suggest we reflect once more upon that unforgettable scene. Continuing in the atmosphere of the ideas from the paragraphs before, it is also important to remember how, in Dead Apple, Fyodor said “I am crime”, whereas his ability said “I am punishment”, and none of these imply Fyodor is seeing himself as a god incarnate who applies punishment, only that there is an open possibility that his ability, if it is an independent being/soul, might see itself as such, i.e. a force to punish others and/or to punish Fyodor himself. This would assign Fyodor himself the role of an agent serving someone or something else (presumably his own ability). About this, a quick note must be made here: since this is a piece of Japanese media, the word “god” can end up referring to something else rather than the Judeo-Christian God (whose name I always capitalize in this post, to emphasize the difference). We do not really know to what god Fyodor refers to all the time, who or what it is, or if said god’s identity remains the same throughout the manga. In this post, I chose to work with the assumption that Fyodor is Orthodox and refers to the Judeo-Christian God. Despite this assumption, I find the relationship between him and his ability truly intriguing, even more so if we put this discussion in the context of “singularities”, also known as “self-contradictory-ability-types”. Now, so far there are two clear instances where self-contradictions are implied in his dialogue, one of them being this scene from Dead Apple, the other one becoming evident when we connect Fyodor’s replies in ch63 (left) and ch77 (right).

Fyodor, ch63: “A Decay comrade asked me for the perfect plan… but perfect is so boring. I won’t be able to view the karma of humanity like this.” Fyodor, ch77: “You pulled the strings of conspiracy yourself, no? But God prefers perfection and harmony. Thus, I followed the heart of God and added one line to the page.”

By openly giving contradictory information, to me this is exactly an occurrence of a stark divergence within Fyodor, so let us give it our complete attention in what follows. Firstly, there is the possibility that Fyodor could choose to say something intentionally if he would directly benefit from the receiver hearing those exact words, even if Fyodor’s own belief lies somewhere else entirely (so the question to that remains open: what does Fyodor truly think about perfection, imperfection and God?). Secondly, in Dead Apple, we see Fyodor and his ability merge back together, from two bodies back into one single body, and this action seems completely voluntary on their part, thus opening the possibility that Fyodor and his ability could manifest separately when they will it. This makes me wonder if each of them can take over their shared body (in turns) when they will it, so that one of the lines reflects Fyodor’s way of thinking, and the other line reflects his ability’s way of thinking, thus the two statements are made in separate frames, resulting in no contradictions being made if, and only if, Fyodor and his ability control the shared body in turns. Even so, because they coexist, the ingredients for a singularity are already there within Fyodor, given this example and the Dead Apple scene, because Fyodor and his ability each identify with a term that contradicts the other (“crime” and “punishment”), with a possible implied superiority or “victory” on his ability’s part (the “punishment” bringing the “crime” to an end, lastly “killing” it on a conceptual level, in a succession that implies a linear flow of time). It would be all the more logical, in this context, for Fyodor to desire victory over his own ability at all costs. How his goal is worded in the Dead Apple Official Guidebook, as pointed out by @aja154ever​​ here, could also indicate a suspicious tension between Fyodor and his ability: “To create a world without Abilities is his desire, and it is a mystery if this has any connection to his Crime and Punishment Ability” (see the quote’s full paragraph on his ability in their other post here). For important references from the light novels on what singularities are, how they come into being and how they can manifest, as well as a wonderful theory on the possibility of Dazai being a singularity himself, see @beans-beneath-moonlight​​ ‘s post here. To close this chain of ideas, indeed on the open possibility of Fyodor being a singularity too, I want to mention what @beans-beneath-moonlight​​ observed in their post too, namely that in the BSD light novel 55 Minutes, there is also “Gab”, Jules Verne's ability that took over and killed him, continuing to live on its own as a separate being, so abilities existing separetely from their user’s bodies, as well as malicious abilities that can turn against their users, both can exist in the BSD universe. Lastly, I put just one useful, but short reference below, on a singularity’s cause and terminology:

Professor N in the BSD light novel Storm Bringer: “By causing a logical conflict with your own ability instead of with someone else’s ability, you can create a singularity,” as he said that Professor N raised his index finger and twirled it around. “That sort of ability. The German researchers who first discovered this, had named it ‘self-contradictory-ability-type’.

There is one last relevant dialogue I want to analyze here. Below are all of Fyodor’s words from his first appearance in ch12:

Official translation – Fyodor, ch12: “It’s all as I predicted. No matter what happens, we reserve the right to do as we please. Just as the hand of God and demon wills it…” Fan translation – Fyodor, ch12: “Everything is going as expected. In any case... you are now given free reign... as indicated by the right hand of God and the demons.”

Notice how the official translation says “the hand of God and demon” (demon is singular), while the fan translation says “the (right) hand of God and the demons” (demons is plural). I asked @popopretty​ for their advice as to how to understand this line better and, according to them, the Japanese quote allows for the noun “demon” to be translated either way. I shall put their answer below:

@popopretty​: (…) according to the Japanese version I have, the original phrase for that last sentence is “神と悪霊の右手が示しす通りに”, which directly translates to “as the right hand of God and demons show/point to”. There is no word to indicate that the word demon is singular or plural, but looking at the context, I think it is safe to assume that its plural. It says “right hand” here, which I believe because the phrase “right hand of God” is used a lot in Bible. It doesn’t make much different compared to the “hand of God” though, so I think the translation you quoted is close enough.

I agree that the chapter’s context, as well as the two coated shadows behind Fyodor, allow for an undertanding where “demons”, in plural, refers to Fyodor’s co-workers within his organization, Rats in the House of the Dead. However, since the official translation opted for “demon” in singular, I want to explore the other possibility here: what would it imply if “demon” is indeed meant to be singular here? I would connect this to what is stated to be Fyodor’s motto in the Dead Apple Official Guidebook “Mist Records”: “Follow the guidance of God’s hand”, as translated by @looking-for-stray-dogs here, or “Let the hand of God guide you”, according to the BSD wiki. It seems Fyodor’s character is connected once again to the symbol of the hand, specifically the manus Dei or dextera Dei, which, in art history, indicates divine intervention, divine approval, divine acceptance, as well as God’s – the Creator’s – omnipotence (see, for example, Acts, 7, 50: “nonne manus mea fecit haec omnia?” – “was it not my hand that created all these <things>?”). The hand of God can not only refer to God (the Father) himself, but also to God (the Son), appointing him to his right hand’s side (as prophecized), which means divinely appointing him as both his “representative” and “equal” (“sede a dextris meis donec ponam inimicos tuos scabillum pedum tuorum”, which, mot-a-mot, would go something like this: “sit to my right hand’s side until I put your enemies as the footstool of your feet”, which is Psalm 109, 1 in the Biblia Vulgata, a verse invoked by Christ himself in Matthew, 22, 44, marking a fascinating continuity between the Old and the New Testament). So, considering this information, the expression “the hand of God and demon”, referring to the subject or entity who “wills” whatever it wills, establishes not only a connection, but a shocking equality between the nouns “God” and “demon”, as the hand belongs to both of them. By definition, the two nouns cannot be synonyms, under no condition, thus the subject of the action makes no valid sense and cannot be an actual conceivable “being” without an external reader’s interpretation (like this one I am trying to unfold). Following on that, what can exist or be conceived in the human mind is someone or something whose “being” implies the contradictory yet inseparable coexistence of someone / something that possesses godly traits and someone / something that possesses demonic traits. Therefore, I interpret the expression “the hand of God and demon” as referring to Fyodor himself, or, more precisely, Fyodor’s existence, which implies him and his ability together, where one represents the “god” and the other the “demon”, although it is still unclear which is which. Given all this, I propose the theory that Fyodor is a singularity, just like Dazai (continuing in the spirit of @beans-beneath-moonlight​​ ‘s theory post I referenced before).

Moving on from the singularity discussion, based on Dead Apple’s “I am crime. I am punishment” scene once again, one can only be certain that the link between “sin”, “ability” and “punishment” becomes even stronger, but apparently so does the link between “human” and “crime”. It is no surprise that the famous nouns of the literary work are used for this scene, nouns that can refer to both the active and the passive component of the implied action (commiting a crime vs being the victim of a crime; applying punishment vs receiving punishment). This begs the questions: would freeing the world of abilities also liberate Fyodor of his own punishment (whatever it is, if it exists at all)? does “freeing” the world of abilities even imply “killing” the gifted, and if yes, would that lead Fyodor to a final act of self-sacrifice (or, closer to the etimology of the word “sacrifice”, an act of making the offered thing sacred – himself in this scenario, together with all the gifted)? If we take into account how Fyodor concluded that he and newly “scouted” member Nathaniel Hawthrone “will cover this land in the blood of the sinners” (ch37), together with what Fyodor said as he and Karma looked at Ace’s hanged corpse (ch42, Fyodor: “Thinking is a crime. Breathing is a crime”, or, in the anime’s dub, S3ep4, “Crime starts with thought. As natural as breathing”, emphasizing the naturality of whatever Fyodor identified as humanity’s “crime”), as well as what Nathaniel chanted as he was on his assassination jobs (ch46, to Fukuzawa: “Death! Death! Death to the skill users! An eternal underground sleep with no awakening!”, as well as ch46, to Akutagawa: “Death! Death! Death to the skill users! … To revive my beloved, I must execute the contract of death”), then we have canon ground to believe the death of all gifted is necessary after all, yet Fyodor never uses such expression. It is always “freeing”, “offering the salvation of death to the evil” (note how he does not say “the gifted”), “granting the great silence”, like in how Fyodor talks to Karma in S3ep4: “All evils that plague this world will receive the mercy of death”, “I will do you the honour of granting you the great silence”, “May you be free from the shackles of your crimes, and your soul be salvaged”. This raises another problem: Fyodor himself, as he says, applies cleansing, purification, salvation, liberation, but his ability clearly refers to these acts as “punishment” instead, which is a completely different concept in a religious context as well. So far, once again, this marks a divergence between Fyodor and his ability, another clear moment when the ability seems to behave like a different entity than its user, with a different perception of what the ability itself does (one possibility being, what to Fyodor is “freeing”, to his ability is “punishment”, or that his ability’s “punishment” is a “cleansing” or “freeing” in a corrupted sense of the words). As a closing remark regarding Fyodor’s goal in general, there is still a lot of room to speculate on its true nature if we consider the possibility of Fyodor opposing not the Agency, nor the Port Mafia, but first and foremost the military and different governments who 1) already have a bloody history of using ability users in the war (as implied by Yosano’s backstory and the bits of Fukuchi’s backstory), 2) had (and might still have) special laboratories researching and even artificially creating ability users or researching ways to exploit singularities (BSD Storm Bringer), 3) may have massproduced abilities of specific destructive types, according to one war story of Fukuchi’s past merits (ch82, when we are told he led an operation to eliminate 100.000 “skill-based ‘werewolf’ test subjects”, with Teruko and Jouno visible alongside Fukuchi in the panel describing this – one hundred thousand “test subjects”! for what?), 4) was aware of or working according to an entire skill doctrine, already developed and, I assume, generally-known at the time Mori used Yosano, a mere child, as his slave to achieve his Immortal Regiment plan, meant to prove that abilities are indeed suitable for use in war (ch65). In relation to this, we could take into account the possibility of Fyodor being repulsed by Ace’s behaviour in ch42 (as suggested by certain expressions of Fyodor in the manga), given that Ace represented the perfect example of someone using other people without any consideration of the weight of their lives, their personhood and their inner world. If this is the “evil” that Fyodor wants to purge from this world, and if making abilities disappear, one way or another, would make him accomplish this “greater good” (ending the use and abuse of ability users worldwide), then we are all the more justified in weighing the morality of anyone involved in this large scheme, starting with those implied in Natsume’s Tripartite Framework, supposed to maintain peace in Yokohama (the Armed Detective Agency, the Port Mafia, and the Special Division for Special Powers together with the military police). Besides this, how he phrased his goal in ch46 draws attention to how he identifies at least two different “sins” in current mankind: 1) that they consciously ignore the fact that they are controlled, and 2) that they keep killing each other regardless of said knowledge (ch46, Fyodor: “Man is sinful and foolish. Even if they know it is all an artifice, they cannot help but kill each other. Someone must purify them for those sins”). Based on this, one can assume he wants to stop people from killing each other, by itself a noble goal, but a backstory is much needed to understand the real nature of it before applying judgement. Personally, based on the current status of the manga, I am neutral on this while keeping it in mind, because Fyodor’s higher goal is still ambiguous, and one should not sugarcoat him, nor paint him as a pure demon just yet. After all, all BSD characters are extremely nuanced, and tastefully so. If we also take into consideration his profile page from the BSD Season 3 guidebook (see @ahli-stuff​​ ’s post here) and how he considers his strength “wishing for world happiness” and his favorite type of person “someone who loves all humanity equally”, we can further wonder if Fyodor will be revealed as a character who genuinely cares the most about all of humanity, with a love that may or may not have become dark till present time, or a love that demanded and still demands the cruelest sacrifices.

H. Soft, discreet, graceful, yet playfully dramatic. His body language in the manga, in comparison to the anime

There are many differences between the manga representation and the anime representation of Fyodor’s body language, not to mention the representation of his character overall. I suggest we treat the manga and the anime (this includes Dead Apple) separately and leave the creation of a clear list of the converging and diverging points for another potential post. I shall begin this section with the following statement, in hope of leading anime-only BSD fans to the truth: soft Fedya is real, because canon Fedya is soft. In the manga, Fyodor’s postures and gestures convey gentleness, discreetness, grace and fragility, in multiple instances I shall present below, in a random order.

MANGA. Being considerate. Speaking of discreetness and being considerate, let’s list a few examples of that. In ch42, when Fyodor’s ability activated to kill Karma, causing blood to shoot from Karma’s face, Fyodor did not look at the dying child, turning to face him only after he died, which can be interpreted as an act of respect for Karma’s intimacy during his final moments (see section B for a more in-depth analysis of Karma’s demise). Another occasion when Fyodor’s consideration was evident is in ch49 and how he took off his shoes and coat when entering Katai’s house (basic common manners, even though we must admit this is still bizzare in the context of breaking into a house to shoot someone, but read on), while the anime portrayed him fully-clothed, with his boots on (S3ep10), thus (what can I even say) disrespectful and uncaring of the cleanness of the (nonetheless wild and messy) house of his intended victim (in the end, not too surprising coming from the man who calls even his vampire slave with honorifics, “Chuuya-san”, in ch101, but also his abducted prisoner “Katsura-san” in ch47; for BSD uses of honorifics and nicknames, check this post here, but keep in mind that it covers info till ch87). His consideration of cleanness is also supported by the fact that Fyodor hid his ushanka in a clean, empty wooden box during his mission to stab Mori and infect him with Pushkin’s virus (ch46), yet the anime replaced the wooden box with a dumpster (S3ep8), setting the fandom down a cursed path of tasteless spamjokes basically.

Gentle touch of minimum intrusiveness. In the manga, the hand position when Fyodor is about to use his ability on someone also conveys gentleness and minimum intrusiveness (barely touching the forehead, using the tips of his index and middle fingers). Even the movement towards the forehead appears slow and elegant, thus even more sinister (for more on this hand gesture and its meanings, see section A). In the anime, however, this hand gesture is replaced by one that makes more physical contact with the other person, obstructing their view and breathing while being uncharacteristically intrusive: instead of Fyodor discreetly touching Karma’s forehead like in ch42, in S3ep4 Karma’s face is fully covered by Fyodor’s palm, which looks uncomfortable, unnatural and oppressive. Another revelant portrayal here, one that also conveys Fyodor’s overall gentleness in gestures, is present in ch64’s cover art: in contrast to Dazai, who holds his white pawn between his thumb and index + middle finger, Fyodor holds his black pawn between his thumb and middle + ringfinger, which, if reenacted, distinguishes itself by how Fyodor is using the least amount of pressure possible to lift the chess piece (thus very graceful), and so we have Dazai, who “takes” the piece and moves it insisting on a more secure grip, contrasting with Fyodor who “guides” the piece, letting it gently hang between his fingers as it is swayed following Fyodor’s movements.

High physical endurance. Despite his frail body, we can safely assume Fyodor has high endurance and vitality, given how he did not even flinch when Ace smashed a full wine bottle in his head (ch42) and how he let himself get captured and be kept in harsh prison conditions at least twice (ch42, ch54) before ending up in Meursault. There is also how he ran away from Mori and Elise (ch46) without gasping or showing fatigue afterwards. More canon material is still needed in order to establish how accurate or severe his self-proclaimed anemic condition is (ch42, “My body is weak and anemic”) or his low blood pressure (BSD Season 3 guidebook, but I only had access to this info via this post here and would greatly appreciate someone confirming this).

Oratory skills and expressive hand gestures. In the manga, Fyodor is always highly expressive in what regards his hand gestures during speeches, yet in a practical and elegant way, implying he has great oratory skills or training, besides excellent communication and manipulation skills (discussed in section C and pretty much all others). In ch42: Fyodor clapped as his card game with Ace ended, thus expressing joy through words and action; Fyodor pretended to be taken aback by Ace having listened to his and Karma’s talk, scratching his head in a wide-open gesture, conveying surprise and acknowledgement of Ace’s skills; Fyodor put a hand to his chest when telling Ace he has trained himself for “battles of starvation”, this gesture emphasizing the personal aspect of the information he offered, which this gesture implies is wholehearted and sincere. In ch46, while explaining his strategy and his way of thinking to Dazai, Fyodor uses various hand gestures to illustrate his phrases as well: extended arm explaining; hand pointing towards Dazai; explaining his higher goal with open palms in front of him, but close to his body, suggesting solemnity and confessed determination; sadly, all these gestures were replaced in the anime with Fyodor just holding his ushanka to his chest, conveying the same type of message as when he held his hand to his chest in front of Ace in ch42, as I described a few phrases above; still, at least in S3ep4 anime Fyodor gesticulated a lot while talking to Ace before the latter’s suicide, following ch42 pretty closely). In ch55, after entering Mushitaro’s basement prison cell, as Fyodor was revealing his intention behind freeing Mushitaro, he raised both hands to his chest, his fingers resting on each side of his heart, a gesture meant to suggest utmost sincerity. After that, still in ch55, when informing Mushitaro on the change of his condition (Mushitaro was captive, “but that ends today”, as Fyodor said), he held his right index finger to his lips, in a mischievous display of secrecy and child-like playfulness. This same gesture can have sinister undertones as well, given how it already appeared in ch47 in this way, where it is suggested, in a flashback background, that Fyodor did the same gesture when asking fake Pushkin to convey the “No changing the rules” message to the Agency, and they found this out after the death of the children. Lastly, these oratory skills can be used in playfully dramatic ways too, like in ch64, when Fyodor switched to the discourse of an overly-expressive, lively host of a (talk)show, as he suggested Dazai to participate in his “All-smiles Problem-solving Roooooundtable, hosted by yours truly, Dostoyevsky”, tilting his head further and further to his right as Dazai expressed growing confusion at first. About Fyodor tilting his head and what it means, see the paragraph below. So, all these scenes point to the fact that Fyodor gesticulates a lot, especially for emphasis and expressiveness during speeches or conversations, or for the fun of the dramatic effect.

Curiosity and tilt of the head. In conversational circumstances, we often see Fyodor tilting his head to his side. In his case, this is an expression of curiosity, in the sense of being (or wanting to appear to be) genuinely interested in the other person’s answers. Note that the simple tilt of the head to one’s side can also express endearment towards the thing one looks at (in genuine concern or admiration of something beautiful or dear, for example), but, combined with oratory skills – which Fyodor possesses as a master of communication – this can be a very effective tool that translates into non-verbal emotional manipulation. To give a few examples, Fyodor tilted his head 1) when he asked Sigma if he wished for a home (ch75), 2) when he replied to Nikolai capturing the essence of his inner conflict (ch78), 3) when greeting (and even bowing to) Mushitaro in the basement, just before offering him a deal to escape (ch55). In all these cases, the persons Fyodor was conversing with were already in a vulnerable situation (Sigma wandering in desperation, Nikolai presenting his inner struggle, Mushitaro being held captive), and thus Fyodor made sure to bind each of them to himself, planting the seeds of dependency by offering them validation and emotional response. Moreover, as a gesture of (apparent) trust, if someone tilts their head to the side, they present themselves in a vulnerable position (the neck area is open), subtly conveying the message that the other person is in a position of superiority, deepening the trap that, in Fyodor’s case, ends with the other people becoming dependent on him as the “benign” manipulator. Still, because of the display of vulnerability, the tilt of the head in itself is a gentle, humbling gesture, very fitting for Fyodor, whose character presence builds on the inexplicable tension between the terror and apprehension brought by his vast intellect and unknown powers, and the humility and gentleness of his speech and body language. The fact that, as of now, we still cannot draw a firm line and say from where to which point Fyodor’s gestures and words are genuinely benevolent or actually malevolent, so he remains beyond good and evil, and fascinatingly so, until more of his character or backstory is revealed. As a last example of Fyodor tilting not his head, but his entire body as an expression of curiosity, in ch42, finding Ace’s vault, Fyodor did exactly that and approached it together with a curious look (eyes opened wider, eyebrows raised), asking Karma something to which Fyodor already knew the answer probably anyway (“Oh, is this it? The vault where ace holds his jewels temporarily, to prevent a price collapse?”) and still Fyodor asked Karma because, I assume, having a conversation made the discovery simply more fun for the moment.

Biting his fingertips and nails. In ch42, Fyodor is seen biting his fingertips in three different panels, and yet the anime (S3ep4) never shows him doing this. Later on, we never see him biting his fingertips “on screen”, but “behind the scenes” he has been continuously doing so even up to the most recent chapter. Looking closely, you can see how his fingertips and nails are damaged and rough even at Meursault, for example, in ch95, when Fyodor is passing Dazai the salt, or in ch101, when Fyodor is inputting security codes to unlock prison doors. Of course, among other things, this habit indicates a Crime and Punishment novel reference, which should be discussed in a different post, and has in fact been discussed in nice posts by other BSD fans already. This aside, unlike his depiction in Dead Apple, manga Fyodor consistently keeps his hands ungloved.

Surprise and adrenaline rush. Other than the moments when his face shows curiosity, in the manga Fyodor’s composure appears to break rather often to express surprise, usually when 1) an brilliant move was made by an adversary team or someone else, but more recently also when 2) the enemy team made a move faster than Fyodor expected. In several of these occasions, his shock is accompanied by what seems to be delight, and I would interpret this as Fyodor enjoying the adrenaline rush of near-death situations (Nikolai’s prison game, introduced in ch95.5 / ch96, to which both Fyodor and Dazai reacted in a grimly ecstatic way) or general “end of the road” scenarios (Dazai and Fitzgerald “catching” him in ch53, although Mushitaro revealed that Fyodor’s capture was intentional in ch54: “And I… can never be forced to reveal the reason Dostoyevsky let them capture him!”). Now, for the second type of surprise, the clearest examples are Fyodor’s ch101 reactions to being cornered by Dazai and the prison room starting to get filled by heavy water. His expressions there do betray true shock, as much as his stare at the end of ch101 expresses true boiling anger and determination, but one must note that, despite letting his composure break, Fyodor may have already anticipated Dazai’s moves, and the true source of his surprise was Dazai executing said moves sooner than anticipated by Fyodor (for example, when the code input device explodes in front of Fyodor’s face, after an initial shocked expression, his eyes regain a look of steel, rationalizing “he got the circuit already”). In any case, for most insight on the whole ch101 situation and the in-context implications of this “already”, I recommend checking out @videogamelover99​​ ’s post here on, well, basically Dazai being too Dazai for his own good, or @vampireonastick​​ ’s post here for more discussion on the whole ch101 situation).

ANIME. The anime went with a different characterization of Fyodor entirely so far (as of now, November 2022, the anime has 3 completed seasons, and the trailer for January 2023���s season 4 revealed enough to see the anime’s characterization for Fyodor has not changed at all). In the anime, instead of being soft and discreet, Fyodor is confident, audacious and, I would say, stereotypically evil and creepy, whereas in the manga his sinister side comes to the reader’s eyes as a result of all the subtleties his behaviour and schemes imply, as well as a result of the contrast between his gentle appearance and his unnerving actions and plans, as I already wrote above. For example, in S3ep8, anime Fyodor smirked daringly at Mori after he stabbed the Mafia boss, seemingly enjoying it, yet in the manga Fyodor kept a blank face. Since various other differences between the manga and the anime were already discussed before this point of my essay, I propose an analysis of Fyodor’s body language in Dead Apple specifically, which goes hand in hand with his portrayal in the anime, and therefore differs significantly from the soft Fyodor we get to know in the manga.

Secrecy. In Dead Apple, in the first scene that reunites Shibusawa, Dazai and Fyodor, we see Fyodor approaching their table with confident steps and hands in what appears a rather tight grip, as opposed to letting his fingers comfortably open on each side of his body. This could express repressed or hidden intentions, as his fingers, in a fist, cover his palms and do not allow a completely relaxed stance. Next, unlike Dazai, Fyodor does not cross his legs when at the table, he instead positions both his feet firmly and perpendicularly on the ground, which conveys confidence as well, and is meant to assert total control of the room. When putting his arms on the table, he intertwines his fingers and rests his chin on his joined hands. This is a meditative position, suggesting a serious thought process going on behind his puzzling smile (again, suggesting confidence), as well as careful planning, or simply waiting for things to happen as he planned beforehand. His closed eyes shut down the world outside him, we could interpret this as logical in this situation if Fyodor has already predicted and planned everything through, which the movie suggests was indeed the case. The outside world is not as necessary to see in that case, plus he is surrounded by people who will not act impuslively and threaten each other out of the blue, so a sense of blind trust stays between the three strategists. One last thing to note about this scene is the fact that only Shibusawa and Fyodor are facing each other, while Dazai is facing no one, which may subtly suggest the personal bond between Shibusawa and Fyodor, one that Dazai does not share with anyone in the room, or (arguably) anyone at all after Odasaku’s death.

Confidence. In Dead Apple, Fyodor’s pose conveys confidence when Shibusawa shows Dazai the Draconia room (Fyodor is seen with his left hand on his waist, in contrapposto); Fyodor’s pose conveys having hidden motives when he and Dazai entered the Draconia room in secret (Fyodor has his back turner to both Dazai and the viewers, with his hands in his coat’s pockets; Fyodor’s pose conveys confidence AND having hidden motives when Shibusawa surprisingly stabs Dazai, followed by Dazai asking Fyodor “Didn’t you lock the door?” (Fyodor has his hands in his pockets, but also smirks and chuckles at Dazai while looking down to him, with Fyodor’s chin slightly raised).

A playful mind. As to what regards Fyodor’s playful mind, it is made more or less evident through Fyodor’s play of words and sharp, intelligent replies (see section E for his love for entertainment specifically). In Dead Apple, as the singularity event unfolds, Fyodor told a shocked Shibusawa that he will “fill in all the blanks” for him: Fyodor added “I’ll even tell you what was cut out”, proceeding to cut Shibusawa’s throat immediately after. This is a splendid play of word and action, coordinating them in a twisted sense of playfulness, indulging michievously in living a life entertaining for himself. But seriously, for more on Fyodor and his sense of entertainment, see section E above, it would be superfluous to repeat ideas here.

– – –

11 November 2022. At last, we arrived at the end of this essay. The end for now at least, as I could technically add more analysis and external references in the future, if my irl schedule allows it. Since January 2022 I’ve been working on this “thing” I jokingly called “marriage proposal PhD”, because why not, this is an accurate example of how an ENTP proposes to an INTJ, where understanding the other (or continuously trying to) is peak intimacy and love. I guess. However, I “yeeted” my emotions out while I was writing this, because nothing would have angered me more than my appreciation of this character clouding my judgement or making me err in my pursuit of the many subtleties that lead to his many paradoxical traits. Whether I will update this post or not in the future, I cannot promise. This post is intended to be my last contribution to the BSD fandom, but my ask box remains open for futher discussions on BSD or other media analysis. I doubt fans will read everything I wrote, and I am certain the fandom will perpetuate the cycle of Fedya’s mischaracterization despite my best efforts to bring many canon scenes showing different sides of him into the spotlight. 

Yes... Despite everything, I am at peace. I thought no media could revive my passion for analysis anymore, no character could make me draw fanart again, and yet... and yet!... Fedya is exactly the type of character one can analyze ad infinitum and feel thrilled at each discovery, at each little possible implication of a word or gesture. No matter how tranquil he may seem, no matter how certain we may be at first of his exterior serenity, for everything his character encapsulates, for everything we know and don’t know about him thus far, Fyodor’s soul is likely vessel to an incredible inner tension, origin of his determination. As I was writing more and more, I discovered he is intense, so truly intense, and that intensity has brought me… and brings me... and will bring me

boundless bliss.

Happy birthday, радость моя.

#bsd #bsd fyodor #bsd fyodor dostoevsky #bsd analysis #bsd meta #bungou stray dogs #bsd fyodor dostoyevsky #bungou stray dogs fyodor #bsd fyodor analysis #fyodor bsd #bungou stray dogs analysis #bsd character analysis #character analysis #analysis #unsolved and endless #beauties and gentlebeauties this is Lav's Fedya essay #please note that with a single reveal in the manga Fedya could make this entire thing come crashing down and I love this possibility #truly in-character till the end #Nov2022: my only regret is that I still had 100+ bsd analysis posts saved to read through and perhaps add more in-fandom refs to this #even when my and OP's analysis align only regarding 1 idea or 2 I find it highly valuable to cross-reference and communicate #I've seen both crueler takes and softer takes on Fedya's character - and some takes that have no solid canon ground as well #I value them all because discussion is important and it builds our minds - but mischaracterization should be recognized as such #I hope that in the future I can update this essay with more references to express my gratitude towards the analysis part of the fandom too #till then I hope the readers of this enjoyed it and know that I am open for discussion in the replies or ask box #even if it will take me a while to answer

[invinciblerodent]

So, uh.... my boy has finally got a boyfriend, I finally got Gale's second romance scene, and... man. I have a LOT of thoughts and feelings, and woefully few words to describe them. (But I'll try to keep it vague, lol.)

I honestly love how the writers didn't shy away from writing this to be something so earnestly, unapologetically STRANGE, but so heartfelt and romantic. That Weave scene, while it sounds weird on paper, I honestly don't think I've seen a romance scene that was more representative of a character before. I already felt like I related to Gale quite a bit, but now, I feel like I see him on almost a whole new level. Now, he showed just how deeply INTENSE a man he is.

Yeah, there is a bit of showboating in him (though I've always kinda seen that as less of a "look how awesome I am" and more a "look how useful I can be, please like me"), and overall he presented a pretty restrained image- but now, with that recolored by this, I feel like it all goes to show how he really just YEARNS for someone to know him. It most shows in how after telling him that you love him too, he immediately throws all his doors open, invites you in, whisks you away to the part of the world that feels most meaningful to him, shows you all that he feels important- the Weave included.

He wants to show you everything, to share all that he feels is himself with you, be DEEPLY, INTIMATELY KNOWN by you... and he just wants to GIVE you so much, show you so much love, so much pleasure, so much OF HIMSELF, that just one set of limbs, just one of him isn't even enough! He wants to melt into you, hold you with more limbs than a human could ever possess, become one with you and give you all that he is while taking in all that you are...!!!!

And all he wants in return is that you accept him, with a his... unusual, eager, awkward, kind, smart-mouthed, somewhat melodramatic, loving, silly, deeply DEVOTED self, and his love that feels so vast, he wouldn't be able to fully express it even if there were three of him. This man is so full of love for you, he's all but bursting at the seams.

I feel... emotional. I don't think I've ever been THIS moved by a video game love scene (I can't even bring myself to call it a sex scene, these mfs didn't just have sex, they made love), like I know that feeling!!!! I've FELT that before!!!!! And I, as myself, a person, not as someone roleplaying a character, felt weirdly SEEN just now!!!!

I'm just overall very impressed.

.... Oh, and the way he drops on one knee to kiss his new, dwarfy boyfriend? Just adorable. I know all companions do that when they touch a shorter player character (I still love the way Karlach crumpled into my boy's arms in the hug scene), but it still feels kinda special.

(You just know these two assholes are going to be so deeply OBNOXIOUS about being in love. Like yes, they already were, but now that they know their feelings are mutual, they'll be like... fkin holding hands while traveling, and cuddling by the fire, and all that cutesy shit. God, I'm so endeared.)

#squirrel plays bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 gale #bg3 gale romance #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #what a way for Arvid to end his 35 years of celibacy #he won't be able to wipe that dopey look off his face for at least the next day #I'm sure there'll be some... less esoteric and more MORTAL activities too but.... yeah this had to be their first time #it set the bar very high though for sure #i also instantly got why his romance is strictly monogamous #yeah that felt less like sex and more like trading parts of their fkin souls #i fully get it now #that was the perfect first time for them #(i also just went for a long rest because I wanted to swap Gale's spells out whoops)

[lxvebun]

What do gods dream of?

୨୧Content: Softish sukuna x gender neutral reader. Not caught up on his backstory this is purely from the little world in my head so it may be off. Fluff. Blood. Somewhat mortality and Immortality topics. nightmares. He's a Lovesick fool rlly. Let me know if I missed anything<3 I hope you enjoy the product of me getting out of writers block, emo ramblings at 3 AM and demon boyfriend brainrot<3 not proofread I am sleepy forgive me for any mistakes♡

Truly he can't recall the last time he dreamt. Dreaming sounds so innocent, such a flurry of colors and warmth doesn't suit him even in non existent realities. The question does make him wonder, more so because you're the one who asked him. Your voice sweet like honey and full of curiosity. What were his dreams like? Did they once make feelings of hope flow through his veins, did he dream of big delicious feasts under full moons or the warm sun and ocean waves kissing his skin? Or was he unfortunate enough to be plagued by nightmares, dreams that have turned as dark and cruel as his soul is right now? If he did he hopes they were atleast up to his standards that he has now as the king of curses.

For example, were the edges of his nightmare dripping with blood, was his every move observed from creatures in the dark, did the wind carry icy whispers to him, were the trees closing in on him, did the stars flicker out together with his dreamlike hope, did the sky open up into one giant empty black hole? Was he crushed under the weight of it all?

Now that he thinks about it, did he become the things he used to have nightmares about? did he become worse? Were they really nightmares or rather visions, fragments of his future self seeping through the cracks of his already breaking cursed soul. Who's blood is it thats dripping down the edges, is it on his hands?, is he the one observing every footstep, every shaky breath as they hide, would he move the grounds and break open the heavens, did he become all he ever dreamt of?

It doesn't matter now does it. It's silly for someone..something like him to think so deeply about a random question like that. But it's you who asked and if anyone else had dared to speak to him so casually, he would have been able to add a few more skulls to his throne. But it's you, and although he's not even sure how you see him, if these almost feverishly love sick emotions he has somehow managed to feel flow through you as well when you think of him, he would give you the world if you'd just asked, but right now all you want is an answer to your rather random question, he can atleast give you that.

Because for the first time in a long, long time he feels something warm, something alive and fluttering bloom in his chest again and he's pretty sure it's you

"Well, if gods were able to dream i'm sure it would be of the one thing thats just outside of their reach, someone probably." he finishes. His tone teethering on the edge of vulnerability, but before you're able to dwell on it he speaks again " something I don't relate to myself, of course" he says, shooting you a smirk. Legs crossed and chin resting on his hand

"Of course you wouldn't. But you do have quite the imagination" you start as you look down at his....interesting choice of a throne " use it. if you were able to dream, what would you want to dream of?

He pretends to think for a few seconds but honestly the moment that question left your lips his mind was already screaming the answer at him.

You're taken back when he turns to look at you again and his gaze has softened immensely, eyes lovingly tracing over the details of your face, a slight smile creeping up on his lips as he answers-

"You, of course"

#sukuna x gender neutral reader #jjk #jjk x gender neutral reader #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x gender neutral reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen fluff #sukuna ryomen x reader #soft sukuna #sukuna x reader #sukuna ryomen #jujutsu kaisen fanfic #jjk fluff

[we-stan-cale]

I have enjoyed some of the TCF reaction fics, but I feel like there's a major problem.

Namely, that it's really hard for fic writers to stay motivated for over 700+ chapters, so it feels like they all start off strong for the beginning (especially rescuing Raon) and then peter out. We never get to the really good stuff.

Never reach that flashback when Cale reads the letter from the GoD, or see reactions to Choi Han rushing over to see Kim Rok Soo after getting Choi Jung Soo's records. Never have them see the Sealed God's test, and really... Post-apocalyptic Korea horrified Alberu, for good reason. Not that it's explicitly stated, but when is it ever? He had quite the reaction when he was trying to decide what to tell everyone else.

I've had some thoughts on how I would do it, but fair warning - I'm not much of a writer, and will probably never write it. All my respect for the ones that regularly write fanfic because I have like - less than a handful? Maybe, maybe, if I haven't moved on after finishing this reread, I'll try writing it myself.

The other thing is that I've been reading part 2 - only as far as eatapplepies has translated as I find mtl more confusing than helpful - and I'm really liking the Heavenly Demon. He seems to have fallen for our Cale pretty hard, and I'm interested in seeing how that goes.

So I have been playing around with ideas.

First - Dodam is trying to find 'that terrible bastard', and is dragging around his Choi Han.

He reaches Korea. Og!Cale as KRS, specifically. He has his own attribute, one to help him track down Cale, so he can pull up visions/memories related to that.

He pulls up the dream meeting between Cale and KRS.

There are a few team 1 members present, particularly Kim Minh Ah. Cue a bit of chaos, some 'aha' moments, and the long and the short of it is Dodam is going to pull up some of just what they're team leader is up to. (And if Dodam can figure out exactly which world or dimension to to next, and OG! Cale gets the bittersweet ability to see how his deal with the God of Death prevented the destruction he'd lived through, well... That's fine too)

During that brief moment, the Henituse noticed some strange mana fluctuations and managed to get Rosalyn there. She's basically able to tap into the feed and see and hear what's going on.

And divine intervention (like perhaps a god of love) extends the feed to the Heavenly Demon.

What would follow would be an abbreviated version of the key points. Sure, it loses some of the flavor... But we don't actually need, say, the amusing anecdote where an elf mistook Cale for a dragon.

Anyways, the more I thought about it the more I thought about how team 1 would react.

Because the minute they see those monster statues you know they'll all be going 'what the fuck?!?'

They will probably also nod knowingly at some of Cale's more shocking plans. Like hey, there he goes agreeing to help the Mogoru Empire put out the fire he started with the Whipper kingdom.

Nod, nod

Just like he did when they were dealing with that one corrupt guild

And if they ever get as far as seeing the Heavenly Demon, I'm sure one team member will be like 'Is.. is he flirting with Team Leader-nim?!?'

Cue stories where Team Leader Kim Rok Soo avoided a honeypot - except now they're thinking maybe he was just too dense to notice?

#tcf #lcf #trash of the count's family #cale henituse #reaction fic #fic ideas

[ashirisu]

hey, everyone!

My name is Ley (pronounced like "Lee," she/they) and I'm a fiction writer/editor based in the PNW. I haven't done a proper writeblr intro in a while, so I figure the new year is a great time to reintroduce myself to the community!

— about me

An important thing to understand about me and the way I talk about writing is that this stuff is literally my entire life. Even outside of work, I don't think I have a single interest or hobby that doesn't relate back to storytelling in some capacity. I'm an avid media consumer and critic, and will hyperanalyze just about anything that catches my fancy for more than a minute.

I love science fiction and fantasy, and my goal as a writer is to take all the genres I loved growing up and create stories that are a little more diverse, inclusive, and queer.

— about the blog

I came to writeblr mostly to share my work, but also to find an active community where I can get excited with other writers and talk shop. Marketing is obviously a really important part of the publishing industry, but I get tired of having to filter every thought I have about my work and experiences through the lens of aesthetic micro-trends just to put it out in the world. Sometimes I just want to pop off about scenes I'm proud of, you know?

Above all else, I really just want to connect with more writers like myself, ones who got their start in fandom spaces and are working to take their writing from a hobby into a career. I see you, I am you, I love you, let's be friends!

— about my writing

I write a lot, though most of it is disconnected nonsense. Flash fiction and short stories are where I really thrive as a writer. I don't tend to commit to long-form projects, but I have a few projects that I'll occasionally share details about!

I like to describe my style as "earnest and character-forward," which is a fancy way of saying that I like driven protagonists who think too much and are emotional to the point of it being a character flaw.

My goal is to share more of my original writing moving forward, so hopefully you'll get to see all of this for yourself. If I'm totally honest, though, you'll probably see more of me discussing my work than actually writing it.

— about my projects

Here are the things you'll most likely see me posting about:

Agnomen: A sci-fi retelling of Hamlet and Coriolanus, currently in its very preliminary stages. It is literally my Roman Empire, except it's set on a moon of a planet that I'm calling Jupiter as a placeholder (but please note that it isn't actually Jupiter, as Jupiter is a gas giant and therefore a scientifically impossible setting for large sections of the plot).

Alter Ego: A superhero fic in which not-so-mild-mannered reporter Drew Derrick fights for mutant rights and can't seem to get his act together when it comes to keeping the complicated parts of his life separate.

Untitled Fantasy Project: The very first project I ever wrote, and the piece I return to every so often when writing is feeling more like a slog than a fun hobby. I set a lot of one-offs in this world and follow a few key characters around without them having a real plot.

D&D: I write a lot about Baz, my Wild Magic Barbarian. He's a regency noble with a lot of problems, and I care about him very much. I also have various other settings and characters, but he's my most active PC at the moment and therefore gets the most attention.

Short Stories: Sometimes I write these, and sometimes I like them enough to share!

— tag directory

ley rambles: my (often wordy) opinions about things

ley writes: not necessarily my writing, but talking about my writing

my writing: stories, blurbs, and other content I've written

not my writing: reblogs and creative writing that I liked, shared, and sometimes commented on

#also i am open to asks and tag games! #looking forward to getting to know you all #writeblr intro #writeblr #writing #creative writing #writing community

[personasintro]

Hey my beautiful writer!!! I hope you are doing good in your life and even if not, don't worry we are always here to support you!!:)

Your story MH has really touched the bottom of my heart and trust me, i love the characters you created. It's as if, i can relate to what's happeing in the story. And if i am completely honest, there are some parts of the story that i have witnessed in my real life as well. Not entirely, but bits and pieces. And that's what makes me love it even more. I can't stop thinking about it and how the story will continue because every time you update a new chapter, a found myself reading suddenly a very different and interesting part that is beyond my imagination. And that's what makes it even more exciting!!! Believe me, i truly love you and the story as well!!

However, there is one thing that i am very curious about and i can't stop myself asking you. From all the chapters i have read, our taehyung is a social butterfly who is quite(actually very) optimistic, chill out person and spends his life drinking and having one night stands with women. But, i really wanna see him falling in love with a girl who changes him into a one man person. What will his reaction be when he finds out there is a woman he loves? Is he still gonna be the way he is? Or will he change himself to be worthy of her?

I am really sorry if i am pressuring you, but i was really curious. I will wait for your answer. And one again, i love your characters and you as well!!!

Stay happy and healthy!!! Love you❤

Hey, thank you very much! I'm happy you love and enjoy the story ♡

I would actually like to think of him as someone who doesn't necessarily needs "the other person" and I love the way he is, even tho he's not exactly the role model or has a lifestyle people would typically go for hahah. I love that he doesn't give a fuck about love and is just enjoying his life, no matter how reckless it is.

#ask #ask: mutual help

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  deadratz/@munsonkitten! They have 32 works in the Stranger Things fandom on AO3 and 31 of those are in the Steddie tag!

Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by @munsonkitten:

the sound of silence

float among the wreckage

share the same space for a minute or two

you make me feel like i am whole again

sugar on my tongue

"In a fandom with over 20 thousand fics, it's hard to find fics that stand out, and Grim has so many that feel like a breath of fresh air for the characters. His specialty is exploring Eddie's trauma, past and present, and being patient with letting him heal in a messy, realistic way that tears your heart out and puts it back. Grim takes on topics that can be difficult to explain, like trauma and gender exploration, and puts them into words so perfectly. His fics are entertaining and heartfelt and always hot, no matter which one you open, you're in for a treat and he has some hidden gems! Regardless of what's popular, Grim stays true to the characters and it's easy to trust him with them, and that's something to appreciate!" -- anonymous

Below the cut, @munsonkitten answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

When Season 4 came out, I had lost all motivation in my old fandoms. I hadn’t written anything in months, but then I saw Eddie and fell in love instantly. As I was watching, I started to have this little thought like “is anyone else seeing this?” when I saw Steve and Eddie interact, and I ended up on AO3, reading through anything that looked good out of the 300 fics that came out in those first couple of days, and then I kept reading, and I was completely inspired. I was pulled in, and I tried to write something between volumes 1&2 that didn’t go anywhere, but I didn’t want to give up on them because there was just this pull that kept me thinking of them, and then, of course, we saw Eddie’s fate and I immediately had to rectify that in my own way. I love writing Steve and Eddie because they come from very different worlds, but as a queer punk who also played sports in high school, I know firsthand how those worlds can collide and I can relate to both Steve and Eddie and how they fit into their places as the freak/jock. There’s also just a certain coziness that comes with writing Steddie for me, like they’re familiar and something I can find safety in. They’re both complex characters with traumatic experiences and there’s comfort in that and there’s comfort in being able to process my own life through the perspective of the two of them and apply different things to their canon personalities and backstories. It really comes down to, like, even though they’ve fought monsters, they’re really just regular guys, too. They’re relatable and accessible because their lives are pretty average without the monster stuff. I don’t find myself wasting time doing tons of research about certain jobs or lifestyles as I have with other pairings in the past. Steddie has just given me a lot of freedom to do what I want.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

There are so many tropes that I love. I think a lot of them depend on how they’re written, of course, so even tropes I don’t typically like to read can end up being really good to me. My go-to answer for this is usually pre-dating sharing a bed/only one bed, whether they’re sharing because they get paired up together on a trip; they’re laying low at Steve’s and Steve needs to keep an eye on Eddie while he’s healing; nightmares bringing them to each other in the middle of the night; or one of them just crashing in the other’s bed. I think there’s something so intimate about the way these scenes can be written, something very vulnerable that I just love. There’s a lot of trust that goes into being comfortable enough sleeping near someone else, and I think it’s a really good way to start Steve and Eddie’s relationship. I also love, love like any kind of friends with benefits situation where they’re obviously pining for each other and completely in love but try to pretend the things they do together is just “helping a friend out,” while mutually being in denial of feelings. It serves for great tension and there’s always really good pay off when they start dating.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

My answer for this is really similar to the last one. First and foremost, I write what I want to read. I’m just very drawn to these kinds of fics with pre-relationship intimacy that turns into something solid between them. So I love writing only one bed and pining/fwb/friends to lovers fics as much as I love reading them.

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

It’s hard to choose just one favorite after almost two years of reading Steddie fics, but some real stand out fics for me that I’ve read fairly recently have been Trouble Looks Good on You by indelicate, Metamorphoses by fastcardotmp3, Play it Right by stereobone, and Doing Nothing with You by redoaktree. All of these give such nice depth to the characters and their situations and have stuck with me. “Trouble” is still ongoing, but I trust Rue (indelicate) with these characters so much that I can say it’s one of my favorites without having the entire fic yet. It just hits so many of my boxes for Steddie, has all the right factors for a phenomenal fic, and stays so true to the characters in my opinion.

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

I have so many plans for upcoming fics, but one I’ve been trying to find time to write for over a year now deals with a lot of grief/mourning of a loved one and includes rockstar!Eddie with a good slooow burn. It’s all things I’ve somewhat explored, but want to really expand upon with this one. I feel like I haven’t written a proper slow burn, either, because I tend to do fwb situations with slow burns on the emotional aspects and admitting feelings part of their relationship, and I want to do a full slowburn in more aspects of their relationship. 

What is your writing process like?

Usually I’m inspired by something, whether it’s a situation that happens to me or something I see on TV, and I think about what kinds of stories could be told with those elements. Sometimes I take one trope and try to build a fic around it, sometimes I see a tiktok or a scene in a show and decide I need to use that in something. Other times, I just have a sentence in my head that I have to write down and it turns into a whole page and then suddenly I have 5k words. A lot of my process is spent brainstorming with friends, talking through scenarios and seeing what kinds of responses they get, other times I have an idea and I run with it and don’t tell anyone until it’s done. There are some fics I’ve fully outlined and then gone in completely different directions, and there are some fics I never wrote down a single note for. I’ve had a few fics that started as just single sentences and turned into paragraphs and merged them with other ideas in other documents. My process is kind of chaotic and always changes, if I’m being honest, but it works for me. I think it entirely depends on the mood of the fic I’m trying to write, how much research goes into it, and how long it’s going to be, and all of that. Sometimes I’ll sit down to write something fully knowing it won’t go anywhere just to get me into a writing mood. I’m really all over the place with my process.

Do you have any writing quirks?

I don’t know if this is really a quirk, but I’m the type of person who will go weeks without writing anything and then suddenly have an entire chapter or oneshot finished in two days. I procrastinate until I realize I need to do something or until inspiration really hits me and then I just lock it in and write nonstop until it’s done.

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

This is kind of fic-dependent. If I know for sure that I have the time and motivation for a story, I post as soon as I get chapters finished. If I know I don’t have the capacity for another long form fic, I’ll write out the first chapter and leave it in my drafts until I get a bit further on it, just working when I’m between other projects or stumped on something else. I wouldn’t exactly say I post on a schedule because it’s nowhere near consistent, but I’ve never finished a full multi-chaptered fic before I start posting. I do write a lot of oneshots and two chapter shorter fics, though, so those two chaptered ones are usually close to finished before I post them.

Which fic are you most proud of?

Hands down, the sound of silence. They’re not done yet, but ‘you make me feel like i am whole again,’ and ‘sugar on my tongue’ are also up there with ‘sound of silence.’ It’s my longest fic in this fandom (currently) and my second longest fic I’ve ever written. I put so much of myself into this fic and I’m just really proud of myself for it. There were some definite challenges with this one, with one character in the main pairing barely having any dialogue for the first half of the fic, with the other half of the pairing navigating his newfound sexuality and his life being turned upside down yet again, and I also have a few outsider POVs like Wayne, El, Robin and Hopper sprinkled in there, which is always difficult to work in for me. I’m proud of myself for doing all of that and finishing it.

How did you get the idea for the sound of silence?

This fic started as two separate documents, just unconnected pieces of different stories, both of them hitting dead ends with no hope for continuation. I had started with just a simple idea of Wayne and Steve meeting after the events of season 4 put Eddie in the hospital, and I wanted to show the way Wayne cares for the people who love Eddie, and that ended up becoming the beginning of the fic once I put all the pieces together. The other document I had started around the same time was a short Wayne POV about living with Eddie after S4 and the person he turned into after losing so much of himself. I wanted to explore the idea of someone as loud as Eddie going non-verbal for weeks to months at a time (something I explored in a different fandom, so that sort of inspired me to write SOS too), and when I finally put those together, it just felt like everything was so clear to me and I took off with these ideas.

When writing float among the wreckage, what was something you didn’t expect?

Oh boy. This one was actually difficult for me because I wanted it to be a hate sex fic, and I realized I’m just incapable of making Steve and Eddie hate each other at all. I did something like that one other time earlier when the fandom was still pretty new, but wreckage came to me nearly a year into writing them and I’d really cemented the idea of these characters in my head, and it was just… Very unexpected that I struggled to tap into that tension and hatred. It ended up being less about hating each other and more about misplaced/misidentified feelings in the end.

What inspired share the same space for a minute or two?

I think my friend Teddy actually gave me the main idea for this one. An end of the world “I’m going to die a virgin” apocalypse setting during “season 5.” From that, I just started writing and saw where it took me, and I’m happy with where I took it. Sometimes all I need is one sentence and then I have 11k words written in just a few days, and that fic was one of those times.

What was your favorite part to write from sugar on my tongue?

This is a really hard question because I love so much of this fic and it’s still ongoing so I might still write something I love even more than any previous parts. Without giving too much away, it’s probably a tie between their first smut scene in chapter 1, their club night in chapter 2, and the part in chapter 3 where Eddie’s walking down the road after he runs out of gas and has a lot of introspection about his life and how he finds safety in Steve. One of my close friends told me the writing in that last part was beautiful and I’ve since decided it’s one of my favorite things I’ve written.

How do/did you feel writing the sound of silence?

Sound of Silence was very cathartic for me. I’m so proud of this fic and it deals with so much I rarely see in fanfiction – some of the topics are unsexy and there are a lot of symptoms of mental illness that are highly stigmatized that people just might not want to read in a story. But I knew it was the story I needed to tell for Eddie, mostly, but for Steve, too, and for myself. It’s not always happy, but it’s real to me. Life can be ugly and people can be volatile and traumatized and struggle with sexual function and have undesirable compulsions, and writing that whole fic felt like a release in a way because it’s stuff I relate to and stuff my best friends have also gone through. And the comments on this fic have made me feel seen and less alone in the things I struggle with that I had Steve and Eddie struggle with, as well. I think it’s just really important to have those fics that give at least one reader some comfort in their own situations.

What was the most difficult part of writing you make me feel like i am whole again?

This fic is about gender identity and pregnancy and love and all sorts of stuff that can be hard to put into words. I’ve never experienced a pregnancy, so there’s a lot of research that goes into that, a lot of reading firsthand accounts and finding out all sorts of things that weren’t taught in sex-ed classes. It’s also been a very vulnerable fic for me because Steve and Eddie both experience gender in ways that I do, too. Every time I write about identity and dysphoria through them, I’m putting parts of myself on display for others, and that can be hard, especially when people don’t always understand. I’m very protective over this fic, and I’ve had to defend aspects of it from people who can’t always accept other people’s experiences with gender identity and queerness. That’s been difficult, even well meaning comments can come across as criticism when the writing is so close to home, and it’s been a struggle to keep my head on straight with this one. But as difficult as that may be, the pros outweigh the cons with this fic. It’s so rewarding when people DO relate to the things I write about, and it’s been validating for my own identity and I’ve been told so many times the fic has felt validating to others, too. So as difficult as it can be, I wouldn’t change anything. 

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

I mentioned this bit of sugar on my tongue earlier and I think it’s my current favorite, but I have so many scenes and lines from other fics I’d consider my favorites: The sun beats down on his face and arms. He’s burning, red skin and hot tears. He feels like he needs to crawl out of his own skin. To leave it on the ground and walk away someone else.  Someone who doesn’t have to deal with Al Munson, doesn’t have to deal with a town that hates him for things he didn’t do. He wants to be someone who doesn’t have to be Eddie Munson at all. He just wants to be someone else, to feel safe in the skin he wears.  He thinks Steve might be the only person who makes him feel that way, even if it’s only for a glimpse, a small fraction of his life. Even if it’s just in the quiet hours of the morning when they’re curled up in Eddie’s bed, or when they’re just two boys kissing in a bar where no one knows their names. He wants to feel like that again. Safe. 

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

I’m helping with a Sub Eddie Week event in April, so if anyone wants to do a fic or art for that event, you can find all info @subeddieweek. Most of my upcoming work is going to be made for this event, so stay tuned.

Thank you to our author, @munsonkitten, and our anonymous nominator! See more of deadratz works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

#writer's spotlight #steddie #steddie fic recs #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie #stranger things #steddie writers