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John Murry, from a letter to Katherine Mansfield featured in The Letters of John Middleton Murry and Katherine Mansfield

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Virginia Woolf, from a letter to Katherine Cox, featured in The Selected Letters of Virginia Woolf

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Leila Mottley, from Woke Up No Light; Poems; "when the tinder doesn't spark,"

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okay i say it took Watch'r and Rnthyu two days but theres a lot more nuance to it. imma talk about how their history went since we RPed it on discord instead of tumblr. it will be a bit of a read.

TLDR; it took them two days to realize they liked each other and kissed. though theyve pretty much been dating since then, it still took several months for them to call it official.

bap me with a fly swatter @/lashysdomain if i missed anything

Rnthyu met Watch'r when she decided to take a stop into Arceel's shop. Watch'r found her and took an interest in her because he could sense Ertoth's influence on her soul. Keep in mind here: he did not want to help Rnthyu. He wanted to actively make her life worse, use her as a joke and as a way to entertain himself. He was bored! And one of his favorite past times is messing with people! He's a bit of an asshole!

They did not have the greatest of meetings but it could have been worse. By the end of it he implies that he wants to meet up with her again to hang out and she warily accepts, thinking he's just lonely and not treated well. When she leaves, he starts following her out of curiosity, staying in the shadows but soon adopting the form of a black kitten to cheer her up a bit. Rnthyu adopts this kitten and names it Soot. She brings Soot home with her, having no idea it is Watch'r.

Between the time it takes for them to leave the shop and arrive at her home Watch'r starts to feel differently towards her. He sees she's pretty sad and a little pathetic and so he doesn't want to make it worse anymore. There's a loneliness here that speaks to him, which then makes him start influencing her mind to think of Watch'r as a friend and look forward to seeing him.

And so comes the day they start hanging out! It's movie night! she finds out he's not actually a Troll (he makes it so obvious tbh) and by the end of it they retreat back to the spare bedroom in Arceel's home and spend the night together there. He slips inside her soul, and they both fall asleep together peacefully. When they wake up she's suspicious of him being a perv but that's pretty smoothed over bc Watch'r actually keeps his word about privacy. At least with her body.

The two make plans to hang out again by going shopping at the mall. They have a good time shopping and trying on clothes-- but then he senses both Ertoth and Ragana in the same location and it freaks him out. They're not safe. So he pulls Rnthyu into a dressing room to hide. The dressing room is a tight space, they're close together, hearts go thumpa thumpa moment. Ragana and Ertoth are more busy with each other, assessing threats and stuff, and eventually go away on their own.

To try to calm down from things they try on dresses next. Flirt a little even if it wasn't intentional. Make Rnthyu blush. Thank him by giving him a platonic smooch on the cheek. That stuff.

Before leaving the mall Rnthyu also buys him a phone, since Watch'r also revealed something important earlier that day: him and Arceel will be away for a while. Now, this took place when the ARG was happening on the blog; them "being away" was them canonically preparing to go to Matild's castle to revive Ynygme. Since they wouldn't have a proper way to communicate otherwise, Rnthyu bought Watch'r a phone.

Soon they leave the mall and go to Rnthyu's place (shes been "leaving" Soot at Arceel's until she makes her home more cat-friendly). They watch another movie, this time it is the Labyrinth-- and This Is Their Movie. Alright guys? That movie is theirs. They see themselves in the characters, they love the music and puppetry, and Watch'r adores it bc he can relate to its silly sense of humor. But above all, the plot of the movie is. Very Relevant :) Don't worry about it.

Anyway, after the movie is over they both joke around a bit. Watch'r finds the stupid dress Ertoth forcibly gave Rnthyu (Rnthyu thinks Ertoth's a stalker. If only it was that simple). Watch'r puts on the dress and then asks, jokingly, if he could have this dance, and so they start dancing to one of David Bowie's songs from the movie while they also trade jokes and puns.

By the end of the dance, Rnthyu realizes she's crushing on him. Watch'r, sensing her emotions and getting it tied up in his own, becomes overwhelmed and without thinking kisses her. He freaks out shortly afterward, soon realizing he likes her back, and panics about it since he has already lost a wife before and he doesn't want to love and risk losing again. He tries to leave, but because this will be their last night together physically before the trip, she manages to convince him to stay. They return to her apartment, and they kiss and cuddle in bed.

They fall asleep, bitter sweetly happy.

The next day Rnthyu returns him back to Arceel's shop. They don't see each other again for a month or so.

And ho. My. God. that Month.

Not only were they pining after each other and painfully missing each other the entire time buuuuut this also took place while Ragana was on the search for the Book of Llabel-- which is like a Lesser Key of Solomon kind of document made by an ancient ancestor of Avonis' who had fought against eldritch entities alongside Arceel and made a record about it. Watch'r, however, at one point had stolen this book just so Ragana wouldn't get her hands on it and cause harm.

This did not go well. She was able to find out that Watch'r took the book, and so she confronted him and tortured him into giving her information. Or, more accurately, she made him torture himself.

Now, Watch'r is very used to tearing himself apart. He is goop. But what brought him the most anguish and agony was that Ragana had video called Rnthyu on Watch'r phone so she could watch him get tortured. Through Rnthyu's support, Watch'r found strength to tell Ragana to fuck off.

Ragana then was like ,"fine, we'll do this the easy way" and trapped Watch'r in an illusion. Watch'r in the illusion retrieved the Book of Llabel and was confronted by a shape-shifted Ragana who took the shape of Watch'r's ex-wife. She took the book from Watch'r and quickly ended the illusion. No longer needing Watch'r, Ragana was going to kill him-- except literal divine intervention saved his life. Ragana retreated with the book in hand after Arceel and Matild ran to the scene, and Watch'r was... not in the greatest state.

Rnthyu, having witnessed everything, wasted no time in trying to find Watch'r's location and go to him. By the time she arrived at Matild's castle, Watch'r was not himself. He was an ever shifting mass of oily black stars and bone. He could not keep a shape for the life of him, and anyone who was near him would be harmed. He could not keep a straight conscious either, trapped in memories and a prison of agony.

Rnthyu, after being slammed against a door a couple times, was able to finally reach him and calm him. Normally this would mind break a normal person but for once we can actually think Ertoth for existing since it's his influence that protected her from being truly mentally harmed by Watch'r. Watch'r eventually was able to take on what I call his naga form; half of his body is still melted, but he's at least more aware than he was.

The two are united and Ertoth is too scared to mess with Rnthyu while Watch'r is like this, so even after Watch'r is better and they leave the castle they return home with little issue. After everything that has happened, Watch'r officially leaves Arceel's shop and moves in with Rnthyu.

Now, they're together, in a sense. They kiss and cuddle but they don't really say 'I love you.' They're both too scared of it, but because it never gets said, there's this question of whether or not it's official or real. By the time the Yule Ball rolls around a few months later, it gets in their heads that hey! Maybe we can use that time to confess and make it official.

And they do! They both brave their fears and past traumas and say those three words.

Barring Srarkle from interrupting Watch'r's comedy show in the middle of the ball, it was a very good night for them! They went, danced, confessed and became "official" (as if they weren't already smh), went home and had a lil fun (😏), and have been living very happily together since then.

More plot stuff is going to happen that won't be so happy, but right now they've been probably the happiest they have both ever been in their entire lives.

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a wonderful ao3 author note

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if there was ever the best example for how muses can hijack your plans and tell you "well, ACTUALLY" it is the ship The Queen and Her Jester

Watch'r and Rnthyu literally either speed ran or changed our initial narratives just so they can finally be together canonically and we love them for it. looked us in the eyes and spat on our plans. their love is not fate, they carved it with their own hands in spite of fate, and have done so in every universe. we do not plan with them. we plan around them.

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Well you asked me about the only one we have so uhhhm im just gonna be gremlin and say uhhh

Arceel x Ertoth (idr the name of the thing)

i dont think they have a ship name actually, eli and i haven't talked too much about them yet but

i'm just saying

they're a fun pairing to me that is all they should kiss

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me and Isa ship meme /j

GET ONE ANYWAY

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Til Death Do Us Part bingo!!!!

this bingo is really bad for oc ships lmao whoops

they make me sad bc oml LOOK AT THEM. THEY HAVE ISSUES. THEY NEED THERAPY. THEY NEED TO NOT HATE MAKE OUT ABOUT IT THEY NEED THERAPY

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ship ask game: send me a ship in asks and I'll fill out the bingo card accordingly!

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reminder that if you ever meet a sweet, morally good, chivalrous knight: it's your most sincere obligation to corrupt them. "but my vows," this, "this is against the rules," that. if you haven't completely fucked up their entire code of conduct and destroyed all ability to discern right from wrong without you being the one to tell them by the time you're done with them, then you need to up your game. inside that pretty, rule-following chained dog of a knight is someone yearning to be set free of their self-imposed shackles, and it's your duty to help them get there.

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My mom and I went to an antique mall and we were both devastated that this was $650

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One of the baristas at a nearby Starbucks makes me lose my mind every time I’m there by saying things that are not outside the spectrum of normal human words but are just slightly off-the-wall.

Barista: Welcome to Starbucks, home of delicious, what deliciousness can I put in motion for you today?

Customer: … Can I get a trenta pink drink please?

Barista: Go big or go home, we here at Starbucks appreciate your commitment, what else can I get started for you?

***

Customer: Nitro cold brew with shots of espresso please.

Barista: Brave of you to commit to staying awake for three days, anything else today?

***

Barista: *slams open drive-thru window* HI HOW ARE YOU?

Customer: …I’m pretty good.

Barista: Are you ready to be even better? Because you’re about to be. *hands them their coffee* 

***

Barista, realizing that a drink was made wrong: *slams open window* SO how do you feel about surprises?

Customer: ….they’re okay.

Barista: Great because I’m about to give you one.

***

Barista: You have two drinks so I am going to hand you two straws which means, FANTASTIC news, these straws double as drumsticks. / You have one drink so I am going to hand you one straw and, promise not to tell anyone, this straw doubles as a magic wand.

***

Barista: Here are those cake pops, I plucked them fresh from the tree myself.

***

Barista: *slams open window, holding drink* Amazing, fantastic, delicious, you are a very lucky man/woman!

***

Barista, realizing drink is being delayed or remade: Looks like it’s gonna be just one minute so they have time to put the extra love in.

***

Barista: I’ll be with you in one hot second. *beat* WOW that second sure was hot!

Anyway she has a few dozen catchphrases she rotates approriately and it’s both distracting and fantastic to listen.

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Virginia Woolf, from a letter to Leonard Woolf, featured in The Selected Letters of Virginia Woolf