#I feel like Ice is used a lot as a contrast to Fire which could be pretty cool

[bonefall]

TC Scourge is so interesting tho. How does he play out or effect the narrative? Does he go more clan life and change his name or does he act like a changer who gets the clans to see that outsiders aren’t lesser? I think he could be such a good character in like TBC especially as a rebel. I’m very interested in this idea

I'm glad you asked! I do actually have a point with it, and it's the more "fun" option between two choices I have at a certain point.

I'll try to summarize this and keep the BIG overview for its own post;

BloodClan is much older, forming back during the end of Oakstar's rule

It's neutral now, no longer pure evil. It does good things (distributes resources, protects from invasion, saves cats from abusive and neglectful living conditions) as well as bad things (demands service and/or tribute, gruesome punishments for stealing and disobedience, rigid pecking order)

Scourge is the newest in a line of rulers. Instead of being EVIL he's just very politically savvy, having inherited a large and brutal group.

The BloodClan battle happens because Tigerstar PROMISED them land and Scourge is sick of Clan cats not respecting them

So, in any case, Scourge is NOT dying at the battle. Firestar defeats him honorably, and engages in diplomacy with BloodClan afterwards. Everyone involved is mixed about this, but it works out well at the destruction of the forest where BloodClan absorbs the warriors who are staying behind and provides aid.

The Choice

So the crossroads will come during the period concurrent with Firestar's Quest/Quietus, the part where there was a power struggle between Snake, Ice, Claw, and Rage. In the rewrite I'm combining all the BloodClan power plots into one-- Scourge choosing a successor.

My initial draft was to give him a progressive disease that was going to kill him early, but with some small tweaking, it could just be him getting tired of leadership.

So my choice is that he dies here (much more compliant with canon) or he ultimately joins ThunderClan and accompanies them to the Lake.

Why though?

Because I want him to play a role with Hollyleaf.

In addition to it just being generally fun that there's this very quiet ex-mobster boss hanging out in the background just enjoying life, he would be an uncle figure in PO3.

I think Hollyleaf's struggle with outsiders is really interesting, and since I'm probably going to reduce Stormfur and Brook's role in ThunderClan due to Tribe reworks, there is an opening for him to squeeze in. Hollyleaf is able to look between the obedience the code demands, the way the Clans see outsiders as being soft, and have a real, hard example that this is not true because of Scourge.

He will be old by this point, old enough to not soak up too much attention from younger warriors, but still has that good old BloodClan skill in his claws when it's required. That aside he would generally be a quiet loner type, quite close to Goldenflower, probably accepting a clan name (he'd see it as respecting the culture) but not correcting anyone when they call him Scourge.

He would die sometime between OOTS and AVOS, possibly of that progressive disease or even going down in a blaze of glory during the Great Battle (Tigerstar getting a rematch would be SUPER fun!) and he would become a ghost, not joining StarClan. Tree gets to see him a couple of times, and he would be there for Squirrelflight's Hope instead of the random kittypet, Blade.

[sicklyseraphnsuch]

RotG and HiJack Recs

Alright, I'm building this list because some of these fics are just a tad dusty, and they could use more love. (A lot more love, I am literally dying from how much I adored these.) But note that a good few are incomplete.

Let's start with:

INCOMPLETE FICS

The Long Road:

Presently Gen, but Hiccup very much falls for Jack. He does however retain his feelings for Astrid, so bear that in mind. There's the classic Viking mindset when it comes to homosexual relationships that's pretty much giving Hiccup like a lot of anxiety.

But beyond that! I cannot shower this fic with enough praises! It gives me the same sort of excitement that the RotG movie does. Jack's characterization is Spot On. He's friendly and outgoing and also incredibly secretive and flighty. It balances out Jack's blunt mannerisms with a joyous charm and just that hint of vulnerability (which he keeps so well hidden lol).

The plots take place after HttyD, during the Riders of Berk TV series. Jack is folded into the Dragon Rider group who considers him some kind of Elf. Yes, this is Jack Frost in all his frosty glory. The way the story builds on a solid foundation of camaraderie and friendship, giving plenty of scenes to show how Hiccup and Jack became great friends, lends well to the Hiccup's realization of: "Oh I'm into him". Without giving too many spoilers, that "oh" moment is forever ingrained into my memory because of how PERFECTLY timed it is.

This blends Guardians of Childhood book verse with HttyD book verse, mostly via cameos over lore. Overall, a beautiful, fun, and simply enchanting read. I cannot recommend this enough.

A Story about Ice, Dragon Fire, and Belief:

Another gen fic. Mostly, it's about North looking at Jack and going, "he's my son now", and Jack having absolutely none of it. When placed together with Stoik and Hiccup's relationship, it becomes an almost interesting study of contrasts. North is the guy who's trying to prove something to a boy that he disappointed. Hiccup is the guy who's trying to prove something to a man that he disappointed. But ultimately, it ends up the same with a schism forming between the two pairs the harder one of them tries to breach it.

Also, it talks about how Jack is a force of fucking nature? And his blizzards can kill and have killed in the past? There's a little bit of trying to reconcile that with his new ID as a guardian. North is not doing a great job helping here.

But really the Crown Jewel of this fic is North and Berk's reactions to North (and by proxy his relationship to Jack). We go a little into the historical Viking side of things (like the pillaging et al), and apply that lens to this jolly old man. Let's just say some troubling (hilarious) assumptions are drawn. Also...

Everyone loves the sleigh.

I think this is one of the few RotG and HttyD crossovers that really do a good job of merging the two movies. Primarily because it's not just Jack in Berk. And this just made me hungry for more fics where more of the RotG cast arrive as Berk, and be just 100% fantastical and strange as the bedtime stories they are. Put some respect on the Guardians name, if you know what I'm saying.

In the Shadows of My Mind:

This one is an RotG only fic. No pairings except for whatever's going on between Pitch and Nightlight (and by proxy Jack). It's not a for real pairing. That said, it's such a complex and intricate relationship that doesn't resemble a romance but remains markedly intimate. Basically, this fic takes advantage of Pitch and Nightlight's ridiculously long history then throws Jack into the mix. Alive, human Jack in an early 18th century colonial town wherein he very recently did not drown (and boy, isn't that suspicious?)

My favorite thing about this fic is how spot on the dialogue feels? The lexicon, the syntax feels true to the time its set in. Although, I can't say that it is accurate as I'm not an expert of this time period in this region. Regardless, it certainly appears that a good stack of research went into this.

All that said, this fic has captured Bill Joyce's writing style the best, but with a deeper, more complex, more mature layer underpining that bedtime like vibe. There's a good host of OCs but genuinely, I didn't notice them as OCs. I could really believe they were characters of Joyce's books. Not to mention, they feel like fully fleshed out individuals even if they have like maybe two paragraphs of screentime.

The entire premise hinges on the idea of "what if Jack survived the skating accident" and everyone's reactions to that, as well as... the hidden secret thing that involves Nightlight. GoC spoilers are hinted so beware. But the little interplay between Nightlight and Jack is such a delicious little mystery, and also makes me so sad. These two boys deserved better.

Then we throw in Pitch for fun, because Pitch is always fun, and he just makes the whole thing even more complicated or as Jack calls it, "unnatural". But he's not even the main villain. It's Christianity. JK. That said, the fic does explore the idea of well, how would a fairly backwater colony be able to explain how Jack survived or... the powers that's slowly revealing itself from within him. There's a particularly nasty boy (around Jack's age), who is an OC and I believe an exceptionally well placed one. The OC understood his role to play and he plays it fantastically. Everytime he shows up, I too feel scared and indignant and excited all at once.

Speaking of great OCs, shoutout to Jack's Da. His appearances are brief but the impact is maximized with each appearance. He has that sense of realism and whimsy baked into him that I could gush endlessly about.

Overall, just a pure delight to read. Will re-read again and again.

Zastruga:

Total Gen fic. And a classic in my opinion.

I started reading this when I was in college - note the publish date. Nevermind the update date. Because even after all these years, this story? Still good. Still very very good.

This takes the original RotG plot and makes it more epic, and also more sad. RotG was very joyful at its core, which this fic somehow manages to retain. But it's just under a layer of sad. It's not overwhelming angst though, just enough to really pinch your heart.

Also whereas the movie has a few epic battles before things go really wrong, this fic stretches that out into a proper war against Pitch (and Jack). That's right. Jack is with Pitch ala Mother Gothel/Judge Frollo style. Jack isn't locked up entirely. He's given just enough rope to hang himself with. Mind the Jack whump is what I'm saying. But also do note that Jack's character remains as steadfast and loyal as he ever was in RotG, so the whump just hits nicer since this Jack isn't so irrevocably changed.

I have re-read this before. I will re-read this again. Nevermind the incomplete status. There's plenty of chapters that simply give me great joy.

COMPLETE FICS

It's the Great Spirit Sleigh, Hiccup Haddock:

Gen fic, in that there's no pairing actively getting together. But remains faithful to the original canon's hinted love interests. So Hiccup has a big crush on Astrid and Jack leans towards Tooth. That said, the relationship between Hiccup and Jack is just plain adorable and also heart-wrenching. They care about each other. So Much.

Now this is just a good holiday cheer. It literally has the Hallmark movie template, which is the point really. You know, the whole "oh no, a holiday is ruined" followed by "clever and charming ways to fix the holiday". With Hiccup and Jack taking the starring roles.

If you know your Hallmark movies, then you know that the leads get together in the end. And they don't in this fic. But the amount of "Gosh do I care about you" is so good. It's a lot of hurt and a lot of comfort. And I am here for it.

Also, this fic was completed way before the HttyD 3 movie so it doesn't have a canon compliant ending. That may be a bonus for some of you.

Scary Monsters and Super Creeps:

Pre JackRabbit (Bunny/Jack). But honestly the pairing isn't the main focus, mostly that Jack and Bunny admit to liking each other (but not to each other). So their dynamic remains in the best bros category. The pairing mostly shows through the plot machinations.

So long story short, Pitch opens the Guardian-Verse and recruits the other versions of the Guardians - the corrupt versions. And it's good, action/adventure fun. There's some gore, so mind that. Because the corrupt versions are nasty little things that fight dirty. Which makes the action feel like there's legit stakes. Also makes for a quick read because you must know what happens next? Did they get out of this sticky situation? Are they going to be okay? That sort of thing.

[rainbowcarousels]

I'm going to need your thoughts Sephiroth for the character asks 🥹🖤3 <3 <3

Sexuality Headcanon: Gay. So gay. Did I mention he's gay? I mean I think there is some potential wiggle room with Aerith but that's because her balls are bigger than his.

Gender Headcanon: I think in practice from an outsider POV, more agender than anything else. Gender is not really something that he thinks of and interacts with other than his discomfort with how he gets portrayed in the media. That said, I think if you asked him, he would say CIS male because that's how he self identifies so I'll respect that and say CIS male.

A ship I have with said character: Have I mentioned Genseph to you lately? No? Then I must be dead. Like I love AGSZC, I do, and even more than that, I love AGS in general because I believe they balance each other out but I could happily ship Genesis/Sephiroth on it's own maerits, but I can't see Sephiroth/Angeal on it's own. It's not a notp or anything, it just doesn't work in terms of balance for me. Genesia and Sephiroth fire and ice in balance and it just works. They push and pull at each other, both literally and metaphorically, and what they say and what their body says are sometimes in total contrast which fascinates me. Genesis is quite literally the choatic colour for a monochromatic world and Sephiroth needs that chaos to find himself so he doesn't get the desire for human smores.

A BROTP I have with said character: It's a toss up. I would say Aerith because that same feral energy comes from her (family trait clearly) but they both also have this shared experience of being former Shinra lab kiddos and her enthusiasm is only rivalled by Zack's. I feel like Sephiroth always needs someone to just grab him and move instead of asking him to come along and Aerith does that. That said, professionally, I'm fond of him and Tseng interacting. Like they have so much to deal with between choatic red heads and Heidegger being a few fries short of a moogle meal at his job, let them bond.

A NOTP I have with said character: Vincent. I can't ship something where 'that's not how your mum used to do it' is a response that could be canonically correct.

A random headcanon: Understands so much more than he's given credit for. I love to write roboseph as much as the next person, but I feel like he leans into it in a very Captain Holt type way and it's become part of his sense of humour to fuck with people by pretending he doesn't understand something or that he's not understanding their meaning till they get annoyed and let him be or call him on it. This is helped along by being so deadpan that it's almost impossible to know when he's being serious. He is a study in microexpressions and few people understand them.

General Opinion over said character: I think one of the things that throws me about Sephiroth is when people can't see CC era Sephiroth being the same guy as OG/AC era Sephiroth, but for me, this is one of the things that drew me to him as a character. That he is someone who got broken into pieces and is picking them up, emulating people, trying to rebuild a sense of self but clinging onto this belief that he's special because he's always been special. Like this is a person who is horribly broken in a lot of ways and one day, I want to write AC era and give him an arc with that but I think my main opinion of him is that I love that he's got all of these facets of his character.

He is the kid looking for validation and family from TFS, he is still the awkward dude from CC, he is the person who lost everything and chose to just get a meteor and start over and he's someone who is afraid of losing whatever he has of himself left. Like he contains multitudes, he's a fascinating character made all the more fascinating by the more normal things about him.

[mostremote]

Top 3 reasons why people should be into eversnow? sell it pls as serious or as silly as you'd like

Snow and Katniss’ dynamic is absolutely fascinating, whether you view it as rivals/foils, paternal, or romantic (however one-sided).

Uniqueness. Truly I do not think I can name another relationship dynamic with an old man at the end of his life falling in love with a feral teenager who wants to kill him.

Contrasts. It’s absolutely fire and ice. Her burning hatred, his cool respect and affection. Old versus young, where he has such knowledge and experience and she has this blazing energy. Conservatism versus revolution (while I don’t think Collins does a great job building a complex political world, that means you can play with it a lot in fandom).

Ambiguity. It provides such rich material for fan interpretations because their dynamic is so strange and undefined. I do think it’s a bit of a weakness in the films to not lean more into Snow’s affection for Katniss, which is entirely born from Sutherland’s interpretation, most notably in cutting the scene where he’s staring at her ‘you burn with us’ speech with quiet joy. But Sutherland has been explicit about playing Snow’s feelings for Katniss as those of love, be that paternal or romantic. You can do so much with the power dynamics and love/hate between these two. They could make each other worse, they could make each other better. She brings out both the best and the worst in him, his gentleness and his affection but also his immense capacity for merciless violence. Meanwhile, he is both the source of her greatest pain & terror but also the person who arguably cares most about her.

[gust-jar-simulator]

Currently contemplating this as the start of a chapter fic, since a few people were really interested in my idea that the Four Sword feeds on life energy and might turn Four into a vampire.

Linked Universe, Four-centric, and the manga is canon in my heart.

~⛰️🔥🌊🌪️~

The rug for stuffing personal needs under had a limit, and Four had crossed it a week ago. He hadn’t, however, realized it quite yet.

It goes like this:

Within the first week of the intertemporal road trip from hell, the Four Sword stopped charging magic attacks. They were torn about it. On the one hand, didn’t it use their own magic, which got replenished with food and rest? It was a simple magic, a knight’s magic, but surely the sword couldn’t just lose a function. They bickered with themself (selves?) about it, in between fighting and walking and attempting to socialize like they weren’t a scrambled house of cards inside, but the Four Sword was still a sword. They could fight without charge attacks, and they wouldn’t be using its signature ability around a group of strangers.

They were crazy enough without outside commentary.

(They weren’t sure what would happen, if they split on another quest. What would they become this time?)

So they kept the worry as something to pick over, alongside the ever-present busy work of polishing shields and rewrapping hilts. Vio liked a puzzle, and it wouldn’t kill anyone. Either he solved it or he didn’t- there was too much going on to be worried about their rudimentary war-magic. They had a fire rod, a hammer. It could be put aside.

What couldn’t be put aside, roughly three weeks into things, was the way Blue started getting antsy.

Hey.

A slow, meditative flex of their fingers, a habit Blue had picked up to regulate himself- and it bled through so strong they-as-Four did it, rotating their wrist to hear a bracer creak.

Did we eat this morning?

Yes, mused back loose soil and dry leaves, disinterested. Wild made sausages.

Red’s presence popped into place, a scatter of sparks. Snack?

We’re on the move, Green murmured back, low and decisive. We should save resources. The body isn’t hungry, do you just need something to fidget with?

No. Something lurked under the word, and they-as-Four did a quick glance around, stepping further away from the edge of the road. Dirt in a field, perfectly fine, but something in their gut felt cold like bottomless drops from the edge of an ice shelf. The sun was shining, the other heroes were chatting, but it felt… odd. Like a painting. Something seen through glass. Are you sure we’re not hungry?

We can’t be, the skirl of a dust devil, gentle but exasperated. we haven’t done much more than usual, and we ate well. And we’d all feel it. Vio? Red?

I’m a little bored. I want to read, that’s all, and they all ignored the flicker of thoughts under thoughts, purple hair soft under fingers and a cool shoulder bumping theirs. Vio said he wanted to read a lot, and sometimes he even meant it.

Red always meant what he said, by contrast. I don’t think I need anything? I mean I want to split, and I want to try skipping backwards, and the sun feels really good- can we roll up our sleeves or something? More sun is always good, and it’s a pretty day- but I’m okay. He’d been busy the last few miles bouncing pun ideas with Green, in the name of bonding with the group.

Nodding their head, Green kept his eyes on the road and subtly arched a brow, letting Blue feel it. I just want to get where we’re going, wherever that is. I know we normally stop and check for Minish, but it’s honestly been the same thing day in and day out for weeks and I’m tired. And maybe, irrationally, if they threw themselves at the boring pattern of the divine plan it would finally cough up more clues. More progress. Anything other than the monotony. Green liked a good adventure, but so far the adventure was “some sort of black lizard makes portals”. He needed more. He needed something.

Blue didn’t answer, and Green felt himself frown as the other two paused.

“What?” Under their breath, a quick glance around to make sure no one looked back at them, pushing the words past teeth and tongue to carve them into sense. “I’m just-“

You’re not having fun. The inexorable grip of deep water. You love this kind of shit, we’re so far from home it’s insane, and you haven’t looked at a single cloud. Red’s acting like we’ve been inside for a month and wants our entire shirt off. Vio’s doing Vio shit. Their hand flexed again, slow and methodical and tense. I want to fight.

That’s not new? Fireplace crackling. You like fighting.

No. Listen. Black ice, storm water, but what made it more disturbing was that Blue sounded almost gentle. He wasn’t snapping, wasn’t pushing, very nearly holding their mental hands to make them pay attention, and Four’s heart was hummingbird-fast. I don’t need to… work shit out, I’m not any more pissy than usual, it’s- it’s like being hungry. I want to. Our blood’s too fucking calm. I need to be- alive, or something, need to crush a skull to fix mine, and it’s kind of fucking with me actually. Hooray, good on us for not being in danger 24/7, but I existed at home just fine without feeling like I need more. You get me?

We are, Vio pointed out, on a dangerous quest far from home. It’s likely anxiety.

Feels like a craving.

We’re used to stress, their earth parried, and without trouble we’re apparently borrowing some. We’ll find you something to fidget with, and volunteer to chop firewood tonight.

We’re all scared. A candle-flicker, bright and watchful. Do you guys wanna talk about it?

“I want,” Green muttered firmly, “to get a move on. We’re out in the open right now- I don’t want to open up our emotions and be interrupted by moblins. We can address it later.”

I guess…

They didn’t talk about it later.

[fantasyinvader]

I know a lot of people compare Houses to the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, specifically the Persona series because of the school setting. I'd add that the game making allusions to various real world religions through it's symbolism, as well as using the tarot, would further this. Not to mention, how some games give the story as breadcrumbs and expect the player to figure everything out from those. However, I don't feel that Houses is meant to invoke the Law/Chaos/Neutral alignments with it's routes because Law and Chaos are meant to be two sides of the same coin, invoking what Michael Moorcock intended when he created in his works before Dungeons and Dragons bastardized the concept, whereas neutral routes tend to go against the idea of coexistence to the point of being criticized as genocide routes.

But as I thought about this, I couldn't help but feel something. Edelgard embodies the WORST qualities of the three alignments.

With Law, Edelgard seeks to impose her will upon the people of Fodlan and is willing to go to horrific lengths under an “ends justify the means” mindset. The game accuses her of wanting to replace Sothis with herself, even to the point where she takes over the Church to spread her own messages. She'll talk about how she will protect those who support her but destroy those who oppose her or her ideals. Siding with Edelgard an act of blind faith, as from the beginning of the game we've seen evidence of her evil deeds. It also means ignoring Byleth's character and changing the story, us pushing our choices onto Byleth, who would otherwise side against Edelgard of their own free will.

But then you look at Chaos, which promises freedom. Except it's a social Darwinist form of freedom, where the strong oppress the weak. Chaos tends to try and make people join it of their own free will, but is not above manipulating you as well such as in Nocturne where Lucifer's manipulations will strip the Demi-fiend of his free will in the True Demon path. And despite all the talk about YHVH being a tyrant, Lucifer is the strongest demon of the Tyrant class linking to the fact that for all her talk of freedom, Edelgard's path is supposed to lead to tyranny and oppression as she imposes her social Darwinist beliefs on Fodlan. The fact that Edelgard invokes demonic imagery, specifically Baphomet, only serves as the icing on top.

At the end of the day, however, the two aren't that far apart from each other. Hell, angels will support social Darwinism in Nocturne because it provides them a means to look down upon others. This owes to Moorcock, where either side achieving absolute victory would spell the end of the world.

Then you have the Neutral routes, where you reject heaven and hell to create a path for humanity. We could see this as Edelgard taking out the Church before removing the Agarthans. But this means wiping out those who've helped you, meaning that humans can only achieve freedom from gods and demons through the help... of gods and demons who've they made to support them. It, and the implications of genocide against non-humans, make it more human supremacist than anything. But in other instances, it's framed as putting things back to the way they used to be which is what Edelgard says she's doing in the Japanese version. This is in contrast to Fire Emblem's themes of coexistence.

Edelgard embodies the worst of each alignment, and you can't help but feel it's meant to be a criticism of the system in the first place. Such an alignment system doesn't really work, as it narrows everything down to some extreme. It leads to either ideological or religious zealotry where every choice sucks various degrees of ass. It's hard to say that a SMT game has any real morality to them, aside from spin-offs like Persona or Digital Devil Saga, as not matter the route you perform questionable actions (play SMT2 as a traditional good guy to see what I mean). Despite this, player characters have been referred to as “messiahs,” even TDE Demi-fiend.

And I think that's the true message of Houses. It's against zealotry, blind faith and how that's used to justify atrocities. I'm going to point out a few things before continuing.

Edelgard's nickname is “El,” which is an ancient word or title referring to a god. At the end of Flower, the player is made to call her that if they choose her S support.

Building off of this, the devs said that part of the theme of Flower was having different beliefs and because of those beliefs mowing down anyone who stands in your way.

Conversely they identify Byleth's flag, the save icon of Silver Snow, as the game's Fire Emblem stating it reflects the belief others place in Byleth.

Byleth gains the powers of the Goddess Sothis, while Edelgard is accused of wanting to replace the Goddess with herself as she reshapes Fodlan to suit her ideals.

Ergo, Flower is about the player believing in Edelgard over Byleth (as Byleth's default choice is to fight against her), her taking over the role of the game's god figure. But to do this requires the player to ignore what they they don't wish to see, much like Edelgard herself does. It ignores what she was working with the people you fought all through-out White Clouds, providing them aid in addition to hiring an assassin with orders to kill her classmates. In addition, it involves looking the other way when Edelgard's claims are contradicted by the worldbuilding, when acts as a hypocrite, when innocents are hurt or killed as part of her plan or even the implications of endings unique to her route. Most of all, it means ignoring the growing pile of evidence that Edelgard is a liar who will say whatever she needs to in order to look like the hero.

In other words it takes blind faith in Edelgard, or wilful ignorance, in order to complete Flower. But then compare this to Rhea, Dimitri and Claude. How Rhea's belief in her mother caused her to ignore Fodlan's moral decline as she believed that when she revived her mother, Sothis would fix everything. Rhea, if she lives, gets her best ending when she realizes this failing and instead returns to , duties as Archbishop and the results are said to be miraculous. Dimitri's beliefs led him to killing those who hurt others, believing his duties were to the dead even if it meant he became a monster himself. He's saved by realizing his beliefs were wrong and his real duty is towards helping the living. Meanwhile, Claude's own ideals are hypocritical on his part until he puts aside his prejudice against the Church. Kinda hard to champion accepting the beliefs of others when you decide to destroy a religion you blame for Fodlan's problems, especially since Claude realizes just how wrong he was about the Church in his initial assessment.

You could make an argument that Rhea, Dimitri and Claude all start off as some form of zealot and their best development is to grow beyond that. Byleth's story is about seeing what Edelgard does and not turning a blind eye, seeing Edelgard's actions for what they really are, and doing the right thing regardless of how it makes them feel.

The various types of symbolism then become an extension of this. They symbols all point towards the same truth, regardless of their background. If anything, they're meant to show how universal this lesson is. That if you hold your beliefs to such a level that you're willing to reject reality (or in the case of some players, the game's script and authorial intent) for them, then those beliefs are a problem. The fact that Edelgard, when pressed, blames the people if her ideals don't make their lives better is meant to show how disconnected from reality she actually is, and with her demonic Hegemon form being presented as the personification of those ideals while Dimitri ends up with the messianic title of savior king, it doesn't take a genius to figure out whose side the game is actually on.

If Edelgard was meant to be a good guy, her fans wouldn't be telling others not to listen to the game's creators. Nor would they be telling people to read a fanfic to understand the characters, or trying to dismiss everything else the game says. Flower is a villain route, and that's okay. It is what it is, even with the translation issues messing it up somewhat. It doesn't want you to ignore the truth about Edelgard, it want you to see the truth.

[singswan-springswan]

Frozen II justifies Jelsa

okay I feel like I should explain.

First of all, the time period lines up nicely

I don’t think it’s ever explicitly stated what time the Frozen adventures take place, but given by the photograph joke at the end of the second movie, it’s set somewhere around the early 1800s.

Rise of the Guardians also never gives a date for when Jack died, but if it was 300 years before present day, that drops him roughly somewhere in the 1700s or in the colonial era. 

Putting these two together, it seems neat that they come into their spirit forms at relatively the same time, and conveniently Jack is first too.

you could play around with the idea of Jack not quite getting the hang of his duties yet by the time Elsa comes along, based on the inconsistency of seasons (especially winter) that is a motif throughout both Frozen films, even at the very end of the second one

Let’s talk about the wind!

Jack’s wind and Elsa’s wind have the same personality for all intents and purposes.

Both are fun-loving, well-meaning, playful, kind, and always willing to help.

Both are also incredibly fond of their goofy little snow spirits

okay short conversation because I think I’ve made my point 

Frozen II put a lot more emphasis on frost...? like boi was that just you trying to show off your artists or was that actually relevant?

The first movie really only stressed ice and snow as aspects of elsa’s power, but in the second movie, we start to see different things. we see less and less of the snow and ice; in fact, she only really busts those out when in stressful circumstances.

by contrast, she seems to default to frost more and more. everything she touches with her power is more or less laced with frost. she opens the mist around the forest with frost. her dress is covered in frost. she tames Nok and Bruni with frost.

also, in the very end of the second movie, when it’s supposedly winter in the forest, everything is frosted over. the trees, the rocks, the leaves, even the ice has frost on it.

either this is just Elsa discovering a new softer side of her power or. you know. we use this to justify the crackheads.

moving on!

The realm of the spirits is openly acknowledged and tangible to the audience, which is something vital to the story of Guardians

Though never directly mentioned in Guardians, there seems to be a vast number of magical forces throughout the world, relevant to important concepts in society (or nature) like holidays or virtues and stuff like that. The “spirits” featured in the movie mostly derive their power and essence from the belief that people put it them---regardless of whether or not people acknowledge their existence

there are spirits for lots of different little concepts floating around out there. We know at least that the Ground Hog is real because the Easter Bunny has beef with him or somethin. And I’m not sure how many others are “canon” but I think Mother Nature is around, along with plenty of nature spirits and other patrons of holidays. The main thing is that all of them are tied to human beliefs or practices.

In Frozen II, we’re presented with a very classic collection of nature spirits. Most everyone thinks of air, fire, water, and earth as being the fundamental elements of nature, so if we’re following the logic that the beliefs of people give them power then it would make sense that these four elements have powerful spirits to go with them. That Elsa happens to be their ring-leader is probably just a mildly forced convenient piece of writing, which provides her with a hotline to the balance of nature and the spirit realm both.

Things like the trolls would also make sense in the universe if they’re just a physical manifestation of nature’s magic and sentience

plus if there are magical beings just kinda drifting around the world then it seems perfectly reasonable for Jack and Elsa to meet one another---especially since she’s the bridge or however that’s supposed to work idk

Elsa isn’t exactly a winter spirit, per se, but she is a spirit by definition. She’s literally called the “fifth spirit” of nature or somethin. She’s still tangible and visible, because she was born human, but it’s very clear by the end of the second movie that’s she’s no longer quite... mortal... I wanna say. I’m going to headcanon that she’s immortal now. Otherwise she’ll have to be replaced when she dies and like that’s too much effort. I mean it’d make sense if she was “transformed” (to use Olaf’s word) into the fifth spirit. 

Both Jack and Elsa strike that very specific type of winter too. We can obviously tell that winter is her favorite season, and she thrives in the chilly north where it’s always cold at least partly. Her whole aesthetic is built on the promise of winter and i think that’s a cool idea. haha. On top of that, Jack never totally struck me as the heavy snowfall kind of dude; his version of winter always seemed like the brisk flurries you get at the very start of the season. They’re made for each other, your honor. it helps that Frozen II was set in late autumn. like if that’s not a blatant message of “winter is coming!” then what is amiright. They both exude a kind of winter in its youth: something on the precipice of permanence, delicate and lively and strong all at once. Their vibes might be different, but I feel like they share the same direction of the season, if you catch me.

Anyway listen my point is just that I want them to be friends at the very least. We’re all going to pretend the age gap doesn’t exist because they are both unalive for lack of a better term and Chris Pine voiced Jack despite having a very deep manly voice that definitely wasn’t suited for a literal child. I want Elsa to be able to see Jack even though no one else can because she’s the bridge between humanity and nature and I want them to bond over wintertime and I want them to get into snowball fights and to make patterns in the frost and to chase the wind around just for funsies. I want Jack to teach Elsa to fly, which they quickly find is something she does not excel at. I want her to show him his connection to the season and his responsibility to maintaining it because he may have a good heart but he’s got no respect for rules and deadlines. I want her to convince Ana that Jack is real, so that someone else can see him too (up until that point, Elsa was talking about him like he was just Some Guy she met so Ana was going to believe her but then Elsa dropped the whole “winter spirit” bombshell and Ana thought she finally cracked so it took some convincing in the end). I want them all to have game nights on fridays. I want Ana and Kristoff’s kids to grow up always having believed in Jack. I just want Jack to have a nice lil family okay :’) one that tolerates his pranks and mischief and I want Elsa to relax and have some carefree fun moments. I want her to laugh and have crazy, harmless adventures and do goofy things just for the sake of it.

I put way too much thought into this but I saw a KRIFFTON of parallels between these two characters when I watched Frozen II so like,,, y’all get to hear about how I feel you’re welcome

[seeingteacupsindragons]

What are your thoughts on the Yuumori lighthouse/ship at sea imagery, considering that Sherlock and Liam met on a literal ship. Also, considering the fact that the Noatic was probably based of the Titanic, which was supposed to be unsinkable, how do you think the way the ship imagery is used now reflects character progression?

Well, this post wasn't just a joke. I do think it's really interesting how the authors warped the way people normally view a fire/water contrast and turned it into something reaching out to each other and two parts of the same story and the same whole instead of oppositional forces.

Of course, they've been doing that with their entire characters and the entire story the entire time, so it makes sense they'd do it with William and Sherlock's elemental motifs.

As for going all the way back to The Noahtic, let's actually take it back just a touch further: William's introductory chapter ended in fire and his rebirth in flames like a little phoenix, but also because fire is so strongly associated with all parts of him.

And so when Sherlock is introduced, it's surrounded by water so wholly Liam couldn't escape it if he tried--that's sort of how cruise ships work. And Sherlock's first arc On His Own shouldering the narrative himself was characterized by an awful lot of rain. I mean, it's London, but we don't actually see tons of rain most of the time. We see Sherlock get soaked in A Study in 'S', and that's about it for rain.

(There's also some fun things about how in A Scandal in the British Empire, Adler got soaked to the bone so badly that Sherlock had to loan her dry clothing, but later we see Bond singed with ash from a fire in The Final Problem. Good stuff)

Anyway, as most motifs, what they mean in a story really depends on how an author wants to portray it. And Fire and Water are both so well-worn ones that there's a millions ways those could be taken. Fire is heat and warmth and life and rage and anger and comfort and passion and love and light and uncontrollability and danger and purification and destruction and rebirth and incineration, and William is...all of those things. Water is tumult and chaos and danger and endless, unknowable depths and relentlessness and life and safety and peace and clarity and understanding and purity and cleansing and soothing and rebirth and baptism, and...Sherlock is all of those things.

And if you note those long lists, there's a lot of overlap between the two despite how oppositional they seem. Fire can evaporate water. Water can extinguish flame.

But this is fire and water, and you wanted lighthouse and ship.

I think what it really did with this new image is taking William's raging fire and putting it to a specific purpose. It has a calling and a use and a need. It's a signal of safety and shore. And a ship is something fighting through the tumult of water while using it to its own advantage, something which brings a fire what it needs to sustain itself all alone.

Ships and lighthouses need each other.

But it's also yet another twist--if Sherlock is the darkness of sea and ship, than William is the light of fire and shore. Sherlock is the one who presented that idea--William has always said the opposite, but it puts William as Sherlock's light, too.

The Titanic, ironically enough, was destroyed by ice (and carelessness and various other things). Water, without the warmth of fire to keep it liquid. Perhaps that could have been what Sherlock became without the fire in his life, who knows.

But I just like how their elemental motifs keep on giving and are being made full use of as the characters themselves reinterpret what they mean to themselves and to each other. Those ideas mean what they need them to mean. And those ideas change as they change as characters.

I don't know if I properly answered your question. I feel like I went off on several tangents here. Feel free to try again if I fucked up.

[ilikelookingatthings]

Random thoughts on Frozen

So...its probably not a hot take at this point that Frozen has some issues the twist ending is shocking and emotional on the first viewing that you can forget about some issues...but on rewatches some aspects spring to mind.

Why the stone trolls? They cause the issue by traumatizing elsa further with their lightshow and advice that resulted in elsa isolating herself and the parents stuck between following the advice about control and sensing they are going wrong somewhere. Even more they erase Anna’s memory  of the incident but its never brought up if Anna remembers properly or not and she never confront them about it.

They also sing a dity shipping christoff and Anna which(while I ship it) I was confused by because Anna was literally dying and they were wasting time. They somehow shipped it despite Anna being a princess. They ignore that Anna said she already had a fiance. and Chistoff and Anna hadn’t really spent anytime together...I’m still confused when christoff is suppoused to have fallen for her?

He was annoyed but went along escorting her through the mountain because she helped buy him supplies and offered a big reward...but he roasted her about her apparently falling for and wanting to get married to a guy she met that day. His sleigh almost got caught on fire and fell off a cliff. He saw her fail at climbing a ledge which could be endearing and she stopped him from telling the olaf that he would melt...but she then kept him outside so he never got to see the ice castle. She also insulted the snowman and they almost got killed. ANY decent human being would be worried about someone almost dying..and she was still focused on that kiss with Han’s to save her life...so I am very confused when he fell for her?

Like...the trolls shipped them...but it felt like they would hsip him with anything with a pulse at this point and they roasted him and ignored what he was saying during the majority of it.

Like...I know it wasn’t true love or anything in the end anyway...but I’m confused when they are suppoused to fall for eachother? especially when they hyped him up as an alternative to save her life. Quest for Camelot had better action in showing why they could fall for eachother when the strongest shippers seemd to be ignoring the direness of the plot or that he thought she had a proper fiance from the begining.

Its even more confusing because they had a point that Christoff was a boy who ended up seeing Elsa and Anna taken to the trolls and seeing her memory wiped and Elsa’s powers and the advice given by the trolls....why wasn’t that brought up as a connection to both adress that aspect of why Anna was so in the dark on Elsa since Elsa was still refusing to properly talk..especially when he was being used as a bridge to help validate how Elsa was feeling(about Anna getting engaged to someone in a day is ridiculous) and he saw the beauty and wonder of Elsa’s powers in the castle immediately that he teared up. He also seemed to be chill with being isolated and alone and how there can be a sense of freedom in it which is similar to how Elsa felt which could have explored Anna’s aspect of reaching for connections more in contrast.

It also felt weird that he literally brought Anna in with her clearly out of it but no one invited him inside to stay? He was also skeptical on the strength of feelings after only a day so shouldn’t he have stayed incase it didn’t work?

Another thing....it kindof shows that Han’s wasn’t meant to be evil?

lots of people keep telling me the point is we didn’t suspect at all and that he showed his true colors of being power hungry...which I GET. the twist and the acting was done VERY well.

But it also feels odd because it doesn;t feel like he planned any of it?

He met Anna outside the castle with no way to know she was Anna the princess and he clearly showed a soft interest in her that the HORSE clearly noticed on him...even after Anna wasn’t watching him...so it was for us to see...which made his feelings feel sincere...so how was he suppoused to have planned from the begining any evil plots?

I mean yeah in the song we know he wanted his own place...but that not exactly evil? Anna was striving to connect with Han’s because she didn’t want to be alone anymore and she wanted a excuse to help keep the isolation from creeping back in since ELsa was deteremined they would close their doors again after the coorination. So him being drawn to Anna not just because she is cute but because if he marrys here he can leave home makes sense? Especially for a royal where political marriages can be a thing.

Any plans to kill Elsa or steal power doesn’t feel like they were there since just marrying Anna would give him a place anyway from his family. 

He also had no way to know Elsa had powers or that Elsa would freak out THAT much from the proposal. It was also Weaselton who hyped up the issues with Elsa and was trying to provoke going after her in a bad way. He also had no way to know Anna would leave him to take care fo things in the city while Anna went off to go after Elsa...he wasn’t even married or officially engaged at that point to her so if she got hurt or something happens to her wouldn’t that it worse for him?

He did go with Weasonton and those guards when no message from Anna  came and the snow kept going...but he also made it clear they weren’t to hurt Elsa were it was Weasonton to stirred up the attack on Elsa. Elsa was also op on powers......I’ve been told him knocking into the guard was deliberate to hit the chandeller to knock her out...but that was in a split second and how do you plan to knock someone out?  That could have killed her? if his plan was to kill her anyway then why save her?

I mean...maybe saving her could have been a plan to get on her good side so she’d let him and Anna get engaged or get married.

But its not like he knew or planned for Anna to get hit in the heart. People blame Han’s for Anna almost dying(which he did abandon her in that room) but it was Elsa’s powers that were going to kill her. its on him for telling Elsa about it when Anna wasn’t dead yet but it was still the city and weasonton who were planning to kill Elsa first. 

It was evil of him to lie to Elsa Anna was dead...but Elsa was still alarmed that she hit Anna in the heart anyways and that part wasn’t a lie. and Elsa still didn’t know how to turn off her powers.

I’m just.....I know evil Han’s was needed so that Elsa could fall into despair quicker and for Anna to save Elsa and do the act of true love. After all actually commnicating isn’t Elsa’s strong point.....

but.....I’m kindof curious about...was evil han’s REALLY nessacary? the twist was cool for a bit...but it feels weird because he both couldn’t plan a majority of what was happening (at best taking advantage of moments but planning feels like a stretch) and how it felt like he was genuinely interested in Anna at the begining and that it felt like he was trying to help Elsa when others were strait up trying to kill her...yes she got locked up...but Elsa on her own had run away and fought instead of discussing the issue of the ETERNAL WINTER. Where she was even willing to just drive Anna out even though that wasn’t going to fix the issue. 

and everyone else was trigger happy around Elsa...so putting her in chains to give the illusion she wasn’t a threat would calm everone else from trying to kill Elsa on sight and give a opportunity to talk.

As mucha s evil Han is a good lesson how people can take advantage and you can;t just trust someone who seems nice when you don’t really know them yet.....

Isn’t the implication that what Anna and Han’s have isn’t true love? even if they genuinely liked eachother(or seem like they do) they literally just met earlier. They also made a point that part of Anna’s motive was wanting someone and to not be alone and wanted a excuse not to cut off the outside like Elsa was plannning on doing again...now Anna definitly seemed to LIKE Han.

But its also clear they don’t know eachother that well yet.

SO even if Hans did genuinely like Anna back...isn;t the implication that the kiss wouldn’t have worked?

What would Anna have done if Han’s did kiss her...genuinely wanting to save her and seemed to like her...but it didn’t work?

Why did Han’s have to be evil as the reason for why Han’s kiss wouldn’t work so he wouldn’t even try?

Wouldn’t the plot issue still work if Han’s and Anna genuinely kiss but it didn’t work? like thy like eachother or they THINK they do but they literally just met so of COURSE the love isn’t true love strong?

If Han’s was genuinely distraunt by her dying and wanting to save her but somehow the kiss wasn’t enough? wouldn’t that still make her question her ‘true love’ reasoning that she used to dismiss elsa’s point earlier and reinforce the point christoff made about her not knowing Han’s well yet?

I mean yeah the kiss not working might point to it not being TRUE love or a ACT of TRUE LOVE but wouldn’t it give her more pause to reflect if its not like Han’s is a bad guy or anything or that there is no affection?

Like if it pointed that Elsa is right that getting married that quickly is ridiculous but Anna was also right that Han’s wasn’t a bad guy or anything like that.

like what would Anna do? think maybe Han’s doesn’t love her enough? or maybe the isse is her own feelings(since apparently Anna and Christoff are suppoused to have hit it off).

I mean Han’s could strill bring up maybe his more selfish reasons for wanting to get married so fast which is because he doesn’t want to go home again but if he doesn’t go evil about it then wouldn’t it still work? just like Anna convincing herself that she loved him despite the obvious they don’t know each other that well.

Wouldn’t that just point out that love is developed through time even if you click?

I mean....Anna could still do the quick marriage if she didn’t have a backup plan to live since she had been banking on this since Han’s at least seemed to have protected her sister...but couldn’t he have brought up that Elsa was there so maybe she could fix it? or while anna is being taken care of but now they don’t know what to do since the kiss didn’t work....the info could still get to Elsa?

Elsa’s go to at this point is to run away adn her worst fear happened...even without Han’s saying Anna is already dead wouldn’t it still alarm Elsa? I mean we wouldn’t have the dramatic save of Anna blocking a sword before it reaches Elsa in the same way probably....but wouldnt she still have a influx of emotions hearing Anna was dying? 

couldn’t weasonton or the other frightened people about the eternal winter be able to attack Elsa instead? even more if Elsa is frusterated even more because Else doesn’t know how to reverse the powers and can;t save her sister? couldn;t elsa bring up the rock trolls? like think to mind wipe Anna again? or think that Anna doesn;t deserve to be around her as a terrible sister since Elsa was self isolating due to her fear of hurting anna (or others again).

Elsa was pretty much despairing right? couldn’t it have her think maybe if she was killed maybe it could save anna or reverse the powers? so she could go out to be attacked by the mob? or lash out her emotions again sinceshe feels helpless? just for Anna to either come again to save her or talk her through it?

or Elsa could go to Anna? how would Elsa react if Han’s brought up how the kiss didn;t work? like would he bring up maybe Elsa was right to not want them to get married if it turned out he couldn’t save Anna when it mattered? would that hurt Elsa more because can Elsa judge when she loves Anna but ended uo hurting her the way she did as well?

I’m just saying....as much as the twist was fun.....it did feel like it gave Anna and Elsa a more easy way out from talking through the problems/communicating and it felt like Han’s didn’t have to be evil to make it work.

I mean...the red herrings o =f teh true loves I know have a point...

but malificent(the live action) did the twist already even before hand.

I also feel like it would make Weasolton have more impact(since what was the POINT).

I mean...it feels like they felt like they had to make Han’s evil so he couldn’t be a viable love interest for either of them which can be refreshing since you don’t need a man.

but on the other hand I think if they had made it so Han’s wasn’t actually a bad guy it would have a better impact on the guys?

like the movie stated that your options are an (handome) isolated dude who pees in the woods, eats reigndeer spit cover carrots, who likes money a bit too much, and who’s adopted family calls him a fixer upper which feels like it contradics his judgment about how you can’t fall for someone that quickly. or can;t even cut off a song him being shipped with you when he brought you there cuz your life is indanger that can disregard hpw you might have a previous relationship.

or a handsome guy who tuns out to be a crazy person who never liked you and planned to kill you and your sister to take over your kingdom(or just a manipulator who will take advantage of how your isolated to get you attached to them quickly).

which still feels a bit...icky I guess?

I mean the focus is of course on the sisters and their relationship so the guys don;t have to have that much spot light....but like....in most disney movies the guys don;t get that developed anyway?

like I know disney was trying to correct some of the disney views on love and true love and all that.....but theres nothing WRONG with love or wanting love. why not just show Chirstoff and Hans  as still good guys even if they not perfect?

Especially when there are sets ups in both of the dudes that could deepen the dynamics of Anna and Elsa as people by comparing and contrasting with what Han’s and Christoff bring to the table. I mean Christoff I think was great but the fixerupper song talked at me and just brought to light flaws instead of letting the character SHOW us aspects of the character and why that pairing works. 

Heck maybe explore at bit of the parent issues with Han and Elsa? I mean the whole reason the coorination was the parents dying! and Anna just found out her sister had secert powers and why her sister was so distant to some degree while Elsa finally had it out in the open and had her let it do aspect to contrast what her parents told her...but also seeing her worst fear that Anna was almost killed happen again.

Also the country strait up was resenting Elsa and thinking of her as some witch and the eternal cold? Why was that not adressed more? Weasolton definitly stoked the fire but it doesn’t change Elsa’s own people reacted like that. So wouldn’t it make more sense of Anna had some speech or even elsa had one to the city/country?

Also....Why didn’t Elsa have a worst reaction to Olaf...he’s nostalgic but he was also the snowman they made the day Anna almost died the first time?

I’m just saying I kind of wish ana and Elsa talked more and we got to see Anna actually fully understand Elsa’s fear.

[crowtrobotx]

🍧 💤📖  for Karl and

👊 🍩 ☀️ for Lottie!

Thank you!! Obviously Karl is NOT my OC so I’ll just be answering his section as personal headcanons. (This is Tumblr and I have to state the obvious lest I receive deranged anon hate from a complete strangers lol)

Karl:

🍧 SHAVED ICE - do they still have any objects from their childhood? what significance does it have to them? what would their reaction be if they lost it?

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but Neil once joked about that teddy bear you find in the Village being his. I know it was meant to be humorous but I like to think he actually does have one stashed away somewhere. He’s not really sure if it’s from his real mom or real dad, or if it’s something he was given in the Village, but he can’t bring himself to toss it. In some ways, it’s proof that someone cared at some point. Probably.

If he lost it, I think he’d play it off like it wasn’t a big deal, while silently launching a search party to figure out where it went. Mr. Snuffles needs to come home. 😡

💤 SLEEPING - do they fall asleep easily? what helps them sleep?

I subscribe to the common fanon that he does not sleep very well at all. He’s too caught up in his work and his paranoia to let his guard down long enough to really get adequate Z’s, but when he does finally collapse…. Hoo boy. Dead to the world. If he has a partner, they are going to have to deal with his human octopus ass glomming onto them all night, too. Fuck you if you have to pee.

A friend or SO would definitely help him rest easier - but until that hard earned trust is there, I think our dumpster fire of a man would probably knock himself out with alcohol or work himself to the point of total exhaustion to get to the point where he could actually sleep for longer than a few minutes.

📖 OPEN BOOK - do they like reading? what's their favourite genre?

I think he does like reading! He’s very smart - he’s an engineer, for goodness sake - so at the very least, as long as it applies to his interests, I can see him being a big reader. He probably has a lot of Dad Books™️ by which I mean a disturbing amount of content on both World Wars as well as a manual for every possible machine, appliance and home improvement project you could think of.

Side note, I also see him as the dude who has the newspaper open every morning and you can just hear him occasionally muttering about ~manly~ things like the Packers’s Sunday performance and chuckling at this week’s Garfield. (If you call him out on it he WILL deny it)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lottie:

👊 PUNCH - are they quick to violence?

Very lmao.

As I’ve said, she is NOT cruel - she wouldn’t just beat your ass for yucks - but she’s not great at dealing with conflict/negative emotions without immediately throwing hands. She will try to brute force her way to whatever she wants more often than not - and why shouldn’t she? She’s got lil Emperor Palpatine lightning powers and they’re sick as hell. Might as well use them!

🍩 DONUT - favourite sweet treat?

Okay so. Lottie is a sugar demon. Like, probably pours extra sugar on top of her Frosted Flakes type shit.

That being said, I frequently imagine her as the type of person who always has a sucker/lollipop on hand. Always gnawing on the stick long after it’s gone, too. Bonus points if it’s one of those extra large rainbow swirly lollipops - I like any extra girly/childish imagery that contrasts with her potty mouth. I think her favorite flavor is strawberry for no other reason than it’s my favorite and I’m driving this bus lol.

☀️ SUN - are they a morning person? what is the first thing they do in the morning?

Oh god, no. Disaster child. Swamp girl. Emerges from the bedroom at 3pm looking completely lost. The most staticky hair you’ve ever seen. Sleep shirt that hasn’t been washed once since purchase.

I think the first thing she does upon actually getting up is stagger helplessly into the kitchen and clumsily feel around for her hot bean juice (as a teen/adult). When she’s younger, it’s probably similar - except she’s looking for the damn hot choccy that Papa keeps putting just out of reach.

[jonquildove]

starkmatriarch:

“No…his grace has many flaws, and many which he himself would claim to, but he would never be so cruel….” At least Catelyn prayed he would not, but Robert had changed since his youth. He had once been strong and handsome, leading the rebellion. She had seen it upon his arrival in Winterfell, he drinking a lot into idleness, and it was all the more clear now they were in the capital. The throne had changed him, and the crown made him more short of temper than he had ever been. She feared Ned knew only the boy he had been and not the man he now was. “Try not to think on it too much, my girl; it is a long time past” Though Catelyn’s throat had gone dry at the memory of Brandon’s death; how strange that even now it could effect her so. She had loved him, and his reckless wild nature. She wishing she could have been there, and killed Aerys with her bare bloody hands. She imagined it was no less painful for Ned, who had lost so much more during that dark and troubling time. “We have a Godwood in Riverrun, Lysa and I would play in it often with Petyr and Edmure, and so it was not so strange to pray in the Sept at Winterfell…it was strange to pray in a place which was absent of a Septon…and stranger still to pray in a place where the very stone might be covered in ice. It was a great many years before I became used to the cold and now…” She glanced around the warm, sunny capital, “I find I had forgotten what it is to feel the sun’s true heat” In truth, it felt a little too hot, for the capital was further south than Riverrun and the sun bore down upon it’s people with almost callous abandon. “Florian and Jonquil’s love indeed? That is quite the claim, and you have know the prince such a short time..”

“I would surely agree…!” The King could be quite brash and obnoxiously loud, especially when drunk, but she highly doubted he would entertain the idea of such vile brutal punishment like death by wildfire. It had been concocted by pyromancers, maesters whom developed interest in bright green fire. She nods, taking her mother’s advice to heart, although she still feels some concern. It didn’t seem like something that could be forgotten about, not completely. “But could you not have requested for a Septon to come to the sept?” “It is a great contrast to the snows in Winterfell, yes, but I am enjoying the sun.” She wanted to make use as much of the long summer as she could, before the hard winters came, ones that she heard would far surpass the coldness that she was used to in Winterfell. “I know, Mother, but…I cannot explain it. It’s like, there is a connection between us.” The story was about a fool and a princess who fell in love. It was truly good fortune that her arranged marriage was going to be with someone whom she cherished, with all her heart. She knew that he must have felt the same from when they first locked eyes with each other & had their first conversation.

[gunkreads]

I really like to use it as a way to illustrate how tiring it is to read a book. Something with an overall low FTPB isn't draining at all; something with an overly high FTPB can be exhausting to read. Things like A Song of Ice and Fire are on the high end; things like the Earthsea books are on the low end.

The whole idea is just a play on the phrase "it's just one fucking thing after another". Any time you feel like a character could reasonably say that, the FTPB has just gone up.

There are two specific interesting scenarios with it, in my opinion, which occur when either the Fucking or the Things is exceptionally higher than the other. "Fucking", obviously, is a measure of intensity, and "Things" is a measure of quantity.

The Locked Tomb is high on Fucking and low on Things. Not a whole lot happens, strictly speaking, but everything that DOES happen is world-shaking. This manifests as lots of buildup to huge gut-punch events.

Wheel of Time is low on Fucking and high on Things. Insane numbers of significant events happen in each book, but the average significance of each event is fairly low. This manifests as lots of small events that cohere into a larger arc, which as a whole doesn't feel like an individual "event", or Thing.

Contrast these with something like the Salvagers trilogy (which, I know, nobody else has read), which has an off-the-wall FTPB. There are Things every 20 goddamn pages and boy are they all Fucking. It makes it emotionally exhausting to read those books. You're constantly being drained from having strong reactions to things.

Crucially, this is not confined to action. This could be used to describe any event, conversation, quote, discovery, etc.

As a fun blog callback, The Locked Tomb has an interestingly high FTPB (Fucking Things Per Book) level. The actual QUANTITY of Fucking Things is low, but the DEGREE of Fucking Thing that each Fucking Thing is is so damn high that it evens it out.

Compared to more action-heavy series I've read, like Red Rising or Salvagers, which have high FTPBs because of both quantity and degree, Locked Tomb manages to match their overall FTPB by having the Things be REALLY Fucking. These are the Fuckingest Things you've ever seen.

A regular, normal, real person would call this "pacing", but I'd resent that label.

[twstddream]

Hello, I want to theorize on Ace’s unique magic. Translations done by @twstarchives

Deuce, Epel, and Rook all have hints to their Unique Magic in their max lvl lines. Epel saying he feels he could put anyone to sleep, which is his Unique Magic exactly. Rook says there is beauty in the world that can't be seen unless you have mastered a certain art. Deuce’s is a bit vague, but it kind of connects in my mind?

Max Lv Up Deuce “I’ve never had anyone join me for intensive training as persistently as you have. I feel like I’ve been steadily making progress ever since I met you.” 

 And his Unique Magic is steadily building up and absorbing surrounding magic to fire back with.

---

Max Lv Up Rook “There exists beauty that can’t be seen unless you’ve mastered an art. Très bien! I’ve been shown another new world thanks to you.”

Rook’s UM is “I See You” which allows him to pin point the location of anyone/anything he has marked with his magic.

---

Max Lv Up Epel “I feel a strong power rising in me, like an ice-cold poison. It feels like I could put anyone to sleep... maybe?”

Epel can create magic glass coffins that can act as both an offensive and defensive spell, whatever is captured in the coffin being put into a deep sleep.

---

So I want to take a look at Ace's max lvl lines and see if I can figure anything out.

Max Lv Up Ace “This feels incredible. Now that I’ve got this, it’ll probably be a lot easier for me to back up a certain someone who can’t use magic.”

I think Ace will be able to temporarily lend someone his magic. Because his line is the only of the entirety of the cast that mentions helping you and not you helping them. He’s also the only one to mention your lack of magic, that might just be him teasing you, but I think it could be the hint for his unique magic. And he says it'll be easier to back someone up, so his Unique Magic might be a support/defensive magic, to contrast Deuce's offensive magic.

The only things I could come up with are, as I said previously, 

1. Him lending you his magic for a short while. Perhaps just his special wind magic, or the entirety of his magic. Whether it’s entirely transferring it to you for a short while, leaving him unable to use magic until it’s returned. Or it’s a duo thing. Just, surprise! You have magic now, too!

2. I love the time loop theory, but I don’t think it’s entirely plausible, so here’s the crack theory that his magic is rewinding time to back you up from whatever he’s rewinding time from. Either to the beginning of the game, or like, 10 seconds in the past.

3. His Unique Magic could be summoning a magic card soldier. It can act as both a (living) shield, and an offensive unit. It’s a separate entity that Ace can command, but once it sustains enough damage it disappears or something. (Akin to Weiss from RWBY and her summoning glyphs.)

To add onto this idea, maybe summoning the card soldier is similar to an overblot phantom. When he uses his UM it can release the built-up blot and get rid of it via the card soldier

-

I think #3 is most likely, since it matches with his interest in magic tricks. It includes the card, and can be used to trick the opposing force (separate entity that acts independently, but under the orders of Ace, like a phantom)

EDIT: My friend is super smart and said “...his unique magic being able to quite literally "back you up" and reverse time a little bit. Pretty cool idea, nice play on the time loop theory and nice play on words” THEY ARE A GENIUS AND THEY DON’T EVEN PLAY THE GAME HOW ARE THEY SO TALENTED????

That’s all I have for now, please let me know what you think! Thank you for reading this far :)

[kpop-dungeon-dark]

The Experiment. (Dom!Sehun x You)

•TRIGGER WARNING•

Warning(s): Con-Noncon (you consent to the act for the sake of play), dacryphilia, choking, anal, hair pulling, bondage, fear kink, gagging, slapping, pretend hate sex, puppy kink, orgasm denial, degradation and humiliation. Browse at your own risk.

Y/n gulped as she walked hand-in-hand with her older, much bigger boyfriend and dom, Sehun. A couple of 7 months now, they had soon realised after a few weeks of going out that both of them liked things on the… rougher side.

Today, they were going to try… something, after very careful planning and discussion.

Sehun knew he had to be the responsible one in the relationship always. And so during experiments as well as 'serious' things he didn't play around or let Y/n shy away, sitting her down and planning everything out.

He didn't ever want to hurt her. Not even accidentally.

The couple came to a halt when they reached the trailer placed in the middle of the jungle, Sehun turning to the girl and pushing her closer by the back of her neck before touching his lips to her forehead.

"I love you."

"I love you too… sir." A timid whisper followed the manly voice, her legs in a complete contrast to her scared voice, thighs squeezing against one another to ease the tension between them.

Oh. Her panties were already soaked.

"You know your safe words, pup." The key turned in the lock and Sehun was in character by the time the door to the trailer slowly opened inwards, his grip hardening on the back of her neck as he roughly hauled her in, stepping inside before hitting the lights as she started to whine and struggle.

"Get in here you little whore!" He was amazed by how fast her tears busted out, as if on cue. "Pathetic! Thinking you can fight against your owner! What a bad dog!" Y/n loved the insults as well as the rough grip he had on her hair, moving her before going to close the door. "You, little pup, need lots of training-!"

The man's words were cut short when she grabbed a vase that had been put intentionally there before hitting his arm hard enough with it that his grip on her loosened, aiding the girl in slipping away through the still ajar door.

"I WILL NEVER SLEEP WITH A SICK AND DIRTY MAN LIKE YOU!" The girl shrieked, her bad acting looking like one out of those porn videos as she rushed away from him, Sehun following soon after grunting and cussing. "HELP! SOMEBODY HELP!"

They knew nobody would come as no one could hear them. This was in the middle of nowhere. They knew it. They had planned it. For weeks.

But something about blindly running in the dark followed by a man so strong and of Sehun's kind, made adrenaline rush through Y/n's veins, her core just getting needier and needier. It was a chilly night. But the fire glowing hotter and hotter deep within her ovaries was providing her enough warm to keep running as tears blurred her vision.

This felt so real. So dangerous. So vicious. Cruel. Terrifying, even.

And she loved it.

The thoughts of what was going to follow this made her knees weak, causing them to buckle up as she went tumbling down against the dead leaves, making her groan as she landed on her chest, wanting to be pounded from behind right there.

"Oh no! Oh no!" She cried harder, sounding more aroused with each word, trying to 'weakly' crawl away as Sehun approached her from behind, clicking his tongue which made her struggle harder. "OH NO SOMEONE HELP ME PLEASE!"

"Absolutely pathetic" clicking his tongue, the man effortlessly grabbed her ankle, dragging her against the leaves as she squawked and drooled humiliatingly, trying to 'break free' from her 'captor' as he dragged her back to the trailer. "You could have at least tried to run away, tsk. But you're really eager, huh?" The man didn't know if he was in character or speaking in general.

Because his slut of a cumsock was always ready to be fucked by him.

In the most vile of ways.

"OH NO! LEAVE ME! LEAVE ME YOU VILE DIRTY MAN!" Her heart was thumping in her ears as she struggled to act, going a little wordless from the excitement of what was to come, almost stopping completely when he threw her over his shoulder and entered the trailer before locking it shut and walking to the bed, throwing her on it. "OH GOD! OH PLEASE NO!"

"Hold still!" Slapping one of her breasts harshly, Sehun felt himself slipping deeper into his dominant headspace, in which he wasn't so tolerable to any sort of fussing, tearing her skimpy little outfit off. "Sure you want me to let you go huh slut?" Now hitting her cheek, the male said in a stern voice.

"Because from the hooker shit you wear it appears you want anything with a cock real or fake to fuck all of your pathetic little nasty holes" when she started to cry harder and thrash around, the man grunted and pulled-tore her panties off, taking a quick sniff before pushing them in her mouth, the girl's sensitive tongue picking up the salty taste almost instantly.

"Disgusting little whore lying to my face!" Grabbing a handful of hair from the back of her head, the man pulled her head back to have her look up at him before he slapped her again. "When you are practically dripping! Such a nasty little dog I have here!" Another slap on the same cheek before he let go of her hair and slapped her other cheek with his now free hand, pinching and pulling at her now reddening, tear stained cheeks.

Y/n's struggling died down a bit as her pussy pulsated harder, ovaries feeling like they were flipping in satisfaction from the cruel slaps, pupils dilating.

Sehun chuckled as his thumb grazed over her wet lips, own tongue running over his as he stepped on her feet to restrict movement. He loved to make a mess of that pretty face, inserting his thumbs in either sides of her mouth now before pulling at them, index fingers pushing her top lip out of the way to humiliatingly reveal her teeth and gums like she was some lab rat.

"You've been a bad little dog for Master, pup. And you know what happens to bad little dogs?" He stretched her mouth even more, eyes cold as ice as he felt his stiff cock harden now. "Such a pretty sleeve for Master's cock." He whispered under his breath, admiring her stretched open mouth.

Before her lust clouded mind could even decipher what was happening, Sehun had already pulled her over the bed, placing her face first against the mattress before hurriedly locking her hands in place against the headboard with handcuffs he had pulled out of his pockets, lips brushing the shell of the girl's ear as his breath fanned her skin.

"They are taught a lesson they will remember for a lifetime."

A shiver ran down her spine as she shuddered, crying even harder and loving the intensity of it all. He could be so sweet and kind but also so cold and rough. So contrasting but so good.

"Hnnngg~" she couldn't help but grind her ass against his abdomen as the man was hurriedly stripping himself of his clothes, making him chuckle as he slapped her mildly bruised ass, causing the smaller body to jump in defense.

"You sure you don't want this?" Pumping his cock, Sehun grinned as he rubbed his length before Y/n's ass cheeks, landing a slap on one before squeezing it hard and pulling at it, pushing it away from the other one. "Because it looks like you do~" a surrendered nod came from the girl, causing him to chuckle.

It was no news that the girl wasn't much of a fighter against him, always melting into her Master's control.

But now was the time of the promised surprise Sehun had told her of. The twist.

Fishing the bottle of lube out of the pocket of his discarded jacket, the male easily opened it with one hand and squeezed it hard, aiming for the tiny little fairly unused hole that would always have her thrash and whine if touched.

And it always made Sehun go for it even more.

A loud muffled whine erupted from the girl as realisation dawned upon her. Fuck. He was about to give her some good old anal that always had her penguin walking for days.

Oh no!

Y/n wanted- needed stimulation in her aching pussy and she needed it now!

Sehun, on the other hand was enjoying the now genuine struggle, humming to himself a devilishly sweet tone whilst dripping thick drops of the liquid on his cock now, the thick tip already pushing against the tiny hole now.

Readying it for the deal was one thing, but forcing it to open as it desperately tried to reject his cock and push it out was on a whole different level.

"It never manages to amuse me how you think fucktoys like you have a choice against-" biting his lip, Sehun enjoyed the feeling of her warm and tight ring of muscles encased his fat tip, hands carelessly discarding the almost empty lube. "-their… fuck-" The male grunted as he struggled to fit his impressively huge cock up her tiny ass, both hands squeezing her bruising ass before separating the cheeks to help it open up, hips slowly pushing deeper and deeper as Y/n's mouth formed an 'O', fresh tears escaping her eyes as her whole felt as though it were on fire.

But hell…

It burnt so good.

He always made it hurt so good.

"... against their Masters" Sehun was panting by the time he was able to finish his sentence, halting midway before pulling outwards to drill the entry a bit wider before moving his whole cock in, the upper half of Y/n's body going limp against the bed as she whimpered and moaned to the pain, the lower half raised in the air as it was being thoroughly invaded.

"Fuck! Such a tight little dog!" The male grunted as he felt his hips slowly easing up because of the ring of muscles slowly getting used to his cock, not many loud sounds coming from the girl.

"Come here!" Grabbing her neck, Sehun made her sit up straighter on her knees, causing her ass to slide back on his cock as she whined loudly, drool dripping down her chin as her eyes rolled to the back of her head, making Sehun thrust harder as he watched her from the mirror he had installed right above the headboard to watch her in such positions, other hand squeezing and pinching her sensitive and hard nipples.

"Look at yourself, little pup. Look up!" Pulling at her hair from behind until she was looking at him through the mirror with her lust clouded and tear filled eyes, Sehun sped up mercilessly faster, trying to fit his big balls in the hole too. "This is what you are, just a pathetic little cocksock. This is what delusional little fucktoys like yourself-" slapping one of her cheeks he humiliating pushed her nose back, making her blush even harder in embarrassment.

"-get for thinking they can whine about things. Tch. You should be grateful for whatever I give you. Such a bratty pet I have." Her eyebrows were furrowed in pain and concentration as she felt her tits fly back and forth humiliatingly fast due to the powerful thrysts, this sight alone enough to make her cum.

This mirror was such an embarrassment.

Sehun's body draped over Y/n's back as he chased his orgasm, placing his lips against her neck after pushing her hair out of the way, kissing and licking at the skin before sucking at it, one hand choking it and cutting her air supply as the other one trailed down south.

"Tell me when you're close by nodding." Was a much gentle and soft sound as compared to the loud sound of flesh slapping against flesh as his fingers creeped down and between the girl's wet and squishy pussy lips, making her close close in sweet pleasure.

Oh, good heavens. Finally.

What the poor girl found out soon after was that whenever she'd near her orgasm and nod hazily to let him know, Sehun would devilishly grin in the mirror and stop right away, waiting until the build up was gone before starting the torture all over again, an expert at holding back his own.

Why? Just because he simply could.

It was only a good while after that he painted her walls white with his seed and allowed her to cum, removing the torn underwear from her mouth to have relieved sobs tumble out as the girl collapsed against the bed, going limp as the male slowly eased her out of her restraints, gently rubbing them with the pads of his thumbs while whispering sweet nothings in her ear.

.

[wwilloww]

sh. | ot7 | chapter five

PAIRING ot7 x reader

RATING Explicit.

GENRE smut. fluff. angst. nonidol au. wildnerness au. roommates au. friends to lovers.

SUMMARY Six months of quarantine have kept you apart. Somehow the distance sparks something new in each of you: questions, unfinished conversations, threads once chased now left cold. So when your roommate invites you to come with him to a mysterious house in the mountains with your friends, how could you even think of saying no?

WC 8k

WARNINGS AND TAGS protected sex. friends with benefits relationship. dirty talk. power play dynamics. angst. semi-public nudity. mentions of open relationship. sexting. reckoning with feelings. talk of alcohol use. 

AN: One million bazillion thanks to the best beta and geologist out there, @hesperantha. Everyday I think to myself, how the fuck would this series exist without this magical lady? And every day I am thankful for her beautiful existence. 

Also, if you haven’t seen /the trailer, you might wanna check it out. Just because I had a lot of fun making it and it was super fun to visualize the characters and their tiny little world. 

Going forward, you can read with they/them pronouns by navigating to the series m.list and reading from there. 

That said, LETS JUMP IN!

← || series m.list || →

©️ wwilloww do not repost, translate, or use my stories without my permission.  

chapter five

January 2020

What is left when you’re not sure where to turn?

You know there’s Yoongi. Dependable, familiar, predictable Yoongi. Predictable in the sense that you know, unabashedly, that no matter what, you can always count on him to draw a short term — but important — curtain over whatever notion, anxiety, or complication that happens to be singing in your mind that day. Erase it, temporarily, with those long fingers, gliding over your skin in expert patterns, drawing you and your pleasure exactly where he wants it to be.

And predictable in the sense that you know you will be perfectly and endlessly satisfied at the end of the night, no matter what.

See, Yoongi doesn’t mess around. He doesn’t tease you. Doesn’t draw you out and dangle you over your own pleasure. He gives it to you. Over and over and over and over again. Extends his palm and pulls as many orgasms from you as you can physically muster and then lets you collapse in his arms. Dependable, see? Dependable, always.

Once you’re settled in his lap, Yoongi lets you grind on him for a bit as he undresses you expertly, long fingers slipping under the fabric of your clothes before tugging them off gracefully and tossing them across the room. This, this he did love to do. Loved to scatter your clothes around and then watch you from the bed as you tried to piece some semblance of an outfit back together after he fucked you senseless.

“Don’t throw my bra behind the furniture again,” you murmur as you kiss down his neck. “I know you thought it was a great tactic to get me to rearrange your room the last time — but I’m not moving a hundred pound dresser to get my very expensive bra back again.”

He chuckles. Murmurs, “As you wish.” And then throws your bra someplace you can’t see.

Now that you’re topless, he lets his long fingers skate up the skin of your back, tracing the flesh of your hips and with such delicacy it almost tickles. That is, delicate until his hand weaves itself up your neck. His grip tightens at the root of your hair, tugging your head back in a swift motion and exposing your neck to him.

“How do you want me to fuck you tonight?” His voice is deep and it raises goosebumps on your skin. He lets his teeth trace a line up the sensitive skin of your neck until he reaches your ear and bites down hard.

“Fuck,” you breathe as a shiver runs through your body. Yoongi always took particular care to curate a library of knowledge about your ticks, turn ons, and vices. And then he played them out for you in an expertly coordinated hand.

“Yes, that’s in the cards. But tell me specifically how you want it.”

Behind him, the large bedroom is equipped with enough musical equipment to run a fully functioning studio. Instruments hang on the walls and a large black bed rests in the center of the room. The dark tones of the wood and sheets make the otherwise sparse room feel warm and dark. Compared to the shabby little apartment that you share with Namjoon, this is luxury. Your gaze rests on the large wall of glass that looks out over the city.

“The window,” you say.

He grins.

The glass is cold against your bare skin when he presses you to it. The difference in temperature between the fired heat of your skin and the iced window slices right through you, makes you gasp as his hands run over your body, taking you in as you are: bare and ready for him.

You watch as he strips off his clothes, gracefully and swiftly. First the shirt, then his pants. It’s no surprise to you that he’s not wearing any undergarments at all. Delight lights in his eye when he notices how greedily you watch him.

“Do you want me to—” He begins to lean down, but you stop him and pull him up.

“Just fuck me.”

He turns you around in one movement, your hands flying up to stop the impact, your chest — and your nipples — pressing to the glass. The sensation overwhelms you as he slides two fingers between your folds, collecting the slickness that has gathered there.

“You’re already so wet for me.”

A smile spreads across your face as you hear the condom packet rip and he slots his cock against your cunt, coating himself in your arousal.

“Don’t tease me,” you say, a hint of a whine slipping into your voice.

“Don’t worry. I have no patience for that tonight.” And he pushes in. “How’s that?” he says, the lilting tease in his tone cutting sharp against your ear as his dick sinks into you, inch by delightful inch.  

It feels like you have to catch your breath to speak. “Is it always this good?”

“Baby, if it isn’t, you should ask for a refund.” He punctuates the last word of his sentence with a harsh thrust that rams your chest up against the glass.

“Fuck—” you hiss.

Memory whitens like it’s been covered in a blanket of snow as he begins a punishing pace, hips rutting up into you before drawing almost all the way back, tip barely inside of you before thrusting back into you, all the way to the hilt. Sensation overtakes thought. The slicing coldness of the glass against your nipples paints a stark contrast to the softness of lips pressed to yours, softness of a hand cupping your cheek—

You should be thinking of anything but that.

And it’s easy to do, in this moment. To focus on Yoongi, his commanding presence, the way he plays your body like one of the carefully polished instruments that hangs on his wall.

You cry out when he hits a particularly soft spot within you, and he pauses his movements, drinking in the sound of you.

“God, you sound so fucking good.”

He pulls out of you, turns you around, and pushes your back against the glass.

“Hop up,” he says, and you frown in confusion before realizing what he’s referring to. You wrap your arms around his neck and with a jump, wrap your legs around his waist.

“Fuck—” With a grunt of effort, he holds you up while slotting himself against your folds and pushing inside again.

The most you can do in this position is tilt your pelvis and grind down on him — while holding onto dear life — and you do, rotating it against his waist, drawing the most delicious sounds from his lips. Your hips begin to move in tandem, each pushing closer to the pleasure that you both so desperately desire.

This is better. This is worse.

See, the two of you have fallen into patterns in your hookups. Rules, even, although no one but you thought of them as such. But the habit — and therefore the lines — were clear to you:

You didn’t kiss. You didn’t confess your love. Hookups only, and breakfast together the morning after. Usually he takes you from behind, because, as he once commented to you, “the ass cheeks are the eyes of the heart.” Which to you, made no sense at all, but you still obliged him. Plus, at the end of the day it was all a little more impersonal that way, anyways. Easier to separate from the rest of your relationship.

But looking into his face, pressed so close — there’s something there. A warmth. An understanding. Too much.  

Your head falls to his shoulder and his grip tightens on your thighs as he fucks up into you. Several heavy breaths before you bite gently at the sensitive skin of his neck and he hisses.

“You’re too sensitive,” you chide, although the teasing lilt of your tone is broken up by him fucking into your body — and you both know you love the way he lets you know he likes things done.

“And you’re too shy,” he cuts back. “Why don’t you look at me when I fuck you?” It’s posed as a question but you know it’s a command.

Slowly, you draw your head back and look at him. His eyes are deep and dark, his hair tousled and face lined with pleasure.

“That’s a good little pet,” he whispers. It falls too softly.

It makes you want to kiss him. All you want to do is —

You press your lips to his. Just a peck — the smallest, lightest of pecks.

But the plush of his lips, the way they part so slightly when your lips meet... it leaves you wanting more. So you kiss him again, pressing yourself to him, chasing the feeling of his softness.

He responds, opening his mouth to yours, his tongue darting out to meet yours. His pace doesn’t falter as he continues to fuck up into you. His lips move against yours, fierce, needy, demanding. And it’s then that your stomach drops. It’s as if the winter chill that lays just beyond the door at your back slices through your veins.

You pull back.

“No,” he says, and pulls you back to him. “Stop running.” He brings your face close enough to yours but doesn’t kiss you, just waits.

And you meet him in the middle, kissing him again, afraid of losing the warmth you sparked between you. He groans against you as your hips swivel around his cock, and bites down on your lip.

“Fuck,” you hiss.

With one arm wrapped around his shoulders, you let your other hand press against the nape of his neck, nails digging in just the way you know he likes it. You both have always been in rhythm, in tune with one another, but now with him kissing you — something new sparks between you. Something new, something terrifyingly warm.

When you pull back he smiles.

“Shit,” you whisper, your eyes widening. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Yoongi says, an edge in his voice, his hips still circling against yours as he presses your back to the window. “You have nothing to apologize for.

“I shouldn’t have—”

“Shh... stop. It’s okay. It was good.” He punctuates his meaning with a thrust, a small groan slipping from his throat. You want to swallow the sound of his pleasure whole, but still. You let the guilt in your chest rise to your throat.

“No, no, it’s not,” you say, though the coil that’s winding tighter and tighter in your belly makes it difficult to speak. You take a shuddering breath in as he hits your g-spot, your eyes fluttering closed.

“Yes. It is,” he grunts, and you can tell he’s close too. “You fuck better when you kiss. You feel it. You get into it.” Your brow purses at his words. “Now be good for me, forget it, and cum on this cock.”

You nod.

“Tell me what you’re going to do.”

“I’ll forget it, be good for you, and cum on your cock.”

“Good,” he smiles.

Each thrust brings you a step closer. He kisses you, again waiting for you to meet his lips, and together you move like dancing partners closer and closer to the edge.

You cum, clenching around his cock and crying his name into his mouth.

The two of you breathe heavily, foreheads resting together for a moment that stretches long enough for you to call it a distance.

“Fuck—” Yoongi says, pulling out of you and smiling gently as he lets you down. “I’ve never heard you come like that before.”

Heat rises to your cheeks.

“Hold on, let me get you a towel or something,” Yoongi says, pressing his thumb to your forehead and wiping away a bead of sweat. You watch as he shuffles about his room, looking for anything to give you. “One second, I think there’s clean ones in the dryer.”

He wanders out of the room wearing absolutely nothing at all.

When you turn back to the outside world, the glass is fogged and the world feels a million miles away. The tension that rises up in your chest feels like a wrought iron ball and you need out, out, now.

There’s a fuzzy blanket on the dresser next to you and you snatch it, wrap yourself up tightly and push open the glass door to the tiny balcony. With a held breath, you step out. The cold concrete sends a chill through your body as you step out. Blue washes through you, shocking the pleasure-numbed nerves in your body back to life.

When you suck in a deep breath of snow-cold air, it feels as if clarity settles into you. You take a second, but shuddering, breath as you realize with a lucid sharp pain the reality of your situation.

Yoongi didn’t erase tonight from your mind. Sex didn’t remove Hobi’s kiss from your lips. An orgasm didn’t ease the unnamable want in your chest. If anything, it all just burns a little brighter.

This thing with Yoongi — it’s not supposed to be a distraction for you, or a means to make you feel something else. It’s supposed to be its own thing, a compartmentalized friends with benefits situation that has always been clear and defined between the two of you. But as soon as you showed up on his door with an ulterior motive other than sex, it became something else. As soon as you kissed him, you made it something else.

Fuck.

Around you, fat flurries drift down from the dark sky. They melt as they land on your bare skin. There’s no escaping this thing inside you. But the intensity of the cold seems like it keeps you here, grounded, in Yoongi’s home and facing actuality. As if any form of warmth would leave you wandering into the sickly sweet honeytrap of the what if’s that already threaten on the edge of your mind.

“Come to bed,” Yoongi calls from inside. When you don’t, he comes out onto the tiny balcony and wraps himself around you from behind, his head notching on your shoulder. “Christ, you’re freezing.”

“It feels good,” you say, nuzzing your body back against his.

“I know I didn’t work you up that much that you need to stand in the snow to cool down. Come to bed.”

Still wrapped around you, he waddles you inside, earning a giggle from you as you tumble into bed and he slams the door closed with a bit of a shiver.

“Here,” he says softly, wrapping you in a blanket before settling beside you.

He’s close. Wildly close. His breath brushes softly against your face as you look at each other. You take in the flushed pink of his face, the way his hair is tousled into a gorgeous mess from the effort of your intimacy.

You could kiss him again, you think and a shock runs through your body at the thought. Christ, his cock’s been inside you a million times and yet you balk at the thought of kissing him, of pulling him right where you want him, where he fits so perfectly, where he feels so warm —

“What are you thinking?” Yoongi says softly.

“What are you thinking?” you cut back, just a little too quickly.

Yoongi chuckles. “I’m thinking that you keep yourself so tightly together.”

You smile tightly. “I don’t know what that means.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

You bite down on your lip.

“You’re thinking so loud I can almost hear it,” Yoongi says. “Just tell me. You know there’s nothing you could say that would upset me.” When you don’t say anything, he continues. “For god’s sake, I’ve seen your asshole. It doesn’t get much more personal than that.”

“Fine,” you say.

“Fine,” he grins.

“Maybe we should…” You trail off and bite the inside of your cheek.

Yoongi rolls onto his side, propping his head up with one hand.

“Maybe we should…?” He prompts. “Join a sex dungeon?”

You laugh, the thought of going to one with Yoongi is one that sends a thrill through you. “That sounds like a wonderful idea, but that’s not what I was going to say.”

“What were you going to say?”

You take a deep breath. “That maybe we should… stop. This.”

He doesn’t ask what you mean. He knows. “That, my dear, sounds like quite the antithesis to going to a sex dungeon with me.”

You laugh. “I can’t believe you’re making jokes when I am friends with benefits breaking up with you.”

“What? Were you expecting me to be angry?”

“I mean I expected a little bit of a fight. Or at least… I don’t know. Questions.”

“Do you want questions?”

You look at him.

“I don’t know.”

“Okay. Well. Why are you ending things.”

You flop onto your back. Look at the ceiling. The way the lights of the city reflect paley onto the white surface. They look like ghosts.

“I don’t really know.”

He pulls you to him, rolling you onto your side and tangling your hands together. “Okay.”

And then the two of you just lie there, staring at the ceiling in silence, the weight of your decision, of this ending, settling over you with a concrete taste. There’s something uncomfortable in this kind of silence. But it’s not him, it’s not an awkwardness, or the building of tension or resentment. None of that lies between you. It’s the fact that within the silence the answers rise up in you, and you find the words spilling from your mouth.

“I don’t want it to be complicated, Yoongi.”

He waits a moment before responding. “Is it complicated?”

“Well.” You sigh. “No. Not with us. Us is easy. I feel like I can tell you what I need or what I want and I trust you to be able to either give me that or set a boundary.”

Yoongi hums. “I feel the same. So then if it’s not us...?”

“I made a mistake tonight. Crossed a line I shouldn’t have crossed.”

His brow furrows. “Not with me you didn’t. I don’t underst—”

“Not you. It’s me. It’s — it’s always me. I don’t want things to spin out of control. And I feel like they’re about to.”

Yoongi is silent for a long moment.

“I don’t want you to feel that way.” He pulls you closer to him, his grip tightening on your hip. “Really.” You stare down at your intertwined hands. “Look at me.” He waits until you do, summoning an inner strength you didn’t know you needed to look at your friend. “There’s a part of me that wonders how much of this is you punishing yourself for something that you don’t have any reason to be punishing yourself for.”

You can’t help the nervous laugh that shoots from your chest.

“What!? Are you laughing at me!?”

“No, no,” you shake your head. “Just… I don’t know what it is, but if anyone were to look right through me and see everything that’s going on, it’s you.”

He smiles softly.

“Do you want to stay tonight?”

Do you want your friend to wrap himself around you? Pull you in tight to his warm chest? Remind you of the summer that lies on the other side of this long, long winter?

“No,” you say slowly. “I think I need some space. To… process.”

He nods. “Well, as my newest friends with benefits ex, I agree, you should probably leave. You know. So it doesn’t get awkward.” He grins.

“Yeesh, you’re so quick to kick me out.”

“I know. I guess I just need some space. You know. To process, too. Grieve.”  He paints a fake frown on his face and does a dramatic rendition of a very gross sniffle.

You giggle.

“Yeah, yeah, sure.”

Together you get out of bed, Yoongi — for once — rifling through his room in search of your clothes. With every piece of clothing you put on, you feel like you take another step backwards. Away from Yoongi, away from the vulnerability in you that feels like it tears open everytime he looks at you. His comfort. Each new piece of fabric is another wall resurrected. But when you go to hook your bra behind your back, he steps behind you, taking the straps from your hands and gently hooking the clips together.

“Here.”

When he’s done, his fingers linger on your skin just a moment too long.

“Thanks,” you say softly, turning back to him.

His eyes are still blown wide, his hair perfectly disastrous. There’s something so deadly soft about him. He looks just as he did when you marched into his bedroom earlier in the night. And yet, on the other side of this night, you feel like a totally different person. As if the stranger inside of you has finally stepped forward and introduced herself.

You turn away hastily, heading to the living room. He follows and pulls your jacket from the couch and helps you into it.

Shoes on, jacket on, you’re all ready to walk out the door. And still you linger. Yoongi glances at his watch.

“Well, I’d say six hours is a proper mourning period. Breakfast tomorrow?”

“How about brunch? I’m not getting up at 9am for eggs.”

“Oh and I’m the one who needs space huh?” He smiles softly. “11am. You’ll get up at 11am and I’ll buy you a breakup brunch.”

“Yeah,” you smile up at him. Even as you taste the edge of fear — of anxiety — on your tongue, there is still a kind of undeniable warmth that blossoms in your chest every single time you look at him.

You broaden your smile. Push it down.

There’s one last thing.

“And—”

But he already knows what you’re asking. He steps forward, taking your head between his hands and pressing a kiss to your forehead. The shock that runs through you is quick and cold.

“I know,” he says. “This’ll still be our little secret.”

When he steps back, there’s something soft in his gaze — too soft, you can’t help but think. Tenderness, surrounded by acceptance and strength. All the things that make Yoongi, well, Yoongi. And yet it feels like too much to handle. Too much to be looked at, to be seen, to be understood when you can barely wrap your mind around what’s going on.

“Sleep well, buttercup.”

Different taxi, different driver, different route.

“Home,” you tell the woman at the wheel when you give her your address, her over-bleached and curly hair forming a kind of halo around her in the seat.

“You got it,” she says smacking her gum and throwing you a wayward smile.

As the car pulls away from the curb and picks up speed, you feel a kind of numbness wash over you.

It was the right decision to end things with Yoongi, you remind yourself, even as you feel a kind of twinge in your chest. You haven’t lost a friend. In fact, you’ve probably preserved your friendship. Saved it from wandering into the brambly bushes of complication and ultimate destruction. Even if it means the loss of killer sex.

You phone dings, and you instinctively brush a hand over your body to make sure you left with all the clothes you arrived in.

When you look at your phone, it’s not who you imagine. It’s not what you imagine.

tae: I forgot how loud you are when you orgasm.

You choke, hand snapping up quickly to cover your mouth.

“You alright, hun?” the driver asks.

“Yeah, yeah, just fine,” you say, but your voice is strained. You immediately type out your response.

you: fuck. i’m so sorry. you: it won’t happen again.

Your heart is pounding in your chest, embarrassment and confusion tightening around your throat. How much more can you really take tonight? Hobi, then Yoongi — now this? You tap your foot as you wait for the response, which takes just a minute to pop up on your phone.

tae: oh… well that’s too bad. I actually didn’t mind it all that much.

Oh.

Oh.

Before you know what you’re doing, you’re typing out your response — and turning down the brightness as if it will hide the loudness of your message from the world.

you: is that right?

tae: i said it didn’t i? ive always been a man of my word. brings me back to the old days, in a way.

you: oh?

tae: you know…

you: do i?

tae: you do.

you: it’s been a while. why don’t you remind me?

tae: you’re playing coy tonight. two very loud orgasms and you’re still not done playing?

you: i’d send that shrugging emoji but i can’t find it you: what can i say? I can be needy

tae: should i remind you tae: when we used to park behind the grocery store tae: there was never anyone around but you’d still get so shy and embarrassed tae: and try to cum without a sound tae: but i didn’t hear a single note of shame or restraint tonight tae: shamelessness looks good on you tae: **sounds good on you

you: you were always quite shameless yourself

tae: it gets me far in life

You blink down at your phone, not really sure what to say. Taehyung’s hearty banter is something you’re used to. Even after all these years, your quick back and forth was still twinged with the smallest teasing edge of sexual interest. But you had always kept it within strict boundaries, never returning to your previous relationship, never suggesting—  

tae: but my question is how far will it get me with you?

Your breath freezes in your throat. Never suggesting that you return to anything of the past.

tae: jk tae: unless…?

Taehyung’s sexually laced messages have your head spinning round and round on its pedestal. It’s not as if you had never thought about it, never considered it. But there was a line there, was there not? A line you shouldn’t cross, shouldn’t even think of crossing, no matter how you wanted to. With a deep breath, you respond.

you: i don’t know if we should be having this conversation right now?

tae: why? because you’re my ex? or because of Jin?

Before you can even manage to type out the long list of reasons why you shouldn’t be dipping your toes into the perilous waters of sexting your very happily taken ex, the screen is lighting up again.

tae: if it’s the latter, don’t worry. he’s here too. tae: he says to tell u you’re hot   tae: which is news to me tae: not that you’re not hot, but that he thinks that tae: and he says hes “sorry he missed the show earlier”

you: tbh that was NOT the response i was expecting to get.

tae: we’re very open about these things. he’s quite… encouraging actually

As if this is the opening, you walk through it.

you: in what way?

tae: he likes visibility in a specific way. he likes to watch. likes to be watched and… the attention, especially when its directed at me, especially when he knows that at the end of the day i’m crawling back into his bed

Your heart races in your chest.

tae: sorry, maybe that’s tmi.

you: don’t apologize. i don’t mind tmi

tae: then i won’t apologize.

you: good.

tae: good 😂 tae: you know, i liked it.

you: sorry, liked what?

tae: hearing it tae: hearing you cum

you: did you?

tae: more than i expected

you: more than you should?

tae: that’s not what i said

you: well, like i mentioned, it won’t happen again

tae: why not? You finally get me to admit i didn’t mind it and now you’re telling me i won’t get more? :(

You chew on your bottom lip before responding.

you: it’s complicated.

tae: an orgasm is never complicated.

you: …

tae: but you know what is complicated? tae: feelings. tae: you’re having feelings. tae: oh my god you’re in love with yoongi

you: i am nOT in love with yoongi you: surprisingly it has very little to do with yoongi

Even as you send the text, you know that’s not entirely true.

tae: okay, then what’s going on??? pls don’t play cryptic with me, it’s too late for that shit

you: i don’t even know what’s going on.

tae: oh. tae: so we’re talking big boy emotions

you: i don’t have *emotions*

tae: you’re a fucking liar

you: hey you: language

tae: alright then let me rephrase it tae: what are you so afraid of will happen if you let yourself feel?

Your heart catches in your throat. Oh.

“We’re here,” the taxi driver says, and your head snaps up from the light of your phone to see your apartment complex towering high and familiar above you.

“Oh!” You blink yourself from your reverie and hand the woman the cash for the ride. “Keep the change.”

“Thanks,” she says, twisting around to look at you as you skootch across the backseat. “Hey—” You pause, looking at her. The orange glow of the streetlights rings like a halo around her head. “You take care of yourself, alright?”

“Alright,” you smile and nod.

A haze settles around your body as you climb out of the taxi. The hard edge of soberness and the sharpness of the winter air mixes and shocks life back into you as his question rings around your head. What are you so afraid of will happen if you let yourself feel?

Your breath feels strained as you climb the echoing stairs to your home. The sound of the key fitting into the lock rings with a harsh click, but it brings you back into your body, to the little marks where Yoongi’s hands dug into you, to the confusion that rattles around your mind, and finally, and most devastatingly, the warmth that has sunk deep and inextricably into your heart.

The apartment is dark when you enter.

“Namjoon?” you call out.

No one answers. You don’t bother to flick on the lights as you feel your way blindly through the darkness, hand brushing against the soft fabric of your sofa, the bumpy texture of the wall, and finally the cold knob of your door. Instead of pushing the door open though, you lean against it, taking what feels like the first full breath of the night.

You look at the screen of your phone, Tae’s question, his voice, spiraling around your head. With a shaky breath you respond, fingers flying across the blue light of the screen.

you: something feels off. I don’t… i don’t want to mess anything up. I feel like the only way to keep things in order is to keep myself out of it all.

tae: can i call you?

you: yeah. Joon’s not home.

You finally press into your room. All that silver light from the city reflects off of the white flakes that flutter softly down from the sky. It spills onto your bed like a pool of molten silver, waiting, chilled and cold for you. You flop down onto it, your breath coming out in a long huff.

When your phone rings, there’s a second of hesitation before you hit the answer button.

“Hello?” your voice is shakier than you expected.

“One second.”

You hear the rustling sound of Tae getting out of bed and the door shutting.

“If I can hear you orgasming, Yoongi sure as hell can hear a phone call,” Tae whispers, a slight chuckle to his voice. “Unless you’re just always unreasonably loud.” You can imagine the sly smile that plays across his lips right now. Another door opened and shut and he sighs. “There. Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay,” you say. “I…”

You trail off. You don’t know what to say. Don’t know what there is to say.

He says your name softly into the phone, the syllables forming such a familiar shape on his tongue. “Are you okay?”

“I...I don’t think so. I don’t feel great.”

“You’re home? Safe?”

“Yeah. I’m home.” You look around your room. Art on the walls, your little desk the messiest place in the room, stacked high with papers and photos and plants.

“Good.” Taehyung takes a long breath. “So. Tell me what’s going on.”

You want to. But your voice freezes in your throat and you can feel the way your silence falls around him.

After breaking up at nineteen, you and Taehyung had always remained friends. The truth was that even though you loved each other, you were so caught up in the physicality of it all that the rest of your relationship — and your relationships outside of that — began to deteriorate. No more sex, you both had decided. And at the time, that meant no more romance. There weren’t lingering feelings of resentment, but you did know — because you both talked about it — that you were both plagued with the lingering question of what if. What if…. But the answer was simple. You both needed more than what the other could offer.

Best friend turned lover turned best friend. If the lingering sexual tension was the only consequence of that, you could handle that. And if you were honest with yourself, you enjoyed it, in a safe, flattering kind of way.

But the reality was that the consequence of your relationship wasn’t limited to just a couple of sex dreams here and there or comments about your former sex life thrown about as jokes. The truth was that there was a permafrost of cautiousness that sat like a layer of ice beneath all of your interactions; one that only thawed away after midnight or a second drink.

Right now, the clock on the wall reads: 3:12am.

“You don’t have to tell me—”

“No — I want to.” You shake your head. “I should… I should talk to someone about this.” You take a deep breath as the sharp images of tonight’s events spiral around your mind. When you speak, it comes out a whisper. “I kissed Hobi tonight.”

“Oh. Shit.”

“Or he kissed me. I don’t really — don’t really understand what happened, we were just standing there and had both had some drinks and suddenly it was happening and I should have kept everything within the normal boundaries, I shouldn’t have done it, shouldn’t have overstepped our friendship, but we kissed and I…” Your voice trails off.

“And you liked it,” Taehyung finishes for you.

“Yeah,” you say softly. “I did.”

“And it scared you.”

“Yeah.”

“And then you both ran away from it.”

“Yeah.”

“And your way of running away from it was to go fuck Yoongi again, huh.”

“Goddamnit, Tae,” you huff, annoyed by how right he is.

Taehyung chuckles. “Babe, I’ve known you way too long for me to not pick up on these kinds of things. These kinds of patterns.”

“Patterns?”

Taehyung sighs through the phone. “I love you, dude, but… yeah. Yeah. It’s a pattern.”

As you let his words sink into you, you realize. It is a pattern.

“Can I be honest with you?” he asks. “Do you really want to know what’s going on here?”

You laugh softly, even as fear nibbles at your heart. There’s a part of you that wants to turn into blindness. That wants to shield your heart from the reality of the situation. From the reality of yourself.

But there’s also something about facing into the truth — clear and cold like the night waiting just beyond your window. You want the shock of truth through your body, glaring and sharpened like ice. Because at the end of the day, you’ve had enough of this numbed ignorance.

“Yeah. Go for it.”  

“This might be out of the blue. And you might not want to hear it. I could be totally off—”

“Tae, it’s okay. I want to hear it.”

He takes a deep breath. “But maybe… just maybe, it’s time to think about the way you push people away.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” you whisper, although the reality of what he’s saying is already dawning on you, even if it’s at a glacial pace.

“How you let people in just long enough, just far enough, to let them see something authentic of you. But you don’t really let them take any real stake in your life.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“And that’s okay!” He adds quickly. “At least, it has been okay. We do what we need to do to keep ourselves safe, but… I think you’re past that all now.” You take a shuddering breath and he pauses. “That place in your life where you need to keep the walls and the rules so strict for fear of falling. You’re not there anymore, babe. Maybe it’s time to start looking at the wall that you’ve built and considering letting yourself tear it apart.” And then, so softly you think his voice might be made of something as delicate as a flower petal: “You know, maybe it’s time to think about how you want to start letting love in again. Because you deserve it.”

It’s not until you brush your hand against your cheeks that you realize they’re wet. You look down at your fingertips, glistening with fallen tears, shining silver in the snowlight.

“Fuck, Tae.”

Taehyung lets loose a light, but pained, chuckle.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You sniffle. “Goddamn it.”

Silence settles between the two of you. Tears slip silently down your face as you hold the phone to your ear. You can hear him breathing softly on the other end, but Taehyung doesn’t say anything. It’s as if he knows you need a minute to process.

His words slide right under your skin. Directed straight at the thing that has felt so heavy in your chest all night now, it’s as if the whole thing has been broken open within you. Suddenly, you can see it all.

The past years, this game of cat and mouse with your own vulnerability. This façade of carefully curated openness and faux vulnerability. All of the things that you kept as reminders of your freeness, your unlocked heart — the hookups, the fast and furious romances that ended in nothing but silence, the friendships you kept so carefully defined — were actually all just markers of the opposite:

A deep and abiding fear that if you let someone love you, a fear that if you let them close enough to really, truly see you, they might see something they won’t like.

Better to keep things clearly organized. Clearly marked and known and understood. That way you’d know exactly when things were spinning out of control and when someone was just about to get too close.

“You know, there are so many ways to love,” Taehyung says. “It doesn’t just have to be in that one way of fucking and falling in love and then a big white marriage, tada! the end. And, uh, it’s okay to want love. It’s really, really okay, actually. In whatever weird way love shows up for you, even if it’s not the traditional way. It’s even more okay to let yourself have that love, even if you don’t know what it is — don’t know what to call it.”

When your breath comes out shaky and ridden with tears, you can hear a soft oh echo through the phone.

“Hey,” Taehyung says with all the love in the world laced so delicately through his voice. “It’s okay. It might not feel like that right now. But opening up again — if, you know, if that’s what you want — that’s something you can do. It can be done.”

“I-I do, Tae. I don’t want this anymore. I don’t want to keep fighting this.”

It’s as if you can hear his smile through the receiver.

“That makes me really happy to hear,” he says.

“Where do I even begin?” It comes out a whisper, your voice cracked from the tears that have begun to slow. You’re half afraid to even hear the answer. Half afraid to walk down the path riddled with your greatest fear.

“I think you begin by going to sleep. And in the morning I’ll call you. And I’ll keep calling you. And we’ll work through this together. You know, this isn’t something that you have to do alone.”

You’re silent.

“You’re in bed?” crackles through the phone.

“Yeah?”

“Go put on some pjs and go to sleep. You don’t have to do this all in one night.”

You nod, wiping the rest of the tears from your face and sniffling. “Yeah.”

“Alright. I love you to the moon and back, no matter what. You know that. Right?”

You close your eyes. For a second you imagine accepting that it’s true. It fills your chest with a new kind of warmth. One you want to sink into.

“Yes,” you say. “I love you too, Tae.”

“Get some rest then. Goodnight.”

“G’night.”

The dial tone clicks and the room falls into complete silence. Only the sound of your breath breaks through, too loud and uncomfortable amidst the darkness. But still, you climb out of bed, dump some water on a towel and wipe at your face, and change into the largest t-shirt you can find in your drawer.

Tonight, you dream the first dream of many in a line that will haunt you — and spark you back to life. It’s Yoongi, his body pushing you up against the ice cold glass, his hands in your hair, his lips whispering, over and over and over again: Is it complicated?

In the morning, you lay awake, just feeling the way your breath falls heavily in your chest. You text Yoongi to tell him you can’t meet up. You look outside.

The world is covered in a blanket of snow. Unrecognizable. Beautiful. Washed clean.

Something hopeful flutters in your chest.

When you look down, your hands are clutching the collar of your sleep shirt. With a deep breath, you wrap your arms around your torso in a hug.

“I don’t really know how to do anything else other than this,” you admit to Tae one day over the phone, flourishing a hand you know he can’t see to emphasize the point you know he already understands.

“Well. I don’t know how much of it is really choosing to be different. Instead, maybe you ought to try looking at it like an undoing. Whenever you match up against that impulse to run, think about sitting with it. Feeling it. And then choosing to move in another direction. Yeah,” he says, and you can tell he’s nodding on the other end of the phone. “An undoing.”

What does this kind of undoing look like? you wonder.

When the world comes to a screeching halt around you, you don’t expect to find your answer. The reality of the pandemic and quarantine — the emptiness of it, the long, drawn out days that feel long and drawn out when you’re in them but that then seem to blend together into one long, monotonous, anxiety riddled day and leave you wondering and wishing for the end — it’s hard. It’s hard in that quiet way that’s easy to ignore and push off, and hard in the way that there’s a big ache in your chest every time you go to sleep, one that crawls straight into your throat and sits there until the morning. It’s hard, and you learn to live with it. It’s hard, but somehow it brings you what you need. When distance seems to be the defining feature of your life, you don’t expect to find clarity. But you do. As you sink into the new routine of quarantine and pandemic life, and as life begins in a new rhythm with new rules and new realities — slowly and wildly new and sometimes horrific — it becomes clear to you.

What does this kind of undoing look like?

It looks a lot like feeling the emptiness in your home when Namjoon is away. Silence louder, space smaller. You find yourself reflected back to yourself, as if you are staring in a mirror.

It looks a lot like distraction. Emotional exhaustion turning into physical. You do distract — and it’s good — with a new drama or a new hobby. Exercising in your room until your cheeks are flushed. Cooking something new and delicious every night. Or sometimes just letting the small rectangle of light in your hand absorb you until the lingering discomfort is numbed, until you’re ready to fall asleep.

It looks like listening to your thoughts, really, truly listening, for the first time. Hearing the stories that you’ve built up in your head over the ears and how deeply they’ve sunk into your reality. It looks like noticing them, and wanting them to change. It looks like standing in the empty hallway of your apartment, feeling it all, and deciding to do something about it.

It looks like weird-ass sex dreams. Once dreamless nights are repopulated with strange and specific sexual fantasies featuring none other than your seven gorgeous friends in various states of undress and revelry.

It looks like letting people in again. Laughing on the phone until tears well up in your eyes. Building up the courage to tell Jimin about your vivid, even pornographic dreams. Writing letters when facetime just doesn’t do it anymore. Telling your friends just how much they mean to you, even when that voice warns you that you ought to keep your feelings held tight to your chest.

It looks like falling asleep one night, the traffic of the city now quieted by reduced travel, and the silence offering you a new kind of truth:

Love can be without limitation.

Love can be without limitation. It is allowed to flow from you without doubt or embarrassment. It is allowed to exist in the world — and in you — without needing to be reciprocated or validated. And you are allowed to ask for it. To demand it from life, even if, at times, it feels like the only place it pours forth from is from that great gaping space in your chest.  

The phone rings a couple of times before it’s cut off in the middle of a digital brrng. You’re ready to hear the familiar buzz of a robotic voice reading: the caller you are trying to reach is not available—

But instead, the deep, heady voice you’re so familiar with comes over the speaker.

“Hello?”

“Hoseok?” His name feels foreign on your tongue. After all this time, pushing it away, pushing him away, welcoming his name back into your body feels almost like a fresh rain, washing away the dust on your skin.

“The one and only,” he chuckles. “What’s up?”

A ball of emotion wells up in your throat and the phone line hangs in silence as you try to glue together what you want to say, what you had practiced to say, what you should say. But it feels as if it’s all disappeared. 

“I thought—”

“Did I mess up?” he blurts.

You blink in confusion. “What? No, I—”

“That night, I had so much to drink, I’m worried that… I messed up, that— ”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Hoseok.”

You can hear the breath release from his lungs and shudder through the phone. “Oh.” It’s silent for a moment. “Oh. Okay.”

“I just…” You close your eyes. Take a deep breath. “I just miss you.”

“I miss you like there’s an ocean between us,” he says, laughter mixed with sincerity threading through his voice.

“It feels like there’s ocean between us,” you sigh.

“I know,” he says, too quickly for him to realize the meaning behind your words. “But I promise this will all be over soon, babe. How long can something like this really last? In no time it’ll all be done with and I’ll be right back beside you. Right?”

You smile. “Right.”

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[solariaswitch]

Were Darcy and Stella set up to be narrative foils?

A lot of people showed an interest in my “hot take” (although it really isnt a hot take lol) post about Darcy and Stella being supposed narrative foils and asked me to elaborate. And in full disclosure..,, The more I think about this take the more stupid it sounds but then again, the dumber the theory, the more I like it. And I think this one is pretty cool, even if it might be my imagination and my tendency to overanalyze details that weren’t actually meant to mean anything all. But first things first. I’ve received two questions about what narrative foils are, so here’s a short description that I copied from wikipedia; a foil is a character who contrasts with another character [...] in order to better highlight or differentiate certain qualities [of each other]. And this is exactly what I think Stella and Darcy were meant to do; to contrast each other while also highlighting that witches and fairies really aren’t all that different. 

Now, why do I think they were meant to be narrative foils? Well, to begin with, the writers of Winx really seem to enjoy making their heroes and villains foils. Bloom is a narrative foil to both Icy and Valtor, and one could argue that Faragonda and Griffin are as well. With Stella and Darcy, the first thing to look at is what might be the most obvious part of this relationship; the powers. The relationship between their respective powers parallels the relationship between Blooms and Icy’s fire/ice powers. Light and dark, clarity and deceit. Their powers are two sides of the same coin. Light powers have commonly been associated in almost all cultures with truth, enlightenment and protection, while dark powers are connected with chaos, mental disarray and manipulation, and yet one can not exist without the other. Just take a look at some traditional symbols in many cultures, yin and yang, the celebration of midsummer and the equinox as the times where light and dark are equal. They always contrast each other, it’s their one inherent quality.

Further, Stella and Darcy have personalities that share strong similarities while simultaneously being complete opposites - once again highlighting the yin/yang kind of relationship, where there’s always bound to be a similarity between light and dark. Stella is impulsive and cheerful, loud and expressive. Darcy is all about control, and she’s very emotionally restrictive. But they share some interesting similarities. They both operate as second in command in their respective groups. They’re the respective “hot girl”-stereotype as well, but they live this out in very different ways. Both of them are obviously very pretty and know that their looks can gain them attention and get their will through. Stella expresses at several points that she often feels that people struggle to see past her appearance and that she often feels people only see her as pretty. Darcy also uses her beauty to have people do her bidding, the most obvious example is the Riven ordeal in season one. They’re also both the most fashion-conscious within their respective groups.

Now, let’s talk about character design. Darcy and Stella have the same eye color. And it’s an uncommon eye color, which has led many people in the fandom to speculate if Darcy might be Solarian. Straffi actually put a lot of love and effort into character designs, enough effort to hire actual high fashion designers to help draw the outfits of the show. And so, I’d like to think that not much was left to just pure coincidence. Additionally, it’s an interesting detail to note that Darcy’s secondary color is gold, and Stella is often presented with some purple in her transformations. Here, have these shitty side by side comparisons I made to show my point (and thanks to @bitchatcloudtower for helping me notice this!);

I think that the creators of the show were trying to make a point to highlight these narrative similarities in season one, but then gave up and settled with having Bloom/Icy as the main narrative foil relationship. The Stella/Darcy one is only shown a few times in later seasons but is a bit more prominent early on in the show. In the episode “Date with disaster.” Darcy disguises herself as Stella in order to steal her ring. They chose to specifically send Darcy to steal the ring, despite the trix being fully capable of using illusion powers to send anyone (we see them turn Knut into a human, and Stormy can change her appearance in season two). Arguably, Icy would have been a better actress and had more success at finding the ring, sending her would have made more sense. I think that sending Darcy was a deliberate choice made by the creators to highlight that they were setting Stella and Darcy up as narrative foils, similarly to how they were setting Bloom and Icy up. But like many early subplots in winx, it was buried and forgotten about, or in this case just never explored that much more. Intentional or not, I think it’s an interesting thought.