#I have MANY things to say about Avery but that will be for another post

[e1dritchqueer]

Okay okay so.

Coyote: Coyote smells more and more blood in the air. The blood of those at the ball, the blood of his brother, the blood Is gonna try and kill Avery. This is a hunt roll. He bites down on their neck and begins to taste blood only to be met with something hard and incogruos with his mouth. Not flesh, not metal. Avery's wounds are filled in with a hardlight hologram.

Biggs: Biggs is dead. Cut in half by Wren. The two played a game of chicken, charging at each other. It was Biggs who lost as Wren's mech slid under The Nameless One (Bigg's mech) and cut them in half.

Illia: Illia freezes. Jericho reaches out a hand like he wants to touch him. All futures come into focus and as Illia are about to embrace him, then Illia realize that hand wasn't reaching out. That hand was going to stop his heart. Illia takes level 2 harm: Heartbroken. He forces himself to keep going. Running towards a bifurcated Biggs.

Coyote: He bites deeper. Avery stabs him. Coyote begins feeding on his flesh, like a hunter finishing off a wounded animal. He pushes himself too hard. Stress is maxed out, gains the scar: BLOODLUST He's pushed himself too far to do anything more. Avery takes that opportunity to strike. Only to be met with bullets. It's Ash (Our squad's handler. Ugh I have SOOO many feelings about that man. Anyways he looks like raiden if he was a slutted up office worker. Cybernetics included). At the top of that staircase on a rope ladder hanging from a ship. The scene ends with Coyote (mechanically) declaring Avery as his rival......

Callisto: Callisto is fading in and out of consciousness. Her heart is pierced by a shard of deimos, the impossibility of their bond being the only thing keeping them alive. She sees Io stand above the doorway of her open cockpit. Io is going to do something to her. Callisto has a choice. Either push herself, taking a scar (and being rendered out of commission), and gain agency over what will come (taking what Io is about to do regardless) or simply just lie there. She decides to push herself. Not to save herself. But to save the others. For the first time in a very very very long time, Callisto chooses the desire to protect over the desire to survive. Flitting in and out of consciousness, she reaches out towards the Red

Illia: Illia runs towards Biggs. He feels himself being drained. Wren feeding on Illia's very essence, draining his life. Can't make it. He can feel Wren's impossible grip reaching towards him. Only for that grip to be blocked by Red light as a doorway without a frame, an impressionist painting given no borders separates them.

The Nameless One (Bigg's mech): Bifurcated, but still alive, the Nameless One transforms. As decribed by @improbablynothere "Where her “visor” fills with darkness ripped apart by eyes; the head tears perfectly in two, fracture points creating sharp teeth; her frame completely shatters around the back, some gigeresque ooze/not-quite-flesh-not-quite-machine ichor spreads out of her metal spine and grabbing onto what made the visage of her shattered wings, solidifying them.". The Nameless One begins to devour Wren's mech. Piece by piece. Limb by limb. Wren runs. Somewhere, in the distance. Bigg's playbook changes from Bureaucrat to Devourer

Illia: Confused, drained, and heartbroken, Illia sees a ship land. A spindly nerd and a punk doctor emerge. Members of the Pulse (the mercenary band everyone's a part of), his friends. They carry him to the ship.

Callisto: With that last push, Callisto is spent. She lays there. Fading in and out. Confused, heartbroken, bleeding, impaled in the heart, and through tears up at Io. The dress Callisto wore is ruined, Illia's blue jacket is almost completely red. She waits for what Io is about to do. The next time Callisto fades in, Io is embracing Callisto. Hugging her limp body as Callisto lays, impaled to that cockpit.

Callisto should have died there. By all means she should have died. But as she lay there, bleeding and unconscious, Io and Deimos built a heart for her together. Out of the Red. Out of the Shrapnel. One that would last just long enough till the doctors could do their work.

And with that. The first season of UNITYxEclipse draws to a close.

UNITYxEclipse Liveblog: Coronation Ball pt 2.

aaaa it's happening it's happening LAST WE FUCKUING LEFT OFF (a brief brief summary) :

Illia smokes outside with his old mentor/friend Isa, they reconnect

Callisto and Illia got closer.

Callisto had her heart fucking broken by Io, a new potential rival who is out to get the Wraith of Deimos

Coyote got to meet his evil twin brother (Ferdinand). A real liquid snake mother fucker. He offers Coyote a chance to leave, to be welcomed back into "the family". Bad things are coming and Coyote has a chance to be welcomed back into the powerful family (part of the cia esque organization Io is in (among MANY others)) and escape what's to come. He can abandon his mech. Abandon this crew. Be safe. Coyote decides to leave.

Biggs.... gahh... so much with biggs... has a drugged fight with Wren, his rival,. Wren professes his devotion of hate towards him. Biggs refuses to play any of his games. Leaving him abandoned, laying on the floor, on an empty beach. Biggs crawls, alone into his cockpit.

Callisto is crying, alone in the Red.

THE CORONATION GOES TERRIBLY WRONG. Upon the boyking being coronated (which involves like uploading the conciousnesses/memories of past (seasoned) rulers into the boyking's mind.). This happens: "The King-God slumps into heir throne. blood pooling under nose and trickling at the edge of hier’s mouth. A word trickles out, imperceptible if not for the vacuum of sound created in the coronation 'Run.' In heir’s chest is a strange fractal shape. It blooms. Heir spits out something, not black, but the void of color. And collapses. Heir bleeds on the ground. All colors flow out of the King-God. Nothing moves, then, all at once, the agents begin their work."

and so the session begins....... aaaaaaaa

[deepdreamnights]

Hey there, saw your post re: harassment around artists using gen ai and thought it was great esp with the debunking of data usage myths. Would you share your thoughts regarding concerns that models are being trained to copy specific art styles and thus pose a direct threat to the artists whose art styles are being used?

Well, there's several levels to that.

The main one is that on copyright grounds, styles are explicitly non-copyrightable. Moreover:

No one's style is unique

No one's style is unimitatable by analogue means.

The second point is important, because anyone can go on Fiverr right now and and find someone to replicate any given art style, and every competent draftsperson has to be able to do it to some degree or another. No major animation house, art studio, or comic company has ever hired someone because they couldn't find someone else that could imitate the surface-level aspects of their style.

The first point is just a matter of basic reality. Ex-nihlo creativity either doesn't exist or is so rare as to be a once-in-an-epoch thing. Everyone builds on the influences that they learn from, and if you think someone has a unique style what they really have is a different media diet than you.

For example, Don Bluth. Born 1937, aged 15 in 1952.

Same year Time released this this picture of Burlesque Performer Dale Strong.

Someone made an impression.

Marilyn Monroe was also a national sex symbol when Bluth was a teen, putting some context to most of his other ladies, but especially Goldie Pheasant (or maybe she's more Jayne Mansfield, hard to tell through the bird-ness). His art style has obvious roots with Tex Avery and I would guess he read Mad Magazine a lot as a kid.

And Not to hang the guy out to dry alone, I was a teenager in the 1990s, and most of my sexy fictional ladies are 9/10 some combination of Dana Scully, Peg Bundy, and Rhonda Shear.

The point being that style isn't something you create intentionally so much as an accumulation of influences, drawn from the commons. Attempting to claim ownership of such a thing is by itself an act of theft in my view, and allowing them to be protected under the law would mean a judge being shown exactly how many pieces of prior art the Walt Disney Corporation owns that your work superficially resembles. Why, they'll even run it through a style recognizing AI to make sure they catch them all.

But let's talk about style matching.

It just takes one image now, and doesn't require training.

Which I'm sure sounds frightening, but this has been the situation since February for Midjourney, and it was available in the Stable Diffusion ecosystem long before that. If the threat were as pronounced as feared, we'd have seen the impact by now. And we haven't, and we're unlikely to, for several reasons, several of them listed above.

The largest is that style isn't even close to the be all/end all of what an artist brings to a given project. And the kinds of execs who are making a 'replace 'em with a robot' kinda decision aren't the kinds of people who care about art style beyond how much it looks like the most recent successful thing. And nobody's ever needed a robot to ride coattails.

But the next largest part is that AI style imitations aren't really accurate because the robot doesn't see style in the same way we do. It's all just math to the robot, and it prioritizes what it notices, not what we do.

I'll demonstrate.

Jack Kirby will be my example, for several reasons.

He has a bold and identifiable style, he's arguably the most famous artist in western comics history, and he has many analogue imitators and homagers.

Using Midjourney and prompting "an illustration of dana scully by jack kirby, 1968, in the style of 1960s marvel comics --ar 3:4 --s 15"

Using the base model, on the first roll we get three complete style mismatches and one that's kinda close, though I'd say that's way more Sal Buscema or John Byrne.

Kirby's women had a certain, difficult to describe oddness about their faces that the robot doesn't seem to grok, and it doesn't touch on the kinds of wild patterns and bold black/white swatches that make Jack's work feel 'jack'.

Tom Scioli's take on Kirby is a sort of lovingly flanderized parody, but it captures the spirit of Jack's art much more directly even if a lot of individual details aren't period-accurate. He draws Kirby the way you remember Kirby from your childhood, but I don't question whether the page above is trying to be a Jack Kirby homage or one to Sal Buscema.

But Midjourney has style reference, so we can inject the Kirby right in. Using the picture of Sersei dancing from above with the same prompt, we get:

Well, the work is more convincingly period, but again, we're not terribly close to being on-point. In fact, they're not very consistent between each other. Top left is any 80s marvel fill-in artist. Top right is maybe Kirby-esq. Bottom Left is flat out Jim Lee, bottom right is very Byrne-y.

Using three reference images to give the best shot, I'm also moving to using images of a similar color style, and all with a woman as the central focus. I have included the infamous Crystal pin-up shot because as I said, Kirby women have a certain oddness to them (fondly).

Results (MJ 6.1 on the left, Niji 6 on the right):

It all says 60s-70s Marvel, but I don't think Kirby would be the first guess for any of them. Maaaaaaybe the lower-left Dana in image #2 if you squint.

And that's Jack Kirby. Massively popular and prolific with a career spanning decades. If anyone in the comics space should be impersonatable by this thing, its him.

I'm sure you could train a LORA to get closer, and sure, the tech is only going to get better from here, but by the nature of how the system works no generation pulls just from what is referenced. Every generation is both blended with other concepts and emphasizes only what the machine catalogs as relevant, not what we might.

There's not much to stop someone from imitating your style with a machine, but there was nothing stopping them from doing the same with an underpaid freelancer. The results are likely to miss the mark regardless.

If the client wants you, they'll try and get you. If they just want something kinda like you, they've always had an avenue to that.

Fortunately, you're more than your style, and whatever anyone can do with the machine, you can do better because you've got access to both.

[s-rosie]

TIG HCSSSSS

hiii, this is my first hc post and im still a bit new to the all so pls ignore it if it is bad. some amazing tig hc creators are @x-liv25-jamieswife and @ilyiwdtpyiwmyhmtkys and i took some inspiration from them so pls check them out.

Jameson is a huge theatre nerd and he converted Avery so now they listen/watch/go to musicals together

they sing and quote them so often, everyone gets SOOOO annoyed

for Halloween, they went as pre say no to this Hamilton and Elliza one year and as jd and veronica another year and everyone LOST IT

Jameson even surprised her with Hamilton tickets but she had to solve a riddle to see where they were going

the riddle was a single letter that just said “My Dearest, Avery” and nothing else (iykyk)

Grayson has secretly watched every episode of Dance Moms and even memorized some of the dances

Avery one time did a spicy dance on TikTok and Jameson absolutely LOST HIS MIND

Alisa made her take the video down, because she said it was too “inappropriate” (even though it wasn’t even as bad as half of the other dances out there)

Jameson managed to save it beforehand and still has it to this day

Xander has read Avery’s diary and saw some THINGS things she wrote (especially about jamie (iykyk)) and he almost died but she just laughed it off

Libby often says stuff that sounds really dirty but she doesn’t mean it that way and gets very confused why everyone started laughing at what she was saying

Jameson played/plays hockey

Nash and Avery go on little outings every once and a while just for some bonding time (and a bit of lovingly trash talking Jamie)

Thea has MAD rbf like its not even ok

Rebecca can play guitar and sing and it sounds so soothing

Oren ugly cried at Avery and Jameson’s wedding

Jamie absolutely adores matching couples shirts but Avery hates them with a passion but she wears them sometimes to make him happy

Grayson loves picking flowers

Max and Avery one time pretended they were receiving awards (grammy’s, oscar’s, etc.) with the many awards the Hawthorne boys won (before javery was official) and Jameson was in a secret passage the whole time watching and they heard him giggling so she opened the passage to see him standing there and she just went beet red

he thought it was adorable and it just made him like her even more (can someone pls write a fic about this pls)

Nash is/was a barrel racer

Xander has the absolute dirtiest mind ever and can make anything he/you say sound dirty (a close second is Jameson)

but Xander is so clueless he sometimes says something that sounds so dirty and he doesn’t even realize

Max had to run a mile for school and almost died

Avery one time broke her arm while playing badminton (don’t ask me how but i can’t talk because i would too)

Jameson loves roller coasters but gets motion sick so he will ride the most intense roller coaster and immediately throw up after

Max and Avery threaten each other with telling embarrassing things they have done in the past to the others

Nash and Libby tease Avery and Jameson SO MUCH

they are always saying things like “leave some room for Jesus” and “get a room” when they show the slightest affection (out of love)

sometimes Nash will even come out of nowhere when they are watching a movie and say something like “what are we watching?” and just sit in the middle of them

Avery loved up cycling old and vintage thinga and Jameson will help

Rebecca loves to craft because it helps her relax

she even taught Libby how to crochet

after seeing the effects, no one lets Gigi have coffee

even though Savanna is cold at first, she really opens up to the group and they all love her though she thought they wouldn’t (ofcc)

Grayson and Avery once made a power point about skincare for Jamie after learning he just washes his face with body soap and cold water (*shutters*)

Avery calls Xander Xanny Poo or just Pookie but never his real name

when they were still in school, Xander made Avery a fake prom-posal after her, Xander, and Jamie had a conversation about how cringy they were

She almost murders him on the spot

Avery once threatened to slap Jameson because he was being annoyed and he said “is that a threat, or a promise? and she almost passed out

after that, Xander called Ave a sadist and Jamie a masochist for a month and a half

Grayson and Avery watch Bridgeton together

when he was younger, Jameson was absolutely OBSESSED with Gravity Falls, he would theorize about it and try to solve the mysteries (which he got most of them right)

he has the journal #3 with the invisible ink on his book shelf to this day

Jameson and Avery are always playing game pigeon

Avery and Libby bought dress-up dresses and have tea parties (sometimes Max joins)

Jameson loves to rub it in his brothers (especially Gray’s) faces that he is technically royalty

I hope you like this!!! please let me know how i can improve. all constructive criticism is highly appreciated and welcome. please give me suggestions on what i can do next. thank you so much!

[riddles-n-games]

Anyone remember the knife and the glass ballerina in The Inheritance Games? Yeah? Well, let's talk about that because I have a canon theory about them. I think the reason why Avery was so affected by what Nash told her when he mentioned the knife and the glass ballerina in the first book, especially the ballerina, was because of what it indicated about her vulnerability and not just for the sake of what it meant as a clue in a puzzle. She’s used to being the knife; sharp, on edge, defensive, battle ready, quick-witted, and alert. The glass ballerina, on the other hand, represents fragility, delicateness, vulnerability, being on the knife’s edge of always potentially losing it all, feeling small in someone else’s eyes, not being in control of one’s own life and all because one wrong step can mean the whole thing can come crashing down, shattering to many broken shards of glass that reveal the jagged pieces which are still very much a part of her. It’s just something she’s not used to being seen as but it’s as fitting to her character as the knife analogy. Because the last few years of her life have been so rough, of course, it’s not a surprise that she’s built up her walls and is often on the offensive to defend herself and Libby. 

But, all the same, the emotional well has also been building up and maybe some of that finally started to leak through the cracks by the time she meets the Hawthornes. The brothers have all been taught how to pick up on certain cues and the more hidden parts of a person’s interior which I’d say is a staple of Nash and Grayson but all of them are fairly excellent at it. However, I would also argue that Nash is most exceptional at recognizing such things because he is the eldest of the four and knows his brothers well enough to sense when they’re hiding something as I said in another post. 

This might bother Avery because she thinks her exterior is a strong façade but over the course of the books, she learns to embrace it as shown in the final showdown in The Final Gambit but beforehand, in the first book, this bugs her because literal strangers are picking at her like she’s an open book. And to them, maybe she is, partially, but Avery still holds her own. She doesn’t want to associate with the glass ballerina because she thinks it implies that she is going to break at any moment and she views herself as someone with a good poker face. I think it’s a clever way for us as readers to be able to view these two warring parts of our protagonist and see how she ends up reconciling them as two distinct but equally important halves that shape her to be a better developed character by the end of her arc.

[luvly-writer]

"XOXO"

Ch. 7 Angel and Ivy

-•-

Autho's note: I am trying to post as long as I have a free space. I am genuinely excited for this story and it has me going. Hope you enjoy another chapter!

Warnings: None

Taglist: @w31rdg1rl @mxtokko @loonymoonystuff @grandstrangerphanthom @1lellykins

Masterlist:

"Tim...Tim...TIM! Are you listening to me?!" Snapped Y/n. She was currently taking a bubble bath with Tim on the phone as they discussed their next move. On the other hand, Tim tried his hardest to divide his attention between the girl and the case board in the apartment. He had his headpiece on as he observed the evidence in front of him. "Yes, angel face, I am listening"

"What did I just tell you then?" she quipped sounding exasperrated.

"If you must know, you just told me that I must make an appearance as your date for the winter debutant dinner because now that your parents are aware of my existence and that it is quote-on-quote serious, they want to meet me and that it is important that I make a good impression especially since Mr. Morris is going to be there."

"Hmm, good, you were listening. As I was saying. Ever since the picture of our kiss, every time we go out to dinner or lunch, or brunch, or just any time we have been pictured together these last few weeks, they throw remarks on how good of a man you could actually be for me when Morris is right there. They keep inviting him for dinner, Tim! They are still pushing! They still see this as a temporary thing and not something serious!" she said exasperated.

"It IS temporary" he adds hearing her groan.

"Timothy that is so not the point! You have to make the impression of the century so that they turn their attention to you or at least consider you a runner-up in the race. I can't keep on hearing about which opera Francis enjoys more and which book I should read next to have conversation topics with him and what play is playing so that Francis can take me with him to see if we give it a chance-"

"His name is Francis...Francis Moris?" asked Tim containing his laughter. He put on some gloves and began examining a new formula that was found by Jason at Avery Park. "His parents didn't love him I see, with a name like that?" He said as he began to laugh

"THAT IS SO NOT THE POINT" She whined.

"Are you sinking on the bubbles again?" he asked amusedly. In the last few weeks, they had actually started finding out that they enjoyed each other's company. Having to share many dinners, brunches, lunches, and even some breakfasts, they found some common interest reluctantly. "Yes but only because there is this stupid boy unwilling to focus on the important details. My life is on the line." she grumbled

"I can assure you it isn't" he quipped back and laughed once again as she let out a string of curses. "It might as well be, Tim!" she said.

"Since you won't take the downfall of my life seriously, what are you doing?" she asked boredly

"Inspecting some substances that were found in Avery Park for Batman," he said taking notes on what he was seeing.

"Substances on Avery Park? That sounds...messy. Please tell me that none of the rouges are planning to attack this weekend. We really do need to make that apperance." she said leaning back and closing her eyes.

"Well, we hope not. Poison Ivy has been extremely suspicious the last few weeks. We have no idea when or where or if she might strike." he said.

"Hmmm, probably at the Chefield's gala in three weeks. He is making a new investment in the small clearing in Avery Park intending to build a new power plant that will go directly to his hotel. It's close to a small river and all the construction will cause major damage to the already decreasing green areas of Gotham. It is a pity, that place is beautiful. Clara, Satine, and I would escape there every once in a while to have a picnic." Y/n expressed as she finally began getting out of the bath and drying herself. Tim's eyes opened, this was new information to him and it helped the case greatly.

"How do you know this?" He questioned

"Oh, through Satine. She has been trying to convince Senator Gomez to decline his contract. If that doesn't work, Clara has all the information ready to blackmail him into declining. She will tell his wife that Satine is not the first one of his lovers and that the real reason the kid's maid had to be sent away was because she was pregnant with his child. Plus, my mother and Mrs. Chefield have tea every second Saturday of the month, and because of so, I got early access to the invitation. This also means that if he doesn't believe Clara's threats to air him, she will tell me so that I let it slip to her during one of her meetings with my mother. Either way, the options are either he declines or his career and family life are over. I am sure that a cheating scandal and an unsupported child with the finishing touch of a divorce won't look good for the upcoming elections."she explains leaving Tim amazed.

"Who would have known you three were bitches for a good cause" he said making her laugh, a sound that was surely growing on him.

"Like the bitchy Charlie's Angels" she joked as a response

"Whose Charlie then?" he asked

"I don't know, sometimes morality and justice, sometimes revenge, sometimes self-gain, depends on the highest bidder," she responded, her tone full of humor.

"On a serious note, you really think that is when she will strike?"

"Oh absolutely, good thing it will probably be canceled so, people won't be harmed right?"

"You have no idea the advantage that you have granted to us," he said as he began typing a message relaying this entire information to Bruce.

"It's a good thing to always have connections, I guess," Y/n said as she finished her routine and got ready for bed. She placed her cell phone on the pillow next to her head as she got comfortable. She had to fight the yawn that was escaping her. Unfortunately, Tim heard it and stopped what he was doing.

"Before you go, what color is your dress for the debutante's dinner? I want to match my tie with it."

"It's light blue with a lot of sparkles," she said with a dreamy tone.

"You like your sparkle don't you?" he asked amused at her cute tired state.

"Who doesn't?! Sparkles are the highlight of Christmas. Snowflakes, ornaments, snow, everything sparkles! Plus, who doesn't love Christmas? It's the best time of the year!" she said, sleep-slurring her voice. "You don't have to match...thank you though" she said.

He smiled at his phone. "Good night, angel face. You can barely speak coherently." "Yeah, stay safe and warm tonight, Timmy. I need you there."

"Of course, angel. I will be there. Thank you for the information on Poison Ivy." he answered before hanging up. Every day he learned something new about Y/n. She had this facade of being a stone-cold bitch yet, once you work past that she really was just a girl. She was sentimental, always keeping every letter and small sweet thing given to her. She was sweet to the elderly and surprisingly never acted snobby with anyone who worked for her. The maid, butler, and drivers were always treated fairly and you could see that they cared for the girl. She tipped fairly in the restaurants and had a surprisingly good sense of humor. Given another circumstance, he had deduced he was sure they would have been friends...maybe even more.

---

fun facts:

tim started caller her angel face after the post. He originally said it sarcastically because of how much of a nightmare she can be, but stuck with it just cause he really thinks she looks and is an angel. That’s her contact name.

Y/n loves it.

-•-

[reyreadersblog]

SINCE I SAID I AM ALISA ORTEGA'S BIGGEST DEFENDER @reminiscentreader (no offense at all, obviously, i just couldn't write this whole essay in the comments so i made a post, with explenations ♡)

...in this post i want to specify why, talk about her character and her rights and wrongs.

But first of all SHE ISN'T WHITE! I actually found about this not so long ago, bcs i trusted edits and fanarts😔, besides that her looks aren't really described in books, so it is understandable why many got confused, but yeah she's woc.

So..the main reason i'm her defender is probably bcs i relate to to her character in many ways, and i know what it's like to be in her position.

I feel like she is a misunderstood character. From the very start of the book we're introduced to her as hard-working, strong, independent lawyer, who wants nothing more other than doing her job perfectly and defending Avery. I also feel like her character is a mix of Avery and Grayson, two of my fav characters, which is another reason i love her.

Later on, we find out that Nash is her ex-fiance. Many people have said that she was pretty mean to Libby, and i will not deny this, she was, but i also think this sort of behavour from her should be understandable, bcs, imagne loving A HAWTHORNE, ending relationship with them, struggling with break up but not addmiting it...

It was hard for her, to see Libby having obvious feeling for Nash, it hurt her. And for the record some of you are over exaggerate by saying she was SUPER mean to Libby, all she did was say a few passive-agressive sentences to her, which i also think she did for Libby's own good...? This is just my opinion but i feel like Alisa was trying to warn Libby from possible heartbreak, bcs she obviously went through one, she knows Nash, and she doesn't want anyone else to feel as hurt as she felt.

Another thing...many of the character were so mean to her in the first place and didn't appreciate her, for example Grayson. I understand they might've had that "relationship" with her bcs of her loyalty to T.B.H but honestly what could she do? Drop everything, her job, her life and be like "oh yeah he's a bad man", she knew he was...?! She even told Ave that Tobias Hawthorne was an untrustworthy man.

She is a really good lawyer and a..idk.."mother-figure" to Avery...more like an older sister, but anyway, she cares about Avery and the brothers, she proved her loyalty a lot of times and she deserves some respect.

P.s. everyone is getting a love interest, so i hope Alisa finds love too, cuz she deserves it.

[seriousbrat]

what do you think lily's flaws were likely to have been? I hear so many people complain about her being a "Mary Sue" and I feel like it's true that the narrative doesn't really give us problems with her character in the way that it does for James/the other marauders.

Love this question!! I actually think we do see some of Lily's flaws in the narrative, they're just not quite as obvious (or grievous) as Sev's or James's.

In her conversations with Sev in the Prince's Tale, we see that she's willing to overlook pretty unforgivable behaviour because of her friendship with/loyalty towards Sev. He's friends with Mulciber and Avery, he calls the attack on Mary 'a laugh'. In the post-SWM conversation, she displays awareness that Sev calls other people 'mudblood'. Sure, she's not okay with it, but she still tolerates it; it's not until this actively affects her that she decides to end the friendship. I read this as a mixture of naïveté but also just willing blindness. She knows better deep down, but chooses to ignore it because of her love for Sev.

Another thing Lily-haters tend to harp on is her defending James, Sev's bully, to him in this conversation. And I do somewhat agree (although I think it's ridiculous to hold this as worse than everything Sev does to her) but I think it's another sign of her willingness to overlook certain behaviours that she shouldn't. She wants to believe that there's good in everyone because that's easier than facing reality. I don't read this line as 'you should forgive James for everything', I read it more as 'why can't everyone get along because that would be easier than dealing with conflict'. In some ways she's right, because there is good in both Sev and James-- it's somehow both her greatest strength and her greatest weakness. This blind trust is what gets her killed, it's what causes her so much pain in SWM, but it's also what saves her son in the end.

Another thing I think we see in SWM is her temper. Like I've said I think Harry gets his anger issues from Lily rather than from James, and I think she's impulsive, reckless, quick to anger. She leads with her heart. It would have been more rational to get a teacher but she dives into the confrontation personally. She insults both James and Sev pretty viciously in this scene (totally deserved, but still). Her giant squid rant is not some well thought out moral indictment of James's character or actions but an emotional response, a personal attack borne of anger. It's very similar to Harry's numerous all caps rages throughout OotP in which he takes out his anger on the people around him.

When thinking about Lily I think it's fair to extrapolate from Harry's character, because they're meant to be similar. Thematically, DH is largely about Harry realising that he's much more like Lily than he realised. Dumbledore says he was counting on Hermione to slow Harry down: Harry represents the intuitive approach, Hermione the logical. Too much reliance on intuition can't save the day, but neither can too much reliance on logic. It's about balance. Sev is the Hermione to Lily-- his learned ability to put aside his emotional needs and impulses for the greater good is ultimately how Lily protects her son through him.

[connieluvsr]

ONE OF THE GIRLS | part 3

pairing: (electric) guitarist!jungkook x singer!reader(f)

genre: band au, enemies to lovers, fluff, angst

summary: when your main guitarist gets sick and can't perform at your show, you get help from someone unexpected.

warnings: swearing and some making out, hot jk:)), drinking, mention of drugs, smoking, slight smut, angst, reader is complicated.

word count: 6.9k

a/n: FINALLY after 2 months of not posting. i swear i want too many things to happen in this series but still didn’t know what to write. im so sorry for you waiting that long, please enjoy this chapter!

__________

"Woo! Amazing!" Avery's claps echoed through the room as she leaped onto the plush leather couch, sending vibrations that jolted Zac into a celebratory dance.

The much-anticipated day of the show was drawing near, and we had been tirelessly rehearsing. Despite everyone's praises, I felt there was always room for improvement.

"I'm utterly drained. Let's call it a day," I declared, collapsing onto the couch next to Avery and Zac.

"Are you sure? You practically begged me for extra rehearsal hours," Jungkook teased, concern etched on his face.

"My throat feels like it's on fire, and my head is pounding," I confessed, my voice hoarse and tired.

Avery gently rubbed my back, suggesting, "Take some Strepsils; you'll be fine."

Zac stood up, nodding in agreement. "Should we head out?"

"Yeah, let's go," Avery chimed in, following Zac toward the door. "Bye, guys!"

As they left, we waved our goodbyes, and I closed my eyes, sinking back into the couch. Suddenly, I felt Jungkook's presence beside me.

"Are you okay?" he inquired, his voice laced with concern.

"Yeah, why?" I replied, meeting his gaze with weary eyes that threatened to shut at any moment.

He sighed, clearly sensing something was amiss. "I feel like you're not telling me something."

"Do I have to spill every detail of my life to you?" I snapped, my exhaustion making me unusually irritable.

He looked taken aback, his confusion evident. "No, I didn't mean—" Before he could finish his sentence, he stops. He looks at me with such sad eyes. "Get some sleep. Talk to me when your eyes aren't threatening to close on their own," he retorted, his words sharper than intended. He hesitated for a moment, as if wanting to say something more, but eventually, he stood up and silently closed the door behind him. I let out a heavy sigh and covered my eyes with my palms, hoping to find a moment of peace amidst the chaos.

He knew you’re not being yourself, you kept the distance a lot more these days since what happend with Ander, everyone noticed, including Avery, who wanted to hang out but you politely declined everytime with another made-up excuse. You don’t want to sing — you mean you can’t sing with someone else, It’s not … what you’re used with. You hate new, you want the ordinary, the basic you’ve been doing.

Jungkook’s an amazing singer, you know it and he knows it too, but everytime you step into the practice room, a knot tightened in my stomach, you know how much he wants to help you and you know how much you need him, so you let him, but deep down you think about Ander and how quick he left and you’ve got someone else.

His voice resonated with passion and talent, filling the room with melodies that should have comforted me. Instead, they only intensified my insecurity. I compared every note he sang to the echoes of Ander’s notes, the memory of our duets haunting me like a ghost.

Did Ander try to contact you? Well His messages were filled with empty apologies, excuses that felt like salt on my wounds. I blocked him on all platforms, so he sent pointless emails.

The clock says 04:55, I found myself tossing and turning in bed, unable to shake off the tension from earlier. Unable to bear the suffocating feeling inside, I quietly slipped out of my room, barely seeing anything, I put on one of my hoodies and leave the house in the hushed darkness of the night.

The cool night air brushed against my skin as I walked aimlessly, trying to clear my mind. The city was silent, so, so, silent.

It was cold outside, I was in some Hello Kitty PJ’s and a hoodie that barely makes me warm, but I keep walking until I don’t feel the cold anymore.

The sun will rise in about half an hour now.

You wanna wait for it, making sure you’ll see it clearly, you go to the park that’s some miles away.

Suddenly, a cute dog start following you, you crouch down to him to pet him and he start licking you, gross but cute. “Come!” You smile and lead him to a small bench.

“Brianna?”

You turn your head, pulling the hood of the hoodie off to see better and you can’t belive who’s here. At this fucking hour.

He looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him. "What are you doing here?" he asked, his tone a mixture of concern and annoyance. He approaches me. “I knew I heard your voice. I thought- I thought I was crazy for a sec.” He looks up and down on me like he’s seen a ghost I wonder if I look okay, I didn’t bother to look in the mirror.

"I needed some fresh air," I replied, my voice cold, mirroring the chill in the night, trying not to make eye contact with him.

"Well, you should have stayed at home," he snapped back, his frustration apparent. "You can't just walk around in the middle of the night alone."

"I can do whatever I want," I shot back, my temper flaring, looking up at him. “I don't need you to tell me what to do." My attention goes back to the dog as he bites my finger in a playful way. Jungkook just stares at it looking down on me.

“Brianna, I want to understand-“

In the midst of our vulnerable embrace, a sudden surge of frustration and anger overwhelmed me. You get up, he takes 2 steps back. “You think you can just swoop in and fix everything?" I snapped, pushing Jungkook away. "You don't know what I've been through. You don't understand."

Jungkook's eyes narrowed, his own temper flaring. "Maybe I don't, but that doesn't mean I don't care. I hate seeing you like this, shutting everyone out, including me." He points to himself and talks in an exhausted way.

I scoffed bitterly, a bitter laugh escaping my lips. "And what? You think you can change that? You think your concern will magically solve all my problems?"

He clenched his fists, his jaw set in determination. "No, I don't think it will magically solve everything. But at least you won't have to face it alone. We're friends, aren't we? Friends support each other."

"Friends?" I scoffed again, the word tasting like ash in my mouth. "Friends wouldn't fight all the time. Friends wouldn't constantly push each other's buttons."

Jungkook's expression softened, hurt flickering in his eyes. "Maybe we're more than just friends," he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. "Maybe I care about you more than I'm willing to admit."

His words hung in the air, heavy with the weight of unspoken emotions. I felt a pang of guilt, realizing that my anger had overshadowed his genuine concern. "I don't know what I want," I confessed, my voice breaking. "I'm scared of messing things up, of losing the people I care about. Again.”

Jungkook stepped closer, his hand reaching out to gently cup my cheek. "You don't have to have all the answers right now," he said softly. "Just know that I'm here for you, no matter what. We can figure it out together."

In that moment, the fight within me crumbled, replaced by a flood of emotions. I let out a shaky breath, feeling the weight of my fears lifting, if only a little. Jungkook pulled me into a comforting hug, and for the first time that night, I felt a glimmer of hope.

We stood there, wrapped in each other's arms, the night around us slowly coming to life. In that moment, I realized that maybe, just maybe, I didn't have to face everything alone. Perhaps, with Jungkook by my side, I could find the strength to confront my fears and conquer the challenges ahead.

As we stood there, embracing each other under the moonlit sky, I felt a sense of warmth and security wash over me. It was as if Jungkook's presence had cast away the shadows that had clouded my thoughts. I took a deep breath, trying to steady my racing heart.

"Thank you," I whispered, my voice catching in my throat. "I don't know what I would do without you."

Jungkook pulled back slightly, his hands cupping my face again as he looked into my eyes with sincerity. "You'll never have to find out," he said, his voice soft but resolute. "We're in this together, remember?"

A small smile tugged at the corners of my lips as I nodded, feeling a newfound sense of resolve. "Yeah, together," I echoed, realizing that I wasn't alone in my struggles anymore.

We continued our walk, no longer in silence but with a comfortable ease between us. We talked about our fears, dreams, and everything in between. With each word, the connection between us deepened, and I found solace in sharing my thoughts with someone who truly understood.

As the night turned into dawn, we returned home. The sun was beginning to rise, painting the sky with hues of pink and gold, signaling a new day and a fresh start.

He walked me home but before he could leave I stop him. “What were you doing alone at that hour? you didn’t tell me.”

Jungkook is silent for a moment before he starts “Thinking.”

“About?” You ask couriously.

“You.”

Before you could try to make him explain what the fuck was that he left.

“Rehearsal today at 4 ok?” he shots from the street.

You giggle and give him a thumbs up.

What the hell did just happen.

______

"You know, I think they make a great couple," Avery mused, her voice laced with a sense of certainty. She reached out, deftly taking the blunt from Zac's hand, her fingers brushing against his in a fleeting touch. Zac's gaze followed the movement, his expression a mix of annoyance and intrigue.

"Hm?" Zac responded, his curiosity piqued as he took in the mention of Jungkook and Bri.

Avery settled into his lap, the weight of her presence grounding him in the moment. She exhaled a puff of smoke, blowing it up. "Jungkook and Bri, don’t ya think?" Avery's words hung in the air, mingling with the faint aroma of mari*uana. Zac's eyes flicked towards Bri's image in his mind, then back to Avery. He hesitated, the smoke clouding his thoughts momentarily.

"Um, yeah, sure, but they don’t seem like they like each other or shit," Zac replied, his voice a low murmur as he tried to make sense of the situation. Avery's eyes met his, a playful glint dancing in them as she inched closer. Before she could take another puff, Zac leaned in, capturing her lips in a pressed kiss.

"I think they really like each other," Avery murmured against his lips, her words muffled yet sincere. Her fingers traced a thoughtful path along his jawline, her touch a gentle caress that seemed to ease the tension in his muscles. "I know Bri is afraid, I just know it, but JK? What would he be afraid of?" She furrowed her brows, deep in contemplation.

"Afraid of moving too fast and lose her?" Zac suggested, his voice barely audible, his thoughts unraveling like the tendrils of smoke surrounding them. He shrugged, the uncertainty evident in his gaze.

"God, you're really smart," Avery whispered, her lips brushing against his cheek in a tender peck. With a soft sigh, she slid off his lap, the absence of her warmth leaving a lingering sensation. Rising from the couch, she reached for her phone, her fingers gliding across the screen as she dialed a number.

____

Avery's eyes widened in disbelief, her excitement palpable as I recounted the bizarre events of the previous night, or was it technically today?

"I can't believe it! No way, you did what?" Avery exclaimed, her voice echoing with a mix of shock and exhilaration.

The weight of the situation pressed down on me, making my palms clammy as I buried my face in them. "I don't know, I feel so weird right now," I confessed, my words muffled against my hands. "I have a rehearsal with him in an hour."

Avery's eyes glinted with determination as she seized upon the moment, her excitement bubbling over. "You gotta ask him what was that!" she urged, her words rapid, punctuated by animated gestures. She jumped up and down on the sofa, the energy radiating from her contagious enthusiasm.

"I'm scared," I admitted, my voice barely audible as I grappled with the overwhelming vulnerability that threatened to consume me. "I'm scared to let someone into a place so important in my life again. Music means everything to me. I… I can't. I feel like I'm betraying someone."

Avery's eyes blazed with fiery determination, her frustration palpable as she unleashed her pent-up emotions. "Gosh, you're not betraying Ander! That fucker literally could've made you lose your show!"

I shook my head, my thoughts racing. "I'm… I'm not talking about him," I confessed, my voice quivering. "I just don't know what to do. I don't know if I can do this. I feel like I let him in too much. What if I lose him too? What if, on the day of the show, he'll say he won't come? What if—"

Before I could finish my sentence, Avery's hands shot out, shaking me and pinching me sharply. "Ouch!" I yelped, wincing from the sudden pain.

"You're like a crazy person talking right now," Avery retorted, her frustration palpable. She glared at me, her eyes fierce with determination. In a moment of impulse, I grabbed my phone and dialed Jungkook's number, my fingers trembling as I pressed the call button.

"Hi, it's me," I said, my voice catching in my throat. "Yeah, don't come today... No, don't. Bye."

Avery's jaw dropped, her eyes widening in disbelief. "What the hell was that, why?!" she screamed, her frustration boiling over. She pulled at her hair in exasperation, her voice tinged with desperation. "You're not thinking straight!! The show is in 3 days! Come on! Once this is over, you'll find someone else if you're so scared of falling for him."

"Falling? What do... You think I love him?" I stammered, my words trailing off as I tried to make sense of my own feelings.

"You definitely love each other," Avery stated matter-of-factly, her tone unwavering. "You're both two dumb fuckers. Call him to come to rehearsals, for god's sake, I'm out."

"W-wait, Avery!" I shouted, but she was already gone, her footsteps fading into the distance.

"Fuck, it even started raining!" she screamed from the porch, her words carried away by the wind as she drove away.

I sigh in frustration as I collapse onto the plush couch, my weary eyes scanning the ominous clouds looming outside the window. With a heavy heart, I receive a notification alert on my phone, urging me to stay indoors due to an impending danger and an imminent rainstorm. The familiar sense of dread washes over me, and I can't help but mutter a resigned exclamation under my breath, "God... not again."

I pull the notification bar down, revealing a series of alerts detailing the severity of the situation. Flash flood warnings, gusty winds, and potential power outages are mentioned, intensifying my sense of unease. With a deep breath, I rise from the couch, my footsteps heavy as I move towards the window to get a better view of the darkening sky.

The atmosphere outside grows ominous, the clouds swirling in a chaotic dance, painting the sky with shades of deep gray. The wind starts to howl, rattling the windows as if nature itself is echoing my inner turmoil. I glance around the room, contemplating my options. The dimming light emphasizes the urgency of the situation, urging me to make a decision.

Taking a moment to gather my thoughts, I quickly assess the supplies in my home – candles, emergency rations, and a flashlight. I grab them, creating a makeshift emergency kit, hoping it will be enough to tide me over if the storm takes a turn for the worse. As I secure the windows and doors, I can't shake off the feeling of vulnerability, a reminder of the unpredictable nature of life.

I return to the couch, clutching the emergency kit tightly, and stare out of the window once more. Raindrops splatter against the glass, blurring the world into a surreal painting of water and shadows.

I make myself some hot coco and before the power is out, which will probably be by the night, I turn on the TV to watch Brooklyn 99 and put a nice comfy blanket.

My heart pounds in my chest, the echoes of the thunderstorm still reverberating through the air as I try to calm my racing thoughts. The glow from the TV screen illuminates the room, casting eerie shadows on the walls. Just as I start to regain a semblance of composure, the knocks on the door pierce the silence like a gunshot. I jump, my breath catching in my throat, and I shoot a fearful glance towards the entrance, my mind racing with possibilities.

"Fuck..." I mutter under my breath, hesitating before the door. I entertain the fleeting hope that whoever it is might just go away, but my hopes are dashed when another round of four loud knocks reverberates through the house, each one intensifying my anxiety. The situation feels surreal, the storm outside mirroring the turmoil within me.

My hands tremble as I reach for the doorknob, my heart pounding in my ears. Then, amidst the chaos of the storm, a familiar shout cuts through the air, calling my name. "BRI. IT’S ME… OPEN." The sound of his voice sends a mixture of relief and concern washing over me. Without a second thought, I throw the door open, my eyes widening in surprise at the sight before me.

There stands Jungkook, drenched from head to toe, his clothes clinging to him like a second skin. I try to push away the distracting thoughts about his perfect abs and body, focusing on the immediate concern. "Get in the house; you're shivering," I say urgently, my hand reaching out to pull him inside. His shivering intensifies, and I can't help but worry about his well-being.

"Fuck—let me get—"

"Bri."

"Let me get towels and clothes and—"

"Bri." He stops me, his eyes locking onto mine with a depth of concern that sends a shiver down my spine.

"I—" I start to protest, but his worry silences me. I nod, my determination to help him overpowering any embarrassment. "Let me grab you something. Please. I don't want you to be sick." I manage to tear my gaze away from his intense eyes and hurriedly make my way towards the closet, pretending not to notice his actions as he starts to undress behind me, though my cheeks burn with an undeniable awareness.

As I fumble through my closet, my hands search for something that might fit Jungkook. Finally, I pull out an oversized T-shirt and a pair of sweats that used to be snug on me when I was a bit chubbier. I hold my breath, hoping against hope that they'll fit him. I mutter a silent prayer under my breath, my fingers crossed as I bring the clothes to him.

"Here," I say, my voice a little shaky, trying my best not to meet his gaze directly, feeling the weight of his presence in the room.

"Thanks," he replies, his voice carrying a mix of gratitude and amusement as he accepts the towel and the clothes. After he dries himself, he starts to dress, and a soft laugh escapes his lips. "They're a bit... tight."

"I—yeah, I don't have anything else—" I stammer, my cheeks flushing with embarrassment. My eyes dart away, not wanting to acknowledge the situation, even though his laughter is contagious.

"Bri," he says, his tone serious now, his laughter fading away. "I can't believe you told me I shouldn't come... I wanted to speak to you in person.”

His words hang heavily in the air, and I feel my heart skip a beat. I struggle to find the right words, my emotions in turmoil. "Jungkook... look, it's—" I start, my voice cracking with a mix of vulnerability and affection, wanting desperately to express what I feel but not sure how to articulate it.

"It's complicated," I finally manage to say, my voice barely audible over the distant rumble of thunder. I glance up, meeting Jungkook's eyes, searching for understanding. "I've been through so much, and I'm afraid... afraid of getting hurt again."

Jungkook's expression softens, his eyes reflecting empathy and sincerity. He takes a step closer, his hand reaching out to gently cup my cheek, his touch warm and reassuring. "Bri, I understand. I know it won't be easy, but I'm willing to try if you are. We can face the challenges together."

His words hang in the air, a silent promise that sparks a glimmer of hope within me. I find myself leaning into his touch, craving the comfort he offers. The storm outside mirrors the turbulence within my heart, but in this moment, Jungkook's presence provides a sense of calm amidst the chaos. “I thought we talked about this this morning. You were so committed-“

"I... I don't know. But all i know is i don’t want to lose you." I admit, my voice barely above a whisper, my eyes locked onto his. The vulnerability in his gaze resonates with my own fears and insecurities, creating a connection that goes beyond words.

He leans closer, and closer, and closer,

before I know, his lips meet me in a moment of sweet surrender, Jungkook's touch is gentle yet firm as he cups my face, his fingers warm against my skin. I close my eyes, savoring the softness of his lips, the taste of him like a bittersweet melody. His kiss is tender, a silent promise of affection and understanding.

A rush of emotions floods over me—desire, vulnerability, and a profound sense of connection. The air crackles with electricity, the charged atmosphere intensifying the intimacy of the moment. My fingers find their way into his soft hair, tangling in the strands as I pull him closer, deepening the kiss.

Jungkook responds with a soft sigh, his lips parting slightly, inviting me in. Our tongues meet in a slow, sensual dance, exploring each other with a hunger that transcends words. The kiss deepens, becoming a passionate exchange of emotions and desires, a silent conversation that speaks volumes.

I can feel the steady beat of Jungkook's heart against my chest, matching the rhythm of my own pulse. The world outside may be in chaos, but in this moment, there is only us—two souls intertwined in a kiss that feels like coming home. Time seems to stretch, the kiss becoming an eternity, a stolen moment of bliss that leaves us both breathless and wanting more.

When we finally pull away, our breaths mingling in the air.

In the dimness that followed the abrupt power outage, Jungkook's voice cut through the sudden silence, his words trailing off in the darkness. "I'm sorry if-" he began, but the sentence hung in the air, abruptly interrupted by the blackout.

A frustrated groan escaped my lips as I fumbled in the dark, desperately searching for my phone. "Fuck," I muttered, realizing the futility of the attempt.

“Bri, where are you?" Jungkook called out, his voice tense in the darkness.

My hands reached out, seeking his in the pitch-black void. "I'm looking for my phone. It should be here somewhere," I explained, patting the couch in vain.

"Can you give me your phone?" I asked, hoping for a glimmer of light to guide us through the oppressive darkness.

"I forgot it at home," he admitted with a nonchalant shrug, his voice carrying a hint of defensiveness. "I rushed here! It's your fault!" he defended himself.

"How could you just leave without it?" I questioned, genuine disbelief coloring my tone. The realization that we were stranded without any source of light intensified the surreal nature of the situation. A deafening thunderclap reverberated through the house, adding an extra layer of tension to the already charged atmosphere. "Fuck, that was a big one," I remarked, my nerves on edge.

Finally, Jungkook's hands found mine, and he grasped my hand firmly, ensuring we moved in the same direction. The house enveloped us in impenetrable darkness, and my thoughts raced, thinking how we just kissed but we act like nothing happend.

Breaking the uneasy silence, I suggested, "My iPad is in my room. Let's get there to have some light."

"Don't you have flashlights?" Jungkook inquired, his grip on my hand tightening, revealing a touch of vulnerability.

"I took them out about an hour ago, but I have no idea where I put them," I admitted with a sigh, frustration lacing my words.

"Damn, Bri," Jungkook sighed, a subtle chuckle escaping him.

"Hey, you left your phone at home," I retorted, a laugh bubbling up in response to the irony of our predicament.

“Lead the way then,” Jungkook sighed, and we navigated cautiously through the darkness, the air thick with tension. Suddenly, a soft bump resonated through the space, and I winced. “Be careful,” he urged, his hands now assisting me in ascending the stairs.

Reaching the second floor, I extended my arms, feeling for familiar surroundings. The second floor has my room, a guest bathroom, my parent’s room and a guest room. Mine is right next to the stairs.

"Here," I announced, finding my bedroom door. Inside, my fingers fumbled on the nightstand, searching for my iPad. "Damn it, I forgot to charge it. It only has 10%," I exclaimed in frustration. When I looked up, Jungkook's big doe eyes met mine, and I felt a strange warmth despite the chilly darkness.

"I can't believe it," he mumbled, plopping on the bed and reaching for the iPad to illuminate the room.

"I don't really use it," I defended myself.

"Good excuse," he teased, scanning the room with the makeshift light. His attention shifted to a framed photo on my dresser. "That's you?" he asked, pointing to a picture with me and Avery.

I nodded, picking up the photo. "Yeah, next to me is Avery."

He wore an impressed expression. "You sure had a glow-up. How old is this?"

"Like five years ago?" I guessed, placing the photo back on the nightstand.

"And you're..." I realized I hadn't shared my age.

"20," I quickly added, feeling a sudden twinge of self-consciousness.

"Aw, you were just 15," he smiled, studying my face.

"Yeah, and ugly and dumb," I self-deprecated.

"Hey! Don't say that! Now you're just not ugly," he teased, his characteristic smirk on full display.

"What the hell?" I playfully pushed him, and he burst into laughter.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding," he reassured, still chuckling.

"Sure," I sighed, opening the wardrobe to grab a hoodie. The room seemed to grow colder, prompting me to put it on.

"You cold?" He asked, looking over at me.

"A bit," I admitted, biting my lip.

“Damn.” Jungkook muttered, his gaze lingering on me as I pulled the hoodie over my head. The dim light from the iPad cast subtle shadows on his face, emphasizing the uncertainty in his expression.

I caught the hint of something unspoken in the air, prompting me to break the silence. “What’s going on in that head of yours?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood. I sit next to him now laying down, covering myself in the blanket.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Just thinking about how crazy tonight has been. I mean, I came here on a storm, we went from a blackout to searching for an iPad in the dark.”

I chuckled, the tension easing a bit. “Yeah, it’s been quite the adventure.”

He lays down next to me.

His eyes met mine, a flicker of something more intense passing between us. “And there’s that,” he added, his voice softer now.

“What do you mean?” I inquired, sensing a shift in the atmosphere. Moving myself completely to face him.

“You know,” he started, choosing his words carefully. “The kiss. It happened, and now we’re here in the dark, and it’s like it never did.”

I felt my cheeks warm, the memory of our unexpected kiss replaying in my mind. “Yeah, about that,” I began, unsure where the conversation would lead.

He cut me off with a gentle smile. “I’m not complaining. Just trying to wrap my head around it.”

“Do you wan-“ He cuts me off.

.“I don’t know. Do you want to play 20 Questions or something to pass the time.” He seems very agitated.

“Sure, why not?” I agreed, eager to divert our thoughts. I try to not show how i really feel about just getting over the kiss subject.

“Okay, first question: Where did you grow up?”

His expression shifted momentarily, a flicker of hesitation crossing his features. “Seoul,” he replied vaguely, not offering more details. “You?” He asks curiously.

“Brooklyn.” I sensed his reluctance to delve into the topic, so I changed course. “My parents actually moved to another state a while ago. It’s been strange not having them around.”

Jungkook looked genuinely interested. “Really? Why’d they move?”

“Work,” I explained. “They found better opportunities, and I guess they wanted a change of scenery. It’s just me here now.”

His eyes softened with understanding, and I could tell he wanted to ask more.

Instead, I diverted the conversation to his parents.

“And your folks? What about them?”

I noticed a subtle shift in his demeanor, a guardedness that hadn’t been there before

“They’re around,” he replied vaguely, avoiding eye contact.

I sensed his reluctance and decided not to press further. “Fair enough.

“I’ve been wondering about Ander- If you wanna talk about it. Like how’d you two met and how did you start a freaking band?” He asks, his eyes searching for mine.

“Ander’s been my friend since high school. We both had this crazy obsession with old music, and we bonded over that,” she began, a nostalgic smile playing on her lips. “He initiated that we should make a ‘band,’ and I’d be the lead singer while he’d be the guitarist. He was really talented, playing all day in school, driving teachers crazy. He’s still good, but, you know, people change who they are, not their capabilities.”

Jungkook, his eyes reflecting genuine interest, listened carefully to her story. Brianna, embracing the newfound openness between them, decided to steer the conversation toward Jungkook’s passions.

“Let’s get over that topic,” she chuckled, nudging him playfully. “Tell me, aside from music, what are your other passions or hobbies?”

Jungkook, a plushie of a cat in hand, smiled as he confessed, “Well, I’m into photography.”

“Really?” Brianna’s curiosity sparked, and she straightened on the bed.

“Yeah, I like capturing moments, you know? I’d love to take pictures of you one day,” he said, his smile accompanied by a playful wink.

“If I let you,” she replied, giggling. “Have you ever traveled outside of the US?”

“Yeah, um, I went to almost every country in europe with my family, we stayed like 2 days in each for the summer break when i was in 11th grade. I loved Santorini.”

“Wow. Impressive. So you’re rich rich.” she elbows him. Actually, she was so much impressed than she showed him.

“My parents are, yeah, not me.” He corrects, modesty in his tone.

“Yeah but-“ I got cut off by him again.“You? Have you traveled?”

“Only in some states where i have my aunts or uncles.” I pout and get jealous of how much he’s seen.

“If you could change one decision from your past, what would it be and why?” I ask.

Jungkook paused, then confessed, “I think there’s a part of me that wishes I had pursued music more passionately from the beginning. I held back a bit out of fear.”

I remain silent as I take the cat from

his hand.

“What’s your biggest dream, Brianna?” Jungkook now looks at the cat but his eyes shift to mine, looking for truth.

“To make people feel connected to my music, to make people feel happy, feel sad, party to it, cry to it, to have thousands of people coming to watch me sing for them.”

“Well i’ll tell you a secret, i’m from the future and what you said it’s gonna happen.”

“Come on.” I laugh and punch his arm lightly. “Ok now me again.” I pause and think. “If you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?”

“Such a “What to ask on a first date” from Wikihow or Buzz Feed kind of stuff question.”

“Fuck off!” they laughed, playful shoves exchanged. “Tell me!” I keep pushing him.

“Ok ok, Elvis Presley. I absolutely adore that man’s music.”

I nod, trying to find someone I’d go to dinner with. “I’d go with Freddy Mercury”

He looks at the ipad that now has

1% “Good choice. Hey, this is about to die.”

“We also don’t have internet connection or signal to see when we’ll get the power back.”

I sigh. Does that mean he’s gonna spend the night? I question myself.

“So lucky of us.” I sigh and look at him

again.

“Yeah.” he shrugs and when the Ipad finally ends it life, we stay in the darkness.

"I'm so bored," Jungkook announces, his voice echoing the monotony of the dark room.

"What's your body count?" I blurt out, surprising even myself with the sudden boldness.

"Damn, straight forward, huh?" he giggles, the dimness concealing the sly grin on his face. "I don't know, I don't count them."

"Approximately. Like you gotta know," I insist, pushing for a hint of revelation.

"I really don't know. You tell me," he challenges, turning the tables on me.

"I'm not telling you," I assert, maintaining a semblance of mystery.

"Why should I then?" he counters, his playful defiance hanging in the air.

"Fair," I sigh, but just as the silence begins to settle, Jungkook decides to unravel a bit of his own mystery. "It's around 15."

Leaning in, I tease, "Oh, I expected much more."

"Do I look like such a fuckboy? Don't answer that," he injects, his tone suddenly serious, only to be met with an eruption of laughter from me. He continues: "Even 15 is much. I wish it was like 2 or 3."

"Yeah, it may not be the best number, but still better than a lot of guys. Mine is 2," I confesses, revealing a surprising layer of vulnerability.

"Boyfriends?" He inquires, sensing there might be more to this story.

"Myeah," I acknowledge with a casual nod.

"I see. Have you ever… had anything with Ander?" Jungkook probes, curious about the dynamics between us.

"Hell no," I asserts "Well, he tried many times, but I friendzoned him until he got over and started liking other girls. He also tried to kiss me but nothing more. If he tried anything else… well, let's just say I'd be singing alone all the time."

"I see," He respond, the room now buzzing with a different energy, laughter and revelations dancing in the dimness. He stays silent a bit before continues in a low voice: “Do you have kinks?”

My hand trembled slightly as I took a sip of water, trying to mask my surprise at Jungkook's unexpected turn in the conversation. His chuckle cut through the awkwardness like a lifeline, and he leaned back, a playful glint in his eyes.

"If you're going to ask me such a personal question, it's only fair I get to ask you one in return," he declared, raising an eyebrow as if challenging me.

"Only if you spill first," I countered, unwilling to let him off the hook.

"I asked first," he retorted, a small smirk playing on his lips.

"I don't care," I shot back, determination in my tone.

"Me neither," he sighed, his gaze holding mine in a playful standoff. The room fell into a sudden, uncomfortable silence, amplifying the sound of tree branches scraping against the house and the howling wind outside. It was still dark.

"When the iPad died, it was around 10 pm," I mumbled, my attempt to bridge the gap with a practical detail.

A wry smile played on Jungkook's lips, his eyes holding a mixture of amusement and curiosity. "And now? Any guesses?"

I shook my head, realizing the absurdity of trying to estimate time in the pitch-black darkness. "No idea. Feels like we've been here forever."

He chuckled, a sound that carried a subtle reassurance. "Time flies, especially when you're in the dark with someone interesting."

A playful smile tugged at the corners of my lips as I navigated the intriguing twists of our conversation. "So you think I'm interesting," I remarked, my smile lingering even though he couldn't see it.

He responded with a sly challenge, delving into a more personal territory. "I might think that if you tell me if you have kinks. I really think everyone does. I was thinking about it some time ago, discovered mine recently."

A mischievous idea crossed my mind. "If you tell me yours, I'll tell you mine."

"I don't want to; I asked first."

"And I don't care you asked first."

"Fuck, Brianna, what do I gotta do to make you say it?" he sighed, frustration evident as he let his head fall onto the pillow.

"Are you really that curious?" I teased, the dim room masking the playful glint in my eyes.

"Fuck yeah, now I am!" he exclaimed.

I pat his arm until I feel his hand, it was big, if you might add, and veiny, full of tattoos, even tho i couldnt see them, i knew they were there.

"You have a... hand kink?" He inquired, a hint of amusement in his voice.

"Well, if that's how you call it, then yes."

I confess.

"What exactly do you like about hands?" He now sounds serious and curious, like he really wants to know.

"They're hot. I just... they're hot," I admitted, and as his gaze met mine, I found myself captivated by the intensity in his eyes.

"Do you think mine are?" he whispered, a vulnerability underlying the question.

"Well, I do," I replied, almost hesitating. His hand found my waist, the warmth of his touch sending a shiver through me.

"What do you like, Jungkook?" I asked, the air between us charged with anticipation.

"Hmm, everything, especially you."

“W-what.” I whisper as he gets on top of me. I feel our bodies lean closer together, the heat between us rising with each breath. I run my fingers through Jungkook's hair, caressing his neck and tracing his shoulders. I draw him closer, his lips just moments away from meeting mine. Our lips finally meet, the passion finally released, our tongues mingling in an intimate dance. His hand squeezes mine, the other hand running down my body to my waist. I draw him closer, our bodies tangled intimately. I feel like I’m kissing him for the first time, even if I’m not.

Breaking the kiss, he looked into my eyes, both of us breathless. "Is this okay?" he asked, seeking affirmation for more than just the kiss.

"It's more than okay," I assured him.

"I really like you, Bri," he confessed, his hand gently caressing my face.

"I like you too," I finally admitted, and before he could say anything else, I pulled him into another deep kiss. Fingers entwined in his soft, fragrant hair, our connection deepening with each passing moment.

Suddenly, when everything was almost too perfect, we hear a loud beep, tv starts playing downstairs, the room now being all bright again, outside you couldn’t hear anything anymore. the storm has stopped. lucky us.

My heart raced as I pushed him away, the sudden intensity leaving an awkward tension in the room. "Now that's cringe," I mumbled, trying to diffuse the situation.

"Really?," he replied, a hint of amusement in his voice. He reached for my face, planting a small, lingering kiss on my swollen lips. Laughter escaped him, and confusion etched my features.

"W-what? Why are you laughing?" I stammered, feeling a surge of insecurity.

"Your cheeks, and nose, and forehead—you're blushing so hard," he chuckled. Before I could protest, he gently pushed me back onto the pillow, peppering my face with soft pecks.

"H-Hey!" I managed to utter between giggles, his kisses playfully tickling every inch of my blushing face. He finally stopped, getting up with a mischievous smile.

"Let's go downstairs," he suggested. I gathered myself, taking off my hoodie, revealing a simple tank top and sweatpants. As I left the room, the familiar sounds of a Brooklyn 99 episode echoed through the house. Retrieving my phone, I noticed a slew of messages and the late hour, now reaching 10 o'clock.

"It's late. I think I'll just leave now. When should I come for rehearsals? Also… I'll bring your clothes tomorrow," Jungkook said.

"No problem, maybe, uhh… like 1 pm?" I suggested, my newfound awkwardness betraying the earlier intensity.

"Right. I'll be there," he agreed. Cupping my face, he planted a final soft kiss on my lips. "Take care."

"You too," I replied, closing the door behind him. The weight of the moment lingered, and I couldn't help but reflect on the unexpected turn of events. Oh my god.

———

[inmyheaddd]

i see ur a big “the inheritance games” fan, i’ve been back and forth on starting it :( what do you love about it?

thankyou sm for the question!! honestly there’s so many things i love abt it, for one the riddless; trying to solve them along w the characters is so fun, and once they’re actually solved you just sit there in shock 😭 it’s so crazy how it all ties in at the end together, my heart rate was HIGH by the end of the final gambit

also the characters r so likable, apart from a select few , that it’s just so fun to read on and see the interactions between them 😭

the main character avery is SO well written, and i would say that she’s such a relatable character, everyone can relate to her in one way or another. crazy shit happens to her all throughout the book, how she manages to stay sane is a mystery to me

and theres a brother for everyone. you have the cowboy with a savior complex who has a tendency for pet names - nash, broody blonde who would die for his family, never not wearing a suit, is also secretly a big softie at heart -grayson, the charming, sarcastic, spontaneous brunette - jameson, and the nerdy, comedic relief but sad backstory, insanely hilarious, TALL, energetic youngest brother - xander. (my personal fav 😝)

i could go on for agesss but this post would be way too long and boring to read - but seriously the series is SO good, i recommend a million times over!! the things i’d do to be able to read it for the first time

[idyllic-affections]

a letter from aphelion. ♡

a letter to all the people who have made my year in one way or another. there is no particular order to this post, and some of you may find that i don't have much to say, but all of you who are on this post are here because i can recall times i've enjoyed speaking to you or seeing you in my notifs or just existing within the same space as you. i hope you all have only the best year possible next year—it seems like most of us need and deserve a good year, hm? though i regard myself as quite a gentle and sentimental soul, i struggle with putting it into words. it's ironic, considering i am a writer. i mention this because even if the things i say in this post are quite silly and lighthearted, just know that i earnestly mean what i say and each and every one of you has contributed to my year in a memorable way <3 may we all have a good 2024.

       dear @lillonvia,

YOU!!!! YOU!!!!! HELLO. HI. MEETING YOU HAS BEEN SUCH AN HONOR AND SUCH A DELIGHTFUL PART OF MY YEAR!!! i love the little silly conversations we often have—i think it's probably a good thing that we share so many random fandoms. it's as if we lived somewhat similar lives growing up despite growing up in such vastly different environments <3 but anyway, i think the fandoms we share are really helpful in being able to have such fun conversations!! we have many things to talk about!!! despite the vast difference in timezones!!!! please go to sleep at normal hours!!!!!!! /lh

       dear @starryshinyskies,

HI AVERY <3 i was literally always so delighted to see you in my inbox back when you were still ⭐️ anon, and i still feel that kind of joy now! you have so many good and fun thoughts to share with me about things i've written and i love that... i hope moral injury ch. 2 will give you that same kind of brainrot again when it does finally come out!!!! if it doesn't that's okay too HAHA but i always love hearing your thoughts on... literally anything ever!! i have some fics of yours that i've been meaning to reblog btw, so maybe watch out for multiple essays in your notifications in the coming weeks LMAO

       dear @aroacenezha,

MAJI I AM SQUISHING YOU LOVINGLY IN MY HANDS or i can just look at you fondly if you don't want to be squished. i am okay with that too <3 i often think about how we met and i think it's both kind of funny and kind of nice. "baizhu would hate dottore" agreed so real so true that post was so correct in so many ways RAAHHH 🤝 the nice part of the way we met being my baizhu series. despite me having NOT updated it any time recently, has brought a lot of people into my inbox and sometimes into my life and i think it's very cool. i love when people feel seen. and furthermore please always send me your oc thoughts and your blorbo thoughts i love them so much 🙏🙏🙏

       dear @soleillunne,

ALYYY MY LOVE MY BELOVED you are so precious and treasured.... i love what you do, i think your writing is beautiful and has such a poetic quality to it. and i love when you appear in my inbox and notifs!!!! though tumblr is very mean to you and always eats your asks.... you are important to me and so many other people and i hope you always know that. genuinely. you are such a kind and wonderful person and you are always loved.

       dear @heiayen,

YOU. *GRABS YOU* *EVILLY* you. you are so. idk but YOU ARE. can't think of a good word. no words, only vibes. you are vibe-y. /lh you're another moot that has the most top tier responses to things, even non-fanfic posts. you just have Things To Say, and in the best way possible. your thoughts are so fun..... i interact with you rather often—more than some people realize, perhaps—and you are a dearly beloved presence in my life 🫶🫶

       dear @zeldadou,

though we haven't talked too much recently, i still think of you often! i love seeing your art and the way it changes and develops... and i love hearimg your thoughts about things or when you send me fun things you think i would like <33 you are a very kind person in my eyes, whether you realize it or not.

       dear @june-again,

i hope life treats you well, always. you don't deserve anything less. i think of you fondly! your kindness is and was very remarkable and treasured especially when i was first adjusting to tumblr and posting my fics and whatnot..... by the time we met, i was still very new, so i appreciated any kind interactions (i still do of course! it's just a bit different when you're new to a website like this haha)!!

       dear @kaixserzz,

I FUCK WITH YOUR THOUGHTS DUDE YOU SEEM TO COME INTO MY INBOX AT THE MOST RANDOM AND UNEXPECTED OF TIMES AND DROP THE MOST HEARTBREAKING ANGST POSSIBLE??????? HELLO?????????? ARE YOU. DOING OKAY??!???!!!! YOU WAKE UP AND CHOOSE VIOLENCE. ESPECIALLY WITH KAVEH. WTF (me too tbh 😇) /lh please always send me any platonic thoughts you have i will entertain all of them fr 💥💥💥 you have such good thoughts in that brain of yours 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

       dear @archonsbane,

i haven't spoken to you much, so forgive me if this seems or comes off as a sudden or jarring tag, but i do enjoy talking to you. fatui moot <3 you GET IT get it about the harbingers' dynamics. i hope we have more opportunities to speak sometime! (and if that sentiment isn't shared, that is totally fine. i would respect it either way 🫶)

       dear @lesanyanyas,

we only became mutuals recently, but i hope you know that i always thought of you as one of the "blorbo from my notes" kinds of people haha!!! i always saw and recognized you whenever you were in my notifications or my inbox and you always have such delightful and fun things to say <33

       dear @umgatochamadopercyval,

CLARA HIII you are such a remarkable person, you know? you've been nothing but kind and understanding, and you have such fun thoughts and ideas!! i love hearing about them sm. even if my responses are delayed, just know that you are always welcome to ramble in my dms about your ocs or your fic ideas and i will never find it to be annoying or anything. it isn't annoying. it never is.

                                                 sincerely,                                                                           aphelion.

there are people who did not make this list, and to those people, i hope we can become closer in 2024! if you aren't on here, it's truly only because i've hardly spoken to you. so... perhaps that is something we can do next year! i think of all my mutuals very fondly. i don't think of any of you as "less than" just because we haven't spoken mwah mwah <3

[shamrock313]

Evan and Natalie (Nov 3)

Back again doing a reading on these crazies. Anyway, please remember to take everything you read with a grain of salt. This is for entertainment purposes. Enjoy!

Please note that I completed my reading at 8:40PM, so between now and when this gets posted things could change.

Evan Mindset: 6oC - Nostalgia. Remembering and/or missing how things use to be. If we're talking about a relationship, he may miss the familiarity of it. This could be you know who, I'm not saying he misses her, but he might miss the genuine feelings he use to have. Of course, this doesn't have to come from YKW but from other past girlfriends.

"Reliving happy memories". Going to places / events that scream an exes name. Basically you take people to places you use to go with an ex. Will it be the same or different?

Career: 4oP - "Insecure, overthinking, paranoia, avoiding collab". I'm not sure what he's doing other than living his life. He could be working from NYC to get ready idk but there's something or someone that's putting him on edge rn. Could be some disagreements like for example: "Great idea Evan! Let's try this instead, we'll keep what you said on the backburner though".

Could be Ryan or another male figure in high leadership position. Could also be a woman with masculine energy or unisex name. (ex. Casey, Courtney, Taylor, Dana, Alex, Avery, Parker or names like Dominic/Dominique, Daniel / Daniela).

Oracle: Guardian - Someone is watching over him or he needs to take care of himself. Focus on himself and his needs. Protective layer around himself or his personal life.

Love Life: 6oP (Up and R) + 6oW + 3oS - This is like a tightrope. On one hand, all is good, but then there's this hesitation. To me 6oP is like a "transaction". That's how I see it. Its like a "I do this for you, you do this for me". It's also a give and take. One person could be putting more work in than the other (which we've seen in past readings). If you don't understand it's like let's say I help Evan write/revise a script for two hours, in return, I would like him to help me with chores or decorating the house. There are positive feelings in here, supporting each other, but there's still past baggage and tension that hasn't been resolved. Imbalance. Literally just picture him on a tightrope, he can either allow himself to fall off or make it to the other side. He's taking small steps.

Oracle: Crush, Family + Pay Attention to the Red Flags, 3rd Party Situation - Don't be surprise is we get holiday photos, there is a bond, there is infatuation. He is cautious and aware of things being off. As for 3rd Party that could be friends/family in his ear or the fans. It can be many things coming in between him and Nat.

What do fans think of his ongoing with Nat: 5oS (Rev) + Justice = Everyone is divided. We all knew that. Many can see the tension even those who aren't fans. On one hand, there's the sense of hoping this won't be a bad relationship. Hope these two can work what they have going on, but on one hand there is fairness. Trying to figure out if this relationship they have going on is fair and worth it.

Person A: I care, yet I'm side eyeing this

Person B: I don't know them. Let's not give in. Stop.

Nat Mindset - 4oC (Up and Rev) - There's a mix. (Up) Boredom, uninterested, unfulfilled, stagnation, disillusion. (Rev) Look to new opportunities, ways to do/be better, self-awareness.

Nat Love Life: 2oC - "encouraging each other to do their best / supporting each other" Feels she can (potentially) grow from this relationship. Emotionally invested and has a lot of hope.

Oracle: Committed + Take a Leap of Faith - So, these match up perfectly with 2oC. Despite all the bad, she's willing to jump in and fully invest and hopes he does the same. It's a risk. A big one.

Nat relationship with his fans: 4oS, 9oS, World = With the 4oS + 9oS, that's not good. Tension, anxiety, sleepless nights, constant worrying, pressure. There's a lot of stress and insecurity. For World, she can accept this loss as if accepting there's nothing she can do, Just accept defeat. We can also see this as her finding closure (turning off comments and not responding to fans). Or just simply trying to find a balance that works for her without her going overboard.

Oracles: Patience, Air Sign, Communicate: If she can not give in, she will be okay.

How Does Karlie Kloss feel about this: I'm not going to add my cards, but she has mix feelings too about this. Bit uncertain about this pairing, but she's trying to be nice about it. Thinks they have potential but she knows when to look away and not get too involved.

Overall: Knight of Cups (Up and Rev) + Hierophant = It's back and forth as always. There's infatuation, charming each other, supporting each other, but there's always someone who is becoming emotional distance. I swear they remind me of the college couple that use to argue on the stairwell next to my room. One minute they're at each other throats and two days later they are having lunch. I will say they are at least trying to find some structure. It's gonna take a whilllllllllllllllle for this to happen so good luck to them.

Oracles: Forgive and Release, Engagement + Moving = Compromise. Work things out. Forgive and forget. Engagement isn't what you all thinks it means. It's just another way of saying they are trying. Moving as we know is about "moving in with partner or changing location" but while I had time to learn, it goes into engagement as again trying to find a way to move into the next steps. Again, they got a long journey to go on to make this happen. It's going to be tiresome.

Are they dating or FWB? So, back in my reading from Coachella I put down, that they could be FWB with Evan potentially going to NY and meeting up with her for sexual reasons. The cards I had come out for this reading didn't give me a clear answer. Very much a grey area. Here's what I will say. If I were to ask Evan is he dating, because he doesn't know me, he will say yes, but for other people depending on how close he is with them, he'll say yes or no. I said waaaaay back in the Jon Bass reading (which I think got taken down) that it all depends on how he introduces her. Ladies, if he calls you his friend, jump ship. Vice versa.

Nat is very well aware (since May, I keep saying this) that there is issues. For her she keeps getting mixed signals. She's pushing things to the back of her head. The more it hits, it becomes clearer to her. She's holding onto potential but there is still underlying issues that need to be address.

[pixel-axel]

my review of The Grandest Game by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

⚠️ SPOILERS FOR THE GRANDEST GAME AHEAD (obviously) ⚠️

star rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (three stars out of five)

i was super excited for the grandest game. the inheritance games trilogy is one of my favorite series of all time, and this being centric around grayson and his half-sisters was awesome cause they’re all some of my favorite characters! i was super hyped for it, but tbh, it ended up disappointing me.

let’s start with the first thing that annoyed me: the whole lyra x grayson thing. i think i described in another post about how i really didn’t want grayson to have a love interest in tgg because he wasn’t ready for a romantic relationship. his entire arc ended with him realizing he didn’t need a romantic partner and that platonic/familial love could be just as fulfilling! as an aroace guy, this message was super important to me. he also had to learn to let emily and eve and avery go, which he really hadn’t done yet. this is proven IN THIS BOOK, IN HIS AND LYRA’S ROMANCE, because of the moment at the cliffs that proves that grayson thinks of lyra as similar to emily. avery also compares lyra to herself, which basically means grayson is just falling in love with a clone of avery. and look i love lyra, she’s absolutely amazing, but that’s not good for either of them. it’s so harmful. i don’t want to say that grayson can’t ever have a love interest, but if he does, it has to be dealt with in a way where it’s clear he’s moved on from emily and eve and avery and it should be someone who isn’t similar to them. he needs to deal with his trauma and guilt in a productive and healthy way and getting into a relationship is going to be harmful for both him and his partner.

on the topic of romance: this might be an unpopular opinion, but i felt like there was just so much fucking romance in this book? like, pump the breaks a bit?? i understand it being a ya novel and romance is “expected”, but i just felt like it was so much—and it was kinda overtaking the plot in a lot of places. one of my favorite things about the inheritance games trilogy was that it balanced plot and romance really well, and made the romance interesting and engaging but didn’t let it overtake the plot when it was, at its core, a mystery book—not a romance. in the grandest game, it WAY overtook the plot at many points. the focus of the book was grayson x lyra, gigi x brady/knox/slate, savannah x rohan, etc. the moments where i really enjoyed the book and was engaged with it were the moments that the romance was completely set aside. and again, i’m not saying there should be no romance whatsoever! i just think that there’s more platonic relationships that could be explored. maybe have one focal relationship, but have it as the b-story, and focus on the plot overall. the inheritance games trilogy did this really well, i don’t understand why the grandest game couldn’t do this too.

now, i want to get into the specifics of the other romances in this book. i felt like all of gigi’s romances were annoying and weird because she was just fawning over all of these random guys for absolutely no reason, and it felt completely unrealistic and i didn’t see the point in it. i was just so annoyed at it all. i also didn’t like gigi struggling to tell them about the bug and slate, i was just screaming at her the entire time because WHAT. again, it’s just unrealistic and also frustrating. savannah x rohan was annoying as well, because it just felt exactly the same as everything else? “badass independent queen who doesn’t need anybody else” x “guy who is in love with her & admires her but is also slightly questionable” is basically the exact same as everything else. it’s jameson x avery, lyra x grayson; it’s everything everything all over again. is anyone else getting deja vu?

i also want to talk about a scene i really disliked and that i think is important to talk about: the scene where lyra had a panic attack while watching the reel. the scene itself, isolated, was actually a really fucking good scene! i absolutely loved it, i felt so terrible for lyra but it was so well written, and i loved how well it expressed how lyra’s father’s death still affected her. it was an amazing scene, but it was ruined by grayson. i’ve seen some people talk about how “he handled it perfectly” and “helped her so much”! i need everyone to know HE DID NOT. even without the fact that lyra had told grayson she didn’t want him to touch her before, you should never ever ever touch someone having a panic attack without their consent, because that could make it SO MUCH WORSE. someone being touched while having a panic attack could overwhelm them/overload them if they’re overstimulated or having a sensory overload. it could also confuse them if they’re not aware of their surroundings (like lyra). in either case, it could cause them to panic much more and make it much worse! to anyone reading this post, please, for the love of god, don’t touch someone having a panic attack without their consent. what he should’ve done was get her to a safe space and calm her down verbally by walking her through breathing exercises or reassuring her she’s present and he’s there. there are other better things to do but tbh you can just google them. no, it wasn’t specifically bad for lyra in this moment, but it still could’ve been and it gives a bad representation for people who don’t know much about panic attacks—which is proved by people saying grayson handled it perfectly. he didn’t. not any readers’ fault, ofc, i just think it’s important to point out.

anyways, other scenes i didn’t like: the scene where grayson was holding up lyra. this is very much a personal thing, i just. didn’t like it. idk bro T-T it just made me feel weird. also i didn’t feel like grayson would say “sweetheart”?? that’s random but it didn’t feel like it fit him. i also hated how calla was 16 and knox was 18 when they got together, yes it’s only a two year age difference but calla was a minor and knox wasn’t. also one of the major issues with age gaps is that they’re at different stages in their lives; in most cases a 16 year old would be in high school while an 18 year old would be in college, they would have different worries, different experiences, different development, different everything. that just. doesn’t feel chill to me idk i hate it.

another thought i had was that it was kinda weird that (FROM WHAT I UNDERSTAND) essentially every player in the game was white, upper class, english-speaking, cishet people. i’m sorry i don’t want to be such a stickler for diversity, but if you’re scattering the tickets all over america, you’re going to get people from all walks of life. there would likely be more people of color, more lower class people, more people who don’t speak english as a first language, and at least a COUPLE queer people. sorry for getting into statistics here (i love statistics), but 25.7% of people are not white alone (https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US#); the “1%” is self explanatory; 8.3% speak english “less than very well” (https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/people-that-speak-english-less-than-very-well.html); 11.7% don’t identify as straight and 2.6% of people assigned female at birth don’t identify as female and 2.7% of people assigned male at birth don’t identify as male (https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/11/census-bureau-survey-explores-sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity.html). i understand that avery got to pick people, and rich people were stacking the odds, and everything like that, but still. come on. you can at least try to put some diversity in your book??

well now i actually don’t exactly have anything more to complain about lmao, so let’s talk about some things i did like!

i thought all the characters were interesting and engaging, even after finishing the book i absolutely love them and everyone’s backstories were so interesting

i loved so many of gigi’s lines!! her entire “over my cold dead body” speech was so goofy

i liked how grayson was added to the game last minute, it was such an interesting twist!

i loved how gigi (and her team) solved the puzzle last, but solved all three at once—and how grayson and lyra and odette solved it first, but only solved one, and savannah and rohan second and two at once; so on and so forth. i liked that because it showed how different types of people display intelligence—some people can solve things super quickly, but some people are better at thinking things through slowly. this is kinda jumbly now because i’ve been working on this review for over two hours but you know what i mean right

i love the callback to the first book with the proverbs!! that was cool as fuck

gigi pressing the black button :P

gigi being bugged was WILDDD that was an insane twist

the blackout was also fucking insane!! dude that was so cool

the truth or dare scene was pretty interesting

odette’s seizure was an insane twist

gigi losing and getting a concussion and brady abandoning her was SO INTERESTING i was truly engaged in this book at that point

odette leaving the game was so interesting ifnrejnjjnwdsnk

everything with lyra’s father was so cool and interesting and was written so well!

the epilogue was cool

anyways here’s some finishing thoughts (again i’ve been working on this for literally two hours now my brain is dead)

when i read a good book, i cannot put it down. i will read it in class, at night; i will forego homework and other projects and everything in favor of that book. every previous inheritance games was like this—in a row! i couldn’t put down the first book, then when i finished it, i got the second and third books as soon as possible and read them both all at once because i was SO INVESTED. i absolutely adored these books. this book? i just wanted to put it down the entire time. i barely stopped myself from dnfing the thing just because i was holding out hope that it would get better, and it just didn’t. my final rating is probably closer to 2.5 stars, but i’m rounding it up to three because i did like some aspects of this book and i was super invested in it at points, but i was also so bored and so annoyed at so many other points. i will not be getting the other books in this series because i’m just so annoyed with it at this point. still love the original trilogy + the brothers hawthorne, but this was really disappointing.

all views expressed in this review are my own and you do not have to agree with it. i very much support expressing your own opinions on this in reblogs/replies! i would love to see varying perspectives :D

thanks for reading this entire thing if you got this far, i got way too into this but i’m happy with it. if you’re curious, this entire review is about 2k words, and as of this moment, i’ve spent exactly 2 hours on it (2:14pm to 4:14pm)! super fun, huh?

anyways here’s an avery as a treat

[echo-the-great]

Arrow and Ace [part 3 - the hidden room]

this one took me longer than expected to finish, sorry about that. Thanks so much for all the support on the previous chapters, especially chapter one I really was not expecting to get that many likes considering I’m new on this platform lol THANK YOU

I’m going to try to come up with a consistent posting schedule but for now that simply does not exist

I’ve created myself a hyper fixation lmao

chapters likely won’t be posted as close together as the first three have, but might post early if I torture y’all with cliffhanger again. (I hate them too, but these things get long so I have to do it sometimes, plus they’re weirdly kinda fun to write)

TW:

Swearing

mention of weapons (bow and arrow)

abandoned building/basement

falling

long chapter

cliffhanger (yes, again. I’M SORRY)

{Avery}

We pushed open the door slowly and were met with yet another seemingly empty room. I sighed but Axel squeezed my hand and gently pulled me into the room before finally letting go. We wandered deeper into the large room, flashlights bouncing off the blank walls. Suddenly, as I was checking out a corner, I felt the floor slip away beneath me.

I screamed in surprise, I could hear Axel’s rushed footsteps coming towards where I’d just been standing. My flashlight fell from my hand, and went spinning across the floor like a Beyblade on crack, stopping somewhere nearby. Thankfully it hadn’t been a super far fall, and I quickly checked myself over for injuries as a very worried Axel called out to me from above. “Avery!?”

I stood up carefully and dusted myself off as I called up to him in response. “I’m okay! At least I’m pretty sure I am. I think there’s another room down here.”

So, naturally, he of course decided that joining me was the best plan ever.

{Axel}

Relieved that Avery was okay, I carefully dropped down through the floor, scanning the ground with my flashlight until I found her shoes, not wanting to shine it in her eyes.

“Did you drop your flashlight?” I asked, struggling to see her in the darkness.

“Nah, I threw it off a cliff” she joked. She speaks sarcasm as much as she speaks English, so I was used to it at this point.

careful not to shine it in her eyes, I searched the room with my flashlight beam. I spotted her flashlight in a far corner and went to grab it when I noticed yet another door. I was beginning to think this was the entrance to the backrooms or something, but I opened it anyway. And, I have to say, this room was far more interesting than any of the others we had been in all day.

“Holy shit…” I was barely even aware of it as the words floated out of my lips. I could hear Avery shuffling towards me in the darkness behind me, but my focus was on the sight in front of me, trying to determine what exactly I was looking at.

I didn’t actually go in until Avery was by my side once more, but I must have spent a good two minutes just standing there and looking stupid.

Inside the room was lit up somehow- which was slightly concerning because who the hell was paying the power bill- in a bluish glowing light. It wasn’t huge, but it was far from small. As we stepped into the room together something in the back right corner caught my eye.

It was a collection of somethings, actually, and I silently wandered over to it. I could feel Avery’s eyes on me until I suddenly heard her say “NO WAY, they have a whole damn archery setup!” as she rushed over to the opposite corner of the room.

I went over to the table on the right, covered in an assortment of items. Namely several elaborately decorated decks of cards, and other classic magic act items, such as a magic wand and top hat. I ran a hand over each item very gently. It all seemed so old yet so recent. It was odd. I ran my right hand across the edge of the tablecloth, taking small steps until I reached the small table in the centre of the back wall of the room.

I watched Avery out of the corner of my eye. She was inspecting each bow, each arrow and the one crossbow hanging on the wall carefully, without even touching any but one bow. Eventually she also reached the middle table, joining me to stare at what sat on it.

An arrow. And a deck of cards.

I glanced at her, finding that she was doing the same. After a moment of silent communication, we each reached out. She picked up the arrow and I grabbed the deck of cards. Nothing happened, not that we had been expecting much.

The first detail I noticed was that the cards had a top hat design on the back of the cards. The next thing was that as I picked up cards from the deck, I found that the top four cards were the aces. Then the jokers. Then what appeared to be a shuffled deck. I began shuffling the cards, because, why not I guess, but something about those six cards stood out. Perhaps because of the joke I’d made earlier that day. It all seemed so far away now as I shuffled the cards, jokers and aces laying on the table.

I glanced at Avery, my loyal best friend of eight years and constant victim of my terrible jokes. She was carefully looking over the arrow, a look on her face I couldn’t quite read.

As I looked back at the deck in my hands, the six cards I had placed on the table were suddenly in my hand, sitting face up on top of the face down deck.

I blinked in confusion. The fuck? Since when did cards teleport. Huh. Oh well, I must’ve been misremembering, I thought to myself. But as I picked up the jokers I noticed something about them.

one wielded and arrow and the other wore a top hat.

I almost left the thought alone but I held them up to Avery. “Hey, look at this.”

She had to squint in the dim light. “What is it?” She tilted her head at me. I pointed and looked closer at the two cards. “You see the arrow?” I pointed at the card and then at the arrow she was holding. Then, I pointed at the other joker, then to the back of the cards.

Then suddenly, the room seemed to get a bit brighter, then slowly began becoming darker and darker. Avery and I looked at each other in fear, our faces giving away our unspoken question; “What the fuck is going on?”

Suddenly but slowly, the Jokers started glowing. I had put them down already, but we were just kind of frozen there, staring at the jokers on the table. We weren’t sure what to do or what was going on, me holding the other cards and Avery holding the arrow. Until those started glowing too.

“Wh-What the fuck?” I felt frozen in place when I realized the deck of cards I was holding were looking like a damn glow stick. I looked over at Avery with wide eyes.

She was staring in shock and confusion at the arrow in her hand as it started to bathe her face in a soft, pale green light.

“What in the elementary school dance glowsticks is this?” I asked, trying to use a little bit of a joke to snap her out of her apparent trance, despite my own confusion and surprise, which were most definitely evident in my voice.

She didn’t laugh, but it wasn’t really that funny. She simply returned my wide eyed gaze, silently asking the same question I was. “What the fuck is going on?”

I wanted to either drop the cards and run, taking Avery with me, or investigate, but instead of doing either I continued to stand like a frozen idiot. The only thing illuminating the stone walled room was the arrow and cards. The light from the jokers on the table almost seemed like it was starting to pulse.

Without thinking I picked them up, adding them to the deck. And then my hands were glowing too. “AH- what the fu- the fuck!?” I glanced at Avery. Her hands were met with the same fate.

I stared at my now glowing hands, and the cards that I held in them. My hands started kind of tingly, kind of like pins and needles, but it didn’t feel bad, just weird as hell.

I could feel it spreading up my arms, thinking ‘well, I’m going to die.’ Thankfully, I was very wrong, but what was I supposed to think?

Avery and I stared at each other, wide eyed in confusion. I felt the weird feeling crawl up my arms and throughout my body, like I was being very gently electrocuted. Then, slowly, everything went dark again. We were left in confusion and pitch darkness. I went to reach for my flashlight, but just then, the lights slowly came back on.

"The hell was that about?" Avery softly demanded, still staring at the arrow as the walls began to glow again around us. I could only shrug in response.

Eventually, after about a minute of silent confusion, I managed to force words out, voice shaking slightly. "Did...did you feel that, too...?"

She looked at me, eyes flicking over my face, and I can tell she knows what I mean. "Yeah, I did." she replied with a nod. My gaze traveled back down the the deck of cards in my hands. I shuffled the deck carefully, inspecting all of the cards, face up, then face down. Nothing about them seemed any different. I could see her looking over the arrow in my peripheral vision.

I could practically see the gears turning in her head as I silently tried to figure out what the hell just happened. Pocketing the deck of cards, I slowly walked over to the table with all of the magic stuff. I looked up at Avery, who was watching me. She kind of nodded at me and went over to the archery area.

I looked over each item thoughtfully, trying to see if anything was different than before. Then Avery called me over.

“Hey, battle axe!” She called, using her nickname for me. I’d always found it weird but thought it sounded kind of cool, so I’d never protested. “C’mere, I’m gonna try and shoot it.” I walked over to her, noticing that there was in fact a target area, with three targets against a far wall in a row. I couldn’t help but think, ‘This room is incredibly strange.’

“Yeah, it is.” Avery said as she was loading the arrow from the table into one of the bows. I stopped watching her and looked her in the face, startled. “What?”

“it’s strange, like you said.” She paused what she was doing as she my gaze, looking at me in confusion. My eyes went wide for the hundredth time that hour, and it took me a moment to get the words out as I processed what she’d just said.

“I didn’t say that out loud.”

Her eyes widened, staring at me in disbelief. “What? W-I could’ve sworn I heard you…a-are you sure?” I nodded, I was absolutely positive I had only thought the words. We stared at each other for a moment in shocked confusion. “M-maybe I’m wrong.” I suggested weakly. She just shrugged, but she didn’t quite look like she believed that. She continued loading the arrow into the bow after a moment, then took aim once I’d stepped back. With careful accuracy, she shot at the middle target, hitting the bullseye. Except that when the arrow hit, the target froze in ice.

She dropped the bow. “What the fuck-?!” I stared at the target, shocked and confused. I thought I heard her say that it might have something to do with what happened earlier. “M-maybe…” she looked at me like I was crazy as I spoke. “Maybe what?”

I returned her confused expression. “What do you mean? You said something about earlier?” She shook her head. “I didn’t say that out loud.” I studied her face for any sign that she was pulling my leg but I could tell she meant it.

“Holy shit….can we read each other’s minds?” I knew it was a weird idea, but if her shooting that arrow could turn the target to ice then I decided it was possible. “No, Axel, that’s not-“ she cut herself off, looking thoughtful. “Well, maybe, I guess. Let’s just hope if that’s the case, then it only works on each other.” I nodded in agreement before going back to the magic table.

“I wanna see what this stuff does” I explained as I picked up a small, marble like metal ball in my hand. I determined it was probably a smoke bomb, the kind a magician might use in a disappearing act, and threw it onto the ground.

And just like that, I disappeared into a cloud of smoke.

[to be continued…]

[mycurrentobsessionis]

When I was a kid, I genuinely thought sex was made up for TV, much like many other things that I heard much about, but never experienced. Caffeine jitters, for one, or clear vision, or coyotes laying traps for very fast birds. Of course I knew people had sex. I was twelve after all, and had already read too many Nicholas Sparks books, listened to too many Britney Spears songs, and I knew babies didn't really come from the mystical Island Where the Wild Babies Are, as my mother had told me. But I didn't think anyone enjoyed it.

To me, sex was one of those things that grown ups did, like paying taxes, or doing the laundry, or going to work, that they didn't really want to. Still, everyone agreed it was necessary to be done. People like babies, and how else were you supposed to have babies?

I felt similarly about romance. Not exactly the same, but I didn't think of married couples as being in love. Yes, my parents loved each other, but that meant nothing. One set of grandparents seemed to do nothing but bicker, the other set was divorced. Many of my aunts and uncles had likewise been divorced or separated at some point. I was considered a precocious child (read: quiet, smart, and most of all, obedient), so I was allowed to sit with the grown women, who would discuss their husbands amongst themselves. "He's helpless without me," one said. Another complained that her husband was a "huge baby." Grandma had to go home early when we went out, because she had to make dinner for Pap, or Mom was calling to make Dad and our dentist appointments. Sometimes I heard conversations that I wasn't meant to, by adults who forgot I was listening. They "faked" it, because sometimes they were "just tired, you know, and wanted him to get off" of them.

In my mind, this solidified into a conclusion that baffled my mother: no one was attracted to men, nor did you marry an man because you loved him -- that was merely a pleasant side effect sometimes. You did it because men couldn't survive on their own, and because, well, marriage is just what adults do. Reading period novels, such as "Little Women," did little to shake my convictions.

So there I was, thirteen, and not quite sure why I was being warned off sex or boys. Why would I want either of those? I thought. When people did express wanting those things, as my friends were beginning to, I smiled and nodded, certain that this was all a game we were in on together. It's what adults do, what movies and books and TV shows do. I got annoyed with love triangles, wondering why anyone would reasonably choose the "hot" guy who was kind of mean to them over their childhood best friend -- surely, surely safety and stability were the way to go. What else was there?

I wasn't really bothered by the idea of marrying a man or having kids. It was just the way the world was. Even after I learned that it was possible for people of the same gender to fall in love, I didn't quite put the dots together that I had played softball for five years, despite not having an athletic bone in my body, to spend more time with the girl I met at the creek. Or how, at eight years old, I was enchanted by the way Margaret Avery serenaded Whoopi Goldberg (and felt oddly vindicated to learn at fifteen that they were, in fact, in love).

The day I learned what sex was, really, in health class. Initially, I didn't believe it. It sounded fake. That wasn't what sex was. It didn't actually know anything... but whatever they showed us, that made me cringe away in horror, that couldn't be it. But it was, and I hated it, and I went up and cried in my room, and started to think of an escape plan. How was I going to get out of this? It never occurred to me that I could say no. That there was no real obligation, even if I was married. I wondered if I could simply marry a very old man. Then we could be companions. We would walk in the park, and feed the birds, and read books together. I read Reddit posts about men complaining their wives faked headaches to avoid sex, and I felt hope -- excited that might work.

Eventually, I realized that, romantically at least, I was attracted to girls. I started to come to terms with this, but then I watched a BuzzFeed YouTube video -- something like "The 9 Girlfriends You'll Have," which indicated that the girlfriend not willing to engage in sexual acts was not really a lesbian. I decided that I must be wrong about my feelings -- they were only feelings of deep friendship. Nothing more. But I still didn't like boys. I picked one every few years, called him my crush, and became unfathomably angry when my best friend tried to set us up -- didn't they understand that I didn't want that -- that my protests were not shyness, but genuine disinterest? When my friend dated boys who were cruel to them, I was baffled. What strange alchemy was being worked on my friends, who otherwise would not have put up with such treatment with a smile?

I was aware at that point, at fourteen, that I was different. Not in a special, or holier-than-thou way, but in an isolating, looking-through-a-window kind of way. I asked questions, and the answers made no sense. I had no desire for sex, and I wondered if maybe I was just late to the party.

Finding AVEN in 2013 from a Tumblr post was literally life-changing. I read a foreign post that compared being ace to being on a planet where people were really into licking eyebrows. It rang true to me -- sex was just as baffling to me. The Split-Attraction Model likewise felt true -- I did like girls, but I also did not care for sex. There were other issues, things I still haven't figured out. When do I tell someone that I'm ace in a relationship? Do I have to allow for an open relationship? Is it fair to expect sole commitment from someone, even if I'm not personally interested in polyamory? I wondered for a while if I was a bad person because of that.

I decided, at fourteen, that it was a great idea to show this forum to my mother. I presented it to her as something I had learned about, with the intention of explaining it to her... immediately before making the disclosure. She was confused and baffled by the sexuality, and not exactly processing it. I was a little concerned by this, but I took the dive anyway and told her about me and where I felt I fell. I have never forgotten the way she immediately denied that. She told me it was normal for me to not be interested in sex -- something I knew by now was not entirely true -- and that she didn't want me to "close off my options." My feelings were hurt. Very much.

I found out I was asexual around the time Tumblr began to contain vitriol against asexual people. I wouldn't come out as homoromantic for another five years. For a long time, I kept very quiet about being a lesbian asexual. Eventually, I started labelling myself queer, so as not to have to disclose that much information about myself. I have typed out parts of this same story and deleted them over the years. I didn't want to get into an argument about it.

I have never understood the "aces are not queer" argument. Because I feel that my journey and experiences of learning about both parts of my identity mirror each other, and the stories of other queer people. This would have been true, even if I had not also been a lesbian.

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck.

[riddles-n-games]

So, I wanted to make this as an appreciation post for the fandom. Looking at all the reveals we've gotten in the last few days and seeing how much the world of TIG has expanded so quickly, I've been getting a bit nostalgic.

When I joined this fandom, it was August of 2022, barely a month out from the release date of The Final Gambit, the finale of The Inheritance Games. I found out about TIG at a random bookstore on a road trip and I had immediate interest (the hot tub scene sold me so quick). I was also still somewhat new to Tumblr back then but I wanted to see what the hype was here.

Back then, we were still in the Averyjameson vs Averygrayson era even though I'd say things were cooling down a bit. But, that's not my point. The community was getting ready for this; there were chapter reveals, theories, and oh, it was awesome. I was so happy to be part of it. And some of the people who made it a lively place back then are still here, but unfortunately, some have gone quiet. @averysjameson, @guppyclato, @lesbianator3000, @margolovescoffeeandbooks, and @cherryschaos, thank you for making my days back then. I know you may have moved on, but I thank you for the contribution you made at the time.

The only thing I will not miss is the toxicity that Averyjameson and Averygrayson fans plagued this fandom with and divided us so much. We had a lot back then to still savor, why did we have to do that to sour the tag when this series had so much more to offer than just the romantic subplot? There was a mystery at large and so many other characters to love. We only seemed to agree on hating Emily and the old man. Moving on, let's never do that again and if there is another love triangle, let's try being more mature about it. I know we can. If Gray, Avery, and Jamie moved on, so can we.

When we were told of The Brothers Hawthorne back in October 2022 and given those first chapters for the new book, I was over the moon. We were going to finally see the POVs of two favorites; Grayson and Jameson. I was so excited to see from Jamie's perspective, to get a mystery set in London and for him to solve it with Avery; it was an Averyjameson dream. However, come the actual release of the book and I was honestly so disappointed. I'm not sure why it didn't hit the levels it should have but I already said my piece on that and while I still have some disdain for that story, I look fondly at the parts I did love. And funny enough, I told myself Grayson's story will just have to do only because I was feeling sour over Jameson's plot. But low and behold, I loved it! It was deep, funny, interesting, and held my attention as if I was in TIG all over again and it hit more high notes than Jameson's. I may attribute that to the familial connections we see displayed there but it felt more rewarding and even if JLB still had more for Grayson's development, that didn't mean Jameson had to suffer for it. However, I'm hoping that this story here was a fluke and I'm putting my best foot forward in believing that maybe reading Averyjameson through Avery's POV again in Games Untold will give back that familiar feeling I've been missing for two years. I never said I wouldn't try again.

Now, we've entered a new era and this is a third for me; The Grandest Game and Games Untold. During this period, I met @hathorneheiress, my fanfic bestie, and a lot of my current supporters have been with me since TBH. I thank you very much for sticking with me by liking, reblogging, and commenting on my posts. You make my day in the same way I assume my content makes yours. I haven't said that enough and I don't think it will ever be. I'm happy that we're all still here now and going into this new unknown with our theories, headcanons, new characters, and plots. I'm sure it will be a blast. Thank you for giving me that feeling again these last few days; it felt like being with Avery and the gang, running through the House, finding another clue, waiting in anticipation what it reveals.

I hope that this next series is everything we hope for it to be, a new start for Gray, a chance to bond with the new characters we met in The Brothers Hawthorne, and an opportunity to make it feel like the hay days of the first book. I hope that Games Untold lets us relish that feeling with the original cast, to relive the good old days, to meet up with some old friends we haven't seen in a while, and to have that final hurrah that leaves us on the highest of highs in the best way possible. Maybe it'll make it easier to say goodbye to the ways it used to be and embrace the new storytellers but of course, with the way JLB leaves us hanging with every story she gives, who is to say that'll be it?

Thank you to everyone who makes theories, headcanons, fanfics, fanart, and so many other things that leave us wanting more. Thank you to everyone who showers that content with support in the form of likes, comments, and reblogs. Thank you to everyone who has been here from the beginning, in the middle, and now. You all made this a special place. Thank you to everyone who made this community that way and continue to do so every day. I'm happy to be a small part of that. See you in the next post.

-Mystery Girl's Red String

[ohwhatagloomyshow]

Scarlet Hollow ask game

tagged by @morgloom. I am tagging: whoever wants to do this! It’s a free for all! I am also mostly a lurker in the fandom so I was delighted to be tagged in the first place :)

TRAITS:

Your "canon" trait combination? booksmart/keen eye! i play as my idealized self, which is just an introverted nancy drew

What third trait would you add for hardcore mode? i love talk to animals a lot, i love the additional characterization you get from it! i also love friend dustin.

What trait are you least drawn to? this is an unpopular opinion but street smarts? i don't think i've given it enough individual time and attention because whenever i think about it i'm just like, that's just keen eye and i already have keen eye. i know it's not keen eye but my brain is broken in that mode of thinking!

Coolest trait? i like keen eye a lot! i like the idea of just being a really observant stranger in this new-to-you town. you just show up and have an instant read on everybody and their problems.

ROMANCE:

Who are you romancing? canon run is nobody! i am here for tabitha!!! but i think i like avery the most, generally. or dr. kelly >:)

What romance are you least interested in? another unpopular opinion, stella! i appreciate that she's Best Girl but it's really a tribute to the writing and her character work that i find her kinda annoying!

Who would you romance if every single character was eligible? it's tabitha and i'm only a little bit sorry about it.

MISCELLANEOUS:

What character would hurt you the most if something bad happened to them? TABITHA. as booksmart i get to avoid her making the sacrifice (i've only gotten that ending ONCE and i've done so, so many playthroughs lol) but i'm certain more terrible things are coming for my girlfailure. i just want to take her to the beach!!!

Would you stay in Scarlet Hollow when the week is over? i think so, yeah! someone mentioned in a post a while ago how much it works that our character has no contacts in the town we've just left, and i like to think about my oc's life improving by being in her mother's hometown surrounded by brand new and really strong friendships. (assuming there's a Nobody Dies ending.) i think there would be something beautiful about really honoring the victims of your ancestors - and tbh your cousin - by committing yourself to righting those wrongs in town. but maybe that means the estate collapses and the mine goes out of business! i don't know! i am rambling! but the answer is yes i'd stay in scarlet hollow, more importantly i'd say with my new friends and cousin.

Who would you vote for dog mayor? i really need to revisit ep 4 with talks to animals because i nearly missed the dog mayor convos and definitely didn't take proper advantage of the info learned there! i have to default to gretchen because i can't remember the other dogs :(