#its my favorite subject and the only thing that interests me. i really really like it and i have an amazing teacher! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ouroborosorder · 7 months

Text

Guide Ahead Means Something To Me

Writing about Guide Ahead is…. extremely difficult, for a few reasons. One is that it is a very dense story, and to fully unpack it would require an essay so unfocused that it would be functionally unreadable. But the biggest one is that Guide Ahead is a story that focuses really heavily on the subjective nature of interpretation. How can I speak authoritatively on the thematic meaning of the plot when even a basic description of its events demands a deeper poetic interpretation?

The answer is “I can’t.” So, let’s piss off my English teacher, and coat an entire essay in the phrase “in my opinion.” Because I have to get personal if I’m going to tell you why Guide Ahead is my favorite video game story ever told.

I was raised Mormon. My mother was religious, but my father was absolutely not. You can understand why I related to Cecilia basically immediately.

Ultimately, the thing that draws me to Guide Ahead is the very thing that makes it hard to write about. Guide Ahead is, in my reading, a story about the subjectivity of divine meaning.

The most obvious manifestation, and the most important, is Law. But, Law’s execution, in traditional Arknights fashion, is kinda unclear, so I’ll recap for those who have hobbies outside of this, unlike me.

Law is the supercomputer buried underneath Laterano, and is the sentient religion that binds all the Sankta together into a hivemind of sorts. The Sankta are actually just Sarkaz connected to Law, given halos, wings, and empathic communication between each other. But, the main thing they gain, is a biological impulse to obey the Lateran religion’s thirteen doctrines. Anyone who breaks these doctrines are marked as Fallen, are cut off from the empathic connection, and slowly revert back to Sarkaz. Law represents religion as a concept and a community. Saints and sinners are just one and the same. But despite that, the laws of religion are created just to perpetuate the existence of a special in-group. One enforced by empathic connection they cannot share with anyone outside of them. That is Patia’s point - the Sankta have created an “us” and a “them,” and even the devout Liberi are not seen as “us.” They’re just converts, not real Sankta.

But, Falling has… weird grey areas. Like how Andoain was able to shoot Lemuen, or draw his gun on the fucking Pope, and not Fall in the process. This is because the doctrines are not actually the guidelines they’re held to. The Doctrines are subjective interpretations of the objective Law that they are all beholden to. That Law being “It must survive.” Law only is interested in the perpetuation of Itself, and, as a result, the continued existence of the Sankta as a societal structure.

This is the first and strongest example of what I mean when I say Guide Ahead is about meaning. Law says that the failure of religion is ultimately that religions supplant any subjective meanings with an “objective” meaning. But this “objective” meaning is just another person’s interpretation of the in-group’s best interest. Laws biologically programmed into the Sankta’s souls are revealed to be nothing but interpretation of Law’s interpretation of events.

People Fall not because they have broken a concrete law, but because Law… because the in-group has decided they did. Or when they broke the rules, they did something that’s good for the church. There is no objective laws within the Lateran religion, no matter what the machine is named. The system just declares sin when it deems worthy, and absolution when sin is a benefit.

It is this very hypocrisy that drives Andoain.

——————————————————————————————————

I remember being pulled aside at church one day. Everyone above 14 was given a sermon about the recent legalization of gay marriage. He said it was wrong, the church would never accept it. I asked him if it was like the time the church refused to give black people the Priesthood. He said this was different. I asked him how. He did not answer. I left and someone followed me out. He asked if I was okay. I told him whatever he was saying in there was not the teachings of any god that I know, and wasn’t the teachings of any god that loves me. I kept going to church after that, but deep down, I think I didn’t believe in it anymore. I didn’t feel like part of the community, I lost that reciprocation with my people. I just… began to think.

Andoain, as an antagonist, is defined by a search for meaning. He was the bishop of an Iberian church, and Iberia is doing pretty bad lately. His request for aid from Laterano was denied, and the message was clear to him. “You are one of us, but they are not.” But that answer just created a new question. Why? Why would those who claim faith and utopia as their ideals reject those who are suffering?

He searched for an answer in exile, and he didn’t find one. Instead, he found another story. The Sarkaz man who died in the watchtower to warn a town who hated him of an invading force. And this story made his question develop. Why would someone who is hated by everyone give their life to protect those very people? And why would those people then cry over the grave of someone they hated?

He had seen the realities of the Sarkaz and Sankta laid bare, but he couldn’t figure out the meaning behind it. He tells Cecilia these stories, knowing full well he doesn’t know what to make of them. I think he tells them to hope he finds the point partway through.

——————————————————————————————————

As much as I hate the Mormon church for dear god everything they’ve ever done holy shit look at them? My feelings are predictably complicated. Years later, my family fell upon hard times. I don’t want to say more than that for my own sake. We were struggling to even live. But… the church helped us. None of us gone to church for years, but they offered a hand. They gave us access to the Bishop’s Storehouse, gave us food and supplies for free, because we were starving.

And yes, I know. I know they do this in an attempt at creating a false brotherhood in an effort to create a fascist sense of community. I have also read that part of Brothers Karamazov. I have also read Guide Ahead, come to think of it. But… Shit. Most of them tried to pretend we didn’t exist when we met them in the grocery store. And… they still helped us. In their eyes, I was Fallen.

But still, they saved us, and didn’t even ask for faith in return. I still can’t figure out why.

This is why I just… can’t see Andoain as a villain. I mean, yeah, he shot Lemuen, but even she doesn’t blame him for shooting his friends while holding the Stick That Makes You Shoot Your Friends. His entire goal is an attempt to sort through the cognitive dissonance between what the church tells him and what the church does. A dissonance that is, because of Law and the doctrines, innate to what the church is. An experience that should feel damn familiar to anyone who has spent time as an apostate. His plan is to simply confront the Pope about this hypocrisy, to get an answer, to find a meaning.

The answer he gets back is… It Must Survive. Law must survive. The in-group must survive. It doesn’t matter if we cry over the grave of the Sarkaz, because the Sarkaz would die for us. He searched for the answer to a question, the meaning of a statement. You are one of us. They are not. All this time, he searched for the meaning of those words, but in reality, those words were the meaning. That was all they ever had to say. He just needed to accept that.

…but if the in-group is all that mattered… why allow Mostima in Laterano? Why give her her position? She’s not needed for the survival of the in-group, the Law has deemed her an exile.

And… Why not Andoain?

Before he leaves, his gun is taken from him. A gun that, according to the church, has meaning. A meaning he takes as truth. He believes a part of him is left behind there. I don’t think he realizes it, but Mostima and Fiammetta are the question he left behind. They are Not Sankta, but yet they are accepted. And… I don’t know if there is a meaning to that. I still can’t figure out why.

——————————————————————————————————

For a long time, I missed those days spent in the community I had left. I would remember the things I left behind. The churchball basketball games we were destined to lose. The conversations held on the roof of the storage building behind the church. The scouting activities that were clearly an excuse to go bowling. The shitty halloween parties with the game where you ate donuts tied to a string hanging from a fishing pole. I missed it, for a time. I couldn’t help but look back.

Cecilia is searching for meaning to almost everything. When Andoain tells his stories to Cecilia, he tells her that he can’t find the meaning of them. That if there is meaning to be found, she’ll have to find it herself. So. She does.

Cecilia was faced with the same situation Andoain was obsessed with. But for her, it wasn’t hypothetical. She existed between Us and Them. She felt the pull between the community and the love and fun they represent, and the outsiders who were hated and rejected by the people around her. Society told her the meaning of her dual identity, the meaning behind each half, and then told her to choose. But… she’d experienced otherwise. She’d felt the kindness of the Sarkaz from the Pathfinders, and the hatred from the Church. She’d felt things that contradicted the meaning that she was told was true.

Her story isn’t just being forced to pick a side between the church or apostacy, it’s being forced to pick what meaning she ascribes to the world. Ultimately, that’s why her answer can only be her own. Your belief is… subjective.

And she answered… with a bell. A Sarkaz girl, bearing a halo, ringing a bell that has not been rung since the Sankta were still called Teekaz. A bell that once marked the beginning of the new era. A bell that carries the weight of a Sarkaz, hated by the place they called home. A bell that rings with the melody of a Sarkaz lullaby once sung by a Sankta. A bell that asserts her answer. She’s not Sarkaz, she’s not Sankta. She is Cecilia.

Everyone else finds their own subjective meaning within that action. Something as mundane as the ringing of the bell suddenly has more meaning than divine scripture.

No one else understood the nuance of what she said, but they understood parts of it. They understood what they wanted to. Those who know nothing of Lateran culture understand it as just… a beautiful welcome, celebrating the arrival of talks of peace. Most have their meaning determined by the church’s traditions. The pious see it as the beginning of a new era, whatever that signals to them. To the Church, it is that their talks will bring about a new era of peace. To the Pathfinders, it is a signal to begin their attack on Laterano to begin their new era.

There is so much meaning in that action, but in the end, it’s still just a fucking bell. There’s got to be hundreds, maybe thousands of them in Laterano. But this bell meant something more than the other bells. This bell had meaning, and that meaning made it divine.

This, to me, is what Guide Ahead has to say. That there is so much meaning to be found in something as mundane as a ringing bell. Within such a simple action, there is personal expression, liberation, the sound of change. And in all of this, there is the echoes of divinity, the echoes of faith, as if all of these things are, in themselves, divine.

——————————————————————————————————

When I left the church, I couldn’t help but look back, still tethered to a community who hated me. I think I wished I could stop looking back. I don't know if I realized I was.

In the end, everyone else looks back. They still have meaning to be found in Laterano. Andoain looks back, a part of his soul anchored there by the symbol he was told to believe in. Mostima looks back, knowing she’ll return just as she always does. Fiammetta looks back, because she refuses to let herself leave. Ezell looks back, unsure if he will be able to return home after what he has found.

But… Cecilia doesn’t. She has decided that she is not defined by the church, or the meaning they try to give her. She has decided to leave Laterano and see the world outside of it, to explore the world around her and find the meaning for herself.

And the last thing Cecilia does is... defined by ambiguous meaning. She sees Andoain walking in the sunset - and a word appears to her. The title of Martyr. A title she doesn’t understand the meaning or weight of, but that she feels is appropriate regardless. A title that, to other people, would mean something more. But to her, brings to mind the saints she heard of as a youth, a word her mother told her was important.

The story is ending, and they end it with an assertion. Cecilia is finding meaning, and others will find what they will within. Perhaps even she doesn't know all of it.

A while back, during a theater rehearsal, I suddenly remembered a conversation I had years before I left the church. I remembered speaking with my friends outside of the chapel after a sunday service. My friend said a sentence that has stuck with me ever since. “I don’t think science goes against God. I think God uses science and math. I think those things are holy, because they’re… what everything is made of.”

I remember looking around the rehearsal space and thinking that if science could be sacred, then… so is this moment, now. So is my time spent with the people I love. This is sacred. What I missed, what kept me looking back. It wasn’t the actual religion, but instead… just belonging to something. So… I stopped looking back. In that moment, however fleeting it was, I had found whatever it was I needed.

—————————————————————————————————

Look. You probably had a different interpretation of Guide Ahead. This story is just… So goddamn dense. There is so much there that I didn’t even touch on. For the love of god, I just did an analysis of Guide Ahead and didn’t even really discuss Fiammetta?? What kind of hack writer am I? (I just… couldn’t talk about her without being more personal than I am willing to be in public.)

If you have an interpretation that is different than mine, that’s great. I encourage you to hold on to it, and hold it close. That meaning is yours, and yours alone, and that’s a precious thing.

Because to me, what I found… is that very idea.

There is meaning to be found in anything - and a meaning that is yours, and yours alone. All you have to do is find meaning. and the idea that there is meaning to the world, that everything has meaning not because there is a “true” meaning to it, but because we find one there, because we put one there… that makes everything feel… divine, to me.

So… wherever you find meaning, you can find the divine.

You can find divinity in a ringing bell. In a terrible cactus tart. A carnival game you know how to beat. The promises of peace around a table. A cup of coffee. A city you hate. A community you love. A flower growing near a grave. A weapon you carry. A people you surround yourself with.

Those are all… holy to me.

And to me… that meaning is enough.

I hope yours is for you.

#arknights #critical analysis #feel free to reblog #i know this is personal but don't worry I wrote it to be shared #thank you all.#finally i can rest

511 notes · View notes

justfandomwritings · 2 years

Text

You'll See Why (Peter Ballard x Reader)

Pairing: Peter Ballard x Female!Reader, implied Steve x Reader (Does not really factor into the story)

Word Count: 5.1k

Warnings: mostly just fluff and angst that doesn't require a content warning. General content warnings consistent with Stranger Things

Summary: It couldn't be him. She refused to believe it. Eleven had to be wrong, had to have the wrong person. It wasn't that he wasn't capable of something like this; in the back of her mind, she knew he was. More, it was that she didn't want to face what it meant about herself.

Masterlist. Ko-Fi.

There was a familiar face staring blankly up at her from the page… she knew this face.

“Well, he looks evil,” Steve mused, looking at the drawing over her shoulder.

“He was 001… He was the first. They built the lab to contain him.” Eleven explained.

(Y/n) was holding up the sketch Eleven had drawn of the patient from Hawkins Lab, who Eleven knew as 001, that Nancy had discovered was Henry, that they all called Vecna.

(Y/n) knew that face.

“(Y/n)?” Dustin touched her shoulder. “(Y/n), are you okay?”

She heard her brother’s voice talking to her, and yet somehow she didn’t register it. He felt, he sounded, so far away.

It felt like an out of body experience, like her thoughts were no longer contained inside her brain, like they were swirling around her in a cloud, consuming her entire world. This was not Henry Creel, could not be Vecna. Eleven had to be wrong. She knew this face, and she knew it all too well.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hi Peter, I see they let you out again. The usual?” (Y/n) smiled brightly.

Peter was her favorite regular at Benny’s, not that he was all that regular. He came in once every couple weeks or so. She assumed whenever the lab could spare him, though he always referred to it as a “reward” for good behavior. Benny’s menu was hardly “reward” worthy. It was decent. Benny was a good cook, but it was just regular diner food. She could think of four other diners in Hawkins that served the same fair, though Benny’s was certainly the closest to the ltab.

He wasn’t a particularly nice regular. He tipped very well, which she appreciated, but most regulars do or they wouldn’t be regulars anymore. Mostly, he was her favorite because he was an enigma. He worked for the Hawkins National Laboratory up the road, and he was very cagey about his work and himself.

“No coffee,” Peter amended without looking up from the papers in front of him.

(Y/n) scribbled haphazardly on the ticket and slid it across the window to put on deck for Benny. There were a couple tickets ahead of it, and that gave her extra time.

(Y/n) dragged the stool out from behind the register and plopped down directly in front of Peter, propping her elbows on the counter and looking at him expectantly.

Peter rolled his eyes but kept them trained on his work. This was (Y/n)’s usual routine any time Peter came into the diner, so he didn’t need to look up to know she was staring him down.

“Must you watch your customers so intently? I feel like a subject in the lab.”

“Only the interesting ones,” (Y/n) dismissed. “Now tell me; how’s the lab?”

Peter flipped over one of the pages mindlessly. He hadn’t processed all the words, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen if (Y/n) had anything to say about it. He kept up the appearance of reading though to hold her interrogations to a minimal. “It is in its usual state. I am nothing but a humble nurse for the children being experimented upon and tortured within its walls.”

(Y/n) rolled her eyes. It wasn’t the kind of joke she would have made, but she let it slide. “Yes, of course, but how is your work?”

“Why would you care to know?” Peter dismissed the question.

“Because I’m bored, and like my brother always says life is a curiosity voyage.”

Peter rolled his eyes, “Your brother sounds foolish.”

“Hey,” (Y/n) reached up and smacked Peter lightly on the side of the head, causing him to jolt. He stared at her in utter disbelief, as if no one had ever touched him before in his life, which she found very hard to believe. He was far too high and mighty, full of himself, not to have been bullied as a kid. “That’s my brother. Only I get to mess with him.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nonresponsive and zoned out was not a good thing to be in Hawkins, Indiana in 1986.

“She’s infected with Vecna!” Dustin began to panic, “Quick someone get my headphones from the desk,” Dustin pointed to the desk behind Max, who practically threw the headphones in her rush to get them to Steve as Dustin ran to the small shelf and began digging through Mike’s cassette tapes.

“No, no,” (Y/n) shook aside the memory as quickly as she could manage. “Dustin,” she called to her brother, “Really, I’m fine!”

“Like hell you are,” behind her, Steve forced the plastic strap of the headphones around her neck. “Seriously? How hard is it to find Pat Benatar!” Steve shouted.

“Again, I’m fine,” (Y/n) rolled her eyes, wrenching the headphones off.

They couldn’t afford to waste a pair on her now. She could feel things coming to a head. Over the last 24 hours, virtually all of them had had to procure a pair of headphones and wrap them around their necks. Only Steve, Dustin, Eleven, and herself hadn’t heard the ticking of a clock at some point yet. A low drone of noise was filling the room as songs played from the necks of the other occupants.

“Really!” She insisted to the skeptical crowd of teens staring her down, “no ticking. I was just…” In addressing the room, her eyes found Eleven’s, “remembering something.”

Eleven’s eyes seemed to see right through her, and (Y/n) hesitated for a moment, wavering in whether revealing this information was a good idea or not. Everyone else in the room was staring at her, eyes darting now and again to Eleven.

It was too late to back out now. She took a breath and, watching Eleven’s face intently for her reaction, said the name.

“Peter Ballard.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hi again Peter, I’ll put the usual on for you.” (Y/n) greeted him with a wave as he came through the door.

This time, when Peter walked in, Benny’s was empty except for herself and Benny. He had his usual folder full of papers tucked under his arm, stamped with the fancy Hawkins Lab’s seal on the cover declaring it was privileged information.

“Thank you,” Peter took up his usual counter seat.

He had a way of being both extraordinarily polite and also incredibly rude at the same time. It was like he had spent his entire life being lectured on manners without actually having a single social interaction in which to use them.

“Benny!” (Y/n) called loudly over the order window, “Peter’s usual!”

Benny was somewhere in the back. With the diner being empty, Benny had ducked out to rearrange the stock while he left (Y/n) to mind the front. “Give me just a minute!” She heard her boss shout back.

“So!” (Y/n) whipped around, leaning back against the order window, “Gonna tell me how work was today?”

“Tiresome.” Peter clipped.

(Y/n) raised an eyebrow, “That’s about as descriptive as you’ve ever been. Was it coworkers or your human test subjects?” She said the last part teasingly.

Peter paused for a moment, still not looking up from his papers, but he seemed to consider her question longer than he usually would before dismissing her. “Boss.” Having answered, Peter immediately went back to flipping through pages, only adding under his breath, “Not that I would call him that, persay. He’s more like my worst nightmare.”

(Y/n) chuckled and approached, taking up her usual seat across from him. “Tell me about it. Last week, Benny didn’t let me off early on Friday even though it was my mom’s birthday, so my little brother recruited his friends to try to bake her birthday cake instead of waiting for me and almost lit my house on fire.”

The word fire seemed to catch Peter’s attention. He still didn’t give her the time of day or meet her eyes, still seemed to think that she was too beneath him for that, but his head did cock to one side. He was listening.

“What’s so nightmarish about your boss?”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What do you mean you ‘know’ Vecna?” Dustin demanded.

“He came into Benny’s from time to time,” (Y/n) felt like she was retreating into her skin. Eleven, Mike, Eddie, Max, the whole room. They were all watching her with dark eyes, watching her like they were watching the enemy.

Dustin was staring at her in utter shock. He didn’t notice the looks from his friends or the fear in her eyes. He was still trying to comprehend this massive piece of information.

Only Steve’s hand, resting with a firm grip on her shoulder, was keeping her grounded in the room, keeping her from bolting out the door like a frightened deer.

“And you talked to him? You knew him?” Max joined the questioning, her tone far closer to interrogation than Dustin’s disbelieving one.

(Y/n) shrugged defensively, “Lots of people from the labs came in. We were the closest restaurant. He said he was a nurse. I didn’t know he was the literal devil.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Your boss sounds like a dick, no offense.”

“None taken.” Peter had talked to her. He had actually talked to her. Granted, they were complaining about their bosses, which was the oldest and most basic form of bonding in the book, but still. It was something. “He is.”

“Well,” (Y/n) hopped down from the seat she had taken on the counter while he recounted his tale of woe. “I’m gonna start cleaning up if it’s all the same to you.”

Peter waved his hand down the length of the counter and immediately reverted his eyes back to his papers that were off to the side of the plate he was presently eating off of.

(Y/n) smirked to herself as she pulled out her rag. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. She’d be damned if she wasn’t going to keep poking at him till she got the answers she wanted.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was Nancy who turned the whole scene into a proper interrogation. Though, perhaps given her profession, it was more of an interview. She waved the kids away from the seat in front of (Y/n) and took up a spot front and center in her vision.

“Tell us everything you know about him. Start from the beginning.”

(Y/n) took a breath and recited the facts as coldly and emotionlessly as she could manage. “His name was Peter Ballard. He came into the diner once every couple weeks. Everyone else from the lab came in groups, but he…” Her voice cracked for a moment, and she hoped everyone else in the room saw it as nothing more than the nerves it was, “He was always alone. He barely talked to me. The others said he was a nurse, and that he never talked to anyone in the lab either. He always brought files with him to read. It took months for him to even bother making eye contact with me.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You never went to a proper high school?”

“No,” Peter droned. He still acted thoroughly unamused with her presence, but he had started more readily answering her questions.

(Y/n) huffed and leaned back on her stool, tilting away from him. “Well, that explains so much.”

Peter’s eyes shot up from his paper, and for the first time he met her gaze. Not exactly an angry expression, but at the least a doubtful one, colored his face as his eyebrows drew together. “How?”

“Well,” she let the legs of her stool fall back on the floor with a crash as she leaned forward towards Peter, “Sure, you didn’t have to deal with assholes on the basketball team shoving you into lockers, or girls on the cheer squad making fun of your clothes. But you also never found a group of friends with the same niche interest as you, or a guy to bond with over your mutual hatred of some bully, or a cute girl who thought you were the cutest thing since God invented puppies.”

Peter’s eyes narrowed.

“No, I’m serious,” (Y/n) immediately dismissed his expression. “Sure, there are giant swathes of humanity that are the absolute worst, but there are some humans who are really great when you give them the chance. And you,” she poked a finger into his chest, “never did. You were aware that some people sucked, but you didn’t hang around long enough to find the ones that didn’t before you decided to write all of us off as intolerable.”

Peter pursed his lips and turned back to his files. He wasn’t going to continue this line of conversation.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“That’s really all I know, Nancy. I swear.” (Y/n) huffed.

“There has to be something though!” Nancy jumped up from her seat and began to pace, “It can’t be a coincidence that you knew him. Can it?”

“I didn’t know him,” She emphasized. “We didn’t exactly bare our souls to each other and get matching tattoos. We were friendly. He came in every couple weeks, ordered the same thing. Towards the end he started making small talk, but that was it. Small talk. He didn’t exactly spell out for me that he had dreams of becoming a mass murderer.”

“Yeah, but what are the odds that you would get wrapped up in all of this?” Jonathan pointed out. “It sounds like you’re the only person he talked to outside of the lab.”

“Pretty freakin’ high, Jonathan,” (Y/n) huffed. “If you haven’t noticed, Hawkins isn’t a metropolis. It’s a pretty small town, and weird shit keeps happening. We’re all wrapped up in it at this point.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Y/n) froze, staring at Peter as he approached his usual seat at the counter. She’d clocked him instantly when he walked in, and instantly had known something was very off.

He looked more or less the same, all white outfit, holier than thou expression. His hair was in its usual blonde waves, and he seemed more or less as agitated with his own existence as he usually did.

“H-Hey Peter, Usual?” (Y/n) asked.

“Yes, please,” Peter replied.

And in that moment she realized it. That moment when he sat there, still looking up at her expectantly, waiting for her to put his order in. That moment when he didn’t look down.

No files.

(Y/n) rushed the order in to Benny and whirled back around to join Peter. There were a handful of other people in the diner, but they were all regulars who’d already gotten their food and knew their way around. She was completely unbothered with doing her rounds to their tables.

“Why no files?”

Peter raised an eyebrow, “Aren’t you the one who’s always bugging me to talk to you?”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“He’s not here,” Dustin dropped the flashlight back to his side with a huff.

They had gone to the Creel house again, hoping to find where in the Upside Down Vecna was. Now that they had Eleven, with her powers back no less, they wanted to lure him to a place they could face off against him.

“(Y/n),” Lucas called over the bannister from the second floor. “Did Vecna ever mention anywhere else he liked to go? Or somewhere else in Hawkins he felt connected to?”

“No!” (Y/n) shouted back with a huff, “If he’s not here he must be at the lab!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So?” (Y/n) smiled, “Thoughts?”

“It’s… cold.” Peter mused.

(Y/n) huffed and pulled back from where she was leaning on the counter. “That’s it? It’s cold? I thought you were going to actually help me? You know, useful feedback?”

Peter slowly pushed the mostly-full milkshake away from his plate. “I never agreed to help you. You only assumed I would when I came in.”

“Yeah! For a free milkshake!” (Y/n) threw her hands up, utterly exasperated with him, “You have to have more thoughts than ‘it’s cold’. I’m making Benny put milkshakes on the menu, and it’s my ass on the line if they aren’t good.”

“It’s sweet.” Peter added, picking up another fry and taking a bite.

“Ooooh! Thank you so much! That’s so much more helpful.” She bit back sarcastically.

Rolling her eyes, (Y/n) snatched the milkshake away, slurping through Peter’s abandoned straw. She made a face, “Oh, ok… that is sweet.”

Peter didn’t meet her eyes, but he waved his hand and made a face that very much said ‘told-you-so’.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It didn’t look like anyone had been in the lab since Eleven closed the portal. The bodies had been cleaned up, no doubt by the military coverup team, but the broken glass in the screened in room surrounding the old portal was still strewn about the floor. Hopper’s gun Bob had left in the control room was still on the desk. There were even still spatters of blood every few feet along the walls and stains from dried up blood on the floors.

“So,” Robin murmured quietly to (Y/n), “This is what Round 2 looked like? Man I am so glad I just had the Russians.”

“It doesn’t look like he’s here either. Doesn’t even look like he’s been here at all. There’s no portal,” Will assessed, turning back to the room.

“Fuck!” Mike turned, kicking a wall. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

He wasn’t at his old home. He wasn’t at the lab. He wasn’t at any of the places he’d opened portals that they knew about. (Y/n) was at a loss. There wasn’t anywhere else to look.

He must be hiding, hiding somewhere completely random with absolutely no connection to him. It was the logical thing to do if he didn’t want to be found, but it just didn’t make sense. Sure, Eleven said 001 was a creature completely void of any emotion, set to the singular purpose of restoring order to the world by ridding it of humanity.

But (Y/n) knew that wasn’t true. Hell, the Party should’ve known that wasn’t true. 001 had slaughtered an entire lab in an instant he was so blinded by rage, not even giving them the option to join them that he’d given Eleven. When he became Vecna and was sent to the Upside Down, the first place they knew he’d gone was home. Max had seen the disassembled pieces of the Creel house in Vecna’s inner hideout in the Upside Down. And Henry had talked to Nancy about her visit to his father, about how he’d vengefully plotted his demise.

Even the Peter (Y/n) knew was riddled with emotions, most of them negative, but still they were there. Even when he was putting on a neutral face, she always knew he detested humanity. He hated his job. He…

He’d teased her about her milkshakes, about how much she talked, about high school, about her brother. He’d…

(Y/n) bolted for the door. “Steve, get the keys! I know where he went!” She shouted.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So why don’t you ever sit with them?” (Y/n) asked, nodding with her chin over Peter’s shoulder to the lab coats at the table behind him.

They weren’t literally wearing lab coats, but in her mind everyone who worked in a lab was supposed to be wearing a coat. So that’s what she called them. In actuality, they were all dressed almost exactly the same as Peter.

“I mean, I know you hate them, but even you have to get lonely sometimes.”

Peter picked up another fry and put it in his mouth, avoiding her question.

“There must be someone tolerable enough to eat lunch with.”

“I eat with you.” Peter told her, “Do I need someone else?”

(Y/n) felt her cheeks turn a little bit pink, and she tried to swallow it down. “Well no, but you must have friends. Someone at the lab? Or someone from when you were a kid? I know you were homeschooled, but still. Everyone needs friends.”

Peter snorted, and (Y/n) wasn’t sure if it was at the idea of him needing someone or at the idea of having a friend. “Well, I regret to inform you that I just have you.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was a portal, up against the wall of the diner, behind the counter right where she used to sit when she would talk to Peter.

“Dead on, (Y/n).” Steve patted her shoulder, joking, “He must’ve really liked the eggs.”

Grilled chicken with a side of fries and a coffee. Always the same food; didn’t matter what meal it was. (Y/n) didn’t bother to voice that though.

“It’s one of the basketball players,” Dustin pointed out.

A pair of broken, twisted out of shape, legs were sticking out from behind one of the couches the kids had dragged into Benny’s after it was deserted.

“It’s bigger…” Eleven murmured, taking a step forward towards the portal.

Mike caught her arm, pulling her back away from the portal.

(Y/n) didn’t join in, the banter or the analysis. She was staring at the portal.

It was right where she used to sit, literally right there. If Peter had been there, and she’d been in her usual spot talking to him, all she would’ve had to do was tip her stool back, like she always did, and she would’ve fallen straight into the Upside Down.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You’re gonna fall over if you keep doing that,” Peter pointed down to the legs of her stool.

(Y/n) rolled her eyes and continued to totter back and forth on the back legs of the stool. “Then I’ll knock my head in and get off work early, and you won’t have to put up with me. Sounds like a win for both of us.”

The front legs of the stool slammed to the ground, and (Y/n) stared wide-eyed, mouth ajar, at Peter.

Peter’s eyes had a fire to them she had never seen. There was something there, something behind his usual disinterested, annoyed expression. Something dangerous.

He had a vice-like grip on her wrist, and (Y/n) was positive that she was going to have a ringed bruise around the bone there in the morning from how tightly he held her and how hard he’d jerked her back forward. Her arm was stretched out across the width of the counter, practically touching his chest he’d jerked her so far back.

The shock in her face seemed to douse the fire in his. “Sorry,” Peter cleared his throat, dropping her wrist.

“N-No, it’s okay.” (Y/n) dismissed haphazardly. “Didn’t realize I was worrying you.”

Under his breath, so quietly she wasn’t quite sure she heard him right, Peter whispered, “Of course you worry me.”

“What was that?” (Y/n) asked.

“Nothing, just don’t want you dead on the floor. The hassle of finding another friend is unappealing.”

“Well,” (Y/n) smiled, though not as brightly this time as she usually did, “you can’t get rid of me that easy.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vecna.

A grey body, void of skin and hair and a face. Vine-like Tentacles protruding from his back, whipping back and forth in all directions as if they had a mind of their own, encircling the party, drawing them tighter and tighter into him.

She knew what Eleven told her, knew the story of how Vecna had come to be, but she just couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t see Peter under there, inside the monster.

She couldn’t see Peter batting away Eleven with a vine, without a care in the world for her scream as she went flying back into a deadened tree.

Not Peter, not her Peter.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I’m sorry.”

(Y/n) looked up, startled. She hadn’t heard anyone come in. She’d been too absorbed in the math homework splayed across Benny’s counter to notice anything other than the mental image she’d been constructing of going to watch all of her friends graduate knowing she was going to have to repeat senior year.

“Oh Peter, I didn’t hear you come in. Usual?”

Peter sat down in front of her, which was not in his usual seat. “No, I only… I came here to talk, to apologize, and say goodbye.”

“Wait you’re leaving?” (Y/n) dropped the pencil from her hand. “Are they moving you out of the lab? What’s going on?”

“There’s been a… development. And soon my services will no longer be required.” Peter caught the pencil (Y/n) hadn’t heard rolling across the counter and carefully balanced it back in place in front of her textbook.

“W-Well, where are you going?” She tried, and failed miserably, to hide the disappointment from her tone, “I’m sure they have phones there. I’d hate to leave you with no one to pester you every week.”

“I can’t tell you.” Peter smiled, actually smiled. (Y/n) didn’t know if it was unnerving or endearing. It was the first time she’d ever seen him smile. She got the occasional snear, once in a while a smirk if she was particularly amusing that day. But he never smiled, certainly not like this, sad, disheartened, like he was sorry he had to go. “That’s why I came. I know I scared you last time I was here. I… I showed too much of myself, and for that I’m sorry.”

“Peter, you don’t have to apologize.” (Y/n) reached out, hesitantly and took his hand. “Not for being yourself at least.”

“Oh but I do.” Peter dismissed. Turning his hand over, Peter took hers in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Maybe one day you’ll see why.”

And as easily as he slipped into her life, he was gone.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Eddie,” She whispered from their hiding place behind the rock, “whatever happens, can you promise me something?”

“What?” Eddie whispered back to her.

(Y/n) hesitated for a moment before she peeled herself away from the rocker’s side. “Hold Steve back.” Turning to Jonathan on her other side, she patted his arm. “And don’t let him and Dustin do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

(Y/n) was usually an anxious, hesitant person. She was an extrovert to the extreme, but she was also very risk averse. She was the type of girl who walked with her eyes on her own feet, and her arms brought in across her chest at all times. She didn’t exude surety or confidence ever. The three words her friends would use to describe her were skittish, excitable, and self-conscious. With Dart, Dustin had taken the lead trapping the monster in the cellar. In the Byer’s home, she had cowered behind Steve, from the demodogs and from Billy. In Starcourt, her brother had practically dragged her down to the Russian base. She had been the one driving the distraction car, all too happy to put distance between herself, Dustin, and Steve and the Mindflayer.

She was not fearless like Nancy or powerful like Eleven or a natural leader like Steve. In the face of monsters and spies and alternate dimensions, she was scared, like any normal person would be.

But this, she’d convinced herself, wasn’t a monster from an alternate dimension. A monster, maybe, but one she knew.

“(Y/n), what are you doing?” Jonathan tried to grab at her arm, but she moved faster, ducking out of the way as she came running out from behind the rock.

Vecna was baring down on Eleven, standing in front of Lucas, Mike, and Dustin with her arms wide as she tried to push him back.

“(Y/n)!” The shout came from somewhere behind her, but she didn’t look back at Steve as she heard him running after her.

“PETER!” She came to a stop under him and shouted up into the air, at the body in the center of the mass of tentacles.

His head turned, slowly, towards her. “Peter, come down here!”

“(Y/n),” he said, seemingly to himself.

She should’ve been afraid, quaking in her boots afraid. But for once, she just couldn’t seem to manage it.

Somewhere in the distance she could hear Steve shouting, shouting at her, at Vecna, at Jonathan and Eddie for holding him back.

“Peter!” She called again.

The tentacles seemed to whip back and forth through the air, splaying themselves out flat on the ground and slowly encircling where she stood, as they lowered their master to the ground.

“NO!” Dustin tried to jump, but without instruction needed Lucas and Mike grabbed him and held him back.

“Peter, you don’t have to do this.”

“Peter is dead. Your friend,” he spat the word, “saw to that.”

“I know she put you here, but I don’t think Peter’s gone.” A tentacle slithered at the back of her heels, and (Y/n) took a step closer to Peter.

“You always had such idealistic notions.” He snarled, “This is what I am. Not Peter, this.” Two of the tentacles whipped out from the circle they had formed around (Y/n), and latched onto her wrists, wrenching her down to her knees.

(Y/n) shook her head, “I don’t believe that.”

The tentacles tightened around her wrist, and she bit back a whimper in disgust as they began wrapping themselves slowly up her arms.

“Society is a scourge (Y/n). The real curse is not me; it’s humanity.” Peter began walking towards her, the tentacles around her dragging her to meet him.

“Then why haven’t you cursed me? Killed me?” (Y/n) asked, “Everyone else has heard the clock ticking, Peter. But here I am.”

The tentacles were wrapping around her chest now, gluing her arms to her sides. Peter, Vecna, did not respond. He stood directly above her now, her bound defenseless at his feet.

“If Peter was dead then you wouldn’t be listening to me right now.”

One of the tentacles wrapped itself around her throat, but she didn’t feel it constricting her at all. It was like it didn’t know what to do.

“Let them go, Peter. They’re just kids. Scared, little kids like Henry used to be.”

Steve was still shouting and struggling with Jonathan and Eddie, and in her peripheral, it seemed Eleven had joined the boys in holding back Dustin.

“I’ll stay.” She whispered loud enough for only Peter to hear. “We’re friends right? I’ll stay here, with you. But you have to let them go. Leave them alone, leave Hawkins alone.”

Peter blinked. “You wouldn’t leave your brother.”

He sounded like Peter, the dark, raspy voice of Vecna was gone. He sounded young again; he sounded whole.

“I’ll leave him to protect him. Peter, you live in this place free of people and the society you hated, and it’s still not enough. You never wanted to be alone.” The grip the tentacles had on her was loosening, and (Y/n) tried to stand. The tentacles melted away as Peter saw what she wanted to do. “I’ll stay here, with you. You won’t be alone… But you have to let them go.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“NO!” Dustin shoved forward and began pounding on the wall where to portal used to be. “No!”

His fingers tried digging into the wallpaper, into the wall. It had to be there; it couldn’t be gone. He could get back to her. They could save her.

The rest of the party watched in utter silence as Dustin scratched and clawed at the wall, trying to open the portal back to his sister.

No one tried to stop him, or intervene. They were all too stunned to speak, too stunned to move.

The only noise in the room was Dustin, screaming in despair at the wall, and Steve, quietly sobbing in the corner.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note:

Thanks for reading! If you like this, please go read my Eddie Munson fic. I'd really appreciate it! I think it's even better than this one, and it meant a lot to me writing it. I look forward to knowing what you think!

#peter ballard #peter ballard x y/n #peter ballard x reader #vecna x reader #henry creel x reader #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things x reader #peter ballard x you #peter ballard fluff #peter ballard angst #peter ballard fanfiction #peter ballard fanfic #vecna fanfiction #henry creel fanfiction #stranger things x you #steve harrington x reader #st4

4K notes · View notes

adawngswife · 4 months

Text

dating sean diaz hcs pt 2

- before esteban fixed up a car for sean, u guys would always take the public bus around seattle

- his favorite dates r the ones where u guys go into random small stores and thrift shops

- both of u guys cackle REALLY LOUD at tacky shirts with stupid sayings and get looks from people 😭

- ur fav thing is to go “i found something ud like” and watch sean look up from the racks in excitement to see an overly patriotic shirt that says “don’t touch my truck”

- his face drops into a frown and he picks out something 10x uglier and say it looks like something ud wear

- sean secretly buys what u say is cute but u cant afford bc thrifting is so expensive for no reason these days

- “guess what i got” and he slithers it out of his bag with an evil smile 😭 suddenly him dissing u for an hour straight doesnt even matter anymore

- once esteban texts sean for dinner u guys hop on the bus back home. he never asks sean to come home for dinner alone though! common courtesy to invite the gf

- sharing wired earbuds on the bus ride home always. sean plays little love songs bc he only listens to music that he relates to in that specific moment 😭 corny but cute. he def has songs in his head that he thinks are ur guys’ songs and plays them every chance he gets

- when u first started eating with the diaz family it was so painfully awkward

- though he kind of likes it now, he did not want his girlfriend to get to know esteban or daniel too well LMAO he didnt want to be embarrassed by anything they possibly could say

- still, even when he tried so hard to avoid it, daniel and esteban still found their ways

- estebans the kind of dad to bring up embarrassing stories about sean when he was a kid bc he KNOWS how much his son would hate it

- “y’know (y/n), im surprised seanie boy over here even managed to get a girlfriend in the first place”

- “why is that, mr. diaz?”

- “i remember he thought girls couldn’t poop until he was in middle school! i had to break the news for him—he was in denial for weeks. his voice was shaking when i told him and everything!” u can see sean pause mid-chew in the corner of his eye 😭 “and please, call me esteban”

- you just awkwardly nodded and tried to not bust out laughing. sean notices and kicks u under the table which makes u ACTUALLY bust out laughing

- esteban and daniel knew from there u were one to be trusted

- “i bet (y/n) doesn’t poop” daniel randomly said when u left that night. seans immediately swiveled his head around 😭

- just like with lyla, daniel seemed to have a crush on u as well. the only difference is that sean tries to shut it down REALLY quick.

- “she shits all the time. sometimes i wipe her ass for her bc she shits so much”

- daniel’s “eww…” is like music to his ears

- u always playfully punch him when he does this in front of u and ask why he makes u look bad in front of him

- sean never admits its bc hes jealous of a little kid 😭 he just changes the subject and kisses u bc he thinks hes sneaky

- over the summer he randomly got a buzz and didnt say anything to anybody

- he just opened his front door standing there bald as if nothing happened and ur eyes wld just kind of widen

- u wld eventually tell him it looks good tho bc it DOES he pulls it off so well

- that summer u wld always randomly start feeling his head because the texture is so interesting

- it got to the point where hed just sit on the floor in front of wherever u were so ud get to feel his freshly mowed head

- he always ends up dozing off bc its so comforting and u wld feel his head pressed on ur inner leg.

- u also get the privilege of cutting/buzzing his hair 😋

- sean doesnt trust himself so u guys sit for 40 mins watching a brad mondo video before u start going ape on his hair

- he gets kind of nervous when u get close to his face and does that thing where u switch between a persons right eye and left eye while smiling awkwardly 😭

- surprisingly it turns out good!

- i feel like ud be super nit-picky on ur work, thinking its total ass. he wld just say its perfect over and over again

- he always stares at any reflective surface and smiles like a dork in front of it. even if u did do a shit job, he probably wouldnt notice or care all that much bc he loves blindly ❤️

im on winter break so i get to be cringe and free for endless hours thank u to like the 3 other people who also like sean diaz. u r all real ones

#life is strange 2 #sean diaz x reader #sean diaz #daniel diaz #sean diaz hcs

178 notes · View notes

finnickyy · 7 months

Text

I went on a rant on my IG story a few weeks ago and just wanted to share it here cuz i went in depth and got a bit too passionate

transcript after cut

i fucking love mha

like its honestly my favorite show right now

is it perfect? fuck no

you have to be dumb as shit to think this show is perfect

there are so many things wrong with it omfg

but thats not what i wanna get into

what i wanna get into is the fandom and it portrayal of erasermic

EraserMic is probably one of the best things to come out of the show

Its literally the story of the two characters grieving the loss of a close friend and never really healing from it. BUT FUCKING NO

THATS NOT WHAT THE FUCKING FANDOM WANT TO FOCUS ON

THEY WANNA FOCUS ON FUCKINH "dadzawa and mamamic"

FUCKING SHUT UP

THEY REDUCE THESE COMPLEX AND INTERESTING CHARACTERS INTO CARICATURES AND OVER EXAGGERATIONS OF ONE ASPECT OF THEYRE PERSONALITY

AIZAWA

bros legit a dude that would sacrifice everything for the sake of other people

his self destructive behaviors are stated multiple time in the show and in vigilantes

he does not view himself as something that is important

he views himself as simply a tool for the betterment of other people

thats why hes a teacher

he literally doesnt own any personal items

all he has in his fucking apartment is his sleeping bag

he doesn't allow himself to get sentimental

after oboros death he became closed off and didn't allow himself to work though what happened

the only thing he focused was training

even to the point of ignoring his physical needs

he doesn't let himself get attached

he doesn't even open when mic tries to reach out to him

BUT FUCKING NOO ALL THE FANDOM WANTS TO FOCUS IN IS FUCKING DADZAWA

LIKE LET IT GO

YES DUDES A GOOD TEACHER

BUT HES NOT JUST THERE TO BE TIRED BITCH

WHY DO THEY FIXATE SO MUCH THE FUCKING TIREDNESS???

LIKE I GET "hahahaha funny trait" GET NEW MATERIAL OMFG

MIC

mic is so interesting to me cuz if the fact that "Present Mic" is simply just a persona

Mic is this outgoing loud person

Hes bombastic and enthusiastic

hes the fun guy

hes the guy that people go to when they want to chill and have a laugh

Yamada Hizashi is quiet and observant

He was the first person to suggest that there was a traitor in UA

He is the one that takes care of aizawa when hes drunk (i love the fact thats literally canon omfg)

Hes the one people see but dont notice

Present Mic is literally a Caricature of what he wants to be for people - easy and outgoing

THEY ALWAYS MAKE HIM THE PAPAMIC SHIT THAT I SEE OVER AND FUCKING OVER AGAIN

IT PISSES ME OFF SO FUCKIG. MUCH OMFG

One thing i saw someone point out is how you can tell when he is hizashi and when he is mic

When hes Hizashi - his eyes are visible

When hes Mic - all you can see are his glasses

Hizashi doesn't cope with the death of Oboro either. He never focuses on himself

He is always focused on what Aizawa feels. Which is why this shit is favorite

Its the fucking dysfunctionality of it

Hizashi never deal with his shit he just states whats happened.(ex. when midnight died - he just simply stated the obvious without actually confronting the subject at hand)

He is always focused on the others

(Hence, why he never told aizawa that they were actually going for his quirk instead of Oboro)

This is why they both work so well and dont at the same time.

They both use the same ideaology (putting other infront of you no matter what)

but using different methods

for aizawa its focusing on bettering himself to use himself as a tool to improve others

for mic its not focusing on yourself at all and putting all his attention onto others

#my hero academia #aizawa shouta #yamada hizashi #eraserhead #present mic #erasermic #erasercloud #mha #oboro shirakumo #ramblings

267 notes · View notes

autismprotocol · 5 days

Text

TMAG Theory Board Update (EP 11-12)

Hi guys sorry about the late posting I've just started a new quarter of college and its been pretty hectic. also got into my school design BFA program so pretty stoked about that! Anyways lets get into the Episode Breakdowns because even though not a lot of lore related things happened I still have a lot to talk about

For the breakdown I'll separate each by episode in sequential order

What Happened in Episode 11: Marked

Celias Rude Awakening- we jump right into the weirdness straight away with Celia waking up on the side of the interstate. she indicates that this is not a weird occurrence and ends the scene by telling someone named Jack that she's "on her way." If you remember episode 8 after Celia and Sam talk to Gerry and Gertrude, she mentions stuff about wanting help with her own mystery. When Sam asks about it she says she's looking into Time travel, other dimentions and teleportation. Many people have theorized that maybe Celia is just a super heavy sleepwalker, but I think the she teleports random places out of nowhere. This could be a side effect of her reality hopping if this Celia is originally from The archives universe.

As for the identity of Jack I'm not quite sure about that yet. I cross referenced the name Jack with past episodes of TMA. The only thing that came up was Jack Barnabas from the statement about dating Agnes Montague (aka an avatar of the desolation and Jesus-like figure for the cult of the lightless flame) So Unless Celia is secretly Agnes of Agnes reincarnated , I can't find any way to link Barnabas to Celia. (if anyone has a theory feel free to send it my way.)

Sam Lore- this one is pretty minor story-wise but I thought it was interesting. Before the statement for the episode is presented we get some classic Sam and Alice Banter ™ most of it is pretty lighthearted but I noticed Sam mention something that could indicate he might be an amputee.

These could not mean anything and I find it weird that it hasn't been mentioned until now but thought it was kind of cool and I will probably be drawing sam with a prothetic leg in the future cause I really like this head-canon. It also begs to question if he is missing a leg. it might have anything to do with his past as a Magnus institute test subject but then again could just be a fun character detail added by Jonny and/or Alex .

The Statement- Getting into the statement we get another Ink5oul appearance. Also possible Ink5oul identifying as she/they. (and lets be honest being a fear avatar is pretty non binary core). I found this Episode gave me a feeling of a hybrid between the Vast, Buried and the Flesh some people are theorizing that is might be a new entity called the Deep but I think that the fear of the ocean could easily apply to the vast or buried. Not much to say about this story though pretty standard Magnus horror that also gave us a hint to what Ink5oul's goal could be/which entity they serve.

Post Bonzo- Gwen has a debrief with Lena after her first Externals Liason assignment and her meeting with Mr. Bonzo. Undoubtedly Gwen is still pretty shaken from her encounter, even arriving late to work due to sleeplessness. Gwen is able to ask Lena a few questions mainly she wanted to know who's name was written on the letter given to Bonzo

Lena is largely unhelpful but tells Gwen she should have worked it out by now and if not to pay close attention to the case load for the next couple of days. before the latest episode my guess was Klaus because that is the only person mentioned so far that the OIAR intends to kill. but more on that later

Marked- Now were getting to my favorite thing about this episode. This episode title can have two meanings. The first is the more literal interpretation. Tattoos are marking of the body and the case this episode was all about tattoos so easily a good name would be marked. But I believe this is a red herring meant to misguide listeners who have not consumed all 200 episodes of TMA because if you know the world of Magnus Archives the term Marked takes on a entirely different meaning.

In TMA the term marked is used to indicate that somebody has been influenced by one or more or the fears and are one their way to becoming an Avatar. I think this could be a coded way to tell the audience someone in the OIAR has been marked. I have two potential candidates

Alice Dyer- Alice has been having dreams about the Institute after her and Sam's adventure into the ruins. also she mentions feeling like someone's watching her (common to people influenced or fed upon by the Ceaseless Watcher/The Eye) My guess if she is marked it would be by the Eye.

Gwendolyn Bouchard: Probably the most likely culprit. The main way an entitly tends to mark people is through encounters with other avatars. Gwen has just had an encounter with Mr Bonzo last episode who I strongly believe must be an avatar of some sort.

What Happened in Episode 12: Getting Off

Aww Sam!!- Sam asked Celia out and it was adorably awkward. not much to say I just loved this interaction and I'm longing for a new Magnus brand office romance hopefully is wont be an agonizing slowburn that ends tragically like a certain pair of morons from Archives (I love you Jon and Martin but Jesus christ)

It's Bonzo time bitches!!- Probably one of the most gruesome Magnus statement I've ever listened to (good work Alex) Mr Bonzo completely annihilated some poor dude at his bachelor party. Based on the date of the Incident the I can confidently say that whoever Baz (the groom) was he was our mystery person the OIAR sent Mr Bonzo to get rid of. Along with some of the bloodiest imagery we learned a few things about Bonzo. The most interesting detail is that Bonzo has to be summoned by playing his theme song I think the CD of his theme song acts somewhat like the tapes did in TMA by materialising out of nowhere. Also fun fact you know that torn seam that is right down Bonzo's middle? that is actually is his mouth lined with rows sharp teeth so I guess I know that now (so fun) Moral of the story dont f*ck with Mr. Bonzo

Alice knows something: Theres been this recurring audio glitch throughout TMAGP thatnks to a few extremly observent fans we have started to relize that these glitches are not at all random and are actually letting the audience know when a character is lying (i actually reposted somones deepdive into all the istances of this glitch so far if you guys are intrested in knowing more) why i bring this up now is becuase since we know when any charater is lying we also know when they are being truthful if there is no glitch when they say somthing and at the end of this episode this interaction occurs

Alice goes ahead and makes a joke about this to annoy Gwen but the fact theres no audio glitch when she says "I know" means she does actually know who is behind the OIAR and is activly refusing to share it with Gwen or the others. What do you know Alice!?

and that's about it im already loving these next batch of episodes and am so excited to learn more (ERROR has to show up somtime )

thanks to everyone who resonded the poll on the last update I will continue to include drawings into the breakdown even if it takes me a little bit of time to post. anyways I wrote this all in one sitting and I'm about ready to pass out so thanks again and the ask box and comments are always open for discussion and theory crafting.

-Echo

133 notes · View notes

nothorses · 6 months

Note

I saw your tags on the post about trick or treaters not speaking and I am v interested in hearing more of your thoughts on the concept of “developmental delays”! I‘ve seen the idea that disability is a construct, but I’m not as familiar with the idea that development is also a construct. You have really great takes as an educator and someone who like, actually GETS how kids work, so I am interested in your thoughts!

I also know that posting on this subject might be poking the bear, so it is 1000% cool if you would rather not comment 💜 Tysm!

Oh I'm happy to talk about it! I love talking about this stuff, thank you for asking me to 💙

This isn't exactly new ground; there's been plenty of research into and writing on the subject, and deconstructing "development" as a static concept was, ironically, a huge part of my most recent development class.

The idea is that our understanding of "benchmarks" of development, which informs the larger concept of development as a whole, is heavily rooted in the assumption that Western culture is The Standard. We prioritize walking, talking, reading, and writing, which means we cultivate these skills in our children from a young age, which means they develop those skills more quickly than they do others.

To use one of my favorite examples from Rogoff, 2003, Orienting Concepts and Ways of Understanding the Cultural Nature of Human Development:

Although U.S. middle-class adults often do not trust children below about age 5 with knives, among the Efe of the Democratic Republic of Congo, infants routinely use machetes safely (Wilkie, personal communication, 1989). Likewise, Fore (New Guinea) infants handle knives and fire safely by the time they are able to walk (Sorenson, 1979). Aka parents of Central Africa teach 8- to 10-month-old infants how to throw small spears and use small pointed digging sticks and miniature axes with sharp metal blades: "Training for autonomy begins in infancy. Infants are allowed to crawl or walk to whatever they want in camp and allowed to use knives, machetes, digging sticks, and clay pots around camp. Only if an infant begins to crawl into a fire or hits another child do parents or others interfere with the infant’s activity. It was not unusual, for instance, to see an eight month old with a six-inch knife chopping the branch frame of its family’s house. By three or four years of age children can cook themselves a meal on the fire, and by ten years of age Aka children know enough subsistence skills to live in the forest alone if need be. (Hewlett, 1991, p. 34)" (pg. 5)

In the US we would view "letting an 8-month-old handle a knife" as a sign of severe neglect, but the emphasis here is placed on the fact that these children are taught to do these things safely. They don't learn out of necessity, or stumble into knives when nobody is watching; they learn with care, support, and safety in mind, just like children here learn. It makes me wonder if Aka parents would view our children's lack of basic survival skills with the same concern and disdain as USAmerican parents would view their children's inability to read.

Do we disallow our children from handling knives because it is objectively, fundamentally unsafe for a child of that age to do so- because even teaching them is developmentally impossible- or is that just a cultural assumption?

What other cultural assumptions do we have about child development?

Which ties in neatly with various social-based models of disability, particularly learning and, of course, developmental disabilities. If your culture doesn't value the things you are good at, and you happen to struggle with the things it does value, what kinds of assumptions is it likely to make about you? How will it pathologize you? What happens to that culture if it understands those values to be arbitrary, in order to accommodate your unique existence?

#education #childcare #disability #ftr I am specifically saying that it adds an important and interesting dimension to models of disability based on the social model #because disability is a complex combination of social/cultural and legitimately limiting factors that people to this day #are still trying to define in an inclusive and effective way #(and probably will be forever because it's so tied up in social/cultural and political stuff)#I dont want to imply that disability is 100% entirely made up- but it also isn't 100% entirely 'objective physical reality' or whatever.#its complicated. ill have better thoughts when im not just like 5 weeks into my first disability studies class lmao

174 notes · View notes

onskepa · 2 months

Note

Hey I wanted to send a request in for a type 1 diabetic reader with Neteyam and sullys I never see diabetes anyway, so I think it's be interesting for them to see her just inject something into her arm anytime she's eats something and at first their kinda like 😨 "what was that?" Before she has to explain. If you don't want to do thats okay ❤️ and have a good day !!

Hellooooooooooo darling! So I will say this up front. This request hits a bit personal for me, since my mother is type 1 diabetic too. So hopefully you enjoy this one along with everyone else!

------------

Tsan'ul

“I think we should have our lunch break now, doing chores all day really worked up and appetite” lo’ak says while wiping off the sweat from his forehead. Him and his siblings along with spider and tsan’ul all sat down together under a shade from the trees.

“Finally” tuk sighs tiredly. Kiri and neteyam happily unwrapped the packaged meal their mother prepared in the morning. Handing everyone their portions. It was one of their favorites. Wrapped in steamed leaves, there was meat mixed with roasted fungi sprinkled with puffleaves for that yummy salted taste. Fortunately its the type of food spider and tsan’lu can eat without feeling sick.

Everyone ate their fill, they all relaxed and gathered their energy before continuing on. Spider however nudged at tsan’lu, “hey dont forget your insulin” he reminded her. Tsan’lu makes a popping sound and grabs her pouch. Everyone looks at what she is doing and takes out a long yet thin vile.

“What is that…?” tuk asks in a bit of a whisper. Everyone silently observes tsan’ul as she takes out the blue cap of a needle. Lifting her sleeve up to the shoulder, a white patch is revealed. Removing the cover, tsan’ul injects the needle to where the white patch was. It only lasted a few seconds when she removed the needle to cover the spot of the injection. Rolling down her arm, she sighs in relief.

“What?” she asks.

The sully kids were staring at her wide eyes.

“Die-ah-beetees…?”

“Diabetes”

Tsan’ul was giving a little lesson to the sully kids as they all gathered to know what they just saw.

“Sooooo….there are two types?” Kiri asks, tsan’ul nods.

“And you have type 1?” lo’ak asks soon after. Again, tsan’ul nods.

“So this whole…diabetes sickness. How does it affect you? Were you born with it? '' Neteyam asks, still feeling a bit confused. “And how come just now are we seeing this?” kiri adds. Tsan’ul felt a bit shy as they pointed it out. But if they are curious, why not share?

“Well for me, I wasn't exactly born with it. But it does affect me in a slow manner. Right now I can be as healthy as I can be, but when I grow older things will change” tsan’ul explained. “How so?” tuk asks. “

Smiling a bit sad she replies, “because I have diabetes, my health may decline later on. My vision won't be the same, some organ failure or worse, my heart can weaken or other health problems. Since my body no longer produces enough insulin. And insulin is very important for our human bodies. It helps control blood sugar. So, for example, since we just ate our lunch, I have to take this pen”. Tsan’ul takes out an unopened insulin pen to show to the kids.

“Of course there are other ways to take this. But insulin pen injection is better for me, I can easily carry and already has the right dose for me to take” the human girl goes on.

Lo’ak was close to touching it but tsan’ul pulls the pen away before he could. “Nuh uh, no touchie. This is only for me” tsan’ul gently warns as she puts away the other pen back in her bag.

“You said you weren't born with it. So how did you get it?” Kiri asks another question.

“That kiri, is a story for another time. Come on, we wasted enough time already, gotta finish our chores before the eclipse” tsan’ul tells. Everyone agreed their break was already long enough. Packing their things they head their way back to where they were.

However, as everyone was quick to change the subject of the topic, neteyam wasn't fooled. When kiri asked her question, neteyam didn't miss the strange look in tsan’ul’s eyes. Clearly kiri touched something she didn't know and tsan’ul was not so keen on answering it.

After everyone had their fill at the communal dinner, neteyam was chatting with his siblings when he noticed tsan’ul leaving with her bag. Spider is still here, perhaps to take her insulin medicine again. Deciding not to leave the girl alone, neteyam gets up and silently follows her to keep her company.

So neteyam follows her to a little area both were familiar with. Not too far from the village. Tsan’ul sits comfortably on the ground, taking out her insulin pen. “Mind if I keep you company?” Neteyam says out of nowhere, it made tsan’ul jump startled. “Phew, neteyam you nearly scared me to death!” she says with a huff but a friendly smile. Neteyam returns that smile with his own as he sits next to her.

“Are you going to take your…medicine again?” neteyam asks. Tsan’ul nods and starts to prep her pen. Removing the cap, it reveals a needle. Looks slightly different from the other needles neteyam has seen before. Tsan’ul removes the white patch from her arm and gives her skin a bit of a pinch and inserts the needle to the area.

Neteyam stays silent, letting her concentrate on what the human girl has to do. And like before, after a few seconds, she removes the needle and covers the spot with the white patch. “There, all done” tsan’ul concludes. Putting away the empty covered pen back in the bag, she leans down to lay on her back, staring up at the starry night sky. “Thanks for keeping me company neteyam, you didn't have to” she thanks. .

Neteyam gives her a little grin, laying down beside her, “didn't want you to be alone” he says.

And they stayed in a comfortable silence together, enjoying the beautiful view. However, neteyam had to ask, he knew he would be touching a sensitive topic. “When kiri asked you…how you got the disease…you didn't answer her '' he says slowly. His large hand slowly reached her smaller hand.

“We were wasting time and had a lot of stuff to get done, so of course I couldn't tell her” Tsan’ul answers a bit too quickly. “Couldn't? Or wouldnt” neteyam says, almost challenging her. There was a long pause between them. “We have nothing else to do right now. Maybe you can tell me? I promise I won't tell kiri or anyone else for that matter” he swears.

Tsan’ul released a long deep exhale. And a slow blink.

“My mom”

Neteyam’s ears perked a bit to hear her correctly.

“Your mother?” he repeats.

Tsan’ul nods.

“My mom is also diabetic. For the majority of her life. She believes it's her fault that I got the sickness. A curse she would say. Always feeling guilty that I won't be as healthy or as strong as a normal human. I do my best to tell her it's not her fault, nobody, not her, not me would have guessed I would get it. Yet she can't help but feel guilty for a crime she never commited…”

Neteyam listened very carefully. Tsan’ul’s voice carried sadness and a sort of guilt of her own.

“Does it run in your family?” he asks.

Tsan’ul shrugs, “I am not sure. But, I wouldn't be surprised. From what norm told me, being a healthy human is a luxury and a privilege back on earth. So I would assume it is normal…”

“Hey, its not her fault. It is also not your fault either. How you got it doesnt matter, what matters now is that you are here and alive and thriving. So what if this diabetes has you, you can overcome it. You are strong tsan’ul. And I know you won't let this set you back. I have seen how you can be. So the only thing you can do is continue to be who you are and get better every day, "Neteyam encourages. Tsan’ul smiles, intertwining her hand with his.

“Thanks neteyam, I needed to hear that ''

I may have used some real life stuff for it. Also I had to ask my mom so many questions for this. She did wonder why the need to know, I had to make an excuse. But I am happy how it turned out. So I hope you all enjoyed this one! Until next time! see ya!

---------

Tsan'ul = Improve, get better

123 notes · View notes

art · 2 years

Photo

Creator Spotlight: @fourbrickstall

I’m a photographer who likes to shoot portraits, acro, and toys. My favorite themes are medieval fantasy, steampunk, and apocalypse. I manage a fan community about LEGO photography called BrickCentral, and I am its LEGO ambassador.

Check out our full interview below!

How did you get your start in photography?

I think I have always really liked looking at things through a lens—I had plenty of microscopes and telescopes growing up—so photography was a natural progression. I started out taking photos of nature, architecture, and travel but really became a photographer in my mind when I learned studio photography. I love creating interesting light on people in particular.

What inspired you to work with LEGO specifically?

Several years ago, a couple of photography blogs I followed featured a 365-day phone photography project by Andrew Whyte about a miniature traveling LEGO photographer. It was the first time I had ever seen toy photography. And LEGO! It had been years since I had ever even looked at LEGO, but it brought back memories of smiley-faced space explorers on lunar bases. I was surprised by how modern LEGO minifigures had become: this LEGO photographer was so urban with a beanie hat on its head and a cute camera in its hand. I immediately wanted to create a little LEGO version of myself, too (called a “sigfig” or signature figure, I later learned.) Around that time, I had my hands full with a toddler and was looking for a way to keep shooting creatively. But I only had space for one bag at a time—a diaper bag or a camera bag—so a phone and a minifig seemed like a fantastic way to keep taking photos.

Once I got my LEGO minifigure in the mail, I started shooting and became instantly hooked. Not only on the photography but on the collecting aspect too. I now have hundreds of minifigures and even more LEGO minifigure parts to create custom characters with. So it was the LEGO that caught my attention right away, but the photography workflow is what sealed the deal for me.

What is your favorite piece of all time? Why?

I really love this photo for lots of reasons. It’s the kind of photographer I want to be: someone who doesn’t let weather or terrain or whatever become an excuse for not doing what they love. I also like that this shot looks like I found this great location in the forest, but the reality is that I shot this on my window sill with just some bark, twigs, and moss that I collected from around Brooklyn. It doesn’t get more metropolitan than NYC, but with just an idea and a few materials, I created a completely different environment. Atmospheric effects are another thing I like to add to my photos, so the “rain” hits the spot. It’s just spray from a water bottle.

From idea to final piece, how long does it take for you to create something?

The great thing about shooting LEGO is that it can be as easy or as complex as you want it to be: from subject to gear, to lighting, to location. As a portrait photographer, shooting an unusual or interesting character is part of the thrill, so I spend about an hour creating one custom minifig from my hundreds of loose parts.

Sometimes I use official LEGO models as a subject or as a background, and these take some time to build, depending on the size of the set. I build my own models and scenes, too—known as My Own Creations (MOCs) in LEGO lingo. These take me forever because I’m not a great MOC builder, and I don’t have thousands of LEGO parts at my disposal. It’s not unusual for MOCs to take days or weeks for me to finish.

This tiny red house on wheels took me about 5 days to build:

This Japanese alley took me a month:

When shooting outdoors, I look for locations that scale well to LEGO minifigs and models and also have beautiful light. I seek out pockets of light through trees to put my subjects in, but I also make sure to have patches of shadow throughout the scene to give it some depth.

I already have some favorite locations, so it’s really just a matter of getting to them or waiting for the right time of day. Indoors, I can get shooting rather quickly at any time of day in my studio nook, which is an alcove I’ve set up with lighting and supports just for my LEGO photography. Having that dedicated space and grip really accelerates getting into a flow state. Negentropy is my friend.

A custom minifig in a MOC photographed in my studio nook is my favorite kind of work to do, but that also takes the longest because of the build time and more complex lighting.

What are 3 things you can’t live without as a creator?

My camera, my lenses, and Lightroom are three things I can’t live without as a creator. I love the whole process of shooting—seeing how different settings and gear change an image—and then taking that image and making it truer to what I feel in post.

What do you wish you knew when you first started out creating content that you know now?

I wish I knew that it’s easier to find your tribe when you figure out who you are as an artist first. I think it’s tempting to try to belong immediately because it’s exciting to find other people who share the same interests as you. But doing that too quickly and investing too deeply can influence your art or trap you in a style that isn’t really you.

What are your file name conventions?

FBT-desc-of-lego-subject.jpg I’m not as organized as I would like to be, but I have my folders set up descriptively and by date in Lightroom. It’s great for managing thousands of photos.

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

I love the DnD artists on Tumblr! I’m so inspired by their beautiful illustrations, character creations, and storytelling. I played a few campaigns with my Dungeon Master brother as a teenager, so I know and love that world. I guess my affinity for custom LEGO characters is rooted in the character creation part of DnD.

My favorite characters these days are artificers and tieflings, so I follow those tags on Tumblr to see all the stunning artwork by the community.

Check out more amazing LEGO photography over at @fourbrickstall!

#creator spotlight #lego #photographers on tumblr #lego community #fourbrickstall

1K notes · View notes

moonshynecybin · 2 months

Note

thinking about FCO Rosquez at their first PR-forced public dinner (like a week or two after the announcement, Wednesday or Thursday night) and how their conversation is supposed to go when Marc was dying to talk to Valentino all winter (still has a string of unanswered texts in his phone) but now he’s closed off and Valentino wants to make this work but can’t have them fight in public or be silent for an entire hour, do we think they find a middle ground or Vale just talk about random things on his own or they somehow ignore everything and are able to tell each other about their winter or subjects that have nothing to do with MotoGP or—

court mandated date night nooooo poor marc :(

this is so nuts to think about... like even outside the insane emotional reality of getting outed and the violence of public scrutiny and like. marc having (once again !) his ability to control his own narrative ripped away from him by his association with valentino— which is his LEAST favorite thing (i do think he blames himself for the photos though... like maybe if i wasnt such a whore we wouldnt be in this mess :((( which. marc buddy naur.) on TOP of that he is having a romantic candellit dinner with his ex situationship that he is still in love with. one million points lightning damage. so everyone is extremely strung out at this shitty little date night table (michelin restaurant lbr) and marc has justtttt gone dark on his whatsapp thread with valentino. maybe he is trying to maybe exert some control over his life here in small ways... put up SOME walls in clumsy self protective fashion...

but VALE is like okay. so if this thing between us is public he doesnt want it or want me. interesting. okay im cool im fine im good np who cares i hate him anyway (girl.) and he's also um. kind of reeling from the abrupt reversal of the status quo here tbh. marc has never played hard to get ever ever not once in his entire life. no self preservation on that man 5ever. he's literally always been there giving vale flattering attention and being in love with him !!! so vale is kind of off-balance here being met with some version of the marc marquez freezeout, not sure how to react but missing marc's attention. and he chooses to compensate as he does with most roadblocks in his life: full charm offensive. (he also, in some selfless and tender corner in the back of his mind that he is trying to ignore, just really and truly knows marc is FREAKED and misses seeing him laugh. he wants the evil jajajas.... he will do anything for the evil jajajas....) so he is trying. SO hard to get him to crack a smile. lowkey causing a scene in the restaurant by being such a clown... but marc isnt really biting. is still responding, like they ARE having a conversation, but its nothing like it used to be. clearly he is just being polite. smiles twice ALL night—all wan and pale and beautiful and so clearly exhausted—and vale's mouth gets all dry and his ribcage feels like its going to implode. and of course in response to this he is like wow. my heartburn is going crazy. damn. [chugging wine].

like looking to real life, as awkward as rosquez have been in their years of estrangement, they have always had to share space. for 6 years in that paddock ! that's a lot of years of small talk ! they can have and will do it if necessary... so as the night drags i think marc talks about riding and the season to fill in the gaps... goes home and gives himself a list of regimented rules to stick to when interacting with valentino (i see him texting exclusively the PR thread more as his classically unpracticed self protection style than like. a deliberate fuck you to that end. i cant drunk booty call vale if karen from PR is also there type stuff). that being said, eventually i do think he makes elaborate excuses to BEND these rules bc he still wants valentino's attention. and also his tongue in his mouth. hes like okay! i am only kissing valentino in front of tv cameras if we both podium! and then they DONT share a podium and hes like. okay! it would be WEIRD if i didnt kiss vale after i podiumed even if he didnt! because thats what i would do if we were actually together! [starts jogging across the paddock like a dick-seeking missile.]

#[SEND IN THE CLOWNS DOT EM PEE THREE]#i also think both of them fundamentally oppose awkward silences. they are YAPPERSSS #motogp #callie speaks #asks #rosquez #forced coming out au

64 notes · View notes

withacapitalp · 1 year

Note

75 or 25 with Steddie for the writing prompts?

Me, chanting to myself: Write something short, Write something short, Write something short

Myself @ Me: Lol bet

Read it on ao3 here

25. “When you love someone, you don’t just stop. Ever. Even when people roll their eyes or call you crazy… even then. Especially then!”

“I love getting to show people my favorite movie, but I have to admit, I’m much much happier to have your pretty face all to myself,” Eddie chuckled, shutting the door of the trailer behind the last of the kids. He leaned against the wall, taking a deep breath in and closing his eyes. The whole place was warm in the best way possible, and the smell of fresh baked sweets was still hanging in the air.

Movie night was his favorite.

They had a very strict schedule for biweekly movie nights, a structured routine that Nancy had come up with to keep any and all arguments at bay. With the system working, everyone got to pick once every six weeks. Not ideal, but the closest to fair that things would get.

The best part was, Steve had decided to make a whole evening of it when he realized it was finally Eddie’s turn to choose. He spent hours cooking a nice meal for everyone, finishing it off with Labyrinth themed cupcakes for them to enjoy. He even used glass marbles as decorations, making the frosting look just like Sarah’s infamous dress.

Sure, Steve had fallen asleep halfway through, completely tuckered out from all the work he put into making things perfect, but somehow that only added to the charm of the moment. Eddie couldn’t think of anything more wonderful than having his boyfriend’s head in his lap while they watched a movie surrounded by their family. He had been excited for Steve to finally see his favorite movie, but things were best this way.

Well, he could think of one or two things that might make the night even better.

However, any intentions Eddie had of moving things to the bedroom died the second he got a good look at Steve.

His boyfriend didn’t just look tired, he was exhausted. Steve’s face was drawn in a stressed frown, and he was leaning his elbows heavily against his knees as he stared vacantly at the floor between his feet.

“What’s goin’ on, Sunshine? Still tired?” Eddie hummed, walking over and leaning down to press a kiss to Steve’s forehead.

But the second Eddie got close, Steve took a sharp breath in, pulling away like he had just been electrocuted. He got up and began to pace, running his hands anxiously through his hair and avoiding looking in his boyfriend’s direction.

“Steve?” Eddie said softly, watching him with wide nervous eyes. All of the happiness that had been filling him was leaking out like a balloon, a foreboding worry sliding into its place.

Steve paused, his entire body growing stiffer the longer he stayed silent. The tension was killing him, but just as Eddie went to break it, his boyfriend spoke first.

“I think we should break up,” Steve said in a rush, keeping his body turned away from Eddie.

“Hilarious, Harrington,” Eddie replied with a roll of his eyes, ignoring the stone that was starting to sink his stomach into the ground, “What’s actually going on?”

“We need to break up,” Steve repeated sternly, whipping around so they were face to face. His eyes were sparking and his jaw was set, but Eddie could see the growing shine in his eyes, and the way Steve’s hands were shaking.

He looked two seconds from completely falling apart, and Eddie didn’t have a single clue why.

“You’re serious,” Eddie stated.

“Yes,” Steve said, crossing his arms and clenching his fists to hide the tremors that Eddie had already seen.

Eddie had never been very good at school, but that didn’t really mean a damn when it came to being intelligent. He sucked at sitting still, and he couldn’t care less about subjects that weren’t interesting, but Eddie was smart as a whip when he wanted to be.

When it was something he cared about, Eddie made a point to know anything and everything he could, and he cared about Steve more than he had ever cared about anything in his life.

Shaking hands. Glassy eyes. ‘Need to’ instead of ‘want to’.

Hm.

Well, wasn't that interesting?

“Need to,” Eddie scoffed, striding past Steve. He flipped his hair casually, yanking the fridge open and rooting around in it, “Do you have some sort of explanation as to why?”

He heard Steve take a breath in, but Eddie interrupted it by throwing a beer can behind him, listening to Steve fumble with it for a second.

“Because this morning you were telling me that you’ve never been happier,” Eddie growled, cracking open his own beer with a hiss and gulping down half the can, “and now you’re saying you want to break up. Oh, no, I’m sorry- you’re saying that we need to break up.”

Steve was back to avoiding eye contact, but Eddie wasn’t having that. He crossed the room in three steps, getting in Steve’s face and practically losing it when Steve brushed past him and went to walk away. Steve knew that Eddie hated when people walked away from him. He knew that.

“I- I just wanna, okay?” Steve stammered, putting the can on the table by the door and reaching for the handle, “Look it was fun but-”

“No,” Eddie snapped, shutting the door just as Steve began to open it.

“No?” Steve said.

“No,” Eddie agreed, putting his foot down metaphorically and his back against the door literally. “Not unless you tell me why,”

Tell me why you’re doing this when you don’t want to?

Tell me what happened to make you think this was okay?

…Tell me why I’m not good enough?

“Because I fell asleep,” Steve muttered, self-hatred oozing from every word.

What?!

That was the big reason? That made no sense. They fell asleep watching movies all the time. Eddie had fallen asleep watching a movie two days ago.

“You fell asleep watching Labyrinth…and you want to break up over that?” Eddie sneered.

“That’s only part of it,” Steve sighed, “You wouldn’t understand,”

“Then please, enlighten me oh great King Steve,” Eddie snarled, hating the way Steve flinched away from him, “What exactly did I do?”

“It’s not you, it’s me,” Steve instantly shot back, both of them cringing at his word choice, “No I- god that sounds stupid. I’m-”

Steve cut himself off with a groan, hands back in his hair, pulling in a way that couldn’t have felt good. It took everything Eddie had to not reach over and take Steve’s hands in his own to stop him.

“I’m not good enough for you! Okay?” Steve exploded, his voice cracking even as he continued to try and mask his pain with anger. “I’m not good enough for you, and so I want to break up. That’s it.”

“I can’t believe this,” Eddie said, scoffing, “Steve Harrington, the golden boy of Hawkins is saying that he isn’t good enough for drug dealing trailer park trash Eddie Munson?”

“Don’t call yourself that,” Steve snapped automatically.

“In what world are you not good enough for me?!” Eddie shouted, grabbing Steve’s wrists in an iron grip and tugging his boyfriend close. They were nose to nose, and Steve, who had always been an open book, was telling Eddie everything.

The anger was gone, resignation taking its place. Steve tugged ever so slightly against Eddie, and he let him go, following the other boy as he walked towards the couch.

“In what world? This one,” Steve said softly, practically collapsing against the cushions. “Eddie, no one thinks I’m right for you. Your bandmates, Wayne… not even the kids,”

The kids?

Eddie’s brain was flying in a million different directions, and he couldn’t remember anything that anyone had said no matter how hard he tried. Steve hadn’t even been awake for most of it, he only woke up at the end to say goodbye to everyone. The kids had teased him a little for falling asleep, maybe joked that Steve must have thought the movie wasn’t that good, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Nothing that should have caused Steve to go this off the rails.

“Steve-”

“And they’re right, Eddie. They’re right,” Steve said, laughing incredulously, “I mean, why do you even wanna be with me? I can’t go to your shows-”

“Because you have PTSD from saving the world four times,” Eddie interrupted.

“-And I can’t listen to your music-” Steve continued.

“-because you have tinnitus from, oh yeah, saving the world four times!” Eddie pushed.

“Don’t use that as an excuse! Just- let me talk. Please?” Steve said, his eyes glistening as he begged Eddie to stop.

“Fine,” Eddie said, crossing his arms and sitting back, staring at Steve. The younger boy took a steadying breath, gathering both his thoughts and his courage.

“It’s everything,” Steve said, shrugging helplessly as he looked down, “I don’t understand dungeons and dragons, I get bored reading Lord of the Rings, and tonight I fell asleep watching your favorite movie. The kids were just being little assholes, but they’re right. It was crazy for us to think this was ever going to work. Why are we even together if we don’t like any of the same things? Why do you want to be with someone who doesn’t care enough about the things you love?”

“Stevie,” Eddie breathed, unable to understand how things had gotten this twisted in his boy’s mind, “Baby,”

“You said you’d let me talk.” Steve said over him, stopping Eddie’s protest in its tracks, “It’s just… Eventually you’re gonna realize that we have nothing in common. And when the novelty wears off, you’ll be bored,”

Bored?

Bored of the most wonderful person Eddie had ever gotten the pleasure of knowing?

“You’re gonna get tired of explaining things to me and you’re gonna find someone who your friends can actually stand being around without rolling their eyes every two minutes. You’re going to find someone better and- and you deserve that. You deserve a person who can cheer you on at your shows, who can scream along to your music when you’re driving. Someone who your uncle approves of,” Steve said, intentionally treading right on one of the sorest spots in their relationship.

Wayne was still wary of Steve, still overprotective. Eddie had thought that his boyfriend understood that it wasn't really about him, that Wayne just needed more time to figure out what Eddie already knew- Steve would never hurt him. Never.

Well, except for right now. Right now he was breaking Eddie’s heart right in half.

“You’re gonna figure out what everyone else already gets,” Steve whispered, his voice barely audible as his arms squeezed tight around his middle.

“And what’s that?” Eddie muttered dully, feeling a hollow ache start to grow in his chest. Steve’s lip curled in the worst smile Eddie had ever seen, wobbling as he began to blink rapidly.

“You’re gonna realize that beyond being a pretty face with a fancy house, and a nice car, and a hard head, I don’t bring anything to the table,” Steve admitted, with a tiny shrug, “I’m not really anything special, and you deserve someone special. So why don’t we both just cut our losses, huh? Before either of us gets too deep,”

Before they got too deep.

Eddie was already in the Marianas fucking Trench.

He was drowning in Steve Harrington, surrounded by icy black water that was burning his eyes and making it impossible to breathe. There was no way to come up for air, no rope to tug to be pulled up. Eddie was as deep as he could go, and he was finally seeing the Kraken that was looming over both of them.

Steve didn’t want to break up.

He wanted to be noble.

And that thought was the thing that pissed Eddie off more than anything.

“Nothing,” Eddie spat out, the word feeling poisonous just sitting on his tongue, too bitter to be spoken, “You think that you’re nothing?”

Steve dragged a breath in, the first few tears managing to slip past his defenses. He hadn’t said those exact words, but Eddie had, and they sat in the air and cut them both to the core.

“If that’s really all you were, then you’re right. We should break up,” Eddie said.

Steve let out the softest pain-filled noise Eddie had ever heard, moving to stand up, to walk out of Eddie’s life without so much as a goodbye.

Unfathomable. Unimaginable. Unacceptable.

Eddie latched his hand around Steve’s bicep, not just pulling him down, but also pulling him in. Their foreheads nearly knocked together as Eddie’s dark almost jet black eyes locked onto Steve’s.

“But you are not nothing, Steve Harrington. You are everything,” Eddie whispered harshly, his breath ghosting over Steve’s lips. He raised one hand and cupped Steve’s cheek, watching his fingers as they shook in anger.

“Eddie,” Steve pleaded, but Eddie just shook his head.

“No. I let you talk. Now it’s your turn to listen,” He ordered, keeping a tight grip on Steve, making sure there was no way he could wriggle away or look down.

“You really think that I give a single fuck what everyone else thinks?” Eddie asked rhetorically, barking out a harsh laugh, “I have spent my entire life bucking tradition and spitting in the face of what society says I should want. Dating you might be the most metal thing I’ve ever done, Sweetheart,”

A brief barely there smile flitted across Steve’s face, and a jagged part of Eddie’s soul smoothed out. His boy was still there, his sunshine, his sweetheart. He was just hiding, trying to protect himself in the worst way possible.

“I adore getting to explain things to you. Do you even get how much fun it is to tell you every single thing and know that you’re listening? You always ask me the coolest questions, give me the best ideas for potential plot holes.”

Eddie let his eyes slip shut, seeing the two of them in his mind. They were sitting together in Steve’s plaid monstrosity of a bedroom. Eddie was lying flat on his back on the floor, and Steve was on his stomach on the bed, listening with a look of pure adoration, holding his chin up on his palm as he watched Eddie’s arms swing to and fro in the air while he described the plan for the next Hellfire campaign.

“You think I’m gonna get bored of you? Stevie, we could spend a thousand years together, and I’d still say I didn’t get enough time. I don’t get how you don’t see everything you do for me. No, you don’t come to my shows, but you make me snacks before every rehearsal, and stay up late to listen to me talk about the gig after. You can’t listen to my music, but you got me the new Dio album the day it came out just because you knew I’d like it.”

Dream Evil. It was sitting in the case just across the room, proudly displayed next to a dozen other albums Steve had gotten for him, Just because. He was always doing that, getting Eddie little gifts just because.

“You try so damn hard. Wayne’s still scared you’re gonna hurt me, and I know that’s upsetting, but you still don’t stop trying to get him to see how much you care.” Eddie breathed, knocking their foreheads together.

Eddie knew he was going to have to talk to Wayne. Rather, he was going to have to argue with Wayne, because this really couldn’t go on anymore. The first few weeks it had been understandable, but they had been dating for almost three months now, and Steve was still getting the cold shoulder. Steve had said he was fine, that he understood, but Eddie could see how he let things go too far. He was not going to lose Steve just because his uncle was afraid.

But that wasn’t something he could fix now. Now he just had to keep talking. Eddie wasn’t good at much, but he was good at running his mouth, and he would talk for as long as it took to get this through his boyfriend’s beautiful thick skull.

“I think that might be the thing I adore most about you, you know? You never stop trying. No matter what happens, no matter how many times you get knocked down, you keep trying,” A smooth stone slid down Eddie’s throat, blocking the river of words. He swallowed around it, forcing himself to keep going.

“You brought me back from the fucking dead, Steve,” Eddie whispered, feeling the scars on his sides practically sing in harmony, “Everyone else gave up, and you kept going. They were trying to drag you off of me, and you kept going. You barely even knew me.”

Steve jerked away, moving just enough so he could bury his face in Eddie’s shoulder, wrapping his arms tight around Eddie’s middle and digging his fingers into his shirt.

“Couldn’t. Couldn’t leave you there,” Steve managed to choke out, practically in Eddie’s lap, “Not there. Not like that,”

“I know. I know,” Eddie soothed, holding his boyfriend close, “See? That’s you. That’s always been you. You saved my life because you’re you, and you never give up.”

Eddie lowered his voice bringing his mouth right next to Steve’s ear and loving the shiver that he could feel running down Steve’s spine.

“You never give up. So why the fuck are you giving up on me right now, Baby?”

Steve let out a strangled little gasp at that, clinging onto Eddie even tighter. He shook, silently falling apart in Eddie’s arms.

“Oh, angel,” Eddie murmured, holding them both together. Steve had done this for him a thousand times, soothed every nightmare, eased every panic attack. It was finally Eddie’s turn to do the same.

He had never realized how much it hurt to be on this side of things.

“Steve?” Eddie said, grabbing the other boy’s attention when he thought the worst of it was over, “You aren’t perfect. Not by a longshot. You get distracted easily, you can’t remember to turn on the dishwasher, you are stubborn as the day is long, you have a tendency to only listen to people who don’t care about you, and you’re forcing me to have this god awful conversation,”

Steve let out a soft breath of laughter at this and Eddie responded with his own indulgent little smile, rubbing his cheek against the top of Steve’s head.

“You’re a melodramatic fucking brat, Stevie. But. You are my melodramatic fucking brat,” Eddie said.

He leaned back, cupping Steve’s face in both his hands and marveling at the boy in front of him. Somehow even now with puffy red eyes and chewed on lips, Steve was still completely gorgeous.

Maybe Eddie was just drunk on how much he loved Steve..

“You’re mine. You have been mine since day one, Baby. I’m not just going to wake up one day and decide I don’t want you anymore. You seem to have decided that I will, and so you wanna get it over with, and I get that, okay? I get it, but I need you to hear me when I say this.”

Eddie waited until Steve’s eyes were lifted before taking a deep breath and biting the bullet.

“I am not Nancy Wheeler,” Eddie stated bluntly, ripping the bandaid right off Steve’s deepest wound. “And I am not your parents. I’m not Tommy fucking Hagan or Carol fucking Perkins or any of the other jackasses in this town who didn’t care enough to realize how absolutely fucking precious you are,”

“Eddie-” Steve started.

“Precious.” Eddie repeated, his eyes sparkling, “After everything you are still kind. You’re still kind, and you still let people in, even though so many people have hurt you. You let all of us in, even though that scares you more than anything.”

“I’m gonna promise you something now. I promise that I am never going to wake up and just decide one day that you aren’t enough for me anymore. I’m not going to turn on a dime and decide you aren’t worth enough to stick around, because I seem to know something you still don’t get.”

Eddie pulled him in close, kissing Steve’s forehead and swiping both of his thumbs against his cheeks.

“I know that when you love someone, when you really love someone, you don’t just stop. Ever. Even when people roll their eyes or call you crazy. Even then. Especially then!”

“You love me?” Steve croaked. Eddie’s eyes grew wide and he stiffened up.

Fuck.

The word had just slipped out. It was way too early to be saying that, way too fast to mean real genuine love. If Eddie wasn’t such a motor mouth he would have taken two fricken seconds to think about what he said without jumping too far too fast and ruining everything.

If he was smart he would say something, try to take it back. If he was smart he would do that.

But Steve was looking up at him like Eddie was holding the sun, the moon, and all of the stars, and there was no way he could backtrack. Eddie would throw himself into the Quarry before he did anything to make that look fade away.

“I just poured my heart and goddamn soul out onto the floor, and all you heard was the ‘I love you,’” Eddie said with a breathless laugh, “You also heard the part where I called you a melodramatic fucking brat, right?!”

Steve giggled. Honest to god giggled, reaching up and threading his fingers through Eddie’s where his hands were still cupping his cheeks.

“You love me,” Steve said again, grinning from ear to ear. Eddie shook his head, trying to hide his own extremely stupid smile.

“Yes, angel, I love you. I can’t remember loving anything or anyone the way I love you.” Eddie admitted.

In for a penny, in for an entire goddamn ton.

Steve hummed happily, surging forward and locking their lips together. Eddie immediately deepened the kiss, letting his hands slide backwards. He tangled the left in Steve’s hair, using his right to pull Steve properly into his lap. Once they were properly situated, Eddie let himself get lost in the kiss, slipping and sliding into Steve and the blooming bursting love that was growing around them.

“Still wanna break up?” Eddie joked when they broke away for air. Steve blushed, shyly shaking his head once, and Eddie grinned, nipping at Steve’s jaw.

“Good. Because next time you try, I’ll make a wish for the goblins to come and take you!” He threatened, tickling Steve’s ribs and making the younger boy squirm away from him.

“Goblins?” Steve asked once he was a safe distance away, raising a brow.

Right. Steve had fallen asleep. That was what started this whole thing.

“Okay we’re having a redo,” Eddie declared, jumping off of the couch and scampering over to the VCR to begin rewinding the tape, “You and I are going to sit here, and watch this movie. And when you fall asleep halfway through, you are going to put your head in my lap so I can play with your gorgeous perfect hair that I love so so much. You got it, Buster?”

Steve snickered, settling back into the cushions.

“Got it,” He called back, pulling his legs up so they were at his side on the couch.

Setting up the movie took barely any time, and before he knew it, Eddie was back on the couch, his boyfriend happily snuggled in his arms.

“Oh, and Eds?” Steve said quietly as the opening credits began.

“Yeah, Baby?”

“I love you too.”

485 notes · View notes

apteryxparvus · 4 months

Text

truth beneath the spell

Pairing — Lyney / Reader

Word count — 5865

Content warning — mild cursing • idiots in love • mean pranks

Summary — For years, you and Lyney have been locked in a fierce rivalry, constantly one-upping each other. But when Lyney’s latest stunt results in the destruction of your cherished garden, revenge is the only thing on your mind.

Driven by a desperate desire to settle the score at the upcoming Fontaine Grand Gala, you devise a cunning plan — you infuse Lyney’s favorite Pate de Fruit with a potent dose of truth powder.

However, what you don’t anticipate is your plan going awry as emotions buried deep within both of you begin to surface.

“Don’t you think this is a tad bit excessive?” Mona muses, casting a lazy glance your way, as she reclines on your plush couch. She idly flips through a weathered spellbook, her once neatly tied hair cascading freely around her shoulders. “I mean, if you keep retaliating to every prank, you’ll forever be stuck in this endless all-out war.”

You huff dramatically from your spot on the floor, attention fixated on the pile of journals chaotically scattered around. “He started it first,” you retort, completely ignoring your friend’s advice.

She arches an elegant eyebrow. “And you just had to get back at him, didn't you?"

“Yes! My reputation is on the line!”

She sighs, a hint of exasperation evident in her voice, as she joins you on the carpet. "Why yes, you're totally not trying to hide—really badly at that, by the way—your extremely obvious crush on Lyney."

“No!” you deny too quickly, shoving the first heavy journal you find against Mona, catching her off guard. "Just — just, shut up and help me, or I swear to the Archons above, I will tell the Old Hag who read and misplaced her precious journal."

Mona gapes, her light blue eyes narrowing as her teasing smirk fades away from her soft face. “This is blackmail,” she declares, gaze fixated on your menacing, yet cheerful expression. “You wouldn’t dare.”

You say nothing in response, and a silence envelops the two of you, lingering in the air, broken only by the rhythmic sound of pages being flipped. Each turn feels like an eternity as you scan through the books.

“Aha!” you exclaim, eyes gleaming with triumph as you point towards a page adorned with scribbles and intricate diagrams.

Mona’s gaze shifts from skepticism to intrigue, and she leans in, studying the page with genuine interest. Her eyes flicker between you and the diagrams, and she shakes her head.

“I think that one is too much, even for your standards,” she remarks, furrowing her brows.

"What do you mean? It's perfectly acceptable!"

She looks at you, her expression a mix of disbelief and concern. "You cannot just open an extradimensional portal and send him tumbling into an unknown domain! Are you out of your mind?"

"Fine, fine. I'll look for something else," you grumble, resuming your little quest. You skim over the pages with renewed determination. Each time you eagerly point towards a spell, Mona shoots you a disapproving look, shaking her head.

Finally, you stumble upon the perfect spell — one with easily obtainable ingredients and a straightward diagram and incantation. Your face lights up as Mona nods in approval.

"Mockingbird's Echo," you begin to read, your fingers delicately tracing the frayed page. "Transforms the fauna in proximity to its target into impish mimics, compelling them to emulate every gesture and vocalization in a sarcastic and mocking tone. These enchanted creatures persistently trail the subject."

"I suppose that's an interesting tactic to silence him," Mona comments with a sly smirk. “Will you need my help gathering the ingredients?”

You inspect the list of items mentioned — a generous amount of dried Tongue Grass, a combination of Swine’s Snout and Lion’s Tooth, along with century-old Mayflower bark, three purple candles, and a moon-charged Septarian.

A brief moment of contemplation passes over your features, and your eyes shift to your herb corner comfortably nestled on your windowsill.

“Perhaps you can ask Jean if she’s willing to part with one of her quality blends of Swine's Snout and Lion's Tooth."

A few days later, after Mona had successfully procured a high-quality blend of herbs from Jean — whose only response was the thinning of her lips along with a deadpan expression at the mention of your plan — you’re sitting, legs crossed, in your ritual room.

The moon bathes the room in its ethereal glow, revealing your altar, cluttered with numerous hanging smudge sticks, spell jars, and a multitude of colorful misshapen crystals and stones. The air seems to shimmer with a subtle energy, carrying whispers of ancient magic. All the necessary ingredients are neatly arranged next to you, catching the moonlight that reflects their textures and deep colors.

The silence is interrupted by the soft rustle of pages as you look over the instructions for the spell. Following the guidance, you carefully place each herb in your trusty mortar, grinding them into a fine powder. As you add the century-old Mayflower, you grimace at the memory of haggling for a cheaper price, recalling the heated argument with the pink-haired merchant. You transfer the powder to a small bowl, placing it in the center of the altar.

With a swat of your wrist, the candles next to you flicker to life, their flames dancing in response to your command. You meticulously draw several runes, ensuring each one is somewhat connected with the burning candles beside them.

Reciting the incantations, you hold the charged Septarian close to your chest. The air around you crackles with energy, the temperature growing hotter with each uttered word.

Moments later, the candles die, their flames extinguished abruptly. The room plunges into sudden darkness, and only the residual warmth and charged energy lingering in the air is left.

You let out a sigh of relief, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. A bead of sweat rolls down your neck, and your limbs feel heavy, as if gravity is pulling your body harder and harder to the ground.

Performing spells has always taken its toll on you, and ever since Lyney's remark about your limited mana levels — sparking the beginning of your little rivalry — you've been dedicated to surpass your own limitations, improving and strengthening your energy, determined to prove him wrong.

With a proud smile, you place the ground herbs in a small sack, expertly wrapping it with cotton twine.

“That’ll teach him,” you mumble to yourself.

Slipping the enchanted sack of herbs into Lyney's coat proves to be amusingly simple; a bribe for his familiar — a fluffy black cat with red eyes and a sly feline smirk — involving a bag of catnip and a few morsels of fatty tuna seals the deal.

"Rosseland, come here, boy," you whisper-yell, propped against the fence that separates your house from Lyney's. The cat glances at you, then at the tempting bag of catnip in your hand.

He lets out a loud meow, and you see his expression shift into one of mischief, perfectly mirroring your own. The cat trots over to you, skillfully climbing the wooden fence.

“Good boy,” you murmur as he purrs, affectionately headbutting you. You scratch behind his ear, earning a satisfied meow.

It's amusing how much Lyney's own familiar adores you; he’s constantly overjoyed to see you, and you are the only other person apart from the trio of siblings allowed to give him belly rubs.

Rosseland climbs onto your shoulders, playfully biting into your hair, anticipating the promised treats. "Yes, yes, my boy." You wave the catnip in front of his face, and his whiskers twitch happily as he takes a whiff. He gracefully jumps off you, landing on the grass. You crouch next to him. "Listen, you'll get all this — maybe even some Pate de Fruit — but on one condition." The cat perks up at the mention of his favorite jelly candy, staring at you expectantly. "I need you to place this in Lyney's coat, yeah?" you say, presenting the enchanted sachet.

Purring once more, the cat headbutts you in agreement, his long bushy tail brushing across your face. You laugh softly as you offer him the promised pieces of fatty tuna. Once he finishes the treats, you let him play with the catnip, observing him as he rolls around the grass, meowing and growling loudly.

You release a sigh. "It's a mystery how such an adorable familiar ended up with such an annoying owner like Lyney..."

The same evening, as you prepare a simple vegetable stew and savor a glass of dandelion wine for dinner, a loud, insistent knock echoes from your front door. Glancing at the oven clock, you realize the only person who would be knocking this late could only be—

"Open the door right now, or else!" Lyney yells, and you smirk at the evident frustration in his voice, his words echoed by several mocking tones.

“As if,” you mutter under your breath dismissively, ignoring his shouts. You carry on stirring the simmering mixture, checking the thickness of the stew and tenderness of the potatoes. Licking the wooden spoon, you release a contented hum, pleased with the spiciness level of your creation.

Just as you're about to turn off the stove, the room grows unbearably hot, the flame of the stove flares for a moment, and a scorching breeze envelops you. Swirling around, you brandish the wooden spoon like a weapon.

“How dare you!” you shout as Lyney materializes in your kitchen. “You just had to come and ruin my dinner, didn’t you?” You point an accusatory finger towards the now-blackened dish.

“And you really had to cast such an annoying spell on me?” he fires back, his voice mirrored by the two ravens swirling around him. You can't help but giggle at the mocking tones of the birds. Lyney only shoots you a glare, his violet eyes narrowed into slits.

"Remove this spell right now," he demands, crossing his arms.

“No,” you answer bluntly. “You trespassed into my home, scorched my floor,” you continue, pointing towards the now-charred floorboards around Lyney, “and ruined the dinner I was looking forward to the whole day.”

"And anyway, shouldn't you be the better one of us, huh? Why not get rid of the spell by yourself?" you smirk, enjoying the flush that colors his face.

Lyney stays silent for a few moments, then releases a grunt and turns around without uttering another word. The birds follow, hovering nearby. One of them pecks at his hat, and he swats the raven away, fists clenched.

You wait for the inevitable sound of your front door slamming shut, and as it does, you sink into a seat at the table. Cheeks ablaze, you hide your face in your palms, and let out a groan. "Of all the people, why did I have to develop a crush on you?"

“Barghest, Mama’s home!” you holler, your familiar dashing towards you, tail wagging. The large wolf-dog leaps into your arms, and you both tumble onto the grass, laughter bubbling out as he showers you with slobbery kisses. “Bargest, enough — enough,” you giggle through his affectionate onslaught, running a hand through his short, silky fur. “I missed you too, baby.”

"He was very obedient while you were away," Clorinde remarks, leaning against her front door. "How was your trip to Mondstadt?"

"Tiring as usual," you sigh, rubbing your temples. "Fischl roped me and Mona into yet another commission. This time, we ended up getting lost in a labyrinth-like domain… and chased off by wind spirits.”

Clorinde's laughter fills the air as she gives you a thorough once-over. Her gaze lingers on the eye bags beneath your tired eyes and the fading bruises scattered over your body.

"Go home and rest; you'll need it if you want to be at least partly presentable for the meeting this Wednesday."

Your eyes widen for a split second, and your stomach plummets—the meeting, oh shit, Fontaine Grand Gala.

In the midst of the ongoing prank war and the recent commission in Mondstadt, you had entirely forgotten about the bi-yearly gathering between the Fontaine magical society members. The last one had been absolute chaos — arguments had erupted between different factions, and neither Lady Furina’s authoritative commands nor Monsieur Neuvillette's diplomatic skills could calm anyone down.

As the cherry on top, you and Lyney ended up in an elemental brawl that echoed through the grand hall. The sizzling magic and the crackling flames did not only set a few ancient artifacts on fire but also managed to engulf a couple of innocent coats and dresses in the process.

"Maybe this time it'll be less eventful," Clorinde offers optimistically, though the subtle raise of her eyebrow suggests she's not entirely convinced. "But seriously, take care of yourself before Wednesday."

As you traverse the familiar forest path leading towards your home, accompanied by the rhythmic thud of your familiar’s heavy paws, your mind is haunted by the vivid memories of the fiasco. And you can’t help but cringe at the thought of how your fiery clash with Lyney had quickly become part of the gossip fodder of the community.

"Barghest, I am so utterly screwed.” Your companion’s ears perk up at the mention of his name as you lament. “This stupid rivalry is only fueling my crush. Am I some sort of masochist?" Barghest, of course, remains silent, but responds with a look — his red eyes slightly narrowed, as if silently calling you out on your own stupidity.

The evening air is cool, and the dimming sunlight is hidden behind the canopy of tall trees, casting a gentle shadow over the path leading to your home. As you approach, a sudden shiver runs down your spine, and goosebumps prickle your skin. Beside you, Barghest snarls, revealing his sharp fangs, his eyes aglow in an ominous red.

In the distance, you notice several small creatures circling your garden, an unsettling dark aura barely cloaking their presence.

"He wouldn't have," you whisper, unable to comprehend the scene unfolding before your eyes.

Barghest doesn't wait for your command, already leaping towards the boggards. The creatures, sensing the imminent danger, emit squeaks of terror. In panic, they release their grip on the plants they were holding, fleeing into the distance. You command your familiar to stay put as you take cautious steps towards the now disturbed spot.

The soil beneath your feet is upturned, and the once vibrant plants lie trampled and torn. There is a lingering malevolence tainting the air, intermingling with the putrid smell of sulfur.

As you lower yourself to the ground, a wave of emotion washes over you, and a few tears prickle at the corners of your eyes. Gently, your fingers trace the once vibrant, now crumpled petals of a bluebell.

Amidst the disarray, a lone tansy stands tall, slender stem unwavering against the chaos. The petite yellow blooms stand out against the aftermath.

You narrow your eyes, a simmering anger bubbling within you. The significance of the plant isn't lost on you — after all, herbology is your strongest subject. Could Lyney have intentionally left this flower as a declaration of war, knowing full well its meaning? You shake your head, dismissing the notion, but the uncertainty lingers on within you.

Barghest moves closer, his furry form leaning in, and with a gentle nudge, his wet snout presses against your cheek.

"Don't worry, we'll get back at him," you murmur soothingly into his fur.

"Try this on," Mona suggests, gently fastening a choker around your neck. The piece is adorned with a large amber gemstone, encapsulating the fossilized remains of a spider.

You run your fingers along the delicate lace of the choker, observing your reflection in the mirror. You’re elegantly dressed for the grand gala, light makeup accentuating your features. Mona had offered to help you get ready, preaching how the best revenge is appearing uncaring and looking your best.

And while you agree with Mona’s sentiment, you’ve kept your true intentions hidden from her — how you intend to make Lyney confess all his wrongdoings and embarrass him before the community.

Your friend had seemed wary upon spotting the assortment of desserts in your bag — pate de fruits, conch madeleines, and colorful macarons. But you had swiftly explained it as an apology for the previous incident. Mona had raised an eyebrow in suspicion but chose not to press further, and you had sighed internally, relieved.

There was no way in Celestia you’d disclose the fact that the fruit jelly slices — one of Lyney’s favorite snacks — were discreetly laced with a potent dose of truth powder, cleverly mixed with the sugar.

"Promise me, no arguments, no fights, and especially no more pyro brawls with Lyney.”

You let out a sigh, your shoulders slumping a bit. "Yes, I know," you mumble, pouting. “Chiori still shoots me icy stares whenever she passes by. The coat was apparently a family heirloom or something.”

Mona gives you a pointed look. "I know you're plotting something to avenge your garden, but promise me you'll hold off until after the gala."

Rolling your eyes, you assure her, "I'll behave, alright?” Raising your right hand dramatically, you declare, "cross my heart, Mona. I'll be the picture of perfect behavior."

A soft, monotone voice calls your name, and you turn around to find Lynette approaching. “This bow looks really cute on you,” you comment, eyes flickering to the teal accessory adorning her hair.

She responds with a quiet thanks, a delicate blush dusting her cheeks. "I should go look for Freminet. He's probably feeling overwhelmed from the party by now," she states, glancing around the bustling gala. You nod in understanding.

"Also, I would recommend not going near the punch table. A feral cat is on the loose there," she warns and you cannot help but laugh, knowing full well who she is referring to. She's been aware of her older brother’s antics since the beginning of your prank war, maintaining a neutral stance despite Lyney’s persistent attempts to enlist her help on multiple occasions.

As Lynette makes her way through the crowd, you take a moment to admire the lively atmosphere of the gala.

The grand hall, with its soaring ceiling and arched doorways, exudes an air of timeless elegance. Elaborate tapestries hang from the walls, and the polished marble floors reflect the shimmering lights above. As you walk around the room, you pass by tall columns, embellished with sophisticated carvings, depicting scenes that capture the rich history of Fontaine.

Ignoring Lynette’s warning, you decide to make your way towards the punch table, where the “feral cat” supposedly roams. As you approach, you spot the magician engaged in an animated conversation with Aether, their laughter filling the air.

Lyney, as if possessing the hearing of a wild cat, detects the sound of your approaching footsteps and swiftly turns around. He offers you a cheerful smile that doesn’t fully mask the challenge lurking in his eyes.

Aether, the embodiment of warmth and light, greets you in a friendly manner, his eyes a rich glowing amber hue.

"I brought some desserts," you announce with a hesitant smile, presenting the carefully arranged selection of sweets. “As an apology for last time.” Your gaze flickers away in an attempt to appear shy and humble.

Aether’s eyes light up at the sight of the intricately crafted macarons. You generously offer him a few, suggesting he shares them with his gluttonous fairy familiar. Grateful, he thanks you and departs, leaving you alone with your rival.

The atmosphere between the two of you thickens, the tension palpable.

"You're not going to share some with me?" Lyney teases, a mock pout on his face.

"After you ruined my garden, no, not really."

"Then would you like a glass of punch as an apology?" he suggests, pointing to the fruity mixture.

Your eyes narrow suspiciously. "A drink from you? No thanks, I don't trust you."

Lyney's playful demeanor doesn't falter; instead, he takes a deliberate step closer, his gaze holding a challenge. "Come on, don't be so uptight. It's just punch."

"And why would I take anything from you?" you question, suspicion lacing your words. "How can I be sure that you wouldn't have poured something in it?"

"Because why would I drink it myself, too? And look," he points casually to a few figures engaged in lively conversation near you. "They’re also drinking from the punch. Why would I risk angering the rest, especially today?"

You pause, considering his argument.

If you're going to endure this gala until Mona decides it's time to leave, a little liquid courage would not hurt. You look away from Lyney's captivating violet eyes, snatching the glass he is holding. With a sly grin, you pour yourself a generous amount of the sparkling liquid.

“Well, it was unpleasant meeting you, as always,” you say with a smirk, your hair swaying as you turn to leave. Unbeknownst to you, Lyney’s eyes follow your every move, a faint pink hue dusting his cheeks.

His lively façade noticeably deflates as he witnesses you greet a dark-haired man whose muscles strain against his clothes. Lyney clicks his tongue disapprovingly, downing his drink in one swift gulp — he doesn’t care that you’re talking to Wriothesley, and he is absolutely indifferent about your little crush on the older warlock.

The magician refuses to acknowledge the subtle shifts in his emotions, trying his best to avoid the implications they carry.

He pours himself another glass of the punch, scanning the various tables. His eyes lock onto a plate of jellied fruits, sitting there untouched, the tempting delicacy calling out to him.

Wriothesley casually leans against a column, sipping tea from a delicate cup.

"Has Barghest been giving you any trouble?" he inquires, his voice smooth.

"Um…" you start, feeling your tongue dry up, the words unable to leave your mouth. "Actually, yes," you stammer, and you gape, not believing your own words.

"Oh? What's wrong?"

“To start off, anytime we're at the dog park, attempting to blend in with normal people and play fetch with a stick, he insists on bringing me enchanted — and by that I mean cursed — artifacts. Not only does he refuse to let go, but he hoards all his little finds and won't even let me touch them!" You rant, voice rising. "And don't get me started on his behavior during the full moon. It would've been fine if the only problem was his howling — I could easily cast a spell and soundproof the room. But no! He gets the zoomies and has to run around for hours!"

Wriothesley arches an eyebrow, motioning for you to continue. His expression is of mild curiosity, partly entertained by your unusual behavior.

You gasp, hands instinctively flying to cover your mouth. The words had spilled out unintentionally, and it takes you a moment to grasp the bizarre nature of the situation.

“Ask me what’s two plus two,” you implore in an attempt to make sense of the situation, eyes pleading.

With a bemused expression, the Duke obliges.

Summoning all your willpower, you try to say “five”. However, each attempt feels like dragging your tongue through sand, rendering your voice mute before the incorrect word can escape. After a brief struggle, you give up with a reluctant "four."

"Congratulations, you can do basic math," Wriothesley deadpans.

"Lyney, you little shit!”

Your eyes sweep across the hall, searching for his unmistakable figure amidst the crowd. His figure seems to grow more prominent as he gets closer and closer. The room seems to narrow down to just the two of you, the distant chatter and laughter fading away.

Lyney is now just a few paces away, his eyes fixed on yours.

"You!" The accusation erupts simultaneously from both of you,

"You think you can just ruin my night and get away with it?"

"You ruined my garden, and now you're trying to ruin my reputation at the gala!”

The onlookers, previously engaged in light-hearted conversations, now turn their attention towards the spectacle unfolding before them. The entire grand hall holds its breath, sensing the growing hostility, awaiting the next move.

Lyney smirks, seemingly unfazed by the attention. "Well, if you're looking for a fight, you've got one."

Before you can formulate a response, a voice echoes through the hall, cutting through the tension. "Enough!" The commanding presence of Monsieur Neuvillette silences the murmurs in an instant. "The two of you, out now."

Attempting to explain yourself ends up being futile, as Chevreuse firmly grasps your shoulders, propelling you towards the exit. You find yourself unceremoniously dropped on the grass outside, protests lost in the scuffle. Clorinde follows suit, pushing Lyney out with a force that sends him stumbling besides you.

"You are not allowed to re-enter until you've resolved this petty drama between you," Clorinde declares, tone unyielding, as she forcefully closes the door behind you, the latch clicking shut.

"You drugged me with a truth serum!" you shout as you nurse your aching tailbone. Lyney ignores you, nonchalantly standing up and brushing off his clothes.

"And you didn't do the same?" he retorts with a sharp edge to his words, his nostrils flaring.

"It was payback for my garden! An answer to your little declaration of war!" you snap.

The male in front of you appears taken aback for a split second. "Declaration of what? What are you even talking about?”

"The tansy, you asshole!"

"Tansy? What even is a tansy? Have you gone mad?" he responds, a furrow forming on his brow as he struggles to comprehend your accusations.

"The only flower the stupid boggards you summoned left alone in my whole garden. Do you even know what it means?" Your voice echoes in the stillness, punctuated by the distant sounds of crickets and the passing night breeze.

"I really don't know what a tansy is," he admits, his confessions handing in the air, the admission catching you off guard. Despite your initial reluctance to believe him, the truth serum’s influence prevents him from lying — and you’re left grappling with the realization that perhaps he is genuinely unaware of its significance.

You groan, the weight of the chaotic evening bearing down on you. "Seriously, why did it have to be you?" you mumble into your hands, your words muffled by your palms.

"Me what?" Lyney asks, leaning in slightly.

Your eyes widen, and panic courses through you. You quickly press your hands against your lips in a desperate attempt to keep them closed. The truth serum is still affecting you, and you’re acutely aware you’ve almost revealed more than you intended.

Lyney narrows his eyes, sensing that there's more to your words than meets the eye. "Come on, spill it," he prods, leaning in even closer, his lips brushing past your ear.

You gulp, squeezing your eyes shut. "It's unfair that I had to like you of all people," you confess quickly through gritted teeth, your fists clenching the grass beneath you. "What idiot falls in love with someone who clearly hates them and sees them as weak and useless?"

Lyney is stunned, not expecting your answer. He stumbles back, and you feel a few tears pricking in your eyes at his obvious rejection.

"You love me?" he slowly asks, confused. You take a look at him — the moonlight accentuates the contours of his face, revealing a vulnerability you've never witnessed before.

"Yes, how many times do you want me to repeat it and embarrass myself? I think this was more than enough."

"An infinite amount of times," he states softly. You meet his gaze with damp eyelashes, taken aback by the sudden flush of his cheeks. For a moment, neither of you speaks. Then, drawing a shaky breath, he murmurs, "I want to hear you say it again and again."

“Why?”

"Because—because I love you too.”

His confession hangs in the air, every vulnerable emotion laid bare before you.

“You must be lying,” you mumble, shaking your head.

Lyney crouches down to meet your averted gaze. “Look at me,” he murmurs gently as he reaches out to brush away the lone tear tracking down your cheek. “You know I cannot lie.”

As his thumb wipes away the dampness from your skin, you find yourself leaning into his touch. “Then why do and say all these hurtful things?”

A tense silence hangs between you as Lyney seems to search for the right words. He takes a steadying breath before meeting your eyes. “Fear… Fear made me lash out in stupid ways. When I first saw you, it stirred memories of my own immaturity and overconfidence, back before I realized I could depend on other people, too.” His shoulders slump. “I didn't mean to hurl those hurtful remarks towards you — I really didn't — but I wanted to shield myself from caring for you.”

His eyes plead for understanding, hand reaching for you, but he lets it fall limply to his side when he sees the turbulent swirl of hurt and anger in your eyes.

"You are so stupid, Lyney!" you cry, hot tears coursing freely down your cheeks now. "Instead of facing your true feelings, you chose to lash out and say cruel things, just to drive me away! Clearly that didn't work out, did it?”

Your ragged breaths echo in the tense silence between you both. Lyney offers no defense, unable to justify his actions.

"I should've been honest from the beginning. I wanted you to become stronger... and while doing so, I hurt you," he says, eyes downcast, and you notice how the fight he had in him has left him. “I saw my own weakness reflected in you…”

"Wow, thanks for noticing," you bite back, the hurt in your words hidden by your simmering anger, veiling the vulnerability underneath. "So, all those times you cast spells on me, all those attempts to humiliate me in front of friends and superiors—what was it all for? To help me grow? Get over yourself, Lyney."

He looks down, unable to meet your eyes. "I truly am sorry," he murmurs, “and I wish I could take it all back.”

You stand up, your body surging with conflicting emotions as you close the distance between you and Lyney. As you draw near, your face is mere inches away from his; nostrils flaring, you grit your teeth, and without breaking eye contact, you grab him by his shirt.

"Sorry won't fix it." Your fingers dig into the fabric. "And yet, I still love you."

With those words left hanging in the air, you press your lips to his.

Your mouths collide in a frenzied dance, all the bottled up emotions pouring out. Your hand moves from his collar to the back of his neck, gripping him tightly, fingers tangling in his hair as you pull him closer to you.

Lyney responds with a fervor that matches your own — his lips move against your with a hunger that mirrors your desires, his pent up feelings coming undone. His hands find their way to your sides, holding you tightly as if afraid to let go. The pressure of his touch sends shivers down your spine, igniting a fire within you that burns hotter with each passing second.

The kiss is not gentle; its rawness — a proof of the unspoken tension that has defined your relationship.

You feel the wetness of tears streaming down Lyney’s cheeks, and his grip on your sides tightens, fingers digging into your flesh as he deepens the kiss. His teeth graze your lower lip, and a breathy moan escapes your lips.

"I love you so, so much," he whispers as he moves his lips away from yours, leaning his forehead against yours. "I will do my best to repent for my actions until the day I die."

The weight of his words hangs heavy in the air, and you can't help but let out a choked sob, heart feeling both heavy and light. You reach for his face, your trembling hands gently cradling his cheeks.

"I know you will," you whisper, your voice trembling with emotion, "and I know I will forgive you."

You press your lips against his once again, this time tenderly. Your bodies draw closer, molding together as if they were made to fit each other perfectly. The heat between you intensifies, and you feel the rise and fall of his chest against yours.

The world around you fades into insignificance, and time becomes irrelevant as you lose yourselves in the intoxicating passion.

“—rinde, Clorinde, wait” a distant voice calls out.

"They’ve been out there for a while. I must make sure no property is destroyed, again."

Clorinde flings the heavy door open, eyes narrowed, body crackling with purple electricity that dances around her. Seconds later, Navia follows suit, appearing slightly out of breath with her intricate dress billowing behind her.

Caught in the act, you and Lyney spring apart at their entrance. The two women's eyes scan your disheveled appearances — your lipstick smudged around your mouth, with marks matching its shade plainly visible on Lyney's collar and neck, both your clothing rumpled, and his hairdo now a tangled mess.

"Damn it," Clorinde's groans, her hand pressing against her forehead in apparent frustration. "You couldn't wait — I don't know — a few more weeks until Mabon. Now I'm down 72,000 mora."

"What?" you ask, puzzled by your friend’s outburst.

Navia sighs, offering a sympathetic pat on Clorinde's shoulder. "A few people had a betting pool running."

"A betting pool? About what?"

Clorinde crosses her arms, her expression softening. "How long it would take you and Lyney to finally confess your feelings," she reveals. Lyney's cheeks flush with a mixture of embarrassment and realization. "I bet that it would happen after Mabon. A few others had different predictions, and of course, there was Wriothesley who bet on tonight. That smug asshole was so sure."

“Well, then, we will leave you two lovebirds alone," Navia teases, giving you a playful wink.

"Wait," you yell out, feeling a sudden surge of curiosity. "What did — what did Mona bet on?"

Clorinde's laughter fills the air. "Oh, Mona? She bet that you'll always be at each other's necks," she reveals, unable to contain her amusement.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mona," you mutter under your breath, exasperation evident in your voice.

Clorinde waves a dismissive hand. "Oh, don't take it too seriously. Just remember, I expect an invitation to the wedding."

"We're not even officially together yet, and you're already planning our wedding?" you exclaim.

"Let's take it one step at a time, shall we?” Lyney teases, his voice filled with warmth as he presses his lips against your cheek. “But I must admit, a wedding would be quite the celebration." Lyney teases, pressing his lips against your cheek.

"Anyway, I will leave you two alone now, just try to keep it PG in here," Clorinde teases once again before shutting the door behind her, leaving you and Lyney alone.

Your whole body flushes. On one hand, you feel a tinge of embarrassment and anger at the thought of your friends betting on your love life — particularly your best friend betting against you. But on the other hand, you can’t deny the contentment swirling within you, knowing that you’ve finally broken down Lyney's walls and glimpsed at the raw emotions behind his eyes.

"I think before we go in, we should have a proper talk about us," you murmur, meeting Lyney’s gaze with a determined expression. "Just so you know, I'm not toning down on the pranks even if we are together. I have a score to settle."

"Oh, I wouldn't expect anything less," he replies, a hint of challenge in his voice. "But remember, love, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve as well."

Author's note: My brain is completly fried from the amount of RedBulls and painkillers, so sorry for any mistakes. This was meant to be around 2k words, but yea... 💀

Some extra information for the curious 😋

English folk names for the herbs used — Chickweed (Tongue Grass), Dandelion seeds and roots (Swine’s Snout and Lion’s Tooth, respectively), Hawthorn (Mayflower)

Dragon's Egg — another name for Septarian, a brownish-red stone that "enhances communication abilities", a healing stone

Rosseland — in-game name for Lyney's cat

Barghest — a monstrous black dog from English Folklore; I like to imagine Barghest was from the same litter as Wriothesley's familiar (Cerberus), which is why the two of you are close friends

The Fontaine Grand Gala being hosted on a Wednesday — supposedly this day of the week is associated with "communication"

Lyney did not spike the punch, but the empty glass he was holding (which was rudely snatched) was coated in the truth-serum powder

Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) — a perennial flowering plant; "I declare war on you"

#genshin x reader #lyney x reader #genshin x you #lyney x you #genshin x y/n #lyney x y/n #reader insert #lyney #x reader #genshin imagines #genshin impact #lyney brainrot #i love him too much

113 notes · View notes

absolutebl · 10 months

Text

This week in BL - I am all over the place, But Laws of Attraction is Phenomenal af

July 2023 Wk 2

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. Organized by which ones (in each category) I’m enjoying most.

Ongoing Series - Thai

Laws of Attraction (Thai Sat iQIYI) 1 of 8 - Icky picked it up but it’s not airing for me until Sundays so I held this post specifically to watch and talk about this show. Stars the pair from To Sir With Love with the same production team. IT’S SO GOOD Y’ALL. A morally corrupted trickster lawyer with a tragic past, sad eyes, and a beautiful smile that he uses like a weapon. Meets paladin martial arts instructor from other side of the tracks (who is out, at least to his baby sister). Corrupt police. Spoiled rich kid evil. Ambitious politician. Tragic death. Terrible subs.* This show is very like Manner of Death but so far it is a much better/tighter story. It’s NOT BL but it is fucking phenomenal. And you shoudl watch it. Not wait to binge it. WATCH IT. On a global scale this might be the best thing currently airing featuring gay romantic leads. Its really fucking good. It’s Lawless Lawyer but more complex character motivation and gay af. Fuck yes please and thank you. FINALLY. Triggers for violence, beatings, death & torture depicted on screen. Like MoD they are not holding back. (* A lot of the familial names they are using are not gendered in Thai but translated as such, like “nephew”. This one is gonna go down a lot easier if you know some Thai.)

Step By Step (Tues WeTV & Gaga) ep 12fin - 2 years pass and no one’s hairstyle changes? Srs. Them meeting again = hella AWKWARD. Both still pining & hurt. NO SINGING. The reconciliation scene was great. I enjoyed that on the “do over relationship” they went with phi/pom (instead of the super formal khuns). So cute and so much more relaxed. Also lots of neck kisses! Charming final ep. It’s only flaw being they dropped the side couple, but I wasn’t really into them anyway. Ultimately? This is what Boss & Babe should have been and could we please have Up lead out another BL? I miss him and he only gets prettier. Full review below.

La Pluie (Sat iQIYI) ep 12fin - I adore the tiny little baby GL thread that we almost got. And I wish we had had more of it throughout the show. The side couple turned out to be good too. Emotional crying kisses are my favorite. Sunshine netted himself an earnest serious romantic boy, we likey. As for the main couple? Well... Tai’s search story arc was dull and dragging in a final ep and it felt bloated and slow as a result. It was a good confession reunion with Tai figuring all of his shit out, not surprising but fine. Kind of a a weak final ep. Full review below.

Hidden Agenda (Thai Sun GMMTV YouTube) ep 1 of 12 - JoonDunk are back and we have all seen this a million times before, but Thailand never executed a successful formula it didn’t want to repeat a million times over, drunk bathroom and everything. Welcome (back) to Thai BL (and back and back and back). Basically they just added glasses, a new 1-shared-brain-cell friendship group, and different uni departments. Ah GMMTV, forever trying to recreate the magic of 2gether. But also I’m enjoying it. I’m a simple person. (Hi Jamie! Still in college since 2018 I see.) Anyone else notice that Chinese phrase that they did not translate for us? Mmm hum. Cute. Still... NO SINGING.

Low Frequency (Sat iQIYI) ep 2 of 8 - Thames is in coma and getting slagged off on the socials. It’s moving a bit slowly but the premise is interesting despite the poor quality of the execution.

Dinosaur Love (Sun iQIYI) ep 3 of 8 eps - Major trigger for self harm depicted on screen in part 2/4. I skipped it. Then there is assault and verbal abuse. I told you Ultimate Troop is NOT to be trusted.

Be Mine Super Star (Mon Viki) ep 2 of 12 - Look, I don’t really mind this show but I also don’t like second hand embarrassment and I sense a metric butt ton incoming.

Be My Favorite (Fri YouTube) ep 8 of 12 - I was not best pleased with this episode. Ya’ll round the tumblr-sphere seem to be enjoying it but I have officially hit the wall on Kawi. There is not enough booze for me to cope with his shizz. I may be alone in this. But gotta say how I feel... Unlike him. Trash watch here.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Tokyo in April is... AKA Shigatsu no Tokyo wa (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 5 of 8 - Poor Ren, he feels compelled to take on the burden of protecting everyone from sexual assault because he blames himself. And he can’t even talk to his boyfriend about it. Oh fuck me the pair of shoes at the door. And neck kisses? TOO MUCH. Argh. Japan. Why must you hurt so good?

Stay By My Side (Taiwan Fri Gaga) 3 of 10 eps - It’s a very cute show. All the tropes and archetypes with no fuss or attempts to be clever, just executing them (sometimes over and over again). Even hiccoughs as a result of flirting! I haven’t seen that one in ages. The show feels old fashioned as a result. Nostalgic. I’m good with that.

Tie The Not (Pinoy YouTube) ep 6 of 8 - Sad boys still sad now drunk. (Noooooo shoes on bed! Argh.) Finally kisses! Also good ones for a large portion of this ep. Plus hair pulling. And verse rep! And after sex convo. Then side dishes have a whole proper gay ax covo about top/bottom. Everyone say thank you Philippines! get down with your queer selves!

Stupid Genius (Vietnam Fri YouTube) ep 6fin - I believe this was the final episode. It was cute. This is a standard sort of semi-crappy VBL high school drama. Enjoyable in its floppy friendliness, weirdly like a queer after school special promoting education. Dead fish kisses but fine for what it is. 7/10

Minato's Laundromat Season 2 AKA Minato Shouji Coin Laundry Season 2 (Japan Thu Gaga) 2 of 12 eps - Activate cohabitation trope. They okay bfs. Minato not as frustrating this week, but still frustrating for me and Shin. Next week = cute outfits and dumb miscommunication yay!

Vian the series (Vietnam YouTube ) ep 11 of 12 - again it didn’t show up on my dash in time for this. I’ll pop it into next week.

It’s airing but ...

House of Stars (Thai Mon iQIYI) 12 eps - I bounced at ep 3. Will binge if told it is worth it at end.

Stay (Pinoy YouTube) 7 eps - It’s mostly English & set in LA (shudder) so I’m not bothering.

Stay With Me ... NO I WILL NOT! And you can’t make me.

Ended This Week

Step By Step Series Review

This was Thailand’s answer to The New Employee, and everything I loved about that show I loved about this one. This was an office romance between stern boss and sweet subordinate that felt more authentic to an office environment than previous Thai BLs of this ilk. And that authenticity added tension to the narrative and character development (how novel). Now that might be because it has western source material, or it might be because it is actually kind of old-fashioned (it’s been years since I worked as an office grunt). I also really enjoyed the brothers’ relationship, and kinda wished they hadn’t attempted (and failed) to give said brother his own side BL. That one flaw made it a 9/10 for me. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

La Pluie Series Review

This BL takes to task the fated mates trope and what it means to have love chained intimately to predestination. It’s about how faith in destiny before choice diminishes the authenticity of emotion, relationships, and connection. This is a high concept to examine through the lens of a BL. By activating + examining the soulmates trope this show is challenging a foundation of romance: the idea that there is one person meant to be your one romantic partner all your life. This means that we, as viewers, spend much of the show worried about it having a happy ending, and that’s the source of both its brilliance and tension: would the narrative have the strength to truly challenge its own romantic core? But, ultimately, all this elevated complexity was executed in a somewhat shaky manner with the narrative derailing into some serious pacing issues and characters manipulated by miscommunication. However, with good chemistry and decent acting all around, plus some excellent high heat and representation of consent and a few other rare tropes, this one has to (like it’s sibling show My Ride) earn a 9/10. I enjoyed it even as it made me think, so despite its flaws: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Next Week Looks Like This:

Starting:

7/19 Wedding Plan (Thai Wed YouTube & iQIYI) - It's Mame and she's coming for our GL. She's such a misogynist IMAGINE what we will get with a GL side dish? It's going to be absolute carnage. To crane your neck as you drive by the car wreck or not? That is the question. Me? I'm wallowing in the guts. Trying to decide to trash watch or not...

7/20 Jun & Jun (Korea Thu Viki) - From 2022 I CAN’T FUCKING WAIT! So excited for this one.

2023 forthcoming BL master post (see comments, some are inaccurate, NOT KEPT UPDATED)

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

FYI roselle juice is made from hibiscus (a flower) so technically neither a tea nor a juice. (Hidden Agenda)

Tie the Not = all the verse rep this ep. I love this for them.

The giggling was SO DAMN CUTE (Step by Step, na?)

We all guessed it but it was still fun. (Stupid Genius) Also miracles of miracles, two actors who actually look like they could be brothers play brothers.

First time I’ve seen faen translated as significant other. (Laws of Attraction)

THE PAIN! (Tokyo)

(Last week.)

138 notes · View notes