#I am *also* pretty much convinced that I would have chosen the same

[edennill]

🔥 Elros or the Maiar?

Both? Both is good.

(Sorry for the very long delay! On the plus side this is the last but one of the asks lingering in my inbox and the last related one, at least.)

Elerossë, then:

I could leave it at saying that I adore and almost prefer the Quenya form of his name; it sounds like an endearment in my mouth, though I can't tell why. (Lamatyavë and all, I guess). But that would be cheating and a digression, when I do have actual things to speak of.

The further points come with a trigger warning for talk of mortality, as always in my weird way.

Maybe my hottest take about him that isn't kidnap fam is that I get distinctly frustrated when people try to explain his choice in purely... I don't know what single adjective works here... secular? reasons. Just — no doubt that there were some simply psychological reasons to it, things like "I'm not planning to swear a murderous oath, but M&M also didn't at my age so if I ever lose my mind like that I don't want to be stuck with it forever", but I feel like you can't make sense of it if you leave out the numinous. The maybe not-exactly-explainable in the terms they have at their disposal, but Finrod's "Men are always looking for something" and the mystery and wish to know it...

Maybe I could summarise it by — ME doesn't have very developed afterlife beliefs, that's true, but behind all those discussions of mortality there is an undercurrent of that — and of it being a conundrum that might one day be solved. I think if you ignore this, it doesn't feel like the Legendarium anymore.

And do not get me started on wholesale inventing that Elros also chose because of love, that's narratively uninteresting.

As for the Maiar:

I'm not entirely sure whether the statement is meant as "pick any Maia to speak about" or in general — but I think since the question specified more than just characters, I'm going with the second option.

I have a vague dislike of the idea that all Maiar are from "birth" aligned with the domain of one specific Vala unless circumstances (e.g. turning evil) occur. I feel like — there's going to be people who are like that, but a lot of them will fit in somewhere in between domains and/or just flit between two or more Lords/Ladies, this being treated as something quite normal, or even be more conventionally aligned with one Vala but mostly work for another out of personal preference.

Thank you for asking! This is the last of the batch but if anyone else wants a go, I am still technically open; it just may take a while to answer.

[hoshinasblade]

second best |3| hoshina soshiro

PART 1 | PART 2 | BONUS: PART 3

pairing: hoshina soshiro x f!reader genre: slight angst, comfort, childhood friends to lovers, a bit of that miscommunication trope snippet: hoshina soshiro always ranks second at everything in his life. god forbid he falls behind in the bid for your heart too. word count: 2k trigger warnings: a bit suggestive at the end author's note: i promised a part three so here it is, hope you guys like it! likes, replies, and reblogs are welcome but im begging you not to copy or steal my works. feel free to sign up for my taglist (which i swear im gonna use on the next fic lol), and i appreciate when people send me asks so let me know your thoughts (or send me hoshina pics, that'd be great too). my masterlist is here! also i gotta let you know that i might put the next fic on hold because i am so tempted to start a short nsfw collection instead - just one-shots so it won't be a lot of commitments. who knows cause i might write angst and nsfw at the same time 😉

soshiro's hands were trembling. you noticed because it has not happened in a while - you cannot even recall the last time you've seen the man nervous, much less shaking. you were going to himeji that morning; hoshina had snatched your backpack from you - "when i said i would make it up to ya, i mean in every way i can," he said, sounding gentle and sincere that your only choice was to let him carry your belongings and blush as he also intertwined his fingers with yours while walking.

there is this story you have been hearing for a while - the red string theory, it is called. according to it, people who are destined to be together will always find each other despite everything and anything. when you were a kid, instead of thinking it romantic, you rather thought it is frightening - fate is a difficult enemy to go against: if it is meant to be, then it will be eventually. when you grew up, you held that belief as a prayer - it means that whoever is the one chosen for you may get lost on their way to you, but they will always - always - arrive.

you glanced at hoshina soshiro and you knew you were right to believe.

it was roughly a four-hour journey from tachikawa to himeji by train, and during the entire ride, even when he fell asleep for a short while, your boyfriend did not let go of your hand. you complained about your palms being sweaty as a joke, and he only loosened his hold. you understood - he is making it up to you, but he is also making up for all the wasted time.  

"we're almost there," you told him when he startled from his nap. his bangs were slightly messy, and he bumped his head to your shoulders. "comfy," he hummed. you giggled.

you are still trying to navigate through dating a high-ranking officer of an anti-kaiju defense force unit. relationships aren't strictly forbidden but still frowned upon, which was a little bit of an issue between you and soshiro when you had a proper and long-overdue conversation about what you guys were. confessing is one thing, but when being friends is all you've known your whole life, you know adjustments are supposed to be made here and there.

 which brings you and him back to your hometown.

he didn't exactly disagree with you, but you are aware he had his reservations about the idea of visiting himeji. "oh i'm pretty sure soichiro-kun would be surprised," you said when you were still planning the trip. "yes, we should kiss in front of him and give him a heart attack," soshiro suggested, and you weren't hundred-percent sure he was just joking. maybe you didn't want him to be.

when the streets started to look familiar, soshiro noted the sudden bounce in your pace. you and he have walked in the same alley years ago - he would wait for you after class and would even make up some ridiculous excuse so you could go home together. "i used to pretend to be tired way back just so i could convince you to slow down. i wanted to spend so much time with you," you reminisced.

"i should have known ya were head-over-heels for me," he teased.

"they miss ya, soshiro-kun. ya don't have anything to worry about." the change in topic wiped the smirk off his face. he was suddenly serious, sad even. there was a part of you that regretted saying the words, but he had to hear it - you only wanted to reassure him after all.

"just that i haven't been here for a long while", he said, squeezing your hand. "i don't know if they think this place is still my home."

"ya need to have faith in the people you care about, soshiro-kun. ya need to trust that they care about ya too," you solemnly advised. "i know that doesn't make any sense sometimes, but that's how i do it."

"have i told ya i love you so much?" he responded, to which you smiled.

"only a thousand times," you joked once more.

the hoshina estate is a spacious one - you have to pass through an automated black gate that directs you to the main house, the cobblestone path lined with cherry blossom trees, their delicate petals swirling when the wind blows gently; the grandeur of the home soshiro grew up in is undeniable with its traditional japanese architecture. a man with striking features and an aura of authority was waiting at the entrance, waiting for his son.

“father,” soshiro greeted the man, bowing deeply.

“an embarrassment that your friend will be the one to bring you home when you could have done it a long time ago,” soshiro’s father scolded him. his stare at soshiro was that of disappointment, which quickly disappeared when he looked at you. “ah, my dear, come on in, hurry, come on in,” he turned and said to you, inviting you in. the hoshina patriarch had always been fond of you - soshiro’s parents had wanted a daughter and they found one in you.

soshiro rolled his eyes. “my father’s favorite child is my girlfriend, great,” he muttered.

the maids made you a great dinner, cooking soshiro’s favorite food per his father’s request. conversation was light, and it was apparent that the old hoshina wanted to catch up so badly on how his son was doing, inquiring in consecutive questions about soshiro’s rank in the unit, his experiences so far, and his long-term plans in staying with the force. soshiro’s replies are detailed, but you know he intentionally did not mention all the instances where he almost died fighting.

soshiro’s father regaled you both with stories of soshiro’s childhood antics - “do ya remember, my dear, when soshiro tripped and fell on his face after training with soichiro? we were so worried, but he only fell asleep,” he recited the memory as if it was just yesterday., his kansai accent thick on his words. the tension that had lingered in the air had dissipated as you finished your meal.

“i had the guest room prepared for ya so ya can rest for tonight,” soshiro’s father had said when his son cut him off.

“no, we can sleep together,” soshiro declared, and thinking it might have sounded improper, he spoke again. “beside each other, i mean. in my room. because we’re tired. from travelling all day," he attempted to clarify but failed.

“ah, may i look forward to a grandchild soon from ya two?” color drained from your face as you slowly closed your eyes. you fought off a laugh but failed.

“ya may, but we aren’t doing that here of all places,” soshiro argued just as his father had turned his back on the both of you, amused with himself. at least now you know where soshiro got his sense of humor.

the hot shower felt great against your tensed muscles, and if you weren’t that exhausted, you would have opted for a bath instead. soshiro wanted to speak to his father alone, so when he ushered you inside his childhood bedroom, he’d let you know that he would be gone while you were cleaning yourself up. you were relieved; you haven’t seen your own father since you were a teenager, and it would be a shame to see it happening to the person you care about the most, not if you can do something about it. and this is not to say that you wanted to fix soshiro’s life - you pointed this out to him once - but he’s had a terrible habit of holding back and assuming the worst, so you had decided that if you could help him out, you would push him to the right direction.

“didn’t ya pack clothes?” his eyes were on you immediately after he came in, finding you on the bed with your phone, wearing his shirt.

“i did, but yours look better,” you replied, holding your arms out and showing him how oversized it is on you - the sleeves are passed your elbows, the hem reaching the middle of your thighs.

“they look better on ya, i agree.” he sat on the mattress for a few moments before lying down, his legs dangling off the edge of the bed. “ya all good?”

“i am,” you said to him. “especially because i scanned yer photos when ye're still little while ya were gone,” you informed him then showing him a folder you created in your device - baby hoshina soshiro folder, you named it - full of duplicates you made of the framed pictures of your boyfriend all over the house. there’s one where he didn’t have any hair at all; there’s one where he was close to crying but appeared to be keeping the tears in; there’s one where he was missing a tooth but smiling like there’s no tomorrow. soshiro moved to take your phone away, but you were quicker than him.

“this is payback, for all the times ya weren’t talking to me.” you were alluding to the three long months when you were still an applicant to the defense force and soshiro acted like you were a stranger. he had apologized for it already, but it is nice to make fun of him sometimes so you brought it up. “that hurt my feelings, ya know.” you laid down beside him, invading his personal space, your shoulders touching his.

“i was stupid”, he said. “and it’s not like i could have come up to ya and said, hey i’m sorry for leaving ya in himeji, by the way i’m crazy for ya.”

“and all those times i thought ya had something with commander ashiro, oh god!” you exclaimed for effect. “by the way, the other recruits thought the same.”

“it’s not like that between her and me.” his gaze on you was brief. “it’s not like that with anyone else.”

“it better not be, because i’m leaking all yer baby photos to the first division if ya mess up,” you threatened him despite not needing to.

“i promise, i won’t.” he grabbed your hand from your side and linked it with his, cradling it to his chest before bringing it to his lips. “i’m not that stupid.”

soshiro’s childhood room was what you would expect from a teenage boy: a king-sized bed, a bookshelf of manga, a cabinet showcasing knives and blades. you never had the opportunity to enter his room even when you were kids, you realized. you looked up to the ceiling and you saw green dots that formed shapes - makeshift constellations, you recognized the patterns - little plastic stickers that you glue to surfaces. “are those supposed to be stars?”

soshiro sighed, his arm on top of his face. “yeah, uh - remember when uh - i think that was in junior high, and ye're so into astronomy? i thought it’d be a good idea to know the names of the stars to impress ya, so i started trying to memorize them.”

you shifted to face him, speechless. maybe if you had known this, if you had known the other things you are certain now that soshiro had done and was willing to do for you, you wouldn’t have wasted years questioning your place in his life and deciphering his feelings. a wave of warmth washed over you as you reached out and lifted his arm off his face, meeting his eyes.

soshiro’s lips felt as soft as it looks like, you thought as you kissed him. you pushed yourself into him, and he pulled you tighter until it seemed there was not enough air for you to breathe - until your chests were pressed together it was as if your hearts were beating as one. something sparked inside you; the sensation of being so close to soshiro about to consume you from within. his hand crawled to your hips and remained there. you drew back a bit after that, and when you saw the panicked look on his face, you kissed him again.

“i love you,” you told him in between pants.

the night went on, and by the end of it, hoshina soshiro discovered that his favorite sound is you moaning his name.

[benedictscanvas]

Nobody on the BAU team believes Jack Hotchner when he says his father’s new girlfriend is rich and famous. Then they meet her.

A theoretical opening to an Aaron Hotchner x f1 reader if you’re interested, but also no pressure if you don’t vibe with it. I don’t want anything too specific, just happy chosen family shenanigans. Sending all the love to you 💛💛

cute cute cute. as i'm writing this i'm pretty sure i've seen this type of thing before but i cannot remember for the life of me who wrote it! so pls let me know if anyone knows and i'll tag them. sending you all the love back anon <3 || 1.5k words, fem!reader

"Jack, come on man! Has your dad put you up to this?"

"No!" the boy insists, then lowers his voice again, "Dad told me not to tell you, but I couldn't help it."

Derek feels his chest swell with pride until he remembers what Jack's trying to convince him. He narrows his eyes at him again.

"Dave then? Trying to pull one over on me? Just because I switched out his-"

"Derek! I'm telling you the truth. I even have proof," Jack said, eyebrows raised, waiting for Derek to take the bait. His proof was poor at best, but he needed to talk to someone about this.

"Go ahead, kiddo."

Jack pulled out his phone, tapping furiously. Derek waited impatiently, even though he was an inch more intrigued than he had been 30 seconds ago.

When Jack showed him the blurriest photo in existence, that hope was snuffed out immediately.

"Okay, I'm leaving."

Jack grabbed at Derek's arm to make him stay, let him explain and it was enough to catch the attention of the rest of the BAU at their desks. Hotch was in his office, oblivious to the scene, one he would have put a stop to before it started.

"What's Morgan done this time?" JJ asked, making her way over with a smirk. Spence and Emily were listening from their desks too and before Jack could answer, Derek was already speaking.

"No no no, you're not blaming this one on me. Jack's claiming our very own Hotch is dating the Y/N Y/L/N. You know, she's an actress?"

Emily gasped.

"She's not just an actress, she's the actress, thank you Derek. I worship that woman."

"She's pretty amazing," Spencer added.

"Derek," Jack practically whined, "Dad's gonna kill me. I told you in secret!"

"Okay, but you're not serious Jack."

"You can't be."

"I am! So serious. So so serious that you all have to swear you're not gonna tell my dad about this conversation," Jack said, and upon seeing the amused looks of the people that were practically family, he glared at them, "Swear!"

"I swear, Jack," Spencer took pity on him first, but soon JJ and Emily did too, seeing the flush that had travelled up the young boy's neck. He may have grown a lot in his first few years of being a teenager but he kept the same tells that they could all read. Even Derek.

"Alright, alright, I swear too. But when I find out what you're trying to pull, I'm gonna pull something right back. You'll never see it coming, kid."

"Sounds like fighting talk, Jack, you need me to handle this for you?" came a teasing voice, silky smooth, from behind the group. Jack was the only one facing your way, and his face lit up at the sight of you. He went to stand at your side as the rest of them turned to see you in all your glory, smiling at them with that grin that they'd all seen so many times before.

On red carpets. Or movie theatre screens. Never in their office.

"Nah, you're alright Y/N," Jack said, greeting you with a brief but intricate handshake the others couldn't catch in time, "This is Derek, you've heard so much about, and he doesn't believe you're dating my dad."

"Ah, Derek Morgan," you said, enjoying the shock on his face as you said his full name, "You're right to be skeptical, you know. This one ate the last of my cereal this morning, though he swears it wasn't him."

Jack retorts instantly and just like that, the two of you have entered easy banter that the others can't help but sit and stare at. The conversation stops short when Jack bursts out in raucous laughter and you're grinning again, but you quickly turn back to the others.

"I'm so sorry," you say, and it's genuine now without the playful edge, "To show up like this, unannounced, and not even introduce myself. When I practiced this in my head, just know I blew you all away with my first impression."

They all rewarded you with a chuckle and it was enough to put you more at ease.

"I don't think you really need to introduce-"

"Y/N?"

Emily was cut off by another voice behind the group, this time one they knew well from their day to day lives. When they turned, comically in time with one another, they found Hotch at the top of the stairs, brow furrowed as he took the steps downward and walked towards them all.

Or, more accurately, towards you.

"I thought we were meeting you there?" he asked, voice low once he reached you and getting lower still as he murmured, "You don't have to do this, you know."

"I know. I want to," you assure him, eyes all sparkle as you look at him and reach out to briefly squeeze his arm, "Promise."

He nods once, like he's made up his mind. When he turns to the others, he's almost smiling. Spencer finds it a little eerie.

"Everyone, this is Y/N Y/L/N. My-" he stops short, and doesn't realise the entirety of his team is revelling in him being so flustered, "We're seeing each other."

"I'm his girlfriend," you supply, shaking your head at Hotch but you can't keep the smile from your face, "He just hates saying it."

"No," he grinds out, looking at you with nothing but fondness despite his warning tone, "It just doesn't cut it. It's not enough."

"What would you prefer?" Derek butts in, "Your significant other? Life partner? Lover?"

"Enough. She's important to me, let's leave it at that, shall we?"

Derek's suggestions had made you chuckle but Hotch's assertion had made you positively beam. JJ could read it all over her face. She'd moved past being starstruck and into being incredibly happy for Hotch.

"Jack I think we all owe you an apology man," Derek began, then winced and corrected himself when Emily elbowed him right in the ribs, "And especially me. I really thought you were kidding me."

"Jack, you told them?"

Hotch's voice is still stern, but this time directed towards his son. Derek winces again, knowing he's put his foot in his mouth as Jack's shoulders slump. Still glowing, you come to his rescue.

"Oh, Aaron, he's just happy for you," you say placatingly, a hand at his back, a reassurance, before you turn to the team, "It was me who wanted to keep this quiet, not Aaron. I was trying to protect him from my life, but I think I kept it up a little too long. That's why I'm here."

Spencer thinks Hotch might be glowing too. You, you're all ethereal anyway, and there's the essence of something angelic about you, but you seem to have pulled Hotch into your orbit. He's definitely smiling now, just a little. Spencer is trying not to frown at the difference of it all.

"You don't mind that I told them?"

"Not even a bit, Jackaroo," you chuckle when he rolls his eyes fondly at the nickname, "Been wanting to show your dad off for an awful long time, really."

It's cloying, really, the way you hang onto his forearm as you say it, but he's drinking up every drop you send his way. He even goes as far as to rest a hand on your own arm in return, and keeps you close.

"Other way round, sweetheart," he mutters, in some vain hope only you will hear him. He doesn't get his wish. As soon as somebody sighs wistfully, he's stiff again, back straight, "But I think we've shown off enough for one day. Lunch?"

Jack nods enthusiastically, still seeming relieved that you've helped him avoid any scolding, not that Hotch is very good at that, surprisingly. You nod too, sending a last sweet smile to the whole team and insisting that now they've met you, they won't be able to get rid of you. Another round of chuckles.

Emily insists they won't want to get rid of you and she's a little too eager. A little too superfan. If you notice, you don't show it, only saying goodbye to her with an extra warm hug that she can't shake off.

The three of you head off, you still hanging off Hotch's arm, your cheek now smushed against his shoulder. But he's silent, and you're blabbering away with Jack again, more laughter. When they get into the elevator and Derek cranes his head, he can see the real smile on Hotch's face and he gets a little choked up.

"Well shit," he says to the others, coughing it away, "That's me not getting any real work done today."

"You can say that again," somebody says, and soon they've devolved into sitting on desks and gossiping right into the afternoon.

When Dave and Penelope trudge back in after their early lunch to the commotion of everyone's reactions after you'd left, Dave simply asks them how they didn't know sooner. They're not surprised.

And if Penelope cries a little at the thought of just missing you, you'll never know. She has the others sworn to secrecy.

(hotch doesn't return at all)

if you'd like to request something, please do so here! i'd love to hear from you sunflower <3

[jakes3resin]

Blondes Have More Fun

Anyways, this is probably the closest I'll ever get to writing Crack fic for this fandom, so enjoy Blond!Bucky and his ability to drive Buck and the entirety of the 100th wild with his smile and hair! Also personally I think Callum looks like a 24 year old when blond, so imagine handsome charming, nearly thirty Bucky Egan running around looking like a baby faced newbie then you'll be half a bowled over as the 100th.

It is a truth universally acknowledged at Thorpe Abbotts that Major John "Bucky" Egan can be talked into anything. Anything. So long as you were convincing and Buck wasn't around to drag him away from the dumber ideas, Bucky was down to play ball.

Curt had once talked him into using a British accent for a whole week, even in meetings with the CO. Bucky hadn't even blinked before adopting an uncannily perfect London accent. It was so convincing that some of the newer replacements had asked if the man was British.

Another time, he got into a howl off with Meatball after Hambone said he didn't know which one was worse. The pair were so loud that no one could actually tell who won. Most were too busy covering their ears. The few that weren't couldn't decide. It was officially settled as a draw, but Benny still refuses to accept that Bucky would ever beat his precious boy Meatball in anything.

There were countless tales of Bucky getting into trouble simply because someone had said within his earshot the six words needed to wreck Jack Kidd's night.

"You know what would be fun?"

The magic words. That or a dare would send Bucky careening into trouble with half the 100th behind him to watch the fireworks. Honestly, most of the time, Bucky was already getting up to his own antics, so convincing him to do something else wasn't exactly hard.

It was one such utterance of the phrase that sparked a wildfire within the 100th Bomber Group that threatened to tear them asunder and send one Major Gale "Buck" Cleven to an early grave. Or prison.

The night was like any other Friday night. Bucky had gone out with Curt and Bubbles. Buck had chosen to stay in for the night reading, and Harry had done much the same. Kidd, the minder of the entire 100th, had gone to the officer's club while the trio had gone to a local pub in the town just off base. So the usual minders of this trio of mad men were missing, and as the saying goes, while the cats are away, the mice will play.

It started as Bubbles's idea.

At least that's what they think it started as. A few too many drinks had left the evening a blur for Curt and Bubbles and a blank for Bucky. That last fact will be important later.

"You know what would be fun?" Bubbles said, or perhaps it was Curt. Or maybe it was Bucky. But it was probably Bubbles. The man was quite the troublemaker, he just hid it better behind soft smiles and manners.

"What?" Bucky leaned against the bar to grin at Bubbles. Well perhaps a more accurate word would be slumped, he'd spent half the night playing some weird darts game that required shots for every bull's eye Tommy made. It was safe to say that the man was on the downhill slide to wasted. Curt kept an ear on the pair as he flirted with a pretty blonde next to them at the bar.

"Being blonde." Bubbles sighed. "All the movies make it seem fun, don't they? And Major Cleven sure is pretty with his blond hair. I bet it'd look really pretty as well on your curls Bucky."

"Sorry, sweetheart, one moment," Curt turned his head to stare at Bubbles. "You think Buck's pretty?"

"And you don't?"

"I do!"

"We know you do, Bucky," Curt sighed and leaned further onto the bar to make eye contact with Bubbles. "I mean, sure, objectively, you could say he is, but I thought you were wrapped up with Croz and Jean?"

"I am, but I still got eyes don't I? 'Sides ain't there something fun about being blonde?" Bubbles leaned against his cupped hand on the bar. "Can't a mind wonder?"

"Yeah Curt," Bucky rose in defense of his friend slinging an arm around Bubble's neck. The move was so uncoordinated that the pair were nearly sent to the floor. "Why can't Bubbles wonder? I wanna go blond, too!"

Curt rolled his eyes at them, but an idea was taking root in his head. An amazing idea.

"Well," Curt grinned. "Why wonder when you can do?"

"You boys aren't thinking about bleaching your friend's hair on your own are you?" A voice cut through the trio's conversation. It seemed the blonde woman from before had been listening in and was rightly amused by the drunk airmen's conversation.

"Cause you'll fry his whole head off in the state you're in, and the world would mourn those curls." She lifted a hand to tug gently on one of Bucky's loose wavy curls. He smiled at her, loose and happy. Usually, only Buck plays with his hair, but Bucky doesn't mind when anyone else does. Buck does though, which Bucky still hasn't figured out.

"Well, how do you suppose we save his curls then," Curt paused searching for the woman's name, "Nora."

"Good job, I half thought you were too drunk to remember my name handsome." Curt smiled, and Nora kept talking

"There's a drugstore down the way. Stocks up on anything a girl, or flyboy in need, could ever need. I'll help you boys out." Nora laughed. "You'll look mighty pretty dyeing those curls blond Major. I wanna see 'em first."

With Nora leading the way, the trio tripped over themselves into chaos. Bucky laughed as Bubbles rambled on about how pretty he'll look as a blond. Curt butting in to say that he'll need to either shave his mustache or bleach it too.

On base, Buck felt a shiver run down his spine as he laid down to sleep. Writing it off as just a chill from the cold British air, the man fell asleep.

Bucky groaned as he woke up. Voices drifted around him. His head felt like it'd be screwed off and used as a bowling ball all night, and as desperately as he wanted to go back to sleep, he knew that now that the sun was up, he was up.

"Curt, if that's you snoring on my legs, I'm gonna kick you off." Bucky pulled his pillow further over his head, trying to block out said snores.

"Fuck off," Came the grumbled reply. An elbow dug into the back of his knee.

"Get off," John whined. Curt huffed shifting just enough to let Bucky free his legs. "Why didn't you go to your own bed?"

"Yours is comfier." Bubbles murmured next to the pair, and Bucky really was starting to wonder what the hell they all drank the night before.

"It's the same cot as everybody else." Bucky grumbled, finally sitting up. Bubbles and Curt immediately swooped onto the space he abandoned. "Rude. You just want me for my bed."

"But it's such a lovely bed, sweetheart," Curt buried his face in Bucky's pillow, not even glancing at the man he was stealing from. Bubbles seemed to have immediately fallen back to sleep.

"I'm getting breakfast," Bucky yawned, stretching his arms above his head. "Meet me there when you idiots wake up. I'll sneak you in."

"Sir, yes, sir." Curt's hand flopped into a mock salute that had Bucky rolling his eyes.

First things first, breakfast. Or at least coffee for his hangover.

Getting dressed as quickly as he could, Bucky didn't even waste time checking how he looked in a mirror. He went to smooth down his mustache only to curse when he found it missing. Thinking Curt must have shaved it off as a joke, Bucky groaned but moved on. He didn't even touch his hair after that, just walked right out of his barracks. The only thing that mattered to him was coffee and how he'd get his hands on a gallon of it. It wouldn't be the first time he ran around base with his hair going every which way. No one would bat an eye.

Had he known what kind of chaos he was about to wreck upon the poor, unsuspecting airmen of Thorpes Abbotts, Bucky would have at least styled it a bit. You know, just to ensure maximum chaos.

The bike ride to the mess wasn't awful. The fresh air helped at least. With his sunglasses on, his head felt less like it was going to split open and more human. What was weird was how everyone stopped in their tracks to watch him ride past.

"Is that-?"

"No way!"

"Someone get Kidd!"

"Holy shit!"

"Major Cleven is going to lose his mind!"

"Do you think he has a twin?"

"Hell if I know, I can't believe Major Cleven let him out of the barracks like that."

"Lord help us if there's another Egan running around."

Bucky ignored them. He was way too hungover to parse through what nonsense the boys were going on about, and he simply pedaled faster to get to the officer's mess. He just wanted his coffee.

"Major Egan, sir!"

Bucky glances up from securing his bike and meets the eye of one of the newer boys. Kid barely looks old enough to have enlisted.

"Uh," Bucky searches his memory for this kid's name. Bucky tried to know some of the newbies names, but it was harder than he'd ever admit. "Monroe, right?

"Yes, sir!" The kid squeaked, a bright tomato blush spreading across his cheeks. Bucky winced, the sound drilling right into his brain. "I wanted to say you look nice today, sir. Your, your hair is real nice!"

"Thanks, Monroe," Bucky smiled, thrown by how Monroe managed to grow even redder. He reaches out to clasp the kid on the shoulder. "You alright there? You look like you're gonna faint. Had any breakfast yet?"

"I-I'm fine, sir, thank you!" Monroe was stock still under Bucky's hand, but he wrote it off as nerves. Some of the boys got nervous around the older pilots, especially if they were officers. "I'll be going now! Have a good day, sir!"

In a flash, the blushing replacement ducked under Bucky's arm and ran as fast as he could down the lane. Bucky watched him go, head tilted not sure what the hell just happened to him. He heard a few shrieks behind him but wrote it off as typical background noise. There was always something going on.

"Weird kid." Bucky turned to walk into the officer's mess. He'd have to tell Buck about it when he saw him next. Maybe he'd understand what just happened.

Speaking of, Buck had better have saved him a seat for breakfast. Bucky was not going to battle the morning rush as well as his hangover just to find out he had nowhere to sit.

On the way inside, Bucky ran into Veal. As in, he literally ran into the man because he'd stopped dead in his tracks staring at him. Bucky hadn't even seen the other before he practically bowled him over.

"Veal, what the hell?" Bucky groaned.

"You," Veal stared at him wide-eyed. If Bucky were less hungover, he'd get quite a kick out of this. "You, you?"

"Shaved, I know," Bucky gestured to his face. He turned to keep walking into the officer's mess. "Yeah, Curt had some fun last night."

"Wait, no! Bucky-!" Veal went to grab him, but Bucky just swerved out of the way. Nothing was getting in his way in his quest for coffee. "Bucky! Stop! Don't go in there!"

"Yeah, yeah, Veal," Bucky waved a hand behind him. "I get you're shocked, but come on, man. It's not the first time any of you've seen me without it!"

Bucky rushed in, not paying anymore attention to Veal. He walked with one purpose. Coffee. He didn't care if the other officers stopped and stared at him slackjawed as he walked past. He was a man on a mission.

"Hey, coffee, please? Whole pot if you could," Bucky smiled at the attendant, who blushed scarlet before running off. Thrown but not deterred, Bucky just shrugged and turned to find Buck. Maybe he'd be able to steal Buck's coffee.

He found Buck seated near one of the windows with his back facing Bucky. Jack was at his table, but otherwise, it was empty. Bucky started over.

Jack saw him first and choked on his grapefruit juice.

"Oh shit," Jack choked out. Buck leaned over to check on him.

"Alright, Jack?" Bucky grabbed the seat next to Buck. Jack just stared at him, eyes wide. Bucky tilts his head confused. "Buck, what's with him?"

Buck turns and freezes. Bucky stares at him. Buck stares back.

"Buck?" Bucky reaches out to shake him.

"You," Buck starts but doesn't finish. His wide blues eyes stare at Bucky's face.

"Coffee, sir!"

The attendant from before arrives with Bucky's requested pot of coffee and a cup.

"Thanks!" Bucky smiles up at the other. The attendant trips backward. Buck turns and glares at the other man. He flees.

"Buck, what the hell?" Bucky nudges Buck. "Wake up on the wrong side of the bed?"

Buck turns to stare at Bucky again, a clench to his jaw that Bucky's knows means he's holding something back. Jack seems to have started breathing normally again.

"Your hair!" Jack says. Bucky reaches up to touch his hair. Sure, he didn't style it this morning, but was it so bad? Monroe said it looked good!

Speaking of, why was everyone focusing on his hair today?

"What about it?" Bucky's genuinely curious now. Buck's still staring at him, eyes bright, and now Jack seems to be wishing for death.

"Its-!"

"Pretty."

Bucky turns to Buck. It's his turn to stare wide-eyed at the other. A blush rises up to his cheeks. Buck's not one to mince his words, and a compliment from him feels akin to a hundred.

The entire mess hall goes quiet as Buck stares at him. Bucky smiles at him. Buck goes rigid, and Jack chokes on his juice next to them. Again.

"Bucky!" Curt slammed his hand against the window, happy as a clam and utterly sober. Bucky hates that Irish constitution of his. "Let us in!"

Bucky stands up to hoist open the window. Jack's still too busy choking on his juice to stop him, and Buck seems to have frozen solid. Bubbles and Curt fall through seconds later. The pair immediately start talking over each other happily, and Bucky is starting to wonder if he was the only one who woke up with a hangover.

"God, you should hear the scuttlebutt going round!" Curt cackles as he launches himself into the seat across from Bucky. Bubbles nods next to him, already munching on a piece of toast Bucky thinks used to be Jack's.

"Anything fun?" Bucky dumps creamer into his coffee. He moans as he takes a sip of it. God, coffee really was the best hangover cure. Bucky doesn't notice how quiet the mess hall got until Bubbles finally answers his question a minute later. Odd.

"Just how pretty your hair looks now Major," Bubbles smiled at him. Bucky reached for his hair again.

"Is it really so different?" He asks. Buck makes a noise next to him like a dying chicken, and Curt cackles.

"Blond really is your color, Bucky! You look like one of those pin up posters running around like that!" Curt reaches across the table to tug on one of his curls, drawing it down into his eyesite. Buck bangs his knee against the table with a swear. Bucky would fuss over him, but he's reevaluating his whole morning with this new information.

"Oh!" Bucky gasps. Now he feels silly. "That's why Monroe complimented me outside?"

"Pardon?" Buck's voice comes out strangled. Bucky swings his gaze back to him. Buck's blue eyes are nearly electric, and Bucky gulps.

"Monroe? Cute kid? Brunette replacement with a billion freckles that disappear when he blushes?" Bucky rambles. Curt cackles again as Jack buries his face into his hands. Bubbles grabs a slice of Buck's toast this time.

"And he stopped you?" Buck's jaw was doing the thing Bucky knows only happens when he's pissed. But why would he be mad? Bucky tilts his head to stare at Buck, curls flopping down into his eyes now that Curt's untucked them from behind his ears.

Buck clenches his fist.

"Yeah, he and Veal both stopped me before I walked in." Bucky reaches over to grab Buck's hand. "You okay?"

"I'm fine John," Buck reaches up to tuck his loose curls back behind his ear. His hand lingers, and Bucky fights the urge to press his cheek into Buck's hand. "You look real pretty."

"Yeah?" Bucky sits up straighter, leaning into Buck's space. "How pretty?"

"Like a daydream." Buck whispers, voice low. His blue eyes won't stop staring, and Bucky can tell his blush is spreading by the volume of Curt's laugh.

Oh, Bucky could just kiss the other.

"Yeah, Nora did a nice job on your hair!" Bubbles pipes up having polished off Buck's toast. "We should write her a thank you card!"

"Nora?" Buck twitches.

"The girl who dyed Bucky's hair, of course!" Curt chimed in reaching for Bucky's coffee. Bucky batted his hands away, holding desperately onto his cup. "Pretty girl too! Kept running her hands through Bucky's hair saying how nice it was."

"I think nows a good time to stop that." Jack shoved his last slice of toast in Curt's mouth.

Buck's hand was still hovering over Bucky's cheek.

"Oh, now I remember!" Bucky leaned towards Curt and Bubbles with a bright smile. "She kissed me on the cheek before we left, right?"

Buck pushed his chair away from the table with a screech. Jack turned back to his grapefruit juice with a sigh.

Buck stormed out of the building, and it was through the combined efforts of Curt and Bubbles that Bucky didn't run after him. They could hear yelling through the still open window.

"Oh shit!"

"Everybody run! Major Cleven's pissed!"

"Who flirted with Bucky this time?!"

"Buck calm down, whoever it was they probably didn't mean anything by it!"

"Outta my way Crank."

"Buck, c'mon if you go to jail, who'll stay by Bucky's side?"

"Only gotta go to prison if I get caught."

"That's right-wait, Buck, no!"

Bucky sipped at his coffee. Jack sighed and turned to Bucky.

"Would you please go stop him? I'm not explaining to Harding why one of the 100th murdered a civilian, a fellow Major, and a replacement."

"Buck wouldn't do that," Bucky rolled his eyes.

Jack stared at him, judgement clear in his eyes. Bucky shifted under his gaze.

"Fine," Bucky groaned and pushed away from the table. He refilled his cup of coffee. "He wouldn't, but I'll go stop him."

Curt and Bubbles chirped their goodbyes as they waved down an attendant. Bucky mourned his pot of coffee as he glanced back and saw Curt gleefully pouring it into a cup.

Stepping put in the sunshine, Bucky reached for his sunglasses. Finding Buck would be easy. He simply turned in the direction of the yelling and started walking.

He ignored the boys all watching him and whispering. Now that he was walking, he could see his reflection in the windows of the buildings he passed. His normally brown locks were now a bright blond. He felt a bit foolish for not seeing it earlier, but hangovers tended to narrow one's field of vision to only what's necessary.

"DeMarcooo!" Bucky called out when he saw the other walking Meatball. "You seen Buck anywhere?"

"Just missed him," Benny yelled back. He pointed to the left of the barracks. "Went that way!"

"Thanks!" Bucky called back with a smile. A few of the boys around him erupted in whispers.

"Nice hair!" Benny yelled with a grin. Bucky rolled his eyes and kept walking. Buck couldn't have gone too far, right?

He found Buck only a few minutes later outside of one of the barracks the replacements were quartered. He was leaning against a wall talking to someone.

"Buck!" Bucky jogged over. As he got closer, he realized that the person Buck was talking to was the kid from earlier. "Monroe! Good to see you again so soon!"

"Major!" Monroe squeaked, eyes bouncing from Buck to Bucky. "Major Cleven was just reminding me about a few chores that I forgot about! I'll get going! Sirs!"

The kid ran off before Bucky could stop him. Buck watched with a satisfied gleam in his eyes, and Bucky huffed out a laugh.

"You know, you don't have to act all jealous to get my attention," Bucky pulled Buck to him by wrapping an arm around his waist. "I'll still only ever look at you."

"Just making sure everyone else knows that." Buck replied, voice low and serious.

Bucky reached up his free hand to drag him down into a kiss. Buck melted into his touch. Bucky laughed into he kiss as he tried to keep his coffee from spilling all over the two of them. He pecks the corner of Buck's mouth and pulls away.

"So you like the hair?" Bucky scrunches his nose into a shit eating grin.

Buck wiped that grin off his face with another kiss. Not that Bucky was complaining, of course.

Later that night, after making sure Buck didn't actually murder anyone, Bucky found himself in front of a vaguely familiar drug store.

"Well Major, I take it your boy liked the blond?" Nora grinned, pink lips spread into a devilish smile. She leaned one hip against the drug store counter. "Surprised you made it back here. You boys weren't exactly stone cold sober when you left."

"I always remember my bets, darling. I'll forget a lot but never those." Bucky laughed and set his hat down on the counter next to her. A single blond curl fell down into his eyes. "Now, what's this about makeup?"

"Oh, Major, you'll look lovely in something peachy."

[amaltheas-garden]

Some food for thought: I am an a Dany fan who supports a very nuanced reading of her that makes most other Dany fans accuse me of secretly hating her (lol) and I also do ship her with Jon because she’s had horrendous experiences with creepy older men and I would find it cathartic for her to find love with someone her age.

BUT I don’t like the idea of them just being king and queen and having a standard fantasy romance. I think there’s a distinction between Dany fans who love Dany the character and Dany fans who love Dany the ruler, Dany the queen, Dany the perfect chosen one. In fact the only way I’d actually want to see J/D played out in the books is them escaping the narrative together and fucking off somewhere (which, regardless of Jon’s involvement, is also the only realistic happy ending I can imagine Dany having that would be a satisfying end to her arc for me). To me it’s clear that Dany does not enjoy ruling and doesn’t genuinely want the throne—she wants the feeling of home and to be loved. I think she’s chasing the throne because she sees it as duty, both a familiar duty as taught by her brother and a divine duty as evidenced by hatching the dragons. I can see a world where she’s able to accept that she hates ruling because violence sickens her deep down (evidenced by her feeling sick recalling the crucifixions and having to convince herself it was just) but being unable to tolerate the moral compromises she must make to avoid violent solutions and thus can carve out a new path, eliminating the sense of threat because she’d be “free.”

However I’m not sure I would’ve considered the ship if not for the show (not that it was at all good in the show but it planted the idea) and I don’t agree with other fans of the ship that it’s undeniably foreshadowed in the books. So I just don’t really engage with ship content because I don’t jive with most of it. Especially because many of the fans get hostile about the fact that I also have positive feelings about Jonsa, although I’m just as picky about what kind of Jonsa I like, haha. Such a bizarre and frustrating experience. Luckily, most Sansa and Jonsa fans don’t mind that Dany is my favorite and that I also like J/D, but the same can’t be said for other Dany and J/D fans when they see I also love Sansa and Jonsa.

Weird fandom

Hello anon!

This is an amazing breakdown of Dany's character! 100% agree with the Dany ending up as Queen of the 7K being a bad ending for her. It just seems like a miserable job to have. Dany has had it ingrained since birth that the Targs must reclaim the IT at any cost and only then will their lives get better. The trauma Viserys inflicted on her has definitely left her clinging to that dream as motivation to keep going, which is the saddest part. She wants the IT, but she really just needs a home where she feels safe and loved (and far far away from the creepy men plaguing her chapters). My only real objection to J/D is I can't picture Jon leaving the North, but they do share a ton of parallels, and I can see why so many people love the ship. And since pretty much every big fan ship doesn't have anything more than possible parallels and foreshadowing, it's really anyone's guess at this point. And Jon is also one of only three dudes in the series (Sam/Gendry) who is nice and of an appropriate age to be shipped with most of the main female characters, so it makes sense both Sansa and Dany fans would want our faves to end up with him lol. I also can't really blame J/D fans for not liking Jonsa, when most Jonsas think Dany will have a villain arc. Like yeah there's bound to be some animosity, but it got way worse after the show since it kinda confirmed there was a decent chance Dany might die in the books. Ultimately the fandom is gonna continue to be at each other's throats until we get answers in twow/ados. Weird fandom indeed.

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 31 of Gideon the Ninth

Just to state for the record, this chapter killed me dead, I read it last night and am no longer in that state of mind, but like, just for the record

So finally, I think we have all the answers to the questions about Gideon and Harrow's backstory, I think the only one left is "why were no more children born" but based on comments from people here that seems to be an open question that isn't answered definitively in the book. I think the story with Dulcinea is still unresolved, and we still don't know what happened to Protesilaus's body, and I think there is now a new unanswered question as of the last chapter about what happened to Dulcinea's facility key. The Fourth teens did say they saw Protesilaus go into the facility, possibly this is where Harrow found him, so probably whoever took the body also took the key, and that person seems to have chosen to take the key and hide the existence of the body rather than reporting it as another murder. The only people who I think would have any interest in a facility key are Judith Deuteros, who had hers taken by Palamedes, and Corona, but I'm not sure how much interest Corona actually has in the facility, to be honest. Also, if Protesilaus was disassembled in the facility, he had to have been found by someone who already had a facility key, which leaves just Ianthe, Palamedes and Mayonnaise Uncle as possibilities, and I think if Palamedes had found the body he would have said so to someone last chapter. Ianthe was trying to get a facility key for Corona earlier, I recall, so I think she's most likely. There's also the question of how Protesilaus originally died - Harrow says he was stabbed, but his head came off when she undid the spell, and we know there are two people in the incinerator, so I think it's also possible that he was beheaded and his head attached to the body of someone who was stabbed

So, at the start of this chapter, Gideon is still in a general state of "will do anything if Harrow asks nicely", at least after finding out that Harrow didn't murder Protesilaus, and even though what Palamedes said to her at the end of the last chapter didn't convince me, I think it may have convinced Gideon that Harrow isn't actually evil

This was clever, actually. How do you get a child to keep a terrible secret? You instill in them a belief/superstition/custom that they are only allowed to talk about it under certain specific circumstances that can't exist on your planet except in a secret place where no one else is allowed to go

So my first guess that Harrow figured out Protesilaus on the first day actually was correct, and she was just still verifying it at Magnus's anniversary party. Lucky that she got assigned to sit next to him, really. Also the timing I posted in my last post was approximately accurate, but at some point in that same time period, she must have given the white key to Dulcinea. I'm guessing she did that before disassembling Protesilaus, because I think the reason she was asleep and unwakable the next time Gideon saw her was because she was worn out from doing that, maybe? But this re-opens the question of, if she thought Protesilaus was dead on arrival, what role did she think Palamedes played in this? It's pretty apparent, at least from Gideon's POV, that he has never met Dulcinea before they arrived at Canaan House

Also, let's try to imagine what would have been different if Harrow had told Gideon about this at that point. I don't think this would have negatively disposed Gideon towards Dulcinea, I think she probably would have just filled in the same story that Dulcinea just told them for herself and felt worse for her that she didn't actually have a cavalier. So, I'm not sure things would have been that different, except that Gideon wouldn't have briefly assumed that Harrow killed him

Also, the Protesilaus reveal also shows the real reason why Dulcinea couldn't do the soul siphoning challenge. But I would actually expect her to not be able to do any of the challenges without an actually living cavalier, so that raises a new question: how did she get the grey key? And it leaves the old question: why is she trying to get keys in the first place? I think the only thing that makes sense is that she's of the same opinion as Mayonnaise Uncle and doesn't want any of the candidates to become a Lyctor, which is why she willingly gave her keys to him, if she knew he had the same goal. But in that case, why did she offer to make a deal with Palamedes, who has the most keys out of everyone, and would have had five out of eight if he'd agreed? I still think she is already immortal/a Lyctor, I'm not letting go of this conspiracy theory

And this answers the question I raised last chapter. Now I'm really curious about what happened, from Harrow's POV, when she was staying with Palamedes and Camilla and Dulcinea. Like surely there's a fanfic out there where Harrow keeps expecting them all to attack her, meanwhile everyone is behaving completely normally, that actually sounds like it could be pretty funny

This is odd, because last chapter, Gideon tells Palamedes that Harrow didn't do the other murders, and he's the one who says that's "conjecture". Going to return to the paragraph just before this in a minute when we get into the heavy shit

So, Harrow doesn't actually think Dulcinea is evil, she just thought she was up to something weird by reanimating her cavalier. As the only person that Harrow thinks can't have possibly done all of the murders, I predict that she is going to turn out to have been responsible for them somehow. She did have Protesilaus doing something down in the facility just before the Fourth teens were murdered, and for some reason she didn't go with him. Originally I thought he couldn't be responsible for, say, setting up a necromancy trap to kill the Fourth teens, because he wasn't a necromancer, but since he's actually just Dulcinea's puppet, she might be capable of doing necromancy through him. And she also had him punch Mayonnaise Uncle when he was trying to use soul siphoning to get answers out of Magnus and Abigail's bodies - I think I mentioned that she might have inspired him to do that because she was the murderer way back then, but the fact that she literally directed him to do that rather than him just reacting to her scream makes that even more likely, I think. I think the only reason no one is remembering this and finding it suspicious is that I think literally everyone hates Mayonnaise Uncle at this point and finds his soul siphoning methods creepy and unethical. And I guess, by voluntarily giving him her keys, she also made him into the kind of person who steals valuables from bedridden people who are dying, in everyone else's eyes, so if he ever does bring this up, no one will take him seriously

It's interesting that even though I'm sure Harrow came to the pool specifically to tell Gideon about the deaths of the 200 children, she doesn't just tell her about that, and has to wait until Gideon specifically asks, and even then has to spend some time working herself up to answer

(For the record, at this point in the writeup, the Nook app crashed for the third time since I started writing this. Arghhh)

I think this is the part of the story that all the people leaving me comments about how they are excited to see me read the next part were waiting for, right?

I think I maybe should have expected that the 200 children were killed for this reason, because someone told me earlier that Mayonnaise Uncle's comment to Ianthe at Magnus's anniversary party was implying that if Ianthe had died in the womb, Corona would have been stronger. I think that actually does count as a spoiler, because I don't think I would have realized that except on a reread after having read this chapter, but in the event I didn't realize this because of that, so it's fine. I did legitimately learn from the book that the Cohort generates thanergy via warfare, and that the Seventh House likes it when their heirs have blood cancer, because that generates thanergy as well. But like, to put this particular thanergy-related war crime into perspective, based on that early conversation, Corona and Ianthe's parents were not willing to sacrifice one child to make their heir a better necromancer; Mayonnaise Uncle sounds like he would be willing to do that, but even he seems to find the idea of killing 200 children for any reason abominable. But Harrow's parents and great-aunts were willing to do that

And Harrow would too, if she thought she had to. She has this weird kind of doublethink going on where she simultaneously thinks that nothing she could do could possibly make killing 200 children worth it, and also that anything is worth it if she can live long enough to see the body in the Locked Tomb wake up, which I guess is the real reason she wants to be a Lyctor so badly. Actually, I sort of wonder, since the body in the Tomb had such an effect on her that it cut through all of Harrow's thoughts about how she didn't deserve to exist, if it actually cast some sort of glamour on her. Like, presumably it was locked behind all that magic for a reason, and apparently the Emperor didn't actually want the Ninth House to stand guard over the Tomb like they do, he didn't want guarding it to be trusted to humans

So, I think we can start to pick apart Harrow's weird relationship with Gideon now. Harrow has grown up her whole life believing that she deserves to die because of how she came into existence, and Gideon is like, this Harry-Potter-esque Boy (Girl) Who Lived, this pure symbol of Justice and Innocence standing up to her family's tyranny and surviving anyway, and I really think that this whole time she's just wanted to antagonize Gideon to the point where she kills her, completely rightly and justifiably, in her view, and does the thing that Harrow feels she wasn't strong enough to do, and that that's also what Harrow wanted Gideon to do in the scene:

When Gideon says early in this conversation that Harrow would have killed her when she confronted her about Protesilaus, she says:

When Gideon declines to kill her in this scene, she says:

She's still fantasizing about her dying and Gideon surviving. It reminds me of Swordspoint, where Alec has this like fucked up romantic ideal of being killed by Richard, who is essentially the hand of Justice and Honor in his world, to the point where when he's on his deathbed he hires a guy to pretend to be Richard and kill him, and like with Harrow, that all goes back to his guilt over what his social status caused to happen at the university. I've said in the past that Swordspoint is my favorite book, and the more similar to Swordspoint a book is, the more I'll like it, and just in terms of the deeply fucked up interpersonal relationships part of Swordspoint I think this book is like, ten or fifteen Swordspoints at this point, Alec really only had a tiny smidgen of privileged rich boy guilt compared to Harrow. So Harrow wants Gideon to kill her, because that's what would be good and right, but also she really really really wants to be there when the body in the Locked Tomb wakes up. And she thinks she deserves to die, so she suspects people she thinks are good and sensible of wanting to kill her - she thought Magnus and Abigail were going to poison her, she thought Palamedes and Dulcinea were going to try to kill her

(Here we have Nook app crash #4. Actually, it crashed, I restarted it and took another screenshot to add further up, and then it crashed again. Actually, at this point, the Nook app just started crashing every single time I took a screenshot)

Meanwhile, Gideon just thinks that Harrow hates her because she killed her parents, and that she did kill Harrow's parents, and that she deserves all of Harrow's abuse and everything the Ninth House has done to her, so she never fights back. And then Harrow tells her all this stuff, and she doesn't say, "well that sucks, but I can't forgive you for how you've treated me" which I think would be a reasonable thing to say at this point, she just says "I'm so sorry", because I think if you painted a smiley face on a rock Gideon would empathize with it and want it to be her friend

This is like, really going ham with the whole Space Jesus thing already and we haven't even gotten to the actual Space Jesus part yet. And you know - I am actually sold. I can buy this Jesus analog. I've literally hated every other time a character turns out to be Basically Jesus, but this I actually like

(Also, I suspect that at the end of the book Gideon is going to be given the opportunity to outlast Harrow as Harrow requested, and is going to decline that opportunity in favor of dying and saving Harrow, I do see where this is going now)

But like, Harrow does actually seem to want Gideon to like her. She doesn't think she deserves Gideon liking her and thinks she should kill her instead, but she does want Gideon to like her and seems to have been motivated by that a bit since coming to Canaan House:

And then:

So I think this would now make Gideon Harrow's actual cavalier, instead of someone pretending to be Harrow's cavalier, but I don't think we yet have the full context for what "one flesh, one end" actually means in full, and I would not be surprised if there was some very important implication to it that Gideon (and maybe Harrow) does not actually know that will become relevant later

The reveal that Crux blew up the shuttle is honestly a bit of a let-down after the rest of the chapter, I wouldn't actually be surprised if it later turns out to have exploded for some other, completely different reason, but there really seems to be no reason I can think of why anyone would want to kill Ortus and Glaurica, if Harrow had planned to bring them back to the Ninth after they left

At some point Harrow may think to wonder how Gideon knew that the shuttle exploded, and then there may be some drama involving Mayonnaise Uncle and/or Colum

[fizzigigsimmer]

The power of narrative empathy.

This is kind of a strange post about Billy, but I’m just gonna let it flow. I’m gonna start with this, I am a Billy Hargrove fan. I am a black, queer, female abuse survivor and I make no apologies about loving this character. Also, none of what I just said matters, I just think it’s important to note that we are out here. Even if I wasn’t those things I would still have the liberty and hopefuly the empathy to feel for his character. Today I want to talk about how Billy was written, why I think that’s dead wrong and damaging to those of us who survive abuse without a halo, and I am going to use another beloved fictional victim to do it. He also happens to be one of the world’s most iconic and well known villains. Yes I am going to talk about Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker, and how his story is real. How it happened to me and it’s happening to someone else right now, and how I see evidence of the same societal failure shown in the films playing out in real time every damn day in the Stranger Things Fandom when it comes to Billy Hargrove. So here we go.

For a highly condensed slightly satirical recap: The genocidal tyrant formerly known as Darth Vader started out as Anakin Skywalker. A gifted child slave whose only living family was his mother. If the words child slave didn’t clue you in, let me just tell you that my ravenous consuming of any and all Star Wars companion novels confirmed that Anakin regularly suffered abuse and was put into life threatening danger by a greedy master because he was a protege pilot. As a result, Anakin learned from a pretty early age that how he used his gifts might literally be the difference between whether he and his mom survived. Fun shit like that.

Despite all, Anakin was a good person. Yeah he was a little rash and a little angry sometimes, but he was also kind, brave, and loyal and had all the makings of a great person - in other words he was an ordinary child who just happened to have a special power that gave his FEELINGS agency in the world.

Enter the Jedi Knights, literal space Knights, and fellow feelings practitioners. They’ve developed a truly insane way of dealing with the fact that their feelings are a literal force in the world, by forming a kind of religion around not allowing themselves to feel very much at all and keeping the peace. They’re the ultimate good guys whose reputation proceeds them and our enslaved child instantly looks up to and idolizes them as heroes. He’s willing to put his life in danger to help them even when there’s literally no gain in it for him and then they happily use him in order to get some parts they need to get off the planet. He’s 9 by the way.

But Anakin isn’t risking his life for nothing nothing. Jedi master Qui-Gon Jin has seen Anakin is a fellow feelings user and immediately thinks he’s the prophesied “Chosen One”, who is supposed to bring BALANCE TO THE FORCE THAT GUIDES THE UNIVERSE. Based on literally nothing nothing and possibly an immaculate conception. Anyway, he’s convinced. Even though he already has an apprentice/surrogate son, he immediately starts love bombing this slave child and filling his head with promises that he’s gonna be freed from his horrible life and trained to be this great Jedi - promises he has no idea whether he’ll be able to keep by the way. So Qui-Gon buys a child and calls it a rescue, and tells him he’s going to have to leave his mother in bondage and cut off all emotional ties to her. Like he can never see her again or even feel too strongly about never seeing her again because Jedi’s aren’t supposed to love. Love is too strong a feeling and it leads to all the other BAD FEELINGS. So the nine year old child slave is told to be brave and start acting like a Jedi already and stop with the whole being scared/guilty about leaving his mother thing.

The nine year-old child slave who has just been separated from his mother for life, does not do that. In a turn of events that should really shock no one, instead he immediately trauma imprints on the first girl who shows him empathy after he opens up about his EMOTIONAL PAIN. He then spends the next decade fixated on this girl and crying out for help because he can not just turn off his emotions. He is constantly criticized, demeaned, and treated like a pariah for not just being able to magically rise above his trauma or control his trauma responses, in order to become the white knight he’s supposed to be for the republic. Side note, when I say dude was erratic AF and crying out for help AF, I mean that. There are several Youtube Psychologists who have done reactions to this character and an interesting theme  throughout all of them is how Anakin displays all of the typical indicators for Bipolar Disorder and Reactive Attachment Disorder. It’s interesting, and I’ve linked a favorite.

So back to this child slave who is either the victim of a three movie long mental health crisis or the Worst Writing Syndrome (I’ll take both for 300 Alex). Obi-Wan, Anakin’s big brother/father figure has no idea what the hell he is doing or how to help him, because he hasn’t processed his own trauma. Time for a side note about Obi-Wan’s former master Qui-Gon. He was an overly critical and emotionally unavailable teacher/father whose teaching style was essentially to give out tiny scraps of approval every now and again just so Obi-wan didn’t decide to swallow his light saber.

So there was Obi-wan, 25 years old, still out here trying to get daddy’s stamp of approval so that he can be a real man who has MASTERED HIS FEELINGS, but he’s being told he’s not ready and reminded of all of his short comings on the regular. It’s Tuesday in other words. But then dad finds this new kid and literally just stops caring about training Obi-wan. He tells Obi-wan it’s time he moved out and got a job with zero notice.

Qui-Gon announces to the Jedi Council that he wants Anakin as his apprentice. Which is super awkward because his actual apprentice is standing right there. When they point out that he’s already got one, he’s suddenly all ‘oh Obi-wan is ready to be a big boy now’. Obi-wan was rightly jealous, hurt, and low-key pissed off, but Jedi’s aren’t supposed to let FEELINGS get the better of them so he swallows sadness.

Qui-Gon might be a bit of a dick but he is still dad, so when he tragically dies right in Obi-wan’s arms and uses his very last breathes to beg him to train Anakin, this fresh as fuck Jedi-Knight suddenly becomes a father figure to a traumatized slave child. And the saddest thing is Obi-wan is a better man than Qui-Gon. He has every reason in the world to hate this little twerp, but he tries so hard to break the cycle and he be the father figure Anakin needs.

But the thing about breaking cycles is someone has to teach you how to do it. The Jedi Council is not out here encouraging Obi-Wan to be emotionally present and empathetic to Anakin’s unique struggles and challenges. And LOLS do he have them. In fact Obi-Wan is constantly in the council room defending Anakin against their prejudice for shit Anakin can’t control, and is often being criticized himself for being too soft with his apprentice. Like they would literally sit him down and essentially tell him to stop being an Anakin defender and apologist 😂.

So the end result was Obi-wan landed somewhere in the messy middle between the dad he promised himself he wouldn’t be and the one he wanted to be, and the child slave’s mental health continued to decline (surprise surprise) until he finally met a creepy groomer who manipulated him by VALIDATING HIS EMOTIONAL PAIN. Nobody intervened, although there was ample opportunities to do so. Anakin was literally as well as figuratively crying out for help the whole time. He didn’t get it. He was told to just stop being afraid. Just stop being angry. Just stop loving your mother and don’t think about what may or may have happened to her. Just stop and do the savior thing okay? JUST GET OVER YOUR FEELINGS ANAKIN.

And the rest is just tragic history.

I took the time to write all that because I have been in Anakin’s and Billy’s figurative shoes. I was abused more ways than I want to recount here, and I’ll just say it. It messed me the fuck up. I know what it’s like to cry for help, over and over again and never get it. I know what it’s like to be blamed for blowing the whistle the same day you’re blamed for behavior that stems from the rage of utter helplessness. I know what it’s like to break shit and hurt people who don’t deserve it because that’s what you know. And I know what it’s like to be told I have to break the cycle somehow, even though you wouldn’t know the first place to begin even if you were in a place safe enough to start.

I aged out of my abuse. Nobody rescued me. The systems failed me. I simply got old enough to move away from my abusers and then after considerable self harming behavior I got lucky and broke good. I reached my lowest low and realized I did want to live and that I had to fix my shit in order to do that. I started going to therapy and working to build the life I wanted. And in case this isn’t clear enough I will spell it out. The world did not look at me, an abuse survivor and empathize. There was not a reliable support system, no heroes in capes. I’m here, stable, loved and in a good place because I survived long enough to buy the help I needed. That’s it. It’s fucking tragic and as a society we have a lot to be ashamed for. We fail.

I empathize with Billy Hargrove because his story is my story. Right down to societies response, and the way his writers decided to condemn him from conception.

As terrible a writer as George Lucas may be that is the one thing he did not do. He could have condemned the character of Darth Vader with his narrative, but instead he wrote what is essentially a redemptive six part epic about an abuse survivor that the ENTIRE GALAXY FAILED. Anakin’s story is a text book case for why it is fucking awful to look at an abuse survivor and put the burden of healing on them. Like they’re just supposed to be organically “resilient” to the shit that you claim you wouldn’t even know how to survive, in order to be some virtuous example to others about how to “stay good”. 

People expect that of characters like Billy Hargrove because that’s what people expect of real victims too. You’re only worthy of empathy if you somehow survive the unsurvivable mentally and emotionally intact. That’s how the Duffer brothers related to Billy’s trauma. In their own words, he’s not written as what he is (an abused child) he’s a villain whom they wanted to look like a real boy so they gave him trauma. He’s written to be judged, hated for his inability to just magically STOP, and then die so that the story can plod forward.

And just in case you don’t yet see why that matters, just stop and think about how people are more accepting of the character who literally decimated planets and slaughtered children, than the teen who was abused and then possessed. Anakin is allowed to have fans who empathize with his struggles, who dream of the better life he might have had. Anakin’s sacrificial death is allowed to be the redemptive moment that it was, and he’s literally allowed to shed the name of Darth Vader and be remembered as the friend and brother that Obi-wan loved within his own narrative. Because he’s written with empathy.

And society responds to that empathy. I have never, not once, been shamed, ridiculed, or called a child murder apologists (or what the fuck ever) for loving his character.

Billy isn’t real, but the people who empathize with and see themselves in his character are real. Nobody’s required to like him, love him, or even want to think about him for that matter but this drive some people have to blanket judge other fans and start calling people weirdos and monsters for feeling anything for him that isn’t disgust - that’s what can stop. You can literally just stop. Back away from the keyboard and take a deep breath. Agree to disagree. Feel how you feel. But don’t go fucking far out of your way to tear strangers down over the internet.There’s no justification in the world for it. I promise.

[acourtofthought]

Hello, hello!! Thanks for answering my Tamlin-Vassa question! :D

First, those readers who say that Elain hasn't been nice to Lucien are the same as the characters who expect Elain to be nice just because that's all they expect from her. She's....nice. Feyre and Nesta were openly angry and terrible at their own mates. Why can't Elain be the way she is? Oh because she's Elain and she has to be "nice"? Pleeeease. This is exactly why Rhys said that Elain might be that way because that's what's expected of her. My babygirl Rhys can be an asshole sometimes, but BACK OFF, he's right okay? LMFAO. When he told Az to back the f*** up, I was like I always knew I loved you for a reason Rhysie. SJM uses him many times to express HER own thoughts. That's why they turn out right most of the time.

Second, I think Vassa and Tamlin could be interesting just because Tamlin needs a good whipping. Hahahaha. Vassa might be able to do it. But at the end of the day, I feel like his story ties in with Lucien and Tamlin won't be getting any romance. He might die, who knows? I am pretty neutral with him at this point. He can get a redemption or no redemption, I can deal with it.

Third, I don't think Lucien and Vassa work because they are both associated with fire. Fire and fire do not necessarily work for a harmonious relationship. SJM retconned a lot when she decided that Nesta and Lucien, who are both associated with fire, would not work because they'd probably kill each other. That same reasoning could be applied to Lucien and Vassa. Also, when Lucien tells Feyre about Vassa for the first time, he says that he thinks they'd get along. My immediate reaction was--oh, so he kinda sees Vassa the way he sees Feyre, maybe not as close with that much history, but very much as a friend (Feycien bestfriendship for the win! What do you think about that friendship btw?) or maybe like a sister. When Lucien blushed at the end of ACOWAR, I don't think it was because of Vassa, but because Feyre called him an acolyte, meaning that he, a Fae, was suddenly very pro-human. Lulu has come a long way. Also, the way Lucien calls Jurian and Vassa as "being at each other's throats" sounds very much like TENSION. And Lucien sounded more annoyed about having to deal with their fighting. You know, it amazes me how well Lucien can make friends and get along with so many people. He just manages to transform himself as necessary and it's not fake. It's just who he is.

Finally, yes, my friend accepted all this. The conversation started with her being like aw Elain and Az. By the end of it aka 20 minutes later, she was on my side. It didn't take much convincing because AGAIN, she's just a casual reader.

Thanks for letting me rant!!! And for answering my question! I know I basically asked more in this one but heh. You just answer so fast and you answer so well!

PS. I want Dorian and Manon to get their own novella. I need their HEA. I am a Dorian girl. You? Lorcan, Rowan or Dorian? Also, did you see the new SJM interview from yesterday? It sounds like we should be getting news about CC 3 soon! I want her to get that out already so that we can move on to ACOTAR 5!!! Heh.

Much love! <3

I'm so excited to get a follow up from you!

And I LOVE that you pointed out the hypocrisy for those that were accepting of Nesta and Feyre being cold toward Cassian and Feyre while not being accepting of Elain who was possibly in an even worse position with Lucien considering she was engaged and in love with Graysen (whereas Feyre had chosen to leave Tamlin). Elain is nice but....she deserves to feel what she's feeling for as long as she needs to feel it especially because choosing not to engage with someone that you've never really met before is not actually "mean". No, she's not handling it in the socially polite and appropriate way but she's not going out of her way to insult him or spit venom at him. They have a bond but that doesn't come with a set of rules she has to follow. And so far Lucien hasn't asked, "will you consider our bond?" so it's not like she's refusing to answer direct questions he's asking her.

And I agree. Rhys pulling rank in the POV is a highly debated one but why would he sit there and say, "go for it man!" when Az said nothing about caring for Elain as a person, nothing about being over Mor, and only focused on the fact that his brothers got a bond so why didn't he? Rhys isn't acting like a High Lord, he's acting like a protective older brother (in law) who basically had a buddy tell him he wanted to Hit it and Quit it with his little sister. Taking the political stuff out of the equation, that fact alone was reason enough for him to put his foot down. Rhys had every reason to think Az was just using Elain for a good time since he knew he couldn't have the female he had wanted for centuries.

Hahaha! I love your take on Vassa and Tamlin and I do agree. Because she would be the kind of female who wouldn't let him get away with ANY-THING. Which I kind of think someone like Tamlin needs, the type to match every attempt he makes at exerting control over a situation with their own dominance. But I also see what you see. Tamlin's story will definitely cross with Lucien's and I don't think a Tamlin romance is going to be a focus of that. I think we'll see the mending of their friendship (whether they'll ever be as close, I'm not sure) and Tamlin figuring out what he's going to do in terms of his Court and I think love is just not in the near future for him.

And YES!!! SJM rarely does literal matching of a couples powers. Aelin was Fire and Rowan was Wind, Ice, Lightning. Bryce is the ability to wield Starlight and Hunt is Lightning. They might play off one another like Cassian and Nesta both being a sort of Lord and Lady of War and Death with their individual powers but they still have their differences. Feyre is the exception to that rule because of how she was Made but Vassa being a Firebird and Lucien being a Lord of Flame are too matchy in my opinion. And also what you said. The way Lucien views Vassa is how he seemed to have viewed Feyre and that is not in a romantic way. I feel like when these characters develop new relationships, it almost replaces a similar relationship they had with someone else. Like Nesta. She's always protected Elain but we can see that relationship changing and I think they're headed in different directions. Gwyn is someone Nesta also has this need to protect and holds up on a pedestal (in a similar manner as she did Elain). I think it's a healthier relationship than what she had with Elain but I do notice similarities and it's almost like Gwyn will now fill that spot that Elain vacated but in a different way because Gwyn has been able to prove to Nesta that she's capable on her own.

I don't think Lucien and Feyre will ever have the same friendship they shared in the beginning of the series though I do imagine they'll mend any discomfort that currently exists. But her place is now in the NC and Lucien's is not. So his new "Feyre" seems to be Vassa, doesn't it? And I could easily see Vassa becoming Elain's new Nesta / Feyre. A friend with an extremely bold and slightly abrasive personality but not one who will coddle her as the others did because the sister dynamic (and everything that goes along with growing up together) isn't there. I feel like Feyre and Vassa may have gotten along under different circumstances but I think the fact that they are two "leaders" who seem to expect the other to respect their position as "leader" caused tension for them during their first meeting. Vassa came off as a bit demanding to Feyre and Nesta and I don't think Feyre cared much for that considering she might have felt she deserved to be treated in a higher regard.

Seriously, I feel like I'm loving everything you're saying because I also agree with what you said over Lucien blushing. I don't think it had anything to do with him having feelings for Vassa (which wouldn't make sense considering he's still looking at Elain with longing a year later) but because Feyre is basically calling him out in front of his Mate for expressing positivity about someone and something and YES, the fact that he had such issues with humans in the start of the series and now he's giving them accolades. I actually love his time in the Human Lands for this reason because Elain was the most attached to her humanity and it's going to make him more understanding of what she lost.

And yes again (I'm a broken record at this point), I completely agree that Lucien is a bit exasperated by Jurian and Vassa. Here he was, thinking he was living with two friends and now it's turning into a hate / love trope between Jurian and Vassa and he's starting to feel like a third wheel.

I would love a Dorian novella too! I understand why we didn't get more (it wouldn't have felt realistic in the time frame given but it's still tough when things are left so open ended). I was a huge fan of Lorcan and Elide's story as well so I'm a bit bummed there's was so fade to black.

Thank you again for the additional message, it was really fun going back and forth on these things with you! ❤️

[moviemunchies]

Before creating The Chosen, Dallas Jenkins was an up-and-coming director among Christian moviemakers who made a deal with a studio (that was mainly known for wrestling??) for what everyone hoped would be a lucrative deal, making a bunch of successful Christian movies. He opened with a film he put a lot of work into, The Resurrection of Gavin Stone.

Then it bombed at the box office, and Jenkins felt like his entire career was over.

Since it was on Netflix, I decided I’d give it a try! After all, I am of the opinion that financial success is no indicator of quality when it comes to art and media. There are plenty of great films that did terribly in the box office, and there are plenty of terrible movies that are incredibly profitable. 

Let’s give this one a try.

I mean, ‘eh’?

Alright, it’s fine. It’s a good Christian movie, and it certainly didn’t deserve to bomb, but I remember thinking that this came from the same guy that made The Chosen, which surprised me with how different it felt than a lot of Biblical screen fiction. The Resurrection of Gavin Stone felt like a typical Christian film. A good example of one, to be sure, and miles ahead of God’s Not Dead, but it didn’t feel like it was breaking much ground.

The story goes like this: Gavin Stone was a famous, mem-making child actor who has been trying to build his career in Hollywood as an adult, but it’s been hampered by his own party hard lifestyle. After a particular indiscretion, he’s sent back to his hometown and given community service at a local megachurch. While sweeping floors there, in order to impress the pastor’s daughter, he joins the church’s local play in the role of Jesus (he actually is a talented actor). But to do so he has to pretend to be Christian, and things become complicated when his Hollywood life comes knocking.

One of the ways in which this film is pretty heavy-handed is that Gavin is apparently almost completely ignorant of Jesus and the Bible? He knows who Jesus is, but he doesn’t seem to have a clue that Jesus of the Gospel is humble and doesn’t draw attention to himself. It makes an amusing set of sequences in which he’s desperately pretending he knows what he’s talking about, but really? He doesn’t realize that Jesus isn’t the type to shout down people with thunder? I know some people who don’t know the difference between Old and New Testaments, but it’s 

It’s worth noting that the other cast members of the play, especially those that Gavin works closely with, see right through his act and immediately know that he’s faking it based on simple conversations. They just don’t say anything about it because they want to help him, and because he’s the best actor in their cast.

Overall, I do really like these interactions. He’s utterly clueless about anything regarding church, and they’re utterly clueless about anything involving acting. I thought this bit could use more work, not because what’s there is bad, but what it’s pretty good and I wanted more of it. Entering a new group, whether that’s a religious group, a school group, or club, it’s important to have a group of people to build yourself with, and I’m glad it wasn’t just Gavin and Kelly bonding to help bring him to the point where the movie wanted him.

I also felt as if we really need a stronger motivation for Gavin to get involved in the first place. The one we get is that he wants to impress Kelly, the pastor’s daughter, and it spirals out of there. But why does he want to impress her so badly after meeting her once? I don’t know, their chemistry isn’t bad, but in their first conversation, it isn’t as if it’s enough to convince me they have an instant connection.

And to this movie’s credit, Gavin and Kelly’s relationship isn’t really a done deal by the end. I thought we’d get a shot of them kissing at the end and the movie being like, “LOOK! They’re perfect together!” the way most movies do (especially Hallmark-type movies do). Maybe being an explicitly Christian movie they didn’t want to do a kissing scene? Or move as fast as an average Hollywood couple? In any case, it ends with them deciding they want to keep seeing each other, and I felt that made sense.

Doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of cheese in that relationship over the course of the movie. YMMV on whether that’s a feature or a bug.

[I’m also super amused by how it turns out that apparently every guy in their age group has tried asking out Kelly and gotten nowhere.]

And so this movie is…fine. It’s good, but it’s not outstanding, not surprising in its general shape. It’s got fun little bits, but again, from the man who made The Chosen I was expecting something that would surprise me. And I don’t want to knock this movie or its cast, because I’m imposing unfair expectations on it. The cast does a great job with the material it has! Still, if you’re anticipating something as different as The Chosen, you’re bound to be disappointed.

[udaberriwrites]

Hold Me Close, Don’t Let Go and Will Not Be A Victim por favor

Thank you for the ask!

Ohoho, now that's a fun combination! I don't know if you have heard about them enough to connect the dots, but these two WIPs are actually connected, since I based Xiu Ya's personality off of Lung Tien Lien (as well as using Novik's honorific and part of the worldbuilding).

So, in short, these two WIPs share the same broadstrokes: Young traumatized white dragon bonds with an equally traumatized/soon-to-be-traumatized man navigating an organization where they are unwelcome, leading to predictable trainwrecks and angst (happy ending not guaranteed)

(I am putting the rest under the cut because it will run pretty long, and will have spoilers for Temeraire)

Hold Me Close

So this is one I have been slooooooowly making progress with in fits and starts, and it's not even close to done.

It's a Temeraire AU where the palace intrigue shifted focus, so that Lien is the one sent to Europe and intercepted by the Reliant, becoming Laurence's partner instead of Temeraire (who remains as Lung Tien Xiang). She is, as mentioned, as traumatized and loyal beyond reason as in canon; so when book 4 arrives and England refuses to hand over the cure, she manipulates the players involved so that Laurence remains in France with her rather than return to his trial for treason, even knowing how that would emotionally shatter him -- at least he'll still be alive to be hurt.

The dragonet learned early on to hate.

Hate was the rattle of her egg as she was moved against her will, hitting the hard shell no matter how careful they were with it as they loaded it in a crate. Hate was the foreign, flowery language that she had to relearn all over again because her first would not serve her after hatching. Hate was the rocking of the ship taking her away, alone, because she had failed before she had done anything else.

Love took longer; its presence was subtler. Love grew in fits and starts, without her realizing it was happening until it was too great to deny. Love was the rocking of the ship lulling her to sleep, with her flank pressed against a warm body. It was a steady voice in yet another strange language that promised to never leave her behind. Love was trust, it was a weight on her back and the air beneath her wings.

Will Not Be a Victim

This is the WIP I have been working on most consistently lately, though it's still growing rather than showing an end in sight 😭 for the AUgust prompt: Crossover/Fusion.

The basics here is that each Peak has not only a Lord, but also a Celestial dragon; for Qing Jing Peak, that is Xiu Ya, who suffers much of the same prejudice Lung Tien Lien did in Temeraire canon. She's distrustful of humans and unwilling to intercede for Luo Binghe when he arrives at the mountain which, unfortunately, means she's also a target for his vengeance when the time comes...

The thought made shame burn preemptively in her heart, nonetheless. She knew what others would say: that having been unable to convince a proper righteous cultivator to accept the title of Peak Lord by her side, she had chosen to settle for an easy to bribe outsider with a dubious past and an unstable golden core.

Xiu Ya looked again across the clearing at the way the boy’s shoulders pulled taut and his hand curled still around the hilt of the bloodied blade. If she could count on anything, she thought, it would be on the little feral urchin not pitying her.

Perhaps he would even be able to understand her.

And if he betrayed her… well, she could always eat him then.

Thanks again, Bleep, this was fun! 😄

[1d1195]

I tend to keep a lot of my "vulnerable" feelings a bit bottled up lol BUT I am working on that lol I of course appreciate you sooo much! Even before I claimed the 💜emoji, I HEAVILY related to your MC's like there were so many similarities in their personality and struggles that for a second got a little TOO REAL lol And to know you put alot of yourself into your stories and characters it felt nice to know that I wasn't alone in feeling like that. Sometimes it feels like something is so wrong with me when it gets tough so knowing that my feelings aren't so strange made/makes me feel alright :) idk if any of that made sense lol

omg don't even get me started when parents trauma dump 😭 idk if i mentioned this before or not but Im first gen Mexican American so literally Mexican parents/elders will literally tell you the most TRAUMATZING stories/experiences then go to say shit like "it's okay, thank god we are better now😁" LIKE HELLO!? WE NEED TO UNPACK THAT?!

I often think if I would be "happier" if I had just chosen a semester school bc I despise this horrid system lol But youre so kind, you have no idea😭

OMG YOU THINK I HAVE A SOCIAL LIFE??? thats crazy bc I feel like mine isn't too crazy or fun lol I have a small core group of friends but the majority of them aren't in school and the friends I do have in college i feel like I rarely seem them due to all of us being so busy lol But ngl i do love going to the free events there like concerts and drag shows WHICH ARE MY FAVE!!! but even then hanging out can sometimes be a little draining for me but once again Im trying to work on that lol.

But bestie you graduated early?! That's really cool! And that is such a big accomplishment! And I can't blame you for wanting your Friends moment like who wouldn't want that?! I wanted a cute little college romance but instead Im over hear falling for my professor lol OH i forgot to mention I have a cute TA in one of my psyc classes so Im saying sorry in advance for how annoying I will be about him 😔

AH you know I love you Sam! You seriously are someone I look forward to chatting with!-💜

I totally get the bottling your feelings up. I think Tulips is most like that. She has some issues (she, being me). I'm glad feeling relatable was a comfort for you. I know it's a comfort for me and I think one of the NICEST things about writing on here is that there are actually many people share the same feelings as me (us). Way more than I thought. It's kind of isolating day-to-day so it's nice to know it doesn't have to be.

HEY RANDOM!!! do you know your Myer's Brigg Personality? I am a HUGE personality test taker. Those buzzfeed ones that were like "What toaster are you?" literally obsessed. or the soldier, poet, king test? Any of them! I love them. It might be a little confirmation bias-y in my own personality but I don't care; I love them. HAHAHAHHAHA I did one for a job years ago I would have to dig it out to remember what the actual test was but i think it was like your big 5 qualities in the work place. Anyway, it made me think of more ways we could be similar (I'm an INFJ - (T) but if I use my teacher persona I can be convinced to be an ENFJ --but I'm a major introvert at heart obvi)

My mom and I are very similar. My bf has some pretty convincing theories about how my mom used to be like my sister and then turned into me when she had kids because she had to be responsible. So her trauma dumping often includes a lot of regrets and worries. You've mentioned your Mexican-American heritage before and I've seen a lot in the media (I know it's not exactly the same and probs also childish of me to rely on Disney for media but Encanto and Coco I feel like were semi-good examples--please don't think the worst of me if you disagree) Encanto especially--Grandma has some things to talk through. That's a lot to unload on you (or anyone!). Again, nice to know it's relatable even if it's sad sometimes. At least I'm not alone! 💕

UGH I can't wait to write TA Harry 😍 You could NEVER be annoying. I want the play-by-play PLEASE it will be the best inspo and I need to live vicariously!!! I've never been to a drag show but definitely on the list of things I'd like to attend! I fall into the latter part of your sentence there. I refrain from doing a lot of things because I'm already so busy on a regular day I don't want to do anything that will require energy when I don't need to use it HAHAHAHA

You're so sweet, thank you. At the time graduating early felt like a really big deal. Now I feel like it doesn't mean much. I guess it saved me some money right? There isn't much I won't do for a coupon 😂

Love you! Hope your week is being good to you!

xoxo

[semi-imaginary-place]

xenoblade chronicles x liveblogging and notes

im still not sure if this game connects to the others some are saying yes and others no so i guess i'll just go in release order.

why are the alien fights always happening near humans, either this is literally happening everywhere in the galaxy and earth is unlucky to get blown up or the alien fights have something to do with humans in particular. Yeah the xenomorphs attacked the white whale so humans arent just collateral but being actively targeted. Wonder what the deal ks with that, the other alien force too.

I still dint get what blade does but player character is getting pretty railroaded into it, what if they wanted to be a farmer? This really is like an mmo

how convenient the aliens speak english.

Nopon??!

Ok that percent on the big tower went from 60% to 55%. What happens when it reaches 0?

oh no the sexy woman alien. not the bare ass shot!

Oh hey we're a robot. That what a minesome(?) is? One of the sidequests brought it up. She wanted to get pregnant or something so i assumed it was a lab grown human situation but nah just a robit. Ok so everyone in new la is a mineosome and the fleshy bodies are in the lifehold? But wait I thought player character was from a piece of the lifehold or maybe I'm remembering wrong. What about linly 2 years is a long time for a teenager has she just not been aging i wonder how they're counting age. Either way child soldier. So we have flesh bodies in the lifehold. Some in mineosomes as crew on the ship and more mineosomes in reserve? And all the mineosomes are being controlled from the lifehold. Man their wifi must be really good surprised there havent been more problems where mineosomes disconnect. Oofies lifehold battery at 41% makes sense that if the mineosome wifi is up they can have this reading but i wonder if so much communication is possible why isn't there like gps on the lifehold so it can rely it's position.

Why is elma slumming it with us? She's experienced, had a command position (colonel?) Shouldnt she be like super important and also part of command)

Why are so many culture crash landing here. Humans, ganglions, uh what L is, the little blue dudes with the snouts.

So the lifehold was carrying 2 bodies for each person the flesh one and the mineosome that sounds like a lot. If the lifehold had the body of every person shouldn't it be huge? Why haven't ariel images shown it yet.

So everyone speaking the same language is some weird phenomena specific to the planet??

Several side characters have died. So assuming elma's story us true which sus. Then they might not be permanently dead either with their real bodies in the lifehold or through another robot body. Elma says that consciousnesses and personalities are being livestreamed from the lifehold but they arent stored in the mims.

The ganglions attacked nla to get that skell that was surrounded by tainted. Wonder what it is, something to do with that great one (sound like a cult) the grandmster boss dude was talking about. Why the hell is pc even here. Elma's the main character. Hoho? Elma thinks lao's traitor?

14% well clocks a ticking. I am very curious about the lifehold there's been so much narrative buildup and weight around that countdown. Lao's given into despair. Set us up to be killed but wanted to spare linly? Yuup.

Why is one of our party members just evil.

hmmm so lao has convinced himself that the equality of death is better than perpetuating an unjust system. that's so smt. would be interesting if he actually believed it, but he's just using this as an excuse to lash out in grief and despair because some rich's dude's family was chosen instead of his. Been wondering about elma for a while. originally thought the white hair and colors were the usual jrpg character design but no one else has while hair and now lao said something like elma wouldn't understand humans so now im wondering if she's like an designed human or something. elma is so main character coded fr.

Wait so the jewelry shop guy was considered essential or was rich enough to buy their way ont the white whale?

Whats his name is out here as a test model to mass produce people with implanted memories and personality

Why is L coming on the top importance military mission for the lifehold core. He's a scholar.

If 0.2% battery is 1000s or 15min (16.67 actually). Then 1000*500 to get 100% battery capacity or 500,000s. 500000/(60*60*24) = 5.79 days hmm doesn't seem right. Writers probably just came up with numbers. Or the battery isn't draining linearly with the ganglions attacking the shields.

i was wondering why every species had mechs like what are the chances so many different cultures made the same thing. and not only that but all the technology is compatible i can barely get an iphone to connect to a windows computer. so the ganglions see humans as an existential threat but also a violation of the sacred. oh the vita was that one mech that was super important. slugman says it can only be piloted by the great one. and then there's the question of how humans are connected to the Founders. one of them also said humans have technology that they shouldn't like that's part of another faction.

this is terrible design. on a spaceship space management is critical, all this empty space is a waste. yeah yeah shady organization lied. uh isn't bringing the back up power online more important than talking right now. like either could have talked on the walk and elevator ride up or talked after

elma is so main character special!

lore time. so founders=sammarans and humans are their descendants. idk what this means

yeah xbc1 was pretty transhuman but now we're really getting into it. idk about in... when was its game released? 2013? but i think it's pretty common knowledge that long distance space travel isn't very feasible with a lot of human bodies it'd be with like frozen zygotes or a text file for dna. btw you can already get your genome sequenced and get a big txt file. but a body isn't just the genetic code there's mitochondrial dna and all the cellular machinery that is inherited from one body to the next. this twist makes a lot of sense. uh elma im assuming you got the power up before giving this giant explanation and demonstration? also why wouldn't back up power automatically connect that sounds poorly designed.

where do you draw the line. yeah lao brought it up too that that even if he dies a new lao might be created without his consent (or possibly memories). what doug brings up is a common question if the new created person is the continuation of the original or a new person. "the ethical issues" yeah gurl you just pressed a button and made a cat people are right to be concerned.

probably should have made sure luxxar was dead before you started monologuing. who let lao out of his jail cell. oh yeah the ganglions made rock and then it's never brought up again that the ganglions are genetically engineering weapons. also what is celica? why do i feel like tatsu's hom hom line is important like the camera paused on him and everything. uh isn't it bad that luxxar is contaminating the the stuff that's suppose to remake all life on earth

damn. vulvahead. jsut how many final final bosses are there.

hmm not as gnostic as as xbc1 but yeah i can see it in the discussions about creation. the sumaarians created the ganglions and their descendants humans recreated themselves first as robots and then plan to synthesize earth life including themselves from scratch.

ah. human bodies have the kill switch trigger for ganglions as well as all the other species the samaarians synthesized.

also. anCient ALiens

i mean the copy of lao in the lifehold isn't quite the one that fused with luxxar. i don't know when that copy was backed up to but it couldn't have been later than losing contact with the lifehold when the white whale crash landed onto mira. that lao is still drowning in grief and never had the character arc of this game's events.

elma as special as a shounen protag. this has been way longer than 15 minutes. why would you need a unique biometric id to initiate backup power. that's such a fragile system. bad design. well unless there's some sort of renewable power system in the core it still needs to be hooked up to a permanent power source.

literally everything is elma. warned earth to prepare to get caught up in a war. which now that im thinking about it the ganglions were trying to win a battle AND destroy earth 2 goals in that battle. all the technology that looks suspiciously like other species? elma. robo bodies. elma. the mechs every other species has. elma

also ethics of space colonization and replacing native species with earth ones. re: red mars for world without any native life unlike mira which is full of it.

huh so the game ends with linly reflecting on a dream of searching for and returning to earth. or is that metaphorical about connecting with the other human ships. or is this about the samaarian homeworld?

this ended up happier than i thought. back at the halfway point a while back i was speculating that the lifehold would get destroyed and new la would be forced to continue on as it is. the lifehold is a sort of guarantee that the past is not lost, that humans can reclaim what they once had. it's a guarantee that they can be reborn endlessly. and if that was all lost then that would be a clean break between the past on earth and the future on mira. there would be no return to the past and no choice but to go forward into a new life on mira.

ost for this game is really good. it's like just off center of my tastes but i appreciate it. end song's a banger.

oh. I'd already assumed local storage because that's what made the most sense to me. so the higher up weren't lying as much as I thought. the lie was that consciousness was being wifi transmitted from real bodies in the lifehold to remote control the mimeosomes. when the truth (as they knew it) was that all that consciousness wasn't in a flesh body but a big computer. see the part i got wrong was i thought the core thing was life a usb or solid state drive, inert until accessed, just data. but in hind sight i ignored the narrative cues that the core is actually a computer running several thousand programs at once to simulate everyone's minds and that's what's wifi controlling the mims i mean why else would the core be using power, a usb or book doesn't use power to maintain storage the core must be doing something if the battery is draining. but then the stinger reveals that i just jumped a step ahead and there was in truth in truth no remote control and no live streaming consciouses. the game got me good! i thought i was proven wrong on my ending prediction.

and then lao washes up on a beach with a figure finding him.

story was good though I liked 1 better. x had 2 twists at the end where 1 was like being punched the entire time. the end was really good about payoff for all the tension that had been building up the entire game with the countdown, all the little things were brought together really well. satisfying conclusion. The beginning and middle of the game were meh for me. part of that is baked into the game design as basically a single player mmo. but xbcx has none of the best parts of an mmo which is running around goofing off with other people and all the worst parts of an mmo being tedious and repetitive with nothing much going anywhere or changing anything, just building up meters at base.

A good half of the party members seemed to just be there to fill space. Like Elma and Linly are the only critical ones. Then Tatsu, doug and the other nla humans are somewhat involved. But like Celica or L are completely irrelevant and I'd rather just have them as side quest characters then just stand around in cutscenes. the heart to hearts help but they like either go all in or dont bother at all. also the player character was totally unnecessary just let me play as elma.

im just ignoring all the skimpy clothes for women and fanservice.

[culttvblog]

Villains: Alice Sheree (Seventies TV Season)

The introduction to this series of posts about 1970s TV can be found here: https://www.tumblr.com/culttvblog/729351469162233856/seventies-tv-season-introduction

Villains (1972) is a complex and difficult show which doesn't get as much coverage as it could do. I see that I myself have only blogged about it once before, and I'll just get the reasons for the difficulty with this show out of the way before proceeding to its praise. The difficulty with this show is in the format (and pretty much every review online says this about it so unusually I'm echoing a general opinion). It is a series of thirteen 50-minute shows about a group of thieves (and others who get involved) who rob a bank, are imprisoned, and escape from the prison van on their way to an appeal. The first episode covers this chronologically but successive episodes deal with what then happens to each character individually and abandons a general chronology, so it essentially repeats the same time frame over and over again, but with different characters. What this means is that the events from Monty's persepctive in episode 2 are not mentioned again in the entire series and by the time you get to Billy Boy (episode 13) you might find yourself wondering about Monty.

In contrast to most shows which would shift between different characters and keep some sort of chronology going, this is of course completely different and the fact that it isn't that popular is reflected in the reviews I've already mentioned. I have not been able to find any contemporary documentation about what was intended, but I have chosen to apprach it as a very serious, cerebral show requiring ongoing attention from the viewer. I wonder whether it would also be best thought of as a series of independent plays inspired by the events of the first one. This effects is added to by the way each episode has a different writer, and we have some real talent in the writing department, including our very own P J Hammond.

The lengthy episodes, focus on individuals, and lengthy series means that the series takes the time to consider the implications of the theft and escape on the thieves' significant others and the show ultimately leaves their future rather in doubt. I commented before that the British audience of the time would naturally see this show in light of the Great Train Robbery of 1963 (in which £2.61 million was stolen and most of which has never been recovered) and it must be said that the complex effects of the robbery on the thieves do bear a resemblance to this show. These effects included ongoing attempts by other criminals to extort the proceeds from them, being forced to change identity and even suicide. There is, I suppose inevitably, a certain moral sense to this show because of the way it shows the effects of crime. This is, however, a moral sense which you have to watch attentively and at length to really get.

Another reason to watch this show is actually how very seventies it is. I am convinced that if you get too engrossed in it you will come to to find that your trousers have become loon pants and your room is carpeted in shag pile. It is absolutely perfect. There is a mixture of some external scenes which accurately show 1970s Britain and imaginatively done sets. I keep looking at it and thinking that my dad had a shirt just like that and thinking that those sheets would probably give you a rash. I will stop before I go into paroxysms of 1970s reminiscence! One of the other things which is very seventies is the amount they stole (from memory it works out at �300,000 each, barely enough to buy a decent family house in most places or a rabbit hutch in London) which seems so small. Although I see that this was the equivalent of �4,225,080 in 2017 so it just seems tiny. But then I suppose a sense of proportion and history is one of the things you get from classic TV.

Alice Sheree is the fifth episode and is about Alice Clough, who was given a suitcase of the stolen money by Michael Smith, one of the robbers, to keep hold of and got imprisoned for two years for possession of the money. Now she is out of prison but so is the man who was responsible for her being imprisoned and his first concern is to find her.

The episode begins effectively with Alice going in front of the parole board (I'm sure they don't have a clergyman on them nowadays) who make arrangements for her release from prison. She goes home to her parents who have been looking after her daughter while she's been in prison. The board express some concern about Alice's mother not bringing the child to see Alice.

And this is where we first hit the main thing about Alice, which is that she's one of these people you feel you can't get anything out of. She avoids the board's concerns, says that she'll help her dad in the shop, is adamant she will be alright, and it's quite plain she doesn't really get what they're saying. You get the same impression in her conversations with her family. In fact she doesn't seem to get anything, even to the extent of upsetting her own daughter even after her mother has pointed out she's upsetting her. If you asked her why she did anything, she wouldn't be able to tell you.

I'm perhaps expressing this in a way which makes it sound more irritating than the real effect, which is absolutely horrifying. While it's not clear whether she's mentally ill or has a learning disability, you really have to wonder whether she's 'all there', and it's frankly horrifying that she got pregnant, came into contact with criminals, took charge of a suitcase of stolen money and was even imprisoned. You would wonder whether she understood anything that was going on with her, and in fact even her own parents comment on it.

She says she doesn't want to see Mike again as her parents bring up the subject of his escape to her, and then of course she's out of the house seeing him for absolutely no reason whatsoever just because he's used his pet name for her. She's even had a perfectly maddening conversation with him when she's claimed not to know who he is. The blank expression on her face as she obviously lies to her parents about where she is going to is also prefectly maddening, because she obviously won't admit that she's going out to meet one of the robbers even though they know she is.

The episode highlights the effect on Alice and her family of the robbery and ultimately her family report her to the police. Honestly the full effect on the viewer of Julie's blankness, duplicity, and easily led nature, is absolutely horrifying. Just as horrifying is the way she has abandoned her child with her parents and run off to see a criminal on the run from prison in a caravan, who if he isn't old enough to be her dad isn't far off.

The whole effect of the episode is to bring up conflicting emotions in the viewer: rage at Mike, and horror mixed with irritation at Alice. And all this is mixed in with horror that anyone could use her and a wish that someone would do something about her, but of course nobody is going to.

If you particularly want a criticism of the series and the episode I would have to say that it is that its cast is a bit of a list of big names of the time. However they are all excellent actors and so not obtrusively themselves and they don't distract from the plot.

This show is well worth watching but requires attention from the viewer far beyond what most shows need.

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[kitashousewife]

oh, christmas tree

an: i went back and forth on this a lot but i hope yall love it! another winter event moment. i will have you know that i am pro fake tree :/

pairings: husband!sakusa x fem!reader

warnings: none really, lot of fluff, sakusa is a grump

-

the pretty curls on sakusa's head begin to quiver the second the two of you step out of the car. the air is cold and crisp, carrying the clean scent of pine along with it. with a deep inhale, he feels at peace.

until he turns around, that is.

there happens to be a very daunting task ahead of him. he really hopes that the two of you can be quick about this. it's freezing, and he just wants to be home.

"so, how tall do we want it?" your fingers lace with his as you walk towards the rows of trees, propped up and ready to be chosen. christmas music plays faintly in the background as the two of you approach the small shop.

"i would prefer it to be taller than me," he mumbles underneath the wool scarf he's wrapped around his neck.

you hum, eyeing the different trees up and down. "any other requirements?"

sakusa looks back and forth down the isles and sighs. the pine needles dusting the ground before him reminds him of the discussion the two of you had just last night.

you wanted to make things special for your first year married, especially your first christmas married. every cliche holiday event, you wanted in. and it just so happened that picking out a christmas tree was first on your list.

sakusa didn't see the point.

he is used to a fake tree. one that's tried and true, ready whenever you need it, and easy to put away when you don't. no mess, no frills. unfortunately for him, you just didn't see eye to eye. after hours of convincing, promising to vacuum multiple times a day, swearing that you would check the water in the tree every day to make sure it was healthy, even offering to do the dishes every day for the entire month of december if you could get a real tree, just this once.

and considering sakusa has the largest soft spot for you, he caved. he also hates doing dishes, but that's beside the point.

"i want one that's healthy, one that looks full and green," he starts, shaking his head at one tree you had your eyes on. moving to the next isle, he points to a rather stout one.

"see this one? it's great. healthy, green," he reaches his hand out to shake the tree a bit, nodding when only a couple needles float to the ground. "and it's clean. but it's too short," he thinks out loud and you nod.

"yeah, i see what you mean. let's look over here omi! these ones look a little taller," you pull him toward the direction of some bigger, much more expensive christmas trees. dollar signs flash across sakusa's eyes the closer you get to the selection. nobody has been over to this row yet, based on the very vast amount that stands before him.

"y'know, it's not too late to get a fake tree. it would be a lot cheaper than one of these," he pleads, voice flat but you can tell he's getting desperate.

"omi, you promised!" you whine and he winces. he knows that, but this is turning into a bigger ordeal than he thought. in his perfect world, you would arrive, find a tree, take it home, and be done.

easier said than done, he guesses.

"oh, how's this one! i think it's tall enough," you walk up to a tree, examining it from all angles. when sakusa walks up to it, he begins his inspection. walking around the tree, looking through the branches, and shaking it a little to see how the branches react. you wince when a handful falls off.

"well there's that," he huffs. "besides that, there's a huge gap in the side."

"we can just turn it around!" you give him a weak smile and he shakes his head.

the next 10 trees went the same. you walk tree to tree, suggesting different ones, all to receive comments of the top of that one's weird and complaints of that one's too scraggly are offered with each tree. each one seems worse than the last, the last one you pointed out received an exhausted look, and a very lovely if you're going for the charlie brown look, this one's perfect.

if you would have known that he would be this picky, you wouldn't have suggested the real tree. you take a deep breath and peak at the next row of firs and give it another go.

"kiyoomi, what do you think of this one?"

right behind the direction of your pointer finger is a tree, almost the same height as a volleyball net. it's full, green, and almost picture-perfect. the type you would see in advertisements, sakusa thinks.

he reaches your side and stares up, around, and underneath the tree. not a single needle has fallen, and every section has branches that are strong and ready for any decoration you could imagine.

"i like this one. what do you think?"

you hold back your sigh of relief, letting out a laugh instead.

"i think it's perfect. i'll grab someone to help us wrap it up and put it on our car."

as you walk away, sakusa is hit with the awful realization that not only did the two of you endure this search, but a very large and sappy mess is now going to be strapped to the top of his car.

after many irritated glares shot towards the poor attendant as he very, very carefully strapped the tree to the top of sakusa's car, the two of you are free to head home.

you thought this was the last of the ordeal, but both of you forgot about the worst part: getting it into the house.

"omi, wait! i don't have a good hold on it yet!"

"sweetheart, please hurry because i can't hold on much longer," he breaths, holding on to the middle of the tree the best he can. he's sideways through the front door and nearly sweating. thankfully, you are quick to grab a good section and the two of you make your way into the living room.

you work as a team, lifting and maneuvering it until the tree has finally found it's home. once nice and secure, you grab the scissors to free the beautiful branches from it's confines.

"grab the vacuum before you do that!" your loving husband pleads as you walk away, already dreading the huge mess this is going to make. when you come back, he's already plugging it in before you make the first cut. as your scissors snap each section of twine, a few needles trickle down and onto the carpet, which sakusa sucks up immediately. once the twine is taken away, it's ready for decorations.

you work on grabbing the ornaments out of the storage containers, while sakusa unravels the lights.

"jesus christ, as if bringing this thing in wasn't a workout in itself," he groans, wrapping and re-wrapping the lights into a more practical fashion.

"it will be worth it, i promise," you assure, placing a kiss on your husband's cheek. he smiles and watches you go, using the untangled lights to work on the bottom section. you are smiling from ear to ear, fully basking in the christmas spirit the two of you have brought home.

"a little help?" you look over your shoulder at him, holding the last of the strands with a grin.

"anything for you, my love," his lips meet your forehead before getting the parts of the tree that you can't reach.

"now for the best part! you start at the top with the small ones," you hand him a small box before moving to another. "and i'll start at the bottom. we'll meet in the middle, okay?"

"okay, but no promises that this will look very good," he laughs and you roll your eyes. in a few short minutes the tree is full and shining, green branches anointed with ornaments of all shapes, a perfect array of color.

"get on my shoulders."

you place the last box back in the storage bin, before raising your eyebrow at him.

"why?"

he twirls the star in his hands before pointing to the top.

"i'm not tall enough and neither are you, babe. we can't have a tree without its topper."

you think for a second before caving. he's right, after all. it would look incomplete! he squats down as you carefully step to sit on his shoulders.

"am i going to be too hea-omi!" you cry, startled at how quick sakusa stands up, squealing once more when he spins you around for good measure.

"how's the weather up there?"

you snort before placing the star at the top, securing it before tapping your husbands shoulders.

"very sparkly. can i come down please?"

he looks up at you and shakes his head.

"not without a kiss."

you smile and bend down, placing a quick kiss on his lips. he smiles into the kiss, pulling away to bring you back to the ground.

"wow," you are amazed. the tree looks perfect.

"i get what you were saying about a real tree. it just looks so good," sakusa says, genuinely impressed with how amazing it turned out to be. you flop onto the couch behind you and sigh. you're glad to be done, despite how beautiful it is.

"well omi, what's your verdict? real or fake?"

he copies your earlier actions before pulling you to sit on his lap with a hum.

"i much prefer the ease of a fake tree over a real one," he notes and you nod in agreement. "it was much harder to find a good one too, which i didn't like."

"so, fake tree?"

he glances at the glowing tree in front of him and feels his heart warm just a little. this tree was picked out, by both of you, and decorated together, and now he has a memory to last a lifetime. your first christmas tree together. he makes a mental note to snap a photo before the day is done.

"actually, i like the real one. even though it took a long time, i really liked finding it with you," he pokes your side and earns a laugh.

"i knew it! i knew you would like it," you exclaim before poking his chest. he grabs your finger and rolls his eyes, pulling you to lay on top of him. after a few seconds of comfortable silence, you sit up.

"maybe next year, we do a fake tree. y'know, just because we may not find one as good as this."

sakusa snorts and rolls his eyes. he knew you were tired, he knew this was a lot harder than you thought. but, he doesn't mind. today was one of his favorite days, one that he will think about when he's feeling down.

"right, we can't risk that. maybe we get one now and put it in our bedroom. just to be prepared,"

you laugh, peeking up at your husband who is smirking down at you.

"sure, omi. just to be prepared."

[bakuvantea]

HEY BESTIE I HOPE YOUR HAVING AN AMAZING DAY

CAN I GET SOME GENERAL HEADCANONS WITH SUNG JIN-WOO WITH A FEMALE S/O

FEEL FREE TO IGNORE BUT REMEMBER TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

>:)

general relationship headcanons of sung jin-woo with his beloved s/o

- warnings: none! just a tad bit of nsfw implications

- audience: I made this gender neutral, i do hope that’s okay!!

- a/n: hello >:) anonnn (may i call u that? lmao-) here’s your request love!! thank you for your kind words <33 stay heathy, stay hydrated, and always rest up okay? hope you have an amazing day ahead too!!

also idk who jacob is-

-•-

: pre-awakened jin-woo (before entering the carthenon temple)

> he was always cautious, he didn't want [you] to hear the whispers going around about how you could've chosen someone better, about how you could've loved someone that was not him. thus, he was very shy and timid, always on edge when he feels the piercing stares from his batchmates -most especially when you try to initiate physical contact with him in your school or in public, you'd see him uncomfortable and so you'd immediately stop (because you respect him, ily). behind closed doors though he would always go above and beyond in pleasing you and making you feel loved, although he always doubts himself so you always make sure to give him praises and assure him that he is the one you love (not that jerk jacob from the class next door).

> he always wears spare hair ties or hair pins around his wrists in case you forget or lose yours. in fact when its weekends -and when he's not out infiltrating dungeons and positively offering his life on a silver platter- he always tries to study new hairdos and hairstyles so he can have more variations and choices when he ties or pins your hair for you. he'd always kiss the top of your head after and you'd feel his smile as he nuzzles your hair, smelling your shampoo. since his hair is also long, you'd also return the favor and tie his hair for him. his favorite would have to be the classic apple look with a pointy lock of hair erect in the middle -he really looks like a shih tzu, adorable-

> he.blushes.so.easily !!! he is very weak to praises and your lil kisses that pepper his face. you can see him glow and you even see his smile evidently becoming wider despite him shying away from you, looking downwards to avoid your loving gaze.

> he may be sht but he is also very playful towards you, teasing you and throwing pillows at you when you’re in his room, what a baby.

> often during dates he'd always need to leave early because he really needs to earn money and g to the dungeons. although you try to offer him some of your savings or your help during the dungeon raids, he'd always reject your offer, thinking of how it may burden you or the dungeon raids may possibly hurt you. you don't listen to him though, you give some of your savings to his sister when you cross paths in your school, and you'd always register after him in raids or call up someone you know to have you join in.

"(name) why are you here?!"

"angel face, i can handle myself just fine. it's my choice to help you and whether you like it or not, i've also been called for this raid. come love, we're going in."

> you'd always take his blue hoodie and wear it. he gets so shy when you smell it.

he gets frantic when you take his hoodie and start sniffing it, exclaiming; "stop! i smell weird."

you raise an eyebrow at him, "woo, you smell fine. i like it."

he tries to stutter a remark but was silenced by your smile.

> you always try to visit his mother with him and his sister, jinah. you always talk to their mother out loud and you'd see jinah smile gently at you and jin-woo trying to stop sniffles from escaping his lips by biting them and covering his face with his hoodie.

jinah: u simp

jin-woo: shut it

> he loved cuddles! but he really likes kissing your cheeks. he loves how soft they are and he loves feeling your cheeks move when you smile or laugh at his cute antics.

> he loves you so so dear

: post-awakened jin-woo (after the events of the carthenon temple)

> oh, dear it's the monarch-

> you weren't with him when he raided the "d-rank" dungeon that then turned out to be,, well pretty much a bloodbath, so you were very worried when you heard word of the news. you and jinah basically ran to the hospital and when you caught sight of him you almost fell down from relief and pure shock in seeing the state he's in. well, not long after though suddenly he's all buff and you were really trying to make sense of what's happening.

you: hello there good sir, what in the name of fck are you doing in my boyfriend’s room all sweaty and half-naked😀

jin-woo: (name) it’s me

you: haha yes, sir ‘it’s me’ that’s a pretty weird name but i don't judge, anyways my baby boy is not here uhm haha please get out of my boyfriend’s room

jin-woo: (name) it’s really me!

you: no sir, my woo radiates baby energy, you on the other hand radiates big dilf energy, haha i do not like what i am sensing so please for the life of me leave-

(jinah had to convince you that it is indeed jin-woo, you had her stop you from trying to hold his tiddies)

> you were very happy in seeing how confident he’s become, and you were even more proud with how he still says so humble despite his new accomplishments and title.

> it was obvious that he has become distant with others and have set a boundary between him and other hunters, you accept that part of him though since you know just how much he has gone through. he may act aloof towards others but he’s still very playful and comfortable with you.

> you have also noticed another thing though, he has become a bit possessive or much protective over you and jinah. he’d always have you bring a shadow with you to guard you when he can’t be with you. also, when someone stares at you for far too long, he’d step in and go, “hey there pal” and oh gosh was that enough to get the guy running (pretty damn hot)

> you still visit his mom with him, he doesn’t cry now though.

> when he trains, you’d insist on lying down below him when he does push-ups. you’d kiss him every time he swoops down and you’d hear him laugh which then makes you giggle as you hold his cheeks between your hands

> jinah is sick of the two you, always screaming about how on earth did her brother get an s/o before her, the audacity!

> his shadows adore you, of they’d always try to impress you or get head pats when you tell jin-woo to summon them for you. you live them to bits and always thanks them for a job well done in helping jin-woo with his raids. on the first time you accompanied him for a raid -you had to bribe him with more cuddles- and you were shocked with how his sweet adorable shadows turned a full 180, becoming ruthless towards the enemies. quite a show you’d say. after though, they’re back to flocking over you, even dismissing jin-woo lmao

jin-woo, watching you give each shadows head pats: i hate it here

you: get in line then

> it may be due to his newly acquired talents and his current mental and physical prowess but he has become more perceptive towards you. he can always read you and know just what your mood is and he always tries to make you feel better by giving his whole attention to you.

> of but of course, since dear jin-woo has become quite the looker, you also notice how girls flock over to him. and especially miss hae-in (she’s very sweet yes, but hey that’s your man so like—). the moment you discovered that she left her guild to join jin-woo’s, and then confessed (well basically she did) to your man, well you were upset but really who could blame her? instead of taking your frustrations out on her and your boyfriend, you decided to just talk it out with jin-woo and ask him about how it went. the two of you cleared it out and you got kisses and maybe even more after that ;))

> you and jin-ho are menaces to society when you are together, he hates how endearing and annoying you two can be. i mean, does he really hate it? nope, he absolutely loves seeing you two interact, although his head always throbs when you two start screaming to britney, gaga, and doja.

> a tease, he has become the master of being a tease, you hate it and love it at the same time. he’d trail kisses down your neck to your thighs and leave some marks then he’d suddenly walk away while asking you what take-out you want. rude, that’s what he is. ofc he always finished what he starts tho oop-

> he always randomly bites you now, you don’t know why but it’s really cute when he starts nibbling so you let him be.

> so extra when he tells you that he loves you. he professes it in such weird but adorable ways. one time he had printed out ‘i love you so much’ on a big-ass tarpaulin and had his shadows hold it for him while he’s kneeling down smoldering at you. you hate him so much (you don’t-). or that one time he bought a bouquet basket and had a ring tied to one of the flowers, you had to take the bouquet apart since the damn ring fell to the very bottom.

> sometimes when he gets back to the agency after his dungeon raids you and jin-ho would see him all grumpy and you immediately know that either he wasn’t able to make the enemy his soldier or his coat got ruined.

jin-woo: *sad noises*

jin-ho: that’s okay, you can kill and slaughter the others and take their souls next time

you: jin-ho couldn’t you have worded that better-

over-all, he’s the bestest boyfriend, such a sweet and handsome pretty boy much strong and reliable we love him<333

-•-

- a/n: i can add more to this if you’d like!! just hit me up again lmao it’s too long now so-

[tokiidokiicasket]

Mind if I ask this but with Floyd, Trey, Rook and Lilia?

⚰️ : Ehe ❤️

TW ; Possessive type of behaviour, stalking, etc.

-"Floyd Fact! : I am 100 meters from your location and rapidly approaching~....Start running."

-literally intimidating beside his brother, in the list of "Not to fuck with in NRC" because he's p h y s i c a l with his methods. Nobody can escape his deathly grip of squeezes.

-Not to mention the fact that his mood easily changes, one moment he'll be all happy to see you but then switch up after finding out about the fool who decided to pick with the wrong crowd.

-Of course Floyd will happily give them a head start! I'm sure they would love to play with him in the game of tag~ they'll be the runner and he'll be the chaser! Isn't that fun? :D

-Slowly, Floyd gets bored playing with them, he's pretty much tired after giving them his squeezes. "Neeeeeh shrimpy! I'm bored, let's hang out." ❤️

-Ah trey trey treyyyy.

-When he learns about the issue of the fool, Mr. Clover over here would at first, be a bit merciful when talking with the person.

-But when that person decides to not cooperate and difficult to talk with, Trey becomes irritated. And that's not a good sign. Once that fool decides to make you uncomfortable AND not cooperate with Trey, ohoh, a wrong choice they have chosen.

-He may deal with the matter, but also bring it up to the staff, if this fool was in the same dorm as Trey, he'll gladly take it up with Riddle to deal with the matter~

-After that fool stops bothering you, Trey will bake up some pastries to make you feel better ❤️

{Sorry if Trey's was wacc, it was genuinely hard to think up his part jdjcndkfnf-}

-Oh great sevens.

-Like Trey, he'll be merciful {except the deathly aura surrounding him with his fake smile} and try to convince that fool to leave you, his dearest darling, alone.

-In the list of intimidating vice dorm leaders, this hunter will know about the situation even BEFORE you know the fool creeping on you. And he's not one bit pleased to see that animal prey on you.

-If they don't cooperate, then I'm sure they will love to play a chase of cat and mouse! Let's hope they're good at running because they're gonna need itttt~

-If they do leave you alone, Rook will spend time with you, maybe to read out poems and expressing his love for you~

-Oh please that fool is already nonexistent before they know it.

-Like Rook, Lilia will know about it even before you catch on that someone is watching you. It's honestly a surprise that this fool would actually dare try to take Diasomnia's vice dorm leader's s/o, when he's literally a F A E.

-And you do not want to fuck with the Fae because they WILL reign hellfire. This man may look like the embodiment of a smug cat but Lilia can VIBE C H E C K this fool without hesitation.

-Lilia may be merciful but he's far from that, once they mess with his darling, you, they'll have to deal with him. What may happen you may ask?

- :)

-Once you feel that you aren't being watched anymore, Lilia will stride by beside you, as if nothing happened. When you ask where he's been? "The usual dearest, busy at Diasomnia, nothing more. Shall we walk together, my love?"