#which means both of them had to actively seek to be the other's friend

[merakiui]

boyfriend.

yandere!female!riddle rosehearts x (female) reader cw: yandere, nsfw, unhealthy behaviors/relationship, obsession, implied (cyber)stalking, cheating, dub-con, alcohol/intoxication, characters written as 18+ note - riddle seeks to prune the filthy weeds from your life, starting with your ill-mannered boyfriend. // inspired by dove cameron's boyfriend.

i. i can’t believe we’re finally alone. i can’t believe i almost went home. what are the chances? everyone’s dancing, and he’s not with you.

Riddle has never traveled to this part of the city before—the seedy, unsavory sliver overshadowed by towering skyscrapers, illicit, perilous secrets tucked away in every alley. It’s not as if she’s here under duress. Although if you were to frame it from her perspective, it would feel less like an active, consensual choice and more of a you’ve-forced-my-hand choice. It’s blatant rule-breaking all the same, a stain on her delicate character. Blight on her shiny social status as a golden child, forever marked as the obedient one.

She’s lived her rebellious streak, was punished swiftly and accordingly, and strived to be better in the aftermath. It was one thing to slip out during independent study, and that fun had been trampled upon by a cruel, heeled foot. That was a child’s error. A lesson learned. A valid reason to sever all distractions and improve academically, consequently maturing with sharp, sparkling intelligence and abysmal social skills. 

But Riddle is no longer that starry-eyed, impressionable child, and she does not make the same mistake twice.

Or so she’s always believed, but she’s willing to risk an unforgiving tongue-lashing and life imprisonment at the hands of her mother if it means she can fix things. No matter how she spins it, the truth remains the same: She’s fallen back on an old habit, sneaking out and keeping secrets. She’s an open book to Trey, though, who she’d taken care to message on the train ride into the city, her text mostly cryptic: Should anything happen, this is where I’ll be. It’s wrong to skirt around the truth, especially when it’s your closest friend. She knows this, but then she also knows Trey gives terribly good advice. The type of terribly good advice you often don’t want to hear.

Advice like: “You need to let her go.”

And Riddle can’t—won’t. 

So she steps into the digital footprints left by that brash, brutish party animal you lovingly call your boyfriend, and she follows the string of social media posts like a diligent detective, flicking through each with manicured fingernails. She commits them to memory so that they remain imprinted in her mind before they’ll eventually expire at the twenty-four hour mark.

In the days leading up to tonight, Cater had taken her out for their usual self-care makeover day, which was really just a day dedicated to dressing up and gossiping at the salon. It was a monthly arrangement, and it kept the both of them entertained and sane. The latter of those two was called into question when Riddle, wholly out of character, selected black nail polish for her mani-pedi, which left Cater looking on with brewing curiosity. She gazed at him, pouty lips upturned slyly, and said, “I thought I’d give red a temporary break.”

“Oh, but red is so your color!” he insisted, raising his phone to capture both of them in frame. 

Riddle smiled at the camera. “I know.”

It has always been her color, a staple in her closet. It’s a favorite she can never truly shake, hence why it stains her lips instead. Bright like arterial blood, a blossoming carnation, it stands out starkly on her pale countenance—the only splotch of color on her person. Cater took her shopping when he’d learned she was attempting to fit a new style into her wardrobe of prim, modest clothes. They ran up and down the racks, grinning at each other from across the store and holding up sweaters and skirts, weighing whether either would suit Riddle’s night out. In the end, she settled for the outfit she wears now: a red tube top, a cropped puffer jacket, a pencil skirt that doesn’t pass the fingertip test (not that she cares to follow that rule), tights, and knee-high heeled boots. To finish the look, she’s pulled her hair from its usual plaits, allowing it to cascade down her back like a crimson waterfall. Fingerless lace gloves adorn her hands, stitched with intricate patterns of roses and thorns.

Cater called it the Femme Fatale Friday fit. It’s a Saturday night, but it feels like Friday when she peers at her reflection in a pocket mirror, checking her makeup once more. 

She will not make the same mistake twice. She’s a paragon of perfection—Riddle Rosehearts, for seven’s sake! 

Stuffing the mirror into a matching handbag, she eyes the skyscraper looming before her, sleek with its metal framework and industrial glass. The bright cityscape reflects off of each window, dazzling with luminous specks of light. She considers the contents in her purse, reviews each with a critical eye, and inhales a steadying breath. 

This is necessary.

She’s an adult now, nearly finished with her graduate studies. She lives on her own in a quaint, pet-friendly apartment with her hedgehog, and she works part-time at the café down the street, putting forth her best effort as she weathers the woes of university. Despite all of this independence, she doesn’t feel like an adult. 

Not when she can hear her mother in the back of her head: You look ridiculous. Come home right now before you make a fool of yourself and sully my good name.

Riddle scowls at the concrete, curling her fingers into fists. 

She’s an adult now. She is not her mother’s doll.

Leaving all hostility and self-doubt at the door, she steps through the lobby and beelines for the lift. It carries her to her destination—one of the highest floors. A penthouse suite. 

And not just any penthouse suite. Floyd Leech’s penthouse suite.

Under normal circumstances, she would never willingly set foot in his territory. She survived four years of school with him, which was already a sickening amount, and in that time she watched him glide through his undergraduate with just barely passing grades. That wasn’t enough to stoke the red-hot embers of envy, though. It only made him seem even more like a cockroach, unable to be crushed by the weight of scholarly responsibilities, for he never took anything seriously.

For that reason, Riddle has never envied Floyd. But by the end of their third year, he had something Riddle didn’t. 

He had you. 

How he managed to settle into a relationship when all he did was slack off, party, and break the rules was beyond Riddle. He was a slippery delinquent, hardly deserving of your sweet affections, and yet you looked at him like he was the only one on the planet. Just where was the appeal? His manner of dress is sloppy. The way he carries himself is unpalatable and crude. The way he acts suggests his insipience is incurable. Even when he applies himself, he is still Floyd and that doesn’t clean his slate or shine his reputation. So in Riddle’s discerning eyes, he does not possess a scintilla of romantic appeal.

You don’t seem to agree with these sentiments, for you’ve been with Floyd for four long years. 

Love is blinding, but Riddle has never been in love before and so she doesn’t have adequate data to prove this point. It was forbidden in her home. She’s only allowed to love the men her mother handpicks, plucking each specimen like they’re ripened strawberries from a bush. In the beginning she found all manner of minor details to excuse them from her life, insisting upon a nonexistent list of impossibly high standards. He was too tall. He was too forward with his interest. He wore contrasting colors. He didn’t like tea. These reasons were far too critical and childish, and each man had been sent away in a huff. Her mother would scold her, halving her with a nasty glare: “Are you planning to die alone?”

Yes, Riddle realized by the twentieth admonishment, yet another man cast aside. If dying alone means romantic freedom in life, I’ll do just that.

The elevator spits her out into the hall, which isn’t as silent as she thought it’d be. Bass shakes through the walls, reverberating all the way through her ribs as if it intends to stir up her organs. She catches her reflection in the windows, noting the dark, monstrous scowl, and smooths her face into something courageous. She means business as she clicks down the hall, preparing herself for the whirlwind that undoubtedly waits behind the door. Riddle starts to wonder how Floyd’s neighbors have yet to file a noise complaint and then stops, her thoughts cutting off abruptly. It’s a challenge to make complaints when your father holds parts of the city’s underground in his palms.

He’s got it easy, that spoiled pest. 

Riddle’s gait slows to a halt and she reaches out to knock thrice. The door is thrown open before she can even bring her fist down. Soon she’s staring at a rosy-cheeked stranger, whose eyes trace her figure like he’s trying to paint her on his mental canvas. She’s prepared for the worst, having tucked the spray in her bag, its container disguised to look like lipstick. The strawberry keychain hanging from her purse is a self-defense alarm, ready to be pulled at a moment’s notice. His ogling does not frighten her, nor do his intentions, if he can even harbor any in that intoxicated brain of his. She’s braved scarier horrors. Like living out years of her life with her mother.

“Heyyy, you one of Floyd’s girls? Here for the party?”

Riddle suppresses the disgusted shiver threatening to crawl up her spine, swallowing bile. “Just the party.” 

She is no one’s girl. Definitely not Floyd’s. 

When she’s let inside and the stench of sweat and alcohol assault her nostrils, coupled with the too-loud party music, she considers retreating, her mother’s judgment echoing: You look ridiculous. Her fingers twitch towards her purse. One text and Trey would pick her up. One call and Cater would be on his way. But then she’d be forced to tell them the truth—would have to admit that she’s chasing the one person she can never have. 

She hardens her resolve, pushes through the throng of bodies in an effort to find refreshments, and there you are, her perfect, pretty wallflower in a perfect, pretty silver dress. The dim neon lighting casts you in a luscious pink haze, and she watches you scroll through your phone, your eyelids falling and opening. You’re so beautiful—the sweetest thing she’s ever seen, more saccharine than a truckload of strawberry tarts. Her hand slides away from her purse, and she tamps down a gleeful smile, stepping over to you with newfound confidence.

“(Name)?”

You turn your whole body towards her, your gaze unfocused. She can smell the liquor on you, can see the hickeys not quite covered by a velvet choker. Her gaze narrows. He’s all over you, isn’t he? From top to bottom, you are covered in traces of him. Her nose scrunches. Just what do you see in him?

It should be her teeth on your skin, tearing it open, bruising it, tasting slick copper on her tongue. It should have always been her, but it’s not. Why did you have to settle for less when you’re entitled to so much more?

You peer at her like she’s something in a museum, perplexing and abstract. And then it clicks. You gasp, your mouth falling open in awe, and your words come out horribly slurred. She fails to hide her wince when you throw your arms around her, hanging off of her like a tote on a shoulder.

“Riddle! You…seriously showed up… Can’t believe it’s really you. It feels like it’s been forever.” You pull away, swaying with the motion, and place your hands on her arms. “Your outfit is suuuper cute.”

She’s blushing. She knows she is because her face is burning with heat and suddenly it’s much too stifling in here. “Oh. Ah, um, t-thank you very much… You look very nice, too.”

Really? Is that the best thing I could say? ‘You look very nice’? Honestly, Riddle…

But you smile, and the sight steals her heart all over again. You can have it. By all means take her heart. Take it and love it to pieces. That way it will be fair when she takes yours. An even exchange in accordance with the rules of love. 

Or maybe it’s more so the rules of romantic warfare, carried out to the extreme on a chessboard. Or a croquet court. Something sporty and metaphorical, anyway.

“Where’s your boyfriend?” she asks, refusing to say his name lest she speak him into existence and tarnish her near-perfect evening.

Her question strikes a chord within you, and you heave an exaggerated sigh. You cross your arms over your chest, leaning against the wall for support. “Left me to go hang with the guys. S’not fair!” you whine, sliding further down until you’re sitting in a defeated heap. 

Riddle bends down to your height, her tone as soft and sympathetic as her expression. “Does he always do this?”

Hurt flashes across your face, but you don’t say anything. So he does. Why is she not surprised?

Who in the world leaves their partner at a party, vulnerable and alone? Riddle thinks, anger flaring up in her chest. Someone could take advantage of you. You’re in no state to be standing here by yourself. That fool… He doesn’t know how to treat a lady at all. How have you put up with him for four years? Your patience amazes me.

“It’s not like…” You shut your eyes and rest your head against the wall. “Not like an always-happening thing…”

Riddle isn’t going to sugarcoat it. She wants her words to cut deep, all the way to the heart you’ve allowed Floyd to bind. “Whether or not he does it often, the fact still stands that he left you intoxicated in the corner of this room. That’s careless and unsafe.” She tilts her head, admiring the way you’ve done your makeup, the way your plush lips jut out in a miserable pout. And it just rushes out, words she’s thought but never had the courage to say. At least, not to the sober you. “I wouldn’t do that to you. You deserve so much better.”

Like me, she almost adds, but that’s too direct. And she’s not even sure the admission will land when you’re so out of it.

“Appreciate it…” You scrub your face, groaning. “Ugh. I feel sick…”

“Would you like to get some fresh air?” 

You shake your head, stubborn to a fault. “Can’t. Gotta wait for Floyd.”

Riddle frowns. “I highly doubt he’s coming back anytime soon.” 

“Still.”

“At the very least, let’s get you some water.” She offers her hand, hoping and praying to the heavens above that you’ll take it.

You do. It’s a flawless fit. Her heart flutters, weightless and feathery, when her fingers close around yours. She wonders what moisturizer you use, what sort of lotions kiss your skin. Are they scented, or is that just your perfume? Or have you done away with perfume for tonight and is that a natural fragrance? Or maybe it’s the sweet scent of a fruity wine, printed on your tongue like a delicious tattoo. 

She wants to kiss you. 

“Just how much have you had to drink?” 

“Like a cup or two? I…dunno. Does it matter?”

You stumble when she helps you up, grabbing at her shoulder for support. Riddle almost falls back, but the wall braces her. You place your palm right by her head, and suddenly you’re leaning in, inadvertently pinning her to the wall. Her pupils nearly eclipse her blue-grey irises, and her breath sticks in her throat. Oh, you’re so close. You’re a drunken mess, pushing yourself up against her, your beauty enveloping her like a chrysalis. If this is a dream, she never wants to wake, for the world that awaits her beyond this is cold and colorless. 

Your head lowers to the dip between shoulder and neck, and she gazes heavenward. The ceiling is much nicer at this moment, if only so she can clear her own heady haze of impure thoughts. 

There are people about, she has to remind herself, shaking off the urge to close her fingers around your chin and tilt your head up to meet her mouth. And she has a boyfriend. Just because I can doesn’t mean I should.

But the chance is much too beguiling. You’re right here, quite literally within her reach, and Floyd’s nowhere in sight. It’s too perfect. She can’t quite wrap you in an affectionate embrace—though that is an irresistible urge she must fight off—so she settles to rub circles into your back instead, dutifully reflecting the role of a concerned friend. It’s not the part she wishes to play. Rather, she’d gladly take on the title of boyfriend if it meant you’d feel loved. Every day, at every hour, for the rest of your life. She’d do all the things Floyd ought to do: care for you, appreciate you, protect you, stay by your side through thick and thin. 

Love is a dangerous, thorny thing, but it’s the encroaching jealousy that kills. 

Floyd doesn’t deserve you. If anything, he deserves a mouth full of soap to scrub every profanity he’s ever uttered. Just what does he tell you in bed? That you’re a good girl? That you’re soooo tight? That you can take it? Does he know which ways you like it? Does he know where to touch so you’ll unravel faster? Does he know how to get you properly, thoroughly worked up, so much so that it feels like your skin is aflame with potent want and desire? 

Does he even know your anatomy, or are you simply a body for his avaricious appetite? 

Like roses twining possessively around a trellis, Riddle holds you close in her arms, her hand sweeping across your lower back. Her glacial eyes scan the crowd, warding off anyone who may be curious with her most malevolent death stare. 

“Mm… I need to lie down. My head is…spinning…”

With that, the murderous, overprotective haze sticking to Riddle like a poisonous fog dissipates. A sickly sweet smile widens on ruby-red lips. “Let’s find someplace quiet.”

Together, the two of you stagger-walk out of the room, leaving the party and its inhabitants behind. Crossing through the attached kitchenette, Riddle pilfers a bottled water from the fridge.

Her mind is sharp as a cut diamond. Her skin prickles with anticipation.

Down the hall you go, with Riddle supporting you with what minimal physical strength she has. A door looms before the both of you, cast in a comfortable glow from a neighboring skyscraper, and you struggle to pull your heels off while she pushes the door open. It reveals a messy room, clothing and candy wrappers strewn about sloppily. 

Riddle feels like she’s on top of the world, and she is. Up in the clouds on the forty-third floor of this luxurious penthouse apartment. 

ii. i could be a better boyfriend than him. i could do the shit that he never did. up all night, i won’t quit. 

All throughout her undergraduate, Riddle pined. Hopelessly. Forlornly. Desperately.

Hungrily. 

It was unbecoming to want something to such an obsessive degree. She buried herself in her studies to do away with lustful delusions, each more distracting than the last. But then you would crop up in her life when she least expected it and soon the two of you were studying together. Soon you were visiting her dorm to watch movies during the times in which she allowed herself the break (and she only did so because it was you). Soon you were spending nights in her room, sleeping sprawled on the floor even though she offered her bed time and time again. You’d get ready in the mornings, debating what the breakfast menu would entail. She’d watch your reflection in the floor mirror as you pulled your shirt up and over your head, eyeing the way you slid seamlessly into a lacy black bra. And then she’d change out of her nightgown, and you’d comment on her undergarments. 

“We should go shopping sometime. You gotta get cuter stuff!”

“Why should I? No one’s going to see it,” she insisted with a flustered huff.

“I’ll see it the next time I sleep over,” you told her, smiling innocently as you stepped into a blue handkerchief skirt. “Besides, there are so many cute sets you could wear. You’d look so pretty in something red and frilly. You’re totally missing out.”

Riddle considered it back then. Your eager eyes had almost won her over, but she was firm in her decision. “I’m fine with what I have now.” 

And the conversation ended there. She really wishes you would have pushed it back then because just a little nudge in that direction and she would have given in, entirely at your mercy. 

Selfishly, she just yearned to be stuck in a changing stall with you. 

All throughout her undergraduate, Riddle fostered a special sort of friendship with you. You’d stop by her dorm during finals to insist she take a break, your offer too tempting. She’s always been weak to sweets. You were close enough to exchange intimate details with one another. She listened to all of your dating woes, and conversely you’d sit still and bear witness to her ramblings about fascinating law facts. Sometimes she’d rant about her mother. You always listened. “She sounds like she sucks,” you said once. “How are you even related to her? You’re so nice.”

It was a pleasant three years. If she deluded herself enough, she could have pretended you were her girlfriend and then she’d have something to tell her mother to put an end to the countless attempts at scoring her a husband. I will never marry any of your options, she would think, playing the confrontation out in her head. I have a partner now and we’re very happy together. Sometimes Riddle imagined her mother tossing darts at a board with photographs of men attached to it, disregarding compatibility altogether in favor of upholding traditional rules. But then Riddle realized she’d have to die before she could ever admit her own romantic freedoms to her mother, and so that conversation only ever came about in daydreams. 

I’d rather die alone than live life shackled in a loveless marriage. She wonders if her father thought the same.

Those three years had been a wonderful reality, filled with sugared, candy-coated love. A one-sided love, sure. But Riddle could settle for platonic affections, for that was just as sweet.

And then he arrived at the doorstep to Riddle’s fantasy cottage, kicking the walls down and sweeping you off your feet.

Floyd Leech has always been a nuisance. You were there to shoo him away every time he came knocking, all broad grins and vexatious jeers. He listened to you most days, a mutt without proper leashing, oddly loyal to you. As if you were his keeper of sorts. Riddle was amazed, befuddled, and worried all at once. Unlike her, you could keep your cool, could still smile so kindly even when Floyd was being an utter pain in the ass with his foolish nicknames. When he tried to pluck Riddle’s hairpin from out of her braids—a handmade gift you had given her for her birthday—she slapped him hard across the face and hissed, “Don’t ever put your filthy paws on me again.”

And maybe it was because you were there that she was able to recover shortly after the outburst. (Although she still meant that slap with every fiber of her being.) Maybe you were her collar. Maybe you were her keeper. Maybe she was meant to meet you so that you could color her world, lead her along into the friendship she’d been robbed of as a child. 

Looking back, Riddle realizes that was the catalyst. Because when Floyd cradled his bright-red cheek, giggling like a maniac, you asked him, “Don’t you have anything better to do? Can’t you bother someone else?”

And then you were made the prime target. 

What’s worse is that you reveled in it, adored every ounce of attention Floyd gave you like it was something holy, later admitting to Riddle during a movie marathon that you “wondered if Floyd was seeing anyone.” She wanted to retch. You, a seraph incarnate, with a devil like Floyd? Impossible. But your tone was so whimsical; you were dreaming of it. You liked him. 

She couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it.

By the end of her third year, just as finals gave way to summer, you threw your arms around Floyd’s neck while he pressed you up against the trunk of a flowering tree. Pink petals fluttered to the ground, and with the falling blossoms came Riddle’s hope, crashing and burning in a heartbroken heap. 

She won’t make the same mistake twice, which is precisely why, when you flop onto Floyd’s unmade bed, she turns the lock to keep all outside influences away. The party is but a mere muffle now, thrumming through the floorboards with reckless abandon.

Her nose wrinkles at the pile of dirty laundry. Slob, she thinks, brimming with hate. What does she see in you? You’re a mess, you’re definitely a criminal, you can’t keep a stable job, you throw obnoxious parties every other week, you leave your own girlfriend unattended… What part of that is appealing? She gazes at you next. You’re too good for him, (Name). You can do so much better. Raise your standards. Find someone respectable and attentive. Someone who’ll stay with you forever. Someone who won’t let you get stupidly drunk and then run off to Queen-knows-where.

“Someone like me,” she mutters.

You have to be coerced into drinking, and you’re so sleepy that the water dribbles down your chin. Riddle tuts at you, swiping the liquid away with her sleeve. 

“You’re a mess,” she says, affectionate despite the barb. 

You’re my mess.

She slides your heels off, casting them elsewhere. You look like a starfish when you lay sprawled, or maybe you’re more like a snow angel. Only rather than snow, you imprint yourself amongst wrinkled sheets. Riddle knows it’s wrong, but you’re right here. She’s waited so many years for a moment like this one.

It’s not fair. 

She unzips her boots, kicks them off, and stands at the edge of the bed, locked in a fierce debate. You should have thrown your arms around her that day. You should have kissed her, should have spent the last four years with her, should have stayed in her life like the permanent fixture you were destined to be. She’s never wanted anything more than this. Not even a surplus of strawberry tarts. Not even the dreams she’s working tirelessly towards achieving. She’s only ever wanted you. 

But Floyd took you away, and her world has never been the same since. 

The mattress dips under her weight; she’s made up her mind. 

“Do you remember the promise we made?” she whispers, running her hands up your legs. You lift your head to look at her, eyes glassy with inebriated exhaustion. “The one in which we’d live together after graduation? You said you’d want to live somewhere pet-friendly so we could get hedgehogs and name them Tweedledee and Tweedledum.”

You hum, your lashes fluttering. 

“We could still do that. Just you and me. Without your boyfriend.”

“What?”

Her fingers catch on the waistband of your panties. “Hm?” 

“Mm, no, nothing… You should get going. It’s late…” “Someone has to look after you.”

“Floyd can.”

She presses her thumbs into your hips and the tiniest gasp leaves your parted lips. “But Floyd’s not.”

“He will.”

“He won’t,” she snaps. Something flickers in your eyes, a flash of unrest. Riddle chews her lower lip. “He’s… (Name), what do you see in him? Honestly, truly, what is it? Please educate me. Please… What does he have that I don’t? What makes you stay?”

“Cuz he’s my boyfriend,” you mutter slowly, perplexed, “and I love him.”

“Do you?” 

“Riddle, why are you so…” The words fizzle out on your tongue when her touch strays too close to home. “Wait… We can’t… Not in here.”

“Why not? It’s just one more mess. He won’t even notice.”

“That’s not it… Riddle, wait. I… I don’t like you in that—”

She collapses, anchoring herself to you, her manicured nails digging deep into your arms. And then her mouth is on yours, clumsy and uncoordinated. She doesn’t want to hear it—can’t bear to hear it. She knows the truth. It’s haunted her from the day she met you, a shadow looming like a guillotine’s blade. You were fated to be forever out of reach. Just like those strawberry tarts in the bakery window. The kiss is filthy, all desire and zero skill. Her tongue flashes into your mouth. It’s nothing like the way they describe it in fiction or portray it in films. It’s obscene. Sinful. Libidinous. Her lipstick smears; she tastes the wine in your throat, licks your teeth and nibbles your lip, delicate and gruesome all at once. She tries her best, unyielding. 

The technique doesn’t matter. Not now, anyway. It’s just blind, unrequited passion. She’ll learn it eventually and when she does she’ll kiss you drunk. It’s just another thing she’ll master. And she will because that’s just who she is. Give her a textbook and she’ll have it memorized. Give her a kiss and she’ll return to practice it to perfection. 

She pulls away, panting, her lipstick in disarray. It’s all over you, smudging on the corners of your mouth. Running a hand through her hair, her figure outlined in the tantalizing glow from the city lights, she licks her lips. 

“Riddle…” 

Spoken soft like prayer, it’s a whisper she’ll treasure. Over and over, without end, repeat it like a mantra. 

“Riddle, please…”

“He doesn’t know anything about your preferences, does he?” Your dress is slid up next. She traces a heart into your bare stomach, capturing your navel in invisible lines. You shudder under her touch, grabbing at her wrist with a limp hand. She brings it up to her lips and presses a chaste kiss to the top of it. “I know you much better than he does. I always have.”

To prove it, she presses two fingers to your clothed pussy. You whine, reedy and high-pitched. “But…”

“I read it takes fourteen minutes for women to reach their end during partnered sex.” She levels you with a half-lidded stare, smirking. What she lacks in skill, she makes up for in raw confidence. “I’ll only need less than that, so you won’t have to feign anything for my sake. I know you well enough, my rose.”

A wide range of emotions waltzes across your countenance. Your arm falls over your face next. It’s defeat or hesitant acceptance, but to Riddle it’s love. 

“Ten minutes,” you whisper, conceding. “And then…you need to leave.”

She makes you cum in just five, covers you in lipstick prints, each kiss a sly cover-up. Floyd may be all over you, bites and bruises blooming new and old, but he’s not inside you, wringing you out like a sodden towel. You sob like you’re in heat when she sinks her fingers into your slick warmth, scissoring so slowly, until you’re begging her to make you cum again. Your fluids soak through the sheets. The scent of sex and sweat hangs heavy in the air. She’s alive, wildly untamed, a knight who’s just rescued the princess and slayed a bloodthirsty dragon. 

Her head is between your thighs next, her hands braced on either leg to keep them apart. You watch her with glazed eyes, soon throwing your head back when she slides your hood up to reveal your pretty, pert clit. Experimentally, she licks a teasing stripe up your slit. You shiver and dig your fingers into her scalp, imprisoning her there. It’s where she’s always wanted to be. 

“Tell me,” she murmurs, the words fanning across your pussy, “if he’s so good, why haven’t you proven it? Is this the most you’ve ever cum in a night? Does he please you or do you please him? If he’s everything you’ve ever wanted, why are you still so unsatisfied?” 

“Because… B-Because!”

Your protests are fragmented and spotted with gasps. That’s arguably more telling than a detailed response. 

Riddle smiles like a Cheshire, her eyes narrowed victoriously. Spidery digits creep along your thighs. Her thumbs dip into your pussy, spreading it wide for her viewing pleasure. “Don’t think of him. Tonight, it’s just you and me. I’ll give you what you’re owed. That and so much more.”

Like a fragile statue, you topple. Right into her, bucking against her mouth like the world is ending, and she’s there to steady you.

She always is.

iii. i’m gonna steal you from him. i could be such a gentleman. plus, you know my clothes would fit.

“Sooo… Gimme the goss. How was your night out?”

Riddle looks up from an assortment of nail polish colors, each one more red than the last, and says, “It was more enjoyable than I thought.”

“Yeah?” Cater prompts, brows raised. “Don’t be so vague! I wanna know all the juicy details. It’s rare for you to stay out so late. And to go to a party, of all things, in the city? Hello?! New Riddle, who’s this?” 

“I was only meeting an old friend.”

“That’s what they all say.”

The technician asks her to pick a color. “This one,” she says, pointing. “The one named Sanguine Sunrise.” 

“You’re totes keeping me in the dark!” Cater whines, dramatic. “At least give Cay-Cay some hints! Something! Anything! Spare change, please?”

Riddle smiles smugly. Pride drips from every syllable when she speaks next. “My friend will be spending this Valentine’s Day alone.”

“Bummer.”

“Not quite. She’ll have me and half-priced chocolates. A rather charming combination, no?”

Cater laughs. “GL. I’m rooting for you.”

You don’t need to, she thinks, tracing the love bite stamped into her skin, hidden under the soft fabric of her blouse. Because I’m already winning.

Her phone buzzes with a text: about last night… if i did anything weird, i’m so sorry. i was way too drunk. 

Riddle turns it over, dips her feet in the heated water, and settles into the massage chair, pleased as a peach. “It was one bad decision. Four years of bad decisions, but it’s forgiven. We all make silly mistakes when we’re lovestruck. Hopefully her silly mistake disappears for good and we never have to speak of him again.”

“You’re so scary, Riddle. Remind me to never get on your bad side.”

Another message arrives: i think we might’ve kissed last night. i’m really super sorry.

There’s a brief delay.

ok this is gonna sound weird coming from me but maybe we can do it again??? floyd’s kisses are sorta… :/ 

Her phone vibrates for the final time that afternoon.

actually i’m just gonna stop talking omg i’m crazy. i have a bf and everything. sorry riddle please ignore all of this kk tysm ttyl <3

wait one more text before i forget,, if you wanna meet up for tea i wouldn’t mind. we should definitely catch up when i’m not hungover. kk bye fr this time <3

A start is a start. You can’t grow a rose tree without first planting a seed.

#yandere twst #yandere twst x reader #yandere twisted wonderland x reader #yandere twisted wonderland #yandere riddle rosehearts x reader #yandere riddle rosehearts #yandere riddle #yandere riddle x reader #n/sfw #tw: dubcon

[bangtanflirt]

Not Like Other Girls (Part 1 of 2)

mainly angst, with some smut and fluff sprinkled in

Best friend Jungkook x Fem Reader, Hoseok x Fem Reader

NSFW. 18+

Part 1 > Part 2 (FINAL)

Premise: Jungkook’s been your best friend since forever, and he loves that you’re “not like other girls,” as he puts it...so what happens when you decide you want to be like other girls?

Warnings: sexism, slut-shaming, manipulative friendship, Jungkook and some other idols are just overall misogynistic assholes in this (all a work of fiction obviously, no way meant to represent these idols’ real life personalities), internalized misogyny, slight smut but it’s mainly just making out, talks of sexual activity

____

Jungkook first entered your life in third grade, when you were nine and he was “almost ten,” as he put it. He slipped into the role of your best friend pretty seamlessly, sharing his crayons and snacks with no one else but you. When middle school came around, Jungkook found his first love: the PlayStation his parents gave him for his thirteenth birthday. Soon, your days of playing pretend turned into gaming sessions instead. Once he showed you how to play, you caught on pretty quickly. He’s always been a better gamer than you, but you weren’t an easy opponent either, getting your wins in when his guard was down. You would revel in the pout he had every time you would beat him, his competitive nature unable to accept the loss. He only got more competitive as you entered high school and began to seek out others who were more on his level, which you didn’t exactly mind since you’ve never been into gaming as much as he is. Sure, you liked it as a pass-time, but you’ve never taken it as seriously as your best friend does.

Which is why you were happy when Jungkook met Yugyeom and Eunwoo freshman year of high school. Throughout the four years of high school, the four of you were more-or-less a friend group. “More-or-less” because you weren’t exactly friends with the other two, more acquaintances, but Jungkook linked you to them. Your best friend would still invite you every time he hung out with them, so the four of you were together a lot. However, just because you were physically present doesn’t mean you were part of the conversation. The three men would get lost in their own talks, seldom including you. The only reason it didn’t bother you much was because Jungkook still made sure to set aside time for just the two of you, where you could talk all you want and he would listen intently to your ramblings. These conversations would mainly be over study-sessions, since only you and Jungkook actually studied among the four—both aiming to graduate at the top of your class.

Senior year of high school is when the cracks of your friendship first started to show. It was after a late-night gaming session at Yugyeom’s place (where you did your homework since they said you weren’t needed on the team). Yugyeom’s parents were out of town and he was intent on having all of you raid the liquor cabinet. After the tequila bottle was passed around a couple of times, a good buzz was flowing through everyone. That’s when the topic of girls came up. It’s not like the men have never talked about a girl in front of you before, but it’s always been innocent confessions of who they thought was pretty. That night, however, the conversation turned sour at the mention of the new transfer student—the one that Jungkook had apparently lost his virginity to.

“I don’t see the hype about Nayeon. You can’t even tell if she’s actually pretty or if it’s the layers of makeup at this point.” Eunwoo punctuates with another swig of the bottle.

“I definitely see the hype about Nayeon,” Yugyeom interjects, “I mean…” he finishes his thought with gestures to his chest, causing all the boys to burst into tipsy laughter. You laugh too, wanting to be in on the joke.

“That I agree with, but it’s also not fun if she’s always wearing clothes that show them off y’know? Who knows how many guys have already seen the whole thing at this point, with her reputation. No offense, Kook.”

“That’s valid. I wouldn’t date her, that’s for sure.” Jungkook chimes in.

“Is it really that big of a deal? She just has her own style, like Jungkook always wears all black and those combat boots. I don’t see why it’s a bad thing.”

Eunwoo throws a condescending laugh your way, “It’s because her ‘style’ is literally dressing like a slut, y/n. Guys who want actual meaningful relationships are not going to go for a girl who dresses like that. That’s the kind of girl you hit and quit.”

Jungkook can see Eunwoo’s explanation isn’t sitting well with you, so he attempts to soothe your worries, “Don’t worry about it y/n. You’re not like other girls, so you don’t have to worry about things like that.”

“Not like other girls?”

“Yeah, you’re more like one of the guys. That’s why we’re best friends.” He grins his innocent bunny grin, and at the time that’s enough to appease you. It must be a good thing to not be like other girls, you thought, since it got you such a good best friend.

However, you are currently in college and those initial cracks are threatening to crumble down the entire foundation of your friendship. Yugyeom and Eunwoo got into different colleges from you two, so it’s back to just you and Jungkook; however, it’s not the same as before. Jungkook is still the same, spending his days at the library studying and nights in his dorm gaming. You, however, aren’t the same. The summer before this year has been the first summer you and him had spent apart since you became friends, with you going to see your cousins in another state. Growing up, you’d never met your cousins due to your mom’s rocky relationship with your aunt. However, the two of them making up gave you the opportunity to finally meet that side of the family.

The first couple of days were not fun, with you missing Jungkook and also realizing your cousins, Eun-bi and Sol, were the exact type of girls him, Yugyeom, and Eunwoo would look down upon. Their crop tops, short skirts, and dramatic makeup severely put you off at first…but at some point during the trip, you just couldn’t resist. They looked like they were having so much fun, and you wanted to have fun too. So you asked if you could tag along their shopping plans, which they agreed to instantly. That was the first time you saw yourself in a dress (not counting the hideous dresses your mom put you in when you were five), and you’ve never felt prettier. You loved the way it showed off your legs and the little bit of cleavage made you feel damn hot. But there was still a nagging voice in the back of your head, knowing the fit was too revealing for Jungkook’s approval. Still, it was pretty and your cousins wouldn’t let you leave before buying it, so you did. The trip was also the first time you’d ever put anything more than sunscreen and moisturizer on your face, copying your Sol’s actions as she taught you how to do makeup.

That starts the beginning of your makeup obsession. Eyeshadow, in particular, becomes like a drug to you. You can’t imagine a time you’ve enjoyed yourself more than when you were doing your eye makeup with Eun-bi and Sol, all while the three of you quoted the romcoms playing in the background.

So, suffice to say, college y/n is not the y/n you were in high school. Although you’re still not confident to wear a dress or do your makeup outside of your bedroom (especially not in front of Jungkook), you’re becoming more expressive about the things you like.

“What are you watching?” Jungkook looks over your shoulder, taking a break from his studying.

“A makeup influencer I’ve gotten into lately. She’s really talented.” You try to sound nonchalant but it’s nerve-wracking to even say that much to him, scared of being labelled in the same category as the girls he’s talked shit about with the other guys.

He raises a brow and your heart falls to your stomach.

“Since when are you into stuff like that?”

You shrug, still trying to seem casual. “It takes more skill than people think. It’s like creating a piece of art on your face.” You hate that you don’t just say ‘it’s fun,’ rather framing it in a way you think he might validate. His face is etched with judgement, but he doesn’t say the exact words he wants to out loud, choosing a different angle to take instead.

“So you’re watching that instead of studying?”

“I already finished my assignments and readings.”

“Just be careful y/n, things like that can easily distract you from your grades.”

“Don’t be overdramatic,” you chuckle, “if anything, video games would be a bigger distraction.”

He doesn’t laugh along, instead giving you a tight-lipped expression and returning to his essay.

Things go on like that for a couple of  months, with Jungkook never outright disapproving, but looking at you warily every time you express interest in make-up. Still, you’re determined to make him come around. That’s why you buy two tickets for a beauty influencer convention that happens to land on the Saturday of your birthday. You hold the tickets in front of him with big, eager eyes.

“This is really what you want to do for your birthday?”

“Yep. You don’t even have to get me a gift, just come with me!”

He sighs reluctantly, “Okay, if that’s all you really want.”

You bring him into a tight hug, unable to contain your excitement.

By the time Saturday comes around, you’re practically bouncing off the walls in excitement. Not only are some of your favorite makeup artists going to be there, but you’ll finally be able to talk about your favorite hobby with your best friend. The euphoric feeling is enough to push you into doing something you previously thought impossible: deciding to wear a dress and do your makeup to wear out. It’s the same dress Eun-bi picked out for you, aka your only dress, and a sunset cut-crease look from a palette Sol let you have. You look in the mirror with a newfound confidence, elated that Jungkook is making an effort to accept this new you.

Unfortunately, all your excitement washes away the second you open the door to Jungkook’s dorm and see Yugyeom and Eunwoo. “Happy Birthday!” The three men cheer in unision, with Jungkook holding a cake. The dorm is filled with balloons and decorations, and the gesture would be sweet if you didn’t know what it was about to lead into. After the initial cheers, the men take a moment to take in your new appearance. Jungkook’s eyes go wide and the other two start whistling and hollering.

“No one told me the theme for the party was Playboy” Eunwoo laughs.

“Damn y/n, I forgot you had tits!” Yugyeom adds.

Jungkook intervenes, still processing the situation himself, “No teasing the birthday girl! Y/n wait here while I get you one of my sweaters, it won’t be comfortable to game in that.”

“Game? Aren’t we going to the convention?” Your eyes threaten to water but you do your best to hold composure.

“We can go some other time. Besides, you only have two tickets, right?”

“It’s only for tonight, I don’t know when the next one will be…I can see there’s last minute tickets on the site…” you hate how meek your voice is.

Jungkook shakes his head dismissively, “It’s okay y/n, Yugyeom and Eunwoo are only here until tomorrow so we should get our gaming session in before they leave—since it’s something we all enjoy!”

“Convention?” Eunwoo questions.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it” Jungkook laughs off, setting the cake down and ushering everyone to the couch. But you don’t follow. He planned this, you realize.

“You guys go ahead, I think I’m going to go to the convention alone.” You don’t give anyone a chance to react as you spin on your heel and practically run out. Jungkook follows your trail, turning you to face him once you’ve stopped outside the residence hall.

“What’s gotten into you?”

“I just really want to go to this convention.” You’re voice is shaky, the kind of tone you get when you’re trying not to burst into tears.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little much? They moved around their schedules to come see us, and I spent the whole day blowing up all these balloons and decorating the place. I even got your favorite cake!”

“I appreciate it Jungkook, I really do, but you knew how excited I was to go to this convention. It’s all I talked about since you said yes.”

“I just don’t think you’re going to have as much fun as you think you will there.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“C’mon y/n, this isn’t you! You’re not someone who wears skimpy dresses or smears all that shit on their eyes! I just don’t get why you want to be one of those girls all of a sudden.”

There it was, the words he’d been holding back, finally out in the open. You are now one of those girls to him. Girls he doesn’t deem worthy of respect. Something stronger than sadness bubbles inside of you: rage.

“Go to hell, Jungkook.”

You see his eyes go wide, “Excuse me?”

“I said go. to. hell. I’m going to go celebrate my birthday the way I want to, alone.”

You walk away, leaving the man with an incredulous expression.

The uber ride is tense, with you trying your best to hold back the tears. It sounds ridiculous, but you’re too proud of your eyeshadow to ruin it like this, so you put sadness on the backburner and let rage take center stage. You’re livid and you’re not going to give in this time. You’re going to go to this damn convention and have the best birthday ever, without him.

___

The venue is brightly lit, with lines of people waiting for different booths. Your mood brightens up at the sight of your favorite makeup gurus meeting and greeting fans, quickly finding a place in line. The convention is everything you want: live makeup tutorials, goodie bags with samples you’re eager to try, and getting your picture taken with people you admire. Despite the shaky mindset you entered with, you’re genuinely having a good time by yourself. One of the influencers even agrees to record a video saying hi to your cousins, which you know Eun-bi and Sol will love.

It’s an hour in when you meet Ara, a girl waiting to get food in the same line you’re in. She’s insanely pretty, the kind of girl you’d be too intimidated to talk to if she hadn’t initiated the conversation with a “I absolutely adore your eyeshadow!!”

It’s a simple compliment, but it means so much in that moment. You think that’s where the conversation will end but, to your surprise, she keeps talking, asking you about what booths you’ve been to and your favorite things so far. Before you know it, the two of you are gushing about your favorite influencers and makeup looks. You stick to Ara for the rest of the time, admiring how she effortlessly commands a room. Her flowy white skirt and light pink bralette make her look like a fairy from a garden party, not to mention the glowing skin and shimmery eyeshadow. She looks so pretty that you can’t believe she’s also nice—but, fortunately for you, she is.

It’s when you mention that you’re here for your birthday that she pipes up with even more enthusiasm.

“Omg, it’s your birthday?! I’m hitting up a frat party with friends after this, you should totally come!”

Part of you winces at the use of ‘omg’ and ‘totally,’ thinking back to how the guys would say that was bimbo-talk. But you push those prejudices down, focusing instead on the very nice girl in front of you.

“Are you sure that’s okay? I wouldn’t want to intru—”

“We’d be glad to have you! If you vibe with me, you’ll vibe with my friends in no time.”

So you nod, happy you decided to come out tonight. At the very least, you have a new friend. A female friend who happens to go to the same college, nonetheless.

___

Ara leads you into the frat house, holding your hand so you don’t get lost in the crowd of bodies. You tell her how this is you’re first time ever going partying, and she assures you of how fun it is if you’re with the right people. The two of you stop at a decently sized circle of people at the corner of the main room, Ara swings her hand around your shoulder and introduces you to the bunch.

It’s a mix of guys and girls, all who look like they came straight from a modeling gig. She tells you their names one by one, saying the name ‘Namjoon’ extra sweetly. “That one’s my boyfriend” she winks, and the dimpled man waves at you. “The one next to him is Hoseok. He’s Namjoon’s best friend. Hoseok’s actually a member of Beta Tau Sigma.”

“Ah, nice party” you say awkwardly, caught a little off-guard with the way he’s looking at you. It’s not a look you’re used to getting…one of lust.

“I think it just got a little better” he remarks with a confident smirk.

You don’t miss the looks he throws your way the entire night, as if to send signals. You know he’s flirting, but you also don’t know how to flirt back. That changes after alcohol enters your system. It’s only two shots, just enough for a happy buzz, but it increases your confidence dramatically. You don’t know when you make the initiative to dance with the handsome man, but pretty soon his hips are grinding expertly against your ass. The rest of the group cheers on, waving their drinks in the air in support.

Normally, you’d avoid a man like Hoseok. He seems like the kind of guy Jungkook would tell you to stay away from: the fuckboy who’s only after your body, and will break your heart after he gets what he wants. But right now, you don’t care. Jungkook’s already broken your heart, so there’s not much Hoseok could do to hurt you. Not to mention how nice it feels to be desired, for a change. If the boys could see you right now, you’re sure they’d think of every synonym of ‘slut’ in their head, but his hands feel too good on your waist for you to care.

“Wanna chill in my room for a bit?” His breath tickles your ear, voice deep and breathy.

You nod, interlocking your hand with his as he leads you up the stairs. Ara slaps your ass as you pass by, yelling “Go tap that, y/n!” over the blaring music.

His lips are on yours the moment you enter his room, diving in like you’re the most delicious thing in the world. It’s not long before you’re on the bed together, his body pressed to your side as his lips latch onto your neck. You let out a moan when his teeth graze a sensitive spot below your ear, making him attack the area even more fervently. You feel a hand on your chest, groping you over the dress.

It’s too much. You’re not comfortable. But you also don’t know how to say you’re not comfortable without ruining the mood. It’s a warzone in your head when his hand starts going up your thigh.

Maybe I should just go along with it.

I’m overreacting.

It’s just sex.

People do it all the time.

Don’t ruin the mood.

Hoseok notices the lack of moans, pulling away to look at your face, which looks too lost in thought for his liking. “Hey, are you good? Do you wanna keep going?”

You nod but he’s not convinced.

“You don’t seem sure.”

“I’m sure” you lie.

“That was the most unconvincing ‘I’m sure’ I’ve ever heard.”

Your face grows red, embarrassed that he could see right through your façade of confidence.

“Sorry” you mumble, eyes looking down to avoid his.

“Don’t be, it’s cool. I just don’t wanna do anything if you’re not fully into it.”

His words throw you off. This isn’t what Jungkook told you guys like him are like.

“C-can we still make-out? Or it’s totally cool if you want to find someone else! No worries!”

He chuckles in amusement before diving back in to meet your lips, this time keeping the whole vibe more PG-13—aka less groping and more intertwining his fingers in your hair. Surprisingly, Hoseok stays like that with you for the remaining duration of the party. You were sure he’d get bored of it soon, as it’s far tamer than what he’s used to, but he doesn’t. Even more of a surprise is what you two do when you’re not locking lips…talk. Just talk, about everything and anything.

“There’s no way you’ve taken a nap in every building on campus!”

“It’s true! Ask Namjoon! I text him post-napping selcas after every one,” he says with pride, making you burst out into laughter.

The rest of the night is filled with the same banter in between kisses, until you tell him you should probably go back to your place.

“Do you need a ride home? I only had one shot since I was hosting, and that was hours ago. I’m good to drive if you need.”

“Um yeah, actually, that’d be great.”

When the car stops in front of your residence hall is when you ask the question you’ve been debating on whether or not to ask the entire ride.

“Is it lame if I ask what tonight makes us?”

He’s not giving you a judgmental look like you feared, smiling warmly instead.

“I was thinking we could be friends.”

“Friends who make out?”

“If you want that then yeah. Or just friends is cool too. I really like talking to you y/n.”

“I really like talking to you too, Hoseok…and making out with you too.”

“Well then it’s decided” he winks.

___

Monday comes around and you’re heading to the library when you run into two of the girls Ara introduced you to: Jennie and Jisoo.

“Y/n! Come sit with us!” Jennie calls, motioning towards a spot next to her on the library’s lawn. You make your way to them, saying your hellos and how are yous.

“What are you working on?" Jennie questions, in between perfecting her lipstick.

“I’m writing a paper for my child development class.”

“Ooh interesting, so are you like an education major?”

You nod.

“That sounds fun. We’re both in neuroscience..aka we hate ourselves.” Jennie jokes, causing Jisoo to giggle. Your prejudices are once again put in check when they mention their majors.

The three of you get to working on your respective assignments. You get distracted, however, by your phone buzzing.

Kook: Where are you? We should talk.

You: I’m outside the library.

Kook: I’m omw.

 You feel a sense of relief wash over. He texted first. He wants to apologize, surely. So you jump up when you see him, excusing yourself from the girls to make your way over.

What you expect is a string of apologies and him coming to his senses, what you get, however, is a different story.

“What the fuck y/n.”

You look at him puzzled.

“I can’t believe you fucking ditched us to spread your legs for Jung Hoseok.”

“Jungkook what are yo—”

“Save it, everyone from that frat party saw you two going to his room together.”

“But that’s not wh—”

“Do you even know how stupid of a decision that was?! Losing your virginity to him, of all people? You know what people say about girls that sleep with Hoseok, don’t you? Were you that desperate for dick that you just threw yourself at the first guy willing?”

Tears start prickling your cheeks.

“Great, I can’t even call you out on your bullshit without you crying.”

“Wh-why are you being so mean?” You manage to squeak out.

“Are you stupid? It’s because I don’t want a best friend who sluts around, obviously. I can forgive you since this is the first time, and I know how manipulative guys like Hoseok can be, but only if you go back to being the y/n that I kno—”

“Or we can stop being friends” you interrupt, defeated.

He stills, body freezing at your words. “What?”

“I’m tired, Jungkook. I’m tired of all of this. Let’s just stop.”

“Y/n—”

“Bye Jungkook.”

You wipe your tears and go back to sit with Jennie and Jisoo, feigning ignorance when they ask what’s wrong.

____

A/N: Thank you for reading! Hope your day is going well <3 Reblogs and comments are highly appreciated!

#jungkook x reader #hoseok x reader #bts angst #bts smut #bts x reader #hopekook

[rickktish]

A list of mutable batfam headcanons that live inside my brain:

Steph deserves to be 6’ minimum, preferably 6’1” or 2”

Bruce is constantly trying to balance his need to be at the same eye level or above the people he’s intimidating vs his need to do his funky little gargoyle crouch. His favorite thing about the GCPD roof is that it has lots of surfaces he can crouch on and still meet or look down at Gordon’s eye level

Tim and Damian suffer from “too similar to get along” disease and must either become best friends or despise each other until the end of time

Babs prefers light, natural toned makeup. Steph prefers pops of color and decent amounts of jewelry when she can get away with it. Cass prefers jewelry and no makeup at all

Jason’s comfort meals are all variations on soup served with bread for dipping

Jason is of the opinion that Fitzwilliam Darcy is an ass at the beginning of the book and it’s a good thing he decided to change himself so he could take his place as Best Fictional Man Ever. Dick, who read the book in order to be able to connect with Jason better, is of the opinion that Fitzwilliam Darcy has done nothing wrong ever and only needed to work on his social skills, meaning that it’s his improved ability to communicate that makes him worthy of Elizabeth Bennet at the end. Neither of them wants to listen to Tim’s analysis of what this says about their relationships with Bruce

Duke has never engaged in non-Alfred approved chaos. This is not because Duke seeks Alfred’s approval, but rather because their senses of humor are in perfect alignment and Alfred is always pleased to discover that he approves of Duke’s particular instances of chaos even after the fact

Damian never had stuffed animals growing up, but after being corrupted by Dick’s influence he can no longer sleep without a minimum of one in his bed

Damian collects posters and articulable action figures. His favorite ones are the ones that can stand on their own, which he uses for posing practice in his drawings. His favorite figure is of one of the characters in Cheese Vikings who has a zuko-esque backstory and a secret propensity for gardening

Dick always buys the most beat up box of cereal at the grocery store because he feels bad for them

Cass loves not only ballet, but other works by classical composers as well. She will unironically listen to the local classical station, and can identify the Borodin String Quartet by the sound of their instruments alone

Tim and Bruce watch and read Gray Ghost media in all its various forms and discuss it together as a bonding activity

Alfred and Jason’s shared birthday is usually celebrated with them making each other cakes, meaning that everyone gets to enjoy not one but two cakes for the day

Jason specializes in cheesecake above all other cakes, though he did make Damian a black forest cake for his birthday once right after he’d finished playing Portal

Literally everyone is surprised when they learn that Damian plays video games. No one has ever once looked at him and thought “yeah, i bet that kid plays console games” and he’s actually really insecure about it, but he also refuses to wear any kind of merch outside the house. He owns dozens of gaming and anime T-shirts but refuses to be seen as anything but completely neutral outside his own territory

Most of the bats wear drug-detecting nail polish at all times, though the base and reactive colors vary by the bat in question

Bruce and Dick have both had therapists straightup quit on them and are therefore reluctant to go back to therapy ever again

Duke’s favorite book is Walden Pond

Alfred read Lord of the Rings aloud to Bruce when he was a kid

#dc #batfam #batman #bruce wayne #dick grayson #alfred pennyworth #jason todd #tim drake #cass cain #stephanie brown #duke thomas #barbara gordon #headcanons #hc #nightwing #robin #red hood #red robin #spoiler #orphan #batgirl

[kanonavi]

Something that will never cease to rot my brain is just how brilliantly mhy have developed Xiao's character over the past three years. I'm lucky enough to have started playing Genshin before he was added to the game (which does of course mean newer players have probably had a different experience of him, I'll get into that later) so I've been there for every single moment that Xiao appeared and it's always so amazing to me just how much effort has been put into him. (Long rant and Mild Spoilers for the Poetry Gala Event below lol)

Xiao in the Archon quest and in 1.3 (both in his character quest and 1.3 Lantern Rite) compared to Xiao in the most recent event is truly like night and day, and what's most impressive about that is that how he acts in the poetry event feels completely true to his character. Xiao has earned this gentleness over the past three years, as the traveler but also the other people he's met have urged him to open up and interact with others more often.

This really couldn't have been achieved without mhy taking advantage of every scrap of screen time Xiao has gotten. They absolutely have favorites and Xiao is for sure one of them. I'll use Moonchase as a comparison to the Poetry Gala. Back then we saw Xiao on screen for maybe 5 minutes at most, appearing because the traveler called him, tasting Xiangling's dish and giving her a compliment (at least for his standards for giving compliments) and then disappearing. But now we see him at the poetry event being invited to join by Venti and Hu Tao (and him not outright refusing!!), and then staying to socialize with Chongyun's group when everyone (not just the traveler) asks him to.

3.4 Lantern Rite and the Poetry Gala have felt like the biggest steps due to the fact that we see Xiao actively participating in activities of his own volition. Most of his appearances before 3.4 (and even after, counting Baizhu's quest) are dictated by about 2.5 factors. The first is his duty: protecting Liyue from evil, more specifically keeping its people safe from these evils. The second is being called by the traveler, an act which I would consider a symbol of their friendship later on, but in the beginning and probably still in a lingering capacity now I think can be attributed to a sense of debt towards them. They helped save Liyue in a time of crisis, after having no obligation to do so, and someone like Xiao who takes his duties in protecting Liyue so seriously would absolutely feel like he owes a complete outsider like the traveler a debt after they kinda did his job for him. So much of Xiao's character is about debts, after all. That even ties into the 2.5th reason, where he would probably feel some obligation to appear at Lantern Rite because Zhongli would be there, though it's unclear if Hu Tao mentioned he would be so it might not even count in that case.

Now we see Xiao participating in events on the invitation of Hu Tao and Venti who are seeking him out because they see him as a friend. We see him taking not only the traveler's feelings into account when asked to participate, but also Chongyun and Diona's. It's such a far cry from his "I don't associate with mortals" attitude that we saw back in 2021.

That barely even touches the shift we've seen in his demeanor either. Back in 2021, Xiao always spoke very curtly and in as few words as possible, always seeming displeased any time he had to hold a conversation, but now he's loosened up so much that the difference is honestly staggering. It even shows through in his birthday letters from 2021 vs. 2023 (And even here we see him going out of his way to socialize of his own volition, so proud of him!):

I've gone back and forth between EN and CN voiceovers in the past year, so some of Xiao's appearances I've only experienced in CN, but hearing him in the Poetry Gala event in EN I can only give his voice actress a thousand kudos for how amazing her performance is. Xiao's voice has softened with time, and it's such a small detail, but I honestly think that it's what hammers his growth home more than anything else for me. He's not only willing to have full conversations with people he's less familiar with now, but he also doesn't feel the need to speak as harshly to them either, and that's really amazing to hear play out in the game.

Xiao's voicelines are so fascinating to me for that very reason, because they act as a time capsule for how he was back in 2021, and that's just not what he sounds like anymore. Obviously, voice actors' performances of their characters will shift with time but Xiao is the only character for which I can say that his demeanor really has just changed with time. Of course, I think that in some cases this does actually make sense, namely if a newer player pulls Xiao and has only gotten to experience the Archon Quest and maybe his Character Quest. In that case, all of the time that has passed simply doesn't exist. But at the same time I can only imagine how funny it would be for a long-time player who simply never pulled Xiao for one reason or another to pull him and listen to his lines and hear his older, edgier self lol

Though on that note I do also need to point out the biggest downside of all of this, and what is perhaps my greatest sadness about Xiao's character development, which is that new Genshin players simply won't have the chance to experience it. There are many characters who get the short end of the stick with the nature of Genshin's serialized storytelling and limited-time events (Albedo, Kazuha, and a plethora of 4 stars who don't get featured much, just to name a few), but I think Xiao's actually saddens me the most, because I believe the time that has passed is the greatest strength when it comes to this development. People will get to see his arc from the Archon Quest to Perilous Trail (and thank god they preserved Perilous Trail as an Interlude), but even that is still a shadow of Xiao's actual progression over the years.

These days, newer Genshin players may have only seen Xiao in the Liyue Archon Quest before playing the Poetry Gala event (unless Perilous Trail is a prereq, which I don't know off the top of my head), and I can't even imagine how jarring it would be to see how he acts there and then immediately see him in this event. The way that time works in this case would probably just make it seem like mhy doesn't know what they're doing with Xiao when in reality three years of development have been compressed into a matter of weeks. Knowing that, I'm grateful to have been able to experience his story in its truest form, but it also cannot go unacknowledged that some aspects of Genshin's story have a shorter shelf life than others. It's a major problem with the game, from some perspectives, but at the same time it's just a consequence of how it's being developed.

Anyway, I just needed to gush after seeing Xiao absolutely steal the show in part 2 of the quest with his quiet participation and little smile (crying). He's so good and I love him so much, and it's so nice to see what they've done with him after he finally got some semblance of closure after Perilous Trail <3

#genshin impact #xiao #hey listen! #Don't mind me just out here having rabid blorbo thoughts #I am holding him in my cupped hands so so much #I can't wait for part 3 of this event I want to see him again #I am the target audience for this whole event and man do I feel targeted #Four of my all time favorite characters are here and they expect me to not be ill about it? Impossible.

[apathetic-pixel-42]

hello, I noticed that you write for shaman king and I wanted to request if you could make like oneshots or head cannons about the boys realizing that they fell for the reader. You can use any gender you want. Thank you!

Hiii!! Thank you so much for your request!! I hope you love it! <33333

Shaman King Boys Realizing That They're In Love 💌

Includes: Yoh, Horohoro, Ren, Lyserg, Chocolove, and Hao

Yoh:

I think when Yoh first figured out that he had feelings for you, he'd definitely have a mini mental crisis.

I mean, he planned on marrying Anna after all! Imagine what would happen if he tried to call it off.

He'd probably take some time to clear his mind, asking his friends and family for any advice on what to do.

He'd eventually talk it out with Anna, which surprisingly goes quite well. No hard feelings and even some words of encouragement!

During this time, I think he'd definitely be a bit distant. I don't think he'd actively try to avoid you, but he'd probably be less talkative or touchy.

However, once he has everything sorted out, he'd slowly start actively pursuing you.

There'd be little changes in his behavior: he'd be hugging you or holding your hand more often, naturally standing closer to you, staring at you more often, and the likes!

It probably wouldn't be super noticeable at first, since you guys would probably be close friends before all of this.

If you don't get the hint, then he'd start upping up the ante. He'd start spending more alone time with you, gifting you little trinkets, training with you, etc.

Eventually, he'd have the courage to confess to you. Of course, if you confess to him first, he'd be ecstatic.

Overall, super sweet and chill about the whole thing. He'd have his awkward moments, but he's super relaxed and comfortable around you.

Horohoro:

Another one who'd have a mental crisis, but for different reasons.

Given what happened last time Horohoro liked someone, he's terrified that you'll end up with the same fate.

He almost immediately becomes distant, too lost in his fears and intrusive thoughts to actually consider what he's doing.

It isn't until someone like Ren or Yoh knocks some sense into him that he understands what he's actually doing.

He takes a lot of time to himself, reflecting on what he should do and if he should even try to pursue you at all.

Not only that, but he also has to consider a lot of other circumstances! With the competition still going on, Hao's presence, and his own personality, who knows what'll happen?

He's so scared about scaring you away. He doesn't want to hurt you, but he also doesn't want someone to target you.

If you confronted him first, he'd be extremely nervous. He'd be serious though, explaining his fears and apologizing for pushing you away.

If you didn't confront him, he'd probably approach you when he knew he couldn't avoid it any longer. He tells you about the issue, wholeheartedly expecting you to reject him.

If you reject him, he'd understand. If you reciprocated his feelings, he'd be so grateful and happy. It'd take him a while to get fully comfortable with the new situation, but you'd get to see the old, playful Horohoro soon enough.

He'd be stuck by your side, always at your beck and call whenever you needed him. He's super protective and clingy, always going to you whenever something upsets him. Overall, it'd be a bit of work in the beginning, but he'd be super sweet and loyal!

Ren:

I can see this going one of two ways. He'd either be super confident and accepting of his feelings, or he'd be panicked and freaking out. Maybe both.

Ren's the kind of guy who confronts his problems head on, but he seems to struggle when it comes to an internal problem.

He probably seeks out Yoh's advice first. I mean come on, Yoh's the one with a fiancé after all.

Ren also talks to his family, asking them about how he should go about this. He also wants some other points of view on the matter. After all, he wants to be prepared for every possibility.

He takes some time to prepare. He plans out an outline of what he wants to say, but he also prepares himself for rejection.

Once he feels ready, he approaches you nonchalantly. He keeps his confession short and sweet, laying out the basic foundation of what he wanted and what he'd like if you agreed.

If you reject him, he understands and quickly moves on. It would depend on you whether or not your relationship with him changes, but he wouldn't be too bothered by it.

If you accepted his feelings, he'd be pleased. He'd sit down and quickly establish stuff like boundaries. He's let you know about the stuff that comes with beings his partner, and you'd do the same.

He's not super physically affectionate, but he makes up for it through acts of service.

He's also a bit protective given the enemies him and his family have, so he's usually stuck by your side.

Overall, he's super loyal despite not being super vulnerable. It'd take some time for both of you to find a normal routine, but he'd eventually get the hang of it.

Lyserg:

Lyserg is definitely one of the more complicated ones on this list.

Given how good Lyserg appears to be when it comes to hiding his feelings, I honestly don't know how he'd react when he first realizes his feeling for you.

Whether or not he's with the X-Laws, I think he'd be conflicted on what to do.

I see Lyserg as the one who doesn't do anything about his feelings. He tries pushing them down, hoping that they'll eventually just go away.

I doubt that he'll approach you about it, so you'd probably be the one to confront him about his behavior.

I also think it'd be a lot worse if he had just joined the X-Laws. He'd be missing you terribly, but he'd also be actively ignoring you and pushing you away.

With everything and everyone in the way, you'd probably get fed up or give up. He's not surprised, but he slowly becomes more frantic and persistent in wanting to see you.

If you agree to meet, he'd confess everything. He'd probably cry and beg for at least your forgiveness, promising to never do this again.

If you reject him, he cries himself to sleep that night. If you accept his feelings, he runs to you sobbing. He hugs you tightly, nuzzling into your shoulder and accidently getting your shirt wet.

He'd actively start working on himself in order to help the relationship, even sticking up to Marco a few times. He's not the most affectionate, but I see him as a guy who's great with words. He'd write you little love letters, expressing his love for you and how grateful he was for you.

Overall, he's super sweet and affectionate behind closed doors. He's more modest around the group, but he makes sure too make up for it.

Chocolove:

The most accepting and reassured with his feelings out of the entire group.

When he first realized he fell for you, he didn't mind acknowledging it. Sure, he felt a little embarrassed, but he couldn't help but feel giddy.

He wouldn't change the way he acted around you, but it'd be obvious that he was taking a liking to you. He'd be more playful, more touchy, and he'd do more jokes and stunts to get your praise and attention.

If you reciprocated with teasing remarks, you can expect him to be flustered as hell. He'd quickly regain his composure though, teasing and playfully flirting back.

This wouldn't change when he became blind, but I think he'd start spending more alone time with you.

With everything that'd happened, he'd be a lot more vulnerable with you. The loss of his friends hit him hard, and he doesn't want to take his time with you for granted.

He'd initiate small acts of physical affection, testing the waters to see what you like and don't like. Once you were comfortable with each other, then he'll start being more openly affectionate around the others.

Wrapping his arm around your shoulders, hugging you, holding your hand, it doesn't matter. If you like it, then he likes it.

Eventually, he'd build up the courage to properly confess. Maybe with a cheesy pun, but it's certainly adorable.

If you reject him, he'll understand and back off despite being disappointed. If you accept him, he'll be so happy that he'll pick you up and twirl you around.

Overall, the most playful and relaxed. He'll have his flustered and embarrassed moments, but he knows you love it.

Hao:

The most confident about his feelings. The second he realizes what he's feeling, he immediately begins pursing you.

If you were on his team, he'd pursue you in private. He'd start hanging out with you more, but he doesn't beat around the bush about his feelings.

If you weren't on his side, then he'd have fun messing with you. He'd show up at random times, teasing you relentlessly just to get your attention.

Sometimes after your fights, he'd secretly approach you and compliment your skill. He doesn't do this with amateurs, so he considers you special.

Given his mind reading abilities, he'll automatically know whether you like him or not. Even if you don't feel the same, he'll still continue his fun until he's bored.

If you happen to be bold, he'll happily have flirting sessions with you. His remarks are teasing and playful, but they can sometimes become a little possessive.

He doesn't necessarily feel the need to confess, but he will nonetheless. In private, under the stars, he'll take your hand and ask you to rule beside him.

Breaking the news to the others doesn't matter to him, but he'll be alright with keeping the relationship a secret if you really wanted to.

You'll have to make up for his lack of physical affection from the last 1000 years, so be prepared for a lot of late night snuggles. He'd only be affectionate in private, since he doesn't need anyone else knowing about his weakness: you.

When he becomes the Shaman King, he gives you the option of whether or not you want to stay with him in the Great Spirit. Though, he'd much prefer if you stayed with him.

Overall, he's infatuated with you. After years of being alone, he's grateful to have you by his side.

#shaman king x reader #hao asakura x reader #horohoro x reader #lyserg diethel x reader #ren tao x reader #yoh asakura x reader #chocolove mcdonald x reader #headcannons

[angelicalacrimae]

thinking about that scene in kaze to ki no uta where gilbert is just having fun playing tag with some adults, specifically this one girl called sophia/sofia and she's like, treating him so well, and gilbert doesn't have a mother so auguste KNOWS that the poor thing (7 years old) is seeking her attention in replacement for anne marie's neglect, and so he just goes and says "okay fun is over i need you to come here now" and someone (rebec) mentions how gilbert's light "faded" at that very moment.

"that look isn't normal in a child! that's the face of resignation, he's suppressed all his instinct to fight ..."

and then gilbert (who is 7 at the time, it's been 2 years since the abuse started) walks away with auguste.

there's SO much to say starting with the fact that gilbert's attitude is nothing like the one we're shown in the actual timeline (this is from a flashback) and he's, basically, a whole different person in comparison, which fits with the way auguste raised him.

since his purpose was to make a "perfect masterpiece", he had to strip gilbert of who he was from the root, first attacking his "survival instincts", then treating him as if he was incapable of doing anything or learning anything despite the fact that gilbert taught himself to read (at like, 6-7) because he was interested in art, and so on, auguste is just taking away bits and pieces of gilbert to make him what he wants him to be, but he's never clear with what he's demanding of him so gilbert is a mess

the scene also highlights how he flinches at the sight of auguste, and looks nervous when he approaches him and sofia, but when auguste gives his final veredict (that "playtime is over") he just leaves without saying much, because he knows it's pointless, auguste will do anything to drive the people who care about gilbert away even if they will never do anything to stop the abuse. gilbert knows this subconsciously, i doubt he can explain it, but i think there's some level of acknowledgment on his part.

gilbert is not entirely lost at this point though, he's on his way out but he has some of his instincts, he knows that auguste means danger (also shown by their first meeting, gilbert just keeps repeating "danger, he's dangerous, he'll do something to me". this eventually stops as gilbert realizes auguste is the only person around him who "cares" -it stops after their encounter, the one right after bonnard kidnaps him- and instead of pushing him away, he starts to want to be around him more, the evident fear is no longer there, but auguste still haunts his decisions and the way he interacts with others -serge-)

now, remember rebec???? he knows about the abuse, he's definitely worried about the impact it has on gilbert, but he never does anything to stop it because auguste is a close friend of his. i won't go into detail but. that's realistic!!!! okay ending this point to add:

i think the way gilbert was written and described is really good, and as much as i HATE auguste he's also pretty well written too in a weird way. he has many flaws, but he's a perfect "villain" for this i think.

think of humbert humbert from lolita as a base, both of them use flowery language to make their acts sound less terrible (auguste constantly describes his acts towards gilbert as art, as "necessary for his development", as something that's right despite it not being so)

see 41:50 - 43:40

(it's not really evident in this scene i think? but you can see the way he speaks about it, he makes it sound as if it was something necessary, as if it was something that gilbert will benefit from even though it's just abuse)

gilbert IS a different person than he was years ago, and the only person to blame is auguste, that one scene i mentioned at the beginning is just a transition period between point A (rejection, fear, gilbert doesn't want to indulge in this) and point B (acceptance, he's actively seeking it even if he hates it)

gilbert has never wanted to do this, all he wanted was to be held by someone because everyone around him neglected that need, as serge said once: "he was starved (of love) and i could provide him with that"

but, eventually, he learned to suppress that need and, as the world changed his view on him (hypersexual behaviors that were previously encouraged are now seen as strange and gross, gilbert doesn't understand why the change) gilbert just had to go with it, accepting that he would always be seen as someone bad no matter what, he thinks he's broken in some way, that he will corrupt others if they dare to help him, which i think it's a key point to understand if you want to understand why he acts the way he does towards serge:

"doesn't he hate it? if he does, why is he pushing serge (the only person who ACTUALLY helps him) away?"

because he doesn't THINK he deserves it, he thinks he's going to corrupt serge if he does, everyone thinks that, everyone stays in their lane, no one has ever done anything to stop it and when they tried they were pushed away by auguste, and gilbert wanted auguste's approval! he wants him to like him! so he continues, and the cycle never ends ...

#gilbert cocteau #auguste beau #kaze to ki no uta #風と木の詩 #serge battour #gilbertology

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 49 – Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

Introduction

I forget who initially recommended me this book, but I owe them an incredible debt. Really the only disappointing thing is that I hadn’t heard of it even sooner, as this really is just perfectly tailored to appeal to me specifically. First science fiction/fantasy novel I can remember reading in a long time that I actively wished was longer. As a testament to how much I liked this book – this review is long enough to need subheadings.

So! Some Desperate Glory is a space opera, following Kyr (Valkyr, technically), a 17-year-old cadet and genetically enhanced ‘warbreed’ golden girl of Gaea Station – that being the quasi-fascist statelet of militant dead-enders who fled to a desolate planetoid in a dead system to continue the war after aliens destroyed the earth/most of humanity. After she gets assigned to Nursery (read: breeding the next generation of soldiers) instead of a combat wing and has a crisis of faith, she talks herself into running away to help her brother on the suicide mission terrorist attack he was deployed on. With the help of one of her brother’s friends and a captured alien, she manages it, discovers that her brother had absolutely no intention of actually following orders once he’d made it out, and take it upon herself to do her own, better, terrorism. From there the plot gets weird, and I’m going to spoil it shamelessly talking about it, but if you value surprises when reading at all just stop this review and go read it.

The Heroine

Kyr is, and I say this lovingly, the most insufferable bitch of a 17-year-old military brat I’ve ever spent time in the head of (at least at first). Even compared to the other indoctrinated child soldiers she’s the cop nobody likes. She then spends the first third to half of the book unlearning this indoctrination, by which I mean very arduously and painfully reaching a point of ‘the fascist cult was a corruption and black mark on the good name of the death cult vengeful crusade, I’ll do it better’ and ‘it’s probably okay to not, like, personally hate aliens who were too young to have been alive when the earth was destroyed. Torturing them for no reason is wrong, like abusing animals was, back when there were animals’. She spends the entire book expecting on a bone-deep level to get herself killed for the cause, and at the end of the book is only like 10% of the way better (one of the last beats in the entire story is, standing with one of her only friends and sure they’re both about to run out of life support, offering to snap their neck for them because ‘asphyxiation’s a nasty way to go’). Whenever she is confronted with the idea that some people aren’t constantly aware of the possibility of physical violence or get to live their lives as something other than a bullet in the gun seeking vengeance for a dead planet she wants to scream and smash things at the unfairness of it all. I adore her.

Honestly my only real complaint is how quickly she starts mellowing out in the second and third acts of the story. There’s extenuating circumstances (whole extra life of memories, time loop bullshit, forcibly confronted with what she said she wanted and what it looks like, etc), but past the one real big hump it did rather feel like her character development suddenly became a bit smooth and easy/. This is one of the things I’m talking about when I say I wish the book was longer – everything after the first big climax and the time travel/universe editing felt kind of rushed and abbreviated.

As far as being a #problematic fave goes, Kyr was also very carefully kept from being, like, directly personally culpable for anything really unforgivable. Which I do understand why from a wanting people to sympathize with the racist homophobic fascist child soldier, but like – you’ve already introduced time travel and retroactivity. C’mon, don’t get cold feet now. Let her and Avi really share the ‘killed trillions in a universe that retroactively never happened’ credit.

Also, and entirely tangentially – you know how in a lot of action shows, the hero has incredibly emotionally tense rivalries and/or camaraderie with other guys, and then also an extremely conventionally feminine girlfriend off to the side somewhere who does like two things in the entire story and mostly seems to exist to prove he’s straight? Kyr has that, except she is textually gay (if incredibly repressed about it and like 90% of the way to asexual in terms of libido). Sorry Lis, but you are literally barely a character. Cleo’s right there, and already has a personality that’s more than two bullet points and is actually involved in the plot in ways beyond ‘love interest’.

Gaea Station

The shitty fascist asteroid habitat that Kyr grew up on is (if barely) the primary setting of the story, and as far as portrayals of incredibly unbalanced and fundamentally broken society just full of cultlike and ultranationalist neuross. I kind of love it as a dystopian setting, though I feel like the author kind of over-egged the pudding on it by the end of the book.

Society is organized into what feels like an intentional parody of a lot of YA dystopia setups, where you live in a tightly integrated mess all through adolescence (each with their own heraldic animal to idenity with!) but then at 17 your exams determine the branch of society you will be assigned to for the rest of your life to do your duty for humanity. Of course, unlike most YA dystopias, the System isn’t the result of some leviathan-state ruling the fates of millions or a tradition that’s going back generations upon generations – it’s a ramshackle mess that can barely consistently feed its warrior elites enough protein slop to take advantage of their genetically engineered hormone levels for muscle growth. It’s all so clearly and intentionally artificial and fake that it loops around to feeling extremely realistic.

Also do love how the elder generation all have names like Joel or Ursa or Elena, while the younger generation are all Valkyr and Magnus and Avicenna and Zenobia. The only really surprising thing is that they don’t specifically call out how children are raised in common and without individual families as following Plato’s Republic – it’s exactly the sort of attempt to create a grand unifying mythology for all of Earth’s true and vengeful children.

I really do wish Tesh had trusted the reader a bit more about it, though. Like, we can tell that almost all the names of the younger generation are either historical figures form the Mediterranean/Greco-Roman world or Norse mythology (with a few exceptions like Avicenna who fit the general aesthetic if not those exact conditions), which puts a bit of a lie to the whole ‘pan-human’ bit. It’s a clever bit of characterization through worldbuilding! You don’t need to call it out twice in dialogue between characters and then again in an in-universe scholarly essay excerpt at the start of a chapter. I can’t complain too badly though, she’s really not even close to being the worst for that I’ve read recently.

One thing I did like especially because I don’t think it was ever called out and brought front and centre is just the sort of, like, perfect irony of both Kyr and her brother Magnus – ‘warbreed’ engineered supersoldiers with physical capabilities beyond any baseline human, blonde aryan ubermensch, the golden children and eugenic future of Gaea Station/true humanity – both being queer and totally unsuited to their assigned gender roles. If it was, like, specifically brought up in a big monologue as disproof of the Gaean ideology or something it’d feel much too on the nose, but as just a set of facts underlying the characterization of the protagonists I liked it quite a lot.

Trio Dynamics

They don’t actually have all that much pagecount spent together, now that I think about it, but as far as I’m concerned the absolute heart of the story is the dynamic between Kyr, Avi (Avicenna, genius-level hacker and cynical rat bastard discontented Gaea Station restaurant) and Yiso (young and rebellious Prince of the Wisdom, taken captive by Gaea when they’re personal ship came too close and then liberated/kidnapped by the other two in their escape attempt). It’s peak trauma-bonding in that the first time it involves a) Avi torturing Yiso to force the alien supercomputer to let him access it and b) Kyr shooting Avi in the head after he uses access to the supercomputer to wipe out 90% of galactic civilization as payback for the whole ‘destroyed Earth with an antimatter missile’ thing (she got a case of morals when confronted with what ‘winning’ would mean. Also her brother shooting himself.)

By all rights they should absolutely hate each other and after two temporal recursions and oceans of retroactively unspilled blood on all their hands they’re the only people who even slightly understand each other. At one point Kyr tells Yiso ‘just so you know, I don’t really care about you as a person,’ and then immideately thinks ‘that was a lie. Why did I say that?’ Avi and Kyr both deprogram themselves from the cult that raised them but only the ‘loyalty to the cult’ bits and not the ‘alien race war vengance death cult’ bits. Yiso meets Kyr in an atemporal training simulation and gets retroactive Stockholm syndrone even though the first time they actually meet she breaks their ribs for repressed teenager reasons. They all drive me absolutely insane and I absolutely adore them. Even if Avi’s redemption felt waaaaay too rushed and unjustified in the final recursion, willing to forgive it here.

Time Loops

The big twist of the story is that, having fucked up and enabled Avi taking vengeance for Earth by doing the same thing to every other alien species, Kyr jumps into the alien supercomputer time manipulation buisness wholesale and goes back to prevent the destruction of Earth. Which then fast forwards to her being a newly minted officer in the Terran Expeditionary Fleet that is the imperial power dominating the known galaxy in increasingly high-collateral damage ways as time goes on. Yiso, in this timeline the beating heart and soul of the main alien resistance group, seeks her out and restores her memories and they go back to try and hijack the alien supercomputer before the government office whose hijacked its crippled remnants (as helmed by the alternate-timeline version of Gaea Station’s great leader, now a fleet admiral of the ‘Providence’ division) manage to literally destroy the universe.

It is mostly down to all the fanfic I’ve read, but I really, really adore timeline divergences that ropagate out and leave all the major characters different but similar people in alien yet appropriate situations. I also adore time travel stories about someone turning the timeline into swiss cheese trying to brute force their way to the one and only golden ending. So I adore this whole conceit. Really my only complaint is that there were only two (one and a half, really) recursions. Not that I’m demanding a full groundhog day here. But, like, it’d have been nice. And Kyr/Avi/Yiso continuously bumping into each other in different configurations and usually ending up at gunpoint would have been ann absolutely amazing bit.

Space Orcs

I can’t be sure Tesh actually had any exposure to the whole online meme of ‘humans as space orcs’, but I do and it’s really impossible to read the book as anything but an examination of the idea. Compared to every alien species ever encountered, humans are tall, heavy, muscular, impulsive, and violent. In a one-on-one confrontation they’ll snap any other species’ neck. The very first pages of the book are an excerpt from an in-universe text writing for an aliens about how actually really humans are very intelligent, and then talking about how threat displays and ‘human culture’. In the original timeline they even fit into the usual social niche of orcs in a lot of fantasy these days – the scattered and diminished remnants of a brutal empire that was defeated and mostly-exterminated in their attempts to conquer the universe.

The book’s handling of this doesn’t really have a point, as far as I can tell – the worldbuilding’s sufficiently divorced from anything real that trying to call it a commentary on racism or genocide or conquering empires is a stretch. (It is after all a fundamental point of the book that the obliteration of earth and extermination of the vast majority of humanity really was the only way the Wisdom could prevent the Terran Federation from conquering the known galaxy. Which is I’m extremely sure not something the author intends to be a historical analogy.) I found it a fun bit of worldbuilding and interesting subversion of normal space opera tropes regarding humanity’s relative abilities, anyway.

Theodicy

Is an incredibly pretentious way to title this section, but also in a sense kind of the core of the book’s plot? In an interesting way, and I think it’s really the book’s greatest weakness that it doesn’t explore or grapple with it enough.

Which is to say – the Wisdom is at the heart of galactic civilization. It’s an alien AI with vague but vast (though limited) reality-warping and precognitive powers. It does not rule the civilizations that accept it, but guides them as a benevolent god towards best, happiest outcomes with whatever support they ask for or need. To determine what ‘best’ means, it creates its Princes, vat-grown heirs to the dead species that created it, with a lifespan of millenia spent going through simulations and interacting with the world to provide the data and decision-making it requires to make that sort of strategic decision.

The Terran Federation’s attempt to reverse-engineer or hijack the Wisdom put it in a situation where the only solution its princes could find was to destroy the better part of humanity and even more of their industry and culture. Through the plot of the first acts of the book, Kyr and her genius-level-hacker friend hijack a node of it and Kyr convinces/forces it to accept her decision-making instead of its prince (who they just killed). This results in an explicitly colonialist human empire ruling over aliens as oppressed subjects, and using the half-wrecked and poorly understood Wisdom to eliminate threats before they occur (shunting the reality backlash off to alien worlds they don’t care about). The next acts of the book mostly resolve around fixing or reverting this, and end with Kyr diving back into a node and having another conversation with it.

A conversation which is basically it giving up. It reverts things back to the human-genocide timeline, then shuts down its infrastructure and goes dark, leaving the entire mostly pacifistic and loosely governed galactic civilization it had protected suddenly on its own. Humanity were such assholes we found a loving god and then convinced it to kill itself.

Which, like, could 100% totally work. As far as high concept short story prompts go its incredible. But as far as actually driving the action goes the Wisdom is the one who makes the most important deciisons in the entire book, and determine the entire shape of the plot. For it to land, it really really needed more than two and a half short conversations on screen, at least to me.

TL:DR

Good book, lesbian doing space atrocities, should have been longer.

#book review #sff #some desperate glory #emily tesh #lesbian space atrocities #space opera

[after-midnight-notes]

What Do People Assume About You? | General Tarot Reading, Pick-a-Card

Disclaimer! Tarot is for entertainment purposes only & not meant to dictate professional or medical advice.

relax & choose with your intuition ✨

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Pile 1 | Dendritic Agate

Cards Drawn: The Star, Eight of Coins, King of Coins, Order (Moon in Virgo), Eight of Hearts (Sun), Eight of Hearts (Moon)

What’s really interesting in this pile is that the cards pulled for the position of the sun and the moon are literally the same card mirroring one another. You seem like the kind of person that doesn’t like to beat around the bush for practical reasons, meaning, you don’t feel the need to shield away vital aspects of your character from others. It’s like “well, why would I present myself as someone that’s different from who I actually am, that’s no way to make friends,” which is such a practical way to look at meeting people that it’s pretty endearing! So while you’re logical in your sincerity, you tend to be upfront and genuine which is something people feel gravitated towards. As well as this, you’re persistent and tend to see each of your agendas through to the end. Even when things get difficult, it’s like you also have a realistic approach to hopefulness and are thinking one step ahead. When disappointing things happen to you, you are able to honor both your emotional body and your logic to begin to dust yourself off and move forward. Now, persistence isn’t usually a pretty thing, so even when you are feeling down, as if something is unconquerable, people still look up to you and your ethics. They don’t have to see or feel all the hardships that you’ve had to overcome, they only see that you continuously succeed. This could cause some some people to view you as conceited or arrogant when in reality they aren’t seeing the whole picture of what actually goes into your accomplishments. If you were to ask me, I’d avoid those types of people, but at the same time they aren’t always upfront about their ill-feelings. Naturally, you are more reserved and modest with your emotions, but you’re still true to yourself in all that you do and know when it’s appropriate to share your emotions in an orderly fashion—because of this people find you quite genuine and kind, they can find themselves drawn to your sincerity since that emotional side of you is not so commonly shared with others. No matter what their opinions or you, it’s no question that people wonder about you. In your mysterious you’ve given them just enough to linger and imagine what’s really going on inside of your mind. All in all, I think you’re a proper gem :)

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Pile 11 | Carnelian

Cards Drawn: Page of Swords, Ace of Cups, Eight of Swords, Flattery (Venus in Gemini), Three of Spades (Sun), Seven of Hearts (Moon)

When people first meet you, they immediately are drawn in with your wit and charm. It’s like you ooze a particular friendliness that makes you easy to talk to, once people have found themselves finished with the conversation they will find themselves in awe of such a natural interaction. I think this could have been developed in your childhood/early adolescence as a form of ‘people pleasing’, and it probably started off as a way of observing people to get the best possible reaction from them. You also naturally had the gift of communication to begin with and wanted to ensure that people got the best possible impression from you. It’s also possible that you could use people as an external force to keep negative emotions at bay, and instead of listening to these uncomfortable sensations you’d much rather find a friend to spend time with. There’s nothing wrong with reaching out to people during times of need yet it seems like there’s a certain level of avoidance here that needs to be addressed. It could also be an unconscious decision to seek out activities to do during times of distress. Regardless, for as invested as you are in your social life, there is also give-and-take involved. Meaning that you tend to get in over your head when it comes to people, resulting in a fierce burnout that is completely unavoidable despite your efforts. It can come at inopportune times as well, making you come across as unreliable to others and prone to broken promises. Of course, I don’t think this is intentional on your part at all and you absolutely despise letting others down. Because you have the tendency to ignore your emotions at times when they are low, it accumulates to the point where you can’t ignore them anymore. You may be thinking to yourself that the people pleasing aspect of yourself is the root of your charm and conversational talent, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. People see you and are drawn to you not because of your agreeability, but because you offer something fresh and new, a colorful and characteristic perspective. They are drawn to you because of your heart. The people that benefit from your tendencies to prioritize others above yourself wouldn’t put in that same amount of effort if asked to return it, so largely they are undeserving of your time. The people that are worth your time and energy are the ones that would be more than happy to see you commit to boundaries that would help to heal you.

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Pile 111 | Polychrome Jasper

Cards Drawn: The Lovers, The Star, The Fool, Decision (Mars in Gemini), Ace of Clubs (Sun), Ace of Spades (Moon)

When people think of you, they see someone who is very confident and carefree, perhaps a little childish, who loves to live in the moment and has an abundance of optimism and prosperity. In their eyes, nothing could ever go wrong for you, everything always ends up in place even if you are making reckless and hasty decisions. You’re able to take risks without ever feeling the weight of a consequence and you face everything with vivacious liberty. Some people might wonder how you’ve made it so long being as lighthearted as you are, especially when it appears as though you just march into whatever happens to be going on without a second thought or sweat. These people are able to think this way because on the inside you bottle it all up, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible. On the inside, it’s a careful process of calculation and purpose, a balancing act. There’s definitely a prevalent worry, whether it is about the future or bad luck that prefers to translate itself into an exact opposite: vivaciousness. You probably shy away from difficult topics and debates because you hate being the bearer of bad news. In most cases, when things get uncomfortable or difficult between other people, you’d much rather remain as clueless as most people paint you as to be as unaffected as possible. Despite this façade, you are actually quite dexterous, being somewhat of a “jack of all trades”. You’re quick-witted and passionate about your opinions even if others don’t see it often compared to the other side of you. The more you shy away from the argumentative aspects of yourself, it could come as a detriment. Quick decision making skills as well the natural inquiry to gather information makes you sharp, you think fast and hit even faster. Most people wouldn’t expect this from you, especially at first glance since they don’t see the need to assume much from your imaginative and vivacious personality. In fact, many people might write you off as unprofessional or immature due to the fact they can’t harmonize both aspects of themselves as well as you can. You have the ability to showcase that two seemingly contrasting aspects can coexist together harmoniously, seriousness and the not-so-serious, and you definitely make people take a double-take when you’re able to switch between being happy-go-lucky and astute, forcing people to know that you’re not one to underestimate.

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Pile 1v | Black Moonstone

Cards Drawn: The Hanged Man (Reversed), Seven of Wands, Judgement, Detachment (Venus in Aquarius), Nine of Spades (Sun), Queen of Diamonds (Moon)

The first thing I felt while shuffling for this pile was the sensation of gentle waves slowly pulling a rowboat back and forth—of course, the reason why the boat wasn’t being dragged off with the currents was because it was still steadily tied to a dock. This analogy especially feels fitting for this pile because you definitely seem like the kind of person that lies in wait and is overly cautious. People may consider you a homebody or anxious due to your long periods of inactivity. Your way of making friends is not standard, and you like to appear as ‘friendly’ without being too warm. This could be because of a hesitancy to become close to new people out of fear of the unknown or apparent judgement due to the fact that you’ve been told in the past that your mannerisms and habits are odd. You’re the kind of person that assumes the worst but hopes for the best, but mentally you gravitate more towards thinking and pondering the worse which lends a hand in your stagnation and apprehension towards change. If you aren’t 100% sure of a situation or person, it’s highly unlikely you’re willing to go out of your way (and comfort zone) to be around it. There’s quite a heavy level of shoving required to even get you to consider leaving your comfort zone, however there is another side to this coin as you are very tied and true to your moral code, even if others find it eccentric. Because of this, if certain occasions arise that fit into the description of your ethics, you would follow suit and see it through. Once the initial ‘shove’ is through, it slowly opens you up and allows new opportunities to trickle through slowly but surely. It could be possible that, on some level, you would like to be seen as someone outgoing and friendly while still remaining true to who you are. No matter what, you remain loyal to what you know to be right and wrong and base your actions off of this code intently. Due to your habit of long pondering, your morals are hard and fast, and they could be a reason why you take so much time making sure that you are as correct as possible. There wouldn’t be a time where you could simply disregard your moral code for anything. Where people read you wrong is that they assume you’re just not interested in making friends or being around others. You definitely have an inclination to just as anybody else would have as a social creature, you simply like to pick and choose your moments based on your comfort and you prioritize this over most things.

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#tarot #pick a card #tarot pac #pac reading #pick a card tarot #general tarot reading #witchblr #divination #free tarot reading #tarot reading #free tarot #tarot community #witch community #tarotblr #intuitive #intuitive tarot reading #spiritually #astrology #cartomancy #oracle reading #tarot readings

[necroromantics]

X virus uhh uhh uhhh ye. Basic hcs of how he acts w different creeps?

🧪 — The X-Virus + Creeps

shit kid. poison tongue.

- cody is an asocial freak. he spends his days picking out homeless or addict victims, people who wont be missed, and would rather run experiments on them than make friends.

- cody wont actively seek out interaction with other creeps, and sometimes will purposely avoid them. they just get in the way in the end.

- that being said though, he does have a few notable connections. most of which were brought to him by fate

- ticci toby. cody grew up as an only child, he never had the opportunity to experience what its like to have a brother. but he saw himself and his past so heavily etched into this other boy. the two clicked very well, like two birds of a feather. due to their jobs, they very rarely actually had opportunities to see each other, but when fate brought the two back, it was like there was never any time between them.

- they both understand what its like to be a proxy, even if cody doesn’t quite know the extent toby has gone. but they’re both killers, they’re both damned. and they spend their time together messing around in the forest, or tormenting people, or stealing candy from corner stores. they both have the same sense of humour, and they like similar things.

- in a twisted way, cody looks up to his senior and toby would slowly begin to warm up to the idea of a little brother figure. some moments, when they’re hanging out in a dark, empty park after a job, they almost seem normal. two friends having fun, doing as the young do. just two kids who made a couple of reckless mistakes.

- eyeless jack. cody knows jack through toby. and while the beast is the creeps designated medic, he definitely doesn’t help just anyone. and cody is far too confident in his abilities to seek any help from the demon. so the two’s relationship doesn’t extend further than trade of chemicals and medicine, or casual encounters in the forest.

- they don’t necessarily get along badly, but they don’t have a deep connection by any means. jack sees cody as a reckless, selfish kid, just as he does with toby. and cody sees jack as a too-quiet, ominous being who he’d like to pressure into doing experiments on someday.

- nurse ann. if cody really needs medical assistance, he will visit ann. cody has major mommy issues, and theres that part in him that’d never admit he clings to her a bit to fill that void.

- ann looks out for cody, in a scolding type of way. she isn’t interested in having some kid with an attitude make a mess of her practice. but she is definitely curious about his experiments, especially the ones he does on corpses.

- “what did you do this time, little rabbit?” “man this tweaker bit me”

- nina the killer. definitely a fun time between the two. they have each others numbers. theyre both scene/emo kids at heart, and they share the same music taste so they’ll hangout together and blast get scared or ghost town together.

- nina doesn’t kill, shes only jeff’s accomplice, so cody and her will just spend their time together tormenting random homeless folk or old people on the street. and if you throw toby into the equation, the whole town will become these kids victim for the night.

- kate the chaser. he probably first found her holed up in an abandoned hospital room, scavenging for medical supplies. his initial reaction was “oh shit-“

- kate and cody are close. not as bonded as him and toby, but god knows these two have been around the block. they smoke together, and kate will sometimes just say fuck it and do research chemicals with him.

- they have a chill friendship. nothing deep or emotionally charged, but something to fall back on, because having allies is better than making enemies in this world

#tombwrites #creepypasta #creepypasta fandom #creepypasta headcanon #x virus #xvirus #creepypasta cody #creepypasta xvirus #x virus headcanon #xvirus headcanons #creepypasta xvirus headcanons

[laugtherhyena]

Ingrid Elise Sauer-Von Dutch

So, why did i make a Daarin kid if i don't ship them? Simple, me and my friends were chatting about a concept i had of them and we kept talking and talking which ended up in me developing said concept and my friend writing about it. Highly recommend reading if you're up for pain, he's an awesome writer!

What's the concept, you may ask?

The idea is that Daan and Karin are the only survivors of Temrina, being the only people who share such traumatic experience they stick together afterwards and form this unhealthy relationship where there's no love or comfort however they're dependant one another and the prospect of being left behind by the partner is far too frightening.

They seek comfort from one another by indulging in drinking and sexual acts, since neither of them will comfort the other in normal means, it's in this bender that their unwanted child is conceived.

As you can probably guess, neither of them woulf be good parents in the state they're in. Karin burries herself in her work and personal project of exposing what happened in prehevil to the world, hardly ever speaking or taking care of the kid usually just telling Ingird to don't bother her. While Daan was, at best, a distant father he feels a sense of obligation in taking care of their child, while he never spoke much to her he would be the one to prepare meals and take care of her when she got sick.

Much like in Daan's B ending, Pocketcat never leaves him, after Ingird is born it feels like the cat's presence is becoming worse, as if he's observing him on every dark corner of the house. This eventually becomes too much and afraid that Pocketcat could grow to prey on Ingrid Daan left them, feeling that this was the best way he could keep Ingrid safe from that monster as Pocketcat would continue to follow him wherever he goes.

This makes Karin furious, betrayed, terrified. Ingrid was only 3 years old and now she had to take care of her because there was no one else to do so. She got worse. She didn't like looking at the child, that regret, that burden.

As Ingrid grew older Karin put her on every extra activity you can imagine, language classes, dance lessons, literature club, you name it, anything to keep her out of the house and away from Karin as long as possible. One of these activities was piano classes, the only one out of all them in which Ingrid actually enjoyed learning, even if it started as an obligation she found comfort in the melody, it was her way to let out all of her emotions in a healthy manner.

At age 15 Ingrid went to a boarding school and both her and Karin couldn't be happier that they wouldn't have to live together anymore. On the day she left her childhood residence Karin handed her an old letter, it was written by Daan, a message he left for his child to read once she was older, an explanation for his departure. Karin thought about ripping, burning or destroying this letter many times through the years, he left them on their own he doesn't deserve this. Yet, Karin could never bring herself to do so.

Having it handed to their only child could very well be this man's last will, it didn't felt right for it to never reach Ingrid's hands.

At the end of the day, the tormented child appreciated her father's words.

#Daan and Karin are t4t in this btw #that's the whole reason why this kid exists #man can't perform an abortion on himself #fear and hunger #fear and hunger termina #fear and hunger karin #fear and hunger daan #fear and hunger oc #fankid #Ingrid Elise #hyena scribbles #termina oc

[macleod]

The importance of stupidity in scientific research

I recently saw an old friend for the first time in many years. We had been Ph.D. students at the same time, both studying science, although in different areas. She later dropped out of graduate school, went to Harvard Law School and is now a senior lawyer for a major environmental organization. At some point, the conversation turned to why she had left graduate school. To my utter astonishment, she said it was because it made her feel stupid. After a couple of years of feeling stupid every day, she was ready to do something else.

I had thought of her as one of the brightest people I knew and her subsequent career supports that view. What she said bothered me. I kept thinking about it; sometime the next day, it hit me. Science makes me feel stupid too. It's just that I've gotten used to it. So used to it, in fact, that I actively seek out new opportunities to feel stupid. I wouldn't know what to do without that feeling. I even think it's supposed to be this way. Let me explain.

For almost all of us, one of the reasons that we liked science in high school and college is that we were good at it. That can't be the only reason – fascination with understanding the physical world and an emotional need to discover new things has to enter into it too. But high-school and college science means taking courses, and doing well in courses means getting the right answers on tests. If you know those answers, you do well and get to feel smart.

A Ph.D., in which you have to do a research project, is a whole different thing. For me, it was a daunting task. How could I possibly frame the questions that would lead to significant discoveries; design and interpret an experiment so that the conclusions were absolutely convincing; foresee difficulties and see ways around them, or, failing that, solve them when they occurred? My Ph.D. project was somewhat interdisciplinary and, for a while, whenever I ran into a problem, I pestered the faculty in my department who were experts in the various disciplines that I needed. I remember the day when Henry Taube (who won the Nobel Prize two years later) told me he didn't know how to solve the problem I was having in his area. I was a third-year graduate student and I figured that Taube knew about 1000 times more than I did (conservative estimate). If he didn't have the answer, nobody did.

That's when it hit me: nobody did. That's why it was a research problem. And being my research problem, it was up to me to solve. Once I faced that fact, I solved the problem in a couple of days. (It wasn't really very hard; I just had to try a few things.) The crucial lesson was that the scope of things I didn't know wasn't merely vast; it was, for all practical purposes, infinite. That realization, instead of being discouraging, was liberating. If our ignorance is infinite, the only possible course of action is to muddle through as best we can.

I'd like to suggest that our Ph.D. programs often do students a disservice in two ways. First, I don't think students are made to understand how hard it is to do research. And how very, very hard it is to do important research. It's a lot harder than taking even very demanding courses. What makes it difficult is that research is immersion in the unknown. We just don't know what we're doing. We can't be sure whether we're asking the right question or doing the right experiment until we get the answer or the result. Admittedly, science is made harder by competition for grants and space in top journals. But apart from all of that, doing significant research is intrinsically hard and changing departmental, institutional or national policies will not succeed in lessening its intrinsic difficulty.

Second, we don't do a good enough job of teaching our students how to be productively stupid – that is, if we don't feel stupid it means we're not really trying. I'm not talking about `relative stupidity', in which the other students in the class actually read the material, think about it and ace the exam, whereas you don't. I'm also not talking about bright people who might be working in areas that don't match their talents. Science involves confronting our `absolute stupidity'. That kind of stupidity is an existential fact, inherent in our efforts to push our way into the unknown. Preliminary and thesis exams have the right idea when the faculty committee pushes until the student starts getting the answers wrong or gives up and says, `I don't know'. The point of the exam isn't to see if the student gets all the answers right. If they do, it's the faculty who failed the exam. The point is to identify the student's weaknesses, partly to see where they need to invest some effort and partly to see whether the student's knowledge fails at a sufficiently high level that they are ready to take on a research project.

Productive stupidity means being ignorant by choice. Focusing on important questions puts us in the awkward position of being ignorant. One of the beautiful things about science is that it allows us to bumble along, getting it wrong time after time, and feel perfectly fine as long as we learn something each time. No doubt, this can be difficult for students who are accustomed to getting the answers right. No doubt, reasonable levels of confidence and emotional resilience help, but I think scientific education might do more to ease what is a very big transition: from learning what other people once discovered to making your own discoveries. The more comfortable we become with being stupid, the deeper we will wade into the unknown and the more likely we are to make big discoveries.

#Science #Reports #Mine

[loveyourownsmiilee]

Talking Buddie Language: Ep 6.09

The season 6a finale being directed by Brenna Malloy was honestly so good for us. This woman is known for being a huge Buddie shipper and has given us some of their most iconic moments on screen. Tonight’s episode felt like she had one mission and that was to make sure to have Buck and Eddie next to each other in every shot. And she made it happen!! This episode was the first episode all season long where we not only had many Buck and Eddie interactions, but also shared looks and them being Buck&Eddie again in a sense. I really am looking forward to seeing how the second half of the season plays out and how the writers plan on bringing them closer together. But for now, let’s dive into Ms. Brenna’s creative choices because there were a lot, if I do say so myself.

Severed Hands, I Feel Like We’ve Seen This Before

Some of my fondest Buck and Eddie moments from the previous seasons are when they get all excited and work together to solve a mystery. Back in 3.09, we had them being all cute looking for the severed fingers of the figure skater and tonight’s episode was very reminiscent of that.

Right from the beginning, we get Buck talking all excitedly, while Eddie engages him and teases him in that loving way he’s known to do.

B: Every year I think, That’s it we’ve seen everything now and then the Santa Ana’s blow and it’s like “Oh look something weirder.”

E: The severed hand, we’ve seen those before.

B: Yeah usually in the general vicinity of its owner.

I love how even though Bobby is right there in between these two, they can’t help from both looking at each other and just simply talking to each other. It’s so wholesome and honestly very domestic of them to do. I also love how Eddie always, always listens when Buck talks and engages in further conversation to prove to him that he’s heard everything he’s said. It’s a huge thing considering Buck’s upbringing and how he probably felt invisible to his parents growing up. Eddie’s done this many times in the past and he will continue doing so because he really is a great partner to Buck, both on and off the field.

Then, when everyone spreads out to go searching for the owner of this missing hand, I love how we get a moment where the two men immediately look at each other and silently check in. The subtle head nod and acceptance is done so seamlessly and quickly in only a manner those two understand. It’s such a small moment but it speaks volumes on how connected those two are, and how they always seem to seek one another while at work. Something about wanting to make sure the other’s ok and a simple look is enough to suffice both men just really does make me happy.

The moment in which the friend of the guy with the missing hand steals the hand and runs away, makes me laugh because of Buck’s immediate reaction being, “Not it” as he looks at Eddie, signaling it as his turn to chase the guy. This makes me think of the moment in 6.04 where he stole the bicycle and rode after the drunk driver, only to have Eddie drop what he was doing and yell after him in concern. This was Buck’s way of saying, “Yeah not this time. I’ll stand here and look pretty because I don’t want another lecture.” Now I don’t know if he got a lecture or not but I found it funny that Eddie was left to be the one doing the chasing this time. Which brings me to my other thought.

We know, courtesy of 4.14, that Buck told Taylor he was done chasing people. But as we saw in season 5, he went after her when she went to Oklahoma. Then we saw him being the one to end things. Now this season, the man still doesn’t have a couch which means he’s not actively thinking about dating and is alright with just taking things slow. So what if his little comment to Eddie signified something more to come later on? Now bare with me. We know he’s still going through the sperm donor stuff and Eddie will be questioning on whether or not he’s ready to date again in 6b. So what if this was a subtle way to foreshadow Eddie being the one who does the chasing, as in he’s the one who makes the first move about his feelings for Buck. Now I can totally be off base, but his little line made me think of Buck chasing after people and then I thought of the line in 6.01 about not seeing those in front of him. And well, I think it just makes sense for Eddie to not only realize his feelings first, but to be the one pursuing Buck when he does.

After, when they’re treating the men with the severed body parts, I can’t help but mention how often Eddie and Buck share looks between each other. It’s literally like they look at one another because they’re each other’s safe place.

C: Got the finger!

B: I got it! *runs to get the finger*

Now why I mentioned this specific moment is because of how the camera focuses on Eddie’s expression to Buck walking to get the finger. I’ve always emphasized how Eddie never ever looks away from Buck. I scream about this as much as I possibly can and this was just another example of him carefully tracking Buck with his eyes. Not only that but he looks different in a way? I mean this doesn’t look very platonic to me. Just look at those eyes and how he tracks Buck’s movements and tell me you can’t see some heat behind them?

B: Cap, small issue. This is a thumb.

BN: He’s not missing a thumb.

E: There’s another victim.

As Eddie says this, he once again looks over at Buck. No words are exchanged between the two but Eddie knows to grab the ice box and Buck oh so seamlessly hands off the severed thumb to Eddie. This just shows once again how amazing they work together. It’s just easy with these two. Also, tell me this scene doesn’t scream husband energy? 😂

Naked Sleep Drivers Are a Thing?

Before I get into the actual sleep driver, I want to mention something because I feel like it was a bit of a foreshadowing. When Bobby is listening to Wendell’s voicemail, it made me think of how it kind of has some Buck undertones.

W: You ever do something that doesn’t go like you planned? I tried, I really tried to be a good man but I’m tired now. So tired.

Now something about this really does scream Buck especially with what he’s going through right now. Later on when he’s talking to Hen and Chim, he says something that’s kind of similar to this and this made me start thinking things. We know this is going to affect Bobby tremendously. But you know what else may affect him horribly? If the person he sees as a pseudo son is breaking down and repeating similar words as Wendell did. I just feel like this potentially foreshadows a moment later on between Bobby and Buck, where maybe the pregnancy doesn’t end up working out. Or maybe it does and it’s hitting Buck hard that this isn’t what he wanted and he’s losing the fight. And Bobby has to witness someone else he loves breaking down and I don’t know, I just feel like I can see a scene between them that’s similar to the one with Wendell’s voicemail.

Another thing to mention before we get into the naked sleep driver is what Eddie says to Hen when they’re talking about Denny.

E: He almost lost one of his moms. It’s only natural that it’d get him thinking about the mother he doesn’t know.

Look, we all know Eddie got shot and how that affected his son. Chris was not doing too well at the possibility of losing his only surviving parent. He’s already lost his mother and he came so close to losing his father. And what happens to him if he does lose Eddie? Has Eddie discussed his will with Christopher? Does he know he would go to Buck should anything happen to Eddie? Or how does Christopher feel if something were to happen to his Buck? We know he’s not just a family friend or just a best friend. He’s borderline co-parenting Christopher and I believe Christopher knows that to some extent. Otherwise he wouldn’t feel so safe and natural calling Buck in an emergency, and he wouldn’t run off to Buck when he’s mad at his father. So I think it’s going to be interesting to see what Christopher’s reaction may be to possibly losing another parental figure and how that can affect him as well.

The entire scene with the naked sleep driving woman was so funny. The two single and supposed “straight” men are the ones who are bothered by her nakedness the most, going out of their way to make it clear they’re not looking. I swear nothing about Buck and Eddie’s reaction in that scene was screaming heterosexual to me 😂 Eddie literally seemed so offended and couldn’t believe Bobby wanted him to approach her car while she was naked. Sure one can say they’re just being respectful men. But they’re firefighters and their exaggerations were hilarious to me. It’s ok boys, we know what you two are 😏

B: Ok this is not a dream I’ve had before.

E: Is she…

B: Naked.

Love love love them finishing each other’s sentences like the cute husbands they are. Also, I really wonder what kind of dreams Buck has that involve the firehouse but no naked women. Hmmm interesting. I will say that he did keep glancing over at Eddie one too many times and Eddie back at Buck, so really that does seem interesting to me.

Another small quick mention is when the team is questioning the lady. I love how Buck is being all serious when he asks her his question, even though everyone else look shocked.

B: And do you always sleep in the nude?

The boy was asking a serious question. Maybe he wanted to know if it was possible she was with someone who drugged her and took off her clothes. My favorite thing is Eddie’s reaction to Buck’s question because it’s his patented exasperated husband look. He raises his eyebrows and looks over at Buck like, “I can’t believe I’m in love with this idiot.” This reminds me of this one tiktok I saw where this man asks a woman if this is her man and she says, “That’s mine. That’s my man and I’m gonna stick beside him.” Well that’s literally Eddie in that very situation 😂

(Gifs by @matan4il 💜)

Rooftop Chats With Some Hot Chocolate

I’ve really been loving how much of our core team we’ve gotten this season. Any and all moments of them chatting immediately brings a smile to my face. When Buck finally joins them, I love how the camera pans to the chair next to Eddie, almost as if he saved Buck a seat.

B: Can’t sleep when there’s cars driving unannounced into the building.

E: Would you prefer an announcement?

B: Uh, I would.

I love when Eddie reverts to his little teasing/flirting ways with Buck. Anytime we see Eddie teasing him, we know it’s him really flirting with the man. He always does this and it’s such a wonderful aspect of their relationship.

Another thing to note about Buck and Eddie here in this scene is how Eddie simply handing off Buck’s hot chocolate to him is so husband shaped. It’s literally Eddie handing off a hot drink but the way it’s so careful and familiar tells me they do this kind of thing often.

When Bobby asks the team if then smell that and Buck responds with “Fire”, he once more looks over to Eddie who’s already looking at him. It’s something small but oh so very them. This is what I mean when I say they’re each others safe place. Their entire team is there but when things get rough, their eyes find each others and they just know everything will be alright.

A Patch of Wildfire?

The wildfire was definitely not what I was expecting. But I was glad that Bobby quickly paired Buck and Eddie together, while pairing Chim and Hen together.

I think the scene where Bobby realizes the body is of Wendell’s, while Eddie is there was very touching considering their relationship last season. They’ve come a long way from Eddie telling Bobby to “Go to hell”. And I think this isn’t going to be the last time we see these two together when things get tough. If we do get Buck injured, those two are his closest people and I can imagine Eddie and Bobby leaning on one another during that time.

Four-away Conference Call

I laughed so hard during the conference call. Chimney is trying to buy the “murder house” while Hen is worried about her son. Meanwhile Buck is calling them to tell them all his news.

B: Gimme a second, let me grab Eddie.

E: Yo!

B: Uh hey man. You’re on with me, Hen, and Chim.

E: Looks like the winds got us all tonight.

Now not only is Buck once more inviting Eddie like he usually does, but he just knew Eddie would pick up, even though it’s very late in the night. It shows that those two have this unspoken agreement between them where when one calls, the other just picks up. The fact that Buck says that so confidentially just proves that Eddie’s always picked up whenever he’s called. These are things we don’t get to see often but just knowing they exist speaks volumes to me. Buck’s little smile after Eddie’s comment also proves that he’s really smitten with Eddie. He always smiles his little fond Eddie smile when Eddie literally opens his mouth.

Now when Buck finally tells them his news, I want to focus on Eddie’s lack of a response.

B: Officially responsible for the creation of new life. I guess maybe that’s easier when you could just say I’m gonna be a father.

H: Whoa whoa whoa, Conner and Kameron are pregnant?

B: Yes, they are having a baby.

C: Congratulations. Oh wait so we congratulate you?

E: I don’t know. Kinda feels weird to congratulate him.

The only thing Eddie says to Buck’s news isn’t even said to Buck, but to Chimney. Not only that, but the emphasis on congratulate is very harsh and you can kind of hear the disappointment and dislike he’s feeling. He’s clearly not happy about this news and you can tell from his facial expression as well when he looks away and lifts his brows up, opens his mouth in disbelief. He didn’t really think this was an actuality and it feels like it just got so real for Eddie at that moment. He looks like he wants to say something, but doesn’t.

After they can’t get a hold of Bobby, Eddie literally just wants to leave as soon as possible. He goes so far as even lying a bit to leave that conversation, before even hearing how his best friend feels about all of this. You can see it in Buck’s face that moment that he knows Eddie isn’t being his self and wants to question him, but doesn’t get the chance.

E: Ok guys. Gonna try to take a nap. Chris is gonna be up in an hour. Great. See you guys tomorrow.

And before anyone can respond, he just hangs up on them all. Now this is Eddie we’re talking about. He cares about Buck so so much and he knows, at least to some extent, that he’s not doing this for the right reasons. But you can tell there’s some jealousy underlying his features during this entire scene and this is clearly a subject he doesn’t want to discuss. Which begs the question: why? Why isn’t he happy for his best friend? Why doesn’t he want to find out Buck’s feelings about this all? Why haven’t they discussed this more in depth? Something tells me we will find out the answers to these in the second half of the season!

After Eddie’s departure, we get both Hen and Chimney checking in with Buck about his news.

H: Hey Buck you never said, how are you feeling about this creation of new life?

B: I mean I’m ha, I’m happy. You know happy for them. I, I, was worried. What if it didn’t work out and me saying yes, just ended up setting them up for more disappointment.

C: So you’re good?

B: Yeah. I, I, uh think I am. In fact, I feel like I can finally go and get some sleep. Goodnight.

The fact that he’s stuttering and clearly putting on a fake smile shows he’s not really all that happy or all that fine about this situation. When he mentions how he was worried because he didn’t want to disappoint them, it really reminded the audience why he did this in the first place. He didn’t do this because this was going to make him happy. No. He did this because he was literally born to save someone’s life and he failed at that. He’s lived his whole life not knowing what love is, only to find out later on that he wasn’t loved because he couldn’t save his brother’s life. So he saw this as an opportunity to use his body and help bring another life into this world. He wanted to make two parents happy and he didn’t want anything to go wrong because he was afraid of disappointing them, just like he did with his own parents. These are all issues this man needs to work through in therapy, and yet he’s here acting as if he’s alright, when he’s going to crash and burn real soon. This is not a real smile. This is him trying to put on this facade and fool everyone, including himself into thinking this is all done for some greater good. He’s going to realize soon how wrong he was with all of this.

The Couch of It All

I love how the ending scene included all the couples sleeping together. But the montage started with Eddie alone, sleeping on his couch. Then immediately panning over to Buck sleeping, alone on his bed. I love how they were both turned to the opposite sides and it made it look like they would be a perfect fit if they ever slept beside each other. A few key things I want to mention.

Eddie was sleeping on his couch. We know Buck is still in need of a couch and he’s probably going to eventually go on some hunt for a new one. Now I find it super telling that we have Eddie, on his couch right before the camera pans to Buck. It’s almost as if they’re kinda providing us the dots in a way? Imagine a world where Buck does get injured and has to stay with someone since he doesn’t have a couch. And as he’s on this couch, he comes to certain realizations and decides that he’s always had his couch and it’s been here, in this very place, since the beginning.

(Gif by @captainsoldat 💜)

Seeing the little firefighter onesie on Buck’s bedside absolutely destroyed me. This entire storyline is going to completely shatter him and I firmly believe Eddie will be the one who helps him pick up all the pieces. The last thing I want to mention is that while the camera focused on the onesie next to Buck, it also focused on the game controller next to Eddie. Both of those things mean something similar to each man. To Eddie it means his son and the family he has. To Buck it means the possibility of having a child, even thought he won’t really get to parent them. Now again I’ve mentioned time and time again how these two men are on similar but separate journeys. Somehow, both of their journeys’ themes involve parenthood. So something tells me, given what snippets we got about 6b, that their journeys will eventually meet and become one by the end of this season. Both men are searching for something; Eddie a partner who is going to love his child as much as he does but also makes him happy & Buck a family for himself, who love him as unconditionally as he them. And I believe they will come to realize that those people they’ve been searching for has been in front of them this entire time. I truly think their journey’s are going to come together and 6b will give us a lot of Buck and Eddie wholesome and significant moments and I for one, can’t wait to see where their stories go from here.

Many thanks to @aa-lionheart for all the other gifs. You’ve been a godsend friend 💜

#buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #911 spoilers #911 speculation #911 on fox #911 meta #buddie meta #buddie language meta

[flightfoot]

So I have no idea how asks work, I hope o am doing the right thing.

Sooooo any miraculous fan fiction suggestion? Maybe something chloe focused? Because I am basically running out of fic about that on ao3,butaybe maybe maybe you can help me? Thank you!!!!!!!!!!(oh and thank you even if you don't aswer oh and sorry if I am disturbing you!!!!!)

Have a nice day :)

I'm happy to help! I read a crapton of Miraculous fics so I can help. I'm glad you specified Chloe fics because well, I need something to go off of.

Oh yeah, it probably goes without saying if you know me at all, but none of these fics will demonize Alya, Adrien, the class, any of that sort. I don't tolerate those fics.

So first of all, @generalluxun really likes to write Chloe fics, so looking through his AO3 page is probably a good idea. I Won't Let You, which is a one-shot of Felix and Chloe talking at the Hawkmoth defeat party, empathizing with each other's circumstances, is a particular favorite of mine, if you want a taste.

Now onto the rest of the fic recs!

well somewhere along the way our words I must've gotten lost by @noirshitsuji

Beelya where Queen Bee visits the Césaire house after Alya writes an article about her fighting Mr. Pigeon alone. Normally Chloé would like the publicity but Alya had titled it ‘The Birds and the Bees’. After that she ends up coming back to complain about her mother. And her father. And about the fact that her oldest friend seems uncomfortable around her. Her visits becomes weekly, then almost nightly. (Don’t forget to include Chloé redemption (and some “Bee Movie” jokes).) * Alya isn’t quite sure how she ended up here, in a place where she isn’t even surprised Chloé would seek her out to talk about her dad, where she wouldn’t even mind her doing so, where she would expect it, where she would– (–thud. She might be in trouble.)

I loved seeing Alya's and Chloe's relationship grow and change through the years here, becoming closer and trusting each other more!

---

Can't Sleep Either, Huh? by EmeraldButterfly

Chloe gets up late at night. Turns out she’s not the only one who’s worried about Pollen. (AU where former Miraculous holders have an empathetic link with their kwamis)

This one's really short, but I love Zoe and Chloe comforting each other, since they can both feel what Pollen's going through at Monarch's hands over the link.

---

at our wedding by @anna-scribbles

“Chloé,” Adrien said slowly, “At our wedding, are we gonna have to…” “No!” Chloé shook her head firmly. “We don’t have to kiss. We can do whatever we want. It’s our wedding.” “Oh, good,” Adrien sighed. “You have to kiss at a wedding,” Félix argued. “I don’t have to do anything and you’re not the boss of me!” Chloé shouted. “Yeah!” Adrien grinned. He grabbed Chloé’s hand again. “Yeah, it’s our wedding.” // Adrien and Chloé, wedding planning through the years.

This one's great for seeing how Adrien's and Chloe's relationship in particular has changed over the years, though Felix is involved a lot as well.

---

Restorative Justice by @kasienda

Chloé has never been a fan of Ms. Bustier’s community building activities. In fact, she detests them. She doesn’t want to learn about the drab boring lives of her peers. And she absolutely can’t stand it when their confessions make her feel things. Feelings that she doesn’t even have names for. But when Adrien unknowingly shares his struggles with his double life, Chloé vows she will do anything to get Ladybug to set things right. Even if it means pissing off the heroine. Chloé was already mad at her anyway.

I love this, everyone sits down in a circle and talks about their feelings and problems and work on making things BETTER, on healing and fixing things.

---

This last one is a special treat, it's one of the best Miraculous fics I've ever read (and that is saying a LOT).

Hold Me By Both Hands by @angelofthequeers

“I know he said never to take you back,” Plagg mutters. “But he’d change his tune if he knew.” He looks Adrien straight in the eye and, more serious than Adrien’s ever seen him before, says, “There’s someone you gotta meet. He’s been looking for that book for ages.” How differently might the events of season 2 have gone if Adrien had also known of Master Fu from the start?

This is a rewrite of seasons 2 and 3, with Lila being active and sneakier, Adrien not being left in the dark, and everyone talking things out a lot more. I ADORE the interweaving plot threads of this fic, it's fairly episodic in nature and it packs a lot into its word count.

The single best plotline it has, and the one that shoots it up to the top of my list of best ML fics, is its Chloe Redemption plotline.

Basically, Adrien says he won't be friends with Chloe unless she starts treating people decently, and so, taking this to heart, she goes looking for help in learning how to do that because well, she doesn't want to lose Adrien. So naturally, she goes to Marinette.

Marinette helps, but there are no shortcuts here. If you've seen The Good Place, Chloe's character arc here is a lot like Eleanor's was there, with her not only needing to learn how to be nicer to people, but t find reasons to WANT to be a better person, outside of simply wanting to avoid a bad outcome. I literally wrote an essay about Chloe's character development in this fic, THAT'S how much I loved it.

Anyway, seriously, check this fic out!

#ask #miraculous ladybug #ml fanfic rec #chloe bourgeois

[froot-batty]

Hello! I am in love with your AU, it tickles my brain just right and I adore everything about it. So I just have a couple questions:

1. Why is Jervis so eepy all the time? Does she have narcolepsy? Is it a side effect of his brain damage? Or is she just like that?

2. So this Jon is aspec, right? Who does he love/care about, and how does he show his love and affection to him? (Also bonus: does Jon go by "it" exclusively when Scarecrow?)

Thank you!!!! And have a lovely day ^^

Thank you very much !! I'm always glad to know my AU is infecting people like a little brain parasite

Jervis is permanently eepy mostly because of the brain damage, yeah! She liked to sleep before the bump to the head (it was a kind of coping mechanism - to sleep through her problems - and it has been ever since she was a kid), but it only got worse as a result of that

One of the symptoms he experiences is a whole ton of fatigue. Chronic migraines paired with muscle weakness make a lot of activities physically exhausting for him, so sleep is one of the ways he recharges or escapes from particularly painful days

Also, sometimes it's just a good excuse to cuddle up with your friends :]

---

Jon is both Demiromantic and Demisexual :]. As of right now he doesn't have a partner, and he's quite content with that, but he's got lots of people he loves - even if his emotionally stunted ass won't admit it

His closest friends are Ed, Jervis as of right now, and Waylon! He also has a soft spot for Harley, as they were former coworkers! How he shows his affection differs depending on the person:

With Ed, they're both really emotionally distant guys, and neither of them seek physical touch (with Ed disliking it), so he's all about actions with them. Busting them out of Arkham, reluctantly answering riddles or testing out their puzzles, things like that. Ed is much the same way. They are a very snarky pair of guys.

Jervis' main love language is obviously physical touch, so the easiest way for Jon to show his affection is by letting Jervis cuddle up with him or hold his hand. He also will NEVER admit it, but he worries about her physical condition. When she gets tired, he'll let her sit on his shoulders (He also does tend to consider Jervis weak and in need of protection, and often underestimates him)

Waylon and him are SOUTHERN BUDS. Jon likes being around Waylon because he's just a genuinely nice guy. They have nice chats and look out/do favors for each other! Another example of Jon's love language being "busting your pals out of an insane asylum" though

When he worked with Harley, he thought of her as an overconfident, naïve, but well-meaning little sister. They're still friendly after Harley turned over to the dark side, but there's a part of Jon that resents how the Joker stole that glimmer of real promise that Harley had. Jon shows his affection for her by not injecting that annoying clown with a lethal dose of fear toxin

And to answer your bonus, yes! It came from the news articles written about the Scarecrow when Jon first started out, which used it/its for it because nobody really knew what the Scarecrow was. Jon liked it so much he adopted it into the Scarecrow persona (he probably wouldn't mind being called it/its in his normal life, but he ain't opening that can of worms, no sir)

Thank you for your questions !! I hope this satisfied >;}

#LONG ONE #frootverse #jervis tetch #the mad hatter #jonathan crane #the scarecrow #too lazy to tag the others #doodles

[mrs-monaghan]



Tk being a couple makes literally ZERO sense. To truly believe they are a couple is wild AF!! I for one think Tae is quite obviously straight but let's look at more empirical evidence...what Tae and JK have actually said/done...

JK and Tae both admitted to having a falling out that lasted years 2016-2021.

Tae back in 2016 during the bungee jumping episode said: "I didn't notice Jk ignoring me because he always does."

We've all seen Jk and Tae's live interactions when it's just the two of them, look at their vlives and even Bon Voyages--they struggle to not be awkward when it's just the two of them. Some can claim it's because they are hiding but anyone with half a brain knows the difference.

Legit GCFT is a whole thing...no Bf would make a whole vlog with romantic music about another man...RM even said GCFT would get more views if it was with Tae but JK did it for Jimin

Speaking of GCFT, that whole trip was paid for by JK

Jk looked peeved when he had to share a room with Tae during BOn Voyage 3

Bon Voyage S1 Jk (in front of Tae) said he wanted to share a bed with Jm

Body language alone shows that they are nothing but bros

Tae...get out your imaginations

Also Tae looking smug (on multiple occasions) when talking about Jk and Jm hanging out all throughout the night

JK sucked JM's ear on stage

JM gave JK a hickey and laughed about to members

when JK was sick only JM was allowed to stay no other member, even JK wanted them all to leave but not JM he was okay with him staying behind.

Tae literally said that if he could be any member he wouldn't want to be JM or JK because something alongs the lines of they do weird things.

Tae slick acknowledging JM's preference for JK during that Live where they had to write a note for each member and then guess which member the note was written for and Tae was like "I know JM well and this is deff for JK"

JM and JK are always together (according to staff), always going home together, etc. etc. and Tae doesn't seem to care less

JK had his own room (when they all lived together) for a while but chose to sleep in the same room as Jihope and was their unofficial 3rd roommate...so much so that he was grouped with them on Muster.

JK being able to choose who he spends the most time with but when on tour he chose to always be with JM to the point Tae said he didn't know if the room was JM's or JK's. (Tae didn't seem to mind)

When JK needs comfort he seeks out JM, this is clear in behind the scenes moments.

JK called JM his all nighter friend and when JM should have been home (he was at home) he was with JK (for his birthday) crying about their Grammy nomination?!?

Tae not knowing Jk's room number when they go on tour and would have to text the group chat.

JK only giving JM bday presents for a good while.

Tae telling JM he liked him the most (not JK, Jimin)

JK saying he didn't talk to anyone but JM and J-hope when they were on like a 3 month break (but somehow he dating Tae and not talking to him?)

Tae not being apart of JK's bday activities when on break but JM flying across the country

oh and let's not forget that JK dedicated a whole live to watching videos about JM and then in his other lives became an absolute child in love whenever JM's name was mentioned. Oh and when JM came into the chat how he begged him to come over...changed his profile pic to JM etc. etc.

This list could go on and but I will stop here. This is not to say JK and Tae aren't friends...I think they have a close relationship but are quite obviously nothing more than friends. Like it's the most obvious thing ever and I don't know how this ship is so big or why people believe it. I know some ppl ship them for aesthetic purposes but to actually believe it means either one is blind...doesn't ever watch real content...brainwashed...or doesn't have a fully developed brain i.e. a child. The lack of critical/logical reasoning in that ship baffles my mind.

Taekook hanging out or standing next to each other is more proof of two people dating then GCFT, JK planning a whole ass trip for JM for his birthday, a hickey, JM traveling across the globe to be present for JK's bday, Or them spending time together at questionable hours . . .make it make sense?!?!

I could say so much more regarding my one on one interactions with taekook shippers young and old but I'll stop here.

Damn anon. I'm out of mic drop gifs. So here you go. Just take it.

#if jikook isn't real then neither am i #jikook is real #jikook #kookmin #minkook #bts #jimin and jungkook #park jimin #jeon jungkook #jimin #jungkook #bts ask #ask shaz

[fantastic-rambles]

Fandom: Durarara!!

Characters: Izaya Orihara, Shizuo Heiwajima, Others (mentioned)

Warnings: Attempted Suicide, Physical Disability, Threats of Violence

Word Count: 1.9k

Summary: [Post-Canon, light Izaya novel spoilers] When it seems like the end of the world is nigh, Izaya finds himself drawn back to Ikebukuro. Even so, the last thing he expects is for Shizuo to actively seek him out and for the both of them to have a relatively civil and honest conversation. [Written for Shizaya Week 2023 | Day 4: end of the world AU @shizayasweek]

- - - - - - - - - -

Heavy steps sounded on the fire escape, but Izaya didn't even glance toward them as he perched on the railing on the roof of the building. He didn't need to: he used to hear them at least once a week, accompanied by the roar of a monster as it chased after him with a single-minded determination. Even when they stopped right behind him and the back of his neck prickled, he didn't turn around, simply continuing to gaze out over the city filled with the humans he loved.

"Thought I told you to stay out of 'bukuro."

The usual rage was conspicuously absent from the rumbling voice, and Izaya heard some rustling followed by the click of a lighter. Then, Shizuo exhaled heavily, and the faint smell of acrid smoke drifted past Izaya before the railing creaked as the other man leaned against it.

"Those things will kill you, you know."

A low chuckle.

"Doesn't matter now, does it?"

It didn't. Nothing did. All of Izaya's plots, his failed attempts at permanence, his determination to stay away from this place… all blown away by the vicissitudes of fate. He hadn't thought that he had any lingering attachment to this place, but once the news had been announced, he'd found himself drawn back.

Idly, he wondered where the others had gone. Sozoro was easy enough to figure out: home to his family, bringing Haruto and Himari with him. The boy didn't know what was going on, other than a new adventure, which was probably for the best, but Himari was a bit more clever than him. Nec… perhaps she would retreat to the world inside her computer, along with Tsukumoya. He'd released all of them from their obligations to him and made his way here alone. And that was how he'd expected things to end.

He hadn't counted on Shizuo showing up. But then again, he had never been able to predict what went on in the protozoan's head.

"Shouldn't you be with someone else? Your owner? Or your lady friend?"

Another slow inhale, and Izaya chanced a glance at the other man, finding his brows furrowed as he lowered his cigarette from his lips. He looked confused, the expression so familiar and amusing that Izaya had to hold back a laugh as he shifted his gaze back toward the humans rushing around beneath them.

"You mean Tom-san? And Vorona?" Shizuo finally asked, still sounding uncertain, and Izaya did laugh then. But it lacked its usual sarcastic bite, sounding not quite natural or genuine.

"Sure. Or even Shinra and Celty. There are plenty of people who care about you, so why would you want to spend your last moments with me? Or have you not heard that there's a meteorite on a direct path to wipe out all life on earth? Or at least, a significant chunk of it?"

"I heard. But I also got a feeling you were back. Figured I'd try to snap your neck one last time, for old time's sake."

A heavy hand landed on Izaya's neck as if to make good on the threat, the fingers that wrapped around his throat nearly encircling it. Izaya remained relaxed, though, his eyes following a bright red car that wove through the traffic.

"And it seems like you'd let me."

Izaya shrugged.

"If I had to choose between you and a meteorite, you don't sound too bad. Of course, I'd rather be killed by a human, but a monster's better than a glorified rock, at least."

"Then why aren't you down there? With your humans?"

Izaya did sigh then, shaking his head in disappointment. Shizuo had always been a bit dumb, but this much? He hadn't thought that it was possible for him to overestimate the man, but yet again, Shizuo was managing to defy his expectations.

"Do you really think that I can go around asking people to kill me, pretty, pretty please? Humans are selfish, Shizu-chan: I thought that you, of all people, would know that. Now that we're facing the end of the world, there's nothing that I could offer anyone to convince them to put some time and effort toward satisfying my ego. Besides, I've already been stabbed once, and if I'm going to die, I'd rather it be quick and painless."

"You probably deserved it."

"I did, but that's beside the point. So now that we've cleared that up, can you just put us both out of our misery and go back to whoever's waiting for you?"

But the hand released him, falling back down to the railing as Shizuo continued to stand beside him, looking out over the temples to human conceit that would soon be erased. The vast reservoirs of human knowledge, the technology that held everything together, the richness of their emotions… it was a waste. Even if halfway intelligent life re-evolved on this planet, it would take at least another couple hundred thousand years, and all of this would be little more than dust.

“Thought you’d be in a shelter or something. Shinra was saying that there was a chance of survival if people did something like that. There’s a bunch of old ones from the war, right?”

“Me? A shelter? Please, Shizu-chan. I love humans, but that doesn’t mean I want to be crammed together with them, surrounded by the heat of all those bodies and the wailing of children and babies. Besides, if they did survive, they’d end up in a deserted world, scratching for a living, suffering, living quick, cruel lives… that’s not for me. I suppose a monster like you wouldn’t understand, though. You probably don’t even need a shelter to survive.”

“Maybe,” Shizuo agreed with a slow nod. “I guess we’ll find out.”

“You mean you’ll find out.”

Izaya slid off the railing, stumbling slightly when his feet hit the concrete, but his grip on the metal kept him from collapsing. His wheelchair sat on the other side of the barrier, and he leaned over the edge of the building, his arms stretched to their full length as he continued to watch the humans scuttle around beneath him. There was something wonderfully ironic about this situation: he’d brought Kamichika to a similar place before, just to see what she would do when she was entirely disillusioned, her sophomoric self laid bare.

Ah, perhaps he should have reached out to Mamiya. She might have been willing to kill him, but then again, wouldn’t it be far more amusing for her to have her revenge denied? Ahhhh, if there was an afterlife, then he’d love to meet her again there and see her reaction. To him, to everything, to the afterlife she only half-believed in, the death she failed to respect.

And then he let go, his fingers falling open before he began to fall forward, a half-smile on his lips. There was a screeching sound behind him before his descent came to an abrupt stop, his right arm feeling as though it had been nearly jerked out of the socket.

“The fuck you doing, flea???”

Bemused, Izaya glanced over his shoulder. The railing was bent where Shizuo must have lunged against it to grab his wrist, his monstrous strength easily holding Izaya up with one hand.

“Dying, right?” he asked as if it wasn’t patently obvious. “I can’t get someone else to kill me, and I can’t get you to kill me. It’s rather anticlimactic, but despite what you may believe, I am a human, unlike you, so I’d still rather do it myself than wait for the strike and the tsunami and the heat wave or whatever to take me out.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Izaya blinked.

“Well, I have a host of issues, but none related to the current situation. But what’s wrong with you? Ever since I met you, it was ‘die, die, die,’ and now that I’m doing just that, you’re stopping me?”

“Like I can just stand by and watch someone die in front of me!”

“Oh? What about all the people down there? They’re all going to die soon, too. Or have you developed some sort of supernatural powers while I’ve been away, enough to pulverize the meteorite or divert it from its course? Can you save all of them? What’s the difference if I die now, or in a couple hours?”

“That’s… that’s not the point!”

Shizuo’s chest heaved as he backed up, pulling Izaya back onto the ledge, though he didn’t let go of him.

“Why are you so determined to die?” he demanded, and Izaya sighed.

“Actually, I would prefer not to,” he explained, speaking slowly as if he were addressing a particularly stupid child. “But at this point, it’s impossible to avoid. So if I’m going to die, I’d rather do it in a way that I like.”

“But why won’t you at least try to live?”

“As I said, it’s impossible. I’m not a monster like you.”

Ahhhhh, this was why he hated Shizuo. Most stupid people were easy to deal with, because they didn’t try to pretend to be human. They were fine with being wrapped up in themselves and only caring about others when it benefited them. But Shizuo was so determined to prove that he was something that he wasn’t, which led him to do even more stupid things that proved he wasn’t human.

And then he was tugged closer, pulled against Shizuo’s chest, and his flickblade was in his hand, slashing at the other man, just like old times. Except Shizuo didn’t let go, only catching Izaya’s wrist and squeezing it until he dropped the weapon as blood trickled down from the cut on his cheek.

“You said it, right? I might be able to survive even out here. So if you’re with me, maybe you can live, too.”

“I don’t want to. What’s the point of living in a ruined world with a monster?” Izaya snapped acidly, struggling in the other man’s grip. But he’d never dreamed of being able to fight against Shizuo head-on, and with his legs as they were now, that was even more unlikely. All he could do was pound a fist weakly against a chest that felt as hard and immovable as concrete. "If you’re looking for someone to go to hell with you, I’m sure that there are plenty of people who would be delighted to oblige.”

“I don’t want to live with you, either. But if I can save one person, then it’ll be worth it, even if it’s you. And maybe that would be what both of us deserve, after everything we’ve done. If we’re the only ones left, we can’t hurt anyone else. Or maybe we’ll both die, and that will just be the end of it. But I’m not going to leave you alone. Who knows what the fuck you’d get up to?”

Izaya’s scowl deepened. Pointless sentiment, the monster looking to assuage its misplaced guilt… fine, but why did he have to be dragged into it? He’d never felt any remorse for the things he’d done, standing above the humans and watching them scramble frantically beneath him. He didn’t need forgiveness or repentance. He'd always lived simply as he wanted to, even knowing that it meant taking on his beloved humans' feelings, both positive and—more often—negative.

"Let me go."

"No."

"Let me go!"

"No. Come on, I-za-yaaa, let's face the end together."

Braced against Shizuo's chest, Izaya didn't have any choice in the matter, and they eventually ended up on the ground, waiting with Izaya half in Shizuo's lap. Then, as they watched, a false sunrise lit up the horizon, setting the sky aflame.

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