#I had a dream Eliza ended up being straight

[decaying-theatre-lesbian]

I wanted to write a cute short sapphic love story and now it has grown, so here is the first part. Please don’t juge, it’s my first story so it’s not great but I’m proud of it.

Part 2. Part 3

One

Rosaline was enjoying her vacation, staying at a cottage that her family had rented on the lake. She had no homework and chores to do, she got to hang out with her family, meet new people and play games with the other children. A dream came true! She was currently tasked with watching the twins and her younger sister, who were young and constantly getting into trouble. Sure, she enjoys looking after them, but the troublesome trio were living up to the name. She was promised that they would all go to the beach when her parents get back, so Rosaline is struggling to wrangle them all into swimwear, hoping to get them to the beach faster.

Finally, they were all ready and her parents arrived from the store. With a few praises on the fact that they were already ready, they were off. After promising her mama to stay in sight, that yes, she’ll apply sunscreen every hour, she is finally free. In fact, she is currently running backwards, shouting back that she’ll be careful, when she runs right into someone, both crashing to the ground. Rosaline starts to apologize, cringing when she imagines the scolding she’ll get from mama for running straight into someone after promising to be careful.

The person turned out to be a very pretty girl around her age, staring at her with wide eyes, startled from the collision. “Sorry, I wasn’t looking! Are you ok? I’m so sorry! -” In her hand she seemed to be gripping a book. An oddly familiar book “Ooh! Is that the new Eliza Mysteries book!”

Pretty girl’s scowl morphed into a smile at the mention of the book. “Yes! I got it a week ago, it’s so good. Have you read the spin off series?”

The two girls got to talking, sharing their love of the Eliza Mysteries book series. Before they knew it, the sun was setting and Rosaline was being called by her mama. They had spent the whole day talking about whatever came to mind, feeling like they had known eachother forever.

“Coming mama!” Rosaline turned back to her new friend, hesitant to leave when they were having so much fun. “Ca- can we meet up tomorrow? It’s ok if you can’t, but today was really fun and I lik-”

She interrupted her, wrapping her arms around Rosaline's shoulders, squeezing her in a tight hug. Her breath got caught in her throat before she wrapped her arms around her pretty new friend in return. “That would be great! I’ll see you then Rosaline!”

And with that, her new friend, Cassandra, left with a goodbye thrown over her shoulder. Rosaline hurried back over to her family, where her mom asked her about her new friend on the walk back to the cottage. Rosaline happily told her all about it, of their shared love of the Eliza Mysteries series and how they both wanted to be authors when they grew up, though she did leave out the bit where she met Cassandra by running into her.

The two girls meet up every day for the rest of the week, playing pretend, making up stories to act out, theorizing about the ending of the newest Eliza Mysteries book, talking about whatever they could think of. Meanwhile, their parents would hang out and talk or the girls would be left in the care of one's parents well the other would be busy elsewhere. Cassandra and Rosaline became attached at the hip, it became commonplace that if one was seen, the other wouldn’t be far.

Rosaline was devastated when the week came to an end and she was forced to leave. With many tears shed, begging to not be separated and promised to see each other again, Rosaline was finally loaded into the car. Just as she was about to close the door, Cassandra appear and leaned in to wrap her up into a final hug, tears streaming down her face.

Rosaline buried her face in her shoulder, hugging back just as tight. It was awkward and clumsy, both of them sobbing and her shoulder aching from the restriction of the seatbelt, which forced Cassandra pretty much onto her lap. But just as fast as she appear she was gone, closing her door and moving back to wave her off.

She watched as the lake and beach became smaller and smaller, until she could no longer see it, Cassandra and her aggressive wave goodbye gone from her sight. It was only then that she realized that Cassandra had never ended up giving her her mama’s number.

[hufflesight]

Hi! Love your work!

I was wondering if you could write a songfic to the song Satisfied from Hamilton. Mostly towards the end of it like 3:47 seconds in when Angelica is like “i know my sister like I know my own mind….ect.”

Inej is Angelica. Reader is Eliza. And Kaz is Alexander Hamilton.

Ok, I'll be honest here, this is one of the hardest things I've ever written. Writing Kaz, our favorite emotionally detached boi, as the apex of a love triangle (as Hamilton is), rather than an end of the triangle, is hard. So I do sincerely apologize for the delay in getting this out, it has taken me at least 3 full-drafts and many nights thinking about logistics to figure it out. I hope you don't absolutely hate it! Your support means everything to me <3

(Some lyric were added, cut, or edited in order to fit better with the story, setting, and tone. I hope that's okay! :D )

Description: Inej is the only one who can guide Kaz's heart to where it belongs. but she first must make the decision of whether that's with her, or with her closest friend, the reader.

Warnings: None, at least that I can think of

Words: 1344

As always if you like my writing feel free to give me a request! My inbox is always open, I might just take a couple days (or weeks apparently with this one lol (sorry again) ) to post it, depending on my schedule!

I remember that night, I just might

Y/n and Inej weren’t actually sisters. Yet they may as well have been. They were inseparable. But their bond came with a price, a series of sacrifices made for one another, a pattern which had emerged the first time they’d ever met.

That fateful day, Inej had been assigned to a rather “simple” job, as Kaz had put it: to rob a family of well known merchants in the Financial district. But as she passed through the window, she’d made a mistake. For the first time in years, the Wraith had made a mistake. A simple step in the wrong place, a betrayal of the sense of balance Inej had depended on for years, shoved her foot through a booby-trapped floorboard. A novice mistake, Kaz would tell her later that day, though his tone would hint at something that edged far closer to worry than it would have should it be Jesper in her seat. Yet, instead of Inej being met with a knife, a gun, or any weapon which she would be helpless to defend herself against, she was met with a kind hand. A hand that saw through the intimidating outfit and mask, saw through to the scared girl inside. The first time they’d ever met, Y/n had seen Inej at her weakest and helped her back up to her strongest.

If anyone asked her, Y/n would tell them she hadn’t regretted saving the Wraith. Not for a second, even though she’d helped Inej with a hand that forced her to run, to abandon her peaceful life for one in the Barrell where guns were on her at every step. She’d helped with a hand that lost her any kruge she had, and the family she’d once held dear. A hand fueled by compassion. A hand fueled by kindness. A hand that even Kaz found himself wanting to hold, the moment he’d accepted her to the Dregs, and then to the Crows.

I remember that night, I just might

And that sentiment seemed to continue to develop mutually, through hours of planning heists, stealing goods, ransoms and tradeoffs where Kaz and Y/n always seemed to be side by side. Everyone could see it. Everyone could tell that the man they’d assumed heartless was fond of the kindest person on the team.

But only Inej, with the quiet, careful observation that came so naturally to her, could see that the sentiment Kaz had for her, one that had grown over many, many years together, wasn’t gone.

She was the only one who realized that the Bastard of the Barrel didn’t know where his heart belonged.

And if his heart was an arrow, it was her who could aim the bow. Who could plunge it into her own heart, or let it fly straight to Y/n’s.

I remember that night, I just might regret that night for the rest of my days

I remember that dreamlike candlelight like a dream that you can't quite place

The room was dark, only a small strip of candlelight illuminating the sitting form on the lonely bed. Inej sat alone, clad in clothes as black as the night surrounding her. Many nights had passed just like this one, the lone girl entrapped in her own mind, her own decisions, the ones that would affect everyone she loved.

But Kaz, I'll never forget when I saw your face

But today, it was fated to go differently. Today, the Wraith would not be alone. A knock sounded on the door, not an ordinary one but rather the rapping of wood against wood. Or, as Inej figured immediately, a cane on wood.

Kaz.

One of the two people she’d been avoiding for days now. Ever since the realization of the weight on her shoulders came. But avoidance couldn’t be a permanent solution, and every conversation she’d tried to exit as quickly as possible now came back to bite her.

“Inej.” His gravelly voice cut through the cool air, laced with an emotion her mind couldn’t name. Not worry exactly, but that was the closest label she could assign to his tone. “Open the door.” Kaz. The man who spoke not in requests but rather commands. Or perhaps the two were synonymous with him. She could leave the door closed, and he would leave her. But she’d spent enough time isolated with no conversation more than the rather awkward, half-concerned ones with Jesper and Nina. Now it was time to face him. She let Kaz in, the creaking of the door painful to her ears.

At least it was him. At least it wasn’t Y/n.

I know my sister like I know my own mind

You will never find anyone as trusting or as kind

Y/n, the girl who’d saved her. Y/n, the girl she’d never truly sacrificed as much for. Y/n, the girl who loved Kaz Brekker. She’d seen the two of them together, the smiles dancing on her cheeks and the ones that hid under the surface of Kaz’s signature scowl. The hidden glances between them during missions, Kaz’s immediate worry when Y/n wasn’t next to him, when she was off in the streets of Ketterdam alone. The way he opened up for her. The way she let him do so.

“Inej. You've been acting strange all week. You’re the Wraith, you cannot simply avoid me and any responsibilities you have for the Dregs.” His adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and the gravel in his voice deepened as he finished his statement. “Inej, are you alright? Tell me what you need to tell me. I know there’s something.”

It was Inej’s turn to swallow. The bow had been drawn, now she had to lean out and guide it.

If I tell him that I love him

Inej tried to imagine a future where she and Kaz left this room with the mutual understanding of care, of love. A future where every dream she’d had in the dead of night came true. WHere the girl next to him in those memories had her face, not Y/n’s. A future where she was finally happy. Where she was finally satisfied.

She'd be silently resigned

She would say, "I'm fine"

She'd be lying

But Inej’s satisfaction would only bring Y/n pain. Y/n had made this decision before. Her own life and dreams were wrecked, in order for Inej’s to continue. And Y/n had made the call in seconds, in far more stressful circumstances. Her sister had . She could finally pay back her sister’s sacrifice. Bring herself pain, heartbreak. but give Y/n everything she wanted.

And so she spoke, voice confident if not in herself than in her sister.

“Kaz. This shouldn’t be about me. There’s something up with you. And everyone knows it. Nina, Wylan, Jesper, we all know. You care for Y/n far more than you do the rest of us.”

His eyes widened slightly for a millisecond, the only indication of his surprise.

“And Kaz. She Loves you. Trust me, I am the closest person she has. But I think it’s time you took that spot. You need one another, Kaz. You deserve one another. Be together, finally. Love someone again. Open that frozen heart of yours once more. Love her, Kaz Brekker. Because no one-” Her voice broke, “No one loves you as much as she does.”

And the arrow was fired into Y/n’s heart.

But when I fantasize at night it's Kaz's eyes

As I romanticize what might have been

Hidden in the back of her head, her heart, for the rest of her life, was a shred of regret. Of disappointment. A wonder of what could’ve been.

At least my dear sister's his wife

But sacrifices rang true throughout her and Y/n’s friendship. And she’d never regret the joy on her sister’s face as Kaz and her finally exchanged vows, years later.

Inej’s guidance had worked.

The arrow of Kaz’s had landed true.

[writershapeholeonthedoor]

You Marked More Than Just My Skin - Supercorp

Read it on AO3

Kara’s first instinct was to blame Alex because, if she was going to be honest, Alex was the one to blame for many of her stupid decisions. Sisters' competitive nature or something like that. That's what their mother would say when they were teenagers and they randomly started a fight. A just adopted Kara who had just lost her parents was not letting an overly cocky Alex win without fighting back.

So, naturally, she was going to blame Alex for this. However, Alex had nothing to do with Kara walking down the street from her job one day and entering the tattoo shop she walked past by every day on her way home. No, it had started with Winn, her best friend, saying that Kara wasn’t the type of person to do things out of impulse. Which he wasn’t exactly wrong, although he hit a sore spot because "I can be very spontaneous!" had been Kara’s answer and everyone around them gave her that look that made it pretty clear no one believed her.

Then, just about a week after that, Nia was walking home with her after a stop at Noonan's for their killer milkshake and saw the tattoo shop still open even if it was past 10 pm. There was no one inside that they could see, but the sign read "open" in neon letters and Nia did a double-take when she saw the walls covered in drawings.

"Oh, my God! Look at that thing!" she had screamed. And that thing was a fairly beautiful drawing of a girl lying in bed with a cloud above her head as though she was dreaming about a myriad of things.

Nia grabbed her arm, dragged her inside and, ten minutes later, she was sitting on a chair while a young man that couldn't be older than Kara permanently marked the skin on her forearm with the same drawing.

"Did you draw it?" Nia asked and Kara could tell she was just a little bit in pain because she was clutching the arm of the chair and hadn’t stopped babbling for two seconds. Not that Nia ever stopped talking, actually.

"No," the man replied in an excited voice. Like he was happy to be doing a tattoo on a girl that had just ten minutes prior decided she wanted one. But Kara held back her tongue, took some pictures while Nia made her goofy faces and sat on a stool at the corner like the good friend she was. "My boss did. She does most of the drawings we have available."

"Well, she has a hell of a talent!" Nia exclaimed, bit her lip when the needle hit a soft spot and flashed another smile once it was gone. "You should tell her she's amazing!"

Jack, that was his name, Kara reminded herself, laughed like that was a big joke that only he was aware of, but nodded all the same. "She's in the office right now, maybe she will stop by to hear you say that. She loves when people pick her drawings, but she will never say it out loud."

The woman, whoever she was, didn’t leave her office, not even when they left, way past midnight, listening to Jack's careful instructions on how to take care of Nia's arm for the next week. In the end, Kara had to admit Jack was a nice guy. And he did an excellent job. Nia's tattoo was perfect. Perfect for her and perfectly done, and her friend had no problem showing it off the next day.

"Holy crap!" Winn screamed when he saw it on game night on Friday. "I didn't know you were into tattoos. It looks awesome!"

"Thank you! And I just decided to do it," Nia shrugged, as though deciding to do a tattoo on a Wednesday night at 10 pm after getting a milkshake was a normal thing. "Thank Goddess Kara was with me so she could keep me company."

"Wait," Winn eyed Kara with the same incredulous expression from a week before and she immediately felt defensive. "Kara was there and didn't try to stop you?"

"She did say I might regret it," Nia conceded with a smile. "About ten times, but she stayed with me."

Kara rolled her eyes, picked up the pizza box and sulked on the couch while her friends made fun of her lack of spontaneous nature. Kara was a planner. And she had learned her lesson when she decided to walk to the park instead of going home one day after school and returned to the Danvers' household to find out three police cars parked at the street and a frantic Eliza giving them a photo of her and saying she had disappeared. So, yes, Kara wasn't one to do things out of the blue anymore, but that was hardly a bad thing.

She tried to tell that to herself for the next week while everyone still awed and cooed at Nia's tattoo. She tried to remind herself of Eliza's panicked face while James, with his impressive looking dragon tattoo on his back, said Kara would never be one to make a tattoo because she would keep changing her mind. She tried to picture Alex's disapproving stare while Nia's boyfriend, Querl, made comments on how he loved Nia's carefree and spontaneous nature.

In the end, what pushed her to do it was her boss and Kara couldn’t even blame her, or Alex, or any of her friends. But she would, anyway.

"Kiera, the reason why people hardly remember your name-" she wanted to point out that Cat was the only one who had a hard time remembering her name but bit her tongue instead "-is because you are so... blank."

"Blank?" Kara had asked, trying and failing not to look so offended.

And Cat nodded because she knew how to get to her. "Nothing remarkable. You use terrible sweaters and write articles that everyone could write. Did you ever do something, I don’t know, remotely spontaneous in your life?"

Kara was sure - or almost sure because you can never know with Cat Grant - that her boss was trying to push her to fly to Midvale to write about the scandal surrounding some tech company there even though Snapper had decided William would cover that for CatCo. It was either that or to make her wear something that wasn’t in pastel color.

Well, all it did was send Kara straight to a tattoo shop where she hoped to find Jack and demand he did something as spectacular as Nia's tattoo. And she went on a mission, marching down the ten blocks from CatCo to the tattoo shop - that only that day she stopped to read the name of and what weird name they chose, Le Vintage Ink - her feet hitting the ground with a purpose, her hand pushing the door open with a vengeance, her eyes narrowed behind her glasses with one goal in mind.

It wasn't Jack she saw, however. She didn't see anyone at first, actually. The shop was empty like it was a week before and very silent, with the air conditioner doing a soft hum and nothing else.

The anti climax moment was enough to make all her determination wave off. Her shoulders dropped, her eyes rounded, her feet started to stamp and her determination, well, she didn’t quite remember it anymore. Nobody needed to know, Kara told to herself. Nobody knew she was going to do it, so she could just turn around, leave, go back to her apartment and try to do some online shopping. Maybe buy a red dress for once. None of her friends would ever believe she went back to the tattoo shop, so there would be no problem...

No. That was exactly the problem. They wouldn’t even believe her if she told them. They would laugh, call it a bluff, and keep teasing Kara for not being adventurous like they were. Alex does this long motorbike drives all over the state sometimes, and James goes hiking and jumps from planes from time to time. Winn would point out that the last thing Kara did without meticulous planning was to change pizza night for potstickers and that was only because the pizza place she always orders from was out of pineapples.

However, Kara reasoned with herself, instead of doing a tattoo, she could just go with Alex on her next trip. Maybe she could ask James to teach her how to hike. Querl adopted a cat he found behind his building, so maybe that could be Kara’s unplanned moment too. And what did Winn do so adventurous or spontaneous that he had the right to make fun of Kara? She couldn’t remember.

Yes, any of those things would be more reasonable. She could even do an impromptu visit to her mother. It would count for something. She knew Eliza would be happy and she loved making her mom happy. She could even pick Alex's old helmet so her sister could use it to ride with her girlfriend, Kelly, and Eliza makes a killer chocolate pecan pie too.

Already dreaming with the taste of the pie crust in her mouth Kara turned around. She must have been inside the tattoo shop for less than ten seconds and Jack hadn’t shown up yet, so that was a plus and a sign, even if she wanted to greet him and tell how nice Nia's tattoo looked after a week.

The second her back was turned to the counter, though, she heard a door opening and then a voice filled the silence. "Can I help you?"

That wasn’t Jack's voice. That much she knew. What she didn’t know was that someone could sound so... husky and still be so clear on the words. What she also didn’t know was why her body froze like she had been hit with lightning. Or why she ever decided to leave when a voice like that was inside the shop.

It would be rude to just keep walking, Kara told herself and even she knew it was a lame excuse for wanting to see the owner of that voice. But she still turned around, eyes blinking fast as she tried not to miss a second of what she was about to see, and then immediately felt her soul leave her body. That was the only explanation on why her mouth fell open and why her brain's function slowed down at least 30%.

Because the voice's owner was... for the lack of a better word, striking. It was a woman, looking a few years younger than Kara, with dark as coal wavy hair falling down her shoulders, green piercing eyes framed by some heavy eyeliner and plump lips painted with red lipstick. The woman was wearing a black t-shirt from a band Kara had never heard of, the v-cut being deep enough that she could see a black bra under it. The shirt looked like she had been cut at home - maybe she wasn't designed to have such a deep v-neck, maybe she had sleeves at some point and maybe the deep cuts by each side also weren't a part of the initial product. But, damn, it looked great on her. Since she had no sleeves and the shirt moved as she walked and showed a great expanse of her sides, Kara could see that the woman’s body was covered in tattoos.

Her arms, from shoulder to wrist, were almost totally covered. Her left arm almost looked like a flower shop, with dozens of flowers in different colors drawn all over it. Her right arm had tattoos from her shoulder to her elbow, and they were a mix of chemical elements and computer parts that, somehow, worked together in all black and white. Kara got just a few glimpses of the tattoos on her side - something that looked like a cartoon character, another one that assembled a lake, a few words that Kara couldn’t read from that far - but that was enough to make her lick her lips and try to picture what else was there. There were no tattoos on her chest area, that Kara could see, but there was a small musical chord on the left side of her neck, and Kara wondered if she had any tattoos on her legs. She couldn't see them from where the woman was standing behind the counter, and something dragged her feet forward before she could stop herself.

"H-hi," she choked out and her face immediately heated up with embarrassment. Her sister would call it 'gay panic' and make fun of her for three days, and Kara was suddenly very thankful for being alone. "I, uh..." The woman blinked, Kara mimicked her, and lost every coherent thought inside her head. "Jack."

The woman arched one perfect eyebrow, resting her hands flat against the counter, and Kara’s blue eyes were suddenly very interested in the long fingers spread over some papers. The papers, she noticed as a second thought, were unfinished drawings, but she could hardly tell what they were. Feeling her face get even hotter, Kara demanded that her eyes moved up and she was almost proud of herself when they paused for only a second at the woman’s cleavage. Of course, as soon as her eyes met the woman’s face again, she had a tiny smirk like she knew Kara was having a hard time being in the same space as her.

"I'm sorry, love," she said and Kara noticed an accent behind the last word, like she had spent years trying to get rid of it but still couldn't brush it off some words. "Jack doesn't work here on Tuesdays."

Oh. Well, that's a bit of a relief, Kara wasn't going to lie. No Jack, no tattoo, and she still could say she tried. She still wanted to say ‘hi’ but...

"Can I help you instead?"

Oh, boy. Kara almost turned around and ran away right then and there because the things she was thinking this stranger could help her with were kind of mortifying. Instead, Kara bit her bottom lip so hard that it went numb instantly, and leaned forward until she was resting her hands in front of the woman's fingers. She dared to glance down really quick, just to find out the woman was wearing black jeans and boots, before she looked up again - with a quick stop at the cleavage because good lord.

"I don't know, I..." Kara couldn’t even say her own name if the woman asked at that moment, let alone remember what she was doing there and where there even was.

The woman chuckled then. A deep, husky sound from the back of her throat that brought a small smile to her lips, and then she ducked her head - as though she had no idea that was the most blinding smile Kara had ever seen in her twenty-six years of living. Neither the chuckle nor the smile was mockingly, and her green eyes were just a little bit amused when she looked back at Kara.

"Don't get me wrong but... you don't look like the type of person that would get a tattoo."

Okay, what is it with people just assuming Kara is too boring to do something? Kara took a look at her own clothes. She wasn't even wearing a sweater that day! Sure, beige trousers and a blue button up hardly screamed "living on the edge" but come on! Was it the glasses? Alex always said she should use contact lenses, but she liked the glassed!

Feeling a new wave of determination, Kara set up her jaw and crossed her arms. "Well, that's exactly what I came here to do."

The woman raised both eyebrows now, clearly amused. "To get a tattoo?" She asked like there was any other reason for Kara to be inside a tattoo shop on a Tuesday night.

So Kara nodded, her blonde hair wiggling from side to side on her ponytail, and straightened up her back like she was about to enter a fight. Not that she ever fought before, not even when the cruel kids at her new school would call her weird and push her inside her locker. Alex would beat them up for her, so she didn’t have to, it was fine.

"Yes," she said and her voice only trembled for a second. "To get a tattoo," she confirmed like there was any other reason for her to be inside a tattoo shop on a Tuesday night.

"Okay," the woman said, clicking her tongue once before she picked up a pen from the desk, a smirk permanently spread on her lips. "Do you have any idea of what you want?"

Shit. Kara hadn’t gone that far. Maybe not even her own brain thought she would do it because she had neglected the most important part of the entire process. She had no idea what she wanted permanently marked on her skin.

(Permanently marked also sent a thousand of red lights inside her head because, you know, it was permanent)

It must have shown on her face because the woman’s smirk became more of a smile, not exactly gentle but not mockery either. "What's your name?"

"Kara." She was so glad her brain hadn’t come up with something ridiculous to say. She could remember when she met her cousin's sister-in-law and answered the same question with "mashed potatoes" for some reason she would never be able to grasp. Lucy never let her forget that embarassing moment.

"Well, Kara," and Holy Goddess of all the universe and beyond, how could her name roll out of her lips like that? "why don’t you take a look at the drawings we have here, see if you like one. If you don't, we can always come up with something for you."

She then pushed some heavy black portfolio across the counter towards Kara and opened the leather front cover to show her the first drawing. They were all separated by plastic, and she started the task of turning the pages while trying very hard to look at the drawings and not at the woman in front of her. She wasn't sure because she wouldn’t dare to look up, but she could feel green eyes staring at her and her blush returned full force.

"So..." she heard after a couple of minutes in silence. "What kind of dare you lost?"

Kara took full offense on that, glaring at her for a moment before going back to the portfolio. She had gotten on the dragon section and decided to skip it all together. "There was no dare."

The woman hummed, watched her for another minute, and then leaned over with her forearms touching the counter. She reached out, taking the plastic from Kara's fingers, and started skipping the pages until they reached the flowers. Kara looked up, catching a glimpse of the woman's arm, before meeting green eyes with a light glare.

The woman shrugged. "You look like a flower kind of girl."

"What else do I look like to you?" Kara mumbled back and stubbornly went back to the drawing she was seeing before - the ships and anchors section - even though she left a finger marking the flowers page.

The brunette seemed even more amused now, barely able to hide her smile, and she chuckled once when Kara turned the page to see another ship. "Like you randomly decided to get a tattoo because someone pissed you off."

Kara tried not to give her the satisfaction of being right, deciding to focus on studying every ship and every anchor. She heard another chuckle, but the woman wisely didn’t push the subject.

"You could save us a lot of time by just going to the flowers."

Fine, maybe she was right about that too. Kara would never pick a ship, or a dragon, or a coffee cup, or any other drawing she saw before. Although Kara never thought what type of drawing she would get tattooed. With a sigh, she went back to the flowers, throwing the woman a dirty look when she huffed a laugh.

"Hey," she said, raising her hands in playful defense, "if I'm going to do something that you will regret tomorrow, at least let me help."

"Aren't you going to try to talk me out of this?" Kara asked, remembering when Jack asked Nia five times if she was sure before touching her skin with the needle.

"No," another shrug. "I will get my money and you will get the regret. Works fine by me."

Kara scoffed and shook her head, but finally spotted something she liked. It was a rose, not larger than a paper ball, black and white with a few leafs to the side. She was almost pointing that one out when she heard a deep sigh and looked up. The brunette was staring down at the drawing with enough judgment that Kara changed her mind in a blink.

"What?" She still asked because it was a beautiful flower.

"Nothing, it's just... does that even mean something to you?"

Kara looked back at the rose and frowned. "I like roses," she defended herself.

"I like kale, but I won’t tattoo that."

"You like kale?" Kara didn’t mean to sound so disgusted by it but it was stronger than her. Her face twisted in a grimace, shocked more than anything.

The other woman laughed a real laugh this time, and Kara felt the sound into her xcvery core. "Please, don't ask me to tattoo a burger on you. You're too pretty for that."

It was like she knew exactly what those words would do to Kara because she winked right after, making her blush ten times more. "What do you suggest, then?"

The tattooed brunette smiled and tapped her finger on top of the rose. "If you liked this one, it's fine, but I would go with..." She let her voice die as she started turning the pages until she found what she was looking for. "This one."

Kara looked at the drawing and was immediately sold to the idea. It wasn't just any flower. It was a plumeria. Well, two plumerias side by side, with a few leafs to the sides and a mandala carefully placed behind them like it was the third flower. She knew she wanted that one the second her eyes landed on it.

"It would look good on you," she kept talking. "I wouldn’t add any color, though." Kara kept nodding although she was only half paying attention now that she had found the right one. Her silence must have sent twisted signals because the woman’s voice became softer. "I know I said I wouldn’t try to talk you out of this but... are you sure?"

Kara’s eyes moved up then, metting slightly concerned green eyes, and she smiled. "Yes. I'm sure."

The woman studied her face for a few seconds before she nodded once. "Okay, then. Where do you want it?"

Shit.

The panic on her face told her out again and the woman’s laugh filled the space around them like a melody. "Come on, we can figure it out inside."

‘Inside’ being a closed room very similar to the one Nia had gotten her tattoo, albeit it was clear that that one wasn't Jack's. First, it lacked the smell of cigars and heavy cologne that Kara smelled last time and made her nose itch. But it also held a more personal touch like more drawings and a few words scribbled on the black walls. Kara didn’t feel nervous while the woman turned the sign from open to close, explaining that she was the only one who worked on Tuesdays' nights. She also didn’t feel nervous when she entered the room and spotted the comfortable chair she would be sitting on. What made her nervous again was taking her shirt off so she could decide where she wanted the plumerias to be.

She placed the printed drawing on several parts of both of her arms, her shoulders and asked the brunette to hold it at some spots on her back as well. But Kara was only satisfied when she put the paper against the right side of her ribs, a few centimeters below her bra. The woman gave her a knowing look and arched one eyebrow when she said that was the place she wanted her tattoo.

"Are you sure? It can be quite a painful area to get a tattoo, especially if it's your first one."

Again, she wasn't making fun of Kara and she appreciated it, but she also wasn't going to change her mind. "I'm sure."

"Okay. I will put the outlines, then."

It was only when the brunette had her hands against her side and her face a few inches from her chest that Kara realized she didn’t even know who she was. "Hey, I, uh, I didn't catch your name before."

Green eyes glanced up, bright and slightly amused, before they returned to the task of perfectly positioning the flowers on her ribs. "Lena."

"Lena," Kara found herself echoing the name in a whisper before she could stop herself. Lena looked up again, even more amused than before, and Kara felt herself blushing. "It... it suits you."

She had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but Lena smiled and tilted her head to the side. "Thanks." She pushed back the stool she was sitting on. "Take a look at the mirror and see if that's what you want."

Kara took a step closer to see her reflection and tried very hard to ignore the fact that she was standing in front of a stranger in her bra. The plumerias were exactly what she wanted and exactly where she wanted them, and she said that to Lena, who told her to lay down after turning the chair into an improvised bed. While Kara tried to find a comfortable place to lay, she heard Lena slipping on rubber gloves and moving a few things around before approaching her again. She was half expecting her to ask one more time if she was sure, but Lena said nothing when she touched her skin with the black gloves, and raised the needle to her eyes level to make sure it was ready to go.

Kara wasn’t sure if the shivers were from nervousness, the chill air of the room, or the fact that this very attractive woman was touching her just below her breast, but she did her best to ignore it. Lena had pulled her hair into a messy ponytail, Kara realized, and she could see her sharp jawline more easily now. She also spotted five different piercings on the woman’s right ear. For a second, she wondered if Lena could feel her heart beating under her skin or if she could maybe even hear it.

"Be ready for some pain, but try not to move," Lena said while she lowered the needle to her skin. "It will take longer if you keep moving. You also don't want me to fuck this up," she offered Kara a smile to let her know she was joking - at least that's what the blonde hoped for. "Tell me if you need a break."

So, Lena wasn't lying when she said it would hurt. Nia neglected to tell her about the painful part and Kara would make her pay for it by typing down her next article, but, holy crap, it hurt. The first touch of the needle made her jump and hiss, and Lena pulled it away like she knew it was going to happen, giving her a few seconds to recover.

"Sorry," Kara whispered once her body relaxed again.

"It's fine," the brunette mumbled back, totally concentrated on her job now.

It went like that for a few minutes - Kara squeezing her eyes shut, biting her lips, clutching the sides of the chair slash bed, and hissing under her breath whenever she couldn’t hold it back anymore. Until she started to get used to the pain and allowed herself to focus on other things. Her eyes trailed to the few drawings hanging on the walls, taking in the delicate traces and the lack of colors from all of them. She decided that talking would help her with the pain.

"Jack said his boss makes those drawings," she commented lightly.

There was a brief pause before Lena answered her. "That would be me."

"Oh," the blonde breathed out in shock. "So, you..."

"I'm the owner, yes." There was another pause while Lena cleaned her skin with a soft paper. "I used to work for a tattoo artist back in Metropolis before I decided to open my own business. Jack followed me."

"Well, you certainly have talent. Your drawings are beautiful."

"On paper," Lena teased and Kara didn’t need to look at her to know she was smirking. "Let's see how it translate to your skin."

Kara wanted to play along and tell her to ‘please, don't make something awful that would be permanently marked on my skin’, but she found herself saying something entirely different. "Plumerias were my mom's favorite flowers. My dad would bring them to her every Saturday after work because those were the first flowers he ever gave her." She could still remember her father getting back home on Saturdays right before lunch with a bouquet in his hand to her mom and a box of chocolate for her, all smiles and offering hugs. If she tried hard enough, Kara could still remember the smell of her mom's stew mixed with the flowers' smell, could still taste the chocolate. "They died almost fifteen years ago."

Kara had no idea why she was sharing those things with this stranger wearing black rubber gloves and breathing too close to her ribs, but she also couldn't stop. Maybe it was a tattoo thing, like sharing too much about your relationships while cutting your hair.

Lena didn’t shy away, though. She made sure their eyes were locked before saying, "Let's make sure those are perfect, then," and went back to work.

Kara felt herself relaxing more after that, although she didn’t say anything else for a few minutes. "I work as a reporter to a magazine," she found herself saying. "My boss is... both of them are impossible to deal with. I dream about throwing them into space sometimes, but... I love my job. One of them is the reason I'm here today."

"Who should I be thanking?"

Kara blushed one more time, even if she wasn't sure it was said to be flirtatious or if she was just imagining it. "Cat means well, she just... push some buttons sometimes."

"Well," Lena stopped her movements to look at Kara again, this time with a soft smile. "I will be sending this Cat some flowers anyway."

The blonde chuckled at that. "Go back to work. I don't want to end up with a dragon on my ribs."

Lena hummed, eyes dropping back to the outlines of the flowers and needle touching skin again. "I wouldn’t draw a dragon on you," she contemplated. "You're more of an iguana kind of girl."

Kara gasped in faked offense and turned her head to fully stare at Lena with narrowed eyes. "How dare you? You know nothing about me!"

The tattoo artist shrugged, not bothered by her explosion. "Maybe a kitty." Kara huffed and puffed, letting her body fall back on the chair, and did her best to keep frowning. "Definitely a kitty," she heard Lena whispering under her breath, playfully and amused, and Kara was soon smiling. "So... will your boyfriend approve this?"

"Are you fishing for information about me?" Kara teased.

"Huh," Lena sighed. "You didn’t sound this confident when you were stumbling over your words when you first saw me."

She was sure her entire body turned pink with that and she mumbled weakly that: "I was nervous about getting a tattoo."

"Yes, of course," Lena replied and Kara blushed again.

"No boyfriend," she ended up replying because the other alternative was to dig a bigger hole to herself. "Or a girlfriend."

She was ready for another teasing from the other woman, but Lena pulled back instead and eyed her tattoo with her head tilted to the side. "I need you to hold your breath for a few seconds, okay? I'm getting to a delicate part and it would be better if you hold it for, like, ten seconds."

Kara nodded and got ready to pull in a breath to hold it while Lena got her needle ready to go again. When the other woman said so, Kara took in a large intake of breath but, as soon as the needle touched her again, she exhaled in surprise when the pain shot to every nerve in her body.

"I know," Lena said. "It's the hardest part. I promise to be done with it as fast as possible. Can we try again?"

There weren't many options since Kara was already in the middle of getting her tattoo done, so she nodded and waited for the new signal. Kara grabbed the chair with both of her hands, pressed her eyes tightly shut, bit her bottom lip and held her breath for the longest ten seconds of her life before Lena tapped her skin and pulled away with a smile.

"There," she declared in her husky tone. "Good girl."

It was embarrassing how those two words made Kara react. She gasped, the breath still stuck in her lungs almost causing her to choke, and her entire body went stiff when a shiver left goosebumps all over her skin on its way down her spine. She couldn't see Lena and that was a blessing because she could feel the pause that her reaction gave the brunette. So, maybe that was a weird way to find out a praise kink, Kara decided while praying that Lena would brush it as a perfectly normal reaction to have.

"That was interesting," Lena whispered and, this time, the blonde knew she wasn't supposed to have heard that.

The blonde bit her bottom lip so hard that she could feel the taste of blood and she was totally sure that Lena could hear how fast her heart was beating. She could probably feel it, and, God, that was so embarrassing. Kara had half a piece of mind to just pull back her shirt, leave and never go back there, but the other woman didn’t give her time to react before she was once more piercing her skin with the needle. It was still painful, although the mortification she felt numbed it a little bit.

Lena didn’t sound so cocky when she spoke again and she even had to clear her throat so the words would come out less hoarse and more audible. “Just a while longer and we will be done. Can you handle it or should we finish it another day?”

Kara didn’t trust herself to ever come back – and not just because of what had just happened but also because she didn’t think she would be brave enough to get any tattoo needle to ever touch her again. So, she exhaled slowly and nodded. Lena went back to the draw immediately after that and they fell in a half comfortable silence until the trickiest part was over. Or, at least, that’s what Kara thought the trickiest part was because it hurt like hell and Lena had this crinkle between her brows when she glanced back that made her look... cute. Even with the tattoos and the five different piercing sets on her ears, the black clothes, the black room and her undeniable confidence.

It wasn’t until Lena leaned away to get more ink that she spoke again. “Plumerias were very common where I lived.”

Kara thought back on their conversation and wondered aloud, “Metropolis?”

“Ireland,” she corrected gently.

“Oh,” Kara breathed out and then hissed when the needle was back to her ribs.

“Not many people know I’m Irish, so I’m trusting you with this secret, Kara.”

She could hear the joke in the woman’s voice and Lena even poked her side playfully, and Kara heard herself giggling like a schoolgirl. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“That’s not how it works,” Lena declared with a huff. “Now you need to tell me a secret of yours.”

“What?”

“Yes, so we’re even and I can make sure you will never tell anyone what I just told you.”

“It’s not like you just confessed a murder,” Kara argued with an eye roll that was quite too fond to be directed to someone who she had met only two or three hours before.

Lena looked up for a second and their eyes met, making Kara’s face flush red. She was pulling a very uncomfortable position to keep her head raised and turned to the side so she could watch the other woman, and she had just been caught doing that one more time. “No? Well, you shouldn’t go to my office then.”

Kara hummed, trying to sound unimpressed by the joke while fighting back a laugh, and shrugged. “I knew it was weird I didn’t see Jack.”

The brunette let out a breathy chuckle, her hot breath hitting Kara’s side and making her shiver again, before she pursed her lips. “I see you’re too fond of Jack already.”

“Jealous?”

Lena quirked one dark eyebrow and gave her a look – the type of look that Kara tried to pull out her entire life while trying to look all sexy and misterious and was never able to do it – that made the blonde’s entire body warm up. “I’m the one poking your skin with a needle right now, so I think he should be the jealous one.”

Yes, Kara couldn’t keep up with that. She was weird, she rambled, she stuttered more times than not, and just, overall, was terrible at the whole flirting thing. Lena, on the other hand, seemed to be a master on it. Kara didn’t really stand a chance against it, not even for a second. She could try, pull out a word or a phrase here and there, but, in the end, Lena would find a way to leave her blushing and flustered so easily that made her head spin.

(She couldn’t be sure if Lena was just that good or if Kara was just super gay, but, whatever it was, it was working wonderfully)

“Now, come on, spill a secret,” Lena said after a long silence that stretched between them while they just stared at each other’s eyes.

Kara felt hypnotized by the green eyes and that was so unfair. So, damn, unfair. “I get my boss’ coffee order wrong every day.”

Lena stopped with the tattoo again to blink at her a couple of times in what seemed to be confusion. Then, she tilted her head to the side, glanced to the ceiling and opened her mouth as if she was going to say something. No sound came out, she closed her mouth again, and she looked so adorable that Kara felt her rambling coming to the surface again.

“Cat has this really complicated order at Starbucks that makes my head hurt just to think about. 3% fat, quarter milk, a spoon and a half of organic sugar, or whatever that is. It’s my job to get her coffee every morning and there’s no Starbucks close to my apartment, so I stop at another place called Noonan’s and get an order from there.” Lena still hadn’t said anything and Kara couldn’t bring herself to stop talking. “I used to work there, so I have a discount. I can buy a coffee for myself too with the same amount of money I would spend at Starbucks. And she never noticed it!”

There was a pause where Kara tried to come up with more things to say before a loud laugh cut the space around her. She looked at Lena with wide eyes and only slightly offended by her reaction, but the other woman was too busy laughing at her expense to notice it. The brunette used the back of her hand to cover her mouth while she shook her head and kept laughing freely.

“I’m sorry,” Lena said, waving her hand, before being interrupted by her own laugh. “It’s just... Fuck! That’s the worse thing you ever did in your life?” The tattoo artist looked at her again with her eyes crinkling at the sides and Kara felt her anger melting away.

“What? Did you expect a murder?”

“I was hoping that you would say you spit on her coffee, at least.”

Kara gasped. “I would never do that!”

Lena narrowed her eyes at her, a tiny smirk adorning her lips. “But you think about it, don’t you?”

“Every day,” she admitted with a groan, letting her head fall back against the chair.

The brunette laughed again and a cold hand came to rest against her thigh, making Kara’s body vibrate from head to toe. “I won’t tell your secret if you don’t tell mine.” Lena winked – winked – at her and Kara felt her throat too dry all of sudden. The woman chuckled again when the blonde gulped before she gently tapped the hard muscle of Kara’s thigh. “We’re done here.”

“Oh.” Kara blinked in surprise and her eyes immediately fell to her ribs. The skin was red and swollen, but she could see the delicate lines of the flowers and the leaves, and she was hit by the urge to cry all at once. She felt like a little girl again, being six or seven, and running to the door to meet her father, seeing the plumerias in his left hand and the chocolate on his right.

“Hey,” Lena called her gently, ducking her head to be able to catch the blue eyes again. “You're fine over there? I had people regretting tattoos before, but not so fast.”

Kara laughed and shook her head, trying to discreetly brush a tear from the corner of her eyes. “Everything is fine. It’s really beautiful.”

“Well, don’t say that before you take a better look,” Lena pushed her stool away and got up with a refreshed excitement. “Come on, stand up so you can look at it in the mirror.”

That’s what Kara did, sliding off the chair and walking with slightly trembling legs to the full body mirror that she had seen before. The fact that she still didn’t have her shirt on was in the back of her mind while her eyes traced the ink. It looked even better on her ribs than it looked on the paper and she made sure to tell the other woman that, earning a smile that she doubted she would ever be able to forget.

"Here." She turned around to see Lena's hand reaching out a piece of white chalk between her long fingers and sporting a kind of smile that Kara hadn’t seen on her yet - satisfied, the type of smile you give after accomplishing a task that meant something to you. "All of my clients have to write something on the walls. It's tradition," Lena shrugged in the end.

Kara’s eyes swept through the room again, taking in the black walls and words written in almost every inch available under a new light. There were small praises, thanks, some jokes and even a few doodles, and Kara wondered what she could write that could sum up her entire experience inside Lena's tattoo shop. She took the chalk more out of instinct, her brain still working on finding the right words, and Kara took a few steps around the room until she found the right place to write.

It was just below one of Lena's drawings that were hanging from a string, between a Scooby-Doo doodle and the message of someone saying they loved their new rose tattoo. Kara’s handwriting wasn't the best one - sloppy and crooked - and it looked even worse when she was trying to write on a wall, but she managed to write her first and last name to make it look readable. Then, she added her phone number under it and put the chalk inside the small box she found just beside her. Kara turned around making sure her body would cover what she had just written, suddenly feeling too nervous about it, and accepted the plastic foil paper Lena handed her.

"Remember to put on the ointment I told you about and keep it covered so it heals. It should be all healed in a week, tops. You're free to call if you have any doubts."

Lena led the way out of the room and they found themselves once again at the reception desk. Lena picked up the pen she had played with before and scribbled something on a piece of paper beside the computer while Kara reached out for her wallet in the pocket of her trousers. Their fingers brushed when she handed Lena the money and her face flushed red for the millionth time that night. Lena gave her a knowing smile before putting the money away and just like that they realized that they would part ways soon. A small part of Kara, primal and shameless, tried to come up with any reason that would make her stay for a while longer. Anything would do, really.

Even so, there was no reason for her to stay and Kara tried to mask her unjustified sadness by joining her hands in front of her body and forcing a smile to look real. “Thank you again.”

Lena waved a hand dismissively, the pen still hanging between two fingers, before her hand came to rest on top of the other one on the desk. “It was my pleasure.”

“If I regret it in the morning, I will come back with a vengeance,” Kara joked, swaying on her heels, and the laugh that came from the other woman was worth any type of regret she might end up having in the near future.

“As much as I would like to see you again, I would hate for that to be the reason you came back.”

Lena winked at her and Kara’s mouth hang open before she could stop herself. That made the brunette laugh in delight, made a deep blush rise from her neck to her cheeks, and Kara started taking steps back before she could embarrass herself anymore. Alex, Nia and all of their friends were right: she’s a gay disaster. None of them would be able to judge her if they just saw Lena though, of that she was sure.

Stumbling over one of the chairs, Kara let out a nervous laugh and, to her utter terror, she pointed finger guns at Lena. “Have, ah, have a good night, ma’am.”

She missed the door handle twice before she was able to open the door and, by the time she looked at Lena again, the other woman was smiling broadly at her. Ducking her head, Kara walked out the door and let it close behind her. Once the slightly chill air of the night hit her face, she closed her eyes and resisted the urge to hit herself for some very stupid decisions made inside that shop. She wondered if she would ever be able to live it down if any of her friends ever found out she just did finger guns at a beautiful woman as a way to say goodbye.

Well, to be fair, she wasn’t sure any of her friends would let her live it down when they found out about her very spontaneous tattoo.

God, Alex was going to kill her. Not for getting a tattoo, but for doing so without giving it enough thought. And, for Christ’s sake, Alex could be a real pain in the ass when she decided to lecture her for whatever reason it was. She was so not ready to deal with that.

It was only when she opened her eyes again that she realized she was still standing outside the tattoo shop – and that Lena could still very easily see her from her place behind the counter – and, with another blush, Kara pushed herself to start walking. Her apartment was only five more blocks down the street and she took that time to clear her mind from anything negative she was thinking about.

If her crazy and very unusual night taught her anything was that she had the thing inside her that could make her do some very adventurous things. She was capable of doing those things. Maybe randomly getting a tattoo wasn’t the ideal way to prove that to herself, but, damn, she had just renewed faith in herself.

Her poor attempts at flirting were the last thing on her mind when she pushed the door to her studio apartment open and stepped inside, making a beeline to where she had left her laptop earlier that day on the small kitchen table. She pulled a chair after turning the computer on and, reaching out for an apple inside the fruit bowl, she waited for the laptop to come to life so she could open a new file to start typing. She had an article to write, and a trip to plan.

 XxxxxxxX

 It was two days later – after Alex had scolded her for making decisions in a rush, after Nia took pictures of their tattoos side by side to post on her Instagram, after Querl had awkwardly given her a thumbs up, after James raised his eyebrows, after Winn yelped in shock – that something changed.

Kara was lazily reading something Nia had written so she could suggest some corrections before the girl submitted it to Snapper’s approval, when her phone buzzed from its place beside her mousepad – her rainbow mousepad, thanks to Winn. She picked it up, thinking it was Alex inviting her for lunch so she could yell at her a few more times, but the number who had texted her was an unsaved one. She frowned, but didn’t give it much thought before unlocking her screen to read it.

“Since you didn’t barge inside my shop to kill me, I take it that you didn’t regret it?”

The smile that curled her lips up came from within her and it was apparently too obvious because Nia, who was sitting across from her, gave her a weird look and arched one eyebrow in question. Kara shook her head, biting her bottom lip, and turned her chair around so the girl couldn’t see her anymore before typing a reply.

“I never said I was going to kill you.”

“The threat was clear to me,” came the next text just a few seconds later and Kara chuckled to herself.

“Please, don’t tell me you were scared.”

“Why do you think it took me two days to reach out?”

Kara paused at that. She had spent the last two days being sure that, despite their easy flirt with each other, Lena didn’t actually want to talk or see her again. So, to have her texting her now was really... reawakening something inside her.

“Who are you texting?”

Kara jumped on her chair, startled by Nia’s voice so close to her ear all of sudden, her phone almost slipping from her fingers and crashing on the floor. Thankfully, her reflexes were still working and she was able to grab it, but not without throwing a glare at Nia for scaring her like that. The girl gave her a sheepish smile, although she shrugged and didn’t back away from where she had perched on the corner of Kara’s desk to look over her shoulder.

“No one,” came the childish, and not at all convincing, reply and Kara didn’t need to look at her friend again to know she was busted. Now Nia was not going to let it down.

“Really? Because you have been smiling to your phone for five minutes and you just smile like that when Alex says she’s bringing extra potstickers for game night.” Nia smirked and leaned over, trying to read the texts again, but Kara quickly pressed the phone against her chest to block her view.

“Alex just invited me for lunch,” Kara attempted to throw her off.

However, Nia arched her eyebrows. “Really? Because I just texted Kelly asking her to go to that vegan place with me and she said she already has plans.” A pause. “With Alex.” Another pause. “For lunch.”

Kara groaned and turned her chair so she was facing her computer again, slipping her phone screen down on the table. “Fine, it wasn’t Alex, but I’m not going to say anything.”

“Okay.” Her friend gave up way too faster than usual and Kara watched her with narrowed eyes as the girl jumped from her desk to turn the corner back to her own cubicle. Nia was about to sit down when she tried to snatch Kara’s phone away with one surprisingly fast move, but the blonde was even faster, taking it out of her reach in the last second. “Damn.”

Kara rolled her eyes and pushed her chair back. She grabbed her jacket from the back of the chair, throwing it over her shoulders and slipping her phone inside one of the pockets, and threw an overly sweet, clearly fake, smile at Nia. “Now you will have to eat alone because I won’t have lunch with you either.”

Nia stuck her tongue out at her. “I will call Querl!”

Kara waited until she was safely inside the elevator before opening her texts again. There were three more texts since the last time she looked and a smile immediately spread over her face when she read them.

“Okay, I confess, I was a little nervous.”

“You still there? You didn’t change your mind, did you?”

“About the tattoo, not the... leaving your name and number on my wall thing.”

She barely noticed when someone entered the elevator a few floors below, too focused on replying to the texts.

“You? Nervous? You don’t look like the type of girl that gets nervous. And no, I didn’t change my mind about any of those things, actually.”

A new text only came after she was already walking down the street to Noonan’s, but she wrote a quick text to invite Winn for lunch before opening Lena’s text.

“I’m also not the type to text any of the numbers left on my walls. And good.”

“Do you get a lot of numbers on your walls?” Kara asked and she had to make a conscious effort to cross the street to Noonan’s instead of walking straight for a few more blocks to the tattoo shop. She could picture Lena leaning against the counter with her gorgeous smirk and her impressive tattoos – and even more impressive cleavage.

“Jack enjoys them more than I do.”

Kara was about to make a comment about Jack but another text came in before she could and she stopped in her tracks so suddenly that the man walking behind her shoved against her shoulder. She tripped over a few steps, but quickly held herself again to read the words over and over in disbelief. She hoped, of course, but that was... wow.

“I don’t want to be too straightforward here, or overly confident or something, but I have a client coming in five minutes, so I don’t have much time. This won’t sound romantic at all, but would you like to have dinner with me? Tomorrow?”

Kara didn’t have to think too much about her answer, of course. Alex would give her a piece of her mind for agreeing to go out with someone she barely knew – and ‘that’s the whole point of going out to meet people’ was not a good argument on her sister’s book – but Kara would deal with it later. Right now, she had a very gorgeous woman asking her out and she already knew what her answer would be.

“I would love to.”

“What? Really?” Kara chuckled at the rushed text she received back, but another one came just a second later. “Pretend you didn’t read that. I meant ‘okay, great!’.”

Chuckling again, Kara typed a new message. “I know you were the one who asked me out, but may I suggest a place? I don’t have a car and it’s close to both of our workplaces.”

“Whatever you want, just text me address. Let’s say, tomorrow at 7 pm?”

“Can’t wait.”

 XxxxxxxX

 “Hey, Kara?”

“Yes?” She asked, not taking her eyes away from her computer screen and typing away as fast as she could to be able to put all the ideas in her new article. She had never written like that before, but she wasn’t about to complain about small inspirations spikes.

“The front desk called and said there’s a pack for Cat downstairs. Can you pick it up?”

With a small sigh, not because she was mad at Winn for interrupting her but because she would have to go all out of the way to pick a pack she didn’t even know was going to come in, Kara saved her file and pushed her chair back. Nia glanced up and was about to remove her earphones, ready to follow Kara to whatever she was going to learn more about the journalism world, but the blonde made some gestures with her hand that she hoped meant ‘boring things, stay here’ before she started making her way to the elevator.

Jenny, the woman that stayed at the front desk, was kind, around Eliza’s age, and very chatty, which worked fine with Kara when she wanted to waste a few minutes talking along. “Good morning, Kara! How are you?”

“I’m great, Jenny. And you?”

“I’m fine. What happened? I recognize that smile.”

Kara tilted her head to the side, although she couldn’t stop smiling, doesn’t matter how hard she was trying. “What smile?”

Jenny narrowed her eyes and waved a finger at her playfully. “That’s the smile of someone who had a very good night.”

The blonde could feel her face heating up and a nervous chuckle escaped her lips before she could stop herself. She had been leaning against the counter, but she leaned her torso back and tapped her fingers against the hard surface nervously. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Right,” Jenny scoffed, rolled her eyes and started pulling out the packages that she would need to take upstairs with her. There was a yellow thing that was sent by one of the photographers of the last shooting they made, some letters and a few small boxes, which made Kara believe Jenny had been holding those things with her for at least a few days. Cat hadn’t asked for any of that, so it wasn’t a problem. “Don’t tell me then. You don’t have to. Is all over your face.”

Blushing even harder, Kara huffed an anxious laugh and looked down at the counter. She put one hand on her hip as the other one raised to push her glasses up her nose, but she kept her eyes down to avoid seeing the smirk on Jenny’s face. She would have to agree with her, if she did. Because she knew it was, in fact, written all over her face. She hadn’t been able to stop smiling since she woke up that morning – who was she kidding? It had been like that since dinner last night.

It had a reason – and the reason had a name – but she was not going to share any personal details about her life with Jenny. The old woman had the tendency to share everyone’s secrets – which was another reason Kara liked to talk with her so much, but she would never admit to being a gossip girl. She did tell Nia, mostly because her friend wouldn’t stop asking why Kara was fifteen minutes late that morning, though she had made the girl promise not to tell anyone.

It was still pretty new, she had argued.

“If you two slept together, it’s not that new,” Nia had teased back, making her face turn red so fast that James, that had been coming back from the bathroom, asked if she was feeling well.

Even if the whole ‘sleeping together on the first date’ thing was new to her, Kara hadn’t regretted it in the morning. Much like the tattoo. Although, it would be remarkably harder to regret sleeping with Lena when the said woman was spooning her from behind than it was to regret a tattoo that recquired a lot of afterward care. Either way, Kara was living the best morning in her life and it clearly showed on her face.

“Looks like you’re not the only one who’s having a great time.” Jenny’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts and Kara looked up in time to see the woman pulling a big bouquet from under the counter.

The flowers looked cheap and scruffy, which made it seem like someone had just thrown them together without much care. They were yellow and pink daisies, the colors clashed and didn’t work well together, but the card hidden between the flowers was black and easy to see. She knew she shouldn’t because it had her boss’ name outside the card and it was clearly not for her to see, but curiosity took the best of her – that and the fact that the card had been clearly already open, and by Jenny’s face she knew who had done it.

“Thank you – L”

Well, that wasn’t helpful at all.

Sighing and feeling silly for stealing a look, she put the card back and started to try to find a way to pick everything she needed to take back with her. She knew there was a small cart some other companies in the building used to transport stocks and other products, but she was sure she could use her hands if she just pilled everything right. Kara had just come up with a plan when Jenny spoke again.

“There’s also this one. It doesn’t have a card, but it came with the bouquet. Same delivery. The guy couldn’t say anything about it, but I’m sure we can find something if we call the shop and...”

“I think there’s no need,” Kara interrupted gently, without looking up from the growing pile in one of her hands, but she raised her head eventually.

Only to lose track of every thought she was having.

Jenny had put a single plumeria on top of the counter. As the woman had said, there was no card or any type of identification – who it came from or who was supposed to receive it – but Kara connected the dots quite easily. Smiling, she reached over to grab the simple flower and brought it closer to her face to smell it.

“Oh, I see.”

“I have to go!” Kara said suddenly, knowing everyone in the building would know she had just randomly smelled a flower at the front desk that morning. “See you, Jen!”

The look on Cat’s face when Kara gave her the bouquet, not offering any other explanation othan than that there was a card attached to it, was worth every step on the stairs she had to walk up, holding the woman’s coffee every morning. As soon as she was back to her desk, Kara pulled her phone from her pocket and sent a text before Nia could start asking any questions.

“Thought you said that you’re not good with romance.”

The reply didn’t come right away, Kara ended up putting her phone to the side and went back to work. However, as soon as it rang beside her, she grabbed it.

“Guess we’re both learning new things about ourselves. Want to have lunch together?”

And, yes, she totally did.

[starryevermore]

evermore: the presentation (1) ✧ colby brock

evermore ✧ a royal colby brock au | ao3

summary: the reader makes her preparations to make her debut this social season.

word count: 2,410

warning(s): the deliberate tightening of a corset to be more “appealing” (note: you don’t have to be thin to be attractive; you are perfect at any size and shape), misogynistic views (women being worthless without a husband), some swearing

A lady’s debut was something to be taken with the utmost seriousness. One wrong move, one misplaced hair, one thread showing, and she could be relegated to marrying the lowest of the low—or worse, she would have no suitors at all. And an unwedded lady in this society? Well, some would say that’s a fate worse than death. 

And perhaps that’s why you were as stressed as you were. You’d been raised in this society. You knew the rules. You knew the etiquette. You could practically recite every single step that needed to be taken on this absolutely horrendous day forwards, backwards, and upside-down. But still, anything was possible. What if you tripped over your dress? Or what if you didn’t bow far enough? What if the Queen was in a sour mood and decided to frown at you—or worse, grimace—just for fun? Sure, your family had long been favored by the Crown but the thing about being a favorite is the fickleness of it all.

Anything could happen. And a single misstep could cement your family’s future, your legacy, for centuries. 

You leaned over your vanity, sucking in a breath, as your maid, Eliza, tied up your corset. While your corsets typically fit you perfectly, your mother was adamant that they should be taken in a little more for your presentation to ensure you looked as appealing as possible. But, God, did beauty have to be pain? 

“Corset’s tied, ma’am,” Eliza said.

You let out the breath you were holding and stood up straight, turning to look in your ornate mirror. You frowned, muttering under your breath that you looked practically the same as before. 

“Now, don’t be frowning, ma’am,” Eliza said. “You mustn’t have any wrinkles before you make your debut.” 

“You may as well be my mother, Eliza,” you said. “But, very well. Is my dress ready?” 

As you spoke, your mother came scurrying into the room, her own maid Natalia carrying the white dress you were expected to wear. 

“Xepher and Devyn just finished the alterations!” your mother said as Natalia and Eliza helped you into the dress. 

As they buttoned it up in the back, you continued to admire yourself in the mirror. Devyn and Xepher had outdone themselves. Truly the best modistes in all of Liberdon. The white dress, adorned with golden accents on the top around the sleeves and neckline, fit perfectly. And perhaps, with the tightened corset, it looked even better than you could have imagined. 

You moved your gaze from your dress, and made eye contact with your mother in the mirror. And though she was several feet away, you were sure that you could see the tears welling up in her mother. 

“Oh, Mother, if I’m not allowed to so much as frown, you aren’t allowed to cry!” you chided with a laugh.

She laughed, too, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. “You’ll have to forgive me, my dear. I’ve just been dreaming of this day for so long, and now for it to finally be here…”

Natalia and Eliza finished buttoning the dress, so you turned and crossed the room. You embraced your mother, and said, “I know. I’m so…excited. But, I must admit I’m terrified, too.” 

“And why is that?” your mother said. “We’ve been preparing for this day your entire life.” 

“That’s exactly why I’m terrified, Mother. We’ve been preparing for this day since I could walk, but I’m scared that all of these years of preparation will be nothing. What if I trip? What if I mess up? What if the Queen just doesn’t think I’m good enough?”

Your mother took you by the arm and led you to the chaise lounge at the end of your bed. You sat down and she sat beside you, holding your hand in hers. She gave you a kind smile and said, “My dear, I was scared for my debut, too. There are so many unknowns in the world, but you mustn’t dwell on them. Focusing on them will only increase the odds that something horrible will happen.” 

“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” you admitted. 

Your mother sighed. “No, I suppose it doesn’t. But, at the very least, please try to hold it together until the day is over. At least until after we leave the palace. The only way to ensure you marry well is to come in strong, and you can’t do that at if you're in a panic.”

Slowly, you nodded and rose to your feet once more so that the maids can finish ensuring you looked your absolute best for the Queen.

The Queen’s Palace was a marvel to anyone who’s had the pleasure to see it. When the King was still alive and the Queen entertained company more frequently, foreign dignitaries from all over the globe would come to admire the unique architecture, comment about the one-of-a-kind art pieces, and dine off the world-class china. And it was the Queen’s Palace that all young ladies in high society would make their debut. 

Mothers and daughters filled the hall before the Queen’s throne room. It was so quiet a pin could drop. No one dared to speak, fearing that the Queen would hear and react poorly as a result. So, no one said a word. But the anxiety in the air was undeniable. 

You watched with bated breath as mothers and daughters entered the throne room, one group at a time. And every time one left, your heart broke to see the saddened faces and the not-so-well-hidden tears of those who the Queen hadn’t reacted warmly to. Some were young ladies you knew to be going through their third or fourth social season, still unwed, and you couldn’t help but feel bad for them. Their likelihood of finding happy marriages now had long-since diminished. But, you felt a surge of hope every time a group returned not looking totally downtrodden. Perhaps there was hope for you yet. 

Slowly, you and your mother made your way through the line. You now stood behind the doors, and were about to make your long-awaited debut. Your heart hammered in your chest, and you struggled to maintain steady breathing. You did your best to take deep breaths, reminding yourself that you were only allowed to faint when you had returned to the safety of your family carriage. 

Now was not the time to be falling victim to panic. 

From the other side of the double doors, you heard the announcement: “Miss Y/N Covington, presented by her mother the Dowager Viscountess Covington.”

The doors opened. You took a deep breath, forcing a small smile onto your face. You looked into the inside of the throne room, the Queen seated in her throne only a few yards away. The respected families in the room turned, ooh-ing and ahh-ing as you were revealed. You took a step, followed by another and then another. You kept your head held high, and kept your gaze forward on the Queen.

Your mother followed a step behind you, as she should. All your focus was on maintaining the steady pace you had set for yourself, trying to ignore the way the Queen leaned over to her secretary and how he whispered something to her. And you especially tried to ignore the look from your older brother, Elias, knowing that he also was expecting the absolute best from you and even one disapproving look from him could cause you to ruin everything you worked so hard to perfect. 

When you were only a yard away from the throne, you stopped. Then, you grabbed at your skirt and fell into a low bow in front of the Queen. You remained in your low bow as you heard whispers from the crowd.

“A smile?” 

“Did Her Majesty smile?”

“I heard Her Majesty hasn’t smiled during a young lady’s debut since the Duchess of Silverkeep!”

But the whispers halted as the Queen rose. Your heart hammered in your chest as you watched her move down from her throne and stood in front of you. But still, you kept your eyes to the floor. You must never look the Queen directly in the eye, unless she were the one to initiate it.

You felt a hand on your chin and slowly titled your head upward, rising out of the low bow. The Queen, indeed, had a small smile on her face. But nothing could’ve prepared you for what came next. 

“Simply divine.”

You swore your heart stopped beating. But you did your best to cover it, smiling up at the Queen before redirecting your eyes back to the floor. She gingerly placed her hands on your face and kissed your forehead—an honor that you knew hadn’t been seen in over a decade. 

You and your mother backed away, bowing once more, before being directed out of the throne room.

Your fate had now been sealed. 

And it couldn’t be any better than anything you could’ve ever imagined. 

That evening, at the inaugural ball of the social season, the ballroom of the Earl and Countess of Millstone was practically alight with conversation of what had happened earlier that day. Word had spread quickly over the city Ironmere. Everybody, young and old, rich and poor, had heard of what the Queen had said about you. 

And that certainly brought you a wide array of potential suitors. Men of all ages, titles, wealth had come to vie for a chance to talk to you or, perhaps if they were lucky, earn one of your limited dances for the night. You spoke to many men of high society, laughing and enduring lackluster jokes as one after another after another tried to find some “unique” way to charm you. 

The interest only increased when they noticed that there were only empty spaces on your dance card. You hardly had time to breathe with so many men approaching you.

And you were grateful! Make no mistake, you grateful. The exact opposite of your worst fear had come true. You had your pick of suitors. The good, the bad, the ugly. But, there was a unique sort of horror that came with having to sift the through the whole lot. Yes, there were many good men trying to earn your attention, but there were many bad men, too. The kind that only have unhappy marriages and mistreated children and lonely wives. And you were trying your hardest to steer them away, but it was beginning to get harder and harder to tell who was a good man and who wasn’t. You weren’t prepared for this in the slightest. 

Your brother also wasn’t too pleased with the events that were unfolding.

He, too, was supposed to be among the men searching for a lady to marry by the end of the season, but he couldn’t turn his attention away from you. He knew many of these men better than you ever could. He knew the ins and the outs of their social lives, the kinds of things parents tried to hide away from the innocent and uncorrupted minds of daughters. 

So, with every man that tried to make their way to you, he was quick to redirect them, corner them, tell them that they didn’t have a chance in a hell of marrying you. He was the one that they’d have to go to to ask for your hand in marriage. He was the one to sort out your dowry. And he’d be the one to ensure that only the best were able to compete for your hand.

But, as a result of his meddling, the pool of suitors quickly dwindled. No one wanted to deal with hot-headed Elias Covington. They’d seen too many bar fights to know what happens when someone’s on the receiving end of his fist. And it sure as hell wasn’t pretty. So, in order to be better safe than sorry, the suitors slowly turned their attention to the other eligible ladies at the ball.

When you realized what he had done, you could hardly contain your rage. How dare Elias?! Does he not know the hardships of being a woman in this society? What’s expected of you? The limited timeline you had? 

You approached him, grabbing him by the arm and asking if you could talk. He nodded, and the two of you went off to the side to have a conversation uninterrupted by nosy mothers and potential suitors for you and him alike. 

“What are you thinking?” you hissed. 

He squared his shoulders. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, sister.”

“You know exactly what I mean. Why are you scaring away any man who dares to speak to me?!”

He scoffed. “You don’t know these men like I do.” 

“Well, I know that none of the men will speak to me. And if none of them speak to me, I cannot marry by the end of the season! Don’t you know what happens to ladies who don’t marry by the end of their first season?”

He shrugged, looking disinterested. 

“Their likelihood of marrying decreases tenfold! I’ll be doomed to the life of an unwedded woman where my only value is directly attached to the family I marry into! If I cannot marry, then I’m worthless!”

“Trust me, you’d rather be worthless than marry any of these imbeciles. None of the good men are here yet. These are men with horrid drinking habits, tendencies to gamble, and those who frequent brothels. They are not the kind of men who deserve you.”

“But by scaring them away, you scare away the good men, too! You know how quickly word spreads in this town!”

Elias sucked in a breath. “Very well. I will make it better.” 

“Good. I’ll hold you to it.” 

As Elias turned to leave, the two of you realize that the attention of the entire ball had turned to one individual: His Royal Highness, Prince Cole Brock of Liberdon.

The prince who had yet to attend a social season since coming of age.

The prince who now was approaching you.

The prince who now was smiling at you.

The prince who now was asking if you would join him in the next dance.

And, suddenly, you were grateful no man had taken up any spaces on your dance card. 

[extremelyblackandwhite]

timeless - prelude

PAIRING: medieval!james “bucky” barnes x reader

WARNINGS: sexual content (18+)

A/N: hello! sorry for my inactivity later with tags and fanfics, i recently moved out of my home into a new one and it took quite a while to set everything up but finally everything is a bit calmer. i hope you enjoy this new work, i’m extremely proud of it xx

NEXT CHAPTER

Time. 

Time is an odd concept. The dictionary describes time as the indefinite continued progress of existence and events that occur in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. Yet, would it be fair to describe time in such technical words when the movement itself is so ... controversial. For some, time runs fast, like a drop falling from a leaf onto the river, its consequences reverberating in several rings. For others, the ticking of the clock seems like a painful reminder that every single second lasts forever. However, for some, time is just paused almost as if they’re living in their own life repetition and therefore time has lost all meaning and no definition would apply to it. Time after all is of the earth, it’s not a human concept, it’s not something humanity discovered and coined as their own as they would wish. It is merely a thing of innocence of the Earth seen in the blooming flowers and the falling leaves, the growing of flora and the birthing of fauna. Yet, for some time is seen on their faces, the wrinkles and lines that accentuate their skins, scars that never faded, ages rising and the loss of opportunities. For those, if it were possible to freeze time, to reverse it or extend it, they would do it in a blink of an eye and so is the pure innocence of longing defiled. 

Lady Y/N of Arendelle had no particular affinity towards time. In all honesty, she barely thought about it yet for some reason the forces of nature had bestowed, unbeknownst to her, with the particular gift of giving people time. Why had it been given to her out of all people was a mystery. She was an ordinary girl born in the last second of the last day of the year when the snow covered the ground white, mostly surrounded in mystery. While her mother, Lady Catherine Bouvaire was one who made her way into the most prestigious circles of society in Arendelle from peasant to the Queen’s lady in waiting, Lady Y/N seemed to be locked away from society in their little cottage. “The outside world is cruel, too cruel for someone like you” is what she would constantly say to Y/N. However, no matter how harshly you try to grip onto time it eventually caught up to her. As the Queen’s eldest daughter caught the attention of the future King of Genoa, quickly enough was this locked environment broken. The Queen of Arendelle believed her daughter should take someone trustworthy, someone to remind her of home and no better person fitted that description than the naively protected daughter of her lady in waiting.

Catherine had protested, arguing that her daughter was much to innocent to join the court of such a prolific kingdom. However, she was merely a lady and what the Queen wants goes. Nevertheless, Catherine would not let her precious daughter go, no, she needed more time and if that meant moving with her to another kingdom, then she would gladly do so. And so, Y/N was thrown inside a carriage with princess Odette which took both women away from what they had known for ages. 

They rode the road for a full month, enduring the harsh rains of mid September until, on a late afternoon, the carriage came to a halt in front of the place she would have to call home from now on. The castle grounds were protected by a great wall, tall enough you’d have to strain your eye muscles to find its end, tall enough to look like another prison to keep Y/N. Her mother, whose home arrangements were different to hers, had warned her to be careful with Genoa’s court, not to trust any of the men that paraded the parties. “They are never going to marry you, all they want is a break from their contracted marriages and would use her and leave” is what she said before being separated into a different carriage and Y/N believed her. She remembered the stories her mother had told her, women thrown into the street, into reckless lives and poverty. No, Y/N was there for Odette and no other motive. Yet, she couldn’t deny it was exciting to be somewhere else, to see other things and other people. 

The castle itself was old and small dust seemed to be falling from the walls, exposing the building’s foundation that used to look like a second world wonder, she thought. The windows, however, were crystal clear and glistening in the dark cloudy afternoon which was already setting on the opposite side of the building, casting a great shadow. 

Her shoes touched the perfectly cropped grass and she was ushered into the palace and straight into her living quarters. It was huge, bigger than her old home and while the outside of the palace looked rather somber, the inside was ostentatious, decorated in dark burgundies, whites and shades of gold enough to make anyone gasp at first sight. Y/N felt like she was dreaming wide awake as she explored every nook of her new bedroom, observing the art, the books and the instruments placed for her own enjoyment. 

She couldn’t help but throw herself into the comfortable bed, a small child like giggle escaping her rose painted lips. Yet, she had little to no time to enjoy her new bedroom as the Queen and King of Genoa wanted to welcome the Princess of Arendelle and her entourage with a banquet and Y/N couldn’t be any more excited. With a white ivory dress loosely falling from her shoulders, she joined her princess who was looking at the wall as if it held away the biggest monsters ever created.

     - You’ll be fine. - Y/N spoke out, placing a hand on top of her shoulder. - Prince William absolutely loves you, you have nothing to worry about. 

    - It’s not Prince William, it’s his parents. 

     - I’ve heard they’re fair rulers. 

     - Yes but we come from a small kingdom what if they decide it’s an alliance they don’t want? - Y/N merely gave her a soft smile, almost like a promise that she would be fine. The big white and gold engraved doors were opened to a crowd of a thousand faces all in awe of the beautiful foreign princess. Y/N, on the other hand, was in awe of the sheer beauty and light of the room. It was so much different from the walls of the little cottage her mother kept her in, it was light, breezy, bashed in oranges and yellows coming from the flickering flames of various white candles held by the chandeliers and walls. It was almost like a scene straight out a painting and suddenly the crowd of a thousand faces seemed to melt as she was on cloud 9. The scents were of wild fruits and sweetness which possibly came from the beautifully decorated decadent desserts standing on the long table.

She was much too distracted with the sheer delicateness of the world outside her cottage walls to even notice she had been sat quite far from the only person she knew. Instead, she was sat by some of the other court ladies, her dress majorly overshadowed by the precious stones sewn onto the silks and velvet of the Queen’s ladies. Nevertheless, she found something else to be fascinated by, that being the golden cutlery meticulously placed by the sides of the porcelain engraved plates. In that moment, despite her mind telling her it would be bad to be glad about it, she felt like being away from her mother was a blessing. 

This dazed dream was broken as she felt a gaze burn on her figure, almost as if she was being watched. Gently and slowly, she raised her eyes from the plate, the atmosphere of the dinner being of joy and hope for the new soon to be rulers too lost for someone to notice her, at least she thought so but was wrong as standing a bit left from her front was a very well dressed man, in shades of burgundy and black with a gold heavy medal weighting from his breast pocket looking at her. He looked almost curious, lines creasing on his forehead as his ocean eyes were glued that left her feeling almost naked to his sight. 

    - Are you alright? - one of the ladies sat next to her, the one in a ruffled lavender dress asked, noticing how quickly Y/N had resorted to looking back to her food, barely touched. 

    - Who’s that man? - she slightly moved her head in his direction.

    - That’s Grand Duke Barnes of Addia. He’s one of the King’s advisors, people say he killed his wife.

    - Not too loud, Eliza. - another lady dressed in baby pink scolded.

    - That’s surely just gossip. - Y/N commented. 

    - Gossip or not, everyone in Addia could hear screaming during the Great Fire. Yet again, royals can get away with anything and everything. 

Y/N nodded, looking back to her plate but not before looking up to the grand Duke one last time. It wasn’t exactly shocking news to her what men of court could do. Her mother had told her they were either adulterers, power hungry or untrustworthy men, however, she thought there would be some sort of justice. The dinner continued to go smoothly with Odette spending more and more time sharing romantic looks with her husband to be. Soon enough, she was on the dance floor with him, laughing and telling each other sweet nothings that made anyone and everyone watching smile.

Y/N wasn’t immune to that smile either, standing a bit further removed from the dance floor with her hands on top of her dress fabric. The sweet lullabies played by the orchestra had her head moving slowly from side to side until an overflow of the scent of freshly picked roses made itself quite pronounceable. She looked around looking from here the scent could be coming from as all the flowers scattered around the room were that of Genoa’s flag, lilies. No roses.

     - How come you’re not dancing, milady?

     - Oh, I’m not one for dan ... - she stopped mid sentence as she rustled through the fabric of her dress to notice who was speaking to her. There he was again, making her take a step back out of fright of what she had heard from Eliza at the dinning table. 

He looked somewhat surrounded in an air of mysteriousness costumed by the formal clothing such as his perfectly tailored burgundy jacket whose colour matching the ribbon keeping his long hair away from his face in a low ponytail. There was no denying he was a handsome man but Y/N couldn’t help but keep her guard up. There was always some underlying truth to rumours. 

     - I’m afraid I’ve never learned how to dance, Grand Duke. 

     - Please do join me in the floors, milady. 

     - No, my lord you really don’t understand, I can’t dance ... at all. I would embarrass my princess. 

    - I’m a good lead. - he extended his gloved hand towards her. She guessed he couldn’t harm her while surrounded by several people including guards. - Please, milady, do me the honour of accompanying me. 

She looked at his black matte glove covered his hand which was extended towards her chest and then back to his face and the guards stood in front of every single exit. “You’ll be fine” a voice said inside of her and shakingly she placed her delicate and polished hand on top of the leather, shivering once she felt its texture. Before Y/N could change her mind, he had already led her slightly off centre in the dance grounds, a free hand gently setting itself on her waist. 

The young girl could feel her heart beat against her thoracic cage as the violins and flutes led the dance along with him. It was an odd feeling, it felt peaceful and yet she was rather scared to dance with the man rumoured to have murdered his wife. The Grand Duke seemed to notice her unwillingness as the lines of his forehead and eyes creased even more and his grip on her softened. 

   - You shouldn’t believe in everything you hear. - he whispered against her ear, causing goosebumps to rise on her arms. Her eyes gazed his, lips slightly parted as she wondered if he had heard Eliza back at the dinner table, something she would’ve questioned him about had it not been for the ceasing music. As the music came to an end, he took a step back, bowing to her before disappearing between the crowds leaving her in the middle of the dance floor as another song begun. 

   - There you are. - a familiar voice broke through her haze of confusion. - I think we should retire for tonight. What do you think?

  - I think it’s a great idea.

In all honesty, Y/N was glad Odette wanted to retire from the ball and return to her chambers but it wasn’t without peaking curiosity that she left the room, eyes lingering on the crowds looking yet failing to find the Grand Duke. The orange and yellow lights dimmed as the doors were closed behind the two women and with a sigh, she followed Odette to her chambers, starting the routine taught to her back in Arendelle to get the princess ready for bed. Once she was settled in her silk bedding, Y/N left the room to reach hers, a small golden candelabra held by her hands as she made her way through the halls. 

The walls are hollow inside and it is as if they are whispering at her when the wind howls inside them and the rain hits the foot long glass windows, the image strengthened by the portraits of the several monarchs of Genoa. She climbed the staircase slowly, each step creaking at the slighest weight her feet put on the old wood and then creaking some more when the weight on it is loosened and disappear. Slowly but surely, with her heart beating like a drum, the lady in waiting reached the top of the stairs. Suddenly, her heart beat seemed to intensify its beating in her ears for no reason and, once she held her dainty fingers against them, they are hot to the touch and the saying of the Arendelle people echoed like a curse in her brain: “If your ears are red and warm, it means someone must be talking about you”. She shuddered at the thought, specially considering she stood alone atop the stairs.

Once she was back inside the safety of her chambers, she closed the door behind her and enter the soft cold and unknown bed quickly, throwing her clothes to the side, stretching her legs under the covers and pulling the white sheets up to her chest. Her eyes flutter slowly, staring up at the ceiling and the small chandelier hanging from it and, suddenly, she drifts off to sleep lulled by the falling rain: she felt airy, as if her limbs are being held up in the air and she fluttered her eyes open to the dream land that awaited her.

And at the end of the bed is the Grand Duke. He is naked and he crawls to the bed, hands slowly sliding down her sides as he towers over her and, she too, is naked. She sweated and stared at the man’s face and at the medallion hanging from his neck that rocks back and forth as he moves closer and pulls her knees up and apart.

He’s hard and slick with cum already and she’s not entirely not sure what took over her good morality, but she pulled her legs apart willingly and let him move closer and closer to her and her aching heat.

tag list: @lookiamtrying @kmuir1 @anxiousdreamersworld @tinymalscoffee​

[sunmoonandeddie]

thanks for the memories

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

word count: 3,002

summary: Bucky’s lived a long life.

warnings: Some h*ckin’ words.  Angst with a happy ending.

a/n:  So like.  This is kinda short.  At least it feels like it is.  It’s also an idea from that fake fic ask meme I did.  But I cried writing this.  Let me know what you think!

Bucky took a deep breath as he came to a stop.  The trek became harder and harder to make every week, but nothing short of death could stop him from coming.  A bouquet of red roses hung from his hand.  The same flowers he brought every time.

“Hi, angel,” he said, his voice cracking.  It was the first time he’d spoken in a few days.

After all, his children and his friends were dead.  He didn’t have the energy to make friends with the new members of the Avengers or anyone else.  The most human interaction he got nowadays was when his grandkids called once a week to catch up.

But there was no one he wanted to talk to except for you.

It frustrated him, that he didn’t have the strength to make it more than once a week anymore.  He used to come every day.  Sometimes more.  It was his favorite place in the world.

It had concerned Sam when he was still alive.  But he didn’t know you.  He didn’t understand like Steve had before he’d died.

And now here he was, finally catching up with all of his loved ones.  His skin had wrinkled, his hearing had partially gone.  His bones ached with every step he took.

The head stone in front of him didn’t give him an answer, but it didn’t need to.  He could feel your presence even just standing here.  It was the only place the voices in his head went quiet and he could just be.

Knowing that it would be a pain to get up later, he eased himself down onto the soft grass.  His joints creaked painfully as he moved to rest against the head stone.  Running his fingers across the weathered stone, he read your name out loud.  “You know, I’m still mad that they didn’t give you my last name,” he said with a faint chuckle.  “But I guess the government doesn’t recognize elopements in Austria.”  The early winter wind brought a chill with it that went straight to his bones.  Seasons nowadays just weren’t like they used to be.  “Doesn’t matter.  You’re still Mrs. Barnes to me.”

If he focused enough, he could picture you sitting next to him.  You’d have that pretty green dress that you’d worn for him when all the soldiers and nurses got to go out dancing.  Your hair had been perfectly curled, left unpinned for once.  It was nice to see you out of your uniform.

“I wish you were here,” he said, tears springing to his eyes.  “I feel so alone.  Stevie’s gone, Sam’s gone.  Nat’s gone.”  He picked at one of the roses in the bouquet, tearing off the petals absentmindedly.  “Even the kids are gone.”

His beautiful children.  He’d never dated another woman, never got married.  But after he’d retired as an active member of the Avengers and took on a position as a trainer, he’d finally gotten to settle down.  The questions about his mental stability had been answered, and he’d been declared fit to raise a child.

It was then that he adopted Brienne, Alexei, Poppy, Mateo, and Eliza.  His little war orphans.  There’d been more that he’d fostered, giving them a home until they found their forever family.

It had been years since they’d died, leaving him with five more permanent holes in his heart.

Their children, his grandchildren, had all scattered around the globe, chasing their dreams and settling down.  They all called at least once a week, visiting several times a year, but still.

“Sometimes I wish I’d never gotten that stupid serum,” he said as he looked out over the head stones that surrounded him.

He’d had to fight to have you buried in Brooklyn.  You were originally buried in your hometown, but your family had agreed to have you moved to the city after he’d explained the situation to them.  You were buried with the rest of the Barnes.  His mother and father were buried in the plot to your left, and his sister, Rebecca, was buried in the plot to your right.

And when he died, he’d be buried right next to you as your husband.

“I keep asking myself why I survived the serum and you didn’t,” he murmured, his clouded blue eyes drifting up to the dreary September sky.  You always did love the rain.  You told him it brought new beginnings.  It washed away the wrongs from before.  “I think the only reason I’ve lived this long is for our kids.  So I could find them and take care of them.  Give them a home just like we always wanted to.”

“Bucky?”

“Yeah, angel?”  He was sitting in a dirty cell with twenty other men, but he was only paying attention to you.  You were being held in the cage right next to his, and the bars were far enough apart that he could slip his hand through to hold your hand.  His thumb brushed over the little band on your left hand ring finger.  It was covered in dirt and grime from being stuck in this prison for who knows how long now, the diamond unable to shine.

You hated it.  You hated that your ring was dirty.  And sure, it wasn’t much.  Bucky had never had a lot of money, and he’d spent what he had on this little ring at a jewelry store in Vienna when they’d passed through a few months before.

It was there in Vienna that you two had found a little chapel and officially became a married couple, despite your families not being there and the priest not understanding English.  Dum Dum ended up translating for them, and they’d left the church as Mr. and Mrs. Barnes.

“There’s gonna be a lot of kids without families after this,” you whispered, a melancholy in your voice that he only heard when you two were alone.  You didn’t like the men seeing you upset, said it wasn’t fitting of a nurse.  I’m supposed to be the one making all y’all feel better, Bucky, you’d said months ago when he’d asked why.  The other men in the cell were asleep, and you’d finally been able to let down your mask.

He hummed, leaning his head against the cold bars, trying to get as close to you as possible.  The sweet smell of your shampoo was long gone.  “Yeah.”

“Can we…  I think…”  You swallowed as you tried to find the right words.  “When you bring me home to Brooklyn, can we adopt a bunch of them?”

“Yeah?” He said, sitting up a little straighter as a smile tugged at his lips.  The first in days.  “You wanna have a bunch of little babies runnin’ around?”

And your smile was so sweet and so real that his heart just melted.  “Wanna have a family with you, Buck.”  You reached up to run your fingers through his greasy hair.  “We’ll have a little house with a big yard and a porch, so we can watch all of ‘em run around.  And I’ll finally get to meet Steve, and we’ll have him over for dinner every week.”

His heart swelled as the picture formed in his mind.  He could see it so clearly.  It was so close but so far away.

You two just had to survive this damn war.

“I’ll give you all the little babies you want,” he said with a warm smile.  “We’ll singlehandedly raise all of Europe’s war orphans.”

The two of you froze as you heard the door opening.  There were several sets of footsteps and the jingling of keys, and he knew what was about to happen next.

He could only hope that they were there for him this time, and not you.

“No…  No, no, no,” you whimpered as you clutched onto his hand tighter than before.  You were still so weak from when they’d taken you for the experiments the day before, and you knew it was only a matter of time before they came for Bucky again, but you just wanted to scream and kick and fight until they left him alone.

He’d already gone through the injections twice before you even went once.  You’d seen how he’d changed.  He’d come back bigger, more muscular.  He healed quicker from the little scratches that came from sleeping on a concrete floor.  He didn’t require as much food and water as before.

You, however…  You just seemed to get weaker and weaker with each injection.  No matter how much of his food that he gave you, it didn’t seem to help.

The group of men appeared before you, unlocking the cell to reach in and grab him.  He didn’t bother to fight them, knowing that they would only threaten you to get him to comply.

But you clung to his hand, screaming at the men as you tried to hang on.  The other soldiers were waking to your protests, growing more alert as they realized what was happening.

“LET HIM GO!” You shouted at them, your throat growing hoarse.  Tears streamed down your cheeks, revealing your skin underneath the dirt that covered you.  “STOP IT!”

If Bucky wasn’t so terrified of what was at the end of the hall, he would wax poetic about how you were still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen even while sobbing your eyes out.

The cry you let out when his hand was torn from yours was so guttural and raw it made several of the men flinch back.  You were standing on shaky legs, your knees threatening to buckle the longer that you stood.  Your arm was reaching through the spaces between the bars despite the fact that he was way out of reach and almost out of sight.  “BUCKY!”

He kept trying to look back at you, wanting to savor the image of you so that he could keep it in his mind until this round of injections was over.  He was happy to see Morita moving to comfort you, helping you back down to the ground to keep you from hurting yourself.

Maybe he’d think of your wedding day instead, and the way you sounded when you told him you loved him.

Yeah.  That sounded better than thinking of you crying over him.  He’d think of that.

Bucky wasn’t sure how long he’d sat out in the cemetery, drifting in and out of his memories.

He’d lived a long life.  A good one, despite the fact that there were some pretty rough chunks.

The only thing that he regretted was that he wasn’t able to do more to help you.  He hadn’t been able to stop those HYDRA dicks from injecting you with the serum.  It had been too much for your body to handle, a stronger version of what they’d given him.  They’d thought that you’d need more as a woman, according to Howard Stark.

Which was just complete bullshit.  You were the strongest person he’d ever met.

He hadn’t been allowed to go home with your body.  He hadn’t gotten to meet anyone from your family until after he’d broken out of HYDRA’s control back in 2014.

And now, over a century later, he was ready to rest.

Truthfully, he’d been ready for rest for a long time, but the serum had kept him from dying.

But he could feel the end coming closer.  It was his time.

He didn’t even have the energy to get up and go back to his empty house.

A bit of sun broke through the clouds, warming his face.  It was almost like a sign.  You were there.  You were ready to receive him with open arms.

He leaned his head back against the headstone, shivering as his bald spot rested against the cool marble.  “Whenever you want me, angel.  I’m ready.”

The next day, Jamie sighed into the phone as she climbed out of her car, heading into the cemetery.  “No, he wasn’t at home.  I told him I was gonna be coming today.  Maybe he forgot.”

As much as she hated to admit it, despite the super soldier serum that had kept him alive so long, her grandfather was growing older.  His strength had been the first to go, followed by his hearing.  It wouldn’t be too much of a shock if he’d started to lose his memory, too.

God, she hoped not.  As much as her grandfather loved her and her siblings and cousins, she knew that his memories of you were what kept him going.  His loving wife, torn from him too soon, that wanted to create your own family with him.

And even though none of them had ever gotten to meet you, Jamie’s mom and aunts and uncles all said that you were their mother.

“I’m at the cemetery now,” she said as she headed for the Barnes’s family plots.  Her cousin, named after you, was supposed to be coming to visit with her tomorrow.  “I don’t—”  She broke off as she spotted him, breaking into a run.  “Grandpa?!”

Jamie could hear her cousin’s voice shouting through the phone, demanding to know what was going on, but she let it fall to the ground as she sank to her knees.

James Buchanan Barnes was dead at two hundred and fourteen years old.

He was resting peacefully against your head stone, the red roses he always brought hanging limply from his hand.

He looked… at peace.  The tension that had always resided in his shoulders had dissipated.

He was at rest.

“Buck?”

Bucky hummed, his eyes still closed as he began to stir.

A familiar giggle filled the air.  “Bucky!”

A giggle he hadn’t heard in almost two centuries.

His limbs felt heavy in the best way as he shifted, the mattress beneath him cool.  The sheets twisted around him, keeping him warm without stifling him.

“My love…”  A soft touch along his cheek, a caress that he’d dreamt about every night.  Dainty fingers that used to be calloused from the hard work of war.  “It’s time to wake up.”

Bucky’s eyes slowly fluttered open, the soft light of the room somehow not making him recoil in shock.

“There he is.”

His eyes popped open as he realized that you were leaning over him.  The prettiest smile he’d ever seen was painted on your lips.  Lips he’d spent hours kissing.  “Angel?  You’re…  You’re…”

You simply nodded, shushing him as you urged him to relax.  “I’m here.  I’m here.  It’s okay.”

“You look just as gorgeous as you did back in forty-three,” he croaked.  The smile he was rewarded with warmed him down to his toes, calming his soul in a way he hadn’t felt since the war.  He pushed himself up suddenly, blue eyes wide.  “There was never anyone else.  Only you.”

“I know, I know,” you reassured him, pushing his hair back.  “I wouldn’t have been upset with you if there was.  All I ever wanted was for you to be happy.”

“Couldn’t ever look at another gal that way,” he said, leaning his forehead against yours.  “Not when I’d already found the love of my life.  No one could ever compare to you.”

Your laugh was teary as you pressed your lips to his tentatively, almost like you were scared to.  “I’ve waited so long for you.  I’ve missed you so much.”

Bucky swallowed around the lump in his throat as his fingers threaded through your hair, pulling you in for another searing kiss.  Neither of you noticed that you were crying until you tasted the salty tears on your lips.  “I’ve missed you, too.”  He sniffled.  “All I ever wanted to do was make you proud.”

“Silly boy,” you whispered, nose nudging against his.  “That’s all you’ve ever done.  You gave me children even when I couldn’t be there to help raise them.”

His brows furrowed as he looked around the room, realizing that it was the master bedroom of his house in Brooklyn.  It was decorated differently, but definitely still his house.  “Is this…”

Nodding, you slipped out of the bed, holding your hand out for him to take.  “I’ve been waiting for you here since forty-three.”

He took your hand without hesitation, allowing you to pull him out of the bed and out the bedroom door.  A fondness creeped into his smile as he saw the photos lining the halls.  Pictures of you and your family, of your children, of him.  Never before seen photos of you with the kids.

“Come on, my love,” you said, already two steps down the staircase.  Your eyes were bright as you stared up at him.  “We’ve got people waiting for us.”

The fourth stair from the bottom still creaked, and it was then that he realized the body he was in.  His hands were young again.  His muscles didn’t strain with every step.  His bones didn’t creak.

He was young again.

“Yes, you have your hair back,” you teased, reading his mind like you always did.  Your voice was clear as a bell, the best thing he’d heard in decades.

His heart caught in his throat as you pulled him towards the back door, the sound of voices growing louder.  “Are…”

Opening up the back door in the kitchen, you revealed all of his friends and family that he’d lost over the years.  Alexei and Eliza were playing a pickup game of football with Sam, Peter, and the Howling Commandos.  Steve was manning the grill, chatting with his father and Mateo about who knows what.  Natasha was sharing a plate of fresh strawberries with Poppy.  Peggy was standing off to the side with his mother, Rebecca, and Brienne like it was just a random Sunday.

There were so many others that he thought he’d lost over the years.  Loved ones he never thought he’d see again.

His eyes pricked with fresh tears as your hand slipped into his, squeezing.  A reassurance that you were there by his side.

And you’d never leave it again.

[drwcn]

... I must say, it's really nice to know it wasn't only I who found book!LWJ's attitude unnerving. He was shown a posessive there, I think? The funniest thing that TGCF I actually liked, because despite one of 'merry couple' fangirling for another for years, he still gave him free space and trusted to make his own decisions.

Hi anons! :)

This post is gonna get kind of wanky, so be warned. If you don’t want wank, well don’t read this post. I really don’t like to answer wank asks because only positive vibes for my blog please and thanks (but don’t worry anons, I’m not mad, I’m just gonna put the three of you together so I can talk about some of mdzs’s problems once and for all).  Also disclaimer: my opinions are my own, I could be wrong about some things. I have only dabbled in the novel, some chapters here and there, and I really couldn’t finish it. I went ahead and read the original text, which is actually quite well written all things considered. The translations are fine, but it just doesn’t quite hit the spot. Thus, if I said some things which are factually incorrect, I am not opposed to being notified.  

First and foremost, for the anon that asked “what’s wrong with mxtx?” The short answer is nothing is wrong with her. She’s an author who writes popular online novels with a wide readership. Clearly people are receptive to what she’s putting out there. Good for her, you know. It’s not easy to be that well received. 

But in terms of her novels, there are several things that I personally don’t like. I’m just gonna list some of the things she’s said about MDZS/CQL. I have not consumed any of her other work. 

First, her treatment of her female characters. In an interview, she literally said that most of the men in her MDZS novel are single because she didn’t want to come up with names for their wives. Like....what the fuck. Take from that what you will. Also, look at her female characters. Seriously, what kind of fates did they have? According to another OP, all the female characters’ lines in MDZS added up to 50 sentences. Don’t quote me on this, I did not fact check. This is just what I heard. But even within the narrative itself, let’s do a body count. Jiang Yanli died for plot. Wen Qing died for plot. Qin Su existed and died for plot. A-Jing existed for 45 seconds and then died for plot. Baoshan exists in narration only. Madam Yu was a raging asshole. Madam Jin treated Jin Guangyao like trash. Cangse Sanren: dead. Mama Lan: (no name lol) dead. Where are the fucking women? Where? Let’s not forget all the other women that existed purely as plot device: Sisi, Bicao, Meng Shi. Mianmian is the only one who lived, but she literally had to - quote Eliza Hamilton - “take myself out of the narrative” to do it. 

Second, and this is a well known thing: mxtx claimed that the only canon gay relationship is wangxian, everyone else is straight because she doesn’t think it’s likely that there are that many gay people. If we interpret other male characters as couples, we’re free to have our own interpretation. ... ..... .... I’m fucking speechless. But also laughing because LHK and ZZJ literally ignored canon, and straight up made LXC and MY have a meet cute in class in front of everyone. 

Third, but not least, let’s talk about book!Lan Wangji. The following will strictly be talking about book!Lan Wangji and not show!Lan Wangji. Show Lan Wangji is very nuanced and WYB’s micro-expressions are great. (You’re doing amazing sweeties, don’t ever stop).

 What, pray tell, is book!LWJ’s personality? Silence is not a personality. book!LWJ is what we critics in the drama world call “高冷霸道总裁”, which is a trope in and of itself. And there’s nothing wrong with tropes, except a lot of viewers are getting...kind of sick of it, because it’s getting a little repetitive. 

高冷 = arrogant and cold, but like... in an admirably good way. Or as I like to call it, a stick up the butt and no communication skills. 

霸道总裁 = The Big Boss.  Attention: lemme use some heteronormative language here for a second because most of cdrama is written this way. The Big Boss is the fictional counterpart to the real life 高富帅 (gao fu shuai: tall, rich and handsome, the moniker for an ideal husband) that many aunties and mothers wish their daughters could marry. This kind of character is tall, rich and will swoop in to save the damsel-in-distress - erm, I mean the strong independent female character - when she’s in trouble. Because even though she’s a strong independent character, and sometimes even the main character, somehow her fellow male lead still has to play her knight in shiny armor. Not like, he’ll sit down and listen to her talk about her problems, no, no, he has to pay for her expenses, bail her out of trouble, save her life, sacrifice himself, go against the world for her... sounds familiar??? 

Yeah. 

And like, some novels do “the big boss” trope better than other. They give the “the big boss” a human side, let him interact with side characters, allow him to have friends, build on other relationships, such that he is 3D and can stand on his own. Eternal Love of Dream’s DongHua Dijun is a recent example which I think did a pretty good job of writing a male character that doesn’t let him revolve around the love interest 24/7. 

book!LWJ doesn’t work for me because what exactly is his character growth? He serves to back up Wei Wuxian and.....????? He’s so flat in his character built. He loves Wei Wuxian and....that’s it. What else is there? If there’s other character traits y’all picked up on that I didn’t, please let me know because I find him so boring and at times disturbing (in terms of the nature of his physical relationship with Wei Wuxian). 

In CQL, we saw Lan Wangji change as a character, we saw him struggle with morals and values, struggle against tradition and family and societal expectations. We watched him witness the death of Wei Wuxian and move on to face life afterwards. We know through the actions of Lan Sizhui that he helped raise a child who didn’t just follow rules blindly. When Wei Wuxian came back, we saw a matured Lan Wangji who had come into his own and was comfortable in his own skin. And in the end, when the dust settled and the truth was revealed, he rose to the occasion. Jin Guangyao’s death left a power vacuum, and Lan Wangji filled it. Someone once wrote an excellent post about Lan Wangji being attracted to Wei Wuxian’s sense of justice (recall Wang Yibo’s change in expression when Wei Wuxian prayed during the lantern ceremony). I think that is exactly right. For two individuals with such different personalities, their bond in my opinion lies in their ability to see right and wrong beyond rules and laws and customs.  

In the book, canon ended with the two main character going at it in the grass, and I guess...yeah that’s cool. Happy ending right? But what they did learn? What was the point? Lan Wangji had lived 13/16 years without Wei Wuxian. He knew who he was. But for Wei Wuxian, he came back to life in another person’s body and went through a gazillion different revelation within days. He needed to find himself again, discover who he is, what he wants in this new life. That is a process he needs to do by himself, without external influences and pressure. He needs to be given a chance to decide that Lan Wangji is who he wants in this life, not in the last life, and when he does Lan Wangji will still be here, waiting for him, as he has always waited for him. Lan Wangji is the rock, the constant, the home that Wei Wuxian could always fall back on. He is not a prison, not a master, not the dictator of Wei Wuxian’s life. Theirs should be a partnership of respect and understanding. They are soulmates not only in the romantic sense, but because they understand each other better than anyone else. 

Book!LWJ does not give us that. What it does give us is a badly written sexual intercourse that gives me the heebee-jeebees. Sometimes I think it’s even weirdly dub-con without intending to be dub-con. The truth is I can’t even begrudge mxtx for it, because she is not the only one to write in this way. I’ve read other c-novels and many many of them are like that. And here is where we’re getting into the discussion of cultural understanding/acceptance of sex, relationship, consent, gender roles and the what is taught to young adults in school. That is a rabbit hole I won’t go into. 

So that’s it. My thoughts. 

[momo-de-avis]

Hey Momo! Can I ask you who are your favorite villains/antagonists and why?

hmm this is a difficult one, I often forget my favourite things sjkadfhjkhgsdf

1. Queen Medb from Irish Mythology will always be my number one antagonist (I refuse to call her a villain). It’s just so incredible to me that 9th century monks clearly created this character with the intent of being a villainous antagonist to king Conchobhair Mac Nessa but made her in a way that... she’s incredibly complex and layered? She’s genuinely a character you cannot, at any given point -- and I mean a single one -- of the Táine say that she’s either 100% wrong or right (anyway, Irish mythology just doesn’t work like that), and she has one thing that is so rare in female characters of western myth, which a well established intent, a very well decided upon goal that she acts upon, disregard the outcomes or the obstacles, and on God, this bitch is gonna get it.

Also, WHERE ELSE do you get the line (something like) “sleep with a man without having another waiting in his shadow” as a MARIAGE CLAUSE TO MARRY HER. I cannot find enough words to express to you how much I love queen Medb.

(Side note, I just checked there’s a Maeve in the Throne of Glass series and I definitely DO NOT MEAN that piece of garbage okay, I just wanna clear that up)

2. Amma Crellin from Sharp Objects literally gave me the shivers and she’s thirteen, and I am talking about both book and series (Eliza Scanlan is an incredible actress, and paired up with Amy Adams? Baby..............). Then again I’m a slut for Gillian Flynn. It’s just incredible how she constructed a character so controversial that she’s two-faced, an innocent-looking blonde southern beauty who���s also this manipulative bully, and who manages to balance that so perfectly you, as the reader, struggle with that throughout the whole goddamn book. 

3. Roy Batty. Not book Roy Batty, movie Roy Batty. To be honest with you, I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and the only thing I remember vividly of the book is the explanation for the title, which I thought was damn beautiful (and is not in the movie), but somehow everything else vanished. However I do remember Blade Runner Roy Batty is a lot more fleshed out than the book (he’s basically just a common criminal there?) and damn, Rutger Hauer in that final monologue under the rain, man........................ I mean, I’m sus, I fucking adore Blade Runner, and I’m a huge fan of late 70s, early 80s Harrison Ford, and I’m a huge slut for the movie’s whole german expressionism-inspired aesthetic (straight out of Metropolis) and the cyberpunk vibe, but ROY BATTY, MAN. Like, you kinda get to a point you wanna say “man, fuck Deckard”.

4. Svidrigailov from Crime and Punishment and listen, I have this whole theory about his ending that speaks to probably how Dostoievsky saw him related to the whole thesis of the book, but man, that man was a piece of shit. You don’t even fully realise how much of a piece of shit he is until Dunya comes along. He’s like ubermensch levels of nasty. The scream I let out when he did THAT. (and Crime and Punishment is one of my favourite books of all time btw)

5. So Eça de Queiroz is mandatory reading here in Portugal considering he is the leading romanticist/naturalist writer of his time, and there is one book that I absolutely fucking look that is Primo Basílio that I think in english is called Cousin Bazílio (direct translation, though for some reason the man’s name transforms the S into a Z for some reason?). I usually say about this book that it’s how Madame Bovary should have been written BECAUSE IT’S FUCKING BETTER, FIGHT ME ABOUT IT. Anyway, Basílio is obnoxious. If you’re a woman who’s ever had a girl friend who’s been brainwashed by that one fuck boy who lured her into cheating because he just wants an adventure and you KNOW that POS is gonna dump her ass the second she turns around, that’s Basílio, Every waking second reading this book is like deep sighs and boiling frustration. (Besides, one of THE best romantic characters I’ve ever seen is Juliana, but again: this is romanticism. Which means, the ending is tragic as fuck because, why the fuck not, the romantics lived for this sort of shit. If at any point of the narrative the author mentions a nightingale, you know everyone’s gonna die.)

I think these are all I can think about right now. They’re mostly books now that I notice it (and I admit I did open my good reads to remember what I’ve read lmao)

[lyrazehedgieboiii]

Legacy

Yo, hedgie squad! I’m back with another quick one shot that I found in my Ipad, and decided to post it here! So, what inspired me to write this is the word ‘Legacy.’ Hamilton constantly repeated the same word throughout the musical, and he defined it in such a unique way. And I quote “Legacy...what is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see... I wrote some notes at the beginning of a song someone will sing for me,” - The World Was Wide Enough; Act Two

That made me think about Sonic. I try not to think of a Hamilton crossover with Sonic, because Hamilton ends up cheating on his wife, and I can’t imagine Eliza’s pain go to Amy. Although Amy definitely fits the part of Eliza, I just don’t want to feel their heartbreak, as that’s what fanfiction does to me. I thought:

“Sonic doesn’t seem like the type to settle down, but he would need his legacy to be passed on to the future, for any villains that may rise when Sonic passes. What if he asks the woman most dearest to his heart to bear the son of Sonic the Hedgehog?” That’s right, folks. The foreplay and aftermath of how his legacy passes on. There is no lemon in this, but rated M for mature themes. If you want the more ‘mature’ version, I’m currently making it, and it’ll be on my Wattpad.

It was a summer night, and a thunderstorm had just passed Amy’s humble little cottage in the meadow, the sun peaking out from the dark clouds above. A 26 year old Amy Rose had opened up her curtains, smiling at the sight in front of her. It was Sonic. The sun’s rays were shining above his head, creating a halo in her innocent jade eyes. After watching him slowly approach her door, she realized that he was coming to her house.

She opened it to reveal a royal blue hedgehog with long blue quills. He wore a scarf, Amy personally didn’t think it was appropriate for the weather they were in. He wasn’t the only one to have grown. She wore a mature dress, a little tight, but that’s what makes her look like a woman, Rouge told her once. She had also grown her quills out as well. She smiled genuinely, Sonic doing the same. He slowly walked in when Amy moved to the side for him. They stood there, beside the closed door, the windows showing that the sun had become even more brighter. She decided to speak up, seeing as the awkward tension was rising.

    “...Wow, it’s not everyday we see the hero of Mobius walk into the abode of his number one fan...” She had hesitated, but Sonic could clearly hear a faint joking tone.

    “I like to think of you as good friend, but if you wanna go along ‘number-one fan,’ I’m not stopping ya.” Sonic could see the miniature glint of sadness appear in her eyes upon being called his best friend, but she covered it up with her cheery demeanor.

     “Just tell me what you’re here for?” This time, he heard her mature voice, something age gives you along the path of life. She smirked as she said it, but Sonic was not here to joke. He sighed.

     “I’m here to ask you a very big favor. If you need time to think about it, I’ll let you do so. Please, just hear me out.” Amy’s smug smile had faltered, wondering what he would ask of her.

     “What is it?” She asked, leading him straight to her living room. They both sat down, side-by-side, eye contact never breaking. There was a different type of tension this time. It wasn’t awkward, it was the type that raised the mood and emotion within the two people to the point it started to show externally.

      “I’m growing old.” Sonic simply stated, wanting to give the message to her slowly, but also fast enough so she could decide what her answer would be. Amy laughed, the tension only staying within Sonic. He couldn’t help but smile, the sight of Amy laughing brought a fluttering feeling to his heart, a feeling that only she was able to access.

    “Is that all? Of course you’d be growing old, silly! It happens to everyone!” Amy chimed. She got up to get him something, before she was pulled back down gently by her waist, something that surprised Amy.

     “I mean...soon enough, later on, I might die. I could die any day, and no one would be able to pass what I worked so hard to build. What we worked so hard to build. A world where everyone is safe.” He looked up to find a confused Amy.

      “I...I’m afraid I don’t follow, Sonic. Are you dying?” Amy questioned him worriedly. Sonic shook his head in denial.

       “No, Amy. I meant...I need someone to continue to be a hero once I’m too old to do anything.” Amy stared at him, trying to understand.

        “Why don’t you ask Tails? He’ll continue being a hero!” Amy told him.

        “He’s 22, Ames. He’s not that far along.” The corner of his mouth turned upwards, but quickly went back to a straight line. He sighed again. “I mean...I need a heir. Someone with my blood to continue on, fighting any villains that come to his world. What if Eggman also has a descendant, but no one knows about it? I need a child, someone with my speed to continue on.” He explained. Amy understood, but wanted to hear the favor being asked directly from his lips.

      “What are you asking of me, Hedgehog?” She stood up, and put her hands on her hips. He stood up as well, stepping closer to her.

       “Be the mother to my child, Ames. It’s your dream, right? Well, it’ll come true! I want you to give birth to my descendant.” Sonic took her hands in his own and his eyes pleaded her. She could never get herself to say no to those eyes. Hell, she wouldn’t say no anyways.

      “Th-This isn’t a j-joke, right? You’re serious? If you’re kidding I’ll never forgive you!” Her eyes showed the same pleading look as his. He smiled, bringing her in to embrace.

      “I’d never play with your heart like this, Amy. I’m serious about every single word. I want you to be the one that gives that special motherly compassion to my kid.” He whispered in her ear, seeing she was shorter than him. He felt his chest become a bit wet, and he pulled away to find that she was crying.

With a smile.~

He smiled too, leaning down to wipe her tears away with his thumbs. Gently, he tilted his head and slowly brought his lips onto her glossy pink ones. A lot was spoken in that kiss, something along the lines of:

    “I love you...”

   “I love you too. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier.”

    “I really do care for you...”

    “So do I, I want you to know that.”

     “Don’t run away this time, just tell me if you’re going to run.”

     “I won’t run away unexpectedly, I’ve fulfilled my boyhood fantasies.”

      They broke apart, absolutely no lust featured in those deep pools of green, one pair showed happiness to no end, the other showing slight satisfaction to how happy the jade pair was.

      “So, that’s a yes?” Sonic asked, one hand on her cheek, the other on the small of her back.

       “It was always a yes, Sonic. I’m surprised you even had to ask.” Amy giggled. He brought her in for another kiss, and another, and many more throughout that night.

The next morning Amy had found out that she was indeed pregnant with Sonic’s child. Or children, but they didn’t know that yet.

Sonic stayed by Amy the whole time while she was pregnant, and restricted her from even thinking about battling Eggman, although she had gotten away with it many times, resulting a strict lecture from him. She ordered sound proof ear plugs, put them in and Sonic wouldn’t notice that there was anything in her ear, while she closed her eyes and listened to his muffled voice.

He dealt with her mood swings, knowing that they were normal, but couldn’t help but feel a bit annoyed when she gets all irritated when he tries to touch her, but also gets clingy and depressed when he just goes out for something like buying necessary groceries. On Amy’s second month, she allowed him to sleep with her, but she seemed to get up a lot to go to the bathroom, but Amy assured Sonic that it was completely normal.

On her sixth month, her pregnant stomach really started to show. Everyone could see that it was not fat, but a perfect circular bulge. It was obvious she was pregnant. She was forced to tell everyone about what Sonic and her did. They were all happy about it, and congratulated them. She had a baby shower that only their friends knew about. They received many gifts, most of them being unisex, some being gifts for girls, some for boys.

Amy knew that with her symptoms, she would have more than one baby, and was worried about Sonic. How would he react to that?! He showered her with love, and made her feel special, because she was. As Amy’s stomach grew, she started to feel self-conscious at how she looked, and how she did basically anything in front of Sonic. Sonic noticed her behavior changed to all nervous and stuttering when he was in the room, and was afraid that she was feeling stressed out. After all, stress was bad for the baby...well, babies. He rushed back to their house, quickly looking around for her. He found her in the bedroom, looking at herself in the mirror.

When she closed her eyes, Sonic quietly walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, taking in her scent and beauty. He didn’t understand what she was so conscious about. She was gorgeous in his eyes.

Wait.

Not gorgeous.

Perfect.

This woman has fought off and has become friends with countless amount of enemies.

This woman always wears a smile on her face, even when things are going absolutely terrible for her.

This woman knows how to make everyone happy, even if it means she has to sacrifice her own.

This woman happily agreed to birth the descendant of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Just by looking at his eyes, Amy could tell he was lovestruck. Completely, and utterly lovestruck. The sweet everythings he whispered in her ear at night were enough to get her content and energetic self back.

Next came her last month. Any day now, she would give birth to Sonic the Hedgehog’s children. They weren’t just his children, but her’s too. Her water broke just as she she was cooking something for lunch, she felt something wet. She screamed Sonic’s name, who was luckily in the dining room, chowing down on a chilidog. He ran her to the hospital immediately, and stood by her side as she gave birth to three healthy baby boys. Amy apologized to Sonic over and over again, but Sonic cut her off with a kiss.

     “What are you apologizing for?” He asks, as he holds his youngest in his arms, cradling him a bit.

     “This was more than one baby!” She exclaimed, but before she could open her mouth, Sonic’s mouth was on her’s again.

      “So? I may not be showing it, but I’m really happy that I have more than one kid. I’m a triplet too, you know.” Amy smiled. She looked the two bundles in her arms, kissing their foreheads. Sonic knew he had made the right decision. Of course, she wouldn’t let him name any of the kids “Sonic Jr.” They all looked like Sonic, although the oldest looked a little more indigo, and the middle child had a few royal purple highlights and Amy’s bangs. The youngest had Amy’s eyes, but otherwise, he looked exactly like Sonic.

They named them from oldest to youngest. Flash, Dash, and Blur.

They would carry on his legacy.

[gimme-a-hand-scaevola]

A review of the book The Rook by Daniel O’Malley that nobody ever asked for...

Ok so @chemcat92 recommended me this book and I listened to it on audiobook and I just... have a lot of thoughts. I haven’t read the sequel and I’m torn if I will. Having watched some AMVs of the show, it’s a hard pass. My review is going to be in three parts:

1. The plot

2. Wasted Potential - In General

3. Wasted Potential - Gestalt the Most Wasted Character Potential I’ve Read since Drizzt Do’Urden 

Obviously spoilers under the cut. 

Part 1: The Plot - i.e. I think Daniel discovered books four days before he started writing 

Ok so... The plot of this book. It starts off STRONG I will give it that. Myfanwy Thomas wakes up in a rainy part surrounded by bodies wearing latex gloves and no memories. She soon discovers her previous self lost her memories but because she was organized and knew it was coming, she has eased new Myfanwy’s transition. She gets to choose to stay in her life through letters and then we get an easy way to give flashbacks. Anyway this part RULES. 

Honestly, the book starts strong as hell. Myfanwy discovers she has supernatural powers over people’s nervous systems and is a trained bureaucrat for a supernatural wing of the government. This all runs sort of like a combination of Heroes and Harry Potter in the best way possible. And here is where we find the strongest part of the book: the superpowers. 

We don’t have to look that far to find Heroes type shows or books where everyone has a special ability, so if you’re going to go that route, you’ve gotta bring it. And honestly, Daniel brings it. They powers are cool as hell, they’re inventive, they’re well bounded. I felt like I understood what people’s powers and limitations were. We were in a land with magic, but it never felt cheap. This is going to dovetail into my absolute RANT about Gestalt but give me a sec to get there. 

Ok. So honestly I don’t even have any complaints until the third act. Act one gives us the set up, act two introduced the big bad the Grafters and so far so good. We’ve got good but elitist supernatural guys vs. bad but more egalitarian supernatural guys. We also know that it was someone in the supernatural org (it has a name but the name is so stupid I can’t spell it) that betrayed our protag and stole her memories and they’re still around and teamed up with the evil Grafters. Intrigue?? Don’t know who to trust???? Love it. 

For some reason everyone is either old, or hot, or so inhuman it’s viscerally horrifying. Love this touch. Eleanor from the Good Place taught us that it’s totally free to imagine everyone in a story as super hot. And it is. So they’re all super hot. Love it. Good commitment, Daniel. 

But then we get to Act three. So, this was a big swing on ol Danny’s part because a lot of the effect of this had to do with carrying out mystery. We’d built a lot of tension on the suspense  Who Betrayed Myfanwy. So obviously it’s really important for me to be surprised or at least satisfied with who this is. (As an aside, I would have been ok with guessing correctly, I definitely don’t subscribe to surprise trumping cohesive plot). Ok. With that on paper... like... holy shit. What a stupid “reveal.” 

So in part 1, like the first scene we get of old Myfanwy’s letters giving us context, she says that her apartment at work was inherited from a dude Conrad something that got promoted. And then she says it’s super badly decorated, and later we see it and this shit is straight out of Austin Powers, mirror over a round bed, The Whole Shebang. But she also says that this guy who otherwise is supposed to be very smooth and charismatic like... asks her about the decor.... every time they interact. Every Time They Interact. The second this was mentioned (WHICH IS AFTER WE KNOW SHE WAS BETRAYED) I'm like “oh ok so this guy bugged her room he’s the villain” and I only wasn’t sure because it was WAY too obvious. 

But no. He’s the villain. He has a big reveal where he’s like “AND I BUGGED YOUR ROOM” and I'm like... well... yeah. Of course you did. But here’s the thing tho... Myfanwy’s like... WHOLE ASS JOB is planning covert ops. So... is she good at her job??? IS SHE???? 

But we also don’t actually show how characters are based on their actions, we are just told how they are. But we will circle back to that in the Gestalt part. That’s honestly the sum of my rant about the plot. It was nothing. It put all its eggs in the basket of the worst most boring reveal of all time. Daniel, I think you might just be boring. 

Part 2: Wasted Potential - Everything but Gestalt who gets a special part to themselves.

The big sin of this book might just be too many good ideas. There’s a lot of characters, they all do cool stuff, but we have like 200 pages, so there wasn’t enough time to do anything with all these guys. I got lost about who was who like 80 times because they’re basically all sneaky hot magic guys. One of them smokes and is a soldier and he seems chill. 

There’s a vampire and he gets a scene and a long intro that reads more like a wiki page. Like it was interesting but you would have lost NOTHING cutting him as a character except that he was cool. You never ever believe that he was the bad guy because it’s super well established in the Certified Back Story that he could give two shits about the politics of the humans. He’s there bc he’s an adorably young vampire who is very curious so his dad set him up as a powerful government agent as though it was enrolling him in a prep school. Love it, but again, we don’t.... need him around. 

There’s a lady who can walk through dreams and I thought she was going to be important based on the fanfare of her introduction but then we forget about her basically entirely. 

There’s a whole American wing that we also only see anything interesting about in side story. Basically the world building is really good. Like pretty superb to be honest. But it’s bracketing a story that is nothing so it makes even good characters seems really random. And that bring us to:

Part 3: My Darling, Gestalt. My Type. My Weakness. What a Sad Little Thing You Are (Also misogyny)

Alright... if the rest of this review wasn’t salty enough for you... let the salt begin. Gestalt. So named because of the word meaning larger than the sum of its parts. And so they were destined to be. And so they were most definitely not. So Gestalt’s whole thing is that they are one consciousness with four bodies. They can either control one body at a time and sort of shut the others down or they can control them all at once but that becomes harder if one of them requires more attention than another, like if one is in a fight. 

Two twins (men), one fraternal brother, and a sister. If anyone is thinking “uhoh, only one girl, hmm can Daniel handle that? Seems like maybe some Smurfette style misogyny-lite is coming,” you would be wrong. Super wrong. Because it is not misogyny-lite. It’s aggressive Fight-Me-In-A-Perkins-Parking-Lot misogyny. So go fuck yourself, Dan. 

Alright, so to number Gestalt’s sins. 

1. Scrape off some of that intro mustard.

They’re introduced in the LONGEST fucking passage I’ve ever read telling me that this dude is hard to talk to and weird. Like, I’m in an urban fantasy book already, I'm all set. Also... bitch SHOW ME they’re weird. Like can I see some interactions that give me second hand embarrassment??? No. It is actually never uncomfortable to talk to Gestalt. I only know that because people are super fucking rude about them. But it is never earned. So I don’t feel sympathy when people are like “Oh noooo you have to spend a car ride with Gestalt? Ewwwww sorry.” I’m just like, “What’s your fucking problem? They seem fine.” 

2. They’re supposed to be Bad At Planning but when?? 

Alright so there ARE times they’re bad at planning and we will GET TO THAT. But it’s only post-reveal like... what we are told during a monologue that they were dumb as shit. And that wasn’t even like not being good w/ details like it’s implied they are, it’s literally like doing dumb ass stuff. And it felt more like my bud Dan didn’t have a good handle on why stuff was dumb as rain than Gestalt being silly. 

Also.... this is a stupid use of this sort of character. They’re dumb and bad at planning??? THEY’RE A JOINT CONSCIOUSNESS why would you waste that making them “Good at kicking ass.” ugh. Fine. 

3. They get sidelined IMMEDIATELY 

So a guy named Pumice Stone or Kettle or Lil boy Bad At This or something outs that Gestalt is working with the Grafters because he like.... wasn’t paying attention. It was boring. But anyway so they capture two of the bodies and then stop addressing Gestalt until the end. They have one weird scene where the protagonist like.... freaks them out but ok. Fine. Why is Gestalt so Yelly. Why are so many villains in this book yelly. Ew. 

4. The REVEAL MONOLOGUE. 

I know this is a long ass review already. But my Feelings Must be Heard. So in the end when Conrad surprises no one but “smart” Myfanwy that he was the bad guy, we also get a reveal from the surviving Gestalt bodies that:

a. There’s an incest baby

b. They’re afraid of death

c. They’re so phenomenally stupid I have lost all interest in them

So... this is where the misogyny comes in. I’ll note here that the only time we interact w/ Eliza, the special girl body, is when she takes a carried to Hogwarts the super secret magic school with Myfanwy and she doesn’t do anything except we get the internal note that she’s like... gained weight. This is the misogyny-lite we expect. (And no, Dan, you don't get any points bc a female character is the only pleased she got pudgy bc YOU wrote the female character so we’re all set there.)

And then we discover that the weird blonde (lol oh yeah they’re all hot blondes) baby that Conrad “Evil Austin Powers” British-Last-Name has with his weird wife is actually a Gestalt body that Eliza had after she boned down with her other body who is genetically a brother and consciously herself. 

K. Ok. I have. Ok. Alright. Daniel. Ok. 

SUBPART A: My Feelings about Gestalt: Oh Eliza, my darling, my dear, would that I could bring you Justice

So after Eliza is shot dead one of the interchangeable boy bodies of Gestalt yells at Myfanwy about how terrible that is bc it was the only body who could bear children so now THE HORROR they’ll die. 

For god’s fucking sake Daniel O’Malley. What the fuck is your goddamn problem. You LITERALLY wrote a Smurfette Syndrome character who is only important because she can have babies. She is literally just there to be a baby-box. What the fuck. Get fucking wrecked. Thank GOD Starz cut your program and fuck the Aurealis Awards for giving you an award for this fucking book. But they’re a sci-fi award so this is probably super progressive for them. I was pleasantly annoyed by the basic nature of this book until this part. Now I am just done with your content. This was more overtly sexist that Supernatural. So... real swing and a miss. 

ANYWAY FORTUNATELY this opens a whole new can of worms that I get to ruthlessly mock certified Basic Bitch Daniel O’Malley for. 

SubPart 2: Gestalt Raises Interesting Philosophical Questions Daniel Isn’t Smart Enough to Address

So, remember, I would have cut this dude more slack if he didn’t do that to Eliza. Gestalt, to be honest, this whole review is dedicated to what you Could Have Been. 

Interesting Questions or Comments We Could Have Asked:

Does having a baby being one of five of your bodies affect your consciousness? That thing doesn’t have object permanence? Is there like an intellectual cost to having another baby body? No, we don’t care. I think we just had there be a baby bc “Weird sister-sex” was as interesting as Daniel could get. Side Note: The obvious question of “lol haha lol is it incest or mAsTurBation is not going to be addressed here bc it is literally too boring to consider)

Does having a body who textually is said to have post-partum depression affect your joint consciousness? If not, why bring it up?? Bc she has “weird lady disease” is that why???

Are they....afraid of death????? Why didn’t you ever bring this up? Why have they showed only excitement at the prospect of very dangerous fights up to this point? Why are all four bodies in the field. 

WHY ARE ALL FOUR BODIES IN THE FIELD. Ok so here is one of those points that is definitely stupid but stupid in a dumb as dirt way. If you were afraid to lose your baby-box body, why would you send her into battle? 

Why didn’t they freeze a bunch of her eggs? In fact, why did she bear it at all? Why put your one female body that you only want for babies through that sort of danger? Canonically they all get paid an absurd amount and Gestalt is paid for each body, they can afford a surrogate.  

Why let a weird dude who is at best contemptuous of you raise your baby body? Why wouldn’t you want to do that? Doesn’t that give him a huge amount of leverage over you? 

Is the quality fo Gestalt’s form destined to decline if genetically they can only make more bodies by full genetic sibling offspring? Does that scare them? Again... does their physical brain affect their consciousness? 

If so... maybe that would be a good reason for them to want to join up with the Grafters who are way ahead in genetic research and engineering. 

ANYWAY Gestalt is sexist as shit and boring as hell and had SO MUCH WEIRD POTENTIAL. 

In summary: It was definitely fun but Fuck you, Daniel O’Malley 

[miserybegins]

Wait what's the tea on millions?

check the tags before reading this lol 

alright...millions is the one song im sure gerard wrote about frank. i think franks written loots of songs about gerard but this one...this is the only one i believe gerard wrote about him and damn..h.e really said it all

where to start...i have opinions on a lot of lyrics from this song but not All Of Them because well i didnt write it so i dont actually know what everything means but these are my thoughts anyway

also let me first say i don’t believe either of them ever cheated, i believe that jamia was aware of frank and gerards relationship, whatever the nature of that was and however invested gerard was. i believe she let frank have what he needed on the road and knew he would always come back to her. anyway

You twist my armI'm twisting fateYou'll leave alone, or crazy greatOr break into a million pieces, all your reasons

ok...this makes me think hes saying like frank was always trying to persuade him to be more than what they were. basically i guess to explain this song i have to lay out my whole opinions on the nature of their relationship. i think frank without a doubt was in love with gerard, i think gerard was fond of him and maybe led him on sometimes but was never nearly as invested as frank. this opinion comes from a lot of analysis of frank songs, what i’ve observed, and what i know about frank, the way his emotions work, etc. i won’t get into all of it now but i guess thats a baseline for this that you need to know.

so frank trying to persuade gerard of what they could be, or to dedicate more time to him, and gerard trying to ‘twist fate’ i guess...the words arent coming to me. gerard was trying to plan out his future in the way that he envisioned it and i think gerard has done a lot of this, he has said he plans things so far in advance and i believe that he sets an intention for what his life is going to be like and he makes it happen. so frank wants gerard but gerard wants something else. and thats going to hurt frank.

And while we're laying on the floorMy mouth is soreI'm keeping scoreA million reasons but i need a million more

keeping score, makes me think their relationship was like transactional to gerard. im not really sure. but a million reasons but i need a million more to me is like. gerard saying Yes. there are a million reasons why we are right for each other and why this could be amazing if i let it happen, but even a million reasons aren’t enough for me.

You believe in loveI believe in faith

frank believes in love and believes you should do whatever you can for love if you find it. gerard believes in being faithful to one person. i know gerard has said explicitly that he is straight more than once but i’m pretty sure none of us...believe that. anyway i do think that he always wanted to end up with a woman so when he found lynz he was like perfect im going to be faithful to her. i dont doubt his relationship with her but you have to realize that he started projekt rev engaged to eliza and ended the tour married to lynz. it was super fast and rash decision honestly. he latched onto the dream he had and was faithful to it.

A trillion legions of the damned and williamIt was really meIt was really youThere was really nothing i could do

ok this. ‘william it was really nothing’ is a smiths song.

im going to copy and paste the interpretation of the song, these are the most common that you find when you google it:

“This song chronicles a love triangle between a marrying couple and a gay friend. The friend asks "William" why he is marrying a girl who "doesn't care about anything." It would seem that the friend had an affair with William in the past, but William is now in denial of his homosexuality and is marrying a woman instead - much to the friend's dismay.”

and from morrissey himself: “I thought it was about time there was a male voice speaking directly to another male saying that marriage was a waste of time...that, in fact, it was 'absolutely nothing.”

this is...god. gerard is a huge smiths fan. so is frank. that fact aside, there is no way gerard referencing that song is a coincidence, especially with it’s meaning. it would be a discredit to everything gerard’s ever done to think that he didnt have intention by referencing it. this drives me absolutely bonkers crazy. i don’t think i need to even explain the relation of this lyric to frank and gerard, its pretty obvious.

(after projekt rev when gerard got married they did the show in hoboken and in im not okay frank says ‘lie to me’ much to think about)

You don't understand, we don't hold hands

like....hello. that line is obvious. gerard saying yea maybe we kiss and are affectionate maybe we mess around sometimes but you dont get it. thats all it is. we’re nothing more than that, bringing it back around to the fact that frank was in love and gerard was only semi invested.

Come catch me, runCuz i'm not having any fun

theres an interview with gerard after the break up that i can try to locate if someone really wants but its a really long interview so id have to listen to the whole thing to find the part im referencing but gerard says that frank came up to him before the msg show right before the hiatus they took starting in may 2008 where frank asked him if he was having any fun anymore and gerard said no, which then led to the hiatus.

I think you're soreI think i'm doneA million reasonsCan i be your number one?Yeah. yeahCan i be your number one?But I need a million more.

i think you’re sore: i think you’re finally getting fed up with the way i don’t make you a priority. i think i’m done: obvious. can i be your number one? i like being your number one. i want to still be your number one even though you’re not mind. and then the repetition of needing a million more reasons for them to work out, he could have had all the reasons in the world and it still wouldnt have been enough for him to abandon the ideal of the life he had in his head, with a woman.

anyway im out of my mind if you read it this far youre a trooper please dont reblog this

[skyfirewolf]

Empty Chairs at Empty Tables

August 15, 1824.

Marquis de Lafayette, now aged 66, stood at the bow of the ship, watching the shores of New York draw closer.

The welcoming he received from the people of his promised land was spectacular; the streets filled with cheering people and a troop of Revolutionary War veterans greeted him at the dock. The city erupted into celebration for four straight days. Balls were organized for him and veterans from the Revolution.

Yet... he did not feel the excitement he may have been expected to.

During the balls, he wandered around aimlessly in his old continental uniform, akin to a ghost with his pale complexion and features weathered with age. He talked when the occasional conversationalist stopped him and laughed at their jokes and stories. Some faces were familiar, and so they spoke about the old days and the battles and closeness and camaraderie with the other soldiers they missed. However, he was always more than happy to let the conversation drop and draw away from the world like an injured creature.

He felt wrong.

He felt alone.

He felt lost.

...He felt empty.

There's a grief that can't be spoken,

His heart ached for those he had loved and lost. Laurens, Alexander, Washington, Adrienne, they had all held a place in his heart that had crumbled when they'd passed. He grieved deeply for them all.

He decided to go to the one person who would understand. But would she be willing to listen?

It turned out that he hadn't needed to fret.

The moment Elizabeth Hamilton opened her door to see him, her weathered, tired face split into a fond smile. She hugged him, ignoring proprietary. For the briefest moment, Lafayette allowed himself to relax into this comforting gesture and return it. When Eliza silently led him inside, he didn't resist. And so they sat, drinking warm tea.

For a while, they didn't speak, Gilbert had nothing to say, and he knew that Eliza understood.

There's a pain goes on and on.

He knew she understood his feeling of being lost, his feeling of emptiness... his feeling of grief.

And when that emptiness finally seemed to consume him, leading to slow tears rolling down his face, he knew she still understood.

Once his tears dried, he embraced her and left. He told the carriage to take him to the one place in New York he remembered and was ready to face.

Empty chairs at empty tables,

He swept off his powdered wig and stepped into the tavern. It was empty. As much a relic of the past as Lafayette's memories of it. As much as Lafayette was himself.

Now my friends are dead and gone.

He recalled how he, Laurens and Hamilton had sat and celebrated their victories in this same tavern all those years ago, a trio of ambitious young men convinced that they could make a difference.

Then he remembered the letters he received of their deaths and the misery that came after.

Here they talked of revolution,

He recalled his first time meeting the men who would later become some of the most valued people in his life.

Here it was they lit the flame,

He remembered Alexander: with his hair the color of fire and eyes like an ocean storm, his extraordinary ability to talk, how he was able to light and rekindle the flame of determination in the hearts of the troops and other aides.

Here they sang about tomorrow and tomorrow never came.

He remembered Laurens: with a golden mane and eyes like the bluest sky, his reckless determination to put an end to slavery all over the new nation.

He remembered how his recklessness ended up being his downfall at the Combahee river.

From the table in the corner,

He limped to the table in the furthest corner, the favorite spot of his old friends, and sat down with a grunt.

They could see a world reborn,

He recalled the stories and dreams of his friends, of how they could change the world for everyone's benefit.

And they rose with voices ringing,

He recalled the old war songs, some of death and grief, some of battle and glory.

And I can hear them now

He could almost hear their voices, their laughter. Their grief and anger.

The very words that they have sung

"Raise a glass to freedom!"

Became their last communion

"Tomorrow there'll be more of us."

On this lonely barricade, at dawn.

Gilbert had never felt so helpless.

Oh my friends, my friends forgive me

He should have written to them more. Maybe he could have prevented their passing.

That I live and you are gone

Even in a city with so many people, he had never felt so alone.

There's a grief that can't be spoken,

Tears welled up in his eyes, and he raked a hand through his hair, which was mostly gray now, with only hints of its original red.

And there's a pain goes on and on

Silent tears soaked his cheeks.

Phantom faces at the window,

He closed his eyes, and could almost picture the faces of his beloved lost ones.

Phantom shadows on the floor,

Was he imagining those familiar footsteps on the floor? He must be.

Empty chairs at empty tables where my friends will meet no more.

Sitting alone in a tavern as much a relic as he was, the Marquis realized one thing that made the hole in his heart grow bigger still.

He was alone.

Oh my friends, my friends don't ask me

Soft sobs tore out of his throat, and he bowed his head.

What your sacrifice was for

Laurens died for what he believed in. Freedom.

Alexander attended the fatal duel for what he'd always fought for. Peace.

Washington died as the father of a nation and a leader to look up to.

And Lafayette was still here.

Empty chairs at empty tables

All he'd ever wanted was a happy life in the freedom of his country and his dear friends to spend it with.

Was it too much for an orphaned immigrant from France to look for happiness?

Where my friends will sing no more.

Apparently, it always would be.

He sighed, slipped on his coat and wig once more, and left.

Best make the most of what he had left.

[ofaylin]

⌠ BAHAR SAHIN, 19 CISFEMALE, SHE/HER ⌡ welcome back to gallagher academy, AYLIN KALELI! according to their records, they’re a SECOND year, specializing in LINGUISTICS, CULTURE, & ASSIMILATION; and they DID go to a spy prep high school. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of (hair pulled back with a chanel ribbon, lycra boots with razor blades in the heel, champagne and french macarons in a bubble bath, wiping your tears with a $100 bill). when it’s the (leo)’s birthday on 8/3/00 they always request their FRENCH FRIES from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re well on their way to graduation. 

hi, hello, i’ve been sitting on this idea for a while and i was going to wait until june but with all these new characters i just got too excited ?! so, fuck it, i’m here now, i can’t help myself. for plots, feel free to message me here on tumblr or hmu on discord @ #kati7600, but check out her intro below the cut ! // ty @gallagherintro​

INSPIRATION.

bex baxter – gallagher girls

carmen cortez – spy kids

blair waldorf – gossip girl

cher horowitz – clueless

torrance shipman – bring it on

jackie burkhart – that 70s show

BACKGROUND.

both of her parents work for the national intelligence organization of turkey, they’re big shots and they make a lot of money! she has two older sisters and she’s born into a world of wealth and expectations. it won’t take her long to learn more languages than years she has lived, and waking up early to run drills and do obstacle courses with her sisters is routine.

picture perfect on the outside, the household within goes through turmoil. her mother is promoted to the director of the NIO and it puts a strain on her parent’s relationship. her father starts taking more business trips, and aylin and her sisters spend nights sitting on the top of the stairs, listening in on phone conversations. aylin’s the youngest, so she doesn’t really understand what’s going on and needs to have it broken down. 

aylin had always LOVED her parent’s love story – they met on a mission and they were partners for years, it’s all very romantic. so the divorce leaves her confused. how could you stop loving someone? how could you just give up?

both of her parents are an active part of her life, the divorce is...fairly amicable and they share custody. the only thing aylin doesn’t like is her father’s new girlfriend, young and totally uninvolved in the world of espionage. the girl could be her sister. aylin spends her time split between two houses, half-belonging to each, but her parents feel GUILTY so aylin quickly learns how to use that guilt to get what she wants, whether it’s freedom or material goods. 

she’s a little spoiled, but it doesn’t satisfy her. nothing really does, it just makes her feel sort of empty, so she works harder, filling time with books and training with her older sisters who tell her cool stories from their spy prep schools and teach aylin things they’ve learned when they come home for breaks. aylin long for the day when she’s not splitting your time between other people’s homes and she’s in a place that she can really call her own.

she goes to the same spy prep school that her older sisters did in london. she’s competitive from the get-go because she’s a kelali and people already expect things from her to begin with. she smiles when people call her by her sister’s name or mention her mother, but inside she’s seething, eager to prove that she’s good because she works hard, not because she’s someone’s sister or daughter.

it’d be a lie to say that aylin didn’t step on a few toes, and the way she skyrocket to valedictorian is a little less than savory – she reports her competition for illicit activities, and...perhaps she planted something in their locker idk!!! 

she has her pick of spy prep colleges across the nation, but her mom really encourages her to choose gallagher. why? that’s weird, her mom never went there and neither does the rest of her family! but aylin really likes the idea of a place that’s all hers and she’s always wanted to see america, so she chooses it. she’s a bit smug about being ahead of others because she’s been reading books on espionage since age 4, and if you don’t know sixteen languages, stay out of her way. 

PERSONALITY:

PROUD. aylin is a very proud person, she grew up in an affluent household with important parents. when faced with a challenge, it’s her pride that tends to motivate her to be the best because she feels like she has something to prove, and she’ll turn her nose up at you until she gets it. this also makes her stubborn.

INTELLIGENT. aylin was raised in an environment where she was being trained since her childhood, knowing about espionage since she could speak, but she also has an iq of 122, so not quite genius level but she’s getting there. she’s the head cheerleader type that you’d be surprised is actually really good at math.

HARD-WORKING. queen of taking on too many extracurriculars at all times! honestly she tends to overexert herself until she burns out, but she wants it all – the exciting social life, the straight As, the meaningful connections, the parties, when does she sleep? maybe never.

SNOBBISH. honestly, she doesn’t mean to come off as a snob but she definitely does because she hasn’t really known anything other than crystal dishware and fancy clothes. she doesn’t even comprehend that other people don’t come from the same place of privilege that she has.

FUN-LOVING. the girl you want to party with! just because she’s a good student, she wouldn’t want you to think that she doesn’t know how to have a good time. aylin operates in extremes, so she parties just as hard as she studies and has a tendency to get carried away, but let it be known that she’s doing this for herself and not for anyone else’s attention.

MANIPULATIVE. aylin will step on toes to get what she wants, and she’s not scared to fight dirty. she tends to stay in the lines of what’s legal of course, but if she sees a window into getting what she wants, she’ll say what she needs to in order to get it. honestly, she can be a bit callous with the way she uses people and doesn’t always understand the effects of her actions. she would tell you that the ends justify the means. yikes.

INDEPENDENT. doesn’t need you or anyone else and wants you to know it. her confidence is genuine and real, and she doesn’t attribute any of her accomplishments to her family name – she’s not insecure about it, she knows that she’s good at what she does.  

HEADCANONS.

started school early, so she’s a bit young for her grade by a year. she sees this as a positive thing and will brag to you about how she’s younger AND smarter. annoying.

acts like she really likes healthy food and eats a salad in public ( will tell you that’s her favorite food ) but she’s weak for things that are greasy and fried and will be pigging out in secret. her favorite food is french fries but you probably wouldn’t guess that about her ! 

languages she knows: english, french, turkish, arabic, german, kurmanji, italian, dutch, spanish, mandarin, japanese, latin, hindustani, malay, russian, bengali. some are better than others and some she reads more than she can really speak. 

taught herself to skateboard since coming to america since it seemed like the thing to do based on watching american films. she will ride her little penny board in high heels and loves it ! and you thought i couldn’t make her more annoying !

tons of expensive lingerie but u can look but don’t touch. 

bisexual but still not interested in you. 

leo with a virgo rising and cancer moon. i am so SORRY ! 

WANTED CONNECTIONS. 

SERENA TO HER BLAIR. literally her best friend ever, but they probably have a sort of on-off friendship because they’re strong personalities and get in each other’s business. however, when it comes down to it, they’ll always put the other first and they love each other immensely, would kill a man for the other. but they’re also pretty competitive too. 

GIRL SQUAD. i just want her to have a couple close girl friends that are all close...you know. i would love if one of them was more subdued and totally chill about everything, maybe a wallflower type, and then another that’s kind of nerdy ? but also cool, you know. i’m just dreaming. 

EX/BESTIE. aylin and this person used to date like forever ago, but mutually decided that they made better friends than romantic partners. they care about each other a lot, and they probably make jokes about how they USED to date. a healthy ex connection basically !

ON/OFF THING. because for every healthy ex i also want something kind of toxic. essentially it’s not good for either of them and they just keep going back to each other because, well, it’s a place of comfort or whatever. they drive each other fucking crazy though and no one can keep up with whether they hate each other’s guts today or if they’re all heart eyes.

SWORN ENEMY. but for a justified reason, like aylin probably screwed them over for something academic or even in a campus club or something. if your character went to a spy prep school, maybe they’re the person that aylin screwed out of the valedictorian role ? might submit a WC for that cause. fun.  

PROJECT. like my fair lady, be aylin’s eliza doolittle, let her she’s the man you, whatever. essentially, your character might by shy, nervous, or new to the spy world and aylin wants to give them a metaphoric ( or maybe even physical ! ) makeover and help them get acclimated, teach them the ways of the world. i’m also picturing that pic of the lesbians, u know what i mean. i can’t find it, but i google searched “girl doing the other girls makeup, gay” 

FORBIDDEN FRIENDSHIPS/LOVE. idk something totally not allowed. if this was sooner i’d want her ass to have a crush on a witness protection kid. however, her parents work for the turkish NIO, so perhaps your muse’s parents or family have been involved in something rivaling that so they’re not supposed to get along. 

MARRIED COUPLE FRIENDS. these are friends that are so close that they’re practically a married couple?? i’d love to do a platonic m/f thing with this, where they fight and get on to each other like they’re married but love each other like it too. lil grandparents of their friend group.

CRUSHER. someone who has a crush on her, probably because they’re fascinated with the idea of her and not her true problematic self. she’d probably be kinda rude to them and i’d love to plot this out long enough for that crush to turn to dislike once they recognize the selfish parts of her or notice she’s been making fun of them. maybe a flipped scenario.

ONE NIGHT STAND. maybe after a few too many drinks, they hooked up. something recent so we can make it super awkward and potentially funny. 

SET-UP. your character’s parents are close friend’s with aylin’s and they’re trying to set aylin up with your character. aylin and your character are NOT compatible at all and it’s hilarious. 

OVERSEAS. they met while they were both abroad together one summer, and they accidentally got into some trouble with international police maybe just for being too drunk on the streets or acting stupid, climbing stuff. aylin considers your character a liability and has avoided them since, disregarding the fun times they had.

RIVALS/ENEMIES WITH SEXUAL TENSION.

EXISTING CONNECTIONS.

NAZ FARHI. her cousin. the two of them don’t NOT get along...but aylin really thought she would come to a school and be the only one of her family members there and then naz showed up ! determined to make it clear that she’s the best. 

JO TRAN. rival/dislike. took one of the upper-level courses because she could and her attitude got on jo’s nerves because what doesn’t get on jo’s nerves. aylin’s just the epitome of everything that pisses jo off. 

KASSANDRA SUTTON. bad friend to. one of those friendships where one person takes more than they give, and it’s not ON PURPOSE, but kass is really just so easy to take advantage of, aylin’s ALWAYS running to her when she needs a favor. 

[pluviophile-bookworm]

Thoughts/ reaction to AWAE 3x9

I’m honestly scared of what I might see in this episode. But we all know I’m watching it anyway.

Oh my, one can’t even trust the cold open anymore. Ka’kwet has internalised the toxic things she was forcibly taught at that horrible school. After she escaped that place, no less. I was right to be scared. This episode is already making me cry. 

At this point I’m just sitting here enjoying the opening theme, It may as well be the only bright and wholesome thing I see in this episode. 

Anne’s confession of her love for Gilbert to Marilla sounded very, very much like her response to Gilbert himself last week. I mean, it’s probably not even two days later, so the effects that night had on her still haven’t worn off completely. 

Marilla did not just draw the parallel between Anne’s situation and her own history with John Blythe, did she? But I mean, it’s kind of ironic that Marilla not taking her chance with John is a factor in making Gilbert’s very existence possible, you know. And then, to think of all the accidents that brought Anne into the Cuthbert family, and everything that brought her and Gilbert together... those two were really meant to be - look at how small the probability of them ending up together in the same place was, but they did. This is bigger than chance. This is fate. 

Matthew is pure gold and that’s that. I mean, he sees a totally messy, agitated Anne who’s obviously not thinking very straight, hears her say she loves Gilbert (she really said she loved him just like that three times already), which, to him, is completely out of the blue, and just goes like “ok” and drops everything to support his not-so-little girl... pure gold,

The very blatant yet incredibly visually smooth parallel between Anne and Gilbert riding off is just... peak poetic cinema Shirbert at this point. 

“Play ‘Dashing White Sergeant’”... Minnie May really went there - whether she realises it or not. And Gilbert just walked in right in the middle of it, and it obviously reminded him of a certain scene in 3x5... At this point I would very much believe it if someone told me Minnie May is, in fact, God. 

Oh my, we do have some wholesomeness in this episode, after all - provided by Anne being just as excited to meet Bash’s mum as she was to meet Bash, if not more. And then - did she just call Gilbert part of her family? You have no idea, girl. 

And as if to reinforce that she’s really part of Gilbert’s family, Anne just let herself in, took a piece of paper without asking and sat down at their table to write her note... poor Hazel LaCroix will need some time to process all of what just happened. 

Wow. What a note. Anne really was like, all straightforward about loving Gilbert, but she wouldn’t just let the love note be a love note, she had to go and ask for her pen back. That’s so Anne!

Aww, I see Delly is still wearing the little yellow socks her dad made for her... so pure and wholesome. 

Gilbert is not about to propose to Winifred with his mother’s ring and with Anne’s pen in his pocket, is he? He can’t do that. I mean, I believe he physically won’t be able to do it. 

I wonder what Diana will do with the valuable information she just overheard. 

I am now more than ever before convinced that Minnie May is God. She could have let Diana go and try to tell Anne what she heard or, you know, do  whatever she was about to do, and yet she went ahead and told their mother about it so Diana couldn’t go. The point is that Anne and Gilbert must realise their feelings for each other on their own. That’s also why Gilbert will not read that note. I mean, the way Anne tucked it almost completely under the vase, it was almost like she didn't want it to be easily seen.

Whites in the Mi’qmaq village... that can’t be good. And they have a rifle, too. I’m scared. 

After seeing this utterly horrifying scene, I have two things to say. On the one hand, I’m glad I waited until the morning to watch this episode (it’s 3 a.m. where I live when they air, and I usually stay/wake up to watch the new episode immediately), because I can’t see myself going back to sleep after what I saw. On the other hand, that scene will haunt my dreams for a long, long time. 

It was high time Bash called his mother out on her behaviour to Gilbert, Delly, and himself. “This isn’t the plantation”, after all. But it pains me to think what both of those two have been through when they were at the plantation. 

But honestly, his mother leaving is the last thing Bash needs right now. 

Miss Stacy breaking down about possibly never having a baby  of her own or a worthy replacement of her late husband... right after Bash’s mother said she was leaving... they’re definitely setting up a Bash/ Muriel Stacy relationship and I’m not sure how I feel about it... but I would definitely support it if it made both of them happy. 

I don’t know if it was the free speech protest sign or the boys’ words, but somewhere between those things Gilbert will be convinced once and for all that he’s not meant for Winifred, but for Anne. I just hope the realisation comes before it’s too little too late. 

The fact that a fifth-grade maths lesson (isn’t Minnie May too young for it?) is “beyond [her mother’s] comprehension” should be a tell to Diana that a proper (yes, proper) education, and not an education in propriety (notice the difference) is what she needs and wants. She wants to be different from her mother after all, doesn’t she? I also like the choice of words there, “improper fractions” and all. How symbolic is it that a 100% proper woman like Eliza Barry doesn’t understand improper fractions?

Marilla is still... reserved... towards the natives - didn’t she learn anything from Anne?

Ka’kwet’s mum conveying her message to Marilla even through the language barrier... beautiful. In a makes-me-bawl-my-eyes-out kind of way, but it was beautiful. After all, mothers all over the world speak one language, and if Anne has ever taught Marilla something, it’s to be a mother. This is beautiful. 

That note might never be found. Or maybe it will be, weeks, months, even years later, and it will be too late for it to serve its purpose then, but I know it in my heart that its purpose will be served by one thing or another. 

Poor Marilla looks like a woeful wife whose husband went to war - and in a way, she is the housewife of the family whose loved ones left her home to fight for what’s right. And then we have both her and Diana all worked up about Gilbert proposing to Winifred, when I know for sure he’s not going through with that wedding. Even if he does propose, which I do not think is really possible at this point, he will eventually break it off. I know it and I speak it into existence. 

So Bash’s mother finally came around. It was high time. “This isn’t the plantation”, after all. Gosh, why did I remind myself of that?

Not even for a second should Anne doubt that she is, indeed, “a strong and brave heart”, and she and Matthew will get Ka’kwet back to her home. What is more troubling to me is this, though - will Ka’kwet ever forget the toxic erasure she was taught at that “school” (more like prison for innocent children)? I don;t think she could. But I am hopeful that she will learn once and for all that it’s not right and she is not “worthless”, and that they can never break her spirit - she, too, is a strong and brave heart. This scene is making me cry yet again, but I’m not giving up hope that things will be alright at the end. Eventually. 

I am so proud of Matthew in this moment - shy, quiet Matthew who has never spoken a harsh word to anyone in his life, standing up for Ka’kwet and her family. But I’m worried for him, too. How dare those people threaten innocent, unarmed people with a gun? This is a monstrosity.

I am glad the nun stepped in and stopped them before anyone was harmed beyond repair. That does not excuse the way she treated Ka’kwet in the previous episode, but I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she, too, was taught that that is what’s right, and she’s too little too old to be re-taught now. I hope things turn out fine...

Anne is absolutely right about writing to a newspaper and spreading the word to all of Canada. You know, this reminds me of what I was taught in history class - about when my country was enslaved by the Ottoman empire. I’m not sure about details here, so please don’t attack me on this. Anyway, I was taught that such outrageous things were done to my ancestors that the word spread to influential countries whose people were outraged by what they heard, so they eventually came to our aid. That was how we ended up liberated at the end. So, as far as I know, this has happened in history. Why wouldn’t it work here as well?

It makes me so happy that Ka’kwet’s parents are not giving up. It’s beyond messed up how they’re treated, but they’re not giving up. I deeply admire these people. 

To be fully honest, with all that happened to Ka’kwet and her parents, I almost forgot about the Shirbert subplot. I cannot believe he is still planning on going through with this proposal. And Anne has done nothing to deserve so much suffering in a single episode. 

Will Anne and Diana please stop speaking over one another? I cannot understand  a word they’re saying. I did make out “give another girl his mother’s ring” from Diana, and honestly, I’m 100% with her on that. I think I mentioned it somewhere above. But honestly, I’m just happy to see my girls together again, like nothing ever happened. Where is Jerry, by the way?

If there’s one thing Anne has learned for sure after all she’s been through, it’s that there are a lot of things that are way worse than hurt feelings. She’s absolutely right. She must demand a clear answer from Gilbert - especially after she gave him - or so she thinks - a clear answer after all. Too bad he never got that note.

Oh my, Bash’s mum is now treating her own son (part- sarcastically, part-not so sarcastically) like she treats white people. I thought she had come around already. Could have guessed it would take a little more time for such a dramatic change. 

Bash’s father was lynched? Because he wanted a house and land of his own? I was sure there was some dark, scary reason for his mother to act as she does. but this is darker and scarier than I could have imagined. And it explains everything. It wasn’t the time and place for what he wanted back then, so he payed for it with his life. But now Bash has what his father wanted him to have, and nobody’s threatening him. I hope she realises things are different and calms down a bit. But with all that is happening to the Mi’qmaq, I’m left here wondering if things are really different. I mean, black people are accepted, but Indians are not? What kind of double standard is that? I guess that’s just how things are/ were. Am I being too optimistic in believing things will be alright eventually? Or am I thinking this from my privileged, white, modern-day point of view?

I’m having sympathy heartache for both Bash and his mum right now, if that’s even possible, and that’s making it hard for me to give even a tiny bit of my attention to the Shirbert subplot that is happening right at the same time. I could be watching Friends, or something equally harmless, right about now. Instead I’m here suffering for fictional characters and their fictional drama. Why do I keep doing this to myself? I guess there are things in this world that make you hurt sometimes, but you still love them and come back for them regardless - like parents and children, you know. What does the fact that I just compared AWAE to a parent or child say about me?

This episode did not just end by acknowledging how many unresolved plot lines it’s leaving to the next one. It looks a bit ambitious to me - counting on the finale to tie all those loose ends up. I mean, I know Moira can do that, but the real question I’m asking here is: can I handle that finale? Can we, as a fandom?

To sum up, in this penultimate episode of the season, we saw: remaining traces of the “White Man’s Burden” school’s brainwash in Ka’kwet; Anne, still flustered from that conversation with Gilbert and her big realisation afterwards, confesses to both of her parents right away; lots of Shirbert parallels; Minnie May is God; Hazel LaCroix still can’t adjust; Gilbert has the audacity to even think of giving Winifred his late mother’s ring; armed whites attacking innocent, unarmed Mi’qmaq; potential mother Miss Stacy; propriety and improper fractions at the Barry house; the language of motherly love crosses language and racial barriers; Matthew and Anne take off to save the day; Marilla is a true woeful housewife in times of war; Anne lives up to  her Mi’qmaq name; in Matthew we trust - again; the dark truth about Bash’s father; way too many loose ends for the finale to resolve.

Because there are too many for me to disregard them, here’s a list of things we did not see in this episode that I was hoping for: Jerry - I demand a decent resolution of the Derry plot line; Cole and Aunt Jo, but mostly Cole - Gilbert did go to Charlottetown, didn’t he; Ruby - I want my Ruby/ Moody scenes; what happened to Josie and the Andrews family after all; Tillie and her two Pauls - not relevant to  the main plot lines, I just miss them; Rachel Lynde and Marilla being in the board of trustees together - also, who are the other two women who were supposedly added to the board? I thought they agreed on three women being added; I’m sure there’s more but that’s all I can think of right now.

[oddcoupler222]

Akskdkdk I’m not crying I just got some tww feelings in my eyes and to the rest of tww fans you’re welcome (I’m the biggest one of them all) let it be multi chapter 🤲🏻

did i take one person asking for something and turn it into a spinoff semi romance novel? i… may have.

Eliza -

Colleen -

(for funsies)

 Fall 2018

Eliza wouldn’t say she loved her work study job in the registrar’s office. But she had friends with various other jobs throughout campus, and she knew because of their tales that her job wasn’t the worst.

Would she love to trade with her new friend, Sara, and have the job in the printing lab in the library, where she would just have to un-jam the printer and restock it with paper, then sit on her laptop? Of course. But she was also nosy as fuck and she got a lot of insider info from her supervisor here. Plus, she got all of the registration codes early. So who was the real winner?

Still Sara.

“Hello? Hi. I’m sorry, are you busy? I’m - I’m not trying to be obnoxious, but I really really have to get into a class, and I have nowhere else to go to ask. I’ve tried the professor, I’ve tried her TA. I’ve asked all of the upperclassmen I know. And this is the final stop before I may very well have a breakdown.”

A frantic, pleading voice interrupted her IG scrolling. It was technically one of her two fifteen minute breaks that she got during her five hour shift. She intended to tell the interloper that she would have to wait until the other side of the office didn’t have a line, because where her desk was, was technically closed.

But Eliza had never seen an angel in real life before. And she was such a simple, simple lesbian.

Never in her life had she ever been struck like this, though. The tousled blonde hair that she could see was usually nice and orderly. The clothes that screamed an upper-middle class (at the very least) background, though trendy.

Blue eyes crystal clear but starting to brim with tears.

“I’m not busy. What can I do for you?”

“Thank the gods! In order to graduate on time with my major and both of my minors, I need to double up on some courses. Which means I have to take some courses before I’m technically supposed to. So, I got permission to take Ethnicity and Identity with Dr. Oakhart next semester, even though it’s a semester early. Because I need to take Cultures of Essos the semester after, and it’s a prereq. But it took forever to get permission to take Oakhart’s class early; I had to basically camp out in her office,” a little laugh fluttered out, anxiously. “And now? She gave me permission but told me she wouldn’t let me jump the waitlist. I just. I really need to get into that class. Can you even just tell me how long the waitlist is, maybe? Please?”

Someone was wound extremely tightly. It wasn’t usually something Eliza, as a laidback person, enjoyed. But she was already charmed.

“Let me check.”

She typed in her credentials into the system as she surreptitiously glanced up at the girl. Her cheeks were flushed and seven hells. She was cute.

“You really camped out in her office?”

“Huh?” A fleeting smile flashed over her face, and it warmed everything inside of her. “Oh. Well, I know it sounds crazy in retrospect. I can just sometimes get very focused.”

“I gotcha.” Eliza did not, in fact, relate. But her pretending to put this girl at ease.

She pulled up Oakhart’s Gender and Identity class for the spring – and yikes, there was a waitlist a mile long.

“That’s not a good face.”

“Ouch.” She kidded.

“Gods! No, your face isn’t -”

She stopped her before she could ramble anymore. Especially because she wasn’t sure she could handle some sort of mangled compliment from this gorgeous creature without stumbling over herself. “It’s cool. Uh, yeah, no the waitlist isn’t bad.” She lied through her teeth.

“It’s not?” The could-be model’s voice was as incredulous as it should be, as she tried to lean over the counter to see the computer. Like she had to see to believe.

And Eliza quickly turned the computer more toward herself, “Uh, you can’t - against policy-” once again, the lies.

“Sorry. That was probably crossing a line.” She blew out a deep breath and her shoulders deflated. “I guess, can you just put me on the bottom of the list?”

“Yeah,” she lied, fully intending on breaking the rules, as she clicked the top of the waitlist to flag her into the class. “I just need… your name.”

She very much wanted to learn her name.

“Colleen Durand. D-U-R-A-N-D,” she spelled it, and Eliza could very easily see that she’d spelled her name or heard it spelled just so in order to get places in life many times.

She typed her name into the first place on the wait list. “I imagine you will probably hear about this class sometime soon. Don’t fill this block on your class schedule.”

An all too brief, but brightly blazing smile stole her breath. “Thanks so much.” Colleen checked her wrist, a nice looking silver watch glinting in the light coming in from the window. “Gods, I have to go. All right. Thanks again.”

“You’re welcome!” She called after her.

Colleen Durand. She loved the registrar’s office.

Spring 2019

Approaches to Comparative Literature… was a joke.

Colleen rarely thought of classes like that, because all she had in her head was her mother’s voice, saying, “If I’m paying for you to go to a public institution“ - even though it wasn’t in the top 5 universities in the nation (god forbid she go to a public university, even if it was ranked as one of the top ten colleges in the country) - “You’d better be bringing back nothing short of straight A’s.”

She was a junior in college, was on track to graduate at the top of her class even with having two minors - she took 6 classes a semester, not counting the summer and winter semester courses she took. And she took all of them seriously - took color coded notes by hand, sat in the front of the class.

But this course… she just couldn’t. She tried for the first two weeks, learned that the professor left much of his job up to the TA, and then said TA had hit on her in an extremely slimy way and she - well, after that she started slipping into the back row. Just this one class wouldn’t hurt.

She was the only one in her row and sitting in the back gave her a whole new perspective.

It especially gave her a perspective on the girl she’d only known as Nice Girl at the registrar office who doesn’t think I’m crazy before now, and now she knew her name - Eliza.

Eliza, she’d learned from sitting in the front, types vigorously during every class on her laptop and occasionally makes very funny commentary.

It was only in switching her seat to sit behind Eliza that she realized she isn’t taking notes on her laptop, but was instead just being very active on various social medias. Mostly twitter.

@elizathesapphicSCREAMING my TA just announced that some of our earliest lgbt writers were great friends and roommates. i could teach this course better lmao

She wasn’t wrong.

@elizathesapphica limerick -there once was a TA from hellwhose hair is rock solid from gelhis voice is nasally and gratinghis ignorance is so fucking frustratinglet’s not forget he’s smarmy as well

Colleen had genuinely had to smother a laugh from that one. And, it turned out, from many others. The semester passed in a blur of moments - her twentieth birthday, an intense and stressful visit from her mom, juggling 6 courses and her first practicum - but Eliza stands out.

They don’t talk, because… well, what would they even talk about? They seem like really different people and Eliza is super lively, but she learns a lot about her.

If it wasn’t obvious from her twitter handle (obviously), she’s a lesbian. Who very much loves Margaery Tyrell - someone Colleen vaguely knows is a recently out politician - and Sansa Stark - who Colleen is very familiar with, because of the writings she’d done and the classes she’d taken that Sansa had TA’d for before she’d finished her master’s - and their very public relationship.

As well as many, many other lesbian celebrities and television shows that Colleen does not watch or follow, but is still entertained by because Eliza is entertaining.

At the end of the semester, she follows Eliza’s twitter on the account she never uses that is basically untraceable to her. It has her name on it, sure, but nothing else. No pictures. No retweets.

But Eliza’s twitter is good for a laugh and sometimes she needs that.

Fall 2019

“Ohhhh my godddd, Sara. Can you believe it’s her?” Eliza wrapped her arm around her best friend’s shoulders, pulling her close - as if they could shrink back against the wall behind them.

They were going home the following day for winter break and so it seemed like everyone who had an off campus apartment was throwing a party. Which was great because Eliza hadn’t gone out this semester much at all. There had been too much work and too much - uhhh well, being lazy and not wanting to leave her dorm when she could binge watch shows with Sara.

Sara elbowed her in the side accidentally as they fell back against the wall. “It’s who?”

She pointed across the large living area full of tipsy-to-drunk college students, to the front door. “Colleen! She - I don’t think she ever comes out? Why do you think she is right now?”

Sara’s eyes rolled before she jostled their shoulders. “Oh you mean your cruuuush. I don’t know, it’s the end of the semester. Everyone’s out. It’s not a big deal.”

Eliza ignored her and stared at Colleen as she and a friend Eliza recognized didn’t know the name of - she was a master social media creep but that didn’t help when someone didn’t have social medias - chatted and made their way across the room.

And her heart started racing. “Oh my gods. Oh. She’s coming over here. Do you think she -”

“We’re right next to the drinks, why do you think she’s coming over?” Sara’s retort quickly popped her rapidly inflating hopes, and she trained a critical eye on Colleen-Gorgeous-Durand. “That is dream crush girl?”

Eliza spun so quickly to face Sara that she nearly sloshed her vodka cranberry over the rim of her cup. “How can you say it like - like that? Look at her!”

“I mean. She is pretty. In a buttoned up way.” Sara turned to face her, having to tilt her head up just enough to quirk an eyebrow. “Is that your type? You haven’t dated much in our eight month friendship tenure.”

Eliza scoffed. “No! No. I don’t have a… type.” She started slapping Sara’s arm, “Ohhhh gods, she’s coming, she’s coming, she’s -”

Sara caught her hand and held it tight, hissing, “Calm down, you look insane.”

Colleen approached them with a nervous looking smile. “Hey. Can I ask where you got your drink?” She surveyed the table in front of her, dubiously, “I just don’t really see the mixer I want -”

It was like an automatic reaction. Eliza’s hand shot out and offered her cup, “Take it! Still full. Just made it. Made tons of them. See?” She held it up so the rim reflected the dim light. “I didn’t take a sip yet or anything. I can go make another cup.”

Those sky blue eyes were so brilliantly light and she gave the slightest twitch of an eyebrow as she accepted Eliza’s drink. “Um… thanks?”

“Yeah. No prob. Enjoy.” She grinned, knowing it was too bright for the moment, but whatever.

She felt triumphant, even when Sara collapsed against her in a fit of giggles as Colleen walked away. “Holy shit. I see now why you haven’t dated.”

“Um, what is that supposed to mean? She sought me out.” Now that she replayed the interaction, though, she could… sort of… see where she’d gone wrong.

Oh, fuck.

Sara only laughed harder, letting Eliza’s hand go and wrapping it around her waist in a hug. “Listen.” She tried to calm her laughter. “Listen. What I just witnessed means one of two things: your crush is an absolute idiot who took a drink from you, a weird ass stranger at a party. Or she actually somewhat recognizes you, too, and doesn’t think you’re a creepy stranger.”

“Oh, fuck. Now I need to find more cranberry juice.”

Spring 2020

“Who’s that girl over there? She keeps looking at us.” Colleen’s friend and flatmate, Natalia, commented. They were in the dining hall, which is a rarity since they hadn’t lived on campus since they were freshmen.

“What girl?”

“Pretty, dark hair, dark eyes. She has like 4 piercings up her ear. She has a rainbow pin on her backpack. Seems gay.”

Pretty with dark hair and eyes, the earrings, and the dead giveaway rainbow pin already tells her it’s most likely Eliza Harlow, even before she turns and looks. Colleen rolls her eyes. “How does she seem gay? Besides the rainbow pin,” she adds on, even though she knows - of course Eliza Harlow is gay.

Her still very active twitter is still hilarious and very, very full of lesbian pop culture. It’s gotten almost kind of frustrating, the fact that Eliza never really posts anything about herself on her twitter. Colleen definitely knows she is a lesbian more than anything - she posted something just last night about a pro soccer player and proclaimed that her lesbian heart wasn’t going to survive her coming out.

But she never posts anything about her own life. It’s not like Colleen cares? But she can’t help but be intrigued. It’s weird. But maybe that’s just the culture they live in these days.

She still turns and looks where Natalia is pointing, anyway. Sure enough, Eliza is sitting - backpack perched on the table next to her bagel, rainbow pin on display - with her ever present friend whose name Colleen knows is Sara (thanks, twitter). Pretty with her dark hair curling, as usual, over her shoulders.

And, Natalia was right. She’s throwing looks over at them.

Eliza had spoken to her for the first time, without having to do so for a class project, last week. She’d tossed her backpack over her shoulder super casually - Colleen had noticed out of the corner of her eye, as she’d packed up her own bag - and approached her.

“Can I borrow your notes?”

Colleen was always loathe to part with her notes. She took pride in them - even color coded them - and she doubted that strangers would take as much care with them as they deserved.

But Eliza… well, she didn’t really know her. But she didn’t feel like a stranger either. Especially with her eyes looking all hopeful and nervous. She wondered if Eliza had fallen behind in class with all of the work she was doing on her social medias. Or on her work for the internship she had at the Red Keep (thanks, twitter).

She’d handed over her notebook with a smile that was genuine.

“Whatever. The rainbow pin is why she seems gay, fine. But she’s coming over here.” Natalia brings her back to the moment, making a face at the meatloaf she’s eating before she pushes the tray away. 

Colleen sat up straighter, dropping her own fork. “That’s Eliza. We’re in Valyrian Lit class together.”

Eliza walked even closer, looking… apprehensive. Her big, expressive eyes were downcast, as she worried at her generous bottom lip. Which was weird because no, she didn’t know Eliza personally. But she kind of did know her personality. And she was not apprehensive.

It took a moment for Colleen to notice the notebook in her hands. And that it wasn’t the same green one - always green notebooks for lit classes - she’d given Eliza three days ago.

“Hey! Colleen! Hey. Uhhh. I have… your notebook.” Eliza held out the notebook toward her, shifting back and forth on her feet. “Your notes were - great. Such a help.”

“No problem, but…” Colleen eyed the notebook - a mint green as opposed to her hunter green. “That’s not mine.”

“No, it is! I - it is.” Eliza cleared her throat and slid it down onto the table. “It’s definitely yours, now. Um. The thing is. My obnoxious roommate  - I didn’t choose her? I was supposed to live with my friend, but then housing got all messed up and. It’s a whole thing,” she waved her hand, and Colleen, despite being so anal about what the fuck happened to her notebook, couldn’t help but be entertained. “The point is, she spilled her coffee all over your notebook.”

“What?!” All the gods, her notes. All her time and color coordination. And that had all of her handouts and - fuck. Dr. Lannister was not an easy professor to pass, his exams were notoriously difficult -

“Ohhhh, shit,” Natalia whispered.

Eliza quickly flipped the notebook open, frantically pointing at the pages. “No! Wait. I, I dried out your notebook and spent all last night re-writing your notes. I tried finding a matching notebook, but this was the only green one they had at the store. And I bought colored pens, because I figured out the color system, too. It’s all there. I swear. And I made copies of all of the handouts and put them in the back. Thanks. For the notes. I’ll never ask again, I swear.”

She hitched her backpack over her shoulder without another word and spun on her heel.

Colleen leaned over the table to peek at her notes and… wow. Eliza really did figure out her color coding system, even down to the obsessive tonal color changes for different types of literature. And. She skimmed her eyes quickly over the page - Eliza definitely left some insightful notes in here that Colleen herself had missed.

She turned her head to see if she could even call out her thanks to Eliza, but she was too far away. All she could see was the other girl slapping her palm against her forehead as she turned to leave the hall.

It made her smile.

Fall 2020

Professor Stark tapped her hands on her desk, “And as much as I know group projects aren’t everyone’s favorite thing, the sad reality is that we have to work with people in real life that we don’t get to choose. So, you will all individually document what you do in this project and then evaluate each other’s contributions at the end. You have your groups, the rubrik, and some examples to start with. Even though the project isn’t due for over a month, I would highly recommend starting it early.”

Eliza wouldn’t say she loved group work by any means, especially when the groups were assigned.

Colleen caught her eye and asked, “You want to come to my place this weekend to get started? I really don’t like to wait until the last minute for these kinds of things.”

Eliza was pretty sure she was going to write Sansa Stark a thank you letter.

[beatrice-otter]

Yuletide Recs 2019

Happy Yuletide, everyone! First, I got a delightful little fic written for me: promenade.  My Fair Lady, Eliza Doolittle and Mrs. Higgins.  Wonderful story.  Mrs. Higgins was superb, and Eliza's reactions to the English upper class abroad are perfect. Here are some other fics I have enjoyed: 4'33"--John Cage The Sound Of A Yuletide Fic Not Being Written. There sure are a lot of cars going by.  Great meta look at writing, and 4'33" The Addams Family (movies) An Addams Family Contract (Written in Secret, Signed in Blood).  “I’m an Addams,” Debbie protests indignantly. Immediately after making this statement, Debbie realized that it was true.  (Or, Wednesday wants to exorcise Debbie. Debbie wants to kill Wednesday. A negotiation begins.)  This is AMAZING and hysterically funny, and the thought of Debbie and Wednesday working together is TERRIFYING. Don't I Deserve Love (and Jewelry).  The plan to win Wednesday’s friendship did not start well. She shared her admiration for the girl’s blowtorch, then hinted about her own childhood affinity for matchsticks and fire accelerants, but Wednesday was unimpressed.  Do better,” she said before lowering her hockey mask and stalking after Pubert. Honeymoon in Transylvania.  Ahahahaha, this is wonderful.  Gomez and Morticia vs. the TSA! Alien Series A Room with a Crappy View. 17k of Ripley and Hicks awesomeness post-Aliens. This is an absolutely AMAZEBALLS fic, and I LOVE it. I love that they deal with their trauma. I love how they wrote the Colonel, doing the best she could on the evidence she had and how frustrating that was and yet, when you look at it from her POV, what better way could she have handled it? The action is great, the relationships between Ripley and Hicks and Bishop were awesome, this is an absolute treat. All About Eve Getting Back to Being a Woman.  Karen knew enough not to go to New Haven.  Never let it be said that Margo Channing doesn't know how to take care of her friends.  I love this. I could just hear Bette Davis and the others saying their lines, and the ending is perfect--I think Karen and Lloyd will be able to have a much better relationship after this, if he's willing to accept and live into the changed relationship. Till I have the possession of everything she touches.  Addison DeWitt/Eve Harrington and their daughter.  VERY well done Addison perspective. Aubrey-Maturin series. Vent de Boulet.  Jack & Aubrey, Teen.  The aftermath of Stephen's escape from the French interrogators at Port Mahon.  Wonderful portrayal of the relationship between them and natural consequences of their trauma-filled lives. Babette's Feast Body and Soul.  After the French dinner, a new normal established itself among the faithful. Ballet Shoes A Long Way from the Cromwell Road.  Petrova visits Pauline in Hollywood after the war ends. Bletchley Circle Logical Recovery.  After the showdown with Marta Magro at the warehouses, Jean, Millie, and Lucy embark for Glasgow to find Eliška. Archival research, an extended stay with Jean's cousin, undercover rescue missions, and much emotional processing of past events ensue. Cabaret Infinite Variety.  London, 1950. Clifford has coming looking for Sally. Instead he finds a girl who may or may not be her – or their – daughter, the reclusive former Master of Ceremonies, and an annoying parrot. He becomes part of their strange household, full of love and bickering; sorrow, pain and music. No-one will tell him where Sally is, or even whether she’s alive. No-one will tell him anything. Except the parrot, who tells him that life is a Cabaret.  Oh, wow, this is painful but SO GOOD and the ending is perfect. DC Teen Titans From Cold to Fire.  "Do you want to go out with me?" "What?" Young Justice Getting Stupid in your area.  Hang-time includes considerations of evil clones and taking down a newly raised lich lord.  Love the banter. Die Hard Your Answers Please.  “Come on, kid,” McClane said gruffly. “This place is fucking depressing. You’re coming to stay with me.” Enchanted Forrest Chronicles Best Served Cold.  In which Antorell causes trouble in the Enchanted Forest, and Cimorene and Alianora make an amphibious new friend.  Hilarious, I love Ribbita! Ghostbusters Better Than Roses. Janine dates. It's...something. The Goblin Emperor Imperial (non) Immunity.  Csevet doesn't get sick. Maia's not so confident. Light a Mourner's Candle.  The Archprelate finds a chaplain for Maia. Against a Sure Winter.  When the opportunity arose to become one of the four ceremonial bodyguards for the new Emperor, Cala Athmaza volunteered. He didn't fully realize what he was letting himself in for, but he knew in his heart he had made the right choice. Sugar Lumps.  Maia spends some time with his horse. Greek Mythology beauty, her artificers.  Shortly after their wedding, Aphrodite sustains a small wound.  Really great Aphrodite/Hephaestus dynamic. a thing of beauty, golden.  Olympus’ one-century wonder appears in Hephaestus’ workshop between one strike on his anvil and the next..  Another really great Aphrodite/Hephaestus fic. Hancock yeah I know the shortcut, rather take the long way. Ray daydreams a New York that looks a lot like something out of an old Daredevil comic - towers looming over the city like cragged, jaded sentries, impartial to the neon kaleidoscope of chaos churning along below them. Hancock roosts on the tallest, craggiest one of course, brooding as he watches the slow pulsing heartbeat of the city below him. Ready to dive off his perch and into action with the first cry of distress, and there’s probably lots of those in a city like New York. Lots of zooming around, saving people, saving the world. Hopefully with slightly less metaphorical middle fingers to the world. And less alcohol. Ray’s not an idiot though, and one sparkly life-changing month doesn’t just fix people. History RPF 15th Century. these late eclipses.  Anne Neville, like others of her line, is born with a gift.  I LOVE the way magic is brought into this, it melds so well with the history. 19th Century/German folklore The Bargain.  Bettina finds a secret door at her grandmother's house, one that leads to something very unexpected. The things she learns as a result change her life in small but important ways. Imperial Radch Still Left in Want of Mercy.  The Republic of Two Systems is about a month old. Seivarden is having yet another crisis - can Mercy of Kalr get her through it? Maybe, with the crew's and Fleet Captain's help.  Interesting Ship perspective. high above the trees.  An unexpected embassy. Really excellent, probably the best way I've ever seen "Awn Lives" done. The Incredibles Life of a Superhero, Junior Grade.  Fortunately, this was Tuesday night training, not a real villain-chasing experience. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell The Magicians of Starecross Hall.  Being a series of interludes in the life of John Segundus, newly practical magician, in the year following the disappearances of Messrs. Strange and Norrell. Including: a new school for young magicians, explorations of the King’s Roads, Lady Pole’s alarming needle-work, unanticipated trips to Faerie, and John Childermass.  I love this story!  How the school got started, and 'Miss Wintertowne' (although I do think she would style herself 'Mrs' Wintertowne, because she is married and up through the 18th Century 'Mistress/Mrs' vs. 'Miss' had as much to do with age and experience and such as it did with marital status) and how she uses embroidery as a kind of art therapy.  I love the slow burn, and I love the stuff about exploring the King's Roads and Faerie.  It is excellent and awesome. Lilo & Stitch The Dance.  Lilo peeked out from behind the curtains and looked over the stage. A Little Princess Discipulae.  "I just realized," Sara said. "Becky, I could have a tutor now. I could hire someone to teach me anything I wanted. All the things that are hard to learn alone from books — Greek and Latin, Sanskrit, algebra, anything I wanted. What would you learn, Becky, if you could?"  Really great look at what their lives could be like post-canon. Marvel Captain Marvel Take my hand (and we'll march to the front lines). There's a dream Vers has sometimes. this youthful heart can love you. Carol waited a week before she left with the Skrulls. Space Cases.  Monica tried many other times to win her mother over to a pet. A rabbit, a pony, a parakeet. This is not any of those stories. This is the story of Monica Rambeau and a Flerken named Goose.  Or: Why Nick Fury is never allowed to babysit ever again. The Tesseract's Wife.  A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points: non-linear snapshots of a love story. Fly Me To The Moon.  "It's a vacation. Like spring break," Carol says. Monica's eyes widen. "Really? So we can hang out? What are we going to do?" "Well," Carol says, leaning back in her chair and flashing that old, familiar smirk. "I thought we could go to the moon." Into the Spiderverse i got you.  Miles thinks he's hiding the truth about Spider-Man, but one unfortunate night, it comes to light. one last leap.  Telling his parents he's Spider-Man is a leap of faith Miles can't bring himself to take. My Life to Liv.  Liv survived her encounters with her interdimensional Spider-nemeses, of course. So what's next for her? Interdimensional Phone Pals.  Gwen Stacy is many things, but open to friendships isn’t really one of them.  Or,  Five rules Gwen makes for herself, and how Peter B. makes her question them. Into the Spiderverse/Murder, She Wrote Spider, She Wrote.  Miles and May visit her old friend Jessica in Cabot Cove. Mulan (1998) the proper order of things. Great outsider perspective. The Mummy After the Mummy.  London was becoming Rick's least favourite place, and not just because of all the rain. Loving Evy was one thing: figuring out whether she loved him back after the Egyptian heat faded away was something else. Where's a good rising of the undead when you need one? Don't worry, Jonathan found one.  Lovely fun adventure. Course Correction.  Jonathan really is serious about staying away from tombs and mummies this time (except trouble always seems to find him). Good thing Ardeth is there to help him stay on-track. Travelers by Night.  Very quickly, Jonathan weighed the odds. On one hand, potential death, whether by armed bandits, a mummy’s curse, or people who looked like bandits and who were very angry about someone unleashing a mummy’s curse. On the other hand, potential riches, home ground, and topics of conversation other than what happened at school fifteen years ago and who got it in the neck where. Murderbot How I Spent My Vacation Between Survey Missions. What happens when ART reunites with Murderbot during another break between research survey missions? Media gets viewed, of course, but there might also be some bad news for more shady corporations. Situation Normal.  Hi, I said, along with amusement sigil 159 = wave. It seemed a little inadequate, but what do you say to the ship that radically altered your appearance, helped you figure out your past, and also threatened you with terrifying weapons? Amusement sigils seemed like my best bet. My Fair Lady Here We Are Together.  Eliza and Freddy are working together. Henry isn't happy, and makes sure everyone knows it. One Day at a Time what they say about the young. Without the kids around, it feels like everything has changed, except for all the other things about Penelope's life that could change, too. a return to normal.  Penelope and Schneider's Friday night plans fall through, so they have a movie night instead.  Very sweet. Persuasion. The Pen in Their Hands. Five letters that were written, but were never sent, aboard H.M.S. Laconia. (And one that was.) Smooth Water. “If I wanted easy comfort, I should not have become a captain’s wife.” Wonderful Austen voice. A Step Not Taken.  What if that day at Lyme had gone just a little differently? Peter Wimsey The Duke's Parlormaid.  A story in correspondence, with detective interruptions.  Really captured the feel of the books and all the character voices. Poirot The Mice Will Play.  When Poirot returns unexpectedly from a case, he finds out something new about Miss Lemon. RED The One Bathtub.  “I did have dinner plans,” Han said, grudgingly, and so Victoria kicked the door in and graciously allowed Han to be the first into the bathroom. She understood the pain of missed reservations. Rivers of London Through All the Years, This Is My Home.  At night, when the rest of the staff and most, if not all, of the masters were asleep, Molly would wander the moonlit halls and remember what fresh air felt like on her skin. Of Molly, of Thomas, and of the years they've spent together - and of the Folly, strong and everlasting.  Lovely Molly perspective. Peelian Principles.  "You're very calm about this," Seawoll said on the fifth day.  Nightingale's perspective on Peter's time as a hostage, and REALLY AWESOME. UXB.  When one the deadliest weapons of the Blitz threatens London once again, Peter finds himself on the front line.  Wonderful casefic, just perfect. Saved! Conversation Starters. Cassandra and Roland have five important conversations. Sense and Sensibility Realization and Renewal.  As Marianne recovers, Elinor and Colonel Brandon find themselves drawn to one another. Sense8 Blue and Gold.  Wolfgang comes home with Kala and Rajan after Paris. Finding a place with them. Star Trek: Rihannsu Day Comes Up New.  "I have done something spectacularly stupid," Arrhae said.  This is a wonderful extension and meditation on what might happen past canon.  Ever since I first read The Romulan Way as a teen, I've wondered what happened to Arrhae in the end, and the subsequent books were great but didn't answer the ultimate question.  This doesn't either, but it suggests something further, which I appreciate. Terminator Movies A Fistful of Sarahs.  The sky cracks open, and Sarah watches herself tumble out of a rift in the space time continuum. She’s older than she is now, and she’s got a lot more scars, and she’s carrying the biggest and weirdest looking gun Sarah’s ever seen. with all the hope in my heart (and doubt in my mind). Sarah Connor has done this before. Dani has not. Post-Terminator: Dark Fate. Fate, the Future, and Other Sons of Bitches.  Sarah and Dani hit the road. Winnie the Pooh In Which Pooh Hunts for the Meaning of Christmas.  Pooh finds a mysterious envelope pinned to the door of his house. In Which Eeyore Loses His Tail Again, Or At Least Plans To.  It's a bright, sunny day, and Eeyore has a plan to make it tolerable. Now if only his friends will cooperate.