#about the importance of that line and its implications

[orionsangel86]

Dream of the Endless - A Romantic Fool

After talking to @so-i-grudgingly-joined-this-site @duckland and @notallsandmen over on this post I have been thinking about the reasons why I personally interpret Dream as a romantic and think that later Sandman stories have made a mistake claiming that romance and erotic fiction are all the work of Desire alone and not the actual Prince of Stories (and thank GOD Neil Gaiman confirmed those Sandman stories were not canon eh?)

Under the cut because as always it got long. Why I think Dream of the Endless is an old fashioned romantic with a soft spot for love stories.

I mentioned in the linked post that I don’t see how Dream and Desire can keep themselves completely separated when their realms blur so much and when they are canonically probably the two most similar of the Endless even above Desire and Despair (which I think is the reason they clash so much).  It’s also worth mentioning that when it comes to influences over mortals, I don’t think any particular Endless sibling has more of a sway than any other, they all influence us all the time such is their nature and I think it would be very difficult to claim only one Endless was totally responsible for certain things. This is the reason why they like to compete and play games with each other like they did in Three Septembers and a January with the Emperor of the United States (side note: this is one of my all time favourite comic issues and my absolute favourite of the stand alone stories).

So even if Desire does have influence over the romance genre and erotica, I don’t think that would make Dream particularly averse to them, because he is also very much responsible for love stories and stories about love and seems to have inspired more than his own fair share over time.

Starting with the obvious - he was Shakespeare’s patron. No matter what else you say about Dream, he is responsible for inspiring and effectively being the muse for the greatest playwrite who ever lived. Shakespeare’s repertoire includes a whole list of plays with romance and love at their hearts not least of all being:

A Midsummer Nights Dream

What is the one thing you remember most about AMND? The fairies yes? Titania, Puck, Oberon, etc. But the central theme and story of AMND is specifically about love. It is a very sweet story about four mortals who are caught in a love “square” and get lost in a magical forest where the fairies decide to get involved and fix their love problems (with some confusing mess ups in between) and at the same time, it is a story about how the King and Queen of Fairie are having a bit of a falling out and the King decides to play some tricks on his stubborn wife, before ultimately reconcilling with her. The play ends with a triple wedding.

In the Sandman issue A Midsummer Nights Dream. It is revealled that Dream commissioned this play from Shakespeare to be a retelling of events which happened long ago, as a gift from him to Titania and Oberon so that mortals may never forget the fae once they leave the realm of Earth forever. It is also revealled that Dream and Titania were once lovers themselves, though we have no other details about when this was, as Titania refuses to talk about it at The Wake. It is clear however that they are still on extremely good terms, care for each other deeply, and had a very close relationship even after they were lovers before the fae left Earth. Throughout the comics, whenever the fae are mentioned, it is clear that Dream is closer to them than any of the other Gods, Goddesses, or various pantheons we meet. Even though at one point he states that he does not trust fairie magic.

At the end of the day, whatever else you want to believe about Dream, Titania is the only lover of his that he remains on good terms with. So much so that even though she clearly has a husband, he is still gifting her love stories. There is an argument here that AMND is quite mocking towards Titania, who falls in love with a man with the head of an ass, and spends most of the play having sex with him and swooning over him whilst the other fairies look on in horror. I know some people have interpreted this as Dream being mocking and cruel towards her, but I didn’t get this impression at all from reading this issue. Titania appears to be delighted at the play and Dream explains clearly his reasons for commissioning it:

The short version is that Dream commissioned a romantic and magical love story for his ex lover, so that the mortal world would never forget her when she left Earth for good.

Pretty romantic in my opinion.

The Tempest

Keeping to the Shakespeare theme, the other play commissioned directly by Dream is The Tempest. Now, there is probably a whole other meta essay to be written about Dream’s reasons for commissioning the Tempest, not least of all how fitting Prospero’s final monologue is when viewing it as a closing statement on Dream’s own endgame. But this is a meta about romance, and Dream couldn’t even keep romance out of his self-insert human!au original fiction. Like AMND, The Tempest is also a comedy (interesting how both plays commissioned by Dream were comedies when he is so clearly living in a tragedy *sigh*) and like AMND The Tempest includes young lovers who fall in love throughout the course of the play. Whilst romance and love isn’t a central theme in The Tempest, it is still a big part of the story.

I just find it impossible to take a view that Dream would shun romance when he personally commissioned two romantic stories from Shakespeare himself.

The Sandman: Overture - Dream’s Personal Love Story

But this isn’t the only evidence of Dream’s romantic inclinations. The Sandman: Overture also includes some interesting clues to Dream’s views on love stories.

Hope asks for a story. She does NOT request a love story. She simply asks for a story with Dream, that also includes a princess. Given that Dream is the Prince of Stories, and has most definitely had interactions with many princesses over his long life, he chose to instead tell a personal story, a love story, and so we finally get the full love story of Dream and Alianora.

Even though it must hurt to relive it, even though the Cat of Dreams (not gonna spoil the twist) specifically states that they NEVER tell that story, he chooses to tell it to Hope. Not only does he tell her that story, but he ends it with a happy ending - not “happy for always” but “happy for a goodly while”.

The fact that the Netflix show chose to adapt on this love story further, by having it be canon that Dream carved their love story into the gates of his own kingdom - well, that only further emphasises how much he cares for love stories, even his own, even when the truth is it ended badly, and hurt him greatly. Would a non romantic person carve their own love story into the gates of their kingdom? I don’t think so somehow. Because even after all this time, even though it pains him to relive it, he is still a romantic at heart, and cared about Alianora and their love enough to carve it into the gates of the Dreaming.

A Mother’s Insight

Also in The Sandman: Overture, Dream’s time with his mother is particularly insightful. She is the one to point out how alike he and Desire truly are, even though he dismisses the very concept and takes offense (obviously). It seems clear to me that we are supposed to agree with Mother Night on this. She also raises two other interesting points - the first is when she realises Dream’s scheme to get his parents back together in the hopes that it will save the universe. She laughs at him, and mocks him, calling it “one of his stories”. Because even if Dream isn’t exactly the most self aware of creatures (understatement), she is exactly right. Dream, being a romantic, had hoped that his parents love could save the universe. A true epic love story for the ages. It is his romantic ideations that sent him to meet with his parents. Dream’s romantic nature is integral to the story of Overture working. If he wasn’t such a romantic, he never would have sought out his parents, he would have been more grounded in realism, and known that they would disappoint him.

The second point Mother Night points out, is Dream’s desire for a lover, as she offers to make him one so that he might stay in her realm with her. He declines of course, since Mother is simply manipulating him to keep him with her, but that doesn’t mean what she says isn’t true. Dream very much desires a lover. His whole family is aware of this. His love story with Alianora began with Desire sending Alianora to Dream after all. Dream’s wish for love and also romance is an integral part of his character.

Brief Lives - Motivations and Comparisons

Dream’s romantic ideations are also central to the story in Brief Lives since the only reason he agrees to go to the Waking World with Delirium is because he hopes that he may find and reconcile with Thessaly. His fantasies of reconciling with her are strong enough for Destiny to call him out and bring him once again back down to Earth.

Knowing what we do about Thessaly, it is very easy to interpret Dream’s feelings about her, and his romantic ideations about reuniting with her, as not rooted in reality. I find it very difficult to view Dream as anything other than a romantic fool when he is taking road trips across Earth on the small chance he may lock eyes with his ex lover across a street and they may fall back into each others arms like in some fluffy romance novel. He is ridiculous, and this is made clear throughout Brief Lives.

In fact, Destruction definitely agrees with me as well. He calls Dream a romantic fool directly.

Orpheus’s very existence is also a good example of Dream being a romantic. Who else could father a child who becomes famous for his poetry, his songs, and his epic tragic love story. In The Sandman, it is at least implied that part of the reason Orpheus meets his tragic end is because he is too much like his father, and the one thing that is made very clear about Orpheus, is that he is a romantic, with love being one of his main motivations.

I think adding all this together with the comments made about Dream by his own creations, the residents of the Dreaming, as well as his ex lovers at The Wake, it is clear that he is a romantic character, a character who is driven in many ways by his desire for love, and who rather fancies himself as the broody romantic hero (I just KNOW Dream was somehow involved with Lord Byron lmao). Throughout the comic, Dream often denies that he has any needs, any desires, to the extent that he denies that he is even a person, who has a life. He also adamantly denies that he has a story. Yet, throughout the comic, it is made clear that none of this is true. The reason Dream is so often at odds with Desire is because he desires so strongly - moreso than any of the other Endless siblings. It’s because of this that I think he would enjoy the romance genre possibly more than anything else. Romance is a core component of his personality. In comic canon, Dream has been directly or indirectly responsible for the creation of at least five love stories - two Shakespeare plays, the Song of Orpheus, the love story of Dream and Alianora, as well as the story that the African tribe tell their children when they come of age - the love story of Dream and Nada, the tale where their love was so passionate that every living thing that could dream dreamed of their love making.

So whilst the comics never directly state whether or not Dream is a fan of romance novels, his desire for love and romance indicates to me that he holds love stories in high regard, regardless of whether or not his annoying younger sibling has anything to do with them.

Also, not that it really counts for anything, but Tom Sturridge agrees with me. ;-)

#The sandman #sandman meta #dream of the endless #the sandman comics #sandman comic spoilers #sandman overture #morpheus #i should note that dream being a romantic doesnt absolve him from sometimes being a bit of a misogynist #though I do have some conflicting opinions on that part #Ishtar accusing dream of not liking women doesn't automatically make him a misogynist #it just means she thinks he is #but looking at it from dreams pov #isn't it obvious why he wouldn't trust a goddess of love? #since she falls under the domain of desire? #but thats another conversation #i wanted to mention it but couldn't fit it in smoothly in the post #but its been on my mind since I relistened to brief lives on audible recently #about the importance of that line and its implications #anyway #please feel free to add on any thoughts #i love discussing this stuff with other sandman fans #all opinions are welcome so long as everything remains civil and kind

[trainingdummyrabbit]

maybe we'll try again next time.

#pikart #projmoon #(LONG TAGS..) i talk a lot about that latter part of poems of a machine but the first chorus never fails to break my heart too #i can never remember what ive talked about and what i havent so ill do it again anyway. #specifically the line 'so here i lie; reading you my poetic stupid rhymes.' especially in conjunction with the very first lyric. #all this built up... mess and madness; concepts of impossible scope and importance for just a few words. #its the desire to express a truth outside of your reach. to tentatively try to identify; to speak; and only managing so much. #clumsy; basic; small; but it still holds a piece of your heart anyway. its not enough; but its real; its tangible; and thus important. #am i making sense? its the first steps into writing poetry / into self expression / into self acceptance / into healing and growing. #and the implication these words are being shared; despite all of this; despite all of Her. augh. #i really do think a lot about th stark difference btwn her Knowledge and her Experience. how she feels she Should function vs how she Does. #knowing how something should be vs how it Is. yknow. #anyway Oops ! Lyric Rambling In The Tags Again ! <33

[flovverworks]

thought again how overwhelmingly lonely akira would become after everything while time does its healing. u go from having a twenty-something ppl around u at all times to being alone. no one to knock on ur door in the morning, no ppl going in & out, no chaos of sudden fights. even in the (more likely) case where akira forgets its like. this haunting feeling of having forgotten something u shouldnt have. guy who goes to every social gathering ever to have that chaotic energetic experience of having so many ppl around again

#stardust speaking ! #meeting some of the most important ppl to u and losing them in a yr is uhhh a lot #akiras had a lot of themes of not wanting to leave their world just yet/see through what theyre there for #as well as questions like 'what will /i/ be doing next time x happens?' in a very...hm. accepting way? casual? #actually idk if theres ever been any point where its been 'yeah probably a year and then we'll see what happens' #but considering akira went from 'i wanna go home;_;' to 'whats the way to make sure all of u are safe in the fight against the moon' #as well as what they knew about them appearing right after their last battle w the moon. theres. suspicions. i am sure of it #either way there Is that one 1.5 segment too....... #I LOST MY THREAD #but. lots of stressful topics too #since akira knows how many wizards THEY had to summon and the implication the old sage summoned at least one too #thinks about some of the drusilla event lines again.....forget being special i wish we had met under normal circumstances...... #i had more to say about this topic but it also feels like just repeating myself i just think its gonna SUCK for akira #thinking about some lines in kk's diary too...T_T very akira to me. ill go find them again l8r

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

having a lot of thoughts about how people use 'normalize' when they mean 'destigmatize' or 'make the nature of into common knowledge,' and how they conflate 'the perception of this thing as normal' with the thing actually being a normal occurrence, and how it is in fact incredibly harmful to try to convince people that an ideal situation is normal when that does not map onto their lived reality or the dangers they need to be aware of to avoid. it is 3:33am though so writing up an actual poast about it will have to wait for later

#whosebaby talks #this post brought to you by 'spreading awareness of what an abusive relationship is and looks like compared to a nonabusive relationship' #'is fantastic and i support it fully and think it's deeply important. giving people the false idea that abusive relationships are uncommon' #'and are flukes that go against the grain of society functioning as it normally does; is insanely dangerous to people who are potential #targets; and incredibly alienating and isolating and cruel to people who have already been targets' #'in uniquely awful ways depending on whether they're already aware of that or aren't. don't fucking do that' #it applies much more broadly than that; but it's an instance i think about A Lot and it's what led me to this line of thought to start with #there's also 'normal does not mean good and saying so has incredibly unbelievably harmful implications keep that shit out of your mouth' #but that is so obvious it boggles my mind that it has to be explained to anyone on this site; and it is talked about often enough #that i would rather focus on the parts i don't really see talked about much; if at all #also like the fact that 'statistically average' normal vs 'things are functioning as they usually do' is a critically important distinction #they are closely related and interplay heavily with each other but they are Not the Same Thing #and how 'normal' can refer to different layers and aspects of a subject--people with rare health conditions are not statistically average #and that by itself is fine. and those people having conditions that are disruptive to the usual functioning of a space or system #is avoidable in some cases by establishing as much infrastructure as possible to integrate their more common needs smoothly #and unavoidable in others; which means the normal functioning of a system/space that accommodates people with unexpected needs #has to account *for its normal functioning being disrupted sometimes* #and bend around that disruption without either breaking down or rolling right over the disabled people who Cause Problems #and at the same time 'rare health condition' gets applied to health conditions that are not rare *at all* to not only justify not bothering #to make the system integrate their needs in general when it could do so easily; but make it so that accommodating their needs anyway puts #immense and unnecessary strain on the system; so there is zero margin for anything you didn't specifically fight tooth and nail for already #anyway it's a really extensive subject and a fascinating one. for later. sleep now #abuse cw #ableism cw #the salt files #is there a name for that tag

[sleepys-circus]

I keep seeing critics talking about the fnaf movie being poor but it literally isn't for them. I saw someone else saying the movie's a love letter to the fandom and i WHOLEHARTEDLY agree.

This is how i took it: We, the fans, are Anton Ego, the critic from Ratatouille; the ratatouille was special to us because it was our childhood. I hate ratatouille (the food), but to Anton Ego it was everything. Critics don't like the fnaf movie because they only have the movie as context, but to fans, the fnaf movie is everything and we love it even though it's a little cringey. In fact we love it BECAUSE it's cringey in some cases.

Like no new viewers would get the chica's magic rainbow part, or the MatPat reference, or the whole ongoing bit about Dream Theory sucking, or understand how hype the whole ending part was.

I was lucky to be in a cinema full of fnaf fans, and we were cheering and laughing, and screaming at the references. People got up when the movie ended and SAT BACK DOWN when the living tombstone came on. We shouted the letters of the code, and screamed when Matpat said his line. People clapped and cheered at the end, and people were crying at the parts where they were treating the animatronics with love and affection.

No critics would understand how much fans want to interact with the animatronics in a positive way, or understand how much importance the five seconds of its me on the mirror means in implications of the lore. They wouldn't understand because they haven't been waiting a good part of a decade to see this movie. They came, they saw, and that's it, it was a second of their life, but to us it was everything. This is our ratatouille, made to impress us, not the other people in the restaurant. This was our movie, a love letter to the fandom, not the critics.

I like the changes to the story, because it puts us back at square one. We're fumbling to rearrange lore and timelines. We have to rearrange names, and start with a blank slate, and it feels like a homecoming where to critics, it might feel a little messy.

We've been given a chance to start the journey all over again and i fucking love it so much. Because i'm an adult, and all of a sudden, i'm twelve years old again and we're trying to figure out if phone guy is chica, and struggling our way through whatever the fuck was happening in fnaf 3 to get the good ending. The critics don't get this.

They don't understand how hype the midnight motorists reference is, nor did they care about the references on the chalkboard. Or the code at the end, or the song choices, or the lore implications. They don't understand the sudden lore drop of william afton, or the way he's acting, but we do. They don't understand the vengeful spirit, but we do. Nothing is explained to the audience, because we don't need it to be explained.

This is our ratatouille, and we love the rats in the kitchen.

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #five nights at freddy's movie #fnaf movie #fnaf spoilers #five nights at freddy's spoilers #no because this movie means so much to me #and i love all the cringey bits #like this is my childhood and it was cringey and i love it and i love you and i love this #and you can't take this away from me

[falseficus]

I read a physical copy of monstrous regiment soon after listening to the audiobook, and I noticed two tiny discrepancies between the two editions that make an absolute world of difference. when I found out that these discrepancies existed (you’ll find reddit posts backing me up about them), I felt cheated that my first experience of the book had portrayed a less cohesive arc than pratchett intended

if you’re looking to buy or read monstrous regiment, I strongly recommend the doubleday 2003 version or the corgi 2004 version, which iirc contain the original text. The harper collins publications and audiobook both contain these changes, which imo are confusing and severely undercut the themes the book is trying to get across. if anyone knows the status of other editions of the book pls feel free to add on

obviously the audiobooks and ebooks are more accessible than physical books to some people, so if you read one of those just know that the original text is different in some key ways. I still recommend you read the book because it’s crazy good :)

the changes I noticed, beneath the cut to avoid some serious spoilers:

firstly, the last line of Jackrum’s last scene. in the Doubleday version, this line reads:

“Jackrum had turned her chair to the fire, and had settled back. Around him, the kitchen worked.”

in the harpercollins version, the line reads:

“Jackrum had turned her chair the the fire, and had settled back. Around her, the kitchen worked.”

this pronoun change is actually has huge implications. in the scene in question, jackrum, a transgender man, reveals that he joined the army in disguise. he is referred to as “she” throughout his background reveal. however, he then considers where his future will take him, and in the final line of the scene his pronoun reverts back to “he.” jackrum’s pronoun goes from he->she->he, encapsulating the gendery arc of the scene. however, in the altered he->she->she version of the scene, half of that circle is erased. the neat tie-up of jackrum’s journey is left confusingly unresolved, and the importance of his gender to the book’s overarching themes goes underemphasized

the second change I noticed is how maladict appears in the book’s ending:

in the Doubleday version, maladict appears “in full uniform.”

in the harpercollins version, maladict appears “in full female uniform.”

maladict is the last soldier to reveal [their] true gender, keeping up a masc/ambiguous presentation far after all the rest of the squad has come forward as women. “in full uniform” maintains this ambiguity, allowing the reader to decide for themself whether maladict comes forward and presents as fully female or continues to dress masculinely despite the fact that circumstances no longer require it (in fact I believe that the latter is more likely, as maladict says “thought I’d try again,” which could mean dressing in male uniform again). “in full female uniform” removes that ambiguity, and brings maladict’s arc to a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion. it eliminates the possibility of maladict as transgender or gender-non-conforming, and I’m left wondering, “if maladict presents as female so readily, why make such a fuss of it before now?”

both changes undermine the book’s message by eliminating its space for non-cisnormative identity… which is kinda crucial to the whole idea. im honestly really disappointed that these changes were made in any version of the book, because whoever made them clearly didn’t get the point

#monstrous regiment #discworld #terry pratchett #the frog speaks

[ms-demeanor]

i’m curious what your opinion is on the finer points of the case mentioned in the JSTOR post you reblogged earlier. the two sources in the post say that JSTOR didn’t press charges against him and had already settled with him by the time he killed himself. from what i read on wikipedia, the concern seems to be that JSTOR complied with a subpoena, which i don’t believe they have a choice to ignore? if anything it seems like the us government had reason to want him dead for wikileaks and public court records reasons, so they took a terms of use violation and blew it up into a dozen federal crimes.

is there more context i should be aware of? i have no particular affection or malice for JSTOR but the sources i found don’t exactly implicate the database or its employees in murder.

That's from page 175 of this document. This line: "The activity noted is outright theft and may merit a call with university counsel, and even the local police, to ensure not only that the activity has stopped but that - e.g. the visiting scholar who left - isn't leaving with a hard drive containing our database" is where I think the culpability starts.

If someone is downloading 1000s of articles (what seems like reasonable threshold for us to take action), what's wrong with us - or the university in collaboration with us - alerting the cyber-crimes division of law enforcement and initiating an investigation, having cop search dorm room and try to retrieve any hard drive that contains our content, etc. Our content is extraordinarily valuable and hard to replicate by the sweat of one's brow, but can be duplicated by savvy hackers and who knows what they want to do with the content?

Page 379: "Does the university contact law enforcement? Would they be willing to do so in this instance?

From page 1296:

I think the important thing to note here is that JSTOR had worked with MIT and had plans in place to prevent future similar downloads, but remained focused on identifying the person responsible for the downloads and ensuring that their data was deleted.

"I might just be irked because I am up dealing with this person on a Sunday night, but I am starting to feel like they need to get a hold of this situation right away or we need to offer to send them some help (read FBI).

And there it is. Page 3093 of the document.

JSTOR can hem and haw about it all they want, but you can't un-call the cops.

MIT was working with JSTOR on preventing future incidents of pirating, but JSTOR repeatedly said that they weren't going to let it go, that it was unacceptable to drop the issue, that they were going to continue to pursue the pirate.

You can scroll through the document and see the JSTOR tech department and abuse team talking about Swartz as a script kiddie, and a hacker. You can see someone talking about how this was real theft - making the comparison to stealing books even while admitting that piracy doesn't close others out of access.

You can see the thread starts with a joke about punching someone in the face for hacking their system, and includes the tech team ominously considering whether they should threaten the MIT librarians with the FBI.

There's something really important to note here which I don't think that people who aren't PRETTY DEEP into hackery shit aren't aware of: US law enforcement is absolutely rabidly feral about prosecuting hackers. People may be more aware of this now because of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden (and perhaps a bit on tumblr because of maia arson crimew), but people who work in tech and who are in infosec - like the people joking about calling the FBI in these emails - would be aware of the bonkers disproportionate punishments faced by hackers. And knowing that, they kept pushing and pushing and pushing for identification of the hacker. They kept digging with MIT, they kept saying that simply preventing future incidents wasn't enough.

Early in the exchange someone from JSTOR asked "what's wrong with us - or the university in collaboration with us - alerting the cyber-crimes division of law enforcement and initiating an investigation, having cop search dorm room and try to retrieve any hard drive that contains our content, etc." and the answer is what happened to Aaron Swartz.

It is absolute bullshit for JSTOR to say "we arrived at a solution privately and didn't want to press charges" after law enforcement has gotten involved with a hacking case, especially one where they're talking about "real theft" and are attempting to quantify and emphasize the amount that was "stolen" from them.

The *public* may believe that private individuals or institutions are the ones who "press charges" but that's simply not the case. It's prosecutors who decide whether or not to go ahead with charges; they do it based on what cases they think they can win and what their office's perspective is on the crime. When you hear about people choosing to press charges it simply means that they decided to tell the prosecutor they wanted the case to go forward. It's up to the prosecutor whether or not that happens.

And the tech team at JSTOR had to know that law enforcement wasn't just going to wag a finger at an academic hacker.

There's a parallel here that happens sometimes when people have their identities stolen by their parents. If you mom takes out a credit card in your name, that's identity theft. That's fraud. That's illegal. If you reach the age of 25 and realize that your credit is ruined because your mom has been defaulting on cards in your name, you've got two choices to fix that: one is to accept the debt and pay it off and build up credit, and the other is to report the identity theft - which will end up with your mom in prison for a decade or so. Ruin your own personal finances, or your mom goes to jail for ruining your finances. So if you find out that your mom stole your identity you can't just call the cops to pressure her into transferring the debt to her name or something. That's not an option. The cops are not a threat to wave over people, they are not a way to get people to fall in line or act right. They aren't someone you can send to a college student's dorm room to retrieve a hard drive and have the matter drop.

When you call the cops on someone you are sending the full force of the law after them, and the full force of the law falls really heavily on hackers, and how heavy that blow can be is something that the JSTOR team must have been aware of when they were making snide comments about calling the FBI because they were frustrated with the noncommittal responses they were getting from librarians.

Ultimately it was the carceral state that killed Aaron Swartz, but they would not have been involved if JSTOR didn't think that what he did constituted theft.

Taking an *EVEN LARGER* step back from that, the idea that information can be owned and locked behind a paywall is what killed Aaron Swartz, someone who fought for information to be free.

Like. JSTOR is a licensing company. At the end of the day, cute social media posts and all, they're the same as the RIAA and ASCAB. They exist to extract a fee from people attempting to access information.

Aaron Swartz and all that he stood for are an existential threat to their core function.

Are JSTOR's hands as dirty as the federal prosecutors? Absolutely not. But they operate on a model that puts them in opposition to open information activists and it ended up with a hammer falling on Aaron Swartz that they dropped.

#long post #very long post

[orchidbreezefc]

ok. years have passed and we've had some distance, so i'm finally gonna take the leap of faith that tma fandom is finally ready to hear me on this. let's talk about tannins.

161 was the first tma episode i heard on early release, and i felt the bit where martin declines wine and cites tannins was pretty obvious in its implications. cool, got it, say no more.

imagine my surprise when i was one of maybe three people i saw read between the lines there, in a fandom famous for red stringing--a fandom that immediately caught the much less obvious thread of ignition sources in the same episode. i'll spell it out: alcohol is an issue for martin.

maybe it just felt obvious because addiction is a pet issue for me--as it is for jonny, who has said everything he writes is filtered through a lens of addiction. i don't know if that's due to his own experience or a loved one's, and i won't speculate; i also don't know if martin personally struggled with drinking or just avoids it for fear he would, but alcohol would fit what we know of his family. his dad walking out and his mum spiralling into bitter wallowing and verbal abuse? i'd bet one or both of them drank, yeah.

on a basic level martin tries to decline alcohol, and that alone should have raised eyebrows given what we know of martin and, again, a fandom that dissects everything. we already knew martin "K" blackwood lied about his personal life and his family in particular, especially pre-canon, which is when this flashback took place. i was shocked that everyone took his flimsy excuse at face value with no further questions.

and the excuse is flimsy. martin turns down wine by--nervously--exclaiming tannins are "a proven headache trigger!" which sounds like trivia from a magazine cover and not the words of someone who actually has headaches--and it hasn't come up before or since. jon, confused, points out that tea, a drink martin consumes to a degree that is memetic both in- and out-of-universe, also contains tannins, and martin squawks a panicked, "what?!"

if tannins are enough of a concern for martin that he knew they're in wine and so avoids it, why didn't he know they're in his drink of choice? why does he still drink tea at the time of canon, and why doesn't he struggle with constant headaches from consuming 'a proven headache trigger' day in and day out? why, indeed, would someone avoid wine and not tea?

when sasha insists martin drink he caves and agrees to 'just a drop'. i imagine him pouring it in a plant, which admittedly he could have done if tannins really were the issue. i will say that i, for one, would be less likely to falsely agree to something that makes me physically ill than to a private issue that i'd rather not be pressed on any further. this scene also establishes martin's birthday was an ice cream party instead of the more traditional visit to a pub.

also, this scene was in the first episode of the final season, as one of three flashbacks that could have been to any pre-canon event in the archives. prime narrative real estate. not really time one would waste on establishing the important character context that martin has... headaches. which never comes up before or after, even regarding the week he spent in spiral town. but you know what is pretty crucial character background...?

it felt like a no-brainer, and yet all i saw was h/c fluff about jon attending to martin's headaches. and i hate feeling bitter about disability representation. i want folks with chronic headaches to feel seen and have fluffy escapist fantasies. i don't want to be mad about people portraying a character with a disability. but, guys? you got the wrong disability. jonny sent a clear message, and it went over fandom's head.

#martin blackwood #tma #the magnus archives #tma meta #the magnus archives meta #tma 161 #mag161 #sage speaks #sage original post #meta #im sure others caught it that i didnt see but listen. i was DEEP in the fandom. people getting it made up maybe 1% of the response i saw #and i had people fighting me for saying it #alcohol cw #alcoholism cw #addiction cw #greatest hits #wonderful news: tma fandom WAS ready to hear me say this!

[prokopetz]

Re: your post about genre limitations of D&D

There was like a ton of d20 games back then, from browsing forums it feels like half of genres and IPs got their d20 book printed, and the other half got some homebrew.

Did it carry the genre implications of D&D itself? Was it something subtle or did it straight up feel like reskinned D&D? If yes, is this because the implications are that deep mechanically, or simply because the authors didn't do enough hacking?

The thing you need to understand about the d20 System renaissance is that the overwhelming majority of licensed d20 System games genuinely do not give a shit whether Dungeons & Dragons is a good fit for them or not. Indeed, many were created with the explicit understanding that it isn't, and no intention of trying to address that in any way. The bulk of such adaptations exist for one of two reasons:

The author and/or IP owner wanted to publish a worldbuilding bible for their setting (or, in the case of a television franchise, an episode guide), but getting people to pay money for a worldbuilding bible or episode guide is hard. However, if you take that exact same worldbuilding bible, staple some game mechanics to the side of it, and call it a licensed RPG, nerds will line up to buy it. Most worldbuilding-bibles-pretending-to-be-RPGs use the d20 System because the OGL allows you to copy and paste D&D's rules into your product verbatim, which cuts down on development costs.

A media franchise with an existing tabletop RPG wanted to get a foot in the door with the D&D crowd, so they bashed together a d20 System version of their core rulebook as a marketing gimmick, gambling that some non-zero percentage of D&D players who tried it would be interested enough to check out the non-d20 System game it's adapted from. In this case, the d20 System version doesn't need to be good, or even playable, because its purpose isn't to be played – it just needs to exist.

Hasbro, for their part, encourages all this because it reinforces the popular perception that Dungeons & Dragons can do anything, and that's worth more than the relatively tiny number of players they're likely to poach. The fact that half of them are unplayable copied-and-pasted garbage which exist only for marketing purposes and the other half boil down to logistics-driven dungeon crawling with a thin veneer of the licensed setting painted over it just isn't terribly important.

(To anticipate a variety of inevitable responses, please note that no part of this post remarks on the merits of Dungeons & Dragons as a game; I'm talking about marketing here, not game design.)

#gaming #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpgs #dungeons & dragons #d&d #swearing

[faetreides]

FIND YOUR LOVE | CORIOLANUS SNOW

summary: modern!coriolanus snow thoughts

cw: crack treated seriously vibes, typical coryo warnings, possessiveness/obsessive behavior, piss kink mention, period blood mention, spit kink mention, slight impact play mention, coryo and reader both have double majors because they’re overachievers, plus sized reader implications, drake mention, reader has bunny teeth & hip dips & glasses, talks of carving letters into skin, spying mention, overstimulation mention, images used in social media elements are not an exact represtation of the reader’s gender or image & are more about the vibes, “wife” usage but he’d feminize you no matter what, implications of sejanus playing the long game, 18+ minors dni

word count: 2.4k

requests are open (read the rules first <3)

block & move on if uncomfortable.

do not repost or translate!!

Unaware rich kid because while a tragedy did happen in the family (his mother dying in childbirth according to his politician father who was later assassinated) nothing happened to really set them back to square one like in canon. He never really has had to claw himself back to the top, he’s just always been on a steady elevator ride to it.

Clumsy in the beginning in the way that he tries to be intimidating. He’s never had to starve so how can he understand its usefulness as a weapon?

Meets scholarship student double major classics and archaeology (minor in philosophy) reader who has only ever struggled.

The type to violently beat someone to near death on a whim and smirk as he’s escorted out of the police station with apologies because his family’s amazing team of lawyers were called.

Definitely part of some Saltburn ass family where you visit and you’re just like “what the fuck?” the things the 1% normalize (there are rumors of his family being cannibals back in the day, they might be a crime family, his high school principal fucked his mom AND his dad) never cease to disturb and confuse you but the gardens are very nice!

Strolls with you through them to seem romantic but also to brag about his family on your second date that he insisted be at his house (he was kind enough to let your first be at his family’s vacation house in the south of France)

Piss kink (creaks the bathroom door open to hold your hand or he leans against the door and stares you down if you take too long), period sex (more the type to eat you out on your period though) spit sharing and smearing, etc. Because of his carefully manufactured image, when he’s in love he just wants to completely let go and be gross and have that he accepted by the person be loves (plus it scratches the possessive itch in his brain by marking you and knowing you’d be too embarrassed to do it with anybody else)

Really only hand spanks you when you’re actively fucking and he’s so caught up in it all, he just grips the flesh of your ass and furiously jiggles it in his hands in between brisk strikes of his open palms and gets caught on your hole accidentally, it gets to the point where you’d want him to hit harder even if you thought you wouldn’t be into it because it’s just so unintentionally teasing.

Unlike the stereotypes, wouldn’t really be into drinking (other than wine because he thinks he’s above the beer drinking peasants) or drugs (other than the occasional line of cocaine 🤭) thinks keeping a clear head while you’re doing evil plotting is important. Typical white college rich boy hypocrisy (keeps you away from it though, even weed because it can kill your brain cells and he likes his bunny smart.)

He WILL carve his full government name onto you like a womb tattoo if you answer his texts 5 seconds after he expects you too. You CANNOT play with him.

Asked you out by leaving a bouquet of roses on your desk every morning with a note like “these are my grandma’am’s roses, and their beauty could only remind me of you 🥺🥹” (he threatened your roommate to deliver them and made sure they did thanks to the hidden camera he also had them put in)

Double major Political Science and Latin, minor in Philosophy but he likes ancient/older philosophy more. #1 “um actually 🤓👆” offender (hell is hot but his body runs ice cold, so he does not care <3) someone says they like philosophy and he goes “name three philosophers other than Nietzsche and Camus. I bet you’re the type to read Kafka too huh? whore.” (/j)

So hot though like modern Coryo has the curls but a touch shaggier. Everyone on campus turns their phones to the side and takes “discreet” pictures and makes those whisper posts like “need me an unhinged crazy jealous psycho possessive bf” but they’re not you so that wish will never come true :)

Say you’re going to McDonald’s, and he will kill you (if you’re from the south and you try to feed him anything traditional you’re used to, his charcuterie board and caviar eating ass will implode)

Another student in class asks you to borrow a pencil & his brain genuinely goes haywire so without looking he sends them the “let’s play a little game I made” TikTok (by the time you look back at him, he’s warmly smiling as he makes sure you see his hand sliding up his thigh)

If you think you’re working after getting your degree (he could’ve made you drop out, be grateful you get to spend more time together this way) then you’ve got a big storm coming (hope you can accept being baby trapped mwah)

He’s your little chihuahua named sparkles that bites people.

Emotional drake listener

The type where if you 99.7% (he will allow some wiggle room) give into his delusion and insanity, it’s nothing but smooth sailing (for you) and sex would still be passionate but never rough. Sometimes he slips a bit, but you just get more family heirloom jewelry and 5 billion sessions of oral as apologies.

On the swim team and runs track (somehow still looks hot no matter what doing those sports, wants you lick all the sweat off his body after he’s done. (he’d do that for you.) has a private yacht and does polo with Sejanus.

You once sat down, opened a package of cabbage leaves and went to town & Coryo knew in that moment that love is not a choice, it’s a curse.

Buys you mountains of clothes (the softest sweaters or the tightest evening wear because he loves how nothing about your body is hidden from him and one of his favorite ways to wind down is to soothe the marks left by the tight clothes digging into the chub of your tummy with his tongue) also loves how much bigger your thighs get when they spread out as you straddle him in one of his buttons up that reaches just under your ass.

Has a garage full of classic cars that he fucks you in and takes you on drives in.

(Insp. by that one video) fucks you on your stomach while cradling your jaw and when he’s done, he’s kissing down your back and all over your ass while hold a hand on the back of your neck. Eats you out upside-down kneeling straight up on the bed, the skin of your thighs spilling between his fingers as he grips them and nearly bends you in half. You don’t really ride him because he uses you like a fleshlight.

Tits guy no matter the size, prefers jerking off over them and covering them in cum over a boob job.

He won’t let you out in it, but you can be his bunny for Halloween since your front teeth remind him of a bunny, he already has the ears and tail waiting for you. That tweet where it’s like “okay everybody my bf’s about to walk in you all have to clap or I’m blowing this whole fucking building up” but that’s him when it comes to you.

Canon era snow is a girl dad, but modern snow is a boy dad, I fear.

Met you when you had just finished checking into your dorm, you were scrambling all over the place and without looking you bumped into the it boy of the school. His hands suddenly curved like shackles around your hips, his fingers subconsciously stroking your hip dips being the only reason you both didn’t careen to the floor from the collision.

“You should be more careful, wouldn’t want you to get a nasty bruise now, would we?” said with an unreadable yet playful tone and a snake’s smile, lips slightly curled up in the corners and a little too many teeth showing to feel truly comforted. His tongue flicks over his canines for a split second.

Smells like Maison Francis Kurkdijan’s baccarat rouge 540 (buzzcut Coryo gives Dior Sauvage vibes)

Matching airpod max sets and lets you put little bows on his.

Impeccable cable management, phone wirelessly charging on the nightstand or kitchen counter until it’s at 100% and doesn’t charge it again until it’s at 1%

Teaches you how to swim if you don’t know how, with a hand curled under your neck and another under your thigh to help you float. But has no problem just lounging with your back on his chest on the deck of his yacht or laying his head on your chest while you read together on the private beach he booked during your trip.

Slowly fingers you while making out with you and massaging your throat with his other hand. His chunky rings make clanging sounds against your pussy, and he smiles into your lips when you whine. He rests his forehead against yours & slowly spits in your mouth when it falls open as he makes you cum over and over until you’re too tired to leave the apartment he bought for the two of you.

Jiggles your tummy rolls when you’re fucking but sometimes, he’ll just casually bite them, loves laying his head on your stomach and when you sleep. He likes to have a firm grip on the chub of your tummy. He also just plays with it, pulls it, and kneads it but occasionally he’ll gently smack it.

NUTS ON YOUR STRETCH MARKS LIKE HE’S ICING A CINNAMON ROLL

Anyway, his grandma’am owns a fleet of flower shops across the country as well as managing the snow family’s gardens, and luckily enough the one closest to campus was hiring when you enrolled!

Pisces sun Capricorn rising Aries mars, stay strong.

Has to look you in the eyes or he can’t cum.

Always keeps glasses cleaner and a microfiber cloth on him so the second he sees you rub your eyes in frustration because you can’t see through them anymore (because in your mind that would somehow fix it) and reach to grab them off your face, he’s snaking his hand out and snatching them up. He doesn’t even give then back to you; he tenderly tucks your hair behind your ears and slowly slides them back on your face. literally booping the center of them with a grin. Also has your custom designed glasses case (with his initials) in one of his bag’s front pockets.

You asked him to buy you the Gojo skin in Fortnite and he grumbled “you already have my information.” But in his mind, he’s like “what does he have that i don’t?” 💀 (he’ll lose his mind when he finds out you like Geto more). Will play with you on a team consisting of the two of you and Sejanus. (so, he can keep an eye on you two)

Has very pretty cum, pearly and so thick you get jump scared when it leaks out because your pussy tries to weakly clench to keep it inside and it just pushes through. Cums less often but when he does its huge continuous loads, humps against whatever part of you he can like a dog and lays his head on your chest.

You could almost argue he likes anal more than anything else. When he eats you out, you run an extremely high risk of him “getting lost” and starting to eat out your other hole. When his dick slips out, he makes you watch while he slaps it against your clit and drags it through your slick to teasingly act like he’s going to push it into your ass.

Kisses his camera when you fall asleep on facetime if you’re apart from each other. wipes his lips afterwards though for sanitary reasons.

For sure the type to go overboard when someone says they want honest advice. Then when they’re on the verge of tears and he’s made everything worse, he goes “that’s just me though, who am I to judge yk? take it with a grain of salt.”

Museum dates but he’s pointing at depictions of goddesses and saying, “that’s you.”

Will drop kick those annoying Sephora kids if you need a certain product that they’re going after.

Y’all are battling for who has more products, your bathroom so is huge but every time you move something’s always falling off the double vanity sink.

If you need an inhaler or an EpiPen or anything like that, he’ll always have one on him. when you need it, his reaction is so fast you almost can’t see it and he tries to hide how his hands shake slightly even if the attack you're dealing with is more minor.

You could tell him you hate coconut and when you go on your fancy little dates to 5 stars restaurants, if your plate has even the tiniest hint of coconut, he’s sending that back with the harshest glare on his face imaginable (“They asked for no pickles!” *Gunshots* vibes)

Gets jealous of fictional characters, you show the slightest interest in a man who’s literally not real and his eye nearly falls out from how much it twitches.

The possessive bf coded TikTok trends you’d make him do would go crazy though like the nails on his dick through his pants one, any princess treatment one, any one where you’re dancing and he has to cover you, “hey daddy” & other text ones.

Alarms every five minutes, not only for him but he wants to be awake at the same time as you for a bit before you have to go your separate ways during the day. (kisses your temple when you slump against him while you try to wake up)

“What’s up, Petal?”

“What’s up, Coryo?”

While he acts like he’s been doing you a favor all this time, he would get you that engagement ring that has a spike going through the finger bone in it, and he would get a matching one <3.

Double penetration with a dildo that’s a replica of his cock 😻😽

Closet bi (childhood crush on Sejanus, who btw has been eyeing you too much for his liking lately.)

Scars on his back from An Incident. shaved his head and dropped out of school for a bit but it wasn’t hard for his family to get him back in

Gives you the worst side eye when you ask him to play Roblox total drama island with you but when Sejanus offers, he’s galloping to his pc (he absolutely kills it, like he’s undefeated and he’s not afraid to bully whatever kids are in the game)

Vibes:

a/n: this is lowkey so cringe but i am free. i hate him (i'd tell him i love him on the first date.) will definitely do more with this verse but have this brainrot for now. hope you enjoyed anyway! btw i'll actually be opening comissions next month. so i'd really appreciate it if y'all would keep that in mind! talk to me about modern coryo or any version of coryo lol.

#dividers by cafekitsune and pommecita #dark fic #coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus x reader #snow x reader #coriolanus x you #coriolanus snow x you #tbosas #hunger games x reader #tw toxic #mdni #⚰️.deaddove #tw dark content #yandere themes #yandere x reader #modern!coriolanus snow

[sunsetconcert]

god. i love these three panels. you could write a goddamn essay about these panels. im not nearly qualified enough to do it but like. fuck.

metal sonic is a machine. a weapon. a thing. the number of times it has emoted anything beyond raw murderous intent can be counted on two hands. and even then, it was usually just implications. his facial expression never changed, the only indication of any internal thought being pure body language.

and then sonic offers him a way out. "be your own person."

i dont know what this means to metal sonic. but it sure as fuck means something. his hand moves down from his head to in front of his torso, almost defensively. he leans back, like this is... new. hes never been offered this before. the hell of it is, you can see metal sonic actually consider the offer. he doesnt react immediately. sonic has enough time to fully extend his arm out between panel 1 and panel 2, an absolute eternity for two speedsters like them.

and then metal sonic lashes out. its not a simple "fuck you im evil", though. because his eyes change shape. metal sonic EMOTES. this walking death machine is offered personhood, and it clearly does something to his head. is he afraid? is he angry? is he grieving for eggman? does he think sonic is wrong, that there's no way out? does he think he already has personhood, and he doesnt need more? its not just a slap, either, its not just a dismissal. this is a full-body motion, you can see that both arms are in motion, the chain on metal sonic's arm is still in the air and hasnt been pulled down by gravity yet.

that could have been an actual attack. metal sonic is weak, sure, but he still could've tried to actually physically harm sonic. but right now, in this instant, metal sonic is feeling SO STRONGLY that the most important thing to him is to make sonic aware that this offer is, at least to metal sonic, crossing the goddamn line.

and its conveyed to you in three panels. goddamn idw sonic is good.

#sonic the hedgehog #metal sonic #idw sonic

[theotterpenguin]

the performative accusation that shipping zutara (and occasionally this criticism is levied at jinko/zukka) is colonialist apologism has been addressed in some excellent posts, explaining the inaccuracies and problematic implications of this logic far better than i ever could - like this post and this one and this one and this one and this one.

and i know this topic has been talked about to death, but if you could indulge my contribution for a moment, i just find it interesting how this sentiment results from the cognitive dissonance of atla fans being unable to reconcile with the idea of their favorite show's political beliefs not lining up with their own.

atla is a largely philosophical children's show that at its core deals with themes of love, redemption, and destiny vs. free-will. atla examines these themes through an anti-colonalist, anti-imperalist lens that deconstructs the idea of racial divisiveness and the idea that people of different ethnicities are inherently different. this is message is pretty explicitly stated by guru pathik:

Guru Pathik: "The greatest illusion of this world is the illusion of separation. Things you think are separate and different are actually one and the same." Aang: "Like the four nations?" Guru Pathik: "Yes. We are all one people. But we live as if divided."

and also by uncle iroh:

"It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If you take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale. Understanding others, the other elements and the other nations will help you become whole."

this theme is developed across three full seasons, with the crux of this message culminating in zuko's friendships with the gaang - despite coming from different nationalities and different backgrounds, they have all had their own experiences being hurt by the fire nation and work together to take down the oppressive fire nation government. the question of destiny vs. free will is also explored through zuko's character - despite starting off as an antagonist, he develops into a symbolic representation of how the fire nation's oppression hurts its own citizens. he unlearns the fire nation's imperialist propaganda while simultaneously unlearning his father's abuse. rather than following misguided beliefs of what he thought his destiny was as the heir to the throne, instead he forges his own path.

thus, to claim that zuko can never form a deep and meaningful relationship with any of the gaang because of his nationality goes unequivocally against the themes of the show. and a major part of this is because these are fictional characters being used to analyze different theoretical questions within the show and in some cases, are used as symbolic representations of different philosophical ideas - their friendships and their character arcs serve a purpose within the text that cannot be easily transcribed onto real-life dynamics between people.

it's illogical to criticize fans who are choosing to understand atla at the level of the themes that are presented by the text - who are interested in exploring similar philosophical questions brought up by the show through the context of relationships.

if you don't like the themes of forgiveness and redemption that atla explores, your criticism should be aimed at the writing of the show itself rather than other fans. because you are giving far more thought to the "implications" of a close friendship or romantic relationship between someone from an imperalist nation and someone from an oppressed nation than the writers ever did. (and if you fall in this camp of people, i would hope you wouldn't be reblogging fanart of zuko and the gaang together while simultaneously claiming zuko could can never escape the sins of his ancestors and can never form a deep relationship based on trust and intimacy with katara or sokka or jin - because that would just be hypocritical).

and as a side note, people seem to apply this flawed logic to zutara far more than other ships solely because the show spends the most time exploring the complicated nature of fire nation imperalism in the interactions between zuko and katara in the latter half of b3. this is because they've been juxtapositioned against each other and paralleled with aang since the beginning of the show in ways that toph, sokka, and suki are not, who have mostly been used to examine different themes. there simply isn't enough time to explore these complicated themes with all the other characters, even if they theoretically exist in zuko’s dynamics with these characters, so the writers focus the most on zuko's relationships with katara and aang, and these relationships are given far more narrative weight, so have more content to criticize. but zuko and katara also canonically become friends by the end of the show. if you want to discount the existence of their friendship, claiming that it will always be tainted by the fire nation's oppression regardless of what is shown in the text, then you also have to discount zuko's friendships with aang, suki, toph, and sokka - because even if this isn't shown as a permanent barrier to their friendships in the show, it’s also not shown as a permanent barrier to his friendship with katara. if your logic is solely based on the idea that a person's identity in a relationship as a colonizer or a victim is fixed and unchanging regardless of character development, this would apply to zuko's friendships with everyone else as well.

#zuko #katara #zutara #i have seen people say that the zutara dynamic makes them personally uncomfortable and that's fine - to each their own! #but it's hypocritical to only dislike zuko's relationship with katara while simultaneously exalting his friendships w aang or toph or sokka #just because the show doesn’t take as much time to explore these issues with other characters doesn’t mean the same dynamic doesn’t apply #my post #my meta

[retrorats]

Something that I feel should be mentioned more when talking about the reciprocity of komahina is the line about Komaeda's smile on the first free time event. That line (especially on the original japanese version) has a very clear romantic tone in how it's worded, and if its utter romanticism wasn't enough, it's also a very clear parallel to the multiple and very important lines that Naegi has about Sayaka's smile on her free time events.

So I feel like saying that Komaeda's and Hinata's relationship has only implications on Komaeda's side when we have a line that not only has romantic connotations itself on Hinata's side but also parallels other lines with romantic connotation kind of silly.

We should recognize more often that Hinata is clearly implied to feel romantic attraction to komaeda in the beginning, there's no other reason why an author will put those parallels and those implications there if they were meant to be nothing for the reader. Hinata having a crush on Komaeda in the beginning is not a fantasy or a headcanon, but it is probably the meant reading.

#komahina #nagito komaeda #danganronpa 2 #hajime hinata #sdr2 #super danganronpa 2 #danganronpa #THEY ARE IN LOVE PLEASE #the tragic lovers who have broke my heart beyond repair 💔💔

[ghosts-and-glory]

Some Narinder character analysis for y’all.

This is a slightly re-edited excerpt from a much longer post of mine where I was specifically trying to provide a rebuttal to someone else. I’m kinda proud of some of my takes here and the write up took me hours so I’m gonna repost it here on its own.

I’m going into specifically into Narinder’s

Speech patterns and way of expressing emotions.

Implications of his post defeat dialogue

Relationship with Aym and Baal

Feelings on Ratau’s death

And a little extra on why do we “babygirl” Narinder

Full analysis under the cut.

The way Narinder expresses his positive feelings

First I gotta establish Narinder’s voice. Narinder seems almost incapable of giving a genuine compliment especially without turning it into something about himself.

Here’s three examples of him giving a complement to The Lamb. Taken from after defeating Amdusias and Shamura. He also complements The Lamb when you sacrifice Ratau but I’ll come back around to that.

I wanted to grab the entire quotes so it didn’t look like I was nitpicking.

"Very good, my vessel. It seems I chose well when I kept you from Death.”

First example, “very good,” is the complement, but immediately after he takes credit for this by calling you “my vessel” thereby claiming ownership over you. His vessel did well. And again “I chose well” doubled down and complemented himself.

“I admit, you have worn it (the red crown) almost as well as I could have myself.”

Again we see the complement layered in ego. “Almost as well as I” in other words you did well, but don’t forget I’m better. Also important to draw attention to is “I admit” this is a very explicit statement of his refusal to acknowledge the success of others.

"Your appetite for death is something I can admire, Vessel. But the Crown is mine, and none - NONE - are worthy. None other than I.”

Here he almost lays down a complement. “Your appetite for death is something I can admire” straight up, states his admiration. He seems to almost realize what he’s done and quickly pulls back into his ego, “But the crown is mine” “-none are worthy- None other than I.”

These are the three of the four ONLY times that Narinder ever says anything explicitly positive about someone else when he is a god. Thus establishing that the head ass cannot give out a compliment to save his life. The one time he gives you full credit for your actions he immediately pulls right back into his ego.

I cannot stress this enough. Someone who is characterized as cold and emotionally closed off as Narinder is WILL NOT suddenly undo this characteristic when they try and express a positive feeling.

Okay with that established we can look at his follower dialogue. Specifically these two examples from when you resurrect a follower and allow him to go on a mission.

“I cannot begrudge supplantation by one such as yourself.”

Literally saying I don’t resent you for taking my place. It’s not an explicit statement that he respects you but this is he weird fucked up little way of saying it. Of course he still lays it out in a way that’s self centred but we know from the way he has spoken that this is about as much verbal praise he is capable of giving.

The other one is a less explicit statement but I think it’s a interesting reflection of the final place of his character.

“…my thanks, Lamb.”

Being his last bit of unique dialogue, it’s an incredible ending to a character. He thanks you. That’s all he needed to say.

Narinder’s reaction to his defeat that he would rather die.

Let’s go over his dialogue in some depth.

"You weak, snivelling, foul thing. You - wait! Waaaiiiiiit!"

I’m starting with this line as it compels me the most. I find that there are two separate readings of this and I can’t really point to one above the other. On my play through I had assumed his wailing was more in reference to being denied death. It could also be read as him not wanting to be reduced to a follower and realizing what your mercy really means for his future.

“-are you to be a vengeful false idol, or a merciful coward? No longer can you blame your vile acts on me."

Okay, looking at the way he presents your two options he seems to push more for the murder action. “-vengeful false idol,” is how he refers to murder. It’s not exactly a glowing review but his use of the word vengeful is important. We know that one of Narinder’s main goals in the game is revenge, we he already acts with revenge I can’t say that he’s using this word as an insult. The false idol part of this statement seems like he’s attempted to separate himself from you, again for is ego.

Then he presents the spare option by calling you a “merciful coward.” The flow of this full sentence puts more pressure on this option. He presents it as the “or” the second option. This is the bad option, the option of a coward.

“So. vou are no different to me after all. You have become as I am."

I know this is a deranged order to go over these quotes but last we got murder. Compared to his spare dialogue this is incredibly sombre. We know from already establishing how big his ego is that saying you are the same as him is almost a compliment. I do find this dialogue incredibly interesting tho, I can’t exactly explain why but I can’t help but read this as damning as well. It’s like he means it in both ways, the ultimate fuck you. You are just as I am, for better and worse.

But from what we know about Narinder his edgy ass cannot express emotion. He wraps his statements in layers of irony and selfishness. Unless it supports the persona he puts on or inflates his ego he WILL NOT right out state his feelings or needs, especially when he was a chained god.

Relationship with Aym and Baal

Aym and Baal are incredibly hard to characterize. They don’t have much dialogue to work off of and only three characters every speak on them, Shamura, Narinder and Forneus. The context of the game does present them as more Narinder’s first (and second) hand, less followers more apprentices, almost, but where’s the fun in assuming.

"Intended as keepers, perhaps, but they were young and in need of guidance. Must I be blamed for my influence?"

I wanna draw attention to the specific wording of keepers. Again, based on the way Narinder speaks its safe to assume he means the formal meaning of a keeper, meaning a caretaker. It is unclear if Narinder was told they where his keepers or if he assumed so, but either way he still speaks on them as such.

For the sake of argument (and I don’t wanna rewrite this bit entirely) I’m gonna put the idea that Narinder brainwashed Aym and Baal against my presented idea of them being his keepers or apprentices.

The proposed idea of the brainwashing angle can be developed based on Narinder saying that “they where young and in need of guidance, must I be blamed for my influence.” This implies that, as much as Aym and Baal may have been sent as keepers, they where still young and Narinder could not help but be an influence on them. I am gonna come back around to this thread so hold onto this for a moment. Moving on.

“Two kits I did have, true love found! And yet one lackadaisy summer day, my beautiful children were taken away... a gift, they said, for the one they loved most, the one that waits...”

“Ooh, kits... I remember, I remember... two kits in my claws... a gift.."

It is unclear and morally dubious how Aym and Baal came to Narinder. First we’re not 100% where Narinder is chained. The wiki lists it as the afterlife and in dialogue Narinder refers to it as “at the gates between this life and the next, trapped at the nexus of what was and what wasn't.” (When he asks you to send him on a mission.) We can travel there both by dying and being summoned there by him.

Either way the assumption is that Aym and Baal had to die. (As an aside I have my own speculation on the conditions required for a person to be presented to Narinder or to be resurrected but that’s off topic.) The horrific implications being that either Shamura themself killed the kits or that they where already dying. However you cannot blame the reaper for ushering the dead away from life.

I’m going to work off of the cult specific definition and characteristics of brainwashing. It’s hard to characterize where Aym and Baal sit here as, again they have little dialogue and due to the nature of brainwashing it’s hard to spot. First I wanna grab my brainwashing resources.

I’m using Encyclopedia Britannica’s page on brainwashing, cults, indoctrination, manipulation as my primary resourse.

Again I kinda wanna apply a layer of irony to how literally I apply real life tragedy to this game that obviously uses cults in a comedic manner. I wanna focus in on the characteristics displayed by victims of brainwashing and the techniques used in brainwashing by an abuser.

Looking at the elements used in brainwashing the only one I can say off the bat that is present is isolation, obviously. But with that let’s grab all of Aym and Baal’s dialogue.

What is clear from their dialogue is their obedience to Narinder. They call him master while his keepers and still when you meet them later when adventuring. And physically we do see them by Narinder’s side the entire main game and they fight the Lamb first. But if we add some nuance and look at their role as keepers or my own theory of being apprentices both actions of obedience make sense still for those roles. On the same note they also don’t display traits you would expect for someone fully under Narinder’s control. They speak to the Lamb out of turn and attack without prompting from Narinder.

Other characteristics are hard to imply. With torture I do want to pass it off an unlikely as based on the way Narinder tries to manipulate the Lamb it’s only verbal and he cannot attack while chained and I don’t see that changing with the keepers. Traits like sleep, water and food deprivation can’t be applied for various reasons (mostly the being dead one) and we don’t know anything about Narinder and the keeper’s interactions in the past so I’ll have to disregard other traits like suggestion.

Baal: "It's you. Usurper of the Red Crown. The one who freed us."

Aym: "Ha! You are nothing compared to our Master. We have not been in this world long, but already I can tell you are weak. You lack discipline. Our Master wielded Death with precision and control. You allow chaos to reign."

Baal: "What my brother means to say is thank you."

Moving onto groupthink I can pretty comfortably say that this is not a present characteristic of Aym and Baal. In their limited dialogue we can easily characterize Aym as more outwardly defensive of Narinder but Baal is more reserved and even contradicts Aym and is able to speak freely of Narinder.

Looping back around to the way Narinder speaks on his influence on Aym and Baal. Again we know how Narinder speaks, he cannot give honest compliments and dodges affection like it’s a professional sport. With the way he will outright tell the Lamb to manipulate followers and then uses the words “guidance” and “influence” about Aym and Baal, he has to be avoiding admitting affection to the keepers. He does follow that up with “Do what you wish, scornful God. I care not for them.” But again does Forneus not also allow her kits to do as they wish?

My own reading of Narinder’s relation to Aym and Baal is that of mentorship but it could also be read as parental. But saying brainwashed is a big stretch.

His feelings on the death of Ratau

This is like another example of like, yeah, wow, an evil character does evil? Who could’ve possibly foreseen this? Sarcasm aside I do see his comments on this being a lesser evil.

First I do have to ask why, if Narinder held strong sense of unrest against his former vessel, did he not have him struck down? The main reason I can see is that Ratau is still devoted to the red crown, most clearly seen by the statue at the lonely shack which generates devotion.

Second, Ratau’s death isn’t on his hands, it’s on yours. I find his pride here is from The Lamb’s actions not the death of Ratau. You killed your mentor, he describes your actions as “treacherous opportunism” and says “A great Vessel takes their master's will as their own.” Based on his later dialogue this is likely more foreshadowing the Lamb becoming as Narinder is. Narinder tried to kill his siblings, and you did kill your mentor. “You have become as I am."

I’m gonna tangent quickly cause there’s a line here that is incredibly interesting.

"He renounced his position after striking a bargain that resulted in the sacrifice of a Follower. He was weak."

Incredibly interesting the way he condemns Ratau’s sacrifice of a follower. Narinder directly contradicts himself. It is implied that the follower was lost to another being that did not benefit Narinder, but the Lamb also sacrifices followers to the Fox and Midas. Just something to chew on.

Why do we “babygirl” Narinder and other evil characters?

This is kinda the last bit I’m gonna get into before I cap this off. It is incredibly funny for me to say “I babygirl Narinder” only to get a reply that’s like “I don’t think you babygirl him on purpose.” But I wanna talk about why this happens and why it happened to specifically Narinder.

When people complain about the fandom interpretation of Narinder I think they forget the tone of cult of the lamb. The closest thing I could think to call it would be a dark comedy kinda energy.

The game has very dark themes going on. Mentions of real horrible things like genocide, cults and religious abuse. But also just like look at the game, it’s visual style is so cute and non threatening, the bird characters have two mouths to commit to the bit. If you look at the way it depicts cults it’s very surface level, it’s more focused on being a satire on the common satanic media kinda look of a cult. Visually it bathes in its aesthetics, taking names from books like The Lessee Key of Solomon, uses villainous depictions of symbols like the pentagram or old Hebrew script, disregarding its nuanced origins.

And then they go onto do the funniest thing ever. The other bishop’s? Gross little freaks, based on commonly disliked animals, worm, frog, squid and spider. And then- and then they make the god of death, who they characterize and manipulative and evil, they make him a catboy. You cannot tell me they did not know what they where doing.

Why have I shot Narinder with the babygirl beam? CAUSE THE GAME DID IT FIRST!

I’m gonna call the god of death my little meow meow and point out his status as a Tumblr sexy man cause he’s a little guy and I wanna give him head scritches. But I’m also gonna call him a layered, fucked up and an incredibly interesting character in the same breath.

#my post #cotl #cult of the lamb #cotl narinder #cult of the lamb narinder #cotl the one who waits #cult of the lamb the one who waits #character analysis #Malachi Why?

[veronicaphoenix]

Title: Into the Abyss of Bad Habits — Part Three | Words: 10k

Tags & trigger warnings: unresolved to resolved feelings, polyamorous relationship, angst to fluff and comfort, mentions of anxiety, sexual content, including threesome, p in v (protected), oral sex (both receiving), overstimulation, edge play, slight bondage, blindfolding, mentions of spankings, double penetration. (Let me know if I'm missing sth).

Author’s note: here it finally goes :) this is for you all. Thank you for reading and sharing your reactions 💕

INTO THE ABYSS OF BAD HABITS — PART THREE

“Where are you?” My brother’s voice reached my ears through the phone line.

I stopped the absent-minded tracing of letter on the surface of my Costa Coffee cup and furrowed my brow. “What do you mean, ‘where am I’? I’m in England. I told you I’d be here until—”

“I know you’re in England, smartass,” he retorted. He was likely in his office, settling into his morning routine in Los Angeles, while it was mid-afternoon in the UK. “I mean, where exactly? I got a call from Noah twenty minutes ago. He’s freaking out because you’re nowhere to be found and you’re not answering his calls or messages.” 

“Oh.”

Noah had indeed tried reaching me several times since morning, calling and texting and then joining the iMessage group where Oliver had also added his fair dose of worried and then angry messages. I should have said something, I realized now, at least to reassure them that nothing had happened —besides getting fucked by both of them and feeling very sore—. 

The memories from last night flooded back and I tightened my grip on the cup of hot chocolate, tuning out the noise of the people around me. 

When I left the hotel that morning, I walked far from it hoping a change of scenery might clear my head and provide some clarity on what I’d done and its implications for my relationships with Noah and Oliver. But even after skipping lunch for a coffee at Starbucks, then trying my luck with a hot chocolate at Costa, nothing seemed to help.    

I was doomed, and my brother’s call was the last thing I needed.

Jack called my name repeatedly until he had to raise his voice, pulling me from my thoughts. “Are you there? What’s going on?”

“Yeah, I’m here. I’m—I’m just in a café. I was feeling suffocated with all the coming and going between hotels and venues, bus rides and all the work and…”

“Did something happen?”

“No,” I replied too quickly, knowing he’d detect the evasion.  

I could almost envision his raised eyebrow on the other end of the line. 

 “You slept with him again, didn’t you?”

“Jack, that’s none of your business.”

“I know, but you’re my sister and your well-being is, in fact, my business. I know something is up by the way Noah was speaking, and there was some Brit losing his mind in the background, too. What is this all about?”

“Jack, trust me, you don’t want to know.”

There was a silence coming from his side and my cheeks started burning. I glanced around nervously, feeling as thought every eye in the café was on me.

Jack’s sigh reached my end. 

“Listen, baby sis, whatever you’ve done, you need to fix it. This situation with Noah has been going on long enough, and you two are lying to each other,” he acknowledged. “If there’s a third party involved… Well, I don’t know. That’s your business but sort it out. Don’t bury your head in the sand. That’s not like you. You’ve always been the one preaching all that shit about talking about your feelings and communication being so important. Don’t shy away from it now. Whatever it is, I’m sure it can be fixed, and don’t be afraid of what might happen. You know you can always call me, whenever.”

I was the one rising an eyebrow now.

“How much has Noah told you?”

Jack chuckled.

“Just talk to them.”

Oh. 

There it was again. 

Them. 

I wondered if leaving had been a mistake, after all. 

Not long after my conversation with Jack, I returned to the hotel. 

As I stepped into the room, I was met with a potent blend of sex and masculinity that engulfed my senses. 

The bed was still unmade, a reminder of the recent sinful activities. I noticed the ‘do not disturb’ sign still hanging outside the door and decided to leave it be, my fingers tingling with the weight of my growing anxiety.  

Every time I looked towards the tousled sheets, vivid and colorful memories flooded my mind. I could see myself on top of Oliver, Noah behind me, the three of us drowning in a sea of collective groans, screams, and wails of pleasure. 

 I could also see their slumbering forms occupying each side of the bed. 

 To divert my mind, I looked for something else to do. I needed to sort out my things, indulge in a hot shower, maybe eat something or have another coffee. Instead, my eyes fell upon the lingerie set, neatly folded, and placed on the desk next to the TV remote. 

Which one of them took the time to gather the garments from the floor and fold them so meticulously?

My heart fluttered at the tender gesture, adding another drop of confusion to my ongoing crisis.  

I made a beeline for the shower. Noah’s and Oliver’s scent still lingered on my skin, and the love bites and hickeys wouldn’t leave me for a few days. I had no other choice but take my brother’s advice and pull myself together. 

After a grueling day spent replaying the events of the previous night and a near-anxiety attack in the confines of my hotel bathroom, I decided I had to talk to them. Hiding and pretending none of it had happened would only lead to further complications and would strain my relationship with Noah and Oliver to the point of ruining everything. I couldn’t afford to let it fester and seep into their professional lives. I would not let that happen. 

An hour slipped away while I debated when it would be the best time to approach them. 

Should I text them? Send a message on the iMessage group? Or should I just talk to them face to face? To one of them first or to both at the same time? 

By the time I resolved that this was something that needed to be talked to face to face and I gathered the courage to admit my mistake, evening had descended, and everybody was already at the venue where the bands were playing that night.

I was still unsure of where this would go. I’d had the entire day to think about my feelings and, well, I was still a mess. The only certainty I held onto was that I didn’t want to lose any of them, so I was willing to do whatever they said, whether it was keeping everything in professional terms, remain friends, or… 

Taking a deep breath, I watched as the Nicks and Jolly descended from the stage, their faces beaming with sweat and satisfaction. Jolly squeezed my shoulder as he passed by. In return I sent a faint smile his way. 

Moments later, Noah appeared, descending the metal steps clad in black pants and a tank top. His eyes briefly widened as he caught sight of me. He paused, the towel in his hand frozen mid-motion as he registered my presence. Then, without a word, he continued past me, following the same path as the rest of the band.  

“Noah,” I called out, a tinge of desperation in my voice. But amidst the hustle and bustle of the stage preparation for BMTH, my plea seemed to fall on deaf ears. 

Noah stopped, half-turning towards me. His gaze was cold, and he was angry. That much I could tell. 

I couldn’t fuck it up anymore, so the last thing left for me to do was to be honest. 

“I got scared,” I said, the words catching in my throat.  

“Scared?” He echoed, his tone sharp.

If I nodded, it was lost on me because his dark, penetrating gaze made me freeze on the spot, and when he drew nearer, my heart thundered in my chest.  

“No, you don’t get to tell me that you got scared,” he retorted, barely inches away from me, his voice low and intense. His scent enveloped me: he smelled just the same as last night, except for the missing addition of my own sweat and the magical residual scent of sex.  

I wanted him again. I wanted him covered in sweat from the heat of our intimacy, of our entwined bodies. 

He towered over me, his presence overwhelming, making me feel tiny and inconsequential.

“I was the one scared,” he admitted, his voice laced with pain and fury. “I was scared every time I fucked you in my bed and I found you looking at me with those beautiful fucking eyes. I was scared because I knew I was falling in hard. I was terrified,” he emphasized, the last word dripping with raw emotion. “Then you slept with Oliver. When I got to know, I was on the verge of nightmares. I was terrified at the thought that I might have lost you. Then you told me all those things, and yet, I decided to give you what you wanted even though it scared the shit out of me. It scared me to hell to think of what it would do to me —to us— if we crossed that line with Oliver. And yet again, we did. And then this morning you were gone. You were not there by my side when you made me promise not to leave. So no, you don’t get to tell me you were scared after you got fucked by two men who fucking adore you!” 

My throat constricted, tears threatening to spill from my eyes. 

Instinctively, my hand reached out towards him, but Noah recoiled, stepping back with a shake of his head. Not a single strand of hair moved from its place on his forehead due to the layer of sweat covering every inch of this tall, muscular frame. 

“You wanted honesty? There it is,” he continued, this time his voice low and composed. He dropped the towel to the floor, as if he was… giving up. “You were right to demand that from me, but you should have done the same in return.” 

And yet, I had left him before the sun rose, just as he did with me in that moment, stepping back with his brown eyes locked on mine until he couldn’t stand my gaze any longer and he turned away, rushing out the corner and disappearing from my sight. 

I realized then the severity of my actions. It had taken me years to get Noah to open up, and just when I had managed to get him to, to unwrap another layer of him, I had turned my back on him. 

He had all the right to be furious, to hate me, to never want to see me again.

I just didn’t think I could take it because, with each passing second, my feelings for him were becoming clearer. What I had been feeling for months was more than just platonic adoration. 

Waves of anxiety engulfed me. Some of the staff members, having caught up in the intense exchange, cast various glances my way as I stood there alone, drowning in my own misery. Some of their looks were pitiful, others were dripping with disgust. 

With a dry throat and some tears streaming down my cheeks, I hid in the nearest restroom and in a feeble attempt to regain my composure. I told myself that there was a way to get Noah back, that we could be mended and we could move past this. 

But another voice in my head told me that I had fucked up beyond repair; that I hadn’t just fucked up a wonderful relationship with two wonderful men; I had also hurt them, and that knowledge tore my insides apart. 

I didn’t recognize myself.

Why had I acted the way I did? Why hadn’t I stayed? 

I had always been the one to push others to improve their communication skills. I hated unresolved tension and not having a clear idea of what I felt and what others felt around me. It was something that consistently plunged me into anxiety, so why had I chosen this path? 

Desperation seized me. 

Fifteen minutes later, after washing my face and trying to move the hair away from my face, I headed to the green room. 

Though greeted with nods and briefs hugs from the people crowding the room, my focus was on one individual. 

My stomach knotted at the sight of Oliver’s eyes on me, the look on his green orbs not much distant from the one Noah had had mere moments ago. Swallowing hard, I walked to him, ignoring some lighthearted joke Mat attempted to engage me in. He must have sensed my unease, not from my lack of response, but from the weight of Oliver’s stare as he stood in my path.  

His bandmates had known him for than I did, and it was clear that they knew when to shut their mouths and redirect their gazes away. 

Perhaps I should have felt terrified, but terrified had led me to ruin one of the best nights of my life, so no, I wouldn’t let it happen again. 

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” 

I would need more than a minute to say everything I wanted to say, though.   

Instead of replying, he eyed me for two seconds, twirling the Red Bull can in his hand before addressing the room at large. 

“Guys, can you give us some privacy?”

In another circumstance, I might have felt embarrassed by the sudden attention, knowing that everyone present was likely speculating about why Oliver wanted to be alone with me in the green room and we both had those long faces on. However, after the events of last night, I found myself beyond the capacity for embarrassment. 

“We’re going on stage in ten minutes,” Lee interjected. I could feel his gaze boring into my back while he sent a warning directed at Oliver. 

“Got it,” Oliver replied, his tone firm.  

It took the others a full minute to gather their stuff and vacate the room, some muttering under their breath as they left. 

Taking a deep breath, I met Oliver’s gaze head-on, steeling myself.

“I fucked up," I began, watching him closely for his reaction. The weight of my words sank in as I tried to get my shit together after my failed attempt at sorting things out with Noah earlier. 

I waited for his reply with my nerves eating me alive.

“You fucked up by having sex with me and Noah or by leaving in the morning?”

“By leaving in the morning. I should have stayed. I just… I panicked.”

Oliver narrowed his green eyes at me, a mix of frustration and something else flickering across his face. 

“I can understand that,” he conceded, his tone softening slightly, “but then you bailed on us and disappeared the entire day. What are we supposed to think?” 

Standing up straight, he moved away from the cheap white IKEA table he had been leaning on, circling me before disposing of the can in a nearby black bin. 

Yeah, I should've stayed and talked to them instead of running away, but what was done, was done. Now I had to find a way to fix it on my own. 

“Noah doesn’t want to talk to me," I said, feeling like a whiny little girl for being denied a lollipop.

“I’m not sure I want to talk to you either,” Oliver replied bluntly. His words hit me like a punch to the gut. My panic momentarily increased until he continued talking. "I’m torn between that or bending you over that table and fucking you hard and fast after giving you a good spanking.”

I froze for a beat, my cheeks flaming. Closing my eyes, I dropped my shoulders and released the air I’d been holding. 

“I don’t need that right now. I need to talk to you and Noah before I make it worse.”

“Yes, obviously. This is not going to work if there’s no communication”

This.

I bit my lip, only to get chided by Oliver. “Don’t do that. You’ll bruise yourself.” 

“I know time is not on our side now,” I continued, “but is there anywhere we can meet to… talk? The three of us?” 

Oliver hummed in thought. 

“Considering we need to hop on the tour bus early tomorrow, I suggest you get some good sleep tonight and we talk when we reach the hotel in London after lunch.”

I nodded again. I was defeated, so I would just do whatever they said. I just wanted to fix things. 

With my eyes on the floor, I startled when I felt Oliver’s fingers on my cheek. He was eyeing me from under his eyelashes, a tiny furrow between his eyebrows. 

“Are you sure you just want to talk?”

How could I tell him that every fiber of my body was screaming to be touched again by both their hands, by their fingers, their mouths…? 

Maybe I didn’t need to. Soon enough, he was smirking knowingly, and he pulled gently at my lower lip with his thumb.

“That’s what I thought. But I’m not touching you again until you’re honest with me and Noah, so take the time you need to think. Whatever it is, I’ll respect your decision.”

“Will you?” I couldn’t help but ask, uncertainty coloring my tone. 

 It took him a moment to respond. 

“Hell, no. You think you’re the only one terrified, doll?” he countered with a tilt of his head. “That makes threeof us. I’ve been thinking about you since before I knew you were coming to Europe with Noah and the band. I just assumed that whatever you had with Noah was restricted to the two of you even if you weren’t dating. But then you came back and you reached me with that pretty smile and you shared so much of yourself with me… and then, to make it worse, you let me touch you… and I knew I was doomed because I’d never get enough of you.”

“Oliver, I—” I began, my voice shaking, my vision getting blurry. 

“No crying, come on,” he admonished. “You’re a big girl. You took both of us so well last night,” he reminded me, a flash of lust crossing his eyes. “You can manage this. We’ll get through it the three of us together, wherever it takes us, even if it’s on different paths.”

“I’m not sure I want us to go on different paths…” I confessed quietly, surprising not only him but myself. 

He sighed, seeming relieved. 

“That’s why I said to get a good night’s sleep and think about it. I’ll let Noah know we’ll be talking tomorrow as we reach London, okay?”

I swallowed my tears and nodded. 

When I asked Oliver if I could travel with him in BMTH’s tour bus the next morning, of course he readily agreed. But what I didn’t expect was Noah’s unexpected appearance at seven in the morning on the same bus, seeking me out. He wasn’t as pissed as he had been when we talked right after Bad Omen’s show the night before, but he was definitely not happy that I was evading the band’s tour bus—evading him—.

I was still tired. Exhausted. Drained from a sleepless night. Despite Oliver’s assurances that things would be sorted out, I was scared that Noah wouldn’t accept it, that he would never be okay with a relationship between the three of us, and that he would never forgive me.

That’s why when he appeared on BMTH’s bus, I simply sank onto the sofa when he instructed me to sit, and I let him settle next to me, his thigh and arm brushing mine. I was ready for the worst.  

“I might be pissed at you,” he started saying, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t want you around,” he stated. His gaze had softened as he looked at me, a hint of vulnerability peeking through his almond-shaped orbs. Our faces were barely inches away from each other. The fact that he smelled so good wasn’t helping the chaos going on in my head. “Or is it that you don’t want me?”

I frowned. 

“You know I do,” I assured him. How could I ever stop wanting him? His brown eyes would always held me captive.  

I considered that, if I got both of them, if I was just lucky enough, I would have those beautiful brown eyes and those mesmerizing green orbs gazing adoringly at me every day. Could I ask for more after that?

“I just made this whole situation so uncomfortable that I don’t know how to behave around you anymore,” I admitted, the weight of my mistakes heavy on my shoulders.

His hand found mine on my thigh. Noah clasped his fingers around mine in a comforting gesture. 

“I’ll tell you how: be a good girl. I’m angry at you, but it’s nothing that won’t be solved after we talk with Oli and you… get punished.” A smirk tugged at the corner of his thin lips. 

I could only sigh and sink myself deeper onto the seat. What did that even mean?

“Come back to our bus,” he said. When I took a while to answer, his grip on my hand tightened and he pleaded, “please?”

How am I supposed to resist the puppy eyes? 

“All right,” I relented.

I stood up, only to be met with Oliver’s figure standing not far from us, frame leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his broad chest. 

“We should have hired another bus, huh?”

Noah raised an eyebrow and after a couple of seconds snorted, shaking his head as he placed a hand at my back, nudging me forward.

“One for the three of us,” Oliver mused, his eyes eyeing my casual outfit and lingering on my chest for a little longer with a suggestive glint, as if he could see through. “Just imagine how much fun we would have had on our way to the big city.” 

I looked between him and Noah, blinking. I was missing something there, some understanding between the two of them that I was not a part of. 

It was at that moment, with the chill of the January morning creeping in through the cracks of the bus and the look the boys shared with each other that I realized that maybe, very maybe, I had been wrong all along, but… could there really be a chance that... things would work out between Noah, Oliver, and me?

Ignoring the racing beat of my heart and the wave of relief and joy that suddenly seeped through me, with a newly found bravery I said, “May I remind you that despite the distraction I’m being, you’re here to work, both of you?” I wanted to sound rational, and I was, but of course they found it amusing.  

“You can remind us later,” Oliver said, leaning over me to peck me on the cheek. 

 “Get going,” Noah indicated, his tone firm yet affectionate. “I’ll be there in a minute. Nick and Matt are playing Elden Ring. Tell them to hand over the controllers.”

I hesitated for a moment, glancing between the two of them. Then Noah put a hand on Oliver’s shoulder and squeezed, both their eyes on me, as if trying to send a reassurance to the apprehension taking hold of every nerve on my body. 

Not long after 2pm, we arrived in London, its iconic skyline piercing the sky much like the needle of anticipation jabbing at my insides as I awaited the moment of being alone with Oliver and Noah in a hotel room again. 

Our stay in the city was scheduled for three days. Under normal circumstances, I would have been looking forward to my free time to explore the city’s most wonderful streets and charming corners. However, other than the work-related stuff, nothing was going as planned, starting with the fact that I found myself not dreading to explore the city at all. My thoughts were consumed by the desire to explore something else —two men’s tattooed bodies, the seas of their skin, every imperfection and scar… 

I followed the Bad Omens’ crew into the lobby of the InterContinental next to the O2 Arena, pulling at my suitcase with one hand and typing a couple of texts to my brother while Matt handled the check-in at the reception desk. I waited for him to get the hotel card keys and hand mine, but he never approached me. 

I looked at him, confusion all over my face as I slid my phone in the back pocket of my jeans and saw him the rest of the guys head to the elevators on the left side of the lobby.    

I was about to call out to him when I noticed that Noah was still beside me, a few steps behind me. 

“Where’s my room key?” I asked.

Noah raised a hand, displaying a card. 

Despite his towering height, with the backpack slung over his shoulders, I always thought he resembled a little kid.    

“Oliver wants us to share a room,” he informed me evenly.

“What?” I sputtered, taken aback. 

Oliver and the rest of the band were not there yet. They had an interview in some radio station and the bus had dropped them off at the location before reaching the hotel, so they wouldn’t be checking in until later. 

“We’ll talk there”, Noah clarified. “If you want to have a room for yourself after that we’ll make sure you get one. It’s not a big deal.”

Truth be told, I hoped I didn’t have to get one. I dreaded sleeping between their warm bodies again, perhaps indefinitely. I knew that I was dreaming too much, but it was all I could cling to while I waited for the talk. 

During the elevator ride, I buried myself in my phone again, ignoring Noah’s presence on the other side and trying my damnest hard to block memories from last year’s tour when Noah had nearly fucked me against the elevator walls in some hotel in Las Vegas before we could make it to his hotel room. 

When the door of the suite opened after Noah swiped Oliver’s card on the reader, I gasped at the dimensions of the room. We were welcomed by a spacious common area, complete with a sofa, a dining table, and a massive TV that we were not going to use. Passing through white French doors, we were met with the bedroom. The pièce de resistance? The king-sized bed positioned in front of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Thames. All I could suddenly think about was… probably the same Noah was thinking as our eyes met after they’d landed on the huge bed. 

I could have felt embarrassed. Instead, somehow, I managed to offer him a sweet smile that he reciprocated. 

In silence, we began to unpack, though I refrained from unpacking too much, considering that the veredict of our current situation was still to be decided. 

Noah retrieved some of his electronics from his backpack and returned from the common area to find me standing by the large windows in the bedroom, looking down at the river.  

“Why don’t you take a nap?” He suggested, his eyes betraying his concern. “You look like you haven’t been sleeping properly.” 

I sighed. “No, I haven’t.”

“Sleep,” he urged gently.

“Are you staying?” I inquired, looking in his eyes in need of reassurance. 

“Yes.” Of course, his eyes said.

We stared at each other. When the emotions grew too big, I removed the distance between us and stood on my tiptoes to wrap my arms around his neck in a tight hug. 

He hugged me back, sinking his face in the crook of my neck, and the gesture felt like a soothing balm. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cry or strip him off his clothes. 

It must have been the same for him because I felt him tensing after the hug went on for too long. When he pulled away, he adjusted his pants before I managed to take a quick look at the spot. Guilty.

He urged me to rest for a while again. Oliver wouldn’t take long, he said. 

As sleep claimed me, I found solace in the thought of waking up to both of them in the room.  

Their voices reached my dreams, coaxing me awake. 

I stirred in the bed, stretching my muscles before lifting my head from the comfortable pillows and looking over my shoulder, towards the origin of the sound. The doors to the bedroom were slightly ajar, and I could see their silhouettes through the open space. Noah was seated at the table with a cup of coffee cradled in his hands while Oliver leaned in close, practically with his ass on the table as he talked to Noah, his thigh very close to the hand Noah was holding the cup of coffee with. Oliver had another one in his hand. They spoke slowly, softly, as if they were lifelong confidants. I lingered in the quiet, watching them, taking advantage of the fact that they hadn't noticed I was awake. I was captivated by the way Oliver would occasionally smile at him, and how Noah's eyes would sparkle. 

I sat up in bed as a surge of warmth flooded my senses. Before revealing myself, I hurried to the bathroom on the opposite side of the bedroom.

When I emerged, their voices had died away, and I could hear them moving about the room.  

With hesitant steps, I opened the French doors, my eyes falling first on one man and then on the other. 

"Hi," I said in a slurred voice. 

Oliver was pouring hot water from the kettle into another cup and Noah was hanging one of his winter jackets in the wardrobe by the entrance.

“Hi there, sleeping beauty,” Oliver greeted. 

I accepted the cup of tea he offered and thanked him with a shy smile as I brought the cup to my lips, making sure it wasn’t too hot. Lemon tea.

“Are you okay?” Noah asked with a frown, getting closer to lift my chin with two fingers and scrutinize my face. “Your cheeks are flushed.” 

“It must have been the heating in the room,” I explained, gesturing towards the bedroom. 

The answer satisfied him for he nodded, his features relaxing. 

“Do you want to sit down?” He asked.

I instantly shook my head. 

“I will if I need to, but I rather stand while I sort this out,” I said. Both of them shared a look and locked their gazes with me a second after. “I don’t want to drag it out any longer,” I said, gulping down the next sip of the tea.

“Alright,” Oliver did sit down on the sofa, facing me. 

Noah took a seat next to him. 

Great. Now it feels like I’m back at uni, about to start my thesis defense. 

While Oliver reclined comfortably against the sofa cushions, his arm casually draped over the sofa’s back, he nearly touched Noah, who was leaned forward, his arms resting on his thighs, hands clasped together. 

Green and brown eyes were fixed intently on me. 

I moistened my lips and hesitated for a moment before speaking. I didn’t know where to start, and I felt the heat rise in my cheeks as I steadied myself against the TV furniture.  

“I left because I didn’t want to,” I began.

Of course my answer elicited raised eyebrows from both.

“What I mean to say is…” I averted my gaze momentarily, “I don’t think I’ve ever felt as good as I did when I woke up,” I explained. “Despite… the ache between my legs, I was sure that I wanted that every next morning, and I realized it wasn’t right. I couldn’t be having such thoughts. This,” I gestured between me and them, “is not normal.” 

I waited for them to interject, but they didn’t. Their silence encouraging me to press on.

“After our night together, I thought about everything else that happened before that, and a voice in my head told me that it had all been a mistake: sleeping with you,” I said to Oliver. His features morphed into ones of pain and then, defeat, “and then dragging you,” I said to Noah, “into this without having sorted out first what was going on between us. I didn’t want to fuck up any of our relationships; the friendship between you two, and the one I had with each of you. On top of that, we’re in the middle of a tour and I can’t help but feel that I’m a burden and a stupid girl for dragging both of you into this mess. And then…”

“Then, what?” Noah pressed; his eyes suddenly alight. He could sense what I was about to get into. He could sense it very well, and instead of the expression I had expected from him, —the look of fear—, he seemed to be… excited?

“Then I focused on what I was feeling, on what I feel and…” I took a deep breath, gathering the courage. “I want you both. I’m sorry for what this means, but I don’t want to lie or hide it. After I took on your offer of sleeping with you, I thought that once it was done, nothing would change, or that whatever pleasure I was seeking would be satisfied, that we would have fun… but it wasn’t just that, and things did change. I had all day to think and to come to terms with my feelings. After spending the night with you, I can safely say that I want more. Not just sex. I want more of you, of both of you. Anything you want to give me. I’ll take everything, the good and the bad. I just… need you like I never thought I would, and I’m sorry for it.”

As I finished my confession and realized how much I had needed to hear my own voice say it, I couldn’t bear to meet their eyes. The pounding of my heart drowned out any other sound.  

There was a minute of silence that stretched painfully, each passing second amplifying my discomfort. I wished the ground would swallow me whole. That was the most excruciating minute of my life. 

“First of all, fuck normal,” Oliver said. “Second, yes, this is a mess, but I fucking love this mess if it means I get to have you at the end of the day. I want you vocal and naked,” his words were a firm statement. “That doesn’t seem too hard to me, does it?” His gaze shifted to Noah, the question also directed at him. “I also told you last night that my feelings for you have been more than just those of a friend since a while now. Did you hurt me by sleeping with me and Noah and leaving in the morning? Yes, you did. Do I resent you for it? No. We’re here talking things out like fucking mature adults. I only expect you not to make that a habit, otherwise we will have problems. As for everything else concerned,” he shook his head and raised his hands, “I had my time to think about it, too. And I felt fucking fantastic as I fell asleep next to you two.” His eyes landed on Noah again, who wore a mix of guilt and satisfaction on his face. 

“Noah?” I mumbled his name with a sense of urgency and fear. 

“Tell her,” Oliver ordered him, his voice suddenly demanding. “Tell her those damned three words, man. You’ve waited long enough. Don’t make me kick your arse.”

Noah hesitated, his eyes darting from Oliver to the floor then to me and all over again. 

“I love you,” he confessed with his brown eyes boring into mine with a vulnerability that I had never seen before. “I’ve been in love with you for longer than I care to admit.”

“He isn’t the only one that does, doll,” Oliver added, his voice resolute yet tender. 

That was not what I had expected at all. 

Yet, I fell to my knees. 

Immediately, Noah and Oliver rose from the sofa, coming to me, hand trying to grab me to get me back up. 

“Hey, hey. What is this?” Oliver asked.

“Come on, no need for…” Noah started saying.

But as I fumbled with the zipper of Noah’s jeans, confusion clouded their expressions as they froze, realization dawning in their eyes. 

“What are you doing?” Noah asked, his Adam’s apple bobbing with difficulty. 

“Showing you how much I love you both, too,” the words slipped from my lips as my hands moved instinctively, pulling down Noah’s jeans and swiftly unbuttoning Oliver’s, “and starting to repay you for my mistake of leaving the bed without talking to you. I won’t do it again, I promise. Just… I want this to work.”

“It will,” Oliver affirmed, “as long as we keep communicating with each other,” confidence dripping from his lips.

Beneath my touch, I could feel him growing aroused, hard. I glanced at Noah from my kneeling position.

“I was worried that I had fucked everything up by making you share me with Oliver,” I told him honestly.

“You didn’t make me do anything,” he replied firmly. “I’m a grown man. I make my own decisions. Besides, I wouldn’t have agreed to share you with anyone unless I was certain that the other person cherished and valued you like a goddess.”

“Noah and I have already talked about it. We’re on board with this, baby,” Oliver added. 

My heart was going to explode, but I felt a pang of frustration at how ahead they were on this and how behind I felt. 

“Why is it that you two always have these talks before the three of us are lone?" I grumbled; my frustration evident. I pulled down Noah’s boxers to free his erection. He let out a sigh of relief.  

“We would’ve had this conversation as a trio in the morning if you hadn’t disappeared,” he interjected, already breathless, his focus wavering.  

He had a point. 

“Moving forward with this,” Oliver continued, “means you’ll accept your punishment tonight. Are you ok with that?”

“Yes, you can punish me,” I replied as I slid down his underwear. Oh, the view in front of me. A sight to behold. “I accept my punishment; you can do whatever you want to and with me as long as I get to have both of you.”

“Those are big words,” Noah remarked. “Are you sure you’ll be able to take it?” His hips pressed forward. I wrapped the fingers of my right hand around his shaft while reaching for Oliver’s cock with my left.  

Their synchronized moans were music to my ears. 

“I can take both of you,” I asserted confidently with my chin up. Hadn’t I proved it already? I tugged at them, drawing two beautiful, restrained groans from both. “So yes, I’m sure.”

“Oh, the kitten is feisty,” Oliver sang. “What should we do about it, Noah?”

“Open your mouth,” Noah instructed to me, his voice husky with desire. “Show us how vocal you’re going to be from now on, and then we’ll decide what to do with you next.”

And that I did. 

Not even ten minutes later, I was cleaning the last remnants of Oliver’s and Noah’s release from the corner of my lips with the back of two fingers, still reeling from the intoxicating taste of them. 

Oliver lay sprawled on the sofa, one hand pressed against his forehead, his pants still unbuttoned.

“My soul has left my body,” he mumbled weakly.

With Oliver’s words hung in the air, I could still feel the ghost of Noah’s hand on the back of my head, his fingers grazing my hair gently before guiding me towards him, whispering a restrained ‘good girl’ as I took him whole. I could still taste Oliver’s release in the back of my throat, accompanied by the memory of his passionate wail as his legs trembled with the intensity of his orgasm. 

I rose from where I’d been kneeling, steadying myself with a hand on the nearest chair as I still felt dizzy. Despite my spinning head, I fought back a laugh at Oliver’s comment. It hadn’t been my intention to leave them drained before the show. 

“I’m not sure how I’m going to perform tonight,” Oliver admitted with a wry smile, his exhaustion evident.

Whoops. 

“That was a killer blowjob, baby,” Noah’s voice cut through the air from the main bedroom of the suite as he emerged from the bathroom, a wet face towel in hand, pants on and glorious cock tucked away. Before heading towards his suitcase, he planted a kiss on my lips. “You okay, man?” he inquired, addressing Oliver over his shoulder. 

“I need a minute,” he replied. 

Turned out he needed five. After pouring myself a glass of juice from a bottle I found on the mini fridge, I offered one to Oliver, who accepted gratefully. Noah declined, opting for water.  

“I should head to the venue,” Noah announced as he checked his phone. “I have a couple of messages from Folio. They’re already there.”

“I should head there, too,” Oliver said, finally standing up. 

“I will stay,” I interjected, earning their attention as they collected their things, “at least for a while. I need to get some work done on the MacBook, but I’ll make sure to be there on time for the shows,” I explained with a smile. 

Oliver nodded and headed towards the bathroom while Noah placed his suitcase on a bench and retrieved the Adidas boots he wore during the show. 

“I’ll see you in an hour, then?” Noah asked. 

“I’ll ask Matt to let me join him in the sound deck.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” he replied. 

He approached me, sliding his iPhone into his pocket before stopping right in front of me. I looked up at him, expectantly. He moved the hair away of my face with tender fingers and bent down to kiss me ever so slowly. I couldn’t recall having been kissed by Noah like that ever before, so I melted in his arms. 

I heard him whisper the three magic words against my lips, a hint of shyness in his tone, but he said it nonetheless, and I had to remind myself that this wasn’t a dream. 

“I love you, too,” I whispered back.

I didn’t miss the way his smile lighted up his face as the withdrew from our embrace. My body instantly missed his touch, his warmth, his scent. 

“Do I look like a just experienced a mind-blowing orgasm?” Oliver asked from the bathroom door, drawing a circle with a finger in the air near his face.

“Yeah, you do,” I responded with a smile and an apologetic expression, “but it just makes you look more delicious. Perfect for the show.” 

He laughed, dropping his head, perhaps feeling a bit shy? 

“You’re impossible,” he muttered, standing in front of me. 

He cupped my face and kissed me. His kiss was deeper, more intense, harder than the one I’d just shared with Noah. I loved it just as much, realizing that from that moment onwards I couldn’t bear to live without either of those kisses.

“I love you,” he said. I was going to reply that I did, too, when his words brought a rush of dizziness to my head. “No touching yourself until tonight, are we clear?”

“We haven’t decided yet if we’re letting you come,” Noah added from the door, before stepping out into the hallway.  

“One thing is for sure: you’re in for a few spankings; you’re getting tied up and we’re going to edge you for a good while until we’re satisfied with your punishment for leaving the bed yesterday morning and not talking to us.”

Oh dear.

“Great,” I muttered.

��No rolling your eyes. Be good,” Oliver instructed, pointing a finger at me. 

He grabbed his phone and wallet from the dining table, and with a mischievous grin, he closed the door behind him, disappearing with Noah from my view. 

Two seconds later, I let myself collapse onto the bed, closing my eyes with a smirk of satisfaction on my lips, the whole sentiment etched on my face. Nighttime couldn’t come soon enough.

My heart swelled with pride as I watched them from the center of the arena, Noah’s and Oliver’s figures tiny in the distance but looming on the screens flanking the stage, commanding the attention of thousands and stirring a fervent response. Watching them lead the crowd together in ‘Antivist’ was astonishing. I was so proud of them. Of us, actually. Every time the stage lights fell on them and illuminated them, I felt as if the universe was repeating to me over and over again that those two men were mine, and that I was theirs. 

It was hard to believe that forty-eight hours ago, things had been so different. After the events that my conversation with Noah had led to, I had been flooded with insecurity and fear, and a voice in my head had come very close to making me believe that I had screwed up so badly that I should turn around and go home because never everwould Noah and Oliver give in to being in a polyamorous relationship. This would never work, the voice said, and if part of me believed it would, it was because I had read too many books. 

But look and behold, reality often surpasses fiction. And watching them perform, knowing that they loved me and that we were going to give this a chance, that we were committed to making this work, I felt complete. I was no longer alone to grasp with my conflicted thoughts and emotions. We were three, now. 

These two men, with their music and their love, were mine to cherish and adore.

The rough and complicated start we had endured seemed like a distant memory, and it was just overshadowed by the promise of bright and beautiful days to come. 

By the time the clock struck midnight, I was already a whimpering, trembling mess splayed on the bed. My throat parched, breaths ragged, and legs shaking. I had just been denied my fourth orgasm, and even though I would be lying if I said I hated it, I found myself in a state of overwhelming overstimulation. 

Lost in a haze, I couldn’t even discern which one of them was between my legs. 

As soon as we came back from the venue, I was promptly tied up and blindfolded. Again. Noah and Oliver decided to take turns swapping their place between my legs and working me up, first slowly, gentle laps of their tongues and soft rubs from their fingers inside of me, then fastening their pace, heating me up, driving me to insanity every single time they took me to the edge and then withdrew, leaving me whining their names and crying for release, their wicked laughs the only thing I could hear amidst my own desperation. 

In my delirium, I really couldn’t tell anymore whose tongue was on me, whose teeth was nibling at my pebbled nipples.

“Feeling punished enough, love?” Oliver asked from the foot of the bed, giving himself away after one last flick of his tongue that wasn’t enough to make me fall off the edge. Damn him. 

I couldn’t manage a single word to tell him how I felt. 

Noah’s fingers moved the hair away from my face. Despite wearing a blindfold, I doubted I could have bear to open my eyes. 

“I think that’s enough,” he said. 

“Getting softer, huh?” Oliver teased him.

“Nah, she’s shaking. I don’t want her to pass out on us if we keep going. Let her have it.” 

“You said it.”

Their decision to show mercy on me brought a rush of sensation that threatened to engulf me entirely.  

My climax racked through my body as a hurricane, so violent that my back arched from the mattress. If not for the silky rope binding my wrists to the headboard, I might have pulled Oliver’s hair so hard in my ecstasy that I’d have hurt him. 

With sweet words whispered against my hair, Noah’s praised me, encouraging me through my orgasm, but as I began to descend from my high, he withdrew from the bed. Oliver’s mouth left my swollen center, gifting me two loving kisses on the inside of my right thigh. Then he took a seat beside me on the mattress, replacing Noah. 

“That one was for me,” Oliver said. “Now you’re going to give Noah his.”

I couldn’t grasp my mind at what he meant, but soon enough the hands that had clasped my thighs and kept me grounded on the bed were replaced by Noah’s. I felt him kneeling between my legs again. I gasped. 

“Another one?” I managed to breathe out. My mind had still not come down from my euphoric high and they expected me to…? “I—I don’t think I ca—"

“You will, kitten,” Noah asserted, draping an arm across my hip and stomach to keep me restricted to the mattress. “I know you. You’re going to give me mine.” It was an order. 

Two nights ago, I had damned them both for denying me release in their mouths. Yet now, despite this being a punishment and my exhaustion, their actions felt like a reward. I resolved not to complain, no matter how powerless and lost I felt. 

I remained silent, holding my breath, as Noah slid his slender fingers in, easily navigating through my so embarrassing slickness. He quickly found that sweet spot that I loved having touched, and he started licking me, once, twice, thrice, from my entrance to my clit, drawing circles around my clit until the pleasure was so high that it tore a scream from the depths of my being.  

“Don’t hold back,” I heard Oliver say, his hand on my hair, stroking it.  

For a second, I lost my all sense of rationality. I was sure I was going to pass out with the vibrations from Noah’s voice in my core as he mumbled things and his lips touched my lower lips. My first orgasm cascaded into a second and suddenly, I was enveloped in white, a sharp headache gripping me as I came undone. Fortunately, it passed quickly, and I savored every other second of my long-awaited double release. 

Gradually, Noah’s licks and gentle sucking relented, his hands releasing the grip on me and moving to my thighs, where he started rubbing his palms up and down, trying to soothe down my shaking. Oliver peppered kisses across my chest and sternum, nibbling at my chin with his stubble tickling my skin 

“Kitten?” That was Noah. He kissed the side of my knee. “Are you back with us?” 

As I searched for the answer within my mind, Oliver removed the blindfold and untied me, his touch soothing too as he massaged my wrists and kissed them reverently. Though I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes, a mumble escaped my lips as I shifted my head against the pillow. It would take some time for sensation to return to my body, but I was fully aware of the satisfaction that ran through my veins and straight to my heart, and every other feeling that accompanied it. 

The first night together, I had felt safe and cherished. This time, I felt utterly loved, and despite my mistakes, I was sure that I deserved this. I deserved these two men, and I was willing to give them my best self.  

“Love,” Oliver insisted, his touch soft as he lifted my chin, “open your eyes. Are you alright? Was it too much?” 

“Baby,” before I could muster the answer, Noah settled down on my other side, his unattended erection nudging against my side. He placed his palm on my tummy, and the warmth of his body seeped into my skin.

“I’m fine,” I replied with a smile, peering at both of them through blurry vision. I placed a hand on my forehead. “I got a headrush,” I admitted, “but I’m okay.” 

The worried look on their faces persisted. Oliver glanced down at my still trembling legs. “I’ll get you something to drink before we continue. Let Noah take care of you. I’ll be right back.”

He returned within a minute. I had shifted onto my stomach, and Noah was inspecting the light bruises on my buttocks, his fingers tracing the reddened skin with a frown. 

“Shit, that’s a nasty mark,” Oliver mentioned, eyeing two small spots turning purple on my left cheek. He set a glass of orange juice on the bedside table. “Did we spank you too hard?”

I shook my head. “I bruise too easily. Don’t worry. I enjoyed it.”

“You’ll tell us if we ever go beyond boundaries, right?” Noah pressed.

“Yes, I will.”

“Good girl,” Noah praised. “Have some juice,” he instructed, gesturing towards the glass as he stood up from the bed to position himself next to Oliver. 

Both eyed me with special attention as I sat on the bed and sipped the juice, my body feeling grateful for the light sugar intake. After draining the glass, I licked my lips, and my smirk grew as I noticed how hard his erections were, and both seemed to be pointing straight at me. 

How wonderful that they were mine and mine alone.  

Noah gestured for me to approach him with a finger, his gaze narrowing with anticipation. I crawled on the bed towards him, swaying my hips playfully, enjoying how desired I was. With my hair falling around me, I positioned myself on all fours at the edge of the bed, Noah lifting my chin to capture my lips in a hungry kiss. Meanwhile, Oliver’s hand returned to my backside, caressing it before his fingers slipped between my cheeks, eliciting a moan from me.  

“Would you put them on us?” he asked a few seconds later. 

Noah released me, and suddenly Oliver’s hand was presenting two square silver packages to me. 

Sitting back on my heels, I tore open the first package and rolled the condom down onto Noah’s cock, his posture steady and unwavering, watching my hand’s work as a hawk. I repeated the action with Oliver. The familiarity of the task felt oddly comforting despite it being our first time.  I hoped fervently that this would become a nightly ritual from now on.  

“Ready for us, baby?” 

Instead of answering, I straightened my back and slowly parted my thighs, revealing the warmest, most inviting part of myself to them once more. 

My boys exchanged a glance with a raised eyebrow. In an instant, Noah lifted me up, prompting me to wrap my legs around his waist as he wasted no time in nudging my entrance with the head of his dick and in one slow trust filling me up. 

I was still adjusting to the wonderful sensation of Noah being inside of me when Oliver’s hands found their way to my shoulders from behind, his touch gentle as he traced a path down my sides until they settled near Noah’s hands on my butt. 

I felt the tip of his cock against my backside, and his voice softened as he urged me not to tense. It was easy for him to say, yet I was surprised at how easy I welcomed both of them inside of me, as if my own body had been waiting for it since the first time it experienced this hot burst of desire, pleasure, and… love.

Five minutes after, they were moving inside me in perfect synchronization, a relentless rhythm that drove me to the brink of ecstasy and beyond, my breasts rubbing against Noah's inked pecs, my back against Oliver's hard tattooed chest. Their alternating thrusts, a mix of withdrawal and surging in, had me moaning their names repeatedly, making me feel full of ecstasy and wild pleasure. Whenever Noah withdrew in a slow, teasing friction, Oliver would go all the way in. 

This experience was sublime, and I didn’t ever want it to end. 

"I wish I could show you exactly what it feels like to fuck you while Noah fucks you,” Oliver growled into my ear, his words sending shivers down my spine that intensified as he nibbled at my earlobe with his vampire teeth. 

At some point, with Oliver’s mouth nibling at my shoulders, clavicle, and neck, I opened my eyes and reached for Noah’s silver necklace. I could see the restraint in his eyes. I pulled at the accessory and kissed him fiercely for a long minute before releasing him. Then, I turned to Oliver, wrapping my hand around his neck and capturing his mouth in a passionate kiss that ended with me biting his lower plump lip, making him growl like a lion against my mouth and eliciting a laugh from me. 

“Touch yourself,” Noah said. He was close, so close, and Oliver wasn’t far behind. I was dying to feel them both tense and pulsate inside me. I was dying.

Closing my eyes once more, I let my head fall back to rest on Oliver’s shoulder and slid my hand down to my clit. Their arms held me securely while they stood, anchoring me in the midst of the overwhelming pleasure. I squeezed myself around them. When I heard their moans and growls intensify, I knew I had them. 

Joining their cries of release, I followed them down to the depths of bliss.

About twenty minutes later, I was lying in bed again. Only this time I had Oliver and Noah on either side of me, spoiling me and giving me cuddles and kisses. 

After the passionate crescendo we had caused while climaxing, the mood in the room was now quiet, and a lovely silence enveloped us as we looked at each other with our eyes shining and our bodies sated and spent, we felt at heaven.  

Both of their hands roamed up and down my body. Noah's fingers traced delicate lines between my breasts and down to my navel, while Oliver's traced my temple and his lips pressed tender little kisses just below my ear and on my jawline. 

It was just perfect, and the only thing that topped it was the way I sensed Noah and Oliver glance at each other from time to time, as if something new had awakened in them as well. Or maybe it had been there for a while and was finally coming to light. Whatever it was, it was obvious that all three of us were enjoying it, that all three of us were happy and wanted to be there. 

That was all that mattered.

It was past eight in the morning when I stirred from sleep. 

My head was resting on Oliver’s chest, with Noah’s warmth enveloping me from behind, his arm draped over my waist and his palm resting flat against my stomach. The sheets had become a tangled mess at the foot of the bed, leaving our naked bodies exposed in a blissful picture. When I wriggled my feet and they brushed both Noah and Oliver’s legs, I smiled at the sight. 

However, the urge to visit the bathroom was urging me to leave the bed. I could revel in his scene again in just a couple of minutes. 

But as I began to shift away from Noah and Oliver’s embrace, preparing to swing my left leg over Oliver’s broad body, a hand clasped my wrist, halting my movements.  

Turning my head, I saw Oliver, his eyes still closed, his face peaceful in slumber with Noah’s sleepy face now so close to his own. Oliver’s grip tightened on my wrist as I spoke.

“I’m just going to the bathroom,” I whispered.  

“I’ve heard that before,” he replied, his beautiful green eyes meeting mine as he opened them. “I’m going with you.”

“But…” It shattered my heart to think that he still doubted me; that he still feared that I might not be there if he closed his eyes again and woke up a while later. “I’m not going to leave. I promised,” I reminded him with a serious expression. “I just need to empty my bladder. Just give me a minute?”

“A minute. Then I’m coming in,” he concluded, stretching his arms, I couldn’t help but steal a quick look at his morning naked figure. Glorious. “We have shower sex pending so…”

My eyes quickly went back to his. A smirk played on his lips as his words trailed off. 

That sounded… incredibly appealing and undeniably hot.  

To hell with sleep.  

“Are you sure you’re up for it? Aren’t you tired?” I inquired. With the shows and the sex, both might be beyond exhausted, but a voice in my head said, please don’t be.

“Are you?” chimed in another cheeky voice from the other side of the bed. 

Okay, they were both up and ready. Just my luck. Hell yes.

I hurried into the bathroom with a giggle escaping my lips as I knew that they were both staring at my ass as I ran off from the bed.  

Five minutes later, Oliver pulled me with him inside of the tiled shower. I shivered as the water touched my skin, though it didn't take long to get used to the temperature and I appreciated the feeling of being under the warm water and everything that followed. Oliver's hands took the reins and, with some shampoo in his hands, he began to wash my hair, massaging my scalp and thus earning my first moan of the day. 

"You guys started without me?" Noah asked, walking into the bathroom, and letting himself and his perfectly erect, hard cock be seen. 

"Not really," I replied, reaching out to take his hand and pull him closer to me. Noah greeted me with a good smooch, his cock stroking my lower belly while Oliver's fingers went on to massage my shoulders and a delicious spot just below my neck and at the beginning of my spine. 

Never in my wildest fantasies had I ever imagined I would experience a morning like this, soaking wet all over with two fucking gorgeous men washing my hair, massaging my shoulders, my breasts, and making sure the marks on my ass and other parts of my body from their nibbling the night before were nothing to be alarmed about, treating me to my first orgasm of the morning with Noah's long slender fingers as Oliver's mouth played with my nipples and he gulped down the clean water falling from the shower jet. 

I found that washing and rinsing them also filled me with a tender pleasure. They behaved like two good, but mischievous, children, waiting their turn as I washed their hair and scrubbed their bodies, leaving kisses here and there after rubbing their skin too hard and earning me their beautiful moans, which echoed between the bathroom walls. Their jokes also added to the joy; they took advantage of the fact that they were both fucking tall to make me stand on my tiptoes every time I tried to rub the top of their heads. Then they had the audacity to ask if there was a problem every time I mumbled a curse between my teeth. Whenever I reprimanded one and the other for laughing at me, it only earned me a playful slap on my ass.

Eventually, the space was filled with our casual talks, then laughter, and finally, moaning. 

When they entered me again under the warm spray of the shower, I was sure that I was in love to the hilt with both of them, and that I never wanted to stop hearing their laughter and seeing their smiles in the mornings ever again. 

So, as I tensed around them both and their grunts mixed with my moans, I surrendered to Oliver and Noah. Their fingers tightened on my thighs, where traces of the night before lingered, and I happily followed them into the abyss.

EPILOGUE COMING SOON

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[autistichalsin]

I know a lot of people find it boring how much Halsin talks about nature, and I do get it- it is repetitive. However, I also find that if you break some of his statements down into what he's implying, you end up with something a lot more interesting. (ESPECIALLY because a lot of these support the "Halsin is autistic" interpretation.)

Take, for example, Halsin talking about his place in the world, specifically relating to relationships:

Halsin: I still have hot blood in my veins. Nature gifted us our desires, and the means to act on them. But we muddied its beautiful simplicity with rules, social strictures... clothes. So, I am not bound to nature. I am unbound in nature.

Halsin: Relationship? Such terms belong to civilisation - a little unfamiliar to my lips. You know what we share is more fluid, more founded in the principles of nature.

Implications: Halsin finds society too complicated. He enjoys nature because its rules are simpler and more sensical; rather than social rules and structures that are beyond him (especially when you take into account the autistic Halsin interpretation), he feels comforted by nature, which is complex in a way that he understands.

There's also Halsin's friendship with Thaniel.

Halsin: I had a friend when I was young, long ago. He played with me in the forests where I grew up... but eventually, I realised no one else had heard of him. It was Thaniel, of course. Nature was my very first friend. I get older, but he hasn't changed a day. I knew then that I had to be more than a companion to him. I had to be a protector.

Implications: Nature, by being Halsin's first friend, has always been what Halsin is comforted by. It has been a steady and comforting presence for him, something he can rely in, in contrast to other people who are unpredictable. Nature is consistent and comforting for him.

Halsin, infamously, is not happy in the city of Baldur's Gate.

Halsin: Too much noise, too many lanterns kept burning... nature's rhythm is ignored here.

Implications: Halsin is overstimulated easily by excessive noise and other sensory inputs. Nature provides him somewhere quiet.

Halsin: I wish... I wish there was a better way. I wish everyone could see the sun, have a full belly, and know nature as a friend. There is a balance that is yet to be found.

Implications: Again, Halsin sees nature- not just Thaniel, but all of nature- as a friend. A source of comfort and companionship.

Halsin: I think on [politics and high art] also. But nothing matches the splendour of an ancient tree.

Implications: Halsin loves the beauty of the natural world as much as anything else. Rather than art or music (which he can appreciate), what he prefers is something that grew rather than being made.

Halsin: I am... less anxious to find myself in a city. So removed from nature's power - I do not know how I will fare.

Implications: Not only does Halsin prefer not to be in the city, but he is actually, to some extent, frightened of it (likely due to how overstimulating it is for him), in contrast with his feeling of being right at home in nature.

There's other things to note as well. If a Dark Urge player embraces Bhaal and then tells Halsin to bow, Halsin has this to say:

Halsin: Nature bows to none. It will fight on and survive, no matter what madness your god has inspired you to undertake.

Implications: Halsin views nature as strength, and admires that very much. He draws a lot of his tougher qualities from this aspect of the natural world.

Or a line where Wyll gently points out that he talks about nature a lot:

Halsin: When you care about something deeply enough, it consumes every thought and word.

Implications: Halsin isn't thinking of little else besides nature because he's "boring"; it's because it's important to him. (A special interest, one might say.) And when something is deeply important to a person, they think of everything else in relation to that thing; think of a sports fan who constantly uses sports metaphors to understand the world around them.

There's another party banter with Wyll that is telling when combined with what he has to say about the city, too.

Halsin: It is most unfair to pour such scorn on rats - they have their place in nature, same as you or I. 

Halsin: I thought cities were supposed to welcome folk of all walks of life. Clearly I was mistaken.

Implications: Halsin feels everyone has a place in the natural world, yet that the city shuns those it deems different. As someone who has struggled greatly with fitting in/finding a place he "belongs", Halsin feels more sympathetic to nature, where all living things belong, than anywhere else.

I think that when you break up Halsin's love of nature into all the little things it implies, it paints a much more interesting picture of him, personally. It also supports the "Halsin is autistic" interpretation, which makes him even MORE interesting.

#halsin #halsin silverbough #bg3 #baldur's gate 3