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yamayuandadu · 3 years

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The Two (or more) Ishtars or A Certain Scandalous Easter Claim Proved to be The Worship of Reverend Alexander Hislop

Once upon a time the official facebook page of Richard Dawkins' foundation posted a graphic according to which the holiday of Easter is just a rebranded celebration of the Mesopotamian mythology superstar Ishtar, arguing that the evidence is contained in its very name. As everyone knows, Dawkins is an online talking head notable for discussing his non-belief in such an euphoric way that it might turn off even the most staunch secularists and for appearing in some reasonably funny memes about half a decade ago. Bizarrely enough, however, the same claim can be often found among the crowds dedicated to crystal healing, Robert Graves' mythology fanfiction, indigo children and similar dubiously esoteric content. What's yet more surprising is that once in a while it shows up among a certain subset of fundamentalist Christians, chiefly the types who believe giants are real (and, of course, satanic), the world is ruled by a secret group of Moloch worshipers and fossils were planted by the devil to led the sheeple astray from the truth about earth being 6000 years old, tops. Of course, to anyone even just vaguely familiar with Christianity whose primary language isn't English this claim rightfully seems completely baffling – after all it's evident in most languages that the name of the holiday celebrating Jesus' resurrection, and many associated customs, are derived from the earlier Jewish Pascha (Passover) which has nothing to do with Ishtar other than having its origin in the Middle East. Why would the purported association only be evident in English and not in Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Spanish, virtually any language other than English and its close relatives – languages which generally didn't have anything to do with Mesopotamia or early christianity? Read on to find out what sort of sources let this eclectic selection of characters arrive to the same baffling conclusion, why are they hilariously wrong, and – most importantly – where you can actually find a variety of Ishtars (or at least reasonably Ishtar-like figures) under different names instead.

The story of baffling Easter claims begins in Scotland in the 19th century. A core activity of theologians in many faiths through history was (and sometimes still is) finding alleged proof of purported “idolatry” or other “impure” practices among ideological opponents, even these from within the same religion – and a certain Presbyterian minister, Alexander Hislop, was no stranger to this traditional pastime. Like many Protestants in this period, he had an axe to grind with the catholic church - though not for the reasons many people are not particularly fond of this institution nowadays. What Hislop wanted to prove was much more esoteric – he believed that it's the Babylon known from the Book of Revelations. Complete with the beast with seven heads, blasphemous names and other such paraphernalia, of course. This wasn't a new claim – catholicism was equated with the New Testament Babylon for as long as Protestantism was a thing (and earlier catholicism itself regarded other religions as representing it). What set Hislop apart from dozens of other similar attempts like that was that he fancied himself a scholar of history and relied on the brand new accounts of excavations in what was once the core sphere of influence of the Assyrian empire (present day Iraq and Syria), supplemented by various Greek and Roman classics – though also by his own ideas, generally varying from baseless to completely unhinged. Hislop compiled his claims in the book The Two Babylons or The Papal Worship Proved to be the Worship of Nimrod and His Wife. You can find it on archive.org if you want to torment yourself and read the entire thing – please do not give clicks directly to any fundie sites hosting it though. How does the history of Easter and Ishtar look like according to Hislop? Everything started with Semiramis, who according to his vision was a historical figure and a contemporary of Noah's sons, here also entirely historical. Semiramis is either entirely fictional or a distorted Greek and Roman account of the 9th century BC Assyrian queen Shammuramat, who ruled as a regent for a few years after the death of her husband Shamshi Adad V – an interesting piece of historical trivia, but arguably not really a historical milestone, and by the standards of Mesopotamian history she's hardly a truly ancient figure. Hislop didn't even rely on the primary sources dealing with the legend of Semiramis though, but with their medieval christian interpretations, which cast her in the role of an adulterer first and foremost due to association of ancient Mesopotamia with any and all vices.

Hislop claims that Semiramis was both the Whore of Babylon from the Book of Revelations and the first idolater, instituting worship of herself as a goddess. This goddess, he argues, was Astarte (a combination of two flimsy claims – Roman claim that Semiramis' name means “dove” and now generally distrusted assumption that Phoenician Astarte had the same symbols as Greek Aphrodite) and thus Ishtar, but he also denotes her as a mother goddess – which goes against everything modern research has to say about Ishtar, of course. However, shoddy scholarship relying on few sources was the norm at the time, and Hislop on top of that was driven by religious zeal. In further passages, he identified this “universal mother” with Phrygian Cybele, Greek Rhea and Athena, Egyptian Isis, Taoist Xi Wangmu (sic) and many more, pretty much at random, arguing all of them were aspects of nefarious Semiramis cult which infected all corners of the globe. He believed that she was venerated alongside a son-consort, derived from Semiramis' even more fictional husband Ninus (a mythical founder of Assyria according to Greek authors, absent from any Mesopotamian sources; his name was derived from Nineveh, not from any word for son like Hislop claims), who he identifies with biblical Nimrod (likewise not a historical figure, probably a distorted reflection of the god Ninurta). Note the similarity with certain ideas perpetrated by Frazer's Golden Bough and his later fans like Jung, Graves and many neopagan authors – pseudohistory, regardless of ideological background, has a very small canon of genuinely original claims. Ishtar was finally introduced to Britain by “druids” (note once again the similarity to the baffling integration of random Greek, Egyptian or Mesopotamian deities into Graves-derived systems of fraudulent trivia about “universal mother goddesses” often using an inaccurate version of Celtic myths as framework). This eventually lead to the creation of the holiday of Easter. Pascha doesn't come up in the book at all, as far as I can tell. All of this is basically just buildup for the book's core shocking reveal: catholic veneration of Mary and depictions of Mary with infant Jesus in particular are actually the worship of Semiramis and her son-consort Ninus, and only the truly faithful can reveal this evil purpose of religious art. At least so claims Hislop. This bizarre idea is laughable, but it remains disturbingly persistent – do you remember the Chick Tracts memes from a few years ago, for example? These comics were in part inspired by Hislop's work. Many fundamentalist christian communities appear to hold his confabulations in high esteem up to this day – and many people who by design see themselves as a countercultural opposition to christianity independently gleefully embrace them, seemingly ignorant of their origin. While there are many articles debunking Hislop's claim about Easter, few of them try to show how truly incomprehensibly bad his book is as a whole – hopefully the following examples will be sufficient to illustrate this point: -Zoroaster is connected to Moloch because of the Zoroastrian holy fire - and Moloch is, of course Ninus. Note that while a few Greek authors believed Zoroaster to be the “king of Bactria” mythical accounts presented as a contemporary of Ninus, the two were regarded as enemies – Hislop doesn't even follow the pseudohistory he uses as proof! -Zoroaster is also Tammuz. Tammuz is, of course, yet another aspect of Ninus. -demonic character is ascribed to relics of the historical Buddha; also he's Osiris. And Ninus. -an incredibly racist passage explains why the biblical Nimrod (identified with – you guessed it - Ninus) might be regarded as “ugly and deformed” like Haephestus and thus identical to him (no, it makes no sense in context either) - Hislop thinks he was black (that's not the word he uses, naturally) which to him is the same thing. -Attis is a deification of sin itself -the pope represents Dagon (incorrectly interpreted as a fish god in the 19th century) -Baal and Bel are two unrelated words – this is meant to justify the historicity of the Tower of Babel by asserting it was built by Ninus, who was identical to Bel (in reality a title of Marduk); Bel, according to Hislop, means “the confounder (of languages)” rather than “lord” -the term “cannibal” comes from a made up term for priests of Baal (Ninus) who according to Hislop ate children. In reality it's a Spanish corruption of the endonym of one of the first tribes encountered by the Spanish conquerors in America, and was not a word used in antiquity – also, as I discussed in my Baal post, the worship of Baal did not involve cannibalism. This specific claim of Hislop's is popular with the adherents of prophetic doomsday cult slash wannabe terrorist group QAnon today, and shows up on their “redpilling” graphics. -Ninus was also Cronos; Cronos' name therefore meant “horned one” in reference to Mesopotamian bull/horned crown iconography and many superficially similar gods from all over the world were the same as him - note the similarity to Margaret Murray's obsession with her made up idea of worldwide worship of a “horned god” (later incorporated into Wicca). -Phaeton, Orpheus and Aesculapius are the same figure and analogous to Lucifer (and in turn to Ninus) -giants are real and they're satanists (or were, I think Hislop argues they're dead already). They are (were?) also servants of Ninus. -as an all around charming individual Hislop made sure to include a plethora of comments decrying the practices of various groups at random as digressions while presenting his ridiculous theories – so, while learning about the forbidden history of Easter, one can also learn why the author thinks Yezidi are satanists, for example -last but not least, the very sign of the cross is not truly christian but constitutes the worship of Tammuz, aka Ninus (slowly losing track of how many figures were regarded as one and the same as him by Hislop). Based on the summary above it's safe to say that Hislop's claim is incorrect – and, arguably, malevolent (and as such deserves scrutiny, not further possibilities for spreading). However, this doesn't answer the question where does the name of Easter actually come from? As I noted in the beginning, in English (and also German) it's a bit of an oddity – it actually was derived from a preexisting pagan term, at least if we are to believe the word of the monk Bede, who in the 8th century wrote that the term is a derivative of “Eosturmonath,” eg. “month of Eostre” - according to him a goddess. There are no known inscriptions mentioning such a goddess from the British Isles or beyond, though researchers involved in reconstructing proto-indo-european language assume that “Eostre” would logically be a derivative of the same term as the name of the Greek Eos and of the vedic Ushas, and the Austriahenae goddesses from Roman inscriptions from present day Germany – eg. a word simply referring to dawn, and by extension to a goddess embodying it. This is a sound, well researched theory, so while early medieval chroniclers sometimes cannot be trusted, I see no reason to doubt Bede's account.

While Ushas is a prominent goddess in the Vedas, Eos was rather marginal in Greek religion (see her Theoi entry for details), and it's hard to tell to what degree Bede's Eostre was similar to either of them beyond plausibly being a personification of dawn. Of course, the hypothetical proto-indo-european dawn goddess all of these could be derived from would have next to nothing to do with Ishtar. While the history of the name of Easter (though not the celebration itself) is undeniably interesting, I suppose it lacks the elements which make the fake Ishtar claim a viral hit – the connection is indirect, and an equivalent of the Greek Eos isn't exactly exciting (Eos herself is, let be honest, remembered at best as an obscure part of the Odyssey), while Ishtar is understood by many as “wicked” sex goddess (a simplification, to put it very lightly) which adds a scandalous, sacrilegious dimension to the baffling lie, explaining its appeal to Dawkins' fans, arguably. As demonstrated above, Hislop's theories are false and adapting them for any new context – be it christian, atheist or neopagan – won't change that, but are there any genuine examples of, well, “hidden Ishtars”? If that's the part of the summary which caught your attention, rejoice – there is a plenty of these to be found in Bronze Age texts. I'd go as far as saying that most of ancient middle eastern cultures from that era felt compelled to include an Ishtar ersatz in their pantheons. Due to the popularity of the original Ishtar, she was almost a class of figures rather than a single figure – a situation almost comparable to modern franchising, when you think about it. The following figures can be undeniably regarded as “Ishtar-like” in some capacity or even as outright analogs:

Astarte (or Ashtart, to go with a more accurate transcription of the oldest recorded version of the name) – the most direct counterpart of Ishtar there is: a cognate of her own name. Simply, put Astarte is the “Levantine”equivalent of the “Mesopotamian” Ishtar. In the city of Mari, the names were pretty much used interchangeably, and some god lists equate them, though Astarte had a fair share of distinct traits. In Ugaritic mythology, which forms the core of our understanding of the western Semitic deities, she was a warrior and hunter (though it's possible that in addition to conventional weapons she was also skilled at wielding curses), and was usually grouped with Anat. Both of them were regarded as the allies of Baal, and assist him against his enemies in various myth. They also were envisioned to spend a lot of time together – one ritual calls them upon as a pair from distant lands where they're hunting together, while a fragmentary myth depicts both of them arriving in the household of the head god El and taking pity on Yarikh, the moon god, seemingly treated as a pariah. Astarte's close relation to Baal is illustrated by her epithet, “face of Baal” or “of the name of Baal.” They were often regarde as a couple and even late, Hellenic sources preserve a traditional belief that Astarte and “Adados” (Baal) ruled together as a pair. In some documents from Ugarit concerned with what we would call foreign policy today they were invoked together as the most prominent deities. It's therefore possible that she had some role related to human politics. She was regarded as exceptionally beautiful and some texts favorably describe mortal women's appearance by comparing them to Astarte. In later times she was regarded as a goddess of love, but it's unclear if that was a significant aspect of her in the Bronze Age. It's equally unclear if she shared Ishtar's astral character – in Canaan there were seemingly entirely separate dawn and dusk deities. Despite clamis you might see online, Astarte was not the same as the mother goddess Asherah. In the Baal cycle they actually belong to the opposing camps. Additionally, the names are only superficially similar (one starts with an aleph, the other with an ayin) and have different etymology. Also, that famous sculpture of a very blatantly Minoan potnia theron? Ugaritic in origin but not a depiction of either Astarte or Asherah.

The Egyptians, due to extensive contact with Canaan and various Syrian states in the second half of the Bronze Age, adapted Astarte (and by extension Anat) into their own pantheon. Like in Ugarit, her warrior character was emphasized. An Egyptian innovation was depicting her as a cavalry goddess of sorts – associated with mounted combat and chariots. In Egypt, Ptah, the head god of Memphis and divine craftsman, was regarded as her father. In most texts, Astarte is part of Seth's inner circle of associates – however, in this context Seth wasn't the slayer of Osiris, but a heroic storm god similar to Baal. The so-called Astarte papyrus presents an account of a myth eerily similar to the Ugaritic battle between Baal and Yam – starring Seth as the hero, with Astarte in a supporting role resembling that played by Shaushka, another Ishtar analog, in the Hittite song of Hedammu, which will be discussed below.

Shaushka – a Hurrian and Hittite goddess whose name means “the magnificent one” in the Hurrian language. Hurrian was widely spoken in ancient Mesopotamia and Anatolia (and in northernmost parts of the Levant – up to one fifth of personal names from Ugaritic documents were Hurrian iirc), but has no descendants today and its relation to any extant languages is uncertain. In Hittite texts she was often referred to with an “akkadogram” denoting Ishtar's name (or its Sumerian equivalent) instead of a phonetic spelling of her own (there was an analogous practice regarding the sun gods), while in Egyptian and Syrian texts there are a few references to “Ishtar Hurri” - “Ishtar of the Hurrians” - who is argued by researchers to be one and the same as Shaushka. Despite Shaushka's Hurrian name and her prominence in myths popular both among Hittites and Hurrians, her main cult center was the Assyrian city of Nineveh, associated with Ishtar herself as well, and there were relatively few temples dedicated to her in the core Hittite sphere of influence in Anatolia. Curiously, both the oldest reference to Shaushka and to the city of Nineveh come from the same text, stating that a sheep was sacrificed to her there. While most of her roles overlap with Ishtar's (she too was associated with sex, warfare and fertility), here are two distinct features of Shaushka that set her apart as unique: one is the fact she was perceived in part as a masculine deity, despite being consistently described as a woman – in the famous Yazılıkaya reliefs she appears twice, both among gods and goddesses. In Alalakh she was depicted in outfits combining elements of male and female clothing. Similar fashion preferences were at times attributed to Ninshubur, the attendant of Ishtar's Sumerian forerunner Inanna – though in that case they were likely the result of conflation of Ninshubur with the male messenger deity Papsukkal, while in the case of Shaushka the dual nature seems to be inherent to her (I haven't seen any in depth study of this matter yet, sadly, so I can't really tell confidently which modern term in my opinion describes Shaushka's character the best). Her two attendants, musician goddesses Ninatta and Kulitta, do not share it. Shaushka's other unique niche is her role in exorcisms and incantations, and by extension with curing various diseases – this role outlived her cult itself, as late Assyrian inscriptions still associated the “Ishtar of Nineveh” (at times viewed as separate from the regular Ishtar) with healing. It can be argued that even her sexual aspect was connected to healing, as she was invoked to cure impotence. The most significant myth in which she appears is the cycle dedicated to documenting the storm god's (Teshub for the Hurrians, Tarhunna for the Hittites) rise to power. Shaushka is depicted as his sister and arguably most reliable ally, and plays a prominent role in two sections in particular – the Song of Hedammu and the Song of Ullikummi. In the former, she seemingly comes up with an elaborate plan to defeat a new enemy of her brother - the sea monster Hedammu - by performing a seductive dance and song montage (with her attendants as a support act) and offering an elixir to him. The exact result is uncertain, but Hedammu evidently ends up vanquished. In the latter, she attempts to use the same gambit against yet another new foe, the “diorite man” Ullikummi – however, since he is unfeeling like a rock, she fails; some translators see this passage as comedic. However, elsewhere in the Song, the storm god's main enemy Kumarbi and his minions view Shaushka as a formidable warrior, and in the early installment of the cycle, Song of LAMMA, she seemingly partakes in a fight. In another myth, known only from a few fragments and compared to the Sumerian text “Inanna and the huluppu tree,” Shaushka takes care of “Ḫašarri” - a personification of olive oil, or a sentient olive tree. It seems that she has to protect this bizarre entity from various threats. While Shaushka lived on in Mesopotamia as “Ishtar of Nineveh,” this was far from the only “variant”of Ishtar in her homeland.

Nanaya was another such goddess. A few Sumerian hymns mention her alongside Inanna, the Sumerian equivalent of Ishtar, by the time of Sargon of Akkad virtually impossible to separate from her. As one composition puts it, Nanaya was “properly educated by holy Inana” and “counselled by holy Inana.” Initially she was most likely a part of Inanna's circle of deities in her cult center, Uruk, though due to shared character they eventually blurred together to a large degree. Just like Inanna/Ishtar, Nanaya was a goddess of love, described as beautiful and romantically and sexually active, and she too had an astral character. She was even celebrated during the same holidays as Inanna. Some researchers go as far as suggest Nanaya was only ever Inanna/Ishtar in her astral aspect alone and not a separate goddess. However, there is also evidence of her, Inanna and the sky god An being regarded as a trinity of distinct tutelary deities in Uruk. Additionally, king Melishipak's kudurru shown above shows both Nanaya (seated) and Ishtar/Inanna (as a star). Something peculiar to Nanaya was her later association with the scribe god Nabu. Sometimes Nabu's consort was the the goddess Tashmetu instead, but I can't find any summary explaining potential differences between them – it seems just like Nanaya, she was a goddess of love, including its physical aspects. Regardless of the name used to describe Nabu's wife, she was regarded as a sage and scribe like him – this arguably gives her a distinct identity she lacked in her early role as part of Inanna's circle. As the above examples demonstrate, the popularity of the “Ishtar type” was exceptional in the Bronze Age – but is it odd from a modern perspective? The myths dedicated to her are still quite fun to read today – much like any hero of ancient imagination she has a plethora of adversaries, a complex love life (not to mention many figures not intended to be read as her lovers originally but described in such terms that it's easy to see them this way today – including other women), a penchant for reckless behavior – and most importantly a consistent, easy to summarize character. She shouldn't be a part of modern mass consciousness only because of false 19th century claims detached from her actual character (both these from Hislop's works and “secular”claims about her purported “real”character based on flimsy reasoning and shoddy sources) – isn't a female character who is allowed to act about the same way as male mythical figures do without being condemned for it pretty much what many modern mythology retellings try to create? Further reading: On Astarte: -entry in the Iconography of Deities and Demons in Ancient Near East database by Izak Cornelius -‛Athtart in Late Bronze Age Syrian Texts by Mark S. Smith -ʿAthtartu’s Incantations and the Use of Divine Names as Weapons by Theodore J. Lewis -The Other Version of the Story of the Storm-god’s Combat with the Sea in the Light of Egyptian, Ugaritic, and Hurro-Hittite Texts by Noga Ayali-Darshan -for a summary of evidence that Astarte has nothing to do with Asherah see A Reassessment of Asherah With Further Considerations of the Goddess by Steve A. Wiggins On Shaushka: -Adapting Mesopotamian Myth in Hurro-Hittite Rituals at Hattuša: IŠTAR, the Underworld, and the Legendary Kings by Mary R. Bacharova -Ishtar seduces the Sea-serpent. A new join in the epic of Ḫedammu (KUB 36, 56 + 95) and its meaning for the battle between Baal and Yam in Ugaritic tradition by Meindert Dijkstra -Ištar of Nineveh Reconsidered by Gary Beckman -Shaushka, the Traveling Goddess by Graciela Gestoso Singer -Hittite Myths by Harry A. Hoffner jr. -The Hurritic Myth about Šaušga of Nineveh and Ḫašarri (CTH 776.2) by Meindert Dijkstra -The West Hurian Pantheon and its Background by Alfonso Archi On Nanaya: -entry in Brill’s New Pauly by Thomas Richter -entry from the Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses project by Ruth Horry -A tigi to Nanaya for Ishbi-Erra from The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature -A balbale to Inana as Nanaya from The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature -More Light on Nanaya by Michael P. Streck and Nathan Wasserman -More on the Nature and History of the Goddess Nanaya by Piotr Steinkeller A few introductory Ishtar/Inanna myths: -Inanna's descent to the netherworld -Inanna and the huluppu tree -Inanna and Enki -Enki and the world order -Inanna and Ebih -Dumuzid and Enkimdu

#mesopotamian mythology #sumerian mythology #inanna #ishtar #astarte

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afoolnottoloveu · 3 years

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moonlight ♡

Summary: Spencer wants to go to sleep, but Reader doesn’t wanna break tradition (WC: 1.6k) {Masterlist <3}

Pairing: Spencer Reid x (intended she/her but technically gender neutral)!Reader (could be read as platonic or romantic!!)

TW: none!

A/N: i was supposed to post this on the 29th.. we dont talk about it its okay its fine everythings all good, I ALMOST FORGOT thank you to gracie for beta reading this!! she’s the first one on the taglist at the end if you wanna check out her amazing work as well mwah, n e ways enjoy :0

Playlist Pairing: it’s not a singular song this time, listen to the inspo playlist here! 🌘

You rushed up the stairs, praying to some deity that you would catch him before he sent himself to bed or was too immersed in some book to answer the door. JJ had called you 7 hours ago, so it wasn’t surprising that you somehow didn’t notice the time passing, plus the fact you had to get gas for your little trip.

Rapping at the door insistently, you were delightfully startled when Spencer opened the door only a few moments later. He was still in his work slacks and button up but tie-less. A quick glance behind him and you could see he had been making himself tea, and the satchel by his feet couldn’t have been dropped more than 10 minutes ago.

“Peanut?”

You were too elated that you had caught him to respond, instead opting to attach yourself to his torso. “You’re back! Oh my gosh, I was so worried you wouldn’t make it back in time, but luckily JJ called me that you were getting back today, but that was over like 7 hours ago, and then I got worried I wouldn’t make it here before you went to bed--” you rambled, but Spencer quickly brought you back down to Earth by removing you from his torso.

“Y/N! What’re you doing here?”

“We’re going on a drive, duh!” you said, before grabbing his wrist and making it halfway out the door before being pulled back.

“Now? I just got home from two back-to-back cases, and it’s almost midnight.”

“Spence, we can’t break tradition now! Unless Mr. Eidetic Memory forgot what tomorrow is--” you interrupt yourself with a very exaggerated gasp, earning an eye roll from Spencer.

“Of course I know what tomorrow is but--” Knowing he would only go on and on to list reasons why he shouldn’t come with you, you used your last resort, the “puppy dog eyes.” All Spencer did was stare at you, both of you knowing fully well that he was capable of resisting, but he didn’t like to. After a whole minute of unnecessary intense staring at each other, Spencer let out a groan and turned around to walk away, which you thought meant that he was going to bed. Instead, you were pleasantly surprised when you heard him half-yell from across his apartment, “I’m just getting my keys!” You squealed excitedly, knowing what was ahead of you both that night.

Your car was small, a basic silver Toyota corolla you named Carrie. She smelled of gas and was decked out with teddy bear head pillows and keychains that you asked Spencer to buy, hanging from the rearview mirror, (but only from the cool states). You even kept a tan knitted blanket in Carrie, which Spencer was now wrapped in.

You couldn’t help but notice Spencer’s infatuation with the moon tonight, as he took a long sip from one of his two cups of hot cocoa you guys had picked up on the way.

“Is it a full moon?”

“No,” he said--not in a rude way, just quietly and quickly, like he didn’t want to take his focus away from the moon or it might disappear.

So, you let him be. He was most likely tired, and despite tomorrow, which most people would be restless for, he probably just wanted rest. You almost felt guilty, but your tradition was important to you, and you could only hope that it was important to him as well.

“Did you know the full moon is one of the most powerful symbols in astrology? It can represent one’s emotional instincts, habits and private aspects of one’s personality. It’s said that while the sun sign of someone represents their head, their moon sign represents their heart. Though, most astrologists say the moon is heavily compulsion-based. Similarly, someone’s sun sign depicts their actions, but their moon sign depicts their reactions,” he told you, still gazing, almost longingly at the moon.

“I didn’t take you for an astrology type of guy, Doctor.”

“I have knowledge in many areas, Y/N, I thought you knew this by now.” You snickered at the understatement. “If the moon smiled, she would resemble you. You leave the same impression of something beautiful, but annihilating,” he quoted.

“Plath--are you flirting with me, Doc?”

“Never, peanut.”

You rolled both your eyes and the windows of your car. Hopefully the blanket and cocoa was enough to warm him. All you wanted was to not blow out his eardrums as you turned up the music. Night Changes by One Direction was playing, and you reminisced on the fact that he originally had never heard of the band, causing your binge session, which consisted of watching their documentary and listening to all 5 of their albums straight. He told you he thought they were okay and he saw the appeal. What he didn’t tell you was that his favorite album was Midnight Memories, but if the way he was humming along to the song now was any evidence, you could’ve been a profiler.

You two listened to your playlist, made specially for the tradition, (Spencer insisted you always pick the music on these trips, since you weren’t very interested in classical piano) and besides the melodies, a comfortable silence encompassed the car for the most of the ride. As the road started to incline and your destination started getting near, you broke it.

“Can you believe-” you started, earning Spencer’s gaze from the sudden conversation, “Can you believe the audacity the calendar has, to change dates in the middle of the night, just like that, while we’re sleeping?” Spencer couldn’t help the chuckle that bubbled out from him. “Like tomorrow… You’re gonna wake up and, and you’re gonna be one year older.” When you said this, you couldn’t help but steal a look at him. He wasn’t making eye contact, just fidgeting with his fingers, but the small smile was there.

“Just like that,” you finished, as you pulled onto the edge of a hill.

When you showed up at his apartment the night you got your driver’s license, you found this spot. This was your guys’ cliff. The one you guys found on accident, when your car ran out of gas on your first night of the tradition. The same one you guys have had a handful of picnics at and late night rambles about both of your favorite things. Covered in the blanket of light that the moon so graciously provided, it was perfect, and it was both of yours.

Parked atop the hill, you turned off the car and turned to Spencer, who went back to admiring the stars. You were just about to tell him that you would be right back, but you decided he was a little busy, and so you quickly shuffled to grab the box he wasn’t aware was hiding in the trunk.

He finally noticed your disappearance when you came back with a lavender gift box in your lap and an excited smile on your face. “Oh Y/N, you know you didn’t--”

“Save it, Spence. Just open your gift,” you demanded, shoving it into his arms and the smile on your face only lingering. He rarely received real gifts, only for Christmas. You were essentially his only non work friend, and he told everyone at work that he never wanted nor needed anything.

He repeatedly blinked, yet carefully removed the lid. He first saw the small brown envelope which contained a gift card for the local coffee shop near his apartment. Underneath that and the matching lavender tissue paper, he found a tie of no other color than purple and two pairs of socks, one of colorful stripes and the other of baby tardises. (You knew nothing about Doctor Who, but he appreciated the references.) The whole time smiles adorned both your faces. The last item was a copy of The Alchemist. It was one of the main books you two had bonded over, and only a few weeks ago, someone had spilled coffee on their copy. Spencer was against buying another one, saying he could literally recite it in his head word for word if he ever wanted to again, but you stubbornly insisted that it didn’t have the same sentiment, (and of course you were right).

He took the book out the box and held it by the spine as he flitted through the pages, taking note of the annotations, your annotations. When done, he closed it and only opened the cover, finding your heartfelt message.

Dear old dear old Spence,

I know you’re probably gonna read this in .02 seconds, and probably right in front of me at that. Unless we broke tradition. But I trust that I convinced you. (It was the eyes, wasn’t it?) Regardless, I wanted to wish my very, very best friend a happy birthday. You alone are so strong for going through all that you’ve gone through, stuff that no one should have to even imagine. You are one of the strongest people I know. You need to know that I’m proud of you, Spencer. I’m beyond grateful for you, for having such a caring, resilient, and just incredible friend as you. I hope I don’t need to remind you that I will be here for you, through anything and everything. See you in 500 years :)

Love, with all my heart, Peanut

In only a handful of seconds, he shut the cover once again, and the happiness (and slight gleam) in his eyes became painstakingly evident. “This is your copy?” He asked, mostly rhetorically, because he knew it was. At this point, he was lightly sniffling between words. “Thank- thank you, peanut,”

“It’s no problem Doc,” you smiled and lightly punched him on the shoulder, “happy birthday, Spencer. I’m glad we didn’t break tradition.” And by the look on his face, well- you were no profiler, but you could safely assume that he was just as glad.

Taglist: @bxbyspxncer @goldenxreid @prettyboy-reid @rottenearly @rainsong01

#criminal minds fic #cm #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fanfiction #matthew gray gubler x reader #mgg x reader #fluff #dr spencer reid #spencer reid #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fluff #y/n #oc #platonic!reader #spencer reid imagine #theas originals #there are no words to describe how much i hate doing tags

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icykalisartblog · 3 years

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Why Bilbo Baggins/Gandalf OTP

All right, here’s my big post on why Bilbo/Gandalf is OTP. This is half-joking but should include some genuinely valuable analysis! Much of this is cribbed from a paper I wrote in about queercoding in The Hobbit.

The Hobbit tarot deck has them as the Two of Cups, usually signifying soulmates and romantic attraction so this seems like a good image to start the post with... soulmate AU, anyone? XD

Without further ado:

Bilbo Baggins Big Queer

Usually when I see queer readings of Tolkien’s works, it’s centered on The Lord of the Rings, and for good reason. But I believe the most likely character to be queer in Tolkien’s work is in fact Bilbo Baggins. When reading Tolkien’s works with this idea in mind, Bilbo, Tolkien, and the world of Middle Earth take on a new dimension, especially The Hobbit.

Bilbo Baggins is an unusual Hobbit due to going off on his adventure to win back the Misty Mountains from the Dragon Smaug, but at the beginning of The Hobbit, it would seem that he should have represented an ideal wealthy landowning Hobbit in the eyes of his neighbors and family members. The narrator of even states that the Baggineses were highly respected. However, we know from the very end of the book that Bilbo was not particularly well-liked even before he ever did anything exceptional, by the eagerness with which his family members auctioned off his belongings and presumed him to be dead. It is not just jealously over his wealth that caused the other Hobbits to dislike him—his mother was Belladonna Took, and the Took family was known for going on adventures, though the narrator explains that after marrying Bilbo’s father, she never did anything unexpected again. Interestingly, the narrator suggests that “...although he looked and behaved exactly like a second edition of his solid and comfortable father, got something a bit queer in his make-up from the Took side, something that only waited for a chance to come out.” Also from this page, we know that other families of Hobbits thought that one of the Tooks had taken a “fairy wife” and that Tooks would occasionally disappear, but that their relatives would try to quiet the rumors. If you’re going 👀 at queer make-up and a fairy being mentioned, you should. These terms were already being used as queer signifiers and pejoratives in the 30s when Tolkien wrote The Hobbit, plus Tolkien was well... a philologist.

Enter Gandalf

So Bilbo’s Tookish side is being linked to his queerness, and the other Hobbits think the strange behavior of the Tooks might have been caused by one of them taking a “fairy wife.” Now, if you are very familiar with Tolkien’s works, you’ll know that the closest thing to a fairy that exists in that world is probably what Gandalf is—a spirit known as a Maia, which all the Wizards are. Maiar (that’s the plural) are usually conceived of by critics as angelic beings because they serve the gods and Abrahamic God equivalents, but they have fairy-like qualities as well. And Gandalf is going to serve as the catalyst who brings out Bilbo’s, well, queer side.

When Gandalf arrives in The Hobbit and introduces himself, Bilbo simultaneously gushes and rants about him, and gives special importance to Gandalf’s fireworks: “They used to go up like lilies and snapdragons and laburnums of fire and hang in the twilight all evening!” he says, and then the narrator remarks, “You will notice already that Mr Baggins was not quite so prosy as he liked to believe, also that he was very fond of flowers,” as if Bilbo’s secret desire to be unique and his love of flowers were of close to equal importance. Gandalf mentions that for the sake of the Old Took and “poor Belladonna” he will take Bilbo on an adventure. The only reason we are given for Belladonna Took being unfortunate in any way is that she was somehow repressed after being married. A critique of heteronormativity?

Bilbo turns Gandalf away and denies his not-so-well-hidden desire for an adventure but invites Gandalf to come have tea with him the next day, an action Bilbo himself does not understand. In fact, the Bilbo is so shaken by the invitation he himself gave that he thought “a drink of something would do him good after his fright,” despite this scene taking place right after breakfast . Gandalf is left standing outside of Bilbo’s house, laughing. He takes the “spike of his staff” (...!) and draws a “queer sign” (...!!!) on Bilbo’s door.

I think it’s worth noting that in Tolkien’s unfinished writings, Gandalf initially didn’t want to go to Middle-Earth. He feared Sauron and thought of himself as too weak to be a proper emissary, but that’s exactly why Gandalf was the right Maia for the job of protecting Middle-Earth. Gandalf’s origin was thus very much the same as Bilbo’s... he’s been through all of this reluctance, too.

The Two Together

After Bilbo’s adventure, he is ostracized, and the beginning of The Lord of the Rings makes it clear that he had “no close friends” among Hobbits, and that the only ones who appreciated him were young children who would not understand how he was non-normative, and poor Hobbits to whom Bilbo gave money. In fact, the narrative begins with an argument between the Gaffer and Mr. Sandyman about Bilbo’s and Frodo’s “queerness,” which includes Bilbo’s adoption of an heir as opposed to having children biologically. With a queer reading in mind, Bilbo’s request that Gandalf take care of Frodo makes Bilbo and Gandalf appear to be caregivers of an adopted heir.

The text that I feel makes it hard to deny that Bilbo Baggins is queer is a version of “The Quest for Erebor,” an unfinished account from Gandalf that gives his perspective on the journey of The Hobbit. “The Quest for Erebor” was written at the same time that Tolkien was working on The Lord of the Rings, but was not ultimately included as part of the narrative (only an abridged version was included in the appendixes of The Lord of the Rings). I will quote Gandalf’s words from the unabridged version, regarding his choosing Bilbo for the quest (emphasis mine):

I learned that he had never married. I thought that odd though I guessed why it was; and the reason that I guessed was not that most of the Hobbits gave me: that he had early been left very well off and his own master. No, I guessed that he wanted to remain 'unattached' for some reason deep down which he did not understand himself - or would not acknowledge, for it alarmed him. He wanted, all the same, to be free to go when the chance came, or he had made up his courage. I remembered how he used to pester me with questions when he was a youngster about the Hobbits that had occasionally 'gone off,' as they said in the Shire.

As one can see from this passage, Gandalf, who has a very close relationship to Bilbo, does not believe what would be the obvious explanation for Bilbo’s remaining a bachelor—that he was a wealthy landowner, and thus did not need to. Rather, Gandalf believed that it was Bilbo’s latent desire for adventure that led to his never marrying. As I have pointed out, the call to adventure is connected to queerness. Gandalf also quotes other Hobbits as referring to those who had adventures as having “gone off.” To “go off” obviously indicates leaving the Shire to go somewhere else, but this phrase could also mean exploding (and fireworks, something that Bilbo remembered Gandalf for, go off), or to go bad—in the sense of food rotting or becoming moldy and inedible.

I think it’s also worth pointing out that Gandalf felt supernaturally compelled to bring Bilbo along on the quest. It’s likely that this was the Tolkien equivalent of Abrahamic God intervening in the events of Middle-Earth—something that rarely happens! The relationship between Gandalf and Bilbo is really important!

All of the points I have made signify that Bilbo Baggins’s story is applicable to the experiences of queer people, and his relationship with Gandalf suggests that Bilbo himself in fact has a queer romantic orientation—that he is queer in more than the sense of being non-normative due to going on a quest to retake Erebor. The friendship between Gandalf and Bilbo develops throughout The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, as Bilbo learns to trust and appreciate both Gandalf and his own adventurous side, and Gandalf learns more about kindness and true strength from Bilbo, Gandalf visits Bilbo many times afterward. Finally, they both care for Frodo and leave for the West together. Their friendship is heartwarming, and I would argue that this queer reading of it may be even more so—while there is an enormous age difference between these two characters (Bilbo is fifty-one at the start of The Hobbit, Gandalf is thousands of years old), Gandalf treats Bilbo like an equal and they both teach each other a lot (and Gandalf does not act like he is thousands-of-years old, he lost a lot of his innate knowledge and power when he was sent to Middle-Earth, after all).

Other Details

Close to the end of The Hobbit, after they retake Erebor from Smaug, Bilbo and Gandalf travel together, just the two of them, and the narrator doesn’t elaborate on this. This sounds like peak shipping and adventure fanfic fuel to me!

I’m not a fan of The Hobbit films, but they do contain some great shippy moments with the two characters. There’s some hilarious snarking, like this exchange:

BILBO: Are there any?

GANDALF: What?

BILBO: Other wizards?

GANDALF: There are five of us. The greatest of our order is Saruman the White. And then there are the two Blue Wizards... you know, I've quite forgotten their names.

BILBO: And the fifth?

GANDALF: Well, that would be Radagast the Brown.

BILBO: Is he a great wizard, or is he more like you?

And then Gandalf is like 😮 XD

There’s also a really heartwarming moment where Galadriel asks Gandalf why he chose Bilbo:

GALADRIEL: Mithrandir? Why the Halfling?

GANDALF: I don't know. Saruman believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I have found. I've found it is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps it is because I am afraid, and he gives me courage.

I remember there being other movie-only sweet moments too, but it’s been a long time since I’ve watched them!

#bilbo baggins #gandalf #the hobbit #the lord of the rings #queercoding #I need an analysis/meta tag

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starkeaton · 4 years

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the adventure zone: graduation character list

Well, i accidentally deleted the original graduation character list post, so here i am making another one. Oops. And as always, if anyone has important details i should add then feel free to suggest them!

Here are all the characters introduced in episodes 1-25. Named characters only!

Also i can’t hide spoilers! So, um..... I can’t put spoilers on this one. If you need the version with spoilers try this version of the post that i made on the adventure zone subreddit but youre not missing out on much.

# -EPISODE 1- (19 characters)

Hieronymous Wiggenstaff (he/him): Head of the Hero/Villain school. at least 400 years old. wears shining blue armor with gold accents. also an elf. according to Tomas, he led the charge at the "battle of blood valley", brought the Kingdoms of Rickart and Dawnbreak to a peace treaty, and founded the school. a little boastful, a little prideful, [SPOILERS OMITTED], and overall a pretty good dude.

Higglemas Wiggenstaff (he/him): Head of the Sidekick/Henchperson annex, cranky old elf. has a dog named hero who shows no signs of anything strange at all, ever.

Gary (he/him): friendly room gargoyle. pseudo-hivemind.

Groundsy (he/him): the groundskeeper. a pretty nice fellow. don't go in his shed.

Hernandez (he/him): beautiful centaur professor of animal handling.

Jimson (he/him): human battlegrounds trainer for sidekicks/henchpeople, world famous featherweight champion, wields a staff. married to crushman.

Crushman (he/him): silver dragonborn with a sickle, and self-described beefy boy! heavyweight blood champion married to jimson. never lost a match for 8 years. full name Frostus Crushman.

Rolandus Fontaine (he/him): former prince, son of deposed king, kind of an asshole, maybe. wears a cape (important detail)

Zana (she/her): "terrifying" tiefling villain sorcerer, friend of rolandus. barkept the test tavern in ep2

Rhodes (she/her): hero ranger, friend of rolandus.

Buckminster Eden (he/him): hero guy. son of "The Iron Lord". their dad is stronger than rolandus's dad. his wiki page says rogue so i think hes a rogue? i never caught that and ive listened more times than i wish i did

Leon (he/him): softspoken buff, bald "fighter" (although i dont remember any clarification on how exactly he fights), sidekick of buckminster, around 28. anyone else keep forgetting he's bald? i keep forgetting it. >!gets sorta-drafted into becoming a falcon for higglemas and so far hasn't done much else.!<

Rainer Michelle (she/her): cheerful villainous necromancer with a floating chair. also, her name is pronounced "rainier" despite not being confirmed as such? travis ships her with fitzroy.

Tomas (he/him): human man with "kind eyes" and a good (psychic???) memory. guidance counselor.

Stewart LeBoeuf (he/him): brawny human man. serves food. there is no joke here, i promise

Mulligan (he/him): teaches potions. mentioned but doesn't appear yet. and we're like 25 episodes in. maybe we'll see him someday

Germaine, Victoria, Rattles (he/him,she/her,???/???): Skeleton crew. They live in the training room i guess, and as a result can never die, because "no one dies in the training room!" (note: someone now HAS to die in the training room). also their races are never explicitly stated but i guess they're probably human? in episode 3 travis brings up something about how many bones are in "the human body" and at this point i think i'm looking too deep into this so i'll just forget about it and you probably should too.

# -EPISODE 2- (9 characters)

Riveau (he/him): halfling, blame-taking teacher.

Mimi (they/them): gnome sidekick who builds cool robot prosthetics

Bartholemus (he/him): owl aarakocra accountant teacher, known for being the best accountant in the land and having a face some might describe as "smoochable". very pro capitalist :’( hope he gets better

Ramos (she/her): goliath teacher of shieldwork. *

Dip (she/her): sidekick, half-orc twin of pip

Pip (she/her): hero, half-orc twin of dip

Festo (they/them): fairy with "beautiful gossamer wings", independent study teacher of magic, loves to party

Snippers (he/him?): Let me tell you my story about Snippers the magic crab. When Travis gave the list of animals that Griffin could choose as Fitzroy's familiar's current form, he listed crab near the start, and this gave me excitement. Now i knew that crab was pretty unlikely but god i hoped that he would choose it. When the list went on- Bat, Cat, Crab, Frog, Hawk, Lizard, Owl, Poisonous Snake, Fish, Rat, Raven, Seahorse, Spider or Weasel- I nearly lost hope. I was hoping so hard that Griffin would choose the crab, but i was ready to accept a non-crab familiar. It was just buried in that list. It wasn't the most useful animal and it was an obscure pick. And as Travis informed him that it didn't have to keep the form for the whole campaign, Griffin said those five words i wanted to hear so, so badly. "Well then it's a crab." Folks, I do not often react physically when something happens in media. But in that moment, i remember very clearly, i fist-pumped and yelled, "YES!!!!!!"

so anyway, Fitzroy has a crab.

Jackle (he/him): kenku teacher of sneakery. creepy dude. apparently knows something about argo? also his name is not spelled "jackal" for some reason. Also in later episodes theyve started calling him "The Jackle" for some reason??? *

# -EPISODE 3- (1 character)

Dakota (they/them): tavern instructor, clad in black/red leather. no race stated? probably human. *

# -EPISODE 4- (6 characters)

Gerry & Tom (she/her, he/him): shopkeepers at barns and nobles who seem to have very bad names. also constantly competing for customers? these guys got dropped faster than the heathcliff quests, which is honestly just sad.

Barb (she/her): the bartender. runs Springs Eternal in Last Hope. has a sweet seeing-eye hawk familiar.

Jaryd Reginald (he/him): owner of Reginald Ore. Wants the workers to be held responsible for the damage caused by the xorn. (fun fact: originally i wrote down "Jerrod" because i wanted it to sound like a fantasy name, then realized it was probably "Jared" because theyre named after listeners, but i was pleased to find it confirmed that it's actually "Jaryd")

Candice (she/her): A Miner. thought those werent allowed in bars but, i guess not. Wants the mine owner to be held responsible for the xorn's damage.

Jade Johnson Esq. (she/her): lawyer.

# -EPISODE 5- (1 character)

Xorn: a big hungry gem eating guy from the plane of earth Low-Down Deep with 3 arms and 3 legs. why did travis just say "multi-armed" instead of specifying it was 3? who knows! Anyway it leaves

# -EPISODE 6- (3 characters)

Osric (he/him): the man, the myth, the bursar. finally shows up after being mentioned in episodes 2 and 4. he's an elf.

breeze through the willows (she/her): Pegasus attacked by demons, lost her parents. introduced in ep1 but gets a name here so fuck it. also in ep>!16!< we find out shes a "white arabian pegasus" and i dont think thats a spoiler bc we shouldve really known it from the beginning

Sabor (he/him): Librarian/research teacher. also a TORTLE. Really good at recalling stuff, i guess. kinda reminds me of Tomas's memory thing but i'm sure that's just a coincidence... *

# -EPISODE 7- (1 character)

Mosh (he/him): The goliath blacksmith who welcomes argo into the unbroken chain. Also, and this is specific to the tumblr version of this post, all the characters with an * at the end of their descriptions are also members of the unbroken chain. if someone knows how to do spoilers on tumblr please tell me

# -EPISODE 8-

# -EPISODE 9- (2 characters)

Eeiïäá#æ&éñn (pronounced like "Ian") (he/him?): an imp but without a shitty voice. also happens to not be violent. what a coincidence?

Terence (he/him): a chain devil with a real demonic name. minor boss of the imps. very convincing and very threatening. has the frightening ability to make you zone out during his fight

# -EPISODE 10- (2 characters)

Althea Song (she/her): elf with autumn-orange hair. representative from heroic oversight guild. i'd like to personally thank travis for spelling her name out.

Crabtree (she/her): Artificing teacher. Long gray hair with a long grey beard. no mentioned race, one might guess dwarf but that would be an assumption i suppose. also unbroken chain member, presumably the dwarf argo didn't recognize in episode 7.

# -EPISODE 11- (3 characters)

Marie (she/her): Grey-haired elf woman. She's the school's physician, i guess. Member of the unbroken chain.

Dendra Maplecourt (she/her): Fitzroy's mom. Has hot mint gum, i guess. She was mentioned earlier but i wasn't convinced she was a real person until this episode

Cool Gary (he/him): AYY ITS ME GARYR

# -EPISODE 12-

no new characters again!

# -EPISODE 13- (7 characters hhhyyyuu)

Kale (???/???): Head of the Placement Department, in charge of real world assignments. First mentioned in Ep4 but i missed that the last few times bc it is so brief. Gives exposition about missions i guess????? is that the only reason this chara cter exists

satyr thief (unnamed) (he/him): tries to rob thundermen, dies instantly

Ogre (he/him): teamed up with the satyr. his name is ogre.

Moon (he/him): A Sidekick. small pale sullen guy. no mentioned race. Why is there another FUCKING sidekick WE HAD ENOUGH hhhyuuuuuu

Deanna (she/her): A bigoted centaur with an obnoxious voice. Malwin the Strong's second in command.

Malwin the Strong (she/her): Leader of the centaurs of the scarlet woods. Wants to appease the spirit of the scarlet woods so that thecentaurs of the scarlet woods will be protected in the scarlet woods. Had a relationship with Arturas in the past but their clashes are currently known to get pretty heated.

Arturas (he/him): Leader of the Centaurs of the Valley, i guess. Had a relationship with Malwin. Centaur. Did i mention centaur? i cant think of anything else about this character

# -EPISODE 14- (2 characters)

Calhain (he/him): Human wizard, Malwin's magical advisor. Kind of an amateur wizard in a job high above his skill level. Graduated Wigginstaff's as a hero.

Spirit of the Scarlet Woods: A spirit who requires sacrifice in order to keep Malwin's herd safe and prosperous. Not keen on dubiously canonical combos, i guess. i wouldnt be either. also apparently the sacrifice depends on personal value, not how much value it has to the spirit.

# -EPISODE 15- (2 characters)

Sylvia Nite (she/her): Fitzroy's magic theory teacher at knight night school, who he turned into a catfish by accident. oops!

Chaos (they/them, maybe more): Presumably a deity, gave Fitz his powers and wants him to give in to his chaotic desires. (physical desc: 9 foot tall, iridescent 'mother of pearl' skin, pure white eyes, fine burgundy cloak with gold/onyx lining. their physical form beyond that seems to change every time they show up.)

# -EPISODE 16-

none -w-

# -EPISODE 17-

some demins happened. the big dudes are called "Pit Fiends" and the armored demon ladies are called "Erinyes", by the way. that was incredibly hard for me to figure out the first time, especially without headphones, i thought travis was saying "pig feet" and i just could not discern what the other things were

# -EPISODE 18- (6 characters)

snow on the mountain: shire horse pegasus

storm at sea: peruvian paso pegasus, vehement defender of The Guardian. doesn't have a goofy voice.. but he could have....

thaw of the spring: a winged horse

night of no clouds: a winged hhorse

The Guardian: "An ancient and powerful being that guards the unknown forest." Has protected the flock from demons for many many years. apparently is the voice that was talking to our firbolg in episode 1?

Grey, the Demon Prince (he/him): wants to cause a war, originally wanted to kill hiero and higgs, forces the heroes to build an army to fight his. As "Fauxronimous", he has skin the *color and pattern of* (but not necessarily made of) slate splashed with liquid, pointed ears, sharp teeth, shining eyes, horns of unspecified shape. 12 fucking feet tall. wonder if the slate-looking skin is related to garys. plot twist detected? Also i recently looked at the episode descriptions and found out his name is spelled "Gray", but really does it truly matter?

# -EPISODE 19- (2 characters)

Shabree Keene (she/her): Argo's mom, killed on the Mariah, possibly by the Commodore. Long auburn hair, green eyes. Mentioned earlier but described here, so fuck it.

**Thomas** (he/him): Argo's first mate on the Mariah, as the Kraken, in his chaos-dream. may or may not actually exist.

# -EPISODE 20- (1 character)

The Commodore (he/him): Reknowned hero of the seas, military regalia, great naval hero, presumably responsible for the death of Shabree Keene. No mentioned race. Seriously, they never mention this guy's race. The only thing described about him is how he's dressed and his evil smile. Does that mean he's human? Elf? Dwarf??? Who knows! maybe it just doesnt matter.

# -EPISODE 21-

none

# -EPISODE 22-

not any of them. not any.

# -EPISODE 23- (1 character)

Ozymondelius (sp???) (it/its): A warforged teacher who just so happens to like war or something? i guess its in the name. only mentioned in this episode, doesnt show up yet.

# -EPISODE 24-

they have a fight in the training room but nobody dies :\\ maybe next time. also no new characters. pog

# -EPISODE 25- (4 characters)

Gherkin (he/him): Tall lankier skeleton, has a scimitar and a merkin, which is a pubic wig... and he wears a jerkin? which i guess is a kind of coat? also i think hes mute

Tibia (she/her?) : Shorter skeleton with gold teeth, and long canines. i think both of the skeletons are mute actually.

The Lich King aka Gordy (he/him): Rainer's dad. Commands armies of the undead. lives in The Crypt. described as a hooded, skull-faced man with intricate black lines on his face, but changes to a shaved-head man with dark skin and vetiligo. Abandoned as a babby, raised by traveling parents, had necromancy powers, took Rainier in. Not actually very scary at all i don't know why he did the creepy laugh. Kind of a warm fatherly figure actually. hm. also people are speculating Gordy might be short for Gordita and his parents are maybe supposed to be lup and barry but THAT S JUST A THEORY.

our firbolg's father (he/him): A firbolg who lived by the code and was there when our firbolg was banished. Came to respect our firbolg's interest in a new way of life, in his final moments.

TOTAL: 72 NPCS! (well, including 2 extra PCs, i guess.)

Average: 2.88 NPCs per episode.

i was gonna not include the bone-PCs and have it be 69 but our firbolg's dad was just too important to not respect with a spot on the list.

anyway as always make sure to smack me with a blunt object if i forgot any characters!!!!!

#the adventure zone #taz #taz: graduation #taz g #sir fitzroy maplecourt #argonaut keene #taz firbolg #i dunno what else to tag this with #text post #keatposting

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sole-cuore-amore-e-droga · 3 years

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Italy brings the rock’n’roll youth of tomorrow to Rotterdam 2021

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It’s the final day of doing my yet again botched attempt at a review series and I’ve been dying to post my gigantic write-up for my newly beloved Italy, at the top of the bookies, darling of all hearts, ready to rock Eurovision, and even more! Vai vai~

ARTIST & ENTRY INFO

Representing them this year is Måneskin, a band made up of four - singer and possibly the hottest motherfucker to grace the planet Earth Damiano, guitarist Thomas, drummer Ethan, and the cherry on top - bassist Victoria, whose half-Danish heritage is the reason Måneskin is called Måneskin (= Moonshine). They thought of this name at a “battle of the bands” that they won, thinking they might as well change it to something different, but in the end... say it with me now

They have known each other since highschool, made a band in 2016, won the “battle of the bands”, started out making a living as buskers in the streets of Rome, from which they gradually grew through playing small gigs, and later tried out for X Factor Italia season 11, on which they came 2nd.

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They went on to release an EP titled after their debut single of the name of the song above, including some of their X Factor covers, and later on got to get big through releasing an album, getting it certified all kinds of goodnesses, having singles from that album be popular, even releasing a documentary of themselves... they’ve done so much in life and they’re only 20-22 years old... aw man, the life is just ahead of them, for them to be so young and win Sanremo on their first try. (And I’ve always wanted them for Eurovision ever since I was aware of their existence, because their music is very nice, and they just feel like charming human beings. So imagine my joy seeing them announced for Sanremo 2021? And them WINNING months later??? man what kind of luck do I have even if just for a year lmao <333)

“Zitti e buoni”, the last song title alphabetically this year, is purely of the band’s making, and the lyrics are talking about not abiding the rules in general, how they’re out of their minds but they’re not like “them”, and how people talk but don’t know what they’re talking at all.

REVIEW

IT’S A PRETTY CRAZY GOOD ROCK SONG AMEN HALLELUJAH OPRAH WOOOOOOO

wbk I love it. Yeah sure it might be composited of something that sounds like standard rock riffs and what not, but it’s the ENERGY that goes into it that gets me more excited for this than for Finland, a fellow rock song of this year’s final.

Damiano’s vocals have the specific kind of rockstar tinge to them, and they’re very complimenting to the song. The way he says everything is beautiful, the “e buonasera signore e signori” line in particular is just a moment that shows the beginning of power somehow, I don’t know. The chorus is great, eventhough it’s just one line repeated but it changes the pronoun each time (going from “I’m out of my mind” to “you’re out of your mind” to “we’re out of my mind”) - MAGICAL.

And the bridge. YES, the bridge. Along with the outro it’s the best part of the song. The chord progression. The lines repeated on that bridge. The emotions going on. The delivery of the lines of the emotion. It’s a convincing little bridge, to the point that it sounds just as great with violins! Wish they brought one, because according to Love Love Peace Peace, nothing screams winner quite like a violin.

God damn to the Måneskinsters pump this song up to the maximum. It was originally a ballad song, and I think that’s for the better for them to present it as a rock song, because a Sanremo ballad in a pool of Sanremo ballads... unless it stands out according to demoscopic & press juries, and there seems to be a no better option at hand that could make them stand out other than just sending a classy ballad, it just fizzles out in a spectacularly lame fashion. Måneskin’s one real shot through was with a song that would make them stand out, and they did it, and they’re here.

Everyone has put in their work, their passion, their skills into this, and it shows off in spades. Måneskin themselves are fantastic and chill human beings, who too, just like Flo Rida, get to enjoy how crazy amazing Eurovision experience is. And for that I salute them with my whole heart. Whatever they do tonight on Eurovision, they’ll leave a lasting mark in it. And for a good reason.

Also an Italian Eurovision edit that doesn’t suck, once again, yay! (In their defense, they didn’t have a whole lot to work with, so they released theirs early - just a few trimmings here and there, and a lyric change so that they skate by EBU easier with their anti-swearing policies. Gahddamn swearing~)

Approval factor: FUCK YES Follow-up factor: The funny thing about this is that last year their entry is about making noise but the song was a love ballad, this year it’s a song titled “shut up and behave” while dressed in a loudest motherfucking musical setting lol. Fuck the rules! It was solely on the Sanremo’s last year’s winner Diodato not to send an entry he thought that would fit for Sanremo, and that’s good on him - he can return next year replenished as all hell, and maybe aim for the trophy again? wishful thinking? aaaa. Anyway on a personal scale “Zitti e buoni” is a marvelous follow-up from “Fai rumore”, even if skipping 2020 entirely, especially after “Soldi”, which was already a fab follow-up after “Non mi avete fatto niente”, and even from “Occidentali’s Karma” on. And so it is subjectively a good follow-up. Italy SLAYS. AQ factor: As I write this, the odds are very much in their favour, if not a little bit too persuaded over the fact that Måneskin gave a good rock performance and knew what they would be doing, or it’s just that the Italians like overbetting for their acts way too damn much. But nevertheless, I just wanna hope for them to break the expectations people set on rock songs in Eurovision and SMASH themselves a victory. Or a top 2. Or a top 5-10. Anything will do, goddamn.

NF CORNER

Well, I promised that I will talk about Sanremo in a NF corner, because this is the first year I actually cared to watch it myself, unlike when I would’ve sided with someone whose reviewing style I love in not caring to watch it, and usually just check all the songs on the last day lol.

One thing about Sanremo that I sorely underestimate is that a handful of artists on there can come across as very versatile, and the one song you loved of one genre they presented several years ago, can be completely different and leave you baffled for days if you’re not very familiarized with their discography and the Italian music scene in general. Which now I’m going to pay an extreme amount of attention towards following Sanremo 2022 on out because hot damn did I never see gems like Willie Peyote coming!

youtube

Did I call him a gem over his entry? Yes, somehow. Am I even sure if I’m being serious?

I think I can somewhat agree when I say that for the international fam watching Sanremo at least, “Mai dire mai (La locura)” was a major expectation destroyer, at least for the crowd whose main lookouts in a lineup like this years were Ermal Meta, Annalisa, Arisa, etc. You know they’re gonna bring a ballad, and their ballads are usually decent, but what about the unexpected? That’s where a handful of acts, including Willie, comes in for me. The bass hooks in the second the song starts. The beat is minimalistic but strong enough to slap. The steady rap flow is mesmerizing, paired with that somewhat specifically Italian(?) vocal timbre. The chorus is greatly catchy, and it is a sung chorus, with this song still being largely a rap song. The electric-esque guitar soundwaves interspersed throughout the song are magnificent and magical, and on the chorus they even make a constant melody riff that repeats and may get annoying on multiple listens, but I still adore them. I really love the bridge as well and all that goes into it. A fantastic surprise of the season for me personally.

Now I figure that the lyrics may hinder the enjoyment for some, especially the points raised in some lines that may seem questionable and shady (if this went to Eurovision and got a “twerking” comment on Youtube, I will not be surprised if the description of choice is “patriarchic twerking”), but am I supposed to be fully offended at some points of it if I’m not its target audience, although I see some of what I do nowadays in those lines? “Mai dire mai” is probably dedicated to the Italian media and the Italian trends and what not. I’m not even disappointed it didn’t win, because if it went to Eurovision, it would’ve likely been met like a lesser “Occidentali’s Karma” - catchy song with lyrics that fly over listener’s heads which might as well be very accidentally mocking how we live our lives.

“Mai dire mai” has just less of a memorability-in-history value and no memorable gimmicks (Francesco had a gorilla, what is it visually going for on Willie’s performance?), besides, it would’ve suffered even WORSE post-Eurovision-edit than OK has - a lot of the bits and bobs that pass me by but when I notice them they make a really great entry, but other than the (presumably copyrighted) removal of a sample from a TV series (spoken by a fish character, nonetheless), what else is there to remove???? With Eurovision’s rules specifying that brands (Spotify, TikTok) and swearwords (lots of the good old Italian ones that Italian radios would digitally scratch out to emphasize that there were a LOT in the second verse) can’t be sung live, the song loses some of its lyrical charm. And you can’t just go around the song like Francesco Gabbani chopping off entire verses full of content full of witty lyrics and a reference to Chanel in order to present the more lyrically singable-along-to lines and not let go of the long chorus to whom his gorilla can dance to. “Mai dire mai” is RIFE with lyrics, that’s what a rap song is. It would have absolutely fallen apart.

Also no one paged it as a potential Eurovision winner during Sanremo, at least seriously, and it doesn’t have much that would have clicked with the future Eurovision generation and contestants when they would be asked to name their favourite Eurovision song of all times. In a world where from Italy they really like “Grande amore” and “Soldi” and even sometimes could name “Occidentali’s Karma”, is there really a place for “Mai dire mai (La locura)” over “Zitti e buoni”? Who would be naming that song as their favourite of all time? If you raised a hand, you lie to yourself, because that would’ve been me.

Now I don’t know how many of the Tumblr fam would draw ire at me putting out paragraphs worth of me being ultra positive towards this song, because as I’ve learned, there’s an ironic and unironic audience for Mr. Peyote on Tumblr especially, but for me I guess it was pretty worthy, also a thing I was finally able to yell off my chest since, and now I finally said it, I will continue streaming “Mai dire mai (La locura)” in peace.

He might’ve not won Sanremo, but his song won the equally important Mia Martini Critics Award, and also, my heart. Rest in broken shards of the Boris aquarium, my sweet cynical prince~

Måneskin were my 2nd after him so I’m equally happy they won. But what about my other favourites?

• Extraliscio ft. Davide Toffolo - Bianca luce nera A diluted version of the liscio genre, still makes for a very fascinatingly catchy and swaying song with lots of great instruments that are violins and a clarinet. What I figure is kinda a love song. Their performances were also great, with lots of dancers on stage and a genuinely great fun to be had, and you may remember them more after their performance in cover night, which was titled “Rosamunda”. They were the ones with their main singer’s guitar spinning for whatever reason that was there to make their song catchy, I guess.

• Lo Stato Sociale - Combat Pop A little bit of a far cry from their glory heydays with 2nd place in Sanremo 2018, but they returned with an equally banging song and an amazing set of performance chaos they brought in each and every time - dedicating their first night’s one to making a performance to not forget (and being the ones of two to reference the great Bugo&Morgan incident from last year, the other being Willie Peyote), the second competitive one was for referencing politics, and so on.

• Colapesce & Dimartino - Musica leggerissima Sweet melancholic song with the shades of Sebastien Tellier kinda sound, this song may seem jolly at first, but the especially melancholic undertones denote that there’s something else going on. It’s actually about depression, as that’s what the term “musica leggerissima” (very light music) means. But it still found a heart in Italian listeners and the Italian world finally woke up to how great Antonio Di Martino and Lorenzo “Colapesce” Urciullo are, and a handful of viewers were slightly heartbroken to see it not place in the superfinal top 3. Who knows if they would’ve actually won over Måneskin. I just know that their rollerskater girlie is so damn fine~

Bugo has also returned but I think his redemption arc started off the wrong foot, as his return entry, “E invece si”, was a bloated showtune ballad and got obnoxious to listen to at part. I declared to myself that night when I first heard the new entry that regarding on what made “Sincero” great, I side with Morgan.

And a special shout out to Ghemon, whose 2019 song was more than just a “purple rose” unlike I noted on a last proper Italian entry review. I don’t know what expectations I had for him, but I certainly wanted to love “Momento perfetto” more at the first listen, which was also somewhat of a show-tuney piece, but with a bit more funk and pizzazz, also Ghemon was VERY much vibing with his song, and that made me feel great for the few other performances of it that I saw the following days. It’s definitely a grower song, and around 2 months after Sanremo I fell into a bit of a rabbit-hole of his earlier music discovering, and I may be a bit exaggerating but, give Ghemon a bit more of acknowledgement and a stellar enough song, and with a little bit of magic touch, I can maybe see him lifting the Golden Lion trophy one day. Don’t ask why. (also lovely music video for his 2021 entry, which replaces continuous spinning in an aesthetic area to everybody moving their body in a diner (hopefully with everyone in the MV tested and been negative for long enough for the MV to actually happen).)

NF CORNER (NON-COMPETITIVE)

There’s so much needed to be discussed about there. So I’ll restrict myself to the moments that I remember and cherish:

• Rosario Fiorello. Just. Him.

• And the gentleman next to him, Achille Lauro.

tw // body piercing

Belarus 2018 could never

Fiorello and Lauro are perfect matches to each other’s worlds of imagination, and I was more than ever glad to see so much creativity coming from each one of them, a host and a nightly interval act respectively.

• Once again, “Rosamunda Medley” by Extraliscio, I didn’t watch the cover night in its entirety but I think it’s good enough of a medley if it got a 3rd place from the cover night from the orchestra!

• Sanremo Newcomers section of this year. I liked or vibed to almost every song out of the 8, and I’m decently happy with the winner, but if there’s one big shoutout I really want to make, is to “Regina” by Davide Shorty, for it’s such a cozy funky little love song that always makes me happy when I hear it. My personal winner preference, but I don’t mind Davide getting 2nd! For as long as he gets to place 1st in a future main Sanremo event hihihihihi

youtube

• Diodato proving himself to be a dance king at the beginning of his “Che vita meravigliosa” performance, my good Twitter friend made a bunch of videos where he dances to a lot of songs, as per request, check them out and you won’t forget it.

• Since Sanremo 2021 got rid of the audience as per COVID regulations and much to Amadeus’s dread, there ended up quite a handful of audience related memes. Such as the penis balloon et al.

• Remember when Sanremo 2021 audience was supposed to be whisked away in a cruise ship for safety measures? Pepperidge Farm remembers

• SESSO IBUPROFENEEEEEEEE

The guy that sang this song actually has the same birthday as me, so in my eyes, I feel like he has some charm to it. I’m biased lol sorry

There’s way too many more but I am afraid of flooding my post beyond your readability interest. Let’s hope that, in an event of Italy’s victory or non, we’ll get to see an even more iconic event of Sanremo emerge come the future. <3

ANY LAST WORDS?

Måneskin’s big goal was to rock Eurovision, and I think they’ve greatly accomplished that by just... doing what they do best, and that is, rocking. They leave energy lasting for days.

In bocca al lupo, fam. You’ll nail it, and even if you don’t win, Italy shouldn’t not hail you as national heroes after it’s all over.

#eurovision #eurovision 2021 #rotterdam 2021 reviews #italy #måneskin #zitti e buoni #gifs i didn't make

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hasmashdoneanythingwrong · 4 years

Note

Please! The Elder Scrolls lore!

Oh man bad wording on your part, we’re going to start from the beginning and I am going to have fun with this!

The literal blood sweat and tears of creation

So, like all good cosmologies, this one starts with a good old fashion “in the beginning, there was nothing”. And then, from this nothingness came two... let’s call them gods, that’s the closest term we have. Really, they’re more akin to the Greek Protogenoi In that they were closer to sapient forces of cosmic power than anything else. These two gods represented what many will call the great dichotomy: Anu, God of Stasis, and Padomay , God of Change. Another way to think of it is as order and chaos, but more in the sense of “things staying the same” and “things changing constantly”. These two just kind of sat around doing cosmic forces things...

When BAM! Another cosmic force (Likely representing the idea of creation) appeared. Her name was Nir, And she was so sexy that all two other people in creation at the time were like “Holy shit...!” And then Nir looked at Anu And was like “Holy Shit…!” So of course, the two of them immediately hit it off, got to work making worlds, and we’re really really happy together because they exist in the universe before “Being a shitty person to your spouse” was a concept. However, you know what was A concept? Murder and also maybe jealousy. Padomay Looked at the two of them being happy and was like “That should be me, those fuckers!” So he went up to Nir And was like hey you should ditch my stupid brother and go out with me instead we can make all sorts of cool shit. And Nir was like “What am I a cheater? Go away jerk”.

Padomay did not like this. So he went full Yandere and killed Nir and her 12 or so children/worlds.

Anu did not like this, because he helped make those and even in a timeless primordial void life was sacred.

So Anu was like “Stop! You violated the law! Pay the court a fine, or serve your sentence! Your stolen goods are now forfeit.” Padomay obviously said no and Anu was all like “Then pay with your blood!” And started fighting Padomay. However, unlike the average city guard that makes the exact same speech, Anu Was actually a powerful individual, and proceeded to rip Padomay So many new assholes that Padomay died. Then Anu was like “My wife... My Children... There’s only one thing left to do here...!”, took their shattered remains, and began piecing them together into something new. If this sounds weird and/or creepy to you, consider our own real world mythologies, and realize honestly, by creation myth standards, This is pretty tame and actually kind of nice.

But before Anu could really do anything...

Padomay: (DBZ teleport noise) Omae Wa Mou... Shindeiru.

Anu: Nani?!

(Both proceed to explode into massive puddles of blood and soul)

And from there, these massive pools of blood and soul (now named Sithis (Padomay’s Blood, The Primal “Is Not”) and Anui-El (Anu’s Blood, The Primal “Is”)) began to expand out infinitely. Where they touched created this weird sort of… Not order not chaos but also yes order and yes chaos area that we will simply call… The Aurbis.

Of course, truth is this is but one variation of How It’s Made Aurbis Edition. Some versions have snakes, some have Anu and Padomay simply eject their souls into Anui-El and Lorkhan/Sithis, who can say. All of them are technically true and false at the same time anyways. But more importantly, all of these variations are both canon, non-canon, and quasi-canon. Fun!

Hakuna Et’Ada

So in this bloody pit, The Aurbis was not the only thing to come out of this. From these three blood settings (Anu, Padomay, and Mixed) came the original spirits, which later peoples would call Et’Ada. Depending on who you ask, certain spirits originated from particular mixtures, But the reality is different spirits just sorta became different things regardless of which blood puddle they originated from. Some claim what would become the Daedra came only from Padomay’s blood, But if that were the case, then Jyggalag is hella weird since that would make him a Chaos God of Order. And Meridia was a Magna-Ge so... yeah. So for now, lets just assume every named Et’Ada that isn’t Lorkhan came from evenly intermingled blood.

Anyways, as all these spirits came to be they emerged to what is best described as a the metaphysical equivalent of a pyramid made of tesseract spirals colored RedOrangUrPinCyan but also YellOchErmilliFuchIte being formed into a pentagon. That is to say, hella interesting to watch. So the Et’Ada were kind of content to couch potato and watch the resulting three way of the 3rd, ith (as in the imaginary number), and -680th dimensions.

All but one. See, one Et’Ada was purely Padomayic/Sithic, and his name was Lorkhan. And being essentially the embodiment of Chaos and Change, Lorkhan was like “Man this isn’t exciting enough”. So he kept getting bored, until one “day” (day as a relative term since time didn’t exist yet) he got so bored he went to the edge of The Aurbis and saw it looked like a wheel with 8 spokes. He said “huh that’s weird” tilted his head to the side and immediately Understood(tm) because he beheld the letter and concept “I”. Except not really, because as an Et’Ada he could never Understand. But he understood he did not Understand, so he knew how other spirits could Understand. So he was like “I have an Idea” and left to tell/cajole/convince the other spirits to participate. Some didn’t like his idea, bust secretly they kind of did. So they fucked off and made their own worlds out of themselves while retaining all their power. The 13 most powerful became the Daedric Princes, and all together the spirits that did not participate in Lorkhan’s plan became known as the Daedra (An old word meaning “Not Our Ancestors, singular form Daedroth (not to be confused with the crocodile like Daedra)). Meanwhile, all the other spirits thought this totally sounded cool, especially the one who would become Kynareth/Kyne (note that many creation myths have her heavily associated with Lorkhan and/or his equivalent figures, like Shor). One of these Et’Ada, a mighty spirit of mostly Anui-El named Magnus, was of course chosen to be the Architect and planner, for he understood the concept of order and planning better than anyone save maybe Auri-El/Auriel/Akatosh, who was basically Anui-El’s equivalent to Lorkhan. And eventually, after many not-months and a whole lot of untime later, Magnus was like “It’s done, let’s put this bad boy together!”, and Lorkhan was like “It’s Just According To Keikaku”, and unfortunately he said this right as the spirits were in the middle of making Lorkhan’s Cool Thing and realized it was kiiiiind of killing them to do. Also unfortunately for Lorkhan, they all knew Keikaku means plan. So Magnus and his closest followers/diciples/apprentices were like “fuck this!” And tore holes into reality to escape to Aetherius, which is what surrounds the bubble of reality Lorkhan’s Cool Thing exists in. However, Lorkhan immediately said “It’s Just According to Keikaku” again because by doing that, Lorkhan’s Cool Thing was exposed to Magicka, and also that made the stars (with Magnus’s exit becoming The Sun).

Never let it be said Lorkhan didn’t know how plans worked.

After that the remaining gods decided to Convene upon Lorkan’s Cool Thing to decide on how to punish him for saying the old memes and also for nearly killing them. This meeting (called Convention) was held upon what would become Adamantine Tower, aka Ada-Mantia. Eventually, it was decided that Lorkhan was to be executed for being a massive tool who tricked the Et’Ada into sacrificing themselves for Lorkhan’s Cool Thing. They also decided to rename Lorkhan’s Cool Thing to Nirn as they realized that Lorkhan’s creation had sort of recreated Nir as she was before Padomay killed her (I forgot to mention his killing Nir kind of maimed the fuck out of her too) without really bringing her to life again. So eventually it was decided that Lorkhan was to be executed, but that didn’t work out as well since everything they tried to do to him just didn’t work. So Lorkhan once again said “It’s Just According To Keikaku” and Auri-El was like “Anu and Padomay dude what do you even mean by that?!”, to which Lorkhan explained:

“My Heart is the Heart of the World, for one was made to satisfy the other!” (By the way I’m 90% certain he actually said something like this.)

So hearing this, both Auri-El and a spirit named Trinimac proclaimed “If your heart is so satisfied by the world, then the world can have it!” (Not really, But it builds up to what they really did). Then, Trinimac tore Lorkhan in half and pulled the heart out before Lorkhan could be not torn in half, then gave it to Auri-El who fastened it upon an arrow and fired it from his bow.

You may know this bow, it takes a form mortals can use sometimes. Which bow? Think of Auri-El’s other names.

Anyways, as the heart was flying over what would become Tamriel, it’s blood flew all over the damn place. Most of the blood would become the metal Ebony, which is why it’s so powerful a metal as it’s essentially dried god’s blood. Other places, such as... oh, let’s throw out the middle of Cyrodiil for no reason, the blood would crystalize. Oh, and I lied because I threw out Cyrodiil for a reason and that reason is one crystalized blood lump would become the Chim-El-Adabal, and later the Amulet of Kings, a very important necklace.

Meanwhile, the other gods used Lorkhan’s halves to make the Moons, because what else would you do with dead god corpse parts?

Eventually, the Heart of Lorkhan would hit the ocean, where it would give rise to a massive volcano island people would later call Morrowind, and from this volcano Lorkhan’s heart would give one last “It’s Just According To Keikaku”, for this too was planned. For you see, by doing this Lorkhan subconsiously introduced the concept of a straight line to Auri-El, the spirit of time. And by doing that, it forced Time to go from one point to the other instead of doing what it wanted. The first two Towers were made, and Nirn was at last out of Beta and in Release Phase. Bugfixes and stability patches (more Towers) to follow later.

Realizing they could not live forever with their divinity drained into Nirn, the Et’Ada (now renamed Aedra, meaning “Our Ancestors”) began to have descendants, the Ehlnofey (Earthbones, aka Demi-Gods). These Ehlnofey were the creators of the laws of physics, so to speak, known as Truths. Some created gravity, others said “hey maybe all this magicka floating around should be usable” and invented magic, and so on and so forth. These became known as The Earthbones. That said, many Ehlnofey simply had children, what would become Mer (elves) and Men. Argonians, meanwhile, came about because a chunk of one of those old worlds Nir created landed on Nirn in the form of the Hist. And the Khajiit... uh... I have no clue actually, I’ll get back to you on that one. Something involving the moons I know that much.

Towers, the Tacks of Reality

So, I’m sure you’re wondering, since I’ve mentioned the concept at least twice now, “hasmashdoneanythingwrong.com, What are The Towers in the metaphysical sense?”, To which I say… This is actually a very interesting concept. It’s best explained with The Map Metaphor. Imagine, if you will, Mundus (the pocket of reality Nirn resides in within the Aurbis) as a corkboard. Now, lay a map of Tamriel/Nirn over the corkboard. And now, take several pins and/or tacks and place them in areas roughly akin to the following areas:

High Rock’s Adamantine Tower

Morrowind’s Red Mountain/Red Tower

Summerset Isle’s Crystal Tower/Crystal-Like-Law

Cyrodiil’s White-Gold Tower/Imperial Palace

Yokuda’s Orchalc Tower (just imagine it somewhere in the ocean. You may notice a problem here, we’ll get to that soon...ish.)

The Dwemer’s Numidium/Walk-Brass/Brass Tower (pin this one pretty much anywhere on the Daggerfall region, basically somewhere in High Rock or Hammerfell). This one’s weird because it’s techincally in the future but active now. For best bets represent it with a tack made of transparent plastic.

Valenwood’s Green-Sap

Skyrim’s Snow-Throat/Throat of the World

Keep a few other pins on hand in case Bethesda reveals a tower in either Akavir, Pyandonea, or (unlikely but possible) Thras.

So, now you imagine the map, right? These pins, The Towers, hold Mundus/Nirn together and keep them from sinking into Oblivion.

So of course here’s where it all goes to fuck. Do the following:

Remove Red Mountain, Crystal Tower, White-Gold Tower, and Orichalc Tower.

Pull Snow-Throat half way out (while not deactivated it is “damaged” somehow.)

Not a whole lot of pins left, eh? But, one good piece of news: there is one more force holding Nirn/Mundus out of Oblivion.

Do the following:

Put a metric fuckton of gold tacks around the edge of the map, and imagine them being set up to automatically pull the Tower Pins out if they all get pulled out.

What tower is that? None! It is instead Talos, who is secretly holding the world together. Horrifyingly, this means killing the dude in Whiterun that preaches about Talos is bad, as Talos needs worshippers to maintain his power. Which means the Thalmor will unmake reality if they completely remove Talos Worship.

Don’t worry, they know and are banking on that happening. Why do you think that one Thalmor in the College of Winterhold questline was so excited about “the power to unmake the world at [his] fingertips”?

Wait, no. Do worry.

And somewhere, Akatosh is complaining about his neck and his back.

Time is a funny thing on Nirn. Turns out, making Time be based on making a single god know what a straight line is is very... unstable. Unstable enough that it’s possible to Break it. Yes, capital B. A Dragon Break is what they’re called. When a Dragon Break occurs, Time goes back to what it once was and becomes... fucky. Children birth their fathers, mothers divorce men they never met until five years from a prior divorce they never had, and dogs and cats decide now’s a good time to be friends. Fun! So when this happens, the Jills come out to Shout at Time until it bitches down and stops being broken, like a hoard of shitty therapists. If you’re wondering what a Jill is, basically it’s a female Dragon. Well, female by mortal standards. See, dragons’ genders are based on whether they want to fix thing or break things, and I am completely serious on that. So far, the most famous two Dragom Breaks occured:

When the Maruhkati Selectives, a rabidly Anti-Elf cult sect of an already pretty Anti-Elf group known as the Alessian Order, attempted to purge Auri-El from Akatosh because Auri-El was the aspect elves worshiped. As you can imagine, that went horribly.

The endings of Daggerfall, where at parallel points in different timelines several factions attempted to use Numidium all at once. The end result was the Warp In The West, Mannimarco becoming a God of Necromancy, Orcs getting rights, and the Illac Bay not being a massive clusterfuck (mostly). Numidium tends to do that, being the Dwemer’s walking middle finger to reality.

More Fun Facts about stuff available upon request, But for now I need to stop or I’ll make this too long for anyone.

#not fate #tes lore #long post

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sazzafraz · 3 years

Text

dropped a cup of coffee on myself at breakfast lets gooo

nodus tollens is my favourite chapter its not even close

like i actually LIKED writing it. i like writing in general but its about being someone represented with all the scary sword cards in tarot readings not actual fun. still annoyed i didn’t think of anything better than fucking HEMMINGWAY

A year and a half into working for Giri and Sasuke is sitting cross legged on top of a boulder looking out at a clear blue sky. They’re sitting by the edge of a huge cliff in Fire Country resting between assassinating some small time village leader and their next mission which promises to be heavy on full contact fighting. The sun is dipping towards the horizon, warm air ruffling their hair. Yumi is trying to throw Hiki off the cliff into the lake below, Haru is defleaing his dog and Sasuke is debating his next move in the long distance tactical game he’s playing with Juugo and Karin. It’s an Uzushio classic, like shogi but the board is made of three interlocked spirals and the movements of the pieces are based on the tides. Karin is slaughtering him.

fun fact: literally started designing that uzushio game because i’m a psychopath. it’s also the first of three references, two in the same chapter, of sasuke and his teams, and then one at the end where everyone gets together. to make fun of sasuke. as they should.

There are seven graves by the edge of the sea with a bright blooming flowers planted in the centre spilling over the cliff. Tall markers stand as high as three metres in the air wreathed with ribbons in the colours of dawn and day... Sasuke spares a look back as he enters and sees those graves and flowers. The flowers have colonised the side of the cliff, growing strong and sure halfway down the rocks, slipping into crevices and tangling around each other as they race towards the ocean. Huge blooms of colour, bright reds, light pinks and creamy yellows are knocked about by the waves crashing against the cliff.

if fuyuki even knew how much this colours sasukes opinion of her she’d beat the shit out of him. i think this was the second bit i wrote for her, after a few pieces of her and itachi. actually if she knew how much both of them are coloured by knowing her past she’d commit a crime. its pretty apparent to sasuke that these are memorials to children/those that died young and unfair. how would he know haha. i always intended the hashira and the uchiha as parallels. i think the lack of depth given to other clans sucks, especially when they have literally a thousand years of interaction. the only other one we have are the hyuuga which might have been an intended one but like. i’ve never bought it.

anyway, back to sasuke. dude loves kids. he doesn’t figure it out until he has nine of ‘em, but he has a view of children that’s incredibly sincere. i pretty much decided that on my own cause: a) its funny, b) he was fucking SWEET as a kid and i’ll kill you before i let you tell me that kid went away, c) he’s from a huge close knit family/community and liking kids is the only way to get through that,

oh. also fuyuki does cotton on to his emotional compromise and IMMEDIATELY lies so he likes her more. morals who?

“It seems,” Fuyuki says into the silence, “that Sunagakure has decided we have a problem. I sent Mamoru as a goodwill ambassador to Wind a few months ago. It went well, and as Suna is a largely neutral player in most conflicts I did not see the problem in allowing a small ambassadorial group into Oto to further the relationship. At the fourth meeting one of the Suna delegation proved themselves to be a puppet and assassinated Mamoru. They were in the process of trying to loot us when they were killed.”

haha oh my god gaara fucks himself so hard here. we’re gonna talk about it.

Now it’s leaving time and Sasuke is walking fast downtown, faces passing him as he’s bound for home base.

only two people ever commented on this. vip behaviour.

Shikamaru raises a hand and waves.

Sasuke waves back.

Shikamaru looks at him expectantly across the crowd. Distantly Sasuke notes that he’s the taller of the two. Head’s bob and weave around the marketplace, someone drops an avocado which is swept up a child and her friends, the scent of cooking spices drift down from the top of one of the buildings. Sasuke and Shikamaru stare at eachother.

i never wrote the short for this but this is shikamaru’s nightmare scenario. finding sasuke when naruto is not with you is the k12′s personal hell. because konoha and giri are tentative allies it would be poaching to bring him back and thats something people still take seriously. shikamaru goes and gets FUCKED UP so no one trusts his report and he can claim that it was ONLY MAYBE THE PRETTIEST MAN IN THE FLEA MARKET. naruto finds out like a decade later and is extremely pissed even if he gets it.

It’s a tale as old as the dust of the desert or the mountains that divide the nations. There is a boy who loses something. His honour, a cow, a sword. He has to leave his home to find it. He has to grow strong enough to do what has to be done. In the Son of Nobody the titular Son has to journey to the city to meet the princess and while he is away his family is murdered by a group of wandering bandits. Along the way he meets a beggar girl, the princess in disguise, and he allows her to tag along. There are many twists and turns, the Son becomes a noble shinobi protecting the princess and falls in love with the beggar. He finds the bandits that destroyed his home and avenges his family. But! Disaster strikes! The samurai have been told a lie about the princess and feel that their honour must be avenged. A group sneak into the princess’ room one night and defile her. One of the samurai is late to the scene and feeling so sick and ashamed of their actions kills them and ignites a real war between samurai and ninja. The disgraced samurai takes his own life in front of the princess as appeasement. When this doesn’t work the Son goes on to win the war and marry the girl.

this is just hatake sakumo. some creative liberty but its just the story of how he died embellished. i think some shinobi stories filter out and become like folk tales? like we’re gonna get to it. but there's no way they can have that kind of presence and no cultural impact.

‘Heart, liver, eyes ’ Kabuto says when he’s done, ‘and put the rest in the garbage.’

for sensible reasons kabuto is the scary one.

. Illuminated in the light of the lone flickering candle, bundled in odd cloth and grime, Kabuto looks faceless and formless. His skin has no color, his hair is limp, his eyes are turned completely inward searching himself for an some answer, some lodestone for the next leg of his journey. He looks like an orphaned version of himself. Sasuke has a brief moment of complete self-awareness. He stands above himself and looks down at the length of his hair, the uneven tan on his hands. His own eyes look at his boots, his non-descript travelling coat, the way he is never carrying more than enough money to carry him to the next town. He recognises nothing original, nothing remarkable. He’s as interchangeable as any soldier capable of swapping hands at a moment's notice. Many tools, many masks, many uses. He realises that that shifting formlessness is as much a part of him as his burning rage. It forms him just as fully.

i remember having a moment like this and it was so shocking it took me years to write about it. this nearly got cut, even though i now think its important. becoming ‘just a knife’ is important to sasuke’s development towards being just a guy. relating to kabuto is so personally disturbing that its sort of his turn towards leaving giri. kabuto actually disgusts him. unlike orochimaru.

“We called her the Fruit Eater after the foul seeds she planted in others which grew into giant poisonous fruit trees. When they’d plundered and destroyed the world enough for her foul tastes she’d eat the fruit from the trees and crush them to bone and blood under her feet. Her own children plucked out her organs one by one and cut them up into pieces. What they couldn’t eat they threw to the animals who turned into nine ravenous demons. They brought the demons together and sealed them into the form of a beautiful princess who was coveted by all.”

goddamn space aliens. i hate it less than most. i think i was still deciding if they’d show up at the end. either way i thought i’d just put them in in case i did. again, there SHOULD be a cultural footprint.

The problem is that the Uchiha are predisposed to have thick hair and the main branch, the one that descends directly from Madara’s betrayed brother Izuna, comes with a tendency for...unruliness that Sasuke has gotten threefold. At this length it seems to be largely growing up and out, gravity be damned.

aww my loving rendition of his stupid duck butt. i have unruly hair so his maintenance is essentially mine. its such a distinctive thing i think people should take more advantage of. i wrote in crashing tides that he’s just an awful fashionista and i think that holds true. he tries new hair oils ALL THE TIME.

#the author is present #part one part one

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yeaahishowedupatyourparty · 3 years

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The Calloways: Back stories, information & more ❥ Part One: Family.

Obviously, Synn, Katie and Fae have all taken a sister each and will grow them in ways that they see best but these are my original headcanons and ideas of what the family are like & what their lives are like.

The Family (by age)

Gerald Calloway (46) Anthea Calloway (45) Eloise Calloway Amber Calloway Felicity Calloway Piper Calloway - ‘Deceased’ Zara Calloway Darla Sutherland - Mother of Eloise

Gerald Calloway

Gerald inherited The Calloway from his father and the hotel has been in the family since before the First World War. He’s a traditionalist and definitely takes pride in being “the man of the house.” With Eloise - Eloise and Gerald have a special bond. Despite what Eloise may think, he’s never wanted his oldest daughter to feel pushed out or not a part of the family. He definitely has a soft spot for her and believes the two of them are bonded in a way he’ll have be able to achieve with the other girls. With Amber - Amber is his first child with his current wife and he definitely sees her as a ‘Mummy’s Girl’. He loves her just as much as he loves the others, but with her being Anthea’s favourite, Gerald rarely had much to do with her as she got older. With Felicity - Gerald would’ve seen Felicity as a relief. Before she came, it was very much Eloise vs. Amber and him trying to find a way to balance them both when their mothers wanted one to be better than the other. I feel like Gerald would’ve used Felicity to bring some sort of unity between the sisters because she gave them a common ground; because of this, Felicity is probably the reason he’s a lot closer to his family in general which gives them a great bond. With Piper - Piper was always the ‘difficult twin’ out of her and Zara. Piper and Zara were Gerald’s first taste at having famous children; think Mary-Kate and Ashley; and he loved the bragging rights he gave him. However, rather than being the half-child-half-doll that Zara was, Piper would lash out more. All of the sisters knew that Piper and Gerald didn’t get along, Piper included. With Zara - Being the youngest, Zara spent most of her childhood doing as she was told and going where she was taken. Seeing as she was a child star with Piper, Gerald loved this. When Piper would lash out, Zara would stand in and charm everybody again. She was the perfect addition his father needed; big blue eyes, a head of blonde hair and an angelic presence. After Zara had difficult teenage years, I think Gerald does the most to get back a daughter that doesn’t exist anymore.

Anthea Calloway

Anthea had been a young model and socialite when she met Gerald back in the nineties; think Serena Van Der Woodsen. Her family were famous for owning land more than anything else but being the older sister of two, she was determined to make more of a name for herself beyond that, hence the modelling. She later went on to launch her own fashion brand and magazine known as Enchanté. With Eloise - Anthea and Eloise’s relationship is almost non-existent and it’s Anthea’s fault. Even though she got Gerald and she was the reason he broke up with Darla, it wasn’t good enough. She spent a lot of years being jealous of the fact that Gerald had a child with Darla and she’d never measure up. When her own daughters eventually did come along, she did and still does everything in her power to keep a divide between her own girls and Eloise. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. With Amber - The moment Amber came along, Anthea suddenly felt secure in her relationship with Gerald. Darla couldn’t be smug that she had a daughter with Gerald and Anthea didn’t, because she now did. Amber was and still is her pride and joy, and Anthea will go out of her way to make sure Amber is better than Eloise in everything. It doesn’t help that the two girls are so close in age, because they grew up feeling the rivalry too. However, with Darla out of the picture for the most part, it was clear that Amber would usually win any competition Anthea set up. With Felicity - Anthea, of course, loves Felicity and as with everything else, she’d often push Amber and Felicity to do things together which is why the girls were so close. Anthea noticed that Felicity was feistier than Amber from a younger age, and would often use this to her own benefit when it came to indirectly upsetting Eloise. She’d often plant ideas and misconceptions in her daughters head to pull the girls apart. However - and it’s a big however, while Anthea is proud of Felicity for breaking into fashion just like she did as well as Amber, she’ll always do what she can to make sure Amber is the better of the two. With Piper - Piper was always Anthea’s least favourite child and she never really had it a big secret. Yes, Piper was technically the family’s “cash cow” - Zara definitely wouldn’t have made childhood stardom on her own - but, she was a pain. She was reckless and hard to control. When Piper fell pregnant at just fourteen, Anthea found this the perfect excuse to send her away to secretly live with her Great Aunt in Sweden. Anthea still works today to make sure her daughter stays away, as the girls and Gerald believe that she died through a freak accident while out in L.A. With Zara - Zara was like a doll to Anthea. She was the baby, the one she could dress up and control when the other girls were too old for all of that. She enjoyed the attention Zara got through her fame and often lived vicariously through her. She put a lot of effort on her youngest to do everything her sisters did and more; some would even believe she was attempting to make Amber 2.0 out of her. When Zara went off the rails and moved to L.A., Anthea believed that Zara knew about Piper and does her best to keep her sweet. Zara doesn’t know, but Anthea doesn’t know that and will bend over backwards to keep Zara sweet.

Darla Sutherland

Darla was the high school sweetheart of Gerald and also the mother of Eloise, his first child and her only child. Darla herself came from money. Her family own a very successful chain of restaurants in the South of England which gave them the money to place her in the school that Gerald also attended. They married as soon as they were legal - sixteen, Gerald was seventeen - and were together until Gerald started to become more in tune with the world of show business. That’s where he met Anthea. Darla didn’t want to believe it at first, but it was obvious that their relationship was completely falling apart and while Gerald kept his promise of helping to raise Eloise, she was extremely bitter and has nothing but hate towards Anthea and her other girls. She lives in Cornwall, where her family originally were from.

Piper Calloway (TW: Grooming/Abortion)

Piper was the twin of Zara. The second youngest Calloway sister and definitely the one with the biggest presence. Her family believe she ‘passed away’ out in Los Angeles after contracting an illness by chance. The truth of the matter is that she’s currently living out in rural Sweden with her Great Aunt. She fell pregnant at 14 with the baby of one of her show’s producers and was sent away to have her abortion in Sweden; she didn’t know she’d be kept there, but Anthea made sure she was. With Eloise - Piper was probably the only sister who’d actively understand that Anthea was deliberately trying to turn the other girls against their older sister. Amber was raised against her, Felicity didn’t know any different and Zara was too quiet. Piper wouldn’t have it, though, and would often try to rebuild bridges where Anthea burnt them. With Amber - Amber was the sister Piper clashed most with, just because she reminded Piper so much of their mother, and Piper hates their mother. She didn’t quite understand the pedestal Amber was on at all times either. As far as the daughters of Anthea go, these two represent the opposite ends of the spectrum; Amber is the golden girl, Piper is...not. With Felicity - Piper and Felicity probably have the most similarities personality-wise and in a normal family, probably would have been the closest of the sisters. However, knowing how much her parents love Felicity, Piper would go out of her way to be nasty or upset her because she knows in turn, it’d hurt Gerald and Anthea. The bottom line is, Piper loved all of her sisters but didn’t love how they were so linked to her parents; and her hate for them always triumphed. With Zara - Being the closest in age, they fought and loved harder than any of the other sisters did. They lived in each other’s pockets from the age of five right up until everything changed. Even though Zara was only a few minutes younger than Piper, Piper would go out of her way to shield Zara from things she didn’t want her to be exposed to; creepy men in the industry, drugs, bad people in general. Piper always had better intuition than Zara to the point where it’s no surprise Zara made a whole heap of bad decisions as soon as she was out of the picture.

#the calloways #saved

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dovechim · 5 years

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the singularity theory 03 (m)

➾ 11.5k yoongi x reader ft taehyung

➾ the singularity theory posits that privilege of anonymity, combined with the element of restricted physical contact, has the ability to foster an emotional intimacy between two strangers that is genuine and non-forced.

➾ summary: in your last year of undergrad, you find out what a gloryhole is at the expense of your final year thesis. it’s a classic example of a psychology experiment that went way, way wrong.

but how were you to know that a certain min yoongi would be sticking his dick into your life?

➾ warnings: gloryhole use, degradation, blowjob, impreg kink, mentions of cumplay

➾ a/n: happy new years!! after what feels like a million years, it’s finally here. i struggled a lot while writing this, and i am so so so relieved to finally wrap it up. thank you for waiting so patiently, and i hope you enjoy!! love, addie

01 | 02 | 03 (complete)

Literature Review

This project was named after the astronomical phenomenon of a gravitational singularity, a one-dimensional point in the centre of a black hole that contains an infinitely huge mass in an infinitely small space. Here, gravity and density become infinite, and space time curves indefinitely. It is also commonly referred to the point where all laws of physics cease to operate. When an object falls into a black hole and approaches the singularity, it is presumed to disappear completely and irrevocably. However, from an observer’s point of view, the object appears to merely approach the black hole with an ever decreasing speed, never actually disappearing inside.

The author believes that there are significant similarities between this astrological theory and the experiment. The conditions of anonymity and restricted physical contact seek to mimic the attractive forces of the black hole’s irresistible gravitational pull that ultimately culminates in a single point of no return; a point where the forces that govern typical societal interactions break down and cease to exist entirely. It is also the author’s belief that anonymity acts as a vacuum space where private information can be disclosed without fear of shame or judgement.

There is a dick in front of you. It is Mr Cheetos’s dick.

Strangely enough, it doesn’t look as much like a Cheeto as you remembered. His voice sounds far away, as if you’re hearing it underwater, and a kind of fascination grips you as you reach your hand out to touch it. Ignoring your notes on the table and switching off the voice recorder.

The dick that presents itself through the gloryhole in front of you is dripping with precum, and before it can hit the floor, you curiously stretch out your tongue to catch one of the drops. It is salty on your tongue, not altogether bad. You bring your tongue closer to the tip, and as if he can feel your breath on him, Mr Cheetos shoves his dick further into the gloryhole, and you can feel your core ache when you imagine how he must look like on the other side; balls pressed against the wall in desperation, straining to get every inch of his length through the hole for you.

You let your tongue lap at the tip; the man on the other side rewards you with a guttural groan. He is hot and silky on your tongue, and you circle it around him a few times before letting it come to rest just below his tip, curling your tongue around him as he leaks more precum onto your tastebuds.

Mr Cheetos thrusts once, a futile gesture because he is already at his limit, thighs pressed against the wall. You control how deep he goes, and the realisation of it thrills you when you slide your tongue forward just a tad, and he groans. Closing your mouth around him, you placate him with a few sucks, swallowing down the taste of him.

“Stop,” he chokes out suddenly. He withdraws his cock slightly from the hole, as if he is gripping his base on the other side. “Gonna make me cum.”

The room is hazy, all you can see is the hard cock in front of you, and you inch forward on your knees to coax him back into your mouth. “Then cum. On my face.”

A choked whisper on the other side, followed by a few curses. It sounds like Yoongi is struggling to keep his composure- wait, did you just say Yoongi? Your addled brain backtracks a few steps only to find your memory completely hazy. This is Mr Cheetos, you remind yourself. Mr Cheetos needs a servicing before you can proceed with the experiment, and Yoongi-

“Want your pussy, please,” the voice comes again, begging, pleading. “Turn around and slide yourself on my cock. Please.”

His cock is dripping again. A random thought crosses your mind; you can’t let the floor be stained with anything, or else people are going to find out about this. You get to your feet slowly, eyes trained on his cock and that drop of precum that is dangerously about to fall, hiking your skirt up, and-

The wet, blunt head of his cock brushes your folds, and you feel him drip down your inner thigh. Smiling to yourself in triumph, you spread your thighs and take him in your hand, rubbing your clit a few times before you guide him back to where he needs to be; to where he belongs. He sinks inside of you deep when you push back onto the gloryhole, and this time you swear as if you can feel the rumble of his chest through the thin wall when he moans.

Your ass is flush against the wall as he begins to thrust shallowly. The stretch feels good, better than your small fingers.

“Fuck yourself on my cock.”

He stops moving, his cock is buried deep in your pussy. You obey him, beginning to work your hips as you scramble for the table in front of you to help you keep your balance, sinking all the way down to the base of his cock every time. You can already feel the wall that separates you and him getting wet and sloppy with your combined juices. Reaching down for your clit, you tighten around him immediately, fingers pinching and stroking.

“Let me hear you. That’s it, let me hear you as I imagine what you look like fucking yourself on my cock. You’ll let me cum inside you right? You’ll let any random stranger like me cream your pretty pussy through a gloryhole. I want you to show me your pussy after I fill it with cum.” The voice on the other side is getting slightly breathless now, and you can feel him starting to take control with his thrusts now.

You push your ass back against the gloryhole so that he can go as hard as he wants and needs.

“Answer me. Are you just a cumslut who wants men to fuck her through gloryholes and cum inside? You love it, don’t you. Random men fucking you full of cum. Even better if they knock you up.”

“N-no… just…” Your voice sounds small and fragmented to your own ears. Your vision is going hazy. Everything in the room is a blur, everything is spinning. But the one thing that remains clear is his voice.

“No? Don’t lie to me.”

“I-just want your cum. Just yours, please.”

“Whose cum do you want? Say my name. Say it as I cum inside your pretty pussy and make it mine.”

He is going so hard now that you can feel every thrust smack your ass, his balls are hitting the gloryhole, and you wish it was hitting your ass instead.

“I’m gonna cum. Fuck, oh please, right there,” you beg him to keep going, feeling your thighs tremble and your walls start to quiver around him.

“Say my name and I’ll let you cum like a good girl.”

“Mr Ch- Mr- oh fuck, I’m coming, Yoongi, I want your cum!”

The man on the other side responds with a pleased chuckle that you can feel radiating all the way up your spine as he gives you a few sloppy thrusts before he groans, burying his cock deep as he-

Warmth seeps through your panties, and you gasp, eyes flying open.

Suddenly, the world presents itself to you in 1080p quality as you are met with the view of your ceiling. Drenched in sweat, you sit up gingerly only to grimace when you feel the stickiness of your panties.

God fucking dammit, did you seriously just have a wet dream? At this age?

The last thing you remember from last night was… working on your paper. You must have fallen asleep and migrated to your bed at some point. When you glance towards your work desk, the tell-tale signs of an all-nighter are there, alright; opened bags of chips, half empty coffee cups and your laptop still open.

Pushing your covers aside, you grumble to yourself as you hurry to clean yourself up, only to stop dead in your tracks when flashbacks of your dream come back to you in bits and pieces. And more importantly, the name that left your lips-

This cannot be happening.

You stare at yourself in the mirror. It was just a dream. Just a stupid old dream.

But dreams originate from the sub-conscious. Dreams represent the id, the repressed sexual and primal urges that are locked away and hidden from society because they are unacceptable. Having a sexual fantasy is completely normal, but more worrying is who it was about.

You press a hand to your temple as the thoughts race against each other. Sometimes, you think that pursuing this degree is a mistake because you tend to psychoanalyse yourself in a manner that is all too unhealthy.

Splashing some cold water on your face, you brush your teeth quickly and tie your hair back. When you feel significantly more human again, you dig for your phone in the mess that is your bed only to realise that you’d somehow slept through all four of your alarms- and that you’re currently 10 minutes late for your last ever session.

“Fucking hell,” you swear under your breath as you gather your materials and fly out the door.

This is ridiculous. Just fucking ridiculous.

Yoongi never runs. Yet today, he dragged himself out of bed at five in the morning just to make sure he was out of the room before Jimin was up. Jimin likes to get in his morning workouts before 7am sharp, and he is a notoriously light sleeper.

But now, run completed, drenched in sweat and feeling gross all over, Yoongi has yet to come up with a plausible excuse to get him out of his session today. The last ever session for the month, and granted, he has no actual reason to wriggle out of it. It’s just, a part of him isn’t ready for it to be over.

He should have savoured the past few days more. That sweet period of limbo where everything is possible and yet, nothing is set in stone. All weekend long that fucking lemon yellow polish had been haunting him, mocking him even. Yoongi had been oscillating between writing it off as a mere coincidence and something else; something much larger and beyond his wildest dreams. He hadn’t dared to even think it aloud for fear of unleashing a never ending stream of self-criticism.

Deciding to bite the bullet and just say whatever comes to mind, Yoongi pushes the door open, catching Jimin in the midst of pulling a shirt on.

“Hey man. Where’ve you been- wait, you don’t look so good, you doing alright?” Jimin narrows his eyes as he closes the distance between them, tugging his shirt down as he surveys Yoongi’s flushed face.

Yoongi’s just about to grumble a retort- something about still being fit enough to kick Jimin’s ass out on the track- when he stops himself. At least that run had cleared his mind up a little for him to see that Jimin is offering him an easy way out. “Um, actually I’m not feeling too good.”

“What’s wrong?” He immediately comes over to put a hand on Yoongi’s forehead. “You’ve been off ever since our game last week. If you were coming down with something, it’d be over by now.” Jimin worries his plush bottom lip as he draws his hand away. “No temperature. Were you working out? You should take it easy man.”

“Yeah, I just…” Yoongi’s voice trails off. He’s never been good at lying, especially not to Jimin’s face. As obnoxious as his roommate is sometimes, when Jimin is worried, he is the epitome of a mother hen. So he decides to keep it simple. “Your snoring kept me up last night.”

Jimin’s eyes widen in mock hurt. “Dude, what? I do not snore!!”

“That’s exactly what someone who snores all night long would say,” Yoongi says as he reaches for a towel and some spare clothes. “I’m gonna take a shower and go back to bed. Hopefully without your loud ass.”

Jimin just grumbles under his breath, still protesting as he fumbles around his room to get ready for his morning class. But suddenly, he stops in his tracks as he finds his phone. “Wait, that last session with- your last session is today. Do you want me to cancel it?”

“Could you?” Yoongi casts a glance back at Jimin for just a second, all the better to fool him into thinking that this is no big deal, as if he hadn’t been ruminating on ways to worm his way out of this experiment for the past few days. “I mean, if it’s too much trouble to reschedule, then…”

“It’s fine, I got it,” Jimin mumbles with his arms full of books as he texts with one hand. “I’m sure _- um, she won’t mind.”

Yoongi’s ears perk up at the sound of Jimin’s hasty cover up- he was sure that he accidentally almost name dropped there. When he glances over at his roommate, Jimin is avoiding all eye contact as he puts his phone away and ruffles his hair like he always does when he’s flustered or nervous. He decides to probe a little.

“Speaking of… her,” Yoongi begins. “It’s her final year project right? Why’s she not doing it in a group like you are?”

“Because she’s stubborn as always,” Jimin chuckles under his breath, pausing to slap on a little moisturizer on his face. “She thinks she’s really on to something with her thesis, though she won’t let anyone read it. Not even me, her best friend! Can you believe it?” He turns around, a glob of cream still on his nose, with an indignant expression. “She literally just told me like 10% of it. Said it was all I needed to know.”

Best friend? Hmm, now he’s getting somewhere. Trying his best to keep his voice casual, Yoongi asks, “do I know this person?”

Once again, Jimin immediately stiffens up. It’s painfully obvious in his posture that he realises he’s treading on dangerous territory now. Jimin turns back to the mirror and slowly, deliberately spreads the cream onto his skin, avoiding Yoongi’s eyes in the mirror. “Yoongi, you know I can’t tell you that. It’d ruin the sanctity of her experiment. She told you that you can’t have any contact with her outside of that room, right?”

Yoongi sighs internally. At least he tried. He’s just about to turn to head for the showers when Jimin speaks again.

“Why do you wanna know who she is? Did something happen in those sessions?” He asks cautiously, as if he is treading on broken glass. Yoongi can hear from the tone in Jimin’s voice that he’s pretending to play it off casually. “Damn, you really gotta get laid soon.”

At least Jimin gave him a way out again, even if he did it unknowingly. Purposely avoiding the first part of his question, Yoongi shrugs. “I did just get laid. Remember? That girl from your party. After our game. _____. I thought I told you. That little seven minutes in heaven stunt that you pulled?”

At the sound of your name, Jimin visibly pales. “Wh- Who? Who did you hook up with?”

“Did I get her name wrong?” Yoongi muses, searching his memory. He’d only heard it once, and he doubts he could have remembered it wrongly. “_____. She was at your party last week. Dude, you asked me to kiss her in that stupid truth or dare game!”

Jimin’s eyes slide left and right, avoiding all eye contact as his lips press into a firm line. “Did I? I was really drunk. Maybe I just don’t remember.”

Suspicion sinks into the pit of Yoongi’s stomach and drags him down, threatening to swallow him whole. He clenches his fist around his towel. Jimin’s reaction only further serves his theory that… no. It can’t be. He’s simply reading too much into things. “Yeah, you were pretty drunk there.”

Yoongi desperately needs to escape somewhere else and think about all of this stupid, stupid coincidences, the little things that are adding up here and there. He leaves Jimin still standing in their room and hightails it to the showers, forcing the memory of your lips, your kisses, and most hauntingly, your fingers, out of his mind.

“Rough morning?” When you arrive, Mr Gucci is already seated on the other side, obscured by the glory- by Mr Cheetos’s experimental setup. You forgot to reset it after your last session with him, so you reach for the panel and remove it, forcing aside unholy thoughts.

“Definitely a rough morning,” Mr Gucci nods to himself when he sees your unkempt hair, spectacles askew on your face and currently sporting your baggiest hoodie. He, on the other hand, while also dressed comfortably in a baggy shirt, pulls it off with a grace and effortlessness that you can only dream of.

“I’m sorry, did you wait long?” You hurry to get your notes in order, and more importantly, catch your breath and try to regain your composure. You’re sorry that the last session with Mr Gucci has to end this way, even more sorry that he has to see this side of you that should never be revealed to the world. “Just give me a minute to get this set up- you can start with three impressions first if you like. Last week’s were ambitious, pretty and fresh.”

“Sure,” Mr Gucci bobs his head. “Ambitious, pretty, but not-so-fresh.”

You can’t help but laugh as you make a note of this. “Guess I set myself up for that one huh?”

Mr Gucci leans forward on his elbows, intrigued. “Tell me something, Ms Prada. Do all girls have magic powers like you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, no offense,” he holds his hands up. “I’m just incredibly impressed at how different you look. I mean, from how you usually look like. I assume you overslept today and didn’t have time to get to the regular routine, but…”

“Let me ruin your fantasy for you,” you cut him off. “This is what girls wake up looking like. None of that hashtag woke up like this bullshit. You don’t have any sisters, do you?”

“None,” he confirms. “Wait, but please don’t get me wrong! I didn’t mean it in an insulting way. I’m just amazed at how much effort it takes, and that deserves incredible respect.”

Mr Gucci seems worried over having potentially offended you, but the joke he made about not being so fresh tells you that you’re at least getting somewhere with him. Complete strangers wouldn’t mention it at all, though he is still clearly treading carefully to some extent. You’re not offended at all, and you convey this with a genuine smile. “You wouldn’t believe the effort it takes to get from this- a zero to a passable six. In fact, I’m sorry you have to see this at all.”

Mr Gucci’s eyes widen. “A six? That’s the best you give yourself? You’re clearly a nine, at least!”

His sincerity really touches you as you thank him with a smile.

“Honestly, women’s beauty standards are just bullshit,” he shakes his head sadly. “If I had a superpower, I’d completely erase all the beauty standards in the world.”

“Wow, that’s interesting,” you muse while jotting down a few notes. Mr Gucci had just answered one of your potential questions on his own, and this is definitely progress. It’s far from a simple answer you expect from him, reveals something that he’s passionate about. “Usually when people talk about superpowers, they want to go back in time, fly, talk to animals, that kind of thing.”

“Hey, how’d you know? Talking to animals is my second choice,” he grins. “But yeah. I was taking a sociology mod last semester for my elective and it really got me thinking about issues like these. And how I wish it could be solved with a snap of my fingers. Just like that.”

“That’s it, I’m voting you for president,” you grin back at him. “Think of it. You’ll be a better version of Thanos. Just one snap.”

Mr Gucci bursts out in laughter at your joke, clapping his hands several times, and you really feel as if you’re making a connection here. While it did come only in the last session, there’s no doubt that there are the beginnings of something stirring here.

The timer on your desk rings, signalling the end of your session.

“So, Mr Gucci, this marks the end of our month together. Before we end, I just wanted to thank you for participating,” you put your notes aside to smile at him, sincerely regretting that you won’t be able to meet him outside of this room. He definitely seems like good company.

“Thank you for having me, and I must say, it was a new experience,” Mr Gucci says. “I didn’t know what to expect coming into this, and I think I got a lot more out of it than just extra credit.”

“That’s good to hear. Okay, for the last time ever, three impressions?”

“Friendly, cool and my type.”

After Mr Gucci is safely out the door, you reach for your phone’s camera mode to at least try and fix your hair a little before Mr Cheetos is due. Not that it would matter now, since he won’t be seeing you at all, but you feel just a tad ratty and unkempt like this.

You notice that you have a few messages from Jimin asking you if it’s possible to reschedule Mr Cheetos’s session since he’s feeling unwell. That’s strange. Such a last minute request makes things seem urgent, and you can’t help but feel your stomach flip over in worry. You press the call icon and place the phone to your ear.

“Hey- yeah, what’s up?” Jimin’s voice answers.

“Chim, I just wanted to ask if Mr- if he’s okay. I mean, it’s not anything urgent right?”

“Oh no no,” Jimin’s reply comes immediately. “He’s just feeling a little under the weather. Said he needs to rest up today. I’ll ask him when he’s free to reschedule again, then get back to you on that. Sound good?”

“Um, yeah. Sure.” Jimin’s reply leaves a lot to be desired, you find yourself craving for more details about Mr Cheetos. Instead your best friend leaves you frustrated yet unable to ask any more questions, and you curse silently. “Wait! Um, I think I should like maybe get him something. You know, like soup or um, lozenges?”

You cringe at the sound of your own voice. Immediately you wish you’d just let Jimin hang up, and you can go straight back to your room and back to bed. What if Jimin gets suspicious? What if he demands to know why you suddenly care about Mr Cheetos so much? Suddenly feeling a need to justify your actions, you clear your throat. “Because, um I was kinda sick the last time and I feel bad that I might have passed my cold to him. You know?”

Jimin’s chuckle comes from the other side of the line, and you almost heave a sigh of relief.

You’re just being paranoid. Calm the fuck down or you’ll give yourself away, you mutter to yourself.

“Why, what’d you two do in that tiny little room, hmmm?” Jimin’s innocent joke sends your blood pressure sky rocketing again, and this time you can literally feel a bead of sweat make its way down your forehead like in those cartoons, except there is nothing funny about this. “A little spit swapping? Mouth to mouth?”

“We didn’t do anything!” You exclaim in a panic, which you try to cover up with a nervous laugh. “What would we be doing other than the experiment?”

“Geez, you nearly took my eardrums out,” Jimin whines on the end of the line. “Fine, just drop by my room and leave it at the door or something. I’ll pass it to him and say it’s from you.”

More than relieved that he dropped the subject so quickly, you shoot him a quick word of thanks before cutting the line, gathering up your things as you exit the room and head for the cafeteria.

You’re not really sure what to get for a sick person; you’ve never had to take care of one before. Jimin’s the only friend who’d warrant this kind of treatment, and yet you’ve never brought him food or anything like this before. Scanning over the options quickly, you decide on a good old chicken noodle soup and place your order.

With a warm container clasped close to your chest, you send a few texts to Jimin just to let him know that you’re on the way as you ascend the stairs to his room. He replies back that he isn’t in at the moment, and you don’t want the soup to get cold outside, or even possibly getting stolen, so you decide to knock on the door to get his roommate.

It’s not till the door opens that you belatedly remember who Jimin’s roommate is… too little too late as you come face to face with Min Yoongi, whom you haven’t seen since that night.

He looks sleepy, hair tousled as if he just got out of bed, in a half yawn as he peeks his head out. You can’t help but notice his attire of a thin shirt and boxers, but then you remind your eyes to stay strictly at eye level.

“Jimin, can’t you fucking let me sleep in pea- oh.” Yoongi immediately sobers up when he realises it’s not his roommate he’s talking to. “_____. Wh-what are you doing here?”

The moment Jimin gets off the phone, an inevitable sense of dread nearly consumes him. Jimin fucked up.

You’re absolutely going to murder him when you find out. This was never supposed to happen. How could he have let his lines get crossed like that? And as if Yoongi’s suspicion isn’t enough, you just had to call him right at that moment like some sort of freaky omniscient being as if you had heard every single word of his conversation with Yoongi.

His temples are throbbing. The lengths he has to go to keep this stupid secret. And more importantly, keep the two of you apart.

He’s just thankful that the whole conversation took place over the phone as opposed to face to face. He’d already had a hard time getting away from Yoongi earlier, but as his best friend, he’s almost certain you’ll see right through him. Since when did his life become this complicated? Jimin just wants to play basketball and get pussy. And be complimented on his ass. Is that really too much to ask for?

On his way to lab, Jimin’s phone pings again.

You: hey, at ur door in 5. u in?

Jimin: nope, omw to lab. Just leave it on the doorknob

You: it’ll get cold, jackass

You: I’ll ask ur roommate to take it in

Annoyed at the sudden show of your caring side, Jimin tosses his phone into his bag as he joins his final year project group in the lab, opening his laptop and clicking open a few reports he’d typed up a few days ago. But there’s something stopping him from focusing, a niggling thought at the back of his head…

I’ll ask ur roommate to take it in

Fuck.

Jimin all but shoves his laptop away and sprints for the door, yelling out a hasty apology to his team members as he fumbles for his phone before deciding to pour all his energy into making it to his room as fast as possible to intercept you. It only takes about 10 minutes typically to get from his room to the psychology building, but with a dead sprint, Jimin makes it in five.

But it’s still too late.

He sees you and Yoongi staring awkwardly at each other, and thankfully for him, Yoongi hasn’t seemed to realise what you’re carrying- making Jimin’s life infinitely easier, at least for now. Yoongi is fidgeting awkwardly on his feet, you are nervously running a hand through your hair- a habit you picked up from him, and Jimin can feel the awkwardness emanating off the both of you.

“H-hey guys,” he wedges his body in between you and Yoongi, conveniently blocking his view of you. His breaths are coming in pants and he can’t get his words out in time- maybe he isn’t as fit as he’d like to think. “Forgot something- for lab. What are you guys doing?”

You give him a strange look as if you’re seeing through all his lies, and Jimin panics for a second, afraid that you’re going to give yourself away.

“Oh, you needed to talk to me about something right?” Jimin hurries on, turning his back to Yoongi and ushering you away from the door. “Let me uh, get my stuff and I’ll be right out.”

“What’s with you today, Park?” You narrow your eyes in suspicion. “You’re being all cagey. It’s not like I haven’t seen the utter disaster that is your room by now. I can’t say I approve of your lack of cleanliness, but it’s nothing to be surprised about.”

“Yoongi just put up some porn posters all over our walls!” Jimin blurts, and he immediately wants to kick himself. Really? Porn posters? Couldn’t he have come up with something better?

Behind him, Yoongi just lets out another yawn, unimpressed whatsoever, turning to go back to bed. For once Jimin is thankful for his roommate’s unhealthy addiction to sleep. Yoongi doesn’t even bat an eyelid or seem to have heard Jimin at all. “Just get your stuff and get the fuck out of here, Park. Nice seeing you, ______.”

Grateful for the opening, Jimin darts in and pretends to grab a random notebook before letting the door slam behind him, his cheeks bright red with exertion and maybe a little bit of panic. He glances down to see the paper bag in your hands and reaches for it. “You wanted to pass me this?”

“Not you, asshat. For Mr… for the test subject. The one who cancelled today.” You clarify, handing him the bag. “You said he wasn’t feeling well…?”

“I did, yeah I did,” Jimin grips the bag tightly as his breathing returns to normal. That was too close a call. “I’ll make sure to get it to him.”

“Okay,” you nod to yourself, eyes straying to Jimin’s door once more, and he can feel a fresh wave of panic. “Is Yoongi… is he okay though? He looked a little pale there.”

“What?” Jimin laughs nervously, turning to follow your gaze and surreptitiously positioning himself in between you and the door. “Haven’t you noticed he’s always as pale as a sheet? Didn’t you already see his scrawny, pale ass anyway?”

Now it’s your turn to be on edge as you immediately slide your gaze away from Jimin’s. “Wh-what do you mean? I didn’t see anything the other night.”

“Who said it was the other night?” Jimin raises his eyebrows, and you are caught in your own slip-up. Still, the stubborn set of your jaw tells him that you’ll deny it till kingdom come. “Oh come on, do you really think I’m stupid? That look between the two of you just now practically screams it.” Jimin exhales, knowing that he’s treading on dangerous territory here, but he has to confirm it. Has to know if you and Yoongi really did hook up and if he’s really in deep shit.

“It was nothing, ok? Just a one-night stand. Doesn’t mean anything, you know I don’t fuck strangers like that,” you mumble with a roll of your eyes, pulling out your phone to check the time. “Aren’t you beyond late for your meeting anyway? I don’t think you have time to be standing here and interrogating me about my sex life-“

Jimin’s eyes widen as he realises just how long he’s been standing here. “Oh fuck, shit, gotta go. You’re not off the hook though!”

A few hours later, Yoongi hears the door creak open again and he lets out a small groan, turning over in bed and opening his eyes. Jimin is back from class, and he comes over to pull the covers off.

“Get up, lazy ass. Got you something, you should eat it. You’ll feel better.”

Yoongi lifts his head off his pillow in interest as Jimin sets down a paper bag on his desk and lifts out a tumbler from inside it. When he uncaps it, the tantalizing smell of chicken and soup wafts toward him, and even he can’t resist it as he climbs out of bed slowly.

“What’s with you today, Park? You’re being unusually nice to me,” Yoongi comments as he seats himself at his desk, reaching for the spoon and starting to dig into the warm concoction.

Jimin takes offense at this, bottom lip pouting. “I’m always nice to you!”

For a few moments, nothing is heard except for the noises of slurping as Yoongi gobbles everything up as if he hasn’t eaten in days. When he’s nearly done with the food, he turns to look at Jimin, who’s casually using his phone on his bed.

“Hey, you know _____ pretty well, right?”

“Yeah, why?” Jimin answers back with his attention still focused on his phone. “She’s my best friend, although she’s annoying as hell sometimes.”

“Is she the same best friend as the one I’m doing the experiment for?”

Jimin’s thumbs freeze over his phone screen; Yoongi can hear his sharp intake of breath, and he knows he’s got Jimin now.

“They’re the same person aren’t they?”

“What makes you think that?” Jimin is fiddling with his phone case, a telltale sign of his anxiety. He stubbornly refuses to look at Yoongi, but Yoongi refuses to give up. He’ll squeeze it out of Jimin somehow, it’s the only way he can find out for sure.

“You’ve always been a terrible liar, Jimin,” Yoongi sighs as he leans back in his chair. “Now spill. Everything. Why did you set me up with her at your party? You’re the only one out of the three of us who knows so-“

“I was having a brainfuck, alright,” Jimin exhales wearily, giving up all pretense now. “I got my wires crossed. I was really drunk that night, and when I saw her and you together, some weird part of my brain thought you looked really good together. It must have been the way you were looking at her, because I swear you never look like that unless you’re pining for someone-“

“I do NOT pine over girls,” Yoongi immediately retorts, his cheeks flushing pink along with the tips of his ears.

“-how was I to know that you’d end up fucking? For all I know that night, it ended with a harmless kiss,” Jimin throws his hands up in the air, pushing himself off the bed to start pacing back and forth. “You two were already talking before I could stop you. If I stepped in to separate you, that would be suspicious as fuck. And anyway, as far as ______ is concerned, you and Mr Cheetos are two separate people. So what’s the problem here? And as long as you play along-”

“She’s not two separate people to me,” Yoongi fights back. “Not now, not anymore. How can I keep going like this, keep lying to her?”

“Look,” Jimin sits on his bed and massages his temples. “You can’t, under any circumstances, let her find out before she submits her thesis. The truth will destroy her; you know it will. Not only will she insist on redoing her preliminary experiment, the added stress of it all is just… she doesn’t deserve this.”

Jimin is right. You definitely don’t deserve to have all your hard work go down the drain like that. There is a moment of silence as Yoongi contemplates his choices. A part of him is dying to see your face now that he knows everything, put the two halves of you that he knows together in order to make a whole. Even as he admits this to himself, it’s painfully obvious that he’s being selfish, doing so would benefit no one but himself. And it would destroy you in the process.

All for what? Just so he can have a shot at being with you? What makes him think you’d even want to see his face after he single-handedly ruined your thesis and potential graduation? Maybe not single handedly, because there is Jimin to blame too, but still.

“That’s from her, by the way. I told her you were sick to cancel yesterday. That’s why she was at our room earlier.” Jimin breaks his train of thought.

“But isn’t the sanctity of the experiment already ruined anyway?” Yoongi questions, a last ditch effort. “We had contact outside of that experiment room.”

“No, because to her, you are two separate people,” Jimin explains. “Up till now, all the observations and remarks she has on her report are based on interacting with you as Mr Cheetos, not Min Yoongi. Within that room, those are two different people. Any feelings she developed for Mr Cheetos is completely unrelated to any feelings she has for Min Yoongi. You understand what I’m saying, right?”

Yoongi slumps hard against the chair, closing his eyes. He swallows hard. “So what do we do now?”

“We pretend,” Jimin has his lips in a firm line. “She rescheduled your last session for tomorrow, by the way. Just have to tough it out for one more day. And after she submits everything, which should be the day after.”

“… and after that?” Yoongi hates the way his voice sounds. So full of hope but yet so vulnerable at the same time. The unspoken part of his question lingers in the air, but Jimin is more than adept to read between the lines.

“You’re free to do whatever you want,” he shrugs. “Tell her, or not. It’s up to you, buddy.”

Now that he knows, everything is different.

How could he not have figured out it was you right after that night? Your fingers are so distinct, even without the coat of nail polish, he’s sure that he could recognise them anywhere.

On the last session, Yoongi is more self-conscious than usual. Is his voice alright? Maybe he should try to speak in a lower voice so that you won’t recognise him. You and him have barely spoken to each other outside of this room, so there’s not much danger there, but he still doesn’t want to risk it.

Which prompts your question, “are you feeling okay, Mr Cheetos? You sound a little rough. Sorry we had to do this today, it’s just that I need to wrap everything up soon, and-“

“It’s fine,” he clears his throat, flexing his fingers in your grip as he leans his head against the wall slightly. “I’m fine. Sorry for yesterday, by the way. And thank you for the soup. It was really good, and it helped a lot.”

“Oh, you’re welcome,” your voice comes from the other side. “I’ll make it quick so you can rest, okay? Your last three impressions of me were relatable, intriguing and familiar. Any change?”

Yoongi bites his lip hard at the irony. “No, no change.”

“Okay thanks,” there is a pause and Yoongi assumes that you’re writing down some notes. “Question for today: if you had a superpower, what kind of power would it be?”

This time Yoongi has to pause and think, force himself to concentrate and stop focusing on the fact that it’s you sitting on the other side of the room from him. “I think… I’d like to be a superhero who saves people from disappointment and rejection. Like I’ll absorb it into myself? Sounds lame right?”

“No it doesn’t,” you answer immediately. “I’ve never heard of that one before. Tell me more maybe?”

“Well, if you think about it, traditional superheroes are all concerned with physical and mortal danger, all that stuff, but even they themselves aren’t invincible to intangible things like disappointment and rejection. And I think it’s because they are intangible that makes them so devastating and insidious. There’s no one in this world who’s impervious to disappointment and rejection.” Yoongi self-consciously flexes his fingers, wondering if his hand is getting a little too sweaty and whether you’d mind or not.

There’s a brief pause and then a sound as if you’re humming in agreement. When you speak, your voice has dropped to a lower, more intimate register, one that sends shivers up Yoongi’s spine. He just hopes it doesn’t telegraph down his arm and over to your side. “I’d very much like to be saved from disappointment and rejection. How should I call you when I need you then?”

Yoongi knows you’re joking, that this is entirely just for the sake of the experiment. This is not an invitation to tell you his real name and just let the cat out of the bag. But being behind this screen has him more reckless than usual, what could it hurt if he drops a few hints here and there? “You’d have to call me by my real name. Somehow, I think Mr Cheetos doesn’t quite cut it for a superhero name.”

His heart is pounding in his chest, mind racing to come up with all the possible ways you could respond to this.

“I guess I’ll remain disappointed then,” you say with an exaggerated sigh. “But actually, I do have a real question for you. If you want to save everyone from disappointment and rejection, does that mean that you don’t believe in the ‘everything happens for a reason’ mantra?”

“No way, I don’t believe in that bullshit,” Yoongi shakes his head vehemently. “I always thought it was utter nonsense, just shit white girls put on posters in their rooms.”

“You mean like the hashtag just girly things?” You are laughing on the other side, and the sound of your gentle laughter brings a smile to his own face. “What an absolute meme it has turned into. Because of people like you.”

“What can I say? I’m one of those assholes,” Yoongi has a shitfaced grin on, wishing he could see the look on your face, although for now he’ll settle on just briefly skimming his thumb over the top of your knuckles, hoping he can get away with it, and he does. “It’s so full of shit. Sometimes things just happen and there isn’t a set reason for it. Maybe there is, but we aren’t always able to know. If we believe there’s always a reason for something, we’ll drive ourselves crazy trying to find out.”

“So sometimes things just… happen? For no reason at all?”

“Yup,” Yoongi says firmly, popping the ‘p’ against his lips for emphasis. “Just accept it and move on. Hurts less that way.”

“You sound like you’re speaking from personal experience.”

Yoongi makes a non-committal sound in the back of his throat, and you laugh on the other side. “Alright, next time I’ll try doing that.”

There’s a brief pause before you speak again. “I think we’re just about done here. Anything else you want to say to me before we end with three impressions?”

Yoongi fights past the lump in his throat to say something, anything. Regret tastes as bitter as wormwood, and he can’t get the words out. Instead, he bites his lip hard. “No, nothing. My three impressions are still the same. Relatable, intriguing and… familiar.”

“Okay, noted. Thanks for all your help here, Mr Cheetos. I really appreciate it,” you squeeze his hand lightly as you say this, and he can feel his treacherous heart skip a beat just from this simple gesture. “It was great to have you here.”

“It was great to be here too.” Somehow his words sound choked even to his own ears, and he can only pray and hope that you don’t pick up on it. For once Yoongi is glad that you can’t see the look on his face and he can’t see yours either, for it would make it all the more difficult to prise his palm away from yours and stand. “So, um… see you around, I guess?”

There is a hopeful note in his voice that he picks up on right off the bat, and Yoongi hates it. Hates being so vulnerable like this, but somehow with you he’s always in this state.

“See you around, then,” you confirm, withdrawing your arm.

Yoongi exits the room without sparing even a single glance back, afraid that it might make him act on impulse and tear down that damn barrier to really see you. He opens the door, focusing on the way his fingers close around the handle, steps out, letting the door close gently behind him.

And that’s that.

Your eyes are sore, fingers and shoulders aching and still, you’re not quite satisfied with what you have. The midnight deadline is drawing closer and closer, and ever since you’d ended the experiment with Mr Cheetos, you’d locked yourself in your room without coming out.

Blowing a sigh through your lips, you lean back in your seat for a moment, closing your eyes to chase away the glaring imprint of your computer screen. Then you open them again and scroll through your notes for the last session.

Week Four Notes and Observations

Test Subject: Mr Gucci (Control Experiment)

Initial Impressions: Ambitious, pretty, not-so-fresh

(Note: this was a joke in reference to observer’s slightly unkempt state. Observer and participant shared a laugh over this)

Final Impressions: Friendly, cool, and ‘my type’

Personal observations: Conversation seemed a lot more natural this time around. Subject offered genuine personal opinions to question posed, expressed more of his personality. Definite progress in terms of emotional intimacy has been made as compared to the first week. Overall, there was an easy camaraderie between subject and observer, a result of spending the past month together.

Test Subject: Hot Cheetos

Initial Impressions: Relatable, intriguing, familiar (no change from week three)

Final Impressions: Relatable, intriguing, familiar (still no change)

Personal observations: Although subject’s impressions did not change throughout, he was very willing to share insights behind his thought process as he answered the question posed. Subject seems to have formed a little bit of an attachment (?) to the Observer, hinting desire to interact with the Observer outside of the experiment. Such results serve to be in line with the original hypothesis.

It’s enough. It has to be enough. As the minutes tick by, you scroll up and scan through the previous weeks again to see if you’ve missed anything. Then you move on to the last part of your preliminary proposal.

Final Conclusion

Throughout this month long trial experiment, the main aim was to test how human bonds are formed and cultivated under specific conditions. More importantly was to study whether the element of anonymity and physical contact would contribute to a landslide difference between subjects and their willingness to connect emotionally with another stranger. As the results from each week have proven, test subject who wasn’t allowed anonymity nor physical contact took a lot longer to establish a sense of trust and non-superficial interaction with the Observer. Whereas the test subject who was allowed anonymity and physical contact demonstrated a solid and perhaps even lasting emotional connection with the Observer.

In your mind still lingers all the things you and Mr Cheetos talked about during your sessions. Thank God you don’t have to write down the exact content of them in your report, for it would be an incredible violation of privacy, and you prefer to keep his words to yourself. Something only between the two of you, a shared secret. Even though you don’t know his true identity, you can be rest assured that something tethers you to him at least in this reality.

With just minutes to spare before the deadline, you save your document and upload it to be submitted, indulging in a stretch before you tumble into bed for a long, well-deserved sleep.

It’s a bit strange; life after submitting a huge proposal. It’s like you don’t know what to do with your life anymore, like you’ve lost a sense of purpose. You have to wait a bit to hear your supervisor’s comments on your proposal, and in order to distract yourself from harping over it, you decide to go see Jimin. That brat always has a knack for annoying the heck out of you when you need it most.

When you get to his room you try the doorknob without even bothering to knock, completely forgetting that he has a roommate. As a result, you stumble upon Min Yoongi dressed in boxers and no shirt, sitting at his desk working on his computer.

“Oh shit, um sorry, I was looking for Jimin,” you immediately avert your gaze, cheeks heating up. “I should have knocked. I’m sorry, I’ll just let you, uh…”

“Why so flustered?” He responds in a lazy drawl, turning in his chair to face the door, not in the least bit concerned about his half naked state. You wish he’d have the decency to rush and put on a shirt and some pants, at least. “It’s not like you caught me doing anything… illicit. I’m just on my laptop.”

The way you avoid his gaze stubbornly is just adorable, Yoongi can’t resist riling you up further. “Or did you think I was doing something else?”

“Do you know where Jimin is?” You avoid his question as you close the door further so that only a crack remains, shielding your body behind it.

“Hmm? Park?” Yoongi pretends to think for a while before he shrugs. “I dunno. Probably working out or something. Why?”

“Nothing, I just… well, see you later,” you say in a hurry and close the door, but Yoongi is on his feet and has his hand on the doorknob in a flash.

“Hey, wait. Why’re you acting so weird around me? Is it because of that night? We never got to talk about it properly, you know,” Yoongi pulls the door open a tad, fighting against your strength, and you must say that he is a lot stronger than you would think, given his wiry frame. He leans forward and lowers his voice to a sinful drawl. “So I figured now’s a good time as any other.”

“What’s there to talk about?” You sigh, relenting and letting him pull the door open to his liking. “It was just… it was just that. No big deal.”

Yoongi laughs and throws his head back as if he’s thoroughly amused with you. “Damn, you’re really a prude, aren’t you? Can’t even say the word. We fucked, we had sex, I had my cock in your pussy-“

“God, stop!” You hiss at him, stepping inside and slamming the door closed before someone overhears the filth that is pouring from his lips.

Internally Yoongi grins at his genius, he got you to come back inside without even touching you. “Don’t get me wrong, I love it. You’re so cute, Ms Prude.”

Your lips twitch at the nickname, and Yoongi wonders if that’s enough. But then you frown at him and cross your arms. “Fine, we had sex. We talked about it too. Is that enough?”

“Enough?” Yoongi raises a brow, copying your stance. “No, not nearly enough for me. See, when I have sex that mind-blowing with someone, I tend to want repeat acts. Multiple.”

You sniff and toss your hair over your shoulder, turning away from him primly. “Sorry, I don’t fuck people I don’t know.”

Yoongi pretends to frown in mock hurt when really, your cute little attitude and playing hard to get is more endearing to him than ever. “Really? You don’t know me? I spat in your mouth and you swallowed it. Among other things. I’d say exchange of bodily fluids counts as getting to know someone…”

You put a hand to your temple and sigh loudly, as if Yoongi’s some thick idiot. “Not that, you asshat. I meant emotionally. Mentally. I don’t know who you are as a person. That kind of thing. I slept with you that night because… I don’t know why. I just lost control, and I can assure you that it’s not something that happens often.”

Yoongi is quiet for a moment, letting your words sink in as he contemplates his response. It occurs to him that this is the perfect opening, and all traces of his smirk vanish from his face. He turns to look at you with an intensity unmatched, and sensing his seriousness, you straighten your posture.

“What if I told you that you do know me? As a person. You know my deepest darkest fears, my hopes and dreams, and I know yours.” Yoongi holds his breath. It’s now or never. Fuck it. He’s never been one to live life without taking a few risks here and there anyway. “What if I told you… I am Mr Cheetos?”

The words have an immediate effect on you as you take a step back, jaw dropping and your hands coming up to cover your mouth. It feels like all the air has just been sucked out of the room, and suddenly it’s hard to breathe, or even think straight. “Wait. I don’t… I don’t believe you. How can- it’s just-“

“It’s true, every single bit,” Yoongi says calmly. “How else would I know that nickname? The top thing on your bucket list is to perform in front of people you know with a mask on because you want to be a better version of yourself. And your biggest fear is being inadequate, being unable to make it on your own, living your whole life as merely average.”

Hearing your own deepest darkest secrets repeated back to you is bone-chilling, and unsettling to say the least, but then another part of you realises the implication of all this. You and Yoongi fucked at Jimin’s party right in the middle of your experiment. Which means that you continued to see him even after you’d had contact with him outside of that room. That wet dream with Yoongi and Mr Cheetos now seems like the fates laughing down at you, scorning you.

The entire experiment is ruined. The results are contaminated, and the worst thing is that you’ve already submitted it and there is no way of getting it back. Your fate is sealed.

“How long have you known?” You ask quietly.

“I suspected it on the third week.” Yoongi starts slowly. “But I never did anything to confirm it till… till this week. Everything was just falling into place so uncannily, and you know Jimin sucks at keeping a secret so he…”

“My god. I’m going to fucking kill Park Jimin,” you clench your fists. “That stupid little fucker knew all along! He made us make out with each other at his party knowing full well that-“

“Wait, he was drunk, he didn’t know we slept together till I told him,” Yoongi rushes in to defend his roommate, though he can sense that your anger is steadily mounting. “He didn’t mean to set us up at the party together. It was meant to be harmless, he didn’t know we’d-“

As enraged as you are, you’re still able to sift through your emotions and see reason, a quality that you’re proud of, maybe not at this moment though. Jimin only made the two of you exchange a kiss. Never forced you to go any further than that. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s yours. For being unable to resist his sweet lips and alluring touches, for giving in to temptation far too easily. Now your entire future is ruined.

You sink down to the ground in defeat, closing your eyes as you feel a tear escape onto your cheek. You hear Yoongi call out your name, feel his hand on your cheek wiping the tear away, but you move your head away weakly.

“It’s ruined, it’s all gone now, my proposal,” you are fighting back tears. “The experimental results are contaminated. I had contact with you outside this room without even realising it. Come to think of it, I may have had contact with Mr… the other subject too without even knowing it… fuck, I’m so fucking stupid, it’s all ruined!!!”

Yoongi scrambles onto his knees in front of you, the sight of your tears is heart wrenching. He cradles your face in his hands, forces you to look at him. Your breathing is unevenly fast, and he can see that you are having a panic attack, unable to think straight as the tears roll down your face.

“______. Just breathe with me. Look at me and breathe. In, one… two… three. Out, one… two… three,” Yoongi forces you to concentrate on his voice, fighting the urge to take you in his arms and hold you close. He repeats the mantra until your sobs have quietened, and you are staring blankly at his chest.

“What am I supposed to do now?” Your voice is small, and there is a lost look in your eyes.

“It’s not ruined, your proposal isn’t gone,” Yoongi tries to recall the exact words Jimin had said to him the other day. From another pysch major’s perspective, Jimin seemed confident that your thesis would still be valid. “Within that room, you still knew me as two different people. Mr Cheetos and Min Yoongi are two unrelated people to you right till this very moment. All the observations you recorded are still valid. You’re right when you said you don’t know me, Min Yoongi. So it couldn’t have affected your observations in any way. You understand?”

You are quiet for a moment as you listen to him, but then you shake your head stubbornly. “No, no it’s not, I have to get my proposal back and redo the whole thing, the experiment’s not valid anymore-“

“How is it not valid?” Yoongi fights the urge to shake some sense into you. “Your experiment… it has something to do with studying the relationship between two people right?”

“Y-yes, something like that,” you answer him. “That’s why it was so important that you and I have no prior contact with each other, and have our interactions limited to that room only. That way I can determine that any result comes purely from the experiment itself and…”

“And what result were you looking for?” Yoongi presses. “Now that it’s over, you can tell me, right?”

You hesitate for a beat before you give in with a sigh. “Emotional intimacy. That’s why it’s just… it’s all wrong, all fucking wasted, and…”

“God, for such an amazingly bright woman, you can be so dense sometimes,” Yoongi takes you by the shoulders. “You practically made me fucking fall in love with you, do you not understand? If anything, it should prove your theory right!”

His words hit you like a bullet straight to the gut, and for a moment you can’t react. Your words trip over each other as you stare at the man in front of you, his eyes alight with just how sincere he is, and the way he wears that frustrated expression on his face from trying to get you to understand. “Y-you’re… what now?”

“I’m in love with you. You made me fall in love with you,” Yoongi repeats it a second time, even more slowly now. “From that moment I accidentally stuck my dick into that hole, I was as good as a goner. And every session we had after that I could feel myself falling deeper and deeper. It was fucking killing me to keep pretending that I didn’t know it was you on the other side. And to walk out knowing that I could never see you again? I’m far too selfish for that.”

You shake your head in confusion, struggling to comprehend all the facts that are being thrown at you now. “Is that why you chose to tell me now? Instead of… earlier?”

“Jimin said it was better this way,” Yoongi sighs. “He was right. He’s sorry, by the way. And I know it’s a lot to take in, so just… I’ll leave you alone. Give you some time to digest it all. It was a huge blow to me back then too, so… I understand what it’s like.”

You can see the reluctance on his face as Yoongi pulls away, offering you a hand to help you stand up. Shakily, you get to your feet, and he withdraws his hand. Strangely enough, the action sends a pang right through your heart. Awkwardly you shuffle to the door, peeking at his face which betrays no emotion. “I guess I’ll um… yeah. I’ll get going then.”

“See you,” Yoongi nods as he watches you slip out the door, and then you’re gone, for the second time.

Now that the shock has worn off and you’ve had a bit of time to think, to realise that your proposal isn’t in jeopardy after all, you’re a lot calmer. What’s a lot more challenging is reconciling the two different people that you know into one.

You don’t know Min Yoongi. But you know Mr Cheetos. And now they’re the same person, so somehow you have to merge them. It’s beyond futile to deny that you’re more than intrigued by your interactions with Mr Cheetos in that room, and if he was Min Yoongi all along...

You sigh as you toss your phone across the room, ignoring yet another call from Jimin. That sneaky bastard deserves to be on edge for a while more. This whole thing is partially his fault, anyway.

You can’t resist pulling up your report and scrolling through it again, reading all the observations about Mr Cheetos in a new light now. With every word comes the memories of you and him in that room together, and if you think about it, you should have seen it coming earlier. That conversation about fears you had with Yoongi in his room where you thought you’d mistaken him for someone else. And that stupid vivid wet dream. As it turns out, it wasn’t the unveiling of your lewd desires but your subconscious’s way of warning you.

How ironic.

You sigh as you open your email and address it to your professor. Then, your hands hover over the keyboard as you ponder over what you’re about to do. You can’t just sit here and do nothing, not when you can’t deny the facts any longer. Min Yoongi and Mr Cheetos are one person, and as the seconds tick by, it’s no longer as hard to swallow as it was when you first found out.

Which leaves only one thing to be done. You quickly open your proposal and make the necessary changes in red before attaching it and pressing send before you can have any second thoughts.

There. One loose end tied up. Now for the last one.

You push your chair back and head for Yoongi’s room. It’s already past midnight now, so you’re not even sure that it’s appropriate for you to be doing such a thing, but fuck it. You can’t wait a single second longer.

This time, you make sure to knock first, and disappointingly, it’s Jimin who answers.

“Oh,” your face sours when you see him, and his is the direct opposite.

“Hey, _____! I’ve been calling you for hours, I thought you died!” Jimin’s eyes widen at the sight of you. He at least as the decency to look guilty when you glare at him.

“Where’s Yoongi? I need to talk to him,” you demand.

“He’s uh… he’s just…”

“I’m here, why?” Yoongi peeks his head out from behind Jimin, pushing up a pair of glasses higher on his nose. “_____?”

“Could we… could we talk?” You say hesitantly.

“Sure,” Yoongi replies, turning to look at Jimin. “Park, do you mind?”

Jimin immediately jumps to reply, sensing the tension between the two of you. “S-sure, take your time! I’ll just uh… go sleep at Jungkook’s tonight. Take all the time you need.”

And then he grabs his pillow and hightails it out of the room.

“Stupid punk,” you mutter under your breath as you step inside. “What does he think we’re going to do all night that he can’t come back here?”

“You’re right, we’re just talking,” Yoongi agrees. “It’s not like we haven’t been alone together in a room and not jumped each other’s bones before- oh wait…”

You smack him sharply on the arm as you glare at him. “You’re such a fucking sleeze, Min.”

But he notices that a smile tugging at the corner of your lips as you make your way over to his desk.

“So…” Yoongi starts awkwardly, rubbing his neck.

“So… I wanted to tell you something. I wrote in to my professor because I needed to change something on my proposal. I felt like I couldn’t turn it in without being truthful about what happened in the experiment.”

Yoongi feels a lump beginning to form in his throat. “Okay… I hope you didn’t write about me sticking my dick into that hole, because-“

“No, you idiot, of course I didn’t,” you roll your eyes as you pull out a folder you’d been carrying with you. “The changes are here. You wanna read it? It does concern you quite a bit, so I thought…”

“Sure, why not?” Yoongi reaches for the piece of paper from you, willing his hand to stop shaking as he reads through it.

Final Conclusion

… Whereas the test subject who was allowed anonymity and physical contact demonstrated a solid and perhaps even lasting emotional connection with the Observer. At the end of the experiment, said test subject revealed to being ‘in love’ with the Observer by admitting that he had been harbouring deeper and deeper emotions for the Observer as the experiment progressed. As of now it is yet unclear whether these emotions truly count as love or merely just infatuation, as it was an unprecedented result that the Observer did not seek to define the parameters of prior to the experiment. To add on, it has to be acknowledged that the Observer herself does share a similar degree of emotional intimacy with the subject. As such, it would be pertinent to conclude that this observation only further strengthens the author’s main thesis of the singularity theory.

Yoongi reaches the end of the paragraph with his breath stuck in his chest as he lowers the piece of paper, only to find you looking at him nervously.

“Is it… is it okay? I mean, I already sent it to my professor, so yeah, but I just wanted to… y’know…”

It’s cute when you’re nervous and you ramble on and on like that. Yoongi grins a gummy little smile at you as he reaches for your waist and pulls you in for a kiss, your lips meeting for the first time that night, and damn do you taste good. Like everything he’s ever wanted, all the longing and the pent up desire of the past month unleashed into this single kiss. Your lips and tongue clash against each other, too reckless to take it slowly and enjoy each other, too desperate to prove to himself that you are really right in front of him, and he’s not letting you slip away this time.

Finally he draws away, panting because you stole the breath right out of his lungs. “It’s perfect.”

All the tension eases out of your features as you circle your arms around his waist, resting your cheek against his chest.

“But wait, you think I’m just infatuated with you?” Yoongi pulls away to frown at you, but there is a teasing smile on his lips.

“Hmmm, I dunno,” you shrug back. “According to science, infatuation is different from love, it’s a lot harder to prove that love exists between two people, most relationships are just borne out of infatuation…”

Yoongi shuts you up with his lips attacking a particularly sensitive spot on your collarbone, making you moan his name. “You know, it’s hot when you talk about science and psychology and all that shit. But I’d rather hear my name instead.”

Your breaths come in short pants as he sinks his teeth into your tender flesh for a moment before soothing the spot with his tongue. “Li-like I said, Min. Infatuated with me, you are.”

“Shut up, I’m fucking in love with you,” Yoongi reprimands you with a sharp pinch of your nipple.

You smile against his neck, playing with the baby hairs at the nape of it. “Prove it to me then, Mr Cheetos.”

#bts #bangtan bookclub #btssmutclub #bangtanwriters-net #bts fics #bts yoongi smut #bts smut #suga smut

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marginalgloss · 4 years

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the republic of heaven

Back in 2000 when The Amber Spyglass came out I feel like there was not so much news in the world. At the turn of the millennium we seemed to be entering a more optimistic time. Tony Blair was elected in 1997 at the head of a liberal Labour government, and while it may be true that Blair would never be so popular again as he was in the opening years of his premiership, the Tories seemed hopelessly outdated by comparison. They were still the nasty party of old, while the country was ambitious, outward-looking, internationalist. Explicit racism and homophobia were no longer tolerated. We were Europhiles, but we weren’t part of Europe. There seemed to be a lot of money about.

At home there were occasional horrors — the murder of Jill Dando, the homophobic pub bombings in London, Harold Shipman — but they were somehow isolated, disparate, inexplicable. They were exceptional. There was the war in Kosovo, which set a template for liberal interventionism in years to come. The economy was trucking along; unemployment was low; for the first time there was a national minimum wage. I skim the headlines today and it seems like such a comfortable time by comparison. Perhaps I am remembering it wrong. But when the years to come would bring a spiral of endless war, recession, and one of the most significant declines in relative generational living standards, I’m not sure there is any need for rose-coloured glasses.

Into this comes The Amber Spyglass, which is basically quite an optimistic anti-authoritarian novel. It was also the book which, for a handful of reasons, really brought Philip Pullman to the world’s attention. It was this which ensured that his name still lurks around the list of authors most frequently ‘banned’ in America, and which in the years after its publication would attract scores of avid cheerleaders and detractors. Inevitably most of those had no interest with engaging with the substance of the book itself. Instead, it became a sort of battleground: on one side, those convinced that religion was under attack from an educated elite; on the other, those who were committed to reducing the role of religion in public life, discourse, education, and so on. It is worth revisiting this typically excitable interview and profile by Christopher Hitchens for an example of how these novels were talked about.

To call the novel ‘optimistic’ might seem surprising, because much of it is shrouded in scenes of gloom and suffering. But when I think of the tone of the novel as a whole, it is pastoral. When the world isn’t tearing itself apart the language seems more lyrical than in either of the two preceding books. Some of that is to do with the perspective, which now has at least three (and sometimes more) main characters to follow. This means that a sense of distance, of floating high above the many worlds of the story, becomes necessary. But it’s also that the reader has a sense that this book is going to be about the promised war against the heavens outlined in The Subtle Knife, and it’s likely the reader will also understand that this is a war that must be won.

It feels like a world of binary opposites. Even characters who seemed villainous in the previous novels are here redeemed (at least in part) so they can be mustered against the ultimate figure of the ‘Authority’. A certain amount of good versus evil is likely in any book for children, but here things are now cast explicitly in terms of these two sides squaring up against each other. And taking sides is a matter of decision, not of belonging. This is a book where angelic figures can decide to fight alongside men, and where demonic harpies can be convinced not to consume the souls of the dead because they want to hear their stories instead. It’s plausible in terms of oldest storytelling traditions, where it is possible to talk one’s way out of anything — where the role of storyteller gives a person the ultimate kind of authority.

Is the capital-A ‘Authority’ in these novels intended to be absolutely synonymous with God? I’m not sure. The book is explicitly anti-religion in the sense of being anti-church, but the forces of the Authority (and the being himself) do not seem to represent any kind of absolute power in the universe. The Authority is not omnipotent nor omnipresent, nor is he very much of a creator or a father-figure any more — he is a despot, but he is also somehow irrelevant. Like a shrivelled relic, he is vastly reduced when we finally meet him. The worst aspects of his regime seem like the calcified remnants of decisions long since made and now barely remembered, like the afterlife that has become a giant prison camp. In fact it’s the abolition of the afterlife, not the death of its creator, that’s the only really significant consequence of the fall of the Authority.

So if God isn’t in the Authority, then where is he? In spite of the tendency for atheists to want to claim the author for one of their own, it seems like the heart of these novels is not in pure humanistic rationalism, but in a broader sort of pantheism. The idea of ‘Dust’ is the closest thing to a true divine presence here. It could be characterised as something akin to a spirit which moves through all things. It is ‘conscious’, and though it’s hard to determine what this means in practice, we know that it is not indifferent to humanity. It’s not like a host of little thinking homunculi (although Mary did have a whole conversation with it on a computer back in The Subtle Knife). But it wants to persist. It would seem to be the force that drives the Alethiometer. It has intentions.

The counter-argument to this would say that Dust isn’t divine at all — it exists at the bleeding edge of science, and has nothing to do with faith. It’s a material thing. It’s not a spirit. But I don’t know that this is especially convincing. The books often try to equate Dust with quantum mechanics, but this doesn’t entirely seem to add up — these are particles which are somehow small enough to slip through gaps between universes, but big enough to see with the naked eye. Everything about Dust seems too convenient from an authorial perspective. It’s as though someone took everything indefinable and unique about evolved human (and non-human) consciousness and made it into a quantifiable thing and then said: there, without this thing we are no longer what we are. It’s an easy solution to the hard problem.

It the article linked above, Hitchens described the Alethiometer and Will’s knife as ‘tools of inquiry and struggle, not magic wands’. This is only half-right. Clearly they aren’t tools like a microscope or an X-ray machine. Both items are bonded to their owners through an innate sensitivity that has little to do with rational enquiry or rigorous method. The Alethiometer is even compared to the I Ching at various points. It seems wrong to mistake ‘inquiry’ here for the scientific method; it has much more in common with ‘negative capability’, a term which is actually quoted in The Amber Spyglass — the ability to pursue truth and beauty via one’s innate sensibility, to ‘see feelingly’ through a fascination with a sort of natural mystery, and not to depend exclusively on reason and knowledge.

This leaves the reader in an odd sort of no man’s land between the armies who supposedly either adopted or despised this novel. A hypothetical arch-rationalist might find it difficult to accept all of what they find here without rolling their eyes at some of it. Negative capability does not sit comfortably alongside the scientific method as a tool, but nor does it have much to do with priests and popery. And yet it is a sort of inspiration, and in that respect I think it comes closer to a religious experience than it does a rational one.

The problem with this is that it is not possible to get any sense from this novel of what it means to be religious, or to believe in a higher power, or to be ‘spiritual’ (choose your own euphemism). There is Mary Malone, but while I like Mary’s story here, her account of her early life in cloisters and later conversion/defection is unsatisfying. We have no sense of doubt, of anguish, of guilt — it is an all-too-straightforward seeing of the light. Will is arguably more complicated, more conflicted, but for the most part he never seems to have to make any difficult compromises. If he ever loses out on anything by abandoning his mother to travel through a whole set of alternate universes, we aren’t told about it.

What if Will made the wrong call? What if he weren’t so trustworthy? He is, in a way, the lynchpin of the whole story. For all Lyra’s good intentions and inner strength, if it weren’t for Will, Asriel would have failed and nothing would have changed. So Will must be made to work. Yet it often seems as though he doesn’t want anything for himself, except perhaps to be with Lyra. It’s interesting to wonder what might have happened if Will weren’t quite so faithful (for want of a better word).

But it’s inconceivable in the world of these books that anyone could possess negative capability and then use it for anything other than a pursuit of — well what exactly is being pursued, anyway? What is Asriel’s goal, above and beyond the overthrow of the Authority? There is vague mention of something called ‘the Republic of Heaven’ — a heaven on Earth, as it were — but today that phrase can only make me recall the idea of ‘Outer Heaven’ in the Metal Gear Solid games. It’s difficult to discern any latent irony lying in wait for the reader in this case. Will whatever replaces the Authority be just as bad, eventually? Perhaps, but again, the vibe of optimism in this novel is so strong it feels odd to impose doubt on it from elsewhere.

The paradox of The Amber Spyglass is that while the explicit ‘moral’ of the novel is set against organised religion, it cannot help but describe the world in terms originally set by religion. (A very basic reading might declare the novel invalid for this reason, for much the same reason as a socialist might be declared hypocritical for buying a smartphone.) It isn’t just that there are angels, or that the story of Adam of Eve is central to the thing. It is the journey through the world of the dead and back. It’s the arc of redemption and overthrow.

At times it feels like this book is re-fighting a battle that was begun hundreds of years ago in the English reformation. In the pursuit of humanistic knowledge, a godlike figure is re-cast in the guise of an Authority who can be overthrown, and cast out of our land, and even killed. And all for the sake of nothing especially certain, nothing at all new in political or ideological terms, except a sense that we would be more free — that we would be better off without. Is it better to eject the columns of the dead into a kind of oblivion than to consider any improvement to their position? I don’t know. Perhaps things seemed simpler twenty years ago.

#books #philip pullman #the amber spyglass

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stevenuniversallyreviews · 5 years

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Episode 92: Monster Reunion

“I have to try.”

The tragedy of Nephrite is Steven Universe’s longest side story, beginning with the very first episode and concluding five years later in the final episode of the show’s original run. How we feel about Nephrite at any given time indicates how we’re made to feel about Corrupted Gems as a whole at that point in the show. After Gem Glow, they’re monsters of the week. After Monster Buddies, they’re innocent but violent victims of...something. And after Monster Reunion, we know what that something is.

Ninety-two episodes in, we know of Yellow and Blue Diamond. We know they’re part of a a group called Great Diamond Authority, acting as Gem Matriarchs. We’ve seen an artistic representation of a third Diamond on the Moon Base. We’ve seen a four-part symbol with a white, yellow, blue, and pink diamond united as one. We got a hint of their musical cue as the Gems abandoned Earth in a flashback. And because the Diamonds are in charge, we also know that they’re responsible for some terrible things, from the forced fusion of Gem Shards to seeking of destruction of planets not only for reproduction, but revenge. The information is dripping in, and these Gems are shaping up to be the villains of the series, and thanks to that knowledge, all it takes is one sketch to emphasize their most heinous crime.

This is the episode where the horror of corruption sinks in, in the same way Keeping It Together reveals the horror of Cluster Gems. The Mother Centipeetle was a monster, and Centi was a pet, but this version trying desperately to communicate before she loses her sanity again is a person. She has memories spanning millennia but was trapped by her mind and her body by her own leaders. After a string of Beach City episodes with purely personal stakes, Monster Reunion’s depiction of a personal struggle representing an atrocity affecting a planet’s worth of Gems hits like a freight train. This isn’t just something the Diamonds did to their enemies: Nephrite, alongside countless other Corrupted Gems caught in the crossfire, was loyal to Homeworld, but that meant nothing.

Between the Cluster Gems and the Corrupted Gems, the Diamonds prove that they’re not content with just destroying the bodies of their opponents, but the souls of anyone that inconveniences them. We’ll learn a bit more about it in Nephrite’s fourth episode, Legs from Here to Homeworld, where it seems this corruption was unintentional (or at least unknown by Blue and Yellow Diamond), but Monster Reunion galvanized me against the Diamonds in a way no other episode has, and it does this by giving us a single, concrete character to sympathize with.

This is the second time this season Raven Molisee and Paul Villeco have given Steven an extensive conversation with an entity incapable of full communication, but unlike Gem Drill, Nephrite allows these artists to fully utilize their gift for character animation to tell their story. Molisee’n’Villeco episodes are distinguished by more exaggerated expressions than usual (see: the first act of Coach Steven, the climax of Rose’s Scabbard, Amethyst throughout Reformed, Steven-as-Lars in The New Lars), and that makes all the difference in enhancing our ability to relate with a growling alien cyclops bug. We don’t need words to tell us when Nephrite is scared, happy, curious, angry, or sad (we don’t even need tears to tell us that last one, but oof are they effective), and we’re able to empathize with her on a primal level thanks to her vivid expressions.

The other half of the Nephrite formula is master vocalist Dee Bradley Baker, who’s already performed as every Corrupted Gem in the series, as well as Lion. Baker’s prolific ability to give life to non-human characters make him virtually impossible to overrate, and he uses that gift to convey comprehensible communication from Nephrite with nothing but chirps and squawks. This is so much more effective than the cacophony of voices from the Cluster, allowing for an actual conversation of sorts between Steven and Nephrite.

This would be a very different episode if Nephrite was still just Centi from Monster Buddies, and we have Molisee, Villeco, and Baker to thank. It’s not enough to feel bad for an animal in pain again: we need to see, for lack of a better term, the human suffering of it all. And I feel so bad for this woman who doesn’t even get to have a real name for another sixty-one episodes.

The conversation itself centers around a terrific use of flashback. As Steven reminds Nephrite (and the audience, because it’s been a while since Monster Buddies) of their history, we get depictions of the past that fully resemble Steven’s experiences. But Nephrite can’t talk, so we don’t even get the simplified silhouettes that accompanied stories from Garnet in The Answer or Lapis in Same Old World. We get crayons and stick figures, the most childish means of communicating, that slowly gain animation as the story picks up.

Steven’s narration is a constant reminder that Nephrite doesn’t have a voice of her own, and that we’re getting bits and pieces of what actually happened. She can still sing along with him in her own way, and performs a flawless diamond salute, but can’t tell Steven the name of her commander, or how she felt about her crew, or any actual tales of the war. Honestly the most telling image is Nephrite’s very first picture, revealing that she sees herself as herself despite having never met Steven in that body. This is a sentient person, and we’re made to understand that before she reverts to a monster.

Allowing her to reunite with her crew is a brilliant move, because the show needs her to lose, but it would be unspeakably cruel to not give her anything in the process. We don’t get a happy ending, but we don’t wallow in bleakness either, and that’s a hard needle to thread when the subject matter is this horrendous. There are certainly real-world analogues to Nephrite’s plight, namely dementia and PTSD, but Monster Reunion benefits from being ultra-specific to the show’s lore instead of focusing on the same sort of allegory they did in Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service and will do in Alone at Sea. When the lead character can’t talk and we’re dealing with this much character and plot work, going for a lesson beyond the general value of mercy would’ve probably made the episode collapse.

This is a fascinating episode in regards to Steven’s maturity, because beyond the use of crayons, he goes hard on the cute angle to manipulate the Crystal Gems in a way that seems to undermine his growing maturity; for reference, we’re an episode away from a story about the aftermath of abusive relationships. This childishness is especially interesting when you consider this is where he gets his healing powers back, a sign of his growing power. We see him casually float up to grab Nephrite’s bubble, and he’s an old pro at warping without assistance. All signs point to this being a more developed Steven than his puppy-dog eyes might indicate, and that might be the point.

I don’t want to speak to the writers’ intent given how far away Pool Hopping is, but Garnet’s inability to properly predict the future here is caused by the same problem she has in that episode: she’s seeing the likely outcomes of a Steven who’s still a child. True, there’s also the matter of all three of his guardians reverting to a lighter version of their stubbornness from Monster Buddies given their bias against Corrupted Gems, but I can’t help but think that Garnet would’ve been cool with the outcome we get had she seen it coming. It’s understandable that she might not have been able to predict Steven’s capacity to help, and that the only outcome of freeing Nephrite was mutual suffering.

We’re past the halfway point in Season 3, and are thus nearing the conclusion of the show’s second fifty-odd episode chunk. Major plot elements are winding down in anticipation of the life-altering story that Rose Quartz shattered Pink Diamond, and one of them is the idea of Steven acting like a little kid. This is the last time we’re going to see him act this way at length, even as a ploy, because even though he’s still a kid in Season 4 and beyond, he’s a young teenager who actually feels like a teenager somewhat consistently.

We also get a subtle premonition of Amethyst’s imminent focus, as she’s twice admonished by Pearl for making fun of Nephrite even though she’s not making fun of Nephrite either time. The feuding days of Amethyst and Pearl are long over, but there’s still a power dynamic between them that Monster Reunion quietly reignites. And Garnet is still in charge, ordering Amethyst to poof Nephrite in a way that’s frankly a bit uncharacteristic. Maybe it’s because we haven’t seen an actual fight with the three Gems working as an unfused team since Catch and Release (heck, we haven’t seen a fight against a Corrupted Gem since the Slinker in Reformed, unless you count the big crab in Rising Tides, Crashing Skies), but it sounds strange for Garnet to give a direct attack command. Amethyst is shown here to be the lowest-ranking Crystal Gem, not counting Steven, and this means everything to the season’s final arc.

There are certain things I would’ve loved to see as a fan thirsty for information, namely an actual translation of Nephrite’s writings. But it’s not as if we don’t get the picture(s) from her "conversation” with Steven, and eleven minutes isn’t enough time to tell this story and inject worldbuilding through text. It’s frustrating to not have all the answers, and a common complaint of Steven as a character is his lack of follow-up questions, but in this case he clearly knows the gist, and there’s no reason to think he couldn’t have gotten Pearl to translate offscreen if he was still interested.

So I’m glad we instead got a searing character-centric story that hurts enough that I almost never watch this episode. It takes a while, and it nearly costs Steven everything, but thank goodness we finally get justice for Nephrite.

Future Vision!

Our next chapter in Nephrite’s story is Legs from Here to Homeworld, where we finally learn that she’s a nephrite, that her commander was a hessonite, and that Blue and Yellow Diamond might not have been as intentionally malicious as we thought despite the abominable consequences. It’s crazy how important Nephrite ends up being, essentially paving the way for the Diamonds to begin reforming through Steven wanting to cure her and other Corrupted Gems.

Steven’s desire to write “I’m sorry” in Gem Scribble as he looks at the image of three diamonds, with hindsight, seems to indicate some subconscious knowledge of his indirect culpability in Nephrite’s corruption. Or he doesn’t at all and it’s just a coincidence.

Nephrite uses a white crayon to depict the Corruption Song, indicating White Diamond’s greater responsibility, and ultimately White Diamond’s key role in healing the damage.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

Monster Reunion isn’t an episode I love to watch, because I don’t love to watch depictions of unbearable anguish, but it’s still an episode I love. Like Cry For Help, its sheer quality makes up for my infrequent rewatching.

Top Fifteen

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Catch and Release

When It Rains

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

No Thanks!

5. Horror Club 4. Fusion Cuisine 3. House Guest 2. Sadie’s Song 1. Island Adventure

(No official promo art, but artist Jonathan Traynor's haunting sketch does just fine.)

#monster reunion #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

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comicsqueer · 5 years

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Call Dick Grayson Romani, You Cowards

I’ve been a big fan of Dick Grayson for a long time, longer than I’ve even known that I was. I grew up obsessed with Cartoon Network’s Teen Titans, where Robin was one of my favorite characters. I only learned later who he was, what he became, and what he stood for, both in universe and out. As I got older and gayer and tired of hyper-masculine narratives, I grew to really, deeply, strongly dislike Batman. Even still, I never got tired of Robin. Guess when I learned about his Romani heritage? Last week. Over a decade of persisting interest in this character, starting from long before I was reading comics or even knew his real name, and I learned his cultural background last goddamn week. That’s garbage. It’s just gross, too. Retconning non-white backgrounds, or completely different non-white versions, for beloved characters is always difficult for the major comics publishers to pull off. This is obviously due largely to the overwhelming racism prevalent in comics fanbases, and I get how that makes it an impractical decision in a capitalist society where comics sales are already going down.

Here’s the thing though: do it anyway.

(Massive post under the cut, whoops.)

Electing not to tell diverse stories for the sake of making money is disgusting, but shoehorning in additional cultures to score points for diversity and then ignoring those cultures is so much worse. By doing that, not only does DC get avoid telling diverse stories, but they get to appeal to diverse audiences when they need to. Now they get racists’ money and liberals’ money, yay! This is exactly the case with Dick Grayson’s Romani culture. Don’t Dumbledore your readers, DC. It doesn’t count as representation if you never talk about it in universe, and especially not if you rarely talk about it outside of the comics either.

The retcon came in 2000’s Titans, and it was handled about as well as one might imagine a story of a deeply abused, stigmatized, and erased culture would be handled at the turn of the century. The whole thing is sloppy and littered with slurs and stereotypes, and it was rarely brought up after its rocky debut. This is the beauty of the comics industry though - it’s a constantly growing, evolving, collaborative effort. Devin Grayson had the right intention, even if her application of that intention was a hot mess, and it should have then been the next Titans/Batman/Nightwing/Whatever writer to smooth this transition out. Instead, DC dropped the ball completely, the addition to Dick’s character got passed around just enough to get basically retconned out again, and by the time the next generation of DC’s consumers was old enough to, y’know, consume, it was like it had never happened. What, was Dick Grayson’s white-passing appearance enough for all the racist and xenophobic writers on staff to just close their eyes to the newest chapter of his character? Like if they don’t say it out loud it never happened? Or was DC just embarrassed that they still publish racist books despite their best efforts, and if they don’t talk about it they don’t have to acknowledge their own faults?

It honestly doesn’t actually matter what the reason is, because all of that is bullshit. Fortunately Tim Seeley, writer for DC Rebirth’s Nightwing, agrees, and did mention Dick’s heritage in his books. That’s awesome. Really, it’s such an important thing to do, and he has talked about Dick’s heritage on Twitter so that even people not reading the books may know. Seeley put out some bomb Nightwing comics that you should really read, and all of which featured a canonically Romani Grayson.

That was a couple of years ago now, though. Since then, DC Universe has come out, and two (one and a half?) new versions of Dick Grayson came with it. Young Justice, another classic animated show from the 2010s, has featured Grayson prominently since episode one, and has shown him as both Robin and Nightwing. Young Justice has also been comparatively excellent about diversity, reimagining Aqualad as a black character who was so well received that he was written into comics after his Young Justice fame, and reimagining Artemis as half Vietnamese. Artemis remains a main character in the new season, and is joined by black superhero Black Lightning and a hero named Halo, who was reimagined as a refugee from a fictional East Asian country and who is always wearing a hijab. So where, exactly, is Dick Grayson’s acknowledged Romani background? This show has proven since episode one that they want to diversify the standard lineup, so why do they refuse to do so with the canon culture of one of its most prominent heroes?

The other one would have been huge. Not that any diversity is bad, but DC had the opportunity to hire a Romani actor for their live action Dick Grayson in the DC Universe original show Titans. The only thing better than diversity in media is diversity that directly benefits artists and creators of marginalized demographics. This show also reimagined a well known hero, casting the alien Starfire as a black woman, to intense backlash. That backlash was disgusting, but they carried on with her casting as they should have. It again begs the question, if they’re willing to break the mold for one character, why not represent Dick Grayson’s established Romani heritage?

We can assume that it’s because of a neat cocktail of ignorance and knowing prejudice on the part of creators, but it’s time to fucking stop. It is the year 2019, and it’s time to stop half-assing representation in media. The two superhero movies in theaters right now are both lead by people of color, and they’re both crushing the box office. The next to come out will star a woman. We are so far past disproving the bullshit excuse that there is no market for diversity in these stories, and it’s time for DC and Marvel to start taking some responsibility as creators who could reach way more people with stunning, new, and interesting stories that cross cultural boundaries. So get to it guys. Dick Grayson hasn’t stuck it out as one of the most prominent characters in your lineup for over 75 years just to have his history and culture erased by racist assholes who care more about money than interesting stories that represent their increasingly diverse readership.

Tl;dr call Dick Grayson Romani you cowards.

#dick grayson #long post #no like really #opinion #dc #nightwing #young justice #titans

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btshogwartsfics · 5 years

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BTS at Hogwarts (Pt.5- Jimin)

A/N: I had a lot of fun doing this one. I love the idea of Hogwarts BTS, but Chim is just especially fun to write for! My bias is coming at you guys next! Enjoy! <3

JIMIN:

House: Gryffindor

Patronus: Panther

Wand: Willow Wood, Dragon Heartstring Core, 9 ½ Inches, Supple Flexibility

Blood Status: Half-blood

Possibility of Being a Prefect: Yes

Quidditch: Absolutely

Best Class(s): Divination

Reasoning-

Jimin is a Gryffindor. My mind is made-up and you can’t do anything about it. Yes I can agree that he does have many traits of a Hufflepuff and at first I went back and forth between the two of them for our Chim. So while many of you may disagree with me on this, and that’s absolutely fine, I am firm in my belief that he is indeed a Gryffindor. I have also seen people argue that due to his ambition, he is no doubt a Slytherin. While again, I can see this, I think the things that some may see him as a Slytherin for, I see him as a Gryffindor for. I firmly believe that it’s not just the traits you have, but the traits you value that ultimately decide which house you belong to. He wants to do good and he wants to take chances and live a full life doing what he’s passionate about, but I don’t feel he would ever do anything he thinks is unjust and unethical. I fully feel Jimin would do almost anything for those he cares about and what he believes is right. He’s kind and considerate, but he is assertive and stands behind what he believes in. He may be kind and caring, but he is definitely fierce and chivalrous and brave. Although I do think a Hufflepuff can mess you up if so provoked and a Slytherin can absolutely have a soft side, I feel that those two clashing points in his personality come together nicely to mold him into an amazing Gryffindor. Change my mind.

The symbolism for panthers are guardian energy, assertiveness, understanding, intuition, artistry, aggressiveness and power. I feel that Jimin displays all these traits very well at different times and in different situations.

“Willow is an uncommon wand wood with healing power, and I have noted that the ideal owner for a willow wand often has some (usually unwarranted) insecurity, however well they may try and hide it. While many confident customers insist on trying a willow wand (attracted by their handsome appearance and well-founded reputation for enabling advanced, non-verbal magic) my willow wands have consistently selected those of greatest potential, rather than those who feel they have little to learn. It has always been a proverb in my family that he who has furthest to travel will go fastest with willow.”

“As a rule, dragon heartstrings produce wands with the most power, and which are capable of the most flamboyant spells. Dragon wands tend to learn more quickly than other types. While they can change allegiance if won from their original master, they always bond strongly with the current owner. The dragon wand tends to be easiest to turn to the Dark Arts, though it will not incline that way of its own accord. It is also the most prone of the three cores to accidents, being somewhat temperamental.”

I hate to say it Jiminie, but you’re a bit short. Therefore I feel your wand would match and so I made it a bit shorter. Sorry.

Again, I’ve seen people say that Jimin would be a pureblood and I’ve seen people say Jimin would be a muggle-born, but I personally feel that he would be able to equally understand and empathize with both sides. It is for this reason I made (or headcanon) Jimin a half-blood.

Some Gryffindors (not all, I’m aware of this) tend to be a bit messy, but as I said there are exceptions to every rule. Not everyone in a certain house will act exactly the same. Jimin is an exception to this rule. As we’ve heard in interviews, Jimin hates Taehyung’s messiness (like Namjoon) and we also know that Jimin is a perfectionist. Due to this (being a perfectionist, I mean), I feel Jimin would strive to be a Prefect and possibly even Head-Boy after, even if he is playing Quidditch. I think it’s just in his nature.

Jimin would absolutely be a Quidditch player. Jimin has lots of muscle (even if Kookie is the muscle-pig) and I feel he also has a lot of strength. Because of this I think Jimin would be an excellent beater. I think he’d be good at other positions, too, but beater best. As a dancer, he is obviously athletic to a certain degree and I feel that would really help him out.

If you happened to read the last part of this (Namjoon’s part), then you will know that I admitted most of the reasons why I think a certain member would be good at this or bad at that is just a hunch. The same applies here.

Notes/Other:

Was strangely relieved when he got his acceptance letter

Like he grew up around magic and it was obvious he was a wizard but he was still somewhat afraid he wasn’t or like wasn’t good enough to go to Hogwarts

But of course he was

The Sorting Hat went through a bit of a hard time with this one but when it placed him in Gryffindor Jimin was honestly shocked

He didn’t think he was brave or courageous enough to be sorted into Gryffindor

Lowkey is scared that he don’t do justice to his house or represent it well enough

Not exactly bad at any class or another but he struggles to stay awake in History of Magic and ends up missing some of the notes and study material

Goes to Namjoon every time he forgets something and all he does is sigh

Can relate easily to all his friends has he basically grew up with the best of both worlds being a half-blood

Him, Tae and Jungkook get into trouble quite a lot being in the same year, but sometimes he has to admit they can get a bit too mischievous

but most of the time he has no problem pulling a few pranks with them here or there

Most of the time Jimin will follow the rules unless he sees something he doesn’t agree with

Whether it be morally, academically or in any other way, Jimin does what he thinks is right and some teachers find it endearing and others find it frustrating

But they all love him anyway because he’s not entirely reckless (even though he very well can be) and has a least a sliver of self-control

McGonagall adores him

So so so happy that he’s a Gryffindor

Doesn’t give him special treatment but even the other students are starting to notice that she’s quite partial to Jimin

Tried out for Quidditch as soon as he could and immediately landed the beater position

Captain thinks he’s one of the best beaters Gryffindor has had in a while

When he plays against Hoseok or Jungkook nobody ever knows who is gonna win this time

It’s practically a coin toss with those three

Such a sweet teammate gosh

He always prepares snacks and makes sure every player has enough water before every game starts

Was probably offered the position of captain when their old one graduated but turned it down because he was worried he wouldn’t be able to fill his shoes and be a perfect captain and stressed about taking on that responsibility

The rest of the team was kinda bummed because they thought he’d do great but they understood and gave the position to someone else and didn’t press him about it

Chim really appreciated that

When not focused on winning the game, he’s extremely cocky on the Quidditch pitch but as soon as he’s off of it he’s back to being our little mochi

Doesn’t get many detentions because he secretly has all the teachers wrapped around his finger

But they’d never admit it

Unfortunately he doesn’t have any of the boys to hang out with in the common room so he spends most of his time either in the courtyard or the dining hall

Occasionally he’ll stop by the library to visit Namjoon and he may have gone into the forbidden forest with Tae and Jungkook once or twice…

Loves Care of Magical Creatures class with Tae

All the little animals and even the big ones are just so cute to him

But he swears Tae might actually hurt himself one of these days

Doesn’t have any idea why but he’s really good at Divination and he loves it

Thinks it’s so cool and fun

Kookie doesn’t understand it and thinks it’s dumb, but he still manages to get good grades in the class

Not better than Jimin though and he loves to tell him

“I was good at Divination first” and “you only signed up because I did you copied me”

Trelawney always calls him out in class for it and uses him and his work as examples

He loves the praise but gets really shy and his friends love to tease him about it

Would be really great at dueling too if he tried

But he’s not really into using dueling spells and things unless it's for a good purpose or reason

like protecting his friends or anyone else in need (and self defense, but he’d rather use it to protect other people or a good cause)

A/N: I thank anyone who got to the end of this mess! I’m not the most organized person in the world, so I really appreciate it! <3 Jimin’s moodboard is about to go up and I will post Tae’s part and moodboard tomorrow! Kookie’s things will be Sunday!

#bts #bts au #bts x hp #bts hogwarts #bts hogwarts au #hp au #bts at hogwarts #bts in hogwarts #BTS jimin #bts park #jimin #park jimin #gryffindor #gryffindor!jimin

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abundantchewtoys · 5 years

Text

HS Epi Meat, p5 reaction

Meat Page 5.

We might be due another perspective switch - unless the plot stays with John until he's assembled all his friends.

When John goes to pick up Rose, it’ll probably be on LOLAR. Terezi might still be there, if she hasn’t gone clownhunting just yet.

If so, perhaps we’ll get to see whether Rose ‘n Terezi’s migraine was really due to the substance abuse + caleidoscopic colours of LOLAR + glitches… Or whether it was due to the GO timeline “supposed to” have gone differently, with John’s current retcon being the thing missing to happen. It takes a bit of effort, remembering what everyone was exactly up to on this part of the GO timeline and what would be a fortunate time for John to take it off the rails. For Kanaya, that might very well be the moment Jane set up her literal shop on LOFAF, selling her all those blood potions, for instance.

For Dirk, it might be before his conversation with Arquiusprite.

I'm getting the feeling that John might be jumping to exactly those moments in the scenes where the characters were at their lowest, self-esteem wise. Giving them a literal second breath. ;)

Not sure what we can expect from the ghost side of things though. I think they might not be duplicated, leading us to meet up with (Vriska) as we knew her, punk cut and all. Even though GO Terezi's ghost will be there with her too.

I'm half convinced Calliope will get copied somehow, but not entirely sure. The only 'real' duplicate Calliope had already, besides Alt Calliope, was her dreamself. He could snatch the body, but I was under the impression Caliborn consumed it in a literal sense to establish his dominance over the body.

Meanwhile, it occurred to me to that Andrew Hussie (the author avator) will make a comeback, probably a background cameo. I've only now realized that he's a literal ghost writer of his own story right now, in-canon. While outside of canon, he’s more becoming like Stan Lee, executive producing stories using characters he designed.

Anyway, let's start this up.

---

"The stands of the Cantown Memorial Arena" Okay, my first thought was this takes place on the meteor, but yeah, it's a building named presumably after the literal Cantown WV build in his station, back on Earth. Or the Exile Town that Bec Noir massacred. Though, does this indicate a perspective switch back to Roxy... Or is the CMA where Rumble in the Pumpkin Patch is recorded? Probably the latter, meaning the perspective is switching back to Dave! Uh, the alpha version, I guess I should call him? Post-canon, adult Dave?

"His shit eating was so brutal that no one, except maybe Jake, cares that he’s taking a phone call in the middle of a live broadcast." So, was it staged, or did Jake really get a power boost, coming into his role as the Page?

Also, I feel like if Karkat's run for president gets announced by Dave on live television, "and the crowd goes wild" will apply here.

"Dave takes a seat on the couch, right in Karkat’s butt groove." Okay, so he's not going just yet. ... Karkat's butt groove is available because the latter absconded the fuck out last we saw him, hahah.

"a piece of absolute garbage." Callback secured.

"DAVE: while the beatdown you just received was as thorough as it was humiliating im afraid as usual the solution to this problem should probably not involve your decapitation" While Dirk might be the one to keep this beaten dead horse of an in-joke going, Dave isn't going to be the one to cut its head off and end its misery. :P

"DAVE: jake just kicked your ass DAVE: thats really all there is to say on the matter" AWWWWW yessss, hahahahah. Dirk's laid down, on the ground, on his smartphone, just like Dave was after his beatdown by Bro. Awesome callback.

"DAVE: its really amazing how this meme we have going here continues to be exactly as funny as the day it was established DIRK: Isn’t it always though? DAVE: yeah" That's Strider Irony at its finest for you. You never can be entirely sure non-sincerity is what's taking place here.

" DAVE: how DID you get your ass kicked so bad DAVE: jake sucks and his raps are fucking awful" Oh, scratch that thing about his power level, then. ... The rapbots didn't join in to beat Dirk down, did they? ... Though I would like to see either them or their zilly versions again. :P

On the TV, Dirk makes an elegant hand sign that once might have represented solidarity with some ancient coastal rap group but now has been utterly divorced from its cultural context here on Earth C." Is it a sign associated with... the ICP? Yes, I guess whatever 'references' the kids make get picked up as divine decree...

"The camera pans away from him and over the crowd. It zooms in on a young crocodile wearing an oversized T-shirt with Jake’s highly marketable ass plastered over it and the phrase “Tally ho” written in big bubble letters." ... including stuff that was already dated when the gods were still actual kids. (By which I mean the phrase, not Jake's marketable ass.)

"DIRK: Holding back a little to achieve certain results doesn’t necessarily mean you’re participating in a farce or rigging the event. DIRK: We do this all the time. We hold back our thoughts, our true feelings, our full potential. We disguise how much we know about what and when, for many purposes. To ease relations, to let others behave naturally and make up their minds without undue intervention. To wait for the right moments to show our hands, to pick our battles. " Dirk is still overthinking things. :P He's also still a schemer, even though he's grown more mature. I think in this case, he might be trying to keep up Jake's taste for adventure and hone his skills? That might be related to the fact that he's one of the few in the know of what John is up to (also a thing he's withholding right now), and he might be trying to get Jake battle-ready in case he needs to be. ... In case he doesn't believe they'll stay irrelevant to the plot.

"DAVE: my dog you are full of some SHIT today arent you DIRK: Absolutely." It's a good thing Dave can see Dirk typing, otherwise I might have asked whether Dirk may have reinstated an autoresponder to answer when he's busy. :P

"DIRK: And when it comes to theater, there are just as many reasons for restraint. To build tension. To set the stage. To give the people someone to root against." Okay, that's actually kind of meta. Also, in-story, it might mean Dirk is deliberately trying to come off as weaker, to get people to boo at Jake so he can play hero?

"DAVE: i can see you on tv DAVE: theyre booing you dude" Okay, never mind.

"The excitable salamander manning the camera switches to a fish-eye lens for some unfathomable reason, giving the whole exchange an air of demented absurdity. Dirk’s sunglasses distort and stretch to dominate the entire screen." I'm all here for NPC races doing menial labor half-way competently. :P Also, I feel like there should be some sort of visual callback to that image of Dirk's sunglasses. Something to do with the black hole from Problem Sleuth expanding to suck the entire universe up, which was reflected in the Stiller shades, and the event in itself is being called back to now, in the Black Hole sucking up the Furthest Ring!

"JAKE: What about the agitated rabble? Theyre starting to throw things. DIRK: I don’t know. Do a dance or something. Sing a song. DIRK: They love anything you do. JAKE: Ummm. JAKE: Ok sounds stupid but ill try." Using Jake's charisma as crowd control? Dirk, you beautiful mastermind.

"Jake tips an imaginary hat toward center stage and begins doing the Charleston." Hah, right, this might be a callback to that other Page dancing old-time dances, hahah, Tavros after he assembled the ghost army.

"Just as Dirk predicted, the crowd immediately loses its shit, except for a single carapacian in the front row, who continues to glower at Dirk with an expression of absolute and total contempt." If Jack hadn't remained in the session, I would've designated this guy as his great-whatever-grandchild.

"DAVE: why do you want people to hate you so much DAVE: its fucked up DIRK: You’re reading way too much into it." I don't necessarily believe that.

"DIRK: If I wanted another round of embarrassingly indulgent and mutually masturbatory psychoanalysis, I would have called my daughter instead. DAVE: hm DAVE: do i need to point out how fucking weird what you just said was or can that start going without saying at this point" This. This is Homestuck. This entire exchange.

" DIRK: The point is, playing myself up as a villain figure in this hacky rap pageant has nothing to do with getting people to dislike me. Besides, everyone loves a good villain. When they boo, they don’t really mean it." That has me thinking of Thog, a villain from Order of the Stick, actually. But yeah, Caliborn, Condy and others were really good villains. Doesn't mean we didn't mean it when we cursed them, though.

"DIRK: I think you’d be surprised by how popular I actually am. DAVE: i dunno man" At some point, playing the villain stops being a role, if you're too thorough in antagonizing the crowd. Dirk may have gone overboard here - in his role in the pageant I mean, I don't think anyone loves their god any less. Just one more way to show that, victory state or not, their original issues still come into play and challenge them to grow.

"DIRK: The point is, this is much less about me, and more about providing a foil for Jake’s heroism and charisma. DIRK: It’s very important that his popularity continues to be cultivated, to maximize his political capital. DAVE: political capital" ... Oooooh! Thinking three steps ahead of everyone again, nice going Dirk! I think Dirk might even have foreseen Dave rallying Karkat to stand against Jane, but I wonder which side he'll be choosing!

" DAVE: what the fuck are... DAVE: ok how long have you known about the jane thing DAVE: i mean is this something you have been planning for like DAVE: a long time or DIRK: Planning is such an intense word." Oh, he's trying to pull the strings again, is he? What game is he playing then, what policies does he want to instate, if any? ... Is Dirk a supposed xenophone too, or just playing to the tune of the largest group of swing voters?

" DAVE: jane is a shitty candidate dude DAVE: shes going to be so shitty DIRK: I thought you’d feel that way." ... Pfff I just realized Dirk wasn't typing, since this was a phone call. He's saying this all out loud! Typing's the old way of conversation, we discarded it for the most part, everyone has their Gift of Gab now. Well, hopefully at least Dave's part isn't being recorded and broadcast.

"DIRK: I respectfully disagree. DAVE: i get shes a good friend of yours and all but even you have to admit how far up her own ass she is DIRK: Of course. I consider it to be among her best qualifications for the job." Dirk might just be thinking: a self-absorbed candidate won't notice being pulled around. Even though she's, you know, his dear friend and all, he's still planning on manipulating her. :/ Old habits and such.

"DAVE: christ DAVE: ok if nothing else have you at least taken into account the DEVASTATION to the economy this will cause???" Strider Irony(tm).

"DIRK: Dave, I think if you search your soul, you’ll come to the same conclusion I have. Jane is just what this planet needs. DIRK: We’ve all had our fun here, but it’s easy to overlook the fact that civilization on Earth C is hardly a sustainable proposition. DIRK: Just beneath the surface, it’s quite a dangerous and unstable place." Oh, cool, so Dirk was acting on the same things Dave noticed, just having drawn different conclusions. Guess there's more to playing god as a winner of Sburb than sitting on your butt all day long, huh?

"DAVE: i know that DAVE: which is why actually i think it would be cool to have a president that is good instead of bad DIRK: He’s not as great as you think. DAVE: what" See, I know Dirk'll say Karkat, but I kind of wish he'd say Obama. :P

"DAVE: who DAVE: obama?? DAVE: how dare you" XD PFFFFFffffhah, okay, should've seen that coming.

"DIRK: I’m happy for both of you, really. It’s nice that you encourage and support each other in this way. But you’re sending him on a fool’s errand which can only end badly." Like, I understand where Dirk's coming from, we know how unbalanced Karkat is at his worst. But Dirk's seems to be the conservatist route, while the current status quo is so unbalanced someone with at least a little liberal thinking should try changing policy, little by little. ... Okay now Homestuck has me doing political discourse. Hussieeeeeeee! ... Why am I now picturing a Homestuck AU about the climate change truant student marches of Europe?

"DAVE: wait DAVE: how do you even know hes entering the race DAVE: we like just decided this DIRK: A competent political operative has his ways. DIRK: Besides, it was always pretty obvious to me you’d react this way the moment the announcement was made." Okay, not ruling out entirely Dirk has something spying on Dave, but that would verge too much on what Bro would've done in his place. He probably just cold-mindedly assessed his potential response.

"DAVE: cause if youve already got jake on your side then i guess we might as well just fucking quit DIRK: I wouldn’t worry about that. DIRK: He and I don’t quite have the rapport we once did. DIRK: He’s “over me” and doesn’t spare opportunities to make ostentatious demonstration of this claim. DAVE: um DIRK: Basically he doesn’t like being told what to do. Especially not by me." Cool, okay, so... Jake is needy in his own way, in showing he can fend for himself, at least that's how Dirk sees it. Guess they still hang out a lot though, just no longer "like that". That must be a letdown for the shippers, but a boon for the people that felt betrayed at seeing Dirk & Jake back together in the Credits. I like that middle road, actually! And hey, the versions of Jake & Dirk in the New Game Plus timeline, or whatever we should call it, are still fair game!

"DIRK: So it’s fair to say as of now, he’s still fully in play. DIRK: Not that I should be encouraging you, really. DAVE: you are one doubletalking son of a bitch you know that DAVE: i cant tell if you dont want us to run or are reverse psychology mindfucking us into running" Very true, that. Why would he share the truth about Jake if he wants to win, unless he wants fair competition? Best not to dwell on it too long on this neverending stairway of hidden intentions, lest we fall down it.

" DAVE: not like i can just stand around and wait for president crocker to like DAVE: write fucking grammar laws into the constitution" Pfffff, yes, I had forgotten about Jane's grammar practices, hahah. Guess she has a good running mate in Dirk for that, at least, capitalization and everything in order when he's not rapping.

"DIRK: Sorry to cut this short, but diapers are starting to come down pretty hard right now, and some of them haven’t even had their babies removed. DAVE: what" what. I hope it's at least consort babies, they're arguably the most resilient, as semi-sapient animals.

"DIRK: That was a joke." Ah.

"Jake can’t help but watch the motion, raking his eyes over the muscles shifting beneath the skin of Dirk’s neck and arms.

There is something implacably magnificent about Dirk Strider, Jake thinks, untamed like a wild game beast of incredible size and strength." ... Well then! I didn't think the narration would offer us this view from the perspective of Jake, thought it would be reseverd for John! Not entirely sure how I feel about the privilege of seeing Jake pine for Dirk, though. :P At least it clarifies where the allure is in it, for him. It's an extension of his taste for adventure and his upbringing on an island full of terribly powerful beasts.

"Of course, their history together is never far from Jake’s mind, however many years it’s been since their last tussle of an amorous nature. The old dramas and triumphs in the days of Sburb. Dirk’s companionship has been taxing to the heart, to say the least, and yet he’s taught Jake so much—about combat, philosophy, life, love." Okay, that is just such a Jake thing to phrase it like this. I'm glad we get to see he's not so oblivious or un-elloquent in his mind as he presents himself to the outside world, consciously or not.

"But sometimes, despite their checkered and problematic past, Jakes wishes that he could seize Dirk by the proverbial horns and wrest him bodily into becoming a much more agreeable fellow." Heheh, so Jake actually would like to impose on Dirk some manners. At least with him it stays with desires, while Dirk really did try to impose on Jake when they were together.

"DIRK: How about you kick off the next round? DIRK: I bet this crowd will settle its shit right down the moment you drop the latest rhymes you’ve been tinkering with." This is going to be painful to read, isn't it? ... If we're going to read them at all. ... I swear, this might just lead into them having "the xest rapoff in the history of Earth C".

"Jake’s face lights up. He composes himself, adjusting a bow tie, although he is not wearing one, and making a vague gesture like he’s twirling one end of that mustache Dirk has not yet let him grow. Dirk lets him go with a gentle smile, like the sort you’d give to a dog for performing a trick adequately. Jake responds to the signal like an Olympic athlete hearing the starter pistol. He was born for this." All the best and worst aspects of Dirk & Jake as a couple are basically summarized here. I mean, Dirk is not even WITH Jake and vetoes some of his choices. Then again, Jake really does have TERRIBLE (but hilarious) taste in mannerisms.

"JAKE: Tally ho its me, jake mcgee! JAKE: Popping my pistols off, two shots and a kiss JAKE: My aim is tops, i never miss" ... I'm not disappointed, this really IS almost physically painful to read, as expected.

... Okay that was actually a very amazing rap. Well thought out, good use of the vocabulary, dated though it is. I liked "jake-eng's" and "jape-slings" in particular, especially since that was what Vriska dismissed him as, a joke, a jape.

"The crowd, as Dirk rightly predicted, has settled its shit right down. This is not due to any accidental brilliance on the part of Jake English, but rather due to an abashed but loyal brand of pity, the kind a devoted fan cannot help but feel when they see a beloved celebrity make an ass out of themselves during a live broadcast they have waited two and a half years in line to buy a ticket for." I think this might be Dirk's POV. Not everyone's tastes in rap are as dignified as his, after all. :P Consorts in particular might love this. Then again, we saw John embarass carapacians not too long ago, they're not immune to pitying people. But hey, on the brightside, maybe some of the audience <>'s Jake now. :P

"Dirk’s phone begins going off again." Unless it's something more ominous, this is probably Dave having the last quip.

"With a casual flick of his wrist, Dirk snaps out a bright red tranquilizer handgun and shoots Jake in the neck. Jake’s glasses crack when he hits the mat. A chorus of boos rises up from the crowd like groundwater. Dirk artfully dodges a bucket of obscene troll fluid to field yet another very important personal call." ... Did Dirk actually use a Crockertech tranquilizer on his co-god? What the hell, Dirk? Guess all is fair in the ring.

And I suppose it's not Dave then that is calling him this time, if he takes such drastic measures.

"DIRK: Yo Rose, what's up?" Oooh, if we get to see this, that would be early we get to see Rose again! Dirk and Rose'll probably be planning their next move now that John has left. (Which I take Rose to already know about, through her Seer powers, or a call with Roxy.) ... Maybe some of their plans only could have worked IF John left, if they wanted to regain some measure of relevance through them.

#homestuck #upd8 #reaction #spoiler alert #dirk strider #dave strider #jake english

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