#I made it colorful to make it easier to differentiate when someone is talking

[solardee]

UTEV Drabble - Brand New Star

The day had been chaotic, even by Sans’ standards. It wasn’t everyday that your small town got treated to a fight between two inter-dimensional… deities? Spirits? Whatever they were, they looked like skeleton monsters, albeit very strange ones. The taller of the two, an angelic skeleton of some sort, had briefly introduced himself as Dawn before heralding off to do battle with his brother(?) in the distance.

A battle between positivity and negativity is what it was called. How strange. Of course, those two hadn’t been the only two that had come through. There had been a collection of other skeletons that looked eerily similar to him! Even if they seemed to take his lazy brother’s approach to clothing (he hoped they didn’t also leave socks lying around, what a nightmare!) they still looked and spoke just like him.

The same could not be said for the short paint covered skeleton standing beside him spouting exposition.

“So yeah! In a nutshell, that’s how the Multiverse works. Technically you don’t have a creator overseeing your AU since your world isn’t original, but that’s why I’m here and-” “LOOK,” Sans said as patiently as he could, cutting off the confusing tirade he had honestly tuned out about twenty minutes ago, “AS MUCH AS I APPRECIATE THE EXPLANATION, THAT’S NOT REALLY ANSWERING MY QUESTION HERE.”

He fiddled with the first aid kit in his hands as he spoke, hoping he didn’t come off as rude, “I NEED TO FIND THOSE PEOPLE THAT WENT OFF WITH YOUR FRIEND, HIS NAME WAS DAWN RIGHT? EVERYONE ELSE IS HEALED, BUT THEY STILL HAVEN’T COME BACK.”

“Oh, right!” the painted skeleton who still had not yet introduced himself shouted, before he laughed, “They’re not coming back, so don’t worry about them!”

Sans blinked, “THEY’RE NOT? WHY NOT? WHERE HAVE THEY GONE?”

“Oh, Dawn’s taking care of them, that’s all. Something about their intentions- Oooooh, is that a echo flower variation?” the skeleton veered from the topic, despite Sans’ flustered attempts to keep their attention.

“WAIT -! OH STARS THEY’RE GONE…” Sans sighed to himself. What a day this was, and now he had even more questions!

He had been warned, when helping the strange skeleton named Dawn evacuate people, that his main goal was to keep 'Dusk' from harming people or kidnapping them. The people who had vanished had been some of the first ones he’d evacuated, not having been anywhere near the strange goopy skeleton and his posse of doppelgangers. Sure, Sans hadn’t appreciated when they had shoved him in the way of a dangerous blast in an attempt to use him as a shield while escaping, but Dawn had gotten in the way before he was harmed so he figured he shouldn’t complain.

That being said… it was odd. Dawn had moved faster than he did at any other point of the fight at that moment. It had been a significant speed change. Even stranger still… None of the injuries he had treated had come from the opposition. He had expected to find knife wounds or patches of that strange blackened substance, but the majority of the wounds he treated were purely environmental. Otherwise, it was mostly burn wounds…

Sans shook his head, something just wasn’t lining up.

“Well well well, don’t you look lost in thought!” a voice came from right behind him, causing Sans to jump almost comidically off the ground.

“Whoa now, don’t fall!” the voice continued, a gloved hand on his shoulder steadying him enough to turn around and face the other, “goodness, you’re not too shell shocked are you? I know that blast was rough but I didn’t think it had reached you…” Dawn hummed as he checked Sans over, seemingly looking for wounds with that star-like gaze.

“WHERE ARE THE TWO MONSTERS THAT WERE WITH YOU?” Sans asked immediately, ignoring the other’s concern and brushing the hand off of his shoulder, “YOUR FRIEND SAID YOU TOOK THEM.”

“Ah? Two monsters? Sorry, I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Dawn shrugged his shoulders a bit too casually, hand now on his hip bone, “You shouldn’t listen to Acrylic too much anyways, they don't always have the best perception of things-”

“I KNOW SOMETHING HAD TO HAVE BEEN DONE, THEY WERE THE FIRST ONES I GOT OUT OF THE CROSSFIRE! WHERE ARE THEY? I HAVEN’T TREATED THEM YET," Sans interrupted. It was rude, he knew! But he was nothing if not a dedicated healer, and he wouldn’t be distracted with idle chit chat.

Dawn gave him a look up and down, eyes boring into his soul, “Hmm. Observant, aren’t you?” the winged skeleton answered with a smirk, “They don’t need any treatment anymore, don’t worry about them.”

“WHAT? THAT ISN’T HOW THIS WORKS, ANYONE WHO IS IN THAT FIGHT NEEDS AT LEAST A PHYSICAL CHECK UP, WHO KNOWS IF THERE’S SOMETHING UNDERLYING INJURY THAT WASN’T NOTICED WITH ALL THE ADRENALIN-”

“I said don’t worry about them,” Dawn cut him off, smile still fixed upon his face but now far too sharp and predatory, “focus on your other patients.”

Sans hesitated a moment, staring up at this clearly very powerful creature. Sans had never been a good fighter, working his best to be Snowdin’s go to healer for the Royal Guard rather than joining the group himself (speaking of which, both strange entities had looked surprised at that notion, he’d have to ask why-). Even if he wasn’t stuck with a single hit point of health, it was clear Dawn could crush him in a heartbeat if he so wanted. In fact, he could’ve crushed all of those strange doppelgangers too now that he thought about it...

Sans crossed his arms in front of him, back straight as he glared up at Dawn’s towering figure, “NOT A CHANCE! I WOULDN’T HAVE SO MANY PATIENTS IF YOU HADN’T BEEN SO RECKLESS WITH YOUR FIRE ANYWAYS,” he scolded, hoping he came across as more confident than he felt.

“Are you accusing me of something?” sweet malice was dripping from his words like honey, barely hidden behind the other’s uncanny smile.

“WELL I DIDN’T TREAT ANY WOUNDS FROM THAT BROTHER OF YOURS IF THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE ASKING!” Sans reiterated, jutting his chin out as he tried not to falter at the dangerous heat radiating from Dawn, “IN FACT, I DIDN’T NOTICE HIM DOING ANYTHING WRONG OF THE SORT!”

Dawn froze at his the mention of his brother, and Sans wasn’t sure if that was really a good thing or not. The angelic skeleton took a step closer to him, circling him like a bird of prey as he looked Sans up and down. The manic grin on his face widened a tad.

“Is that so~?” Dawn practically purred.

“YES, IT IS SO! NOW TELL ME WHAT EXACTLY IS GOING ON, BECAUSE I’M NOT PUTTING ANYONE IN DANGER FOR YOU!”

“Ooooh, I like you!”

“I- WHAT?”

“Yes, you’ll do nicely I think, plenty observant, good healing capabilities, a good amount of patience and bravery, though those aren’t in your soul traits-” “WAIT HOLD ON- WHAT ARE YOU GOING ON ABOUT!? I STILL NEED THOSE TWO- HEY-!!! HEY PUT ME DOWN THIS INSTANT!!!!” Sans didn’t even have time to react before Dawn scooped him up over his shoulder, medical bag abandoned on the ground behind him.

“Dusk is going to be so excited~! Come along then, you’re mine now~” Dawn sing-songed as he opened up a portal, a place he didn’t recognize at all.

“WAIT- WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME- I DIDN’T AGREE TO THIS!! PAPYRUS!” Sans shouted as he struggled, kicking at the skeleton to no avail as he was dragged through the portal like a sack of potatoes.

The portal snapped shut, leaving Sans to stare out over… a surprisingly idyllic countryside. He didn’t have any time to process the change in scenery before Dawn slipped him off his shoulder and back onto the ground, facing-

“Another one? Dawn, we talked about this,” the goopy skeleton Sans had been helping evacuate people from drawled on monotonously in front of him. No longer was he shrouded in black, or even as goopy as Sans remembered.

“I found us a new healer! He’ll do great I’m su-”

“I’M SORRY YOU WANT ME TO BE WHAT?”

In the future, Star would suppose there are worse ways to be introduced to your best friend and his brother. He certainly got a great clinic office out of it.

[vampireshmampire]

For a Chance to Dance With You

Rating: T

Summary: After being turned by the Baron at Nandor's wedding, Guillermo is vampire royalty. It can be lonely at the top, so the Baron throws a masquerade ball, inviting all vampires (of suitable status, of course) to try and win the hand of Guillermo de la Cruz.

Guillermo wants to be loved for himself, not fought over by vampires angling to use a relationship for power and prestige. Surely there's someone here who understands that?

AO3 Link

Talk to the Baron! Guillermo thought bitterly. Tell him how you feel! Tell him you want to make your own romantic decisions! Clear communication always works! What’s the worst that could happen?

This could happen. This was the absolutely worst possible outcome, worse even than the Baron just ignoring him.

Forget the bi-annual orgy, forget the Théâtre des Vampires, this was the event of the decade—maybe even of the century. A grand masquerade ball held by Baron Afanas was noteworthy enough, but this wasn’t just any masquerade ball, oh no!

This was a competition.

“—don’t you think?” Peacock said.

“Mm,” said Guillermo.

The vampire’s name wasn’t actually Peacock, but he wasn’t supposed to know who anyone was, and he had to call them something. The magical masks ensured no one could recognize anyone else, so to differentiate, every guest had been assigned an animal or insect to theme their costume around.

“Everyone says it’s hard to find good help these days, but I’d argue it’s easier. Vampires aren’t scary monsters, we’re sexy, we’re hip, we’re in.”

So far, Guillermo had said exactly nine words to this man: very nice to meet you, thanks, sure, I guess. So far, Peacock had not seemed to notice. He was too busy talking about how great it was to be a vampire, as if Guillermo needed to be sold on the idea.  

“You don’t need to settle for a madman who eats bugs for power! There’s no shortage of competent, pathetic individuals so desperate to be made greater they’ll throw away their whole lives for you.”

God, this one didn’t even know who he was! He’d probably never even heard of Guillermo before the invitation arrived, just saw “win the hand of Baron Afanas’ protégé” and raced off.

Guillermo debated coming up with something snarky to say about how he used to be a familiar, but decided against it. The dance would be over soon, and then Peacock would be replaced by some other vampire just as uninteresting.

As if on cue, the song came to an end. Everyone bowed or curtsied to their partner. Peacock kissed Guillermo’s hand, just like the others had. He said something in farewell that Guillermo didn’t bother to listen to, and melted away.

Guillermo had a moment while the band shuffled their sheet music but there was no point trying to melt away in the crowd—all eyes were on him, always.

Guillermo didn’t know what order his partners had been assigned or how they knew when it was their turn, but within moments his next partner slid smoothly into Peacock’s place. Guillermo couldn’t guess the costume theme—the vampire was wearing a bright red suit with tie, shirt, and shoes to mask. The only other color was the white mask, which curved like a beak at the nose.

“Scarlet macaw,” the vampire said, in a very unpleasantly familiar tone. “I look sexy in red, don’t I?”

Guillermo stumbled, and hurried to get his feet back in the right place. The vampire smirked and oh no, Guillermo knew that smirk. It didn’t matter that the magic in the mask made it impossible to register any physical features or the timbre of a voice, Guillermo could see the expression in his eyes and the cruel twist of his lips and knew he was talking to Simon the fucking Devious.

 “I see you agree,” Simon gloated and why had the Baron invited him, what on earth was he thinking? Simon the Devious? Guillermo would rather spend his immortal eternity alone and unloved.

He tried to pull himself together, and gave Simon a bland smile as they took their places. All night, his dance partners had let him lead, or at least let him decide, but Simon did not. Guillermo couldn’t have been less surprised.

“You’ve come a long way,” Simon said. “From a nobody familiar to vampire royalty in one jump. Very impressive.”

“We’ve met before?” Guillermo said, as if he didn’t know. Simon was wearing heavy cologne that did not quite manage to hide the smell of old mold and wet stone.

“Oh yes. But no hints,” Simon purred. “That wouldn’t be fair. I will say, I always found you…enticing.”

Barf, Guillermo thought.

“I’ll never understand how your master kept his hands to himself all those years.”

Guillermo froze, which was unfortunate because they were in the middle of a turn and the lack of motion nearly slammed the two of them in the couple beside them.

“Something I said?” Simon asked, innocently.

Was Simon actually trying to seduce him or was he just fucking with him? Or was this yet another facet in some unnecessarily elaborate plot to get his hands on Laszlo’s hat? Or had Laszlo kept his hat last time? Unless Simon had managed to steal it since Nandor’s wedding—

Guillermo grabbed Simon’s hand and shoulder tightly and spun them both, picking up speed to match the rising beat of the song.

“I was distracted, trying to guess who you are. My master didn’t do a lot of socializing.”

“Can’t help you there, my sweet. I’d be breaking the rules.”

Simon’s free hand was just a little too far down Guillermo’s lower back. Not so low as to be improper, even by the incredibly lax vampiric standards, but low enough to make Guillermo uncomfortable.

“So what can you tell me about yourself?”

“Well, I am a very powerful vampire,” Simon said. Every single vampire Guillermo had talked to tonight had opened with that line. “I have my own followers.”

“Vampire or human?”

“Vampire.”

Guillermo made a noise of interest, and wondered why he was pretending to care. Maybe because it was someone he knew, even only vaguely. Grasping at a connection, however threadbare, to his old life.

“I own property.”

“Above or below ground?” Guillermo asked, innocently. Simon gave him a sharp look, but Guillermo—still innocent—elaborated “A crypt, maybe?”

“Something like that,” Simon said, mollified. “I’m a music buff—I consider myself a patron of the arts. I once ran a great music hall to which vampires from all over flocked to for dances and feasting.”

That was…certainly one way to describe a night club.

The song ended. Simon, still smirking, reached for Guillermo’s hand. The thought of Simon kissing him—even only the back of his hand—made Guillermo’s skin crawl. He had to do something, make a distraction, run—

As Simon began to bow, Guillermo noticed something odd about his hair. Not the color or the texture but the shape. Sort of squashed flat on the sides, like—

He grabbed Simon’s arm and looped his through it.

“Let’s get a drink,” he said, and led Simon off the dance floor. All around him he heard murmurs of surprise, even gasps of shock. This was a risk, a big one. If Guillermo was wrong, he’d have an even harder time getting away from Simon, but if he was right…

He hoped he was right.  

Guillermo hurriedly picked up two goblets of blood and shoved one at Simon. Now Guillermo had a physical object to hold between them as a barrier. He took a long sip, very aware that they were the focus of a thousand sidelong glances. Quickly he risked a glance at the Baron, seated on the raised dais with Goëjlrm. The Baron gave him a not-as-subtle-as-he-probably-thought-it-was thumbs up.

Of course. This one he approves of.

“So, your outfit. A parrot, you said?”

“Scarlet macaw. Beautiful birds. Very red.”

“They have other colors too, don’t they? Yellow and blue, I think.”

“But mostly red,” Simon said, testily.

“It seems like it’s missing something,” Guillermo said. He took a slight step backwards, looking Simon up and down critically. “Some sort of accessory. Something to give it a little…” He waved a hand, “A little pizzazz.”

Simon squirmed and Guillermo felt a surge of hope.

“Well,” Simon said. “I have this hat…”

YES.

“It’s a bit of a giveaway…”

“Oh go on,” Guillermo urged, trying not to sound desperate. “Let me see! I bet you look very sexy in it.”

That did it. Simon half turned and snapped his fingers. Someone scuttled up bearing a hat. A hideous, malformed, fleshy hat made from genuine witch skin. Guillermo’s heart almost ached to see it. He wondered how Simon had managed to get it away from Laszlo this time. He wondered how long it had been since the hat got to go home.

We are not projecting onto a hat, knock it off, Guillermo told himself sternly.

He smiled encouragingly as Simon delicately set the hat on his head. He put his hands on his hips and gave Guillermo a triumphant smile.

“There,” he said, “what do you thi—”

There was a crack overhead as one of the marble cherubs decorating the top of the columns broke free. It fell like an anvil, smashing through the floor next to Simon and tearing open a hole in the wood. Everyone yelped and jumped back.

“Wow,” Simon said. “That was close.”

There was a creak. A groan. With an almighty crash, the wooden beam that had been shorn in half by the falling cherub gave way, tearing out the floor from underneath Simon and sending him tumbling into the darkness below.   

The hat, which had hovered Looney Tunes style while Simon fell, slowly began to drift down. Guillermo caught it gently and held it with his palms flat under the brim. He heard wood groaning beneath his feet.

“Let’s see if we can’t get you back to Laszlo,” he murmured.

The wood stopped groaning.

The musicians had stopped at the first sound of falling masonry, now everyone had forgotten the dance in favor of crowding around the hole and peering in after Simon. Guillermo, with the expertise of a decade in service, melted backwards out of the press of vampires.

He paused by a familiar—one of many borrowed for the evening—and gingerly passed her the hat.

“Could you do me a favor, go and get a priority shipping box from UPS big enough for this and wrap it up? I’ll send it out when we get back to New Jersey. Behave,” he told the hat, which vibrated in something like a purr. “It’s okay,” he told the familiar. “It should cooperate, although I’d be really careful when you cross the street.”

She grimaced, but obediently hurried off.

Guillermo glanced around. The Baron had descended the stairs but halted at the foot, looking back and forth between the hole in the floor and Guillermo.

“He says he’s alright!” someone called.

There was a distant whumph, a slight tremor of the floorboards, and a thin trail of smoke rose from the hole.

“Uhh…”

The Baron strode quickly through the crowd towards the hole in the floor, and Guillermo made his escape. Along the nearest wall was a line of windowed doors, closed but unlocked, that led out to a large stone balcony. With one last check to ensure all attention was on Simon—or whatever was left of Simon—Guillermo slipped out and into the night.

The second he was outside, he felt better. It was cool and quiet and dark. The grounds of the manor spread out like a blanket before him, night blooming flowers filling the air with their perfume.

With a sigh, Guillermo crossed the wide expanse of the balcony, out of reach of the light spilling from the windows. He leaned against the balcony railing and turned his face to the wind. It felt good on his cheeks, but the mask stayed hot and uncomfortably tight around his eyes.

Guillermo reached up, intending to tear it off and toss it over the balcony into the decorative fountain below.

Someone cleared their throat.

Guillermo spun around. A man stood in the corner of the balcony, out of sight of the windows. When Guillermo said nothing, the stranger raised an awkward hand.

“Hello.”

“Hi,” Guillermo said, forcing a smile.

“I do not want to intrude, if you need to be alone,” the man said.

The fact that he asked was enough to make Guillermo hesitate. Nobody else had asked. They’d just been elbowing each other out of the way, a new mask popping up in front of him every time he turned.

Guillermo shrugged.

“It’s a public balcony.”

“And it is your time.” All the same, the man joined him at the balcony, though he kept a respectable distance between them. He was dressed in thick silk, dark green embroidered with miles of gold thread, and his mask curved down over his cheeks, leaving only his mouth and chin exposed.

“What’s your costume supposed to be?” Guillermo asked. The man looked down at himself.

“…a leaf,” he said, after a brief hesitation.

“Like a leaf insect?”

“…yes.”

“Ouch. That’s a tough one. You must have been pretty low on the invite list to get stuck with that.”

It sounded meaner than he meant it to, but the man nodded.

“Oh yes. Very, very low on the list. I am lucky to be here at all.”

“So what are you doing out here, instead of in there?”

The man stared through the windows, into the swirling mass of people.

“I do not like the way this was done,” he said.

“What? The ball? You don’t like the theme?”

“This does not seem like a good way to get to know someone. And you do not seem to be enjoying it. If a party is for you it should be a kind of party you like.” He glanced over at Guillermo. “Perhaps you are not used to all the attention, after being a familiar for so long?”

“It’s not the kind of attention I enjoy,” Guillermo said. Like a piece of meat for them to fight over. Like a prize to be won. He pushed it all away. “Have I met you before?”

“Why?” the man asked, and Guillermo swore he sounded nervous. “Do I seem familiar?”

“No,” Guillermo admitted. “I’m just curious. I’ve been trying to see if I can recognize people despite the masks.”

“You can’t,” the man said, and now he definitely sounded nervous.

“Can too. I recognized Simon the Devious in about two seconds.”

“Simon? The Baron invited Simon and not—” The man cut himself off, but was puffed up with indignation. Archly, he said, “I think it is very rude that he invited Simon and not your master or the other vampires you lived with as a familiar.”

“Well, Simon is the king of the Manhattan vampires—”

“He lives in a sewer!”

“—and the vampires I lived with are all married.”

That had been what the Baron said when Guillermo had–without much hope–asked if his friends could be invited. It wasn't why he'd wanted them to come, but he couldn't make the Baron understand. He’d given up before the Baron thought he could start inviting couples.

“Your master is not married.”

“Yes he is. I was at his wedding. I was turned at his wedding.” And hadn’t that just gone swimmingly.

“Your master is not married,” the man repeated. “Not anymore.”

“What?” Guillermo said with dismay. “Nobody told me! What happened? Since when?”

The man just shrugged, awkwardly. Guillermo slumped miserably against the banister. Was Nandor okay? Had it been a mutual split or Nandor’s idea or was his former master wallowing vampire depression with no one to pull him out?

What else was happening at the house he didn’t know about? What else was he missing?

Sorrow, thick and bitter rose up in his throat and he swallowed hard.

“I upset you,” the man said, sounding genuinely distressed.

“No, I’m fine! I’m fine, it’s just. Weird thinking about things going on without me. What should I call you?” he asked, to change the subject. “Since I can’t ask your real name.”

The man hesitated, but this time it was the hesitation of someone frantically trying to think of a name that sounded cool.

“Edward,” he blurted out, and Guillermo burst out laughing as ‘Edward’ cringed. “No, I changed my mind—”

“Too late! Edward it is. So, Edward, are you going to tell me about yourself?”

“No.”

“Really? You don’t want to tell me how cool you are, or how good you are at sex?”

“No. I am both of those things,” Edward hurried to add, “but I do not want to talk about them right now.”

“Alright, what do you want to talk about?”

“Nothing.”

Guillermo raised an eyebrow.

“You’re going to have a pretty hard time competing for my affection if you don’t give me anything to work with,” he said.  

“I did not come here to do that either.”

Guillermo straightened up and shot Edward a puzzled look.

“So…why did you come?”   

Edward was quiet for a moment. He lifted his hands, then hesitated and fiddled with the buttons on his robe.

“I wanted to see you.”

“Guillermo!”

He looked up, startled. Goëjlrm stood hunched in the doorway. The sire of all vampires, barely humanoid, should have looked absurd in the periwinkle blue suit jacket. And yet, Guillermo had to admit he was pulling it off.

“They are…looking…for you…” he rumbled.

“I needed some fresh air. Metaphorically. It’s stuffy in there,” Guillermo lied.

“Prey flees the hunt,” Goëjlrm said in what was, for him, a very dry tone. Guillermo smiled, humorlessly. The sire was very perceptive.  

Suddenly, the sire lifted his head and sniffed deeply. He rumbled again, approvingly this time.

“Fresh air,” he repeated. Guillermo wondered if he was thinking of the centuries he had spent in that little room, locked away from the world. “Yes. You should stay here. I did not see you.”

With that, he lumbered away, his wing tugging the door shut behind him.

“You’d never guess, but he’s actually got a great sense of—Edward?” Guillermo looked around, but he was completely alone on the balcony. There was a scraping sound, leather on stone, and Guillermo looked over the edge. Edward was pressed flat against the wall of the story below.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Edward said, in a strained voice.

“You’re not supposed to be here, are you?” Guillermo exclaimed. “You weren’t actually invited! That’s why you’re out on the balcony, you can’t go in!”

Edward let go of the wall and floated up over the ledge to rejoin Guillermo.

“No,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “I was not invited.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to see you,” Edward repeated.

“You gate crashed the extremely exclusive private party being thrown by Baron Afanas, who is personally exempt from the ‘not killing other vampires’ rule, because you wanted to get a closer look at me?”

“I saw you a few months ago,” Edward said, staring at his feet. “You seemed…sad.”

“Sad, I’m not sad,” Guillermo said, trying not to sound defensive. “I’m doing great! I’m a vampire! And I’m not just a vampire, I’m the vampire. Everybody wants a piece of me.”

“I know. I thought maybe it would be nice for you to have someone around who didn’t.”

Guillermo said nothing. Very slowly he reached up and took his mask off. He stared at it. Midnight blue, trimmed in silver. Guillermo had wanted black and red, something dramatic, something bold, something all the things he’d been so afraid to be as a human. The Baron had said no, it wasn’t befitting a vampire of his position. He mustn’t be tacky.

And that was his death in a nutshell. There were expectations and rules and traditions, and it was fun to be important but he could never put it down. There were always standards he had to meet. The right people, the right parties, the right clothes.

He felt less like himself now than he ever had in his life.

“I want to go home,” he whispered.

“It is almost midnight,” Edward said, reassuringly. “The party will be over soon.”

Guillermo laughed bitterly and looked up at Edward. He couldn’t tell what color the man’s eyes were, but he could see that he was startled.

“And then go back to New Jersey? That’s not home,” Guillermo said. Edward’s eyes went wide, but Guillermo was suddenly tired of doing the expected. “I wanted to be a vampire, but I wanted to be a vampire in Staten Island; I wanted to be a vampire with my friends. I want to go home.”

“So why don’t you?”

Guillermo turned away, looking out over the garden. Why didn’t he? As if it was as easy as hopping on the train.

“I can’t. They wouldn’t take me back.”

“They would--!”

“You weren’t there,” Guillermo interrupted. “They couldn’t say they were mad, because the Baron was there, but I could tell. Nandor wouldn’t even look at me.” He swallowed hard and turned away, his eyes stinging. “If I’d known I’d have to leave, I would have…”

“Would you have said no to the offer?”

“…no,” Guillermo whispered. “But I would have asked to wait til after the wedding. And I would have told him differently.”

He would have broken it as gently as he could, not thrown it in Nandor’s face with triumph and defiance. Maybe then they could have found a way to still see each other. Guillermo could have explained that he’d come back someday. Guillermo could have explained that he never wanted to leave.

Guillermo would never be able to forget that sick, sinking feeling as Nandor patiently, emotionlessly explained that a fledgling vampire was expected to live with their sire, that Guillermo would have to leave with Baron Afanas. The helplessness as the Baron ushered him to the door, cheerfully telling him that there was a whole world of vampirism the Baron would show him, far away from this stuffy little house.

A large hand covered his and wrapped around it gently. He looked up into earnest eyes.

“No one lucky enough to be your friend could ever stay angry with you. Go back to Staten Island someday. You will see.” Edward squeezed Guillermo’s hand and let go.

Guillermo wanted to believe it. He wanted to believe it so much he thought his heart might start beating again with the emotion swelling in his chest.

“Why do you care if I’m sad?”

“You were a familiar. You wanted to be a vampire so very badly. I do not like the idea that you regret the choice.”

“I just wish my master had been the one to turn me.” Guillermo was only a little surprised to hear himself admit it to a total stranger. Edward talked to Guillermo like he cared about what he had to say. It felt safe to say things that mattered.

For a long moment, Edward was silent, his expression too hidden beneath the mask for Guillermo to read it. When the vampire finally spoke, his voice was soft and sad.

“I am sure your master feels the same. I would, if I were him.”

Music filled the air—the musicians had started up again. Guillermo could see people dancing again, and wondered if they’d given up trying to find him. The tune was lively and the melancholy of the moment eased from around their shoulders.

“Do you like to dance?” Edward asked. Guillermo gave him a crooked smile.

“Is that your way of asking me to dance with you?”

“No,” Edward said, very seriously. “I do not want to ask you to dance if you do not like to dance. That is why I asked if you liked it.”

“…yeah,” Guillermo said. “I like to dance.”

Edward bowed, a little stiffly, and held out his hand.

“May I have this dance, Guillermo de la Cruz?”

Guillermo smiled, and took his hand.

“You may.”

Guillermo let Edward lead. He waited for Edward to say something, to ask a question, to comment on the music, but he didn’t. They just danced, gliding back and forth in the moonlight, feet never crossing into the light of the windows.

“What are you thinking about?” Guillermo asked at last.

“I am trying to remember everything about this moment, so I will never forget. Even if I never see you again, I will have the memory.”  

It should have been corny; it should have been over the top. It wasn’t even the most dramatic thing anyone had said to him this evening, but the simple, straightforward way Edward said it, the statement of fact, the genuine feeling behind it, took Guillermo’s breath away.

“Why do you care?” Guillermo asked.

“It is impossible not to care about you.”

“Who are you?”

But Edward said nothing. The song ended and another began, and still they danced. Guillermo stopped asking questions, and tried to memorize the moment the way Edward was. The hush of the night, the soft music, strong arms around him and eyes that drank him in as if he was the most fascinating thing they’d ever seen.

They were halfway through the third song when a bell rang out, cutting off the music and making them both jump.

“Midnight,” Guillermo said, and the bell tolled a single note.

One.

It rang again.

Two.

“I should go,” Edward said, but hesitantly. Guillermo grabbed his sleeve, heart aching at the sudden possibility that he might never see this man again.

“Don’t go,” Guillermo said. “I want to know who you are.”

“I was not invited, remember? I will be in trouble.”

It was a fair point. Guillermo didn’t want to imagine what the Baron might do to an interloper who had undermined his clever plan to get Guillermo a suitable partner. A thought occurred and he tightened his grip on Edward’s sleeve.

Three.

“Wait, wait—you know my vampires, right?” Guillermo thought he felt a tremor run through Edward, just for a moment.

“Yes…”

“Can you take them a message for me? Can you tell them that I miss them? And I’m sorry. And—and tell Nandor—tell him—”

Four.  

“Tell him I didn’t want to go.”

Edward said nothing.

Five.

“You’ll tell them?”

“Yes.”

Six.

Abruptly, Edward’s hand tightened around his.

“There is something I must do, now, before it is too late.”

Seven.

Edward had gone tense all over, eyes wide, his grip almost painful.

Eight.

“If I do not do it now, I may never find the courage again.”

He leaned forward and kissed Guillermo.

Nine.

The kiss was unexpected, but Guillermo did not pull away. It was, for the first time since he’d been a human, something that felt like his own. A kiss with someone who didn’t care that Guillermo was the Baron’s progeny, just that he was happy. A kiss that expected nothing, asked for nothing but the chance to kiss him.

Ten.

Edward started to pull away but Guillermo followed him. He wanted this to last, this little thing that could be his, just his, with someone who wanted just him. A moment where he could pretend it had turned out the way he wanted it to, where he was a regular vampire being kissed by someone who loved him.

Eleven.

Guillermo was suddenly aware of the scratch of a beard against his skin, of a smell so familiar it was like a punch to the gut. His eyes flew open. He stared up in astonishment at ‘Edward’.

Twelve.

Inside the ballroom was laughter and shouting, some in good spirits and some furious, but on the balcony there was peace.

“I guess the clock is a little slow,” Nandor said, nervously. From behind the now unenchanted green mask, Nandor’s eyes were wary, the vampire bracing himself for Guillermo’s reaction.

There were so many things to say, so many questions to ask, but all that Guillermo could get out was

“I wanted it to be you.”

Two minutes later, when the Baron came storming out after his wayward progeny, all he found were two discarded masks, one blue and one green, sitting on the balcony railing. At that distance, only Goëjlrm could hear the fluttering of bat wings vanishing into the distance.

Later, when the offended rejects had been placated and tossed out and the last of the blood was being mopped off the floors, the Baron turned to Goëjlrm and said “He must realize he can do better.”

“Does not want better.”

[literaphobe]

dude so sorry about the weirdos :( i was super excited to see ur post-mcc takes and i hate to see people being ableist dicks for no reason hope ur doing ok !!

yeah honestly i just think most of them are so goddamn dumb n have no fucking reading comprehension and some of their attempts to ‘counter’ me are so bloody goddamn stupid that i am praying for themmmm i don’t wanna directly interact bc they’re dumb n they’ll probably cry about how they’re getting cyberbullied by anons (VERY ironic how some of them said i shouldn’t have posted a ‘bad take’ if i wasn’t ready to get ‘clowned’ like ok then don’t dogpile someone if ur weak ass doesn’t want anon ‘hate’? lmfao) but i remember one of them being like ‘ughhhhh 🙄 op ur so dumb if people are short in basketball that doesn’t mean we make the basketball hoop easier to reach!’ and that’s such a lousy comparison to make that completely LACKS compassion too like damn i’m sorry but when people have adhd or they’re colorblind schools that aren’t EVIL will be like oh i see! do you need extra time to complete assignments and exams? is there are anyway we can assist you on questions that have color identification involved?

and yes, mcc isn’t school but they are run by people with COMPASSION. and the willingness to make changes if they see how badly affected some of their players are? like, they’ve made changes to buildmart before, notably the subtitle that pops up n shows what the name of a block is when u go near to it! and that’s great! but some of you are acting like it’s laughable to want different/further changes upon review? its like giving someone a monocle and then laughing when they say ‘these help, but i think having something like prescription glasses can help even more’ and when people say shit like ‘god, x just affects a minority of the players. most of them are just fine’ DO YOU HEAR… YOURSELF

i don’t think i need to recontextualize that sentiment to show how devoid of awareness that is. who cares? who cares if the only issue w buildmart is how it disproportionately affects people with colorblindness and the only colorblind player was george? (he isn’t. btw. but he arguably has the worst case of colorblindness) or that buildmart disproportionately affects people w adhd n there was only one player who had it? scream and cry about how it’s not that deep all you want, i KNOW so many of the people who tried to mock me didn’t watch any of the povs i was talking about. like didn’t some of y’all cry about how parkour warrior supposedly gave someone a panic attack? if that’s valid criticism then (which i think it is! i do think that parkour warrior became flawed after all the difficulty reworks and if it was so upsetting to certain people then a rework of the game is needed) why isn’t any of this stuff valid now? and why is it so hard to believe that someone also had a similar reaction playing build mart?

and another thing. like i see ‘oh if it bothers you so much then don’t play mcc? every game gives u anxiety should they remove every game then?’ like look. i have anxiety and adhd. anxiety is Not neurodivergency. there is a big difference between an entire event being a huge trigger and giving you panic attacks at every potential turn and 1-2 games that you physically are unable to play like a neurotypical person because your brain structure prevents from doing things that could be CHANGED to help you and others like you. if someone just can’t handle the pressure of a competitive event like mcc and it makes them crack and suffer bouts of anxiety that is a Health issue. it is a health issue and if they want to step aside from something that hurts them in its Entirety, then that’s fine. but if someone can’t find sand blocks n cracked gold blocks bc they can’t detect the differentials in the shades of the colors n all that would need to be done was perhaps. changing the colors to be much more distinct or the textures of the blocks to be easier to identify without color then… why can’t people Want that. why can’t people ask for that

i understand! that people are being toxic and rude n overshadowing people’s victories n perhaps even shitting on the people that won on like, twitter or something. i get if you’re mad that people on dttwt are sending hate or something like that! but this isn’t twitter! i never once implied that mcc was a bad event or was being run by bad evil mean people who rig the whole thing. don’t take your grievances out on me! don’t interpret my posts in bad faith and then cower and cry wolf when u find out people who see sense are willing to stand up for me! and if u wanted to see if i was complaining about the winners of this mcc like some people were after the last few mccs as well then you could’ve scrolled down my blog and looked at my other posts instead of having weird preconceived notions about what i am or what i stand for. its possible to feel happy for others’ success while still wanting changes to be made to certain games. like. survival games gave mcc15 red rabbits the win. but i still think that the point system needed to be reworked after that bc it gave too many coins. u can be happy and still think things can change/improve to be more fair/make the event better. which is what noxcrew DOES. they want to make changes not because they think they’ll get hate if they don’t but because they care about their event being good and they have integrity about it and that’s why they take feedback on this stuff all the time. ultimately, the decisions they make as event organizers and minecraft developers are theirs, but it doesn’t mean people can’t speak their minds

[lilover131]

Chapter 56 Analysis+Theories

AHHHHHH CHAPTER 56 AHHHHHH!!! <--Chrissy every time a chapter comes out

I wasn’t as hyped up about this one as I was for the last one thankfully, seeing as we didn’t have a super long wait, but I certainly don’t want to diminish in any way the importance of this chapter!!!

I won’t waste any time and will get right to it, so buckle in, cuz’ the theory train is coming! More under the cut!

 So I’ll start by saying that when I first read the chapter, it was 2 AM where I was. I had been sleeping and just kinda magically woke up right when the chapter just came out, so I like to think there was some fate there. But when I opened that chapter on my phone and the first thing I saw was that Syaoran color spread, I audibly gasped and instantly woke up a bit.

 I woke up not because it was absolutely stunning to look at, or even at the fact that we haven’t had Syaoran in a color page for a while. No, the thing that caught my attention was the serious atmosphere it contained and the tone that it seemingly set. To me, this was one of CLAMP’s subtle ways of saying “Prepare for the final battle”. I could be reading into it too much, but I was right about what I believed the Syaoran and Kaito color page insinuated, so I’m gonna stick to my guns here.

 We start off the chapter without a moment’s pause where we left off last time. It continues right from the last point of the conversation where Sakura dropped the bombshell that she had seen Kaito use magic. She seems to think that they may not believe her at first, but Syaoran interrupts her to affirm that he 100% believes her and that he even already knew. Sakura is naturally confused by this, but he finally FINALLY gets to tell her what he’s been dealing with this whole time, and it definitely seems to be an uncomfortable topic for him. But at least this time he got to tell Sakura truthfully that he hadn’t ever intended on keeping this from her but was physically not able to. Despite not needing to feel guilty about this, Syaoran seems uncomfortable for the simple fact that someone else had that much control over him, and he was unable to do a thing to stop it. It’s also important to keep in mind that Kero and Suppi were hearing this for the first time themselves as well (about the silencing at least).

 Not much time passes after this before Kero and Suppi fess up to also knowing about Kaito, but they admit that theirs was a conscious decision rather than force, but that they believe they too would have been silenced like Syaoran was had they attempted to speak. One could say that since they didn’t know Syaoran was silenced in the way he was that this is not entirely truthful or was just a bad decision, but in reality it still makes perfect sense why they thought to be more careful. They saw Kaito’s magic first hand violently take down Eriol, and if he could shut down a magician of that caliber from halfway across the world, then he could easily do the same or worse to the guardians. And since they also weren’t yet aware of his true intentions with Sakura, it would have been likely seen as dangerous to provoke him and possibly put Sakura in harm’s way. I guess the only thing that doesn’t make much sense to me is why Syaoran and the guardians didn’t collaborate and put together what they knew sooner. Even when Yue went to Syaoran’s apartment, the topic of Kaito or Eriol never came up, and since they both clearly had Sakura’s best interest in mind, I’m not sure specifically why they chose to keep their information to themselves when they both knew they had the same goal. This, I would say, was actually a bad decision on their part, but when it comes down to it, they’re not perfect and everyone makes mistakes (I think Cinzia made the same point here, so I apologize if it seems like I’m copying here! I just also agree when it comes to this).

 I’m actually going to pull in a little thing I learned from my counselor not long ago when I felt guilt over a particular decision I had made long ago, and that is that you can only work based on the emotions and information you have at the time. And because we don’t know the future, it is not possible to always make the right decisions, but there is also no telling if our decisions would have changed things for the better, so it is best not to dwell on them. I believe truly that based on what they knew at the time and through the experiences they had, they were likely only trying to protect each other, but missed that they could have probably helped each other. It’s easy to miss things when you’re on the defensive.

 What I love about Sakura after this is that she forgives them immediately. This is not the first time she’s had things hidden from her for her protection, and naturally it’s upsetting to not feel like you can be trusted to deal with the serious information. When Syaoran told her how he’d been hiding what he knew before, she was upset but more because she thought he suffered as a result. This time around though, they concealed things from her not because they were worried about how she’d handle it, but rather out of fear from what Kaito would do if they tried, so it’s a completely different reason and much easier to forgive. Sakura is able to differentiate this, because she is a very emotionally intelligent girl and a lot more observant than she gets credit for when it comes to reading people. She’s grown a lot and isn’t as ‘dense’ as she was in Elementary School.

 Then we get a precious gift of seeing Syaoran show off how smart he is, working out how Kaito managed to make them forget about said confrontation at the botanical garden. He’s probably thought about it a lot already, considering he mentioned before that he felt like someone made him forget something. But this time, he had additional information that Sakura was able to provide, and this was the final piece of the puzzle he needed. The most important detail that Sakura gave him was the location in particular, the botanical garden. He knew that that was where they intended to go, but that they had yet to go there. This prompted him to check his phone and see how much time might have passed without them realizing, and because he knew what time he had arranged to meet Sakura, 9:30 AM, he was able to observe that it was impossible for them to meet, go to the botanical garden, have this encounter with Kaito, and both get back to their houses in only 16 minutes. This meant it was not just a mere meddling of memories but rather time magic as it was the only explanation for the time discrepancy issue and memory loss. I can’t say how freaking proud I was of Syaoran for working this out. He’s such a smart boy, but I know that Sakura also would have been able to come to the same conclusion had she had more knowledge about the magical world. Sakura is running on pure instinct right now, which is super strong, but Syaoran really helps fill in those gaps where things don’t make sense for her, making them the perfect magical team!  

 The scene changes to Momo, who appears to be keeping tabs on the conversation (though it’s unclear if Kaito is aware while they are under Siege). And this part is perhaps the most worrying of the entire chapter, and I’m not talking about the line where the English translation says “Into the final act of your story”. That line in particular is a gross mistranslation cleared up by @meimi-haneoka​, who graciously gives us translation notes each month in comparison to the Japanese version. The actual line in fact says “Into the final act of THE story”. This changes the entire tone of that page as the first translation implies it is leading to Kaito’s death, whereas the Japanese translation actually more implies that we’re nearing the climax of the story. Momo’s facial expressions also match the wording of the Japanese translation better, as we know she does not seem to want Kaito to die, so she would certainly look more upset here if she were speaking of such a thing. Also, I have to speak up about how pretttyyyy Kaito looks in that panel. The way CLAMP designed that page is just stunning as always.

 HOWEVER

 Back to what I was saying before! The most concerning part of the chapter for me is the page right before that, where Momo says “Once a spell’s been seen for what it is, it all comes crumbling down. Particularly, where time magic is concerned. And that’s to say nothing of your target’s considerable power. Now everything you’d turned back time to undo. Everything you’ve succeeded in freezing…is beginning to move again”. So here comes Chrissy’s big crazy theory and possible overthinking, but bear with me here!

I think…that what they are saying here is that these moments that were frozen in time and turned back were cut off from the timeline and now floating in a separate space. And now these scenes, which were all intense in their own way and incredibly frustrating for us, are about to move forward.

….all of them….

….at the same time….

This concept isn’t exactly new in CLAMP series. It happened with Tsubasa where Syaoran turned back time to go back to a moment where he could take Sakura’s hand and keep her from being cursed, and to keep that moment ready until he could return, it was in its own separate dimension, cut off from the rest of the universe. Eventually, once he got there, time started to move forward again. Turning back time is a taboo in the magical world for a reason, and Kaito has done this over and over and over again. But also, wouldn’t it be so like CLAMP to say “Hey, we know you’ve been frustrated that all these scenes were seemingly amping up to a big confrontation, but then Kaito rewound time over and over, so how about we give those back….ALL AT THE SAME TIMMMMEE?”. Can you even imagine the consequences of such a thing? At least three of the occasions where Kaito turned back time, Akiho went into what I call ‘book-mode’, where she is no longer herself and tries to absorb Sakura along with her magic (and even succeeds on one occasion). Then there is also Syaoran and Kaito’s battle and Syaoran having his outburst about Kaito being a magician right in front of Akiho. It would be absolute utter chaos, and honestly I’d be living for it. Lmao.

If you believe that this line Momo said was simply to state that his time magic won’t work anymore and that things will continue to progress in this timeline, that would make perfect sense as well, so I don’t want to discount that. I’m just throwing out theories here based on what I know about CLAMP and concepts that are not out of the realm of possibility.

The scenes from here on out bounce a little bit back and forth from a continuation of the conversation with Syaoran and the guardians and present time with Akiho at school. I kinda like the way they did the transitions here, and it didn’t really feel awkward at any point but rather pulled up the relevant information when it was needed.

When Akiho comes in to the classroom, Sakura recalls how the topic of Akiho came up in the conversation from the day before. It’s natural for everyone to question at this point what she knows and if she is someone to be concerned about too. Syaoran mentions that he can’t detect any magic from her, which was something he had looked into from the very first day Akiho arrived at Tomoeda Middle (he knew literally nothing about her, but you know how transfer students go in this town. Lmao). Sakura drops another bombshell here by saying that she actually senses something in Akiho, but she is unclear of what that is and why she feels that way. It’s completely likely that she’s strong enough now to sense the suppressed magic spell the association and her clan put on her. I also noticed Syaoran seemed to tense up when Sakura said this, and I’m sure that this new information probably made him feel very uneasy. Sakura’s instincts are never wrong, and if she feels something, that means there is something, but to think that it’s something even Syaoran can’t sense would definitely be concerning.

 It is then that Syaoran decides to approach the idea of addressing Akiho directly about Kaito’s magic to see what she knows. Maybe at this point in time he is thinking “If she possibly has some sort of magic in her, then she might know already about Kaito”, but like Sakura, he has seen Akiho’s behavior as a person and probably believes that she is not doing anything malicious of her own accord. Perhaps he thinks that Akiho might be able to talk some sense into Kaito and put a stop to things. But the way he goes about it doesn’t push Sakura, but rather just offers it as a suggestion as something a bit more direct.

 Before we see Sakura’s response to this, we are back to Akiho in the classroom and she is very cheerful from having gone out with Kaito the day prior, and OMG CAN I JUST GUSH FOR A MOMENT ABOUT HOW FREAKING PRECIOUS SHE IS? She is seriously adorable, and the more I see her smile, the more it makes me want to burn her whole clan down to the ground for being so awful to her. But also, it reminds me how strong she is to have gone through everything she did and still smile and hold no hatred in her heart. I can’t honestly say I would be the same in her shoes, so it’s really admirable. For those My Hero Academia fans out there, remember Eri’s smile? You know the one I’m talking about. That’s how I feel every time Akiho smiles.

Anyways, back to Sakura’s response. She decides, in a very Sakura-like fashion, to avoid the subject with Akiho for now. It is true that they don’t fully understand who Kaito is and what his intentions are, but the one thing she does know is that he is considered precious to Akiho, and that at least says something about his character. Akiho herself also isn’t an idiot and is perceptive to Kaito’s feelings. Even when he’s smiling, she can tell when he’s actually hurting inside, so if he had bad intentions at all, that likely wouldn’t go unseen either, so Sakura decides that she’ll wait for Akiho to come to her first if the discussion between them needs to happen. I think this is a very mature decision on her part but also continues to show how much she considers the people around her and cares for them.

Back in the present, Akiho apologizes for talking so much, and Sakura tells her that she doesn’t mind and will listen to whatever she has to say. More than just trying to show good will as a friend, I think this is also her way of opening up the door to tell her “If you want to talk about more serious things, I’m here to listen as well”. That way, when the time comes, Akiho will feel comfortable having that conversation with her.

The scene moves on to Yukito’s home where all the guardians are having a nice little get together in their true forms. It’s not entirely necessary for all but Yue to do this, but I love it as we haven’t gotten to see much of them in these forms in the series so far, especially Spinel and Ruby Moon. Ruby Moon is surprised that they decided to go along with what Sakura said, which I suppose makes sense considering they’ve been kinda doing their own thing up until now. But it turns out that it was Syaoran who made the final decision, and the others just took his lead.

 I love that Syaoran was so comfortable just trusting Sakura and realizing that this time, they needed to let her make some choices, especially since it concerned her the most. Moreover, I love that Kero, Suppi, and Yue just basically caved when Syaoran agreed. This shows how much they respect the opinion of not just Sakura, but Syaoran too. They could have easily gone off and continued to work secretly without Sakura, but they didn’t do that. It obviously didn’t work well for them before anyways.

 I cracked up when Ruby Moon mentioned how much Syaoran has grown a lot and used to be a ‘pouty brat’ back when they were in Japan the last time (in his defense, Eriol was screwing with him a lot, so he had a lot of good reasons for the bratty attitude. Lmao). But Kero and Yue’s responses are just precious. They both have the same expression initially, but their actual responses seem to differ quite a bit. Kero states that he will always be a brat to him and that he’s only grown ‘a little’. This is classic Kero essentially saying he agrees that he’s grown a lot, but he won’t admit it yet, hence why Spinel calls him childish. Hahahaha.

Yue’s response however makes me absolutely melt. He states he’s not upset about the mention of Syaoran’s growth, but that that he doesn’t think they “should be in such a hurry to grow up”. He sounds just like a freaking dad here who is happy to see his children grow up, but is also wanting to them to slow down and stay children simultaneously. I am absolutely living for it, and I love seeing how soft he gets when it comes to them. -squeals-

Despite how lighthearted this scene is, I’m gonna put out another theory here that might seem like I’m overthinking and perhaps makes this appear a bit darker than possibly intended. My thought was “Why did CLAMP put such focus on this subject right now?”. They could have simply stated that they decided to go along with Sakura and been done with it, but the made a point to talk about the children’s growth as human beings, particularly Syaoran. Now where am I going with this you ask? Perhaps it’s the Tsubasa PTSD speaking, but when CLAMP has dialogue like this, it usually it done quite purposely at times, because it is meant to enhance our emotions when a particular moment comes later on. So when I thought “Now, why would they be talking so much about how Syaoran’s grown emotionally and how much Kero and Yue care about him?”. I think they are trying to emphasize how much people in general care about him. CLAMP showed it again recently with Touya, who threatened Kaito and purposely included Syaoran in his statement, and again when Kaito pointed his staff at Syaoran and Sakura reacted. CLAMP is pointing out right now how much people care about Syaoran, and I think this is once again a signal that something bad is going to happen to Syaoran, and I think it’s going to be soon.

 Now, Cinzia actually recently found my reaction to spoilers of chapter 1 of Clear Card (that’s right, chapter 1 from all the way back in 2016), and from the very beginning, I have been screaming at the top of my lungs that I had the worst feeling that something bad was going to happen to Syaoran. I imagine some of you are probably tiring of hearing it from me. Lmao. So here we are, 55 chapters and numerous bad dreams later, and I finally feel like that time is really really close. I’m calling it right now that it will probably happen within the next 4-5 chapters, and if I’m wrong, I will eat my words, but them even putting Syaoran on the color page all by himself for this chapter gives me more reason to think that “that time” is approaching.

 That is a good transition for me to talk about the last part of this chapter. We are finally getting some progress on this play Naoko has been writing, and the moment she mentioned it was about “Twin Alices”, I thought to myself “this is going to be where the climax happens”. The pieces are coming together for it, and we’ve finally gotten to hear the premise of this play. We all knew Naoko would ask Sakura and Akiho to play the main roles, but it’s unclear what the role she wants for Syaoran will be when she inevitably peer pressures him into it. Lol. But I’m telling you, I really think this play is where shit is going to hit the fan and we’ll finally get some real answers.

I can’t wait to see what happens from here on out, but it’s very clear to me that things are just going to get more and more intense from here on out!!

[sithsecrets]

release | din djarin x reader

A difficult hunt has Mando in a huff, and his crewmember knows just what he needs.

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2.9k words

mentions: mando’s frustrated but not mean in the slightest, blowjobs, general musings on sex

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Some hunts are easier than others— that’s one of the first things the Mandalorian told when you joined his crew. You’d thought that was a fair answer to the question you’d ask, and it made a lot of sense at the time because of course bounties have levels like practically anything else. Some people are stupid, others are smart…  A simple bail jumper’s probably not going to be much of a challenge, but a spice smuggler or a member of an organized crime ring? That could be difficult.

Before this assignment, you’d thought you knew what a difficult hunt looked like. There was the pimp on Jakku that led Mando on a chase for three days in the dessert, the pair of bail-jumping brothers that ended up being very well-connected to some very scary spicemakers, and a few other quarries that stick out in your mind. But Mando’s most recent mission…

This whole thing was a clusterfuck from the start. Karga had called it a “special quest” when he offered up the puck, and you’d been right there at Mando’s side when he asked for the price. The number that came out of Karga’s mouth was absolutely insane, almost too good to be true.

There was a catch, of course. The quarry is a member of an alien species known for their sameness— each being looks identical, no sex, no gender, no differentiating characteristics. To make a hard job even harder, the quarry’s…. a bad person. They’re dangerous, armed to the teeth, and known to leave a lot of collateral damage in their wake. And they’re rich. Unbelievably rich. The kind of rich that makes a person bulletproof, the kind of rich that lets a person disappear at will like they never existed in the first place.

Yet despite all of this, despite how difficult the task seemed, Mando accepted the puck anyway, and now you’re here in the Crest wondering what the fuck you’re going to do with him.

Four dead-end leads and three planets later, you think Mando’s going to crack. He came back to the ship earlier in a huff, announcing that you, he, and the baby would be going to yet another location to track this person down. Quiet rage has been radiating off of him ever since, the anger Mando feels slipping out here and there in all the wrong ways. He was less patient with the Child earlier when he was putting him down to sleep, and Mando’s tone was clipped when he declined your offer to make him something to eat. You try not to take any of his behavior personally, knowing good and well that Mando’s running on empty. The stress of this hunt has been immense, and you’re not sure if he’s been sleeping or eating like he should during his days away. Knowing how Mando takes care of himself in the best of times, though…

The man needs to relax, you think. He needs a good meal, something warm and filling, and a good night’s sleep. Mando also needs to blow off steam, needs to fight or scream or fuck—

You force yourself to clear that thought from your mind, even as you prepare yourself for what you’re about to do. It’s gamble, to say the very least— this could cost you your job, your place next to the Mandalorian. You don’t think you could stomach it, being sent away by this man that you care for, but something has to be done— about Mando’s agitation and your feelings for him.

Drawing in a deep breath, you stand before the ladder the leads up the cockpit, gathering every bit of courage you have. “Mando,” you call, hoping he won’t react too poorly to be disturbed right now. He went off hours ago, shutting himself away up there to “look over some intel,” whatever the fuck that means.

“What?”

The word comes out short, but not angry, and you figure it’s fine to go on.

“Can I come up?”

Mando doesn’t give you much in the way of an answer, but the noise he makes is affirmative enough. You climb up the ladder, the rungs cold on your bare feet, and then you’re there in the cockpit. Mando’s just as tense as he was when he went up here in the first place, shoulders drawn taut, eyes trained on a hologram in front of him. It looks like some sort of map, though the lines and colors mean little to you.

“How’s it going?”

He doesn’t even turn his head. “Fine.”

You watch Mando for a moment, nervous as you consider how to play this.

“Don’t you think you should rest, Mando?” you ask, coming to stand beside the pilot’s chair. He’s still hasn’t looked at you, hasn’t so much as glanced in your direction. “You need to eat, and I think sleeping would—”

“I’m not tired,” Mando cuts, and it takes everything in you to bite back your frustration.

“Yes, you are. You’re exhausted, and probably hungry, and even the baby can sense it.”

You don’t get a word of acknowledgement from the Mandalorian, not so much as a fucking syllable, and you finally slip just the slightest bit.

“Mando,” you declare, tone firm and demanding, and finally, finally, you have his full attention.

“Yes?”

Exasperation is clear in the Mandalorian’s voice, but he’s looking at you know, turning the pilot’s chair in your direction. One or two steps closer, and you’d be standing right between his legs, close enough to reach out—

Focus.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” you huff, hands on your hips. “You know I’m right. I know this quarry’s been hard to catch, but you’re starting to slip.”

Once again, Mando leaves you sitting in silence, though it would seem that some of the fight’s left his body. Carefully, you inch forward, and just the slightest thrill runs up your back when Mando opens his legs to make room for you.

“I’m worried about you,” you confess, voice softening. “I don’t want you to wear yourself out.”

Mando’s sigh is long and tired, but he’s out of energy to argue any further. “You’re right,” he concedes. “I— Maybe I am going a little too hard.”

“Of course I’m right.”

You take no real pleasure in this, but you are glad to hear Mando admit that he needs to slow down. With that done, though, it’s time for you to be brave, perhaps braver than you’ve ever been in your life.

“You need to relax, Mando,” you say softly, reaching out to rub at his arm. The visor follows your every move, but Mando trains his eyes right on you when you murmur, “Let me help you.”

“How— What do you mean?”

You’ve got the Mandalorian stuttering, and something about that boosts your confidence to a dangerous level. It almost feels like it’s not you that sinks down onto the floor, dropping onto one knee and then the other between Mando’s legs. Your fingers are on his belt for no more than a second before he’s reaching out, before he’s pushing your hands away and jolting in shock.

“Whoa, mesh’la, that’s not—”

“Necessary?” you cut, cocking your head. “I think that it is, Mando. You need to relax.”

“Yeah, but I don’t— You’re not obligated to—”

“Of course I’m not obligated. I want to do this, Mando. I want to take care of you.”

You settle on your knees and twist your hands out of Mando’s gentle grasp, the leather of his gloves cool on your palms. His fists clench and unclench under your touch, anxious and fidgety, and you feel the need to pause for just a moment.

“Mando,” you say softly, squeezing his hands, “I know what you need, and I’m happy to give it to you. But if you don’t want this, tell me now. I’ll go back down to the hull, you can go back to your map, and we never have to talk about it again.”

Mando hesitates, and you find yourself wondering if you this was a good idea.

“You actually want to do this? You— To me?”

You nod. “I really do.”

Finally, after a few more seconds of tense silence, Mando lets himself relax. You feel it, the way the muscles in his thighs go slack under your arms, the rest of his body sagging back in the pilot’s chair. Eyes track your every movement as you unbuckle Mando’s belt, though you see nothing but the blackness of the visor when you glance up. He’s good help, shifting from side to side as you try to tug his pants down just the slightest bit, and then there’s nothing left for you to do but start.

The moment you lean down to kiss the head of Mando’s cock, you’re blindsided by just how much you missed this. It’s been so long since you had sex with another person, so long since you felt the weight of a man on your tongue in this way. And the smell, Maker, the smell… You get lost in what you’re doing, focused on nothing but the feel of Mando’s cock in your mouth and the throbbing between your thighs. So lost, in fact, that it takes you about ten seconds too long to realize that you’re being touched.

Sometime between you undoing his belt and this very moment, Mando took off his gloves and threaded his fingers in your hair. He doesn’t pull or push or so much as try to control what you’re doing, but there’s a pressure there, a warmth. It would be inconsequential if Mando were someone else, the fact that his hand is bare against your scalp, but he isn’t. Such a simple gesture, and yet…

You sit back on your heels and catch your breath, one hand stroking Mando’s cock at a steady, even pace. A noise indicative of something not unlike despair slips out of the modulator that same instance, so quick and so quiet that it’s almost lost in the static, and not for the first time do you find yourself cursing the fucking helmet. You ache to see Mando’s face, you ache to see his whole fucking body…

“Are you feeling better?” you purr, mouth slick with drool as you talk. You’re not sure Mando likes you all sloppy and ruined like this, but you think it’s safe to go out on a limb just this once.

“Yes,” Mando grits, body shuddering when you lean down to kiss his cock. You take private pleasure in that, thrilled by the notion that a person like you could affect a person like him in such a way.

“Would you feel even better if you came down my throat? Or do you want to see it on my face instead?”

Mando keens, and you feel all-powerful.

“In your mouth,” Mando answers, fingers coming up to stroke your cheek. He sounds shaky, and you let up on his cock just the slightest bit. “I don’t— You don’t deserve to have someone make a mess of you.”

“I don’t mind a mess,” you say, because you don’t, not if Mando’s the one fucking you up. “Maybe next time I suck you off I’ll let you cum on my tits. I—”

“Now you’re just fucking with me,” he groans, squirming in his chair like he can’t help it.

“I’m not,” you purr, “I promise you I’m not. You can do anything you want to me, Mando, I mean that. I’ll lie there and take it—”

“Maker, your fucking mouth,” Mando cuts, breath ragged. “If you keep fucking talking, I’ll—”

He never gets to finish the sentence, words crumbling into nothing as you abandon your little game. You suck him off in earnest, using your tongue, paying special attention the places that make him jerk in his seat when you so much as breathe on them. It doesn’t take him long to fall apart, and you try your best to take it all, swallowing obediently like the taste is nothing to you. And how could you care about something as inconsequential as of the flavor of Mando’s cum when his cock is pulsing in your mouth, when he’s groaning and fisting his hand in your hair…

Listening to Mando cum, feeling him cum makes you drunk off arousal, but you force yourself to tamp down the feeling. He’d fuck you if you asked, rub your clit and let you clench on his fingers until you came at the very least, but this just… isn’t about you. No, this was something for Mando, a way for you to help him calm down, and you don’t want to ruin whatever peace he’s found by making demands. You’ll get yours soon, if you’re patient, and that’s more than okay right now.

Mando seems tired when you finally pull off of him for good, body sagging under his armor like simply holding himself upright would be a chore. You feel shy under his gaze, all your confidence and bravery slipping further and further away by the second. This was something you’d neglected to think about when you formed this plan in your mind, the after. Sucking Mando off and making him feel better is all well and good, but you still have to look at him, still have to go to sleep tonight and wake up in the morning knowing this happened. Knowing that he knows this happened…

Slowly, ever so slowly, Mando musters up a bit of strength, pulling up his pants and doing up the fly as you watch from your place on the floor. You’re half expecting to be dismissed when he’s done, and that’s why it’s such a shock when Mando leans forward to hold your face in his hands.

“Come here,” he says softly, and you don’t have to be told twice.

Your legs burn when you stand up, and your knees ache from kneeling like you did. None of that matters though, not when Mando sits you on his thighs and wraps his arms around your body. You’re facing him, legs dangling just above the floor on either side of his. The beskar is cold and hard against your skin, but Mando’s hands are warm, the expanse his palm soothing down the plane of your back. Up and down, up and down, up and down the heat travels, breathing life into something delicate and raw inside your chest. You thread your arms around Mando’s neck after a few minutes, glad that he’s still not talking. Something about his affection has you choking up, and you’d rather die than give yourself away. It’s the silence, you think, the way he says so much without speaking a word.

“Thank you.”

The words come out in a staticky whisper, the sound of them crackling in your ear. And though it pains you to do so, you sit up and look at Mando properly, missing the warmth of his neck the minute it’s gone.

“It was… You don’t have to thank me,” you say softly, fiddling with the collar of Mando’s shirt. You wonder where his cape is and why he took it off in the first place, though you’re not exactly sad to see it go. “Are you hungry? I made you a plate earlier even though you said you didn’t want to eat. It’s still good if you want it.”

“I do have to thank you,” Mando insists, holding your chin in his fingers. “You take good care of me, cyar’ika.”

Cheeks hot, you refuse to meet his eyes. “Well, it’s not like you don’t deserve it.”

You want to ask him what those names mean, the one he called you just now and the one he blurted out earlier when he tried to stop you. But you think it might ruin the mood, and so you swallow the question like you swallowed the lump in your throat a few minutes ago.

“If you go lie down in my bed,” Mando says slowly, one hand trailing down, down, down your shivering back, “I’ll take good care of you too.”

And though the very idea of what that could mean has you ready to run down the ladder as fast as you can, you shake your head.

“I just want to go to sleep, Mando,” you tell him, “I’m tired. And I know you are too.”

Mando’s going to protest, he’s going to insist he pay you back, this much is made clear by the way his hands tighten around your hips. But you cut him off before his tongue can so much as form the words, pressing your chest against his, rolling your hips…

“But when you catch the quarry, we’ll do whatever you want. I said you could do anything to me, remember?”

The Mandalorian’s breath hitches, and you know then that you have him.

“This was a release,” you explain, ducking your head to press you lips to whatever skin you can. The helmet does a good job of concealing his jaw, but not every bit of his neck is hidden away. “That will be a celebration.”

Mando huffs through the modulator, though you think his discontent is all for show.

“Fine,” he concedes, “but you better be waiting for me in that fucking bed when I get back.”

[elvendara]

Sugar and Spice Day 3

July 14th

Rock concert (Rockstar/Fan)

“Five minutes till curtains up!” the man ran backstage shouting over the din. Saeran expected a knock on his door shortly and sure enough, it came. Without waiting for an answer, the man opened the door to let him know the time limit. Saeran locked eyes with him through the mirror and nodded.

Once the door was again closed, he stared at himself. He’d long ago bleached his hair white to differentiate himself from his twin. Saeyoung worked in the shadows, it wouldn’t do to have a famous brother who looked exactly like him. He also utilized colored lenses. It served two purposes, he didn’t need to wear glasses, in fact, his fans didn’t even know he needed them, and the mint green was a stark contrast to his regular, amber-colored eyes. The pink tips were a more recent addition, but he liked them.

Black eyeliner was expertly applied, years of practice making it almost effortless. He took a sponge and smudged it, giving himself that perfect edgy look. The earrings were already in, silver crosses dangling on each side of his face. Ironic really, considering he didn’t believe in God. The thick black silver studded collar was snuggly around his neck as was the matching cuff around his right wrist. He stood and grabbed his leather jacket, sliding it on and glancing into the full-length mirror he had been given in his dressing room. He was comfortable in this persona. The music had been a way for him to deal with his life. Writing down his anger, confusion, and loneliness was a way to get it out of him. It became bigger than him pretty quickly and he found that hiding behind rock stardom meant he didn’t have to answer any real questions about his true self. It worked. Except it kept him lonely and alone. He’d come to terms with spending the rest of his life that way. It was easier than imagining being real with someone. Who could ever love the real him anyway?

He smirked at his reflection as he laced up his biker boots. Time to bring the house down!

..

He was soaked in sweat but didn’t feel tired. In fact, he felt invigorated, like every time he finished a concert. Feeding off the audience was one of the biggest perks to his career. Someone handed him a towel and he wiped his face with it.

“Great show Saeran!” one of the concert coordinators told him. She held a tablet to her chest and had a handful of fans behind her. Five doe eyed girls and one shy looking boy. Well, now that he looked closer, he was definitely a man, close to his own age. He looked sheepish being with the teenaged groupies. “These are the VIP’s for tonight’s afterparty. Thought I’d introduce you before you change.”

“Nice! Great to meet you, I’m glad we’ll be hanging out tonight. Hope you have a good time. Congrats on winning the backstage passes.” He regurgitated. There wasn’t always an afterparty but there were some special guests, rich, who had paid for the whole thing, so he’d been pressed to oblige them with an appearance. He hated the politics of being famous, but he did love his fans. It was because of them that he could enjoy what he did. If it was up to him, he’d fill the party with fans and not rich entitled groupies. He knew he would spend the night fending off offers to ‘get to know each other better’ all night.

“Oh my GOD! It’s really you!”

“Wow! You’re so HOT!”

“Ahhh, my friends are never gonna believe this!”

The girls were just cookie cutter versions of every other girl he’d seen. He couldn’t blame them; it’s how they sold his image. The man looked embarrassed; he wouldn’t even look him in the eye. He took the chance to check him out. He appeared to be a tad shorter than himself, with blond hair and pink clips holding back his bangs. He wore one of his concert shirts and tight-fitting skinny jeans. His nails were painted alternating pink and black with the black ones having his band’s logo on it, a mint green eye. So he really was a fan. Cute too.

“Uh, well, like the lady said, I have to go get changed for the party, I’ll see you all there. And be sure to grab your swag bags before you leave, don’t let them rip you off there! There’s a CD with a snippet of some of our new songs.” He winked and walked off. There was a lot of oohing and ahhing as he left.

He took a quick shower and dressed in a ripped black T-shirt, black jeans and his biker boots, putting all his accessories back on and reapplying his eyeliner. Taking a deep breath, he turned and walked out to the convention center next to the arena. Of course he wasn’t alone, he had security that surrounded him and paparazzi snapping pics as he made his way to the party. They screamed questions at him that he didn’t answer, he smirked, the signature look the media had come to know him by. Surrounded by so many yet feeling so alone. Making it next door took longer than it should have because of the circus around him, but make it he did.

Once he was inside he was taken by the arm by the coordinator who had introduced him to the fans, he couldn’t remember her name but she seemed nice enough. At least she didn’t flirt with him like other women did and took her job seriously.

“You’re here, great, first you should go say hi to the Han family, they’re the ones footing the bill for this afterparty, then you can have a few minutes with the fans before talking to some reporters…”

“Whoah.” He stopped in his tracks and could swear she left skid marks with her heels she’d been going so fast. “I want more than just a few minutes with those fans, and who are all these people anyway?” He saw his bandmates and some of the roadies, but everyone else was a stranger.

“Nobody you need to worry about, uh, I’ll see what I can do with the schedule.” She seemed frazzled but clicked away on her tablet while heading off again. He assumed he should follow, so he did.

“Mr. Han, I appreciate you taking the time and effort for this function.” Saeran greeted the elderly man.

“Ah, of course of course, anything for my new bride!” he had his arm around a young woman who was clearly less than half his age. The rumors about C&R’s head were obviously true. Standing on his other side was a tall and elegant man who appeared to wish he was anywhere but here. He’d seen that face plastered on magazines of all sorts. The heir apparent, Director of C&R, Jumin Han. They nodded respectfully at each other, Saeran feeling sorry for the man and having to deal with his father’s escapades, but the old man seemed like a descent sort. After a few minutes of his ‘wife’ fawning all over him, making him feel uncomfortable, the coordinator pulled him away. He was thankful to her for saving him.

She escorted him towards a section in the back, past all the dancing and the loud music, that was closed off. The music was still loud but at least he could hear himself think. In the section the fans sat, eating and drinking snacks on the coffee table. They all stood up and rushed him. Well, the girls did, touching him and giggling. Where were their parents? They didn’t look old enough to be out. They sat him down and pressed against him. The blond man sat to the side in a chair and continued to sip his cola and eat the snacks, sneaking a look now and then. He wished he could just be alone with him and have a conversation. At least he wouldn’t try to crawl on his lap like these girls seemed to want to do. Well, maybe he wouldn’t mind if the blond tried that.

After about 30 minutes, which felt like a lifetime, the coordinator gathered up the girls and took them out. It was past midnight and he guessed he had been right about their age, couldn’t have minors out at all hours of the night. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. It felt like they had leached some of his life force out and he was drained.

“I guess that happens all the time to you huh?”

Saeran sat up abruptly, how could he have forgotten about the blond?

“Sorry, I’ll go if you want to be alone.” He stood and Saeran panicked.

“NO!” he stood, banging his knee on the coffee table, sending him on his ass back on the sofa. He grabbed at the knee, eyes scrunched, “Ow ow ow…”

“Let me see.” Suddenly there was a presence by him as the blond sat beside him, his fingers touching his knee. Because of the ripped jeans, it was easy to see his skin in that area. “Doesn’t look so bad, at least you didn’t break the skin. You’ll have a hell of a bruise though.” The blond raised his gaze to Saeran and he finally got to see the full view. Wow, those eyes knocked him out, was that color even natural? Maybe he was wearing amethyst-colored lenses like what he himself wore. His face was kind, a soft pink flush growing across his cheeks and bridge of his nose. It was adorable.

“Ah, that was really stupid of me. But…I’m glad you didn’t leave. We didn’t even get a chance to chat.” Saeran tried to regain his coolness but found he couldn’t seem to be bothered to try and act in front of this man. “Uh, what’s your name?”

“Yoosung. Don’t have to ask yours I guess.” He smiled, lighting up the entire room.

“Yoosung…I like it.”

“Thanks. I…uh…like you. I mean…I…your music…I…I…like your music…and…uh…I”

Saeran laughed and waved off Yoosung’s explanation.

“So you’re a fan huh? And what…a doctor?” he asked, placing his foot on the ground gently, still rubbing his knee.

“Not quite. But I am going to medical school. And yes, a BIG fan!” his eyes got large, as did his smile. “Your songs spoke to me when I was at a really low point. I don’t know, it felt like you knew what I was going through and understood my pain.” The smile faltered as his thoughts went back to those days. Saeran reached out and placed his hand on Yoosung’s, yes, he knew what it was like to be in pain, he could see it in his eyes.

Their eyes met, an understanding passing between them.

[mor-beck-more-problems]

Souls of Mischief || Morgan & Caoimhe

TIMING: the recent past

LOCATION: UMWC

PARTIES: @evebrennan & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Two adjuncts square up against the new dean. Is it really a UMWC faculty meeting if everything goes according to plan?

CONTAINS: N/A

Since the dean of the arts and sciences college had gotten his face eaten and the volmugger dean who unofficially replaced him had been sliced and diced, the faculty meeting had to be postponed until summer. With all the deaths and disappearances from the last year, the faculty was able to squeeze comfortably into one of the small lecture halls from the early days of the school, pre AC. They were twenty minutes in and Morgan’s nose was starting to pick up the sour smell of human sweat filling the room. As she slumped deeper into her chair, she found herself thinking that maybe the volmugger dean hadn’t been so bad after all. At least his meeting probably would have been over by now.

She turned to the woman next to her. “Do you ever wish for a fire scare or a cryptid attack during these, or is that just a me thing?”

Humans were captivating for their creativity, and Caoimhe had never encountered anything as terribly uncreative as a routine meeting. Death by powerpoints, a man droning on about grading rubrics and research coming out of New York City. Somewhere in there was a hopeful message about Summer classes and plans for the Fall, but the man’s tone never changed. She felt liable to crawl out of her own skin should it go on for much longer, shifting restlessly in her seat. Typically, in a room so full, there would always be someone to whom Caoimhe was drawn. It was true, meetings sucked the creativity out of everything.

She was halfway through a list of ways she could get out of it, varying from a simple bathroom excuse to complete university meltdown, when a voice piped up from beside her. Ah, better. “Only every meeting. We could make it happen. Any of the above. I prefer bothering them with increasingly outrageous questions until they give up and let us go, personally.” She wondered how long it would take to get him going. If she could get him to give up before the PowerPoint was done. “Ten bucks says if we team up, we could be out of here before he can bring up the next slide.”

Morgan quirked her eyes with interest. Generally, the most she got out of someone was a little indulgent smile (so funny, Morgan; you and your little quips) or a grimace of agreement, because solidarity was the only thing that made these meetings bearable. No one really talked back, much less turned around and offered something back. Morgan scooted closer to the woman.

“Are you serious? Because I can’t tell if you’re serious, and if you’re not serious, I’m going to be really embarrassed when I ask that guy to explain why he chose the font he did for this thrilling presentation and no one jumps in to one up me.” She sat up a little straighter, tilting her head in a show of false interest at the presentation. “If we do make this work, we should give ourselves something nice. As a treat, you know?”

Oh, there was hope for the meeting yet. Caoimhe sat up, finding a grin that didn’t match the less-than-lively meeting topic in the least. She showed more interest in a matter of moments than she had for the entirety of the meeting up to that point, and she couldn’t even be bothered to care. It was so rare that anyone was willing to play along. Most meetings were spent tapping her toes against carpet, or filling quickly sketched staff lines in the margins of her notes. Some part of her felt she should pay attention, given she was new and working on a good first impression, but the meeting was unbearably boring, and there was someone present who was perfectly willing to cause some trouble.

“I don’t joke around when it comes to...joking around.” She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head around a laugh, turning back to the front. Displayed was a slide reading “2021 Changes,” and she was certain they’d been covering changes for at least thirty minutes. Freedom was imminent. “My vote is ice cream.”

Her vote was anything that wasn’t another staff meeting. She raised her hand, “Excuse me, sorry. I just couldn’t help but notice you’re using the Geometric theme by Slides. It’s an excellent choice, very clean. May I ask why Geometric instead of, say, Plum, or Spearmint?”

It took the New Dean several seconds to realize someone else was talking. He blinked behind his tortoiseshell glasses at Caoimhe, then at his presentation, then back again. “This...was recommended to me by my assistant.” He laughed affably. “And if you’ll observe, as we move on to the next section of the faculty code of conduct, the hexagons make for a very convenient grouping of text, so you can differentiate between the point and the rationale…”  He fumbled with his clicker and brought the next slide up.

“Oh, actually, I have a question about that formatting!” Morgan called. “The color contrast you picked is interesting, but I was wondering why you deviated from black and white. And why the font? It’s not so great for those of us in the back or with visual impairments. Which, I dunno, considering our disciplines is probably a lot of us, right?”

A few women sitting nearby sniggered.

“Obviously I can’t speak for anyone else, but everything you’re saying reads like gibberish to me. And I feel like my professional enrichment is being underserved.”

Ah, the next slide. Caoimhe was only allowed a moment of defeat before her partner in crime piped up, and the Dean’s initial laughter faded into a look of disbelief. The energy in the room changed. People were shifting in their chairs, interest piqued. Caoimhe could see a few burying their heads in the crook of their elbow, or covering their laughter with a hand over their mouths. She had a feeling she was going to like UMWC. Not if every meeting derailed so easily, not if she’d always have someone so perfectly willing to try.

“Oh, my deepest apologies.” There was a pause, then, while the Dean twisted the clicker in his hands and considered his next course of action. Caoimhe could see the red creeping into his cheeks, and she might’ve felt bad for him, if she wasn’t enjoying herself so much.

“There’s actually a site to help with contrast, as well as outlines of the best fonts to use in presentations. For example, Garamond fonts look very professional, yet are still easy to read.” Caoimhe grinned,  “I can send an email, even carbon copy your assistant, if you’d like.”

Morgan turned to Caoimhe as if noticing her for the first time. “Oh, my gosh! Could you? That sounds so amazing and helpful. Barbara--” She waved down a woman two rows up. “You had a student who was color-blind and dyslexic last semester, right? Did you ever figure out what the best format and coloring was for him?”

“No, that was me!” Another woman, Stephanie Shannon, called. Stephanie liked to be an authority on things. It made it easier to correct everyone else. And so, when Morgan happened to call the wrong woman, of course she had to be corrected. Stephanie launched into a long anecdote about her student and the research she did, and which websites were not at all helpful, and so on.

The New Dean tapped his microphone. “If we could turn back to business--”

“I believe Doctor Shannon is still speaking,” Morgan said, unable to hide the glee in her voice.

“Thank you, Professor Beck,” Stephanie said, genuinely touched.

Morgan leaned back in her seat and turned to Caoimhe. “So, the real question is whether we want to see if his face is going to get any redder or if we want to pretend to go to the ladies’ room and never come back.”

Chaos ensued and Caoimhe barely managed to conceal a smile behind her hand. The careful structure of the meeting falling to pieces around them was almost enough to make her stay, but it was still a meeting, and she was willing to bet Doctor Shannon had about as much to say as the Dean did. The deed was done. If she stayed in her spot another moment longer, her laughter would give her away.

A quick excuse and she was tumbling into the hallway, the sound of continued arguing cutting off abruptly as the door shut in her wake. The amount of joy she derived from the dean’s expression as she ducked out was near pathological.

“Professor Beck, was it?” Caoimhe had grown well-accustomed to starting over, to finding her footing in new environments. There was always a nook into which she could burrow herself, even if it was a box-strewn hotel room rented by the week. She preferred it when it looked like this. Like university hallways and bookshelves, drifting notes from a piano in a practice room, and sometimes people. They were always the hardest. They had interests, opinions, smiles and laughter of their own. It was easy to leave behind a bookshelf or a piano. It wasn’t always easy to leave behind people, the rare friend. Professor Beck had jumped in with the same glee Caoimhe had, and she already found herself thinking about what it would mean to leave. “I’m stealing you for every meeting. I’m sorry, it’s just the way it’s going to be.”

Morgan followed her new friend out. People seldom questioned women leaving in pairs, and she’d just earned some much needed goodwill. When the doors to the lecture room closed behind her, she finally let herself laugh, more pleased with herself than she’d been in a long time.

“Why yes,” she said, bowing dramatically. “Morgan Beck, at your service. I am great at distractions, petty theft, and driving away unwanted attention. My knowledge of literature isn’t so bad either.” She laughed again and sidled up to the other woman. “I would be honored, thrilled even, to be your partner in crime for the next meeting. But first, I definitely want to know who I have the honor of being in cahoots with, and if I can steal you for my meetings too.” It had been a while since she’d had a reason to feel happy at work. Since she’d had a real friend she could do shallow simple things with. There was no keeping the supernatural from coming to her door no matter where she went, but a moment of good, a little bubble of fun and nothing now and then, could be worth a lot.

“Oh, Morgan!” Caoimhe stood up a little straighter, grinning. “English professor Morgan? Likes the Cranberries Morgan?” She gave her own bow, “It’s Caoimhe, Music professor, new in town. Also great at distractions, and car sing alongs like you wouldn’t believe.” Suddenly, White Crest didn’t feel quite so daunting. It felt just that little bit more like somewhere she could settle, if she ever found herself in a capacity to do so. Perhaps there was something to the fog, to the way it felt disconnected in a way no other town had managed. Perhaps there was something to letting herself have friendships in the in-between.

There was muffled arguing from behind the door, and Caoimhe descended into another laugh, moving further down the hallway. There’d been some mention of a treat in reward of success, and the rapidly derailing meeting behind them was definitely a success. “Now, as much fun as that was, I’ve already enlisted you as my arm wrestling champion, how could I possibly expect even more of you?”

“Yes! That’s me! And you’re Vivaldi and Britney Spears Caoimhe?” Morgan gaped. She followed Caoimhe down the hall, shoes skittering in a cascade of delight as she avoided the oncoming faculty approaching the door. “Oh, you’re amazing! You’re like the first cool person my age here and you actually give a shit about your students and teaching and you sing in the car too? Do you also sing karaoke? I just--feel like you’re one swooping in here and making everything here a whole lot better. Let me get you something, a drink, or lunch or whatever people with sudden free-time do.” She caught up to herself, hearing the echo of her own rambling and her unchecked enthusiasm in the hall. “Or, um, a rain check. Obviously. But, you really do seem great and this place isn’t kind to great people, especially when they’re isolated. And, you know, selfishly, I really do appreciate having a partner in crime. There’s only so much mischief you can get up to when it’s you against the world.”

“Okay, okay correction.” Caoimhe matched the same excited rambling coming from Morgan. She talked with her hands. Her mother would grab them sometimes, pin them to a table and say her name sharp, but with a smile tugging at the edges of her lips. Caoimhe never did make an effort to fix it. “It’s you and me against the world now, so just jot that one down. Or...at the very least boring staff meetings. We can work up to the whole world part, but I’m dedicated.”

She tucked her thumbs into the pockets of her slacks. She liked the sound of Vivaldi and Britney Spears Caoimhe, and cool person, and lunch between classes. Of someone who seemed just as excited to wreak havoc as she was, who cared about her students, who liked karaoke, and oh. That one wouldn’t be the best idea, but the rest! Caoimhe would happily get behind the rest. “Yes to karaoke sometimes, no to the rain check.” She parsed through the onslaught to address one item at a time, quick and with just as much enthusiasm as the questions had been asked. “You seem great, I don’t rain check great. But reverse it, let me get you a drink, or lunch, or something.”

Morgan couldn’t fight the way she brightened up at Caoimhe’s assurances. “Okay! Then--” Shoot. She didn’t eat out anymore. Or enjoy most food. “Coffee? I know it’s hot and terrible outside, but we can get something iced. I know where the best places in town are.” And she could actually taste a quad shot latte. “I’ll let you pay this time, but only because it contractually obligates a second outing when I get to pay. And the sky’s the limit there, because while we adjuncts might get shit for pay, I get some very generous supplemented by my unspeakably wonderful future-wife.” She slipped her hands into her own skirt pockets and elbowed Caoimhe, grinning. “I like the sound of that, though: you and me against the department and really boring faculty meetings. Today the arts college, tomorrow the school, and then who knows?”

[adultingautistic]

Just got my diagnosis and I'm happy to finally have a confirmation of my autism but I was kinda disappointed at how it went. They asked me about some stereotypical traits and made a bunch of tests for 8 weeks but never once asked me about how those things affected me. They just concluded that since I never failed a class in uni and I'm verbal then I'm high functioning even though I showed extreme deficits in all kinds of attention. I took 1 shower this month. How is this high functioning??

Ask date: September 10th

Me too, anon.  I was also pretty disappointed when I went for my evaluation at how...missing the mark? it felt.  

I was saddened by how obvious it was that the tester understood absolutely nothing about what it was like to be autistic.  Oh he was qualified to give the test.  He knew what behaviors to look for when trying to determine if someone is autistic.  And that was it.  He just knew what behaviors to look for.

He didn’t understand the underlying reason for them, or how they made me feel, or how they affected my life.  It was very obvious to me that I knew far more about autism than he did, and I found that really, really disappointing.

And that’s just the state of how it is right now.  Allistic doctors just don’t understand.  I don’t know if it’s that they can’t understand or don’t want to understand (probably a combination of both), but either way, they do not.

And so I was disappointed too, because I had been hoping to...get something out of my evaluation.  I had been hoping to learn something about myself, I suppose.  Instead what I learned was that I was what I’d always known I was- autistic.  I just walked out of there with a paper that said so, and that was all.

I was so disappointed in that experience that it led me to start saying diagnosis was pointless, because what did it even do for me?  But that was incorrect, because my diagnosis was the “proof” I needed to convince others (mainly my job, but also my family), of what I knew all along, which was I was different, and autism was why. 

So your tester didn’t understand autism, to the point that they still used functioning labels, which isn’t even IN the DSM-5.  The DSM uses the word “severity”, in relation to specific symptoms, as in “the severity of a certain symptom”, NOT, the “functioning ability of the entire human.” 

Because humans are complex!  We are made up of many attributes!  One cannot say that this human is “more functional” than that human, such differentiation is ableist and horribly bigoted, because humans are not machines!  Our purpose is not “to function.”  We are so much more; we are creative, we are conscious thought, we are self-aware, we are emotions and dreams.  We are so much more than “functional”, and to boil any one person down to that is disgusting, and misses the entire point of what it is to be human.

But so, so many doctors (and therefore parents of autistic children, who rely on the doctors for their information), instead boil us down into “high functioning” (can pass as allistic) and “low functioning” (cannot pass as allistic).  

What they should be doing is evaluating the severity of EACH autistic symptom, and determining the level of support that you need in EACH of those areas, thus leading to a complex and colorful profile of a complete human being who needs more support in some areas and doesn’t need as much in others.

I can only hope that someday, this will change.  That the doctors will actually be trained on how to properly diagnose by using the DSM-5 guidelines, or that better tests will be developed that make it easier for testers to see autism as many symptoms on many spectrums, and not try to boil down an entire human person into one single label.

Until then, though, you have your diagnosis, and congratulations!  It is good to have it!  Now you can tell who you need to tell that you’re autistic, and they will have to believe you, because you have the proof.  It can help you get the resources and help that are out there, and that is no small thing. 

And then when you want to be understood, or to understand yourself better, or to learn about or understand autism better, you come here and talk to other autistics.  There are people who understand.  It’s just not the doctors (yet).  

[barnesbabee]

I’m a Lie || K.H

Summary: Destiny is cruel sometimes... And you sure were punished by it, when you met your soulmate in the worst scenario possible.

Pairing: Kim Hongjoong x Reader

Words: Who cares tbh

Genre: Smut, Angst, Fluff

⚠ choking, spanking, praise kink, violence, mentions of drugs ⚠

A/N: I love this one. By far one of my favourites and I feel like it suits the member well. If it flops I will singlehandedly murder everyone. Enjoy xx💖

ᴄʀ: ʙᴀʀɴᴇꜱʙᴀʙᴇᴇ

  The file plopped in front of you. A picture of a man was attached to it and you looked at it briefly.

 Kim Hongjoong.

  "Retain information. Eliminate him. It's not important how, by the end of the month Kim Hongjoong has to disappear."   

  You said nothing. Your only reply was a nod, and with that you grabbed the beige folder and exited the gelid room. The jet was already at the top of the building waiting for you to enter.

  You bowed to the security guards that stood by each side of the jet's stairs, and they reciprocated the gesture.

  Once you settled down in the plane, you crossed your legs and prepared yourself for some thorough reading. You flipped through the pages of the man's profile, taking in all of the information.

  "Producer, writer, rapper... Kid had a future." You closed the binder with a sigh and threw it on the small table in front of you "Too bad."

  You sipped from the water bottle in your hand and a man sat in front of you. He had a rough face, like he'd been through Hell and made it out alive. His dark hair was tamed by a coat of hair gel, and his eyes were droopy yet feral.

   "Junhwan." You said, and bowed at him.

   "Y/N." He bowed back.

   He handed you a second file and a heavy handbag.

   "From now on your name is Anne. You're an exchange student interested in pursuing a musical career as a producer. All of the items to bring 'Anne' to life are in the duffel bag."

   You nodded and set the bag aside, ready to take in your character.

   "Poor kid..." You told your colleague as you read the details of the person you'd be impersonating for the next few weeks.

   The man in front of you scoffed.

    "Since when do you pity people?" He asked with an amused face.

    "I don't. But he got caught in a fight that wasn't his."

    Junhwan leaned closer to you and looked you in the eye, irradiating and intimidation as he slightly leaned his head to the right.

     "Don't let decency and sentiment get in the way." He warned with a cold voice.

     You didn't reply. You felt offended that the man would even insinuate you'd fail at anything. You glared at him for a second, and drifted his attention back to the 'Anne' files.

    However, you couldn't get out of your head the poor man that would be sacrificed in the name of another individual. It was unbeknownst to everyone how it had happened, but Hongjoong had caught his boss making a significant transaction to your boss and talking about it on the phone. He didn't understand at first, but when he caught sight of the bags filled with the white powder he was able to connect all the dots. Unfortunately for him, he was caught. And although the CEO of his company trusted him enough to keep quiet, your boss didn't.

    It was sad... Usually the people you were assigned to were madmen, criminals, vile people that couldn't differentiate joy from violence, but never young men, at the peak of their career whose life was cursed by knowledge.

   You sighed one last time before making your way to the bathroom. You dyed your hair blue and cut it shoulder-length, as you wanted your appearance to scream "creativity". Your hair was usually bleached, so if you had to suddenly dye it for some sort of mission it would be faster and easier.

   One hour later you exited the bathroom, with blue hair and a brand new outfit that had been given to you. You grabbed all of your materials and exited the jet that hat landed not long before that.

   Time flashed by the second you stepped foot in Seoul. You were used to monotone scenarios, cold atmospheres, and torture, but Seoul was the opposite. The lights and colors of the city were inviting and the smiles of the old ladies selling food on the street gave you a warm feeling in your body.

  You tried to adjust to the city for the next day, and by 3 PM your assigned phone sounded with a ding. You checked it and read the message Junhwah had sent you.

   "9 AM. KQ Entertainment, two blocks down your home. They will be teaching you, you're supposed to be an intern. I expect excellence and nothing else."

   You took in the information and nodded to yourself as you read it.

   "Understood." You typed and hit send.

   You studied Hongjoong thoroughly that night. Every little movement, every peculiar habit, and every detail about the man. You wished you didn't need to do it however... The more you looked into him, the more you realized how pure, generous, hard-working, and amiable he was.

  "Fuck..." You cursed, dragging the 'u' in the word, as you threw your head back.

   You couldn't take watching that smile that would soon be gone anymore, so you just crashed in the small bed of your flat and waited for the next day.

   When 9 AM rolled in, you were already in the building, looking for some sort of guidance.

   "Are you Anne?"

   You whipped your head to find a man you'd never seen before. He certainly wasn't a member of ATEEZ, but he looked like an idol.

    It was finally time for you to perform as Anne, and so you put on a scaredy-cat face and bowed nervously.

  "Y-yes, yes I am."

  You made sure to add a little stutter for conviction. It seemed to convince the man, as he chuckled and extended his hand.

   "I'm Jiho, but I go by Zico." He paused as you smiled and shook his hand "I will be one of your mentors, along with Hongjoong. He's the leader of ATEEZ, have you heard of them?"

  You nodded your head slightly and he smiled.

  "You'll like him. Follow me then, he's already in the studio."

  Much to your dismay, Hongjoong was exactly what he displayed on camera. You half expected him to be rude and stuck-up, but he was just as kind and loving how as he made it look.

   Focus on the mission.

  Getting close to Hongjoong was easy. You pretended to be interested in every single task at hand, constantly asking for his help and even staying for longer than necessary at night.

  “Anne... You know you don't need to stay, right?" Hingjoong told you.

   His voice was tired, and he looked as if he needed to sleep for a day straight to catch up on missed sleeping hours but he still kept on working.

   "I know Joong but..." You paused, looking down at your feet and fiddling with your fingers, trying to sell your character as best as you could "I like to spend time with you."

   The last sentence came out a little too sincere for your liking, and for a second you became worried. All of the worry was replaced with confusion when Hingjoong brushed a strand of your hair behind your ear. You looked up at him as if to ask 'What are you doing?'.

   Hongjoong leaned forward and his lips ghosted over yours for a second. You didn't move, afraid of what the aftermath would be, but his impatience won over and he closed the gap.

   You hated it. You hated how amazing it felt, how your lips fit together, how you felt a wave of sparks throughout your body, how his hands burned on your thighs... You felt like your whole body was on fire and fuck, you wanted to grab him by the collar and pull him closer, but you couldn't.

   He pulled away, leaving you wishing for more. His stare instantly roamed around the room, avoiding your figure.

   "I-I'm sorry... I'm sorry if you feel it's rushed. I'm sorry if you didn't like it but I don't know... I feel a connection with you, you know? It's cheesy, but I've never met someone who loves to work as much as you, someone who's always inspired and who's always eager to learn more, someone so loving and creative."

   Your heart broke at the confession. It shattered into a million pieces that could never be put together again, and you hated what you were doing. You were knowingly breaking this man apart, tearing him up and destroying him bit by bit, and he had no idea, he just contributed to it.

   "Hongjoong I... I feel the same way. I love working with you and you're such an amazing person, I'm sorry if you never felt it, it's just that I'm really nervous around you."

  Those words were the hardest you had ever spoken, and the content smile in his face after your untruthful confession hurt more than any bullet you'd ever taken, or any knife that had ever stabbed you.

   A Lie. He was happy because of a lie, your lie.

   "Would you maybe join me for a drink tomorrow?"

   You bit your lip. You were sure that if your response had to be vocal, a sob would end up leaving your lips.

   You only nodded as a reply to his question, and said nod was met with the brightest smile you'd ever seen and a small nervous laugh.

   "It's a date then!" He cheered.

   "So it is..." You said, and pulled off the greatest fake smile.

   You looked at the clock on the wall and pretended you had no idea what time it was before you had noticed it.

   "Oh my! 3 AM!? I really must be going, I'll see you tomorrow Hongjoong!"

   You kissed his cheek and left with a small wave.

   The second you entered the flat, you threw your bag against the table and slid down the wall, face buried in your hands and the sobs you'd been holding back were let out and echoed in the almost empty room. You couldn't help but ket tears fall down your cheeks, wetting your palms in the process.

   You detested the feeling. You dispised the overwhelming guilt taking over you. You hated that Hingjoong probably strolled back to his flat and happily told his friends about how he had a date and was looking forward to it, you hated how your lie was selling perfectly.

    You stood up and stumbled across the room to find a mirror. You placed your hands on the sink for support and rested your forehead against the mirror.

   "You need to get closer to him... You need to know what he knows... You need to make him speak... You need him to expose his knowledge... You need to do this. It is but another job." You repeated to yourself, in hopes that perhaps this chaos in your mind and stabbing pain in your chest would leave and let you be.

   But it didn't. The pain only increased and became stronger, second after second. Hongjoong's face would sometimes flash on your mind, and a small smile would unintentionally spread on your lips.

   The next day came excruciatingly fast, and as soon as it was deemed acceptable to be awake, your phone made a ding, and you checked it immediately.

   Hongjoong told you about the time and place you'd be meeting in, and so you replied with an 'okay!' along with a couple excited emojis, although they represented nothing of what you were feeling, quite the opposite.

   You threw on whatever you thought would please him most: black thigh-high socks, a green flowy skirt, and a black and yellow crop top.

   Before you left to meet him you looked in the mirror and made sure to congratulate yourself for your work. You managed to carry on your mission, even though your wishes were to run away with this man and ket him live.

   You took a deep breath and made your way to the small bar nearby. You had no worries walking around at night in a short skirt, because you were surely not short on knives.

   It was a small place, decorated with rustic furniture and numerous rock and indie band items, ranging from albums, to picks, to guitars. The whole aesthetic fit Hongjoong pretty well, and when you spotted him in one of the tool chairs you realized how he morphed into the ambient. You smiled softly and approached him.

   "Hongjoong, hi!"

   You were immediately met with a blinding, toothy smile from the man, who stood up and immediately hugged you.

   Throughout the night, Hongjoong ecstatically told you about his life, his hobbies, his friends, and about everything and anything. He was thrilled to have you there and you found it adorable how he wasn't afraid to demonstrate his fondness.

    When it came the time to talk about you however, a sting hut your heart, and it's as if someone was squishing it from the inside of your body. But the lies flew out of your mouth naturally, telling him about a life you never had, about friends that weren't real, and about your untrue hobbies.

   It was all so amusing to him... Hearing all about Anne's life...

    The conversation came to a halt when the bartender approached you two.

    "I'm sorry guys but I'm going to have to ask you to leave, on weekdays we close at 2 AM."

   His mouth formed an "oh", and although neither of you said it, you both knew that you didn't want this to end. Fuck, you'd stay up for work for a longer amount of time...

   "Hongjoong do you maybe... Want to go back to my flat and hangout? It's nearby!"

   No, fuck what are you doing, crazy bitch.

   "Sure! I'd love to!" He replied, absolutely thrilled about your invitation.

    He held your hand tightly as you walked down the cold street towards your flat. You couldn't stop asking yourself why you had done it... Perhaps an inner wish that came out at an unfortunate timing?

    It took no longer than ten minutes for you to reach the apartment, and once you stepped in you felt the need to apologize.

    "I'm sorry... It's very small but it's all I need."

    Hongjoong shrugged and took his jacked off, he approached you and placed his hand in your chin, making you look up at him.

    "It's a cute apartment, just like you." He told you, whispering the last words.

   As if it was a magnet, his lips were drawn to yours in a much passionate kiss than your first.

    His tongue entered your mouth and left no corner unexplored, as his hands gripped your ass from under the skirt.

    You could taste the alcohol in his tongue, adding a new flavor besides desperation and neediness to the kiss.

   You were surprised at his dominant demeanor, yet it pleases you very much, and you were impatient to find where it leads you.

   Hongjoong's lips trailed down your jaw and eventually found your neck, where he left small bites, and sucked on the soft spots.

    "If you only knew what this skirt was doing to me..."

    Your hands found his jeans, that you quickly unbuttoned. You slid your hand inside of them and applied pressure on his hard-on with your palm.

    "I think I might be able to guess..."

    You bit your lip, and palmed him through his underwear. Hingjoong threw his head back for a second and chuckled lowly. He grabbed your neck and pulled your face close to his.

    "Fuck, you're such a tease." He moaned.

    Hongjoong removed your hand from his body and gripped your wrist so you'd follow him.

    He sat down on the bad and grabbed your waist, pulling you down in the process so you'd be straddling him.

    He kissed the spot below your ear and tugged on your earlobe.

   "I want you to ride me, baby.

   "Yes sir..." You whispered in his ear.

    You reached for the back of the skirt to unzip it, but hongjoong stopped you.

    "I want you to ride me, with your pretty little skirt on."

    You stopped straddling him and turned around, so he could perfectly see your naked ass as you stripped from your underwear.

    Hongjoong pulled down his pants and underwear slightly, and started stroking himself at the sight.

    You went back to him and straddled the man once more, helping him by placing his tip at your entrance before lowering yourself down on him. He filled you up just perfectly, and you hid your moans by burying your face in the crook of his neck.

    "I wanna hear your pretty voice baby." He asked of you, while striking your head.

    He gripped your hips and started moving you up and down, slowly at first. When you got used to the feeling, you started bouncing on his cock willingly, and he only helped by jerking his hips up and hitting deeper spots.

    Hongjoong slapped your ass continuously, his strength increasing every time you slammed down on his dick.

    You gripped his shoulders tightly.

    "Fuck Hongjoong, I'm about to cum!" You whined.

    The man lifted your skirt, so he could see the way he looked fucking you, and it was a sight to see.

  "Shit, you're so beautiful..."

  One of his hands gripped your neck, applying some pressure to it.

   "Hongjoong fuck you're so good!"

   Hingjoong came at the little praise, his thick liquid hitting your walls, and the warm sensation inside you made you reach your climax at the same time. The room was filled with whimpers, moans and heavy breathing, as you both came and tried to calm down.

   Hongjoong delivered a loving kiss to your lips.

   "God, you're amazing Anne."

   Anne.

   That's when it hit you. You couldn't do this anymore. You couldn't keep lying to the boy, making him live in a false relationship. The feeling was truly real but Anne was just a character.

   You had to put an end to it... You couldn't handle doing it any longer. It hurt you to see the boy thoroughly happy and satisfied by a façade.

    You stood up and walked to the kitchen, while Hongjoong got dressed. You pulled out your Glock 19 from one of the drawers and rolled the silencer onto it, carefully as to not alarm Hongjoong. You wanted to do this peacefully, you didn't want him to know about your betrayal. However, just as you approached the bed he was sitting in from behind, you let out a sob, and he turned around to look at you.

   You hadn't even noticed you were crying. You hadn't even noticed the burning sensation in your throat and the stream of tears in your face, but you certainly felt as if your heart was being pulled out of you, and thrown in a fire.

   Hongjoong's worried eyes looked at your face, then at your hand, and back at your face. A sad smile formed on his face and he nodded. He didn’t look disappointed or hurt, just... sad and apologetic, like he understood the situtation.

   "It's about the cocaine, isn't it?"

   You bit your lip and nodded, like he had done.

   You approached him and aimed the barrel at his head.

    "Honggjoong I'm... I'm so sorry." The last few words came out as a whisper.

    "So am I..."

     Before you pulled the trigger, he opened his mouth to speak once more.

    "Can I... At least know your name? Please?" He begged.

    Although he tried to remain calm, his voice was shaky and his eyes were covered with tears that threatened to fall, sooner or later.

    "My name is Y/N."

     He smiled, for the last time ever, and looked you in the eye, peeling his stare away from the gun's barrel.

     "Y/N, you look beautiful tonight."

     He blinked, allowing one last tear to stroll down his cheek, his smile never leaving his angelic face, as you cried, and pulled the trigger.

    The silent bang made you collapse, immediately regretting what you had just done. You looked at Hongjoong, looking as beautiful as ever, even if he was bathing in his own bloof, and caressed his face, letting your tears stain his shirt, as you realized you had committed the biggest mistake in your life, but you had no choice.

    "I'm sorry Hongjoong, may we meet again, in our next life."

[writeanapocalae]

A Guide for Writing Trans People

Written by a Trans Man. 

I’ve seen a lot of different posts on how to write trans characters (absolutely none on how to write cis characters and I am so lost on how to do that oh my goodness) but maybe I’ve got a different perspective and maybe I’ve got something you haven’t heard before. Let’s go! 

Terminology

There are a lot of different genders out there, not just male and female. Some people think Trans men and women are some outside of the binary extra gender, which is very much not true. While many trans people do fall outside the binary, there are a lot who are strictly male or female. Therefore their genders are male and female. The trans part is not part of the word, it is a definer to state that the person is transitioning, that is all. So when you write trans man or trans woman the words are separate, not transman or transwoman. 

A trans man is someone who is transitioning his appearance for society to view him as male. 

A trans woman is someone who is transitioning her appearance for society to view her as female. 

The reason I am wording it this way is because they were already their genders. They have always been their genders. Transitioning is greatly influenced by the way we are treated by society, the same way that beauty standards influence people to contour and get surgeries and whatnot. 

Demi means mostly in terms of gender so a demi boy is someone who is male most of the time and a demi girl is someone who is female most of the time. 

Agender is someone who has no gender

Genderfluid is someone who shifts from gender to gender

Genderqueer is someone who’s gender is nondefined by other terms

Two Spirit is a third gender that encapsulates masculinity and femininity (according to Wikipedia) that is only used by Native Americans 

Third Gender is a gender that can encapsulate or be a completely different solid gender like male or female

Nonbinary is someone who is somewhere on the spectrum between genders and their gender is defined by them 

Pangender is someone who has all genders

Androgyny is not something that actually relates to gender as much as it does presentation. Presentation does not inherently tell you someone’s gender. Being androgynous just means that someone fits right in the middle of societies expectations of male and female and their AGAB cannot be guessed by onlookers. 

AGAB AFAB and AMAB mean Assigned Gender At Birth, Assigned Female At Birth, and Assigned Male At Birth. At birth someone will often assign a gender to a baby based on their genitals and parents tend to show off what sort of genitals their baby has with accessories and colors. Pretty creepy if you ask me. 

FTM and MTF has been deemed problematic but many still use them. They mean Female to Male and Male to Female. The terminology states that the person’s AGAB is their initial gender and they are becoming the opposite when, as stated before, it’s more that they were always their gender and now society has to catch up. 

Gender Nonconformity can be practiced by anyone regardless of gender. It just means that they do things that aren’t expected of someone of their gender like men wearing skirts (for some reason?) or women growing beards or a nonbinary person not being androgynous (for some reason that’s become an expectation)

Intersex is not a part of the trans umbrella, even though it is often lumped in and people who are intersex can also be trans. It is a sex (different from gender) in which different parts of genitals and chromosomes and hormones are produced in a way that deviates from the norm. Many intersex people undergo genital reconstruction or reduction surgery when they are infants (and can’t consent) in order to fit the mold better. Intersex people can be cis. 

Cis just means that someone agrees with the people who assigned them a gender when they were a baby and how society treats them. 

Slurs: Don’t use them. There are a lot. If you see it in a porn category you probably should stay away from it. 

Pronouns

Pronouns are highly personal and can be a myriad of things so I will not be going over all of them. They do not always match presentation (a long haired man with breasts is still a man) and many people will use multiple sets of pronouns or fluctuate between them for what they feel most comfortable with. 

Common pronouns are: they/them, he/him, she/her

Less common pronouns are: xi/xir, fae/faer, it/its, e/em, per/pers, ve/vir, zie/hir

Neopronouns: People make up pronouns all the time since they are personal and these new pronouns are just as valid as any others. Someone made up his and hers after all. When making neopronouns the main thing to be aware of is consistency. You want the different forms of conjugation to make sense and you want to spell them the same way every time. 

Appearance

As has already been stated, there’s no correlation between gender presentation and gender and many trans people are unable to present the way they want to due to the economy, genetics, health, or community. Still, people do what they can to pass or feel comfortable in their body and these things need to be in mind during descriptions. People tend to think of the slight things that make people not pass are unattractive and will point out a woman’s 5 o’clock shadow or a man’s high pitched voice as flaws. These things do not necessarily need to be skipped over but they can be described in a way that doesn’t distract from the characters gender. 

Try to stop thinking of an hourglass shape as an intrinsically feminine trait and height as an inherently masculine one. There are cis women with full beards and cis men with round jaws. Exploring different features, combining them, and seeing how they meld will give your characters more depth and help with differentiating them from one another. A good rule of thumb is, if you mention something that people don’t immediately clock as the characters gender, describe it as gender accurate. 

Misgendering

This is another one that I would say don’t do but there are characters who the writers don’t always agree with. Misgendering is extremely harmful, puts trans people’s lives in danger, and can out them without their permission. The narrator should never misgender a character unless the character does not realize they are trans until the story is underway but this should be rare. The trans character would have no reason to ever misgender themself and may talk about how they presented in the past but will, most likely, still refer to themself with the correct gender. The POV character may misgender a trans character upon meeting them but after being corrected should fix their behavior unless you want your audience to dislike the POV character. Friends of the trans character should not misgender the character unless they are in a situation in which being correctly gendered would bring them harm, otherwise they’re not good friends. Family may misgender the trans character if they are not out or if the family members are terrible people. 

Dysphoria/Euphoria

Dysphoria is when there’s a painful discrepancy between mind and body, like when someone knows they are one way but they don’t look the way they feel. Misgendering can be a large cause of dysphoria, as can hearing a recording of their voice, reflections, binding and tucking not hiding what the individual may want to hide, height, muscle structure, bone structure, etc. 

Euphoria is the exact opposite of this. It is an extreme sensation of peace and joy in personal gender presentation. This can be caused by hormone replacement therapy, correct gendering, presenting in a way that feels natural, and acceptance. 

Dysphoria is not necessary for being transgender. 

Social Groups

Look around your friend group. Notice anything eerie? Notice how most of your friends are similar to you in a lot of ways, especially IRL friends? They’re people that you trust and expect to keep you safe while having a fun time with because you share interests and experiences with. Same for trans people. This is why, if you look at my friend group there’s 2 genderfluid, 1 agender, 1 nonbinary, 2 trans women, 1 trans man, and 1 cis man (who’s a cousin). If you have just 1 trans character in a group of friends it is going to read as a need for diversity points and that character is less likely to feel safe with discussing trans issues due to no one around them being able to relate.

Outing 

This is one that a lot of people have a hard time with and even trans writers mess up a lot. We all know the infamous scene of someone walking in on a trans person changing and, hopefully, we know that this is not only cliche but actually harmful as it tends to lead to the idea of “lying” when it’s really just not anyone’s business and that trans bodies must be on display. I would say that you shouldn’t have to out your character because coming out is dangerous for real trans people in a lot of situations and it normalizes the idea that trans people must doxx themselves at any moment but due to the lack of representation and the nature of novels, you pretty much have to out your characters. No amount of subtext will be as beneficial to a trans reader as cementing the fact that there’s someone they can relate to in canon. Luckily outing a trans character is a lot easier than people think. 

Some of us can’t shut up. A lot of trans people will hint at it a lot and just flat out say it if they’re in similar company. If we see people who we feel confident are also queer we often drop hints that we understand we’re safe, they can come to us (especially in a retail setting), because we want a community. The amount I bring up my masculinity is very very often, to the point I’m surprised people aren’t annoyed with me. I don’t pass very well so I wear a lot of brightly colored buttons that explicitly state my pronouns. There’s also this very strong urge to correct people who use gendered language for things that don’t need gender (like sexual organs and menstrual cycles). There’s nothing wrong with just saying that a character is trans. 

Resources

The best thing you can do for your story is research. The trans people you know are not google and they do not deserve to be treated like google. You can use google. Here’s some stuff I found on google: 

Dummies | Transequality | EverydayFeminism | Scriptlgbt

But no matter how much research you do it’s not going to be as useful as a sensitivity reader. Once your story is complete ask people to read it as beta readers and sensitivity readers and listen to the people that fit your minority characters. 

Some musicians to check out for inspiration

I have to recommend music. I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t. 

Agender: Angel Haze | Mood Killer

Androgyne: Florian- Ayala Flora | 

Genderfluid: Aja | Miley Cyrus | Dorian Electra | Jana Hunter | Ruby Rose |  Sons of an Illustrious Father | Eliot Sumner | Maxine Feldman | Chester Lockhart 

Genderqueer: Sopor Aeternus | CN Lester | Planningtorock | Chris Pureka | Sam Smith | Rae Spoon | Vaginal Davis | Ezra Furman | Randa | Vivek Shraya

Genderneutral: Grimes | 

Nonbinary: Arca | Mal Blum | Justin Vivian Bond | Adore Delano | Grey Gritt | Rose McGowan | Shamir | T Thomason | Beth Jean Houghton | Openside | Fraxiom 

Pandrogyne: Genesis P-orridge 

Trans Man: Alexander James Adams | Bettens | Little Axe and the Golden Echoes | Cidney Bullens | Meryn Cadell | Ryan Cassata | Quinn Christopherson | Beverly Glenn Copeland | Quinn Marston | Clyde Peterson | Schmekel | Lucas Silveira | Billy Tipton 

Trans Woman: 1.8.7. | Nadia Almada | Vacancy Chain | Barbra Amesbury | anohni | Estelle Asmodelle | Backxwash | Mykki Blanco | Namoli Brennet | Tona Brown | Sara Davis Buechner | Mya Byrne | The Neptune Darlings | Simona Castricum | Lili Chen | Jessie Chung | Coccinelle | Jayne County | Bulent Ersoy | Deena Kaye Rose | Bibi Anderson | Marci Free |  Teddy Geiger | Gila Goldstein | Laurie Jane Grace | Romy Haag | Ai Haruna | Juliana Huxtable | Mila Jam | Christine Jorgensen | Lady | Left@London | Amanda Lapore | Liniker | Jennifer Maidman | Michete | Trevi Moran | Angela Morley | Ataru Nakamura | Octo Octa | Dee Palmer | Kim Petras | Axis of Awesome | Katey Red | Patricia Ribeiro | Danica Roem | Jackie Shane | Breanna Synclaire | Sophie | Ramon Te Wake | Terre Thaemlitz | Cindy Thai Tai | Titicia | Venus Flytrap 

Two Spirit: Tony Enos | Cris Derksen

[fictionadventurer]

Have you seen the new little women movie? If so what do you think of it?

My initial thoughts on the movie are here. I just rewatched it for the sake of answering this ask. My thoughts can be summarized as follows:

This is a beautiful movie. So much loving focus on the things and the textures. The clothes are extremely Pinterest-and-Hallmark-movie aesthetic rather than anything remotely resembling history, but it’s hard to mind when every character is wearing three different textures and patterns at all times and giving the eye so much to look at. (Also, I was knitting during rewatch, so the knitwear was especially satisfying).

But I’m still not sure it succeeds as a story. Much like the outfits, there are so many different bits and pieces layered together, with different textures and colors that make it interesting to look at, but I’m not sure they come together into a coherent whole. Individual scenes could be good, but it was hard to connect emotionally to any of the characters when the backstory was chopped up into so many pieces.

I found it easier to differentiate between the past and the present this time--I finally figured out that the golden light is for childhood and the blue light is for adulthood. Noticing that also made me like the ending more, which I’ll get to later.

I liked the dancing scenes a bit less. They were a little less joyful and emotionally uplifting than I remembered. I did find it interesting how Jo and Laurie’s dance at their first meeting turns into a sort of silent film for part of it, until Meg intrudes and brings them back into the real world by telling them about her hurt ankle.

I liked the Meg and John story less. Emma Watson just doesn’t seem very motherly or wifely. However, the ending scene of the silk subplot was very touching and one of the few scenes in the movie that showed the self-giving side of marriage.

I still wish there had been more focus on the virtue development part of the plot--the “Meg falls to vanity” scene falls kind of flat because Laurie is just scolding her for...wearing a fancy dress? In a way that makes it seem like he’s just scolding her for being feminine and liking pretty things. We don’t have the context to make it clear that she’s bending her morals for the sake of being liked. The scene does set up a contrast between Laurie-the-moral-guardian and Laurie-living-a-life-of-vain-pleasure in the very next scene, but it’s not enough to make the Vanity Fair scene work on its own.

And why didn’t the movie have more of Mr. March? Let us see the marriage that has shaped the girls’ ideas of what marriage is supposed to be.

I found it interesting that the devoted spinster Aunt March who believes in marriage as a purely economic concern rejected offers to enter Meg’s wedding dance twice. She keeps herself but missed out on the joy.

I found Amy and Laurie slightly more believable as a couple. Though when Amy has the struggle of “marry for financial gain or marry for love”, it’s rather too convenient that the resolution is that she decides she’s really in love with a different rich guy than the one she was going to marry solely for his money.

Beth was a lesser character than I remembered (both in terms of screen time and emotional impact). However, I did like her role in the story far more because she’s kind of key to some of the themes (which I’ll get to in a moment).

I still hate Jo changing her mind about Laurie. It makes her choice of Bhaer seem like she’s settling for second-best.

Now’s the point where I’m going to talk about the themes and the ending. Which was the primary reason I wanted a rewatch--to clarify my ideas about this movie’s message and resolution.

SPOILERS AHEAD. FAIR WARNING TO ANYONE WHO HAS NOT ALREADY BEEN FRIGHTENED AWAY BY THIS WALL OF TEXT.

This movie is about three things: Marriage, Art and Money. Money is necessary to survive. Marriage and art can both be a source of money, but they are also pursuits that should be entered into out of love.

This movie harps and harps upon the fact that marriage is an economic proposition. It’s the most stable way for a woman to get money. She also gets love, ideally. But where the movie falters is focusing so much on the getting part of marriage and rarely on the giving. Laurie wanted to marry Jo because he wanted to get her love. Jo’s “I’m so lonely” scene specifically has her say that she wants to be loved, but not to love--she wants to receive rather than give. I’m not sure there’s any indication that either Jo or Laurie ever give or give up anything when they finally do enter into matrimony. It seems that they just get who they decide they want. Amy gets a rich husband and gets a man who loves her, but what does she ever give up for him, aside from another man who she also did nothing to love?

The silk scene with Meg and John is one of the few times where we see a married couple giving to each other, rather than focusing on what they get out of it.

Art, too, is a love that can be turned toward money, and most of the characters have this out of balance as well. Jo loves writing, but she wants to be seen as good, and she mostly cares about the money that she gets out of it. Amy gives up art completely when she realizes she’s not a genius. “I’d rather be great or nothing” is the exact opposite of doing art for the love of it--what she cared about was getting praise rather than giving something of herself to the world.

Beth is the only one who understands the giving nature of both love and art. She performs for no one’s praise or payment--she plays because she loves music. She’s the one who gives up her time to bring the donations to the Hummels when her sisters are caught up in their own pursuits. When she gets the piano, her sisters are the ones who are caught up in admiring it as a thing, but she runs off (without any of her sisters even noticing, too caught up in the wealth in front of them) to thank Mr. Lawrence because she recognized the love behind the gift.

Jo starts to understand the importance of love within art after Beth dies. We have the lovely scene of Beth encouraging Jo to do her writing for someone--give of her art. When Jo returns to her writing, the camera beautifully focuses on the For Beth at the head of the manuscript--Jo is not writing this for money or praise, but out of love for her sister.

I like the ending much better than I did before. I can see the golden sunlit ending as the “real” end of the story, because I noticed the lighting trick. When Bhaer is leaving the March house, Jo is standing in the blue light, but Bhaer is in the golden light. It’s as if Jo sees that a life with him could provide the same level of happiness that she knew in childhood.

It’s still odd that her family has to convince her every step of the way that she’s “in love”. But because of the lighting trick, I can more easily believe that she really did want to spend her life with him.

That dumb scene with the publisher is what ruins everything. We had Jo writing her book out of love. We had Jo deciding to give Bhaer a reason to stay. But it’s derailed by this weird focus on money. Jo keeps insisting that she’s “selling” her heroine into marriage, and that she’s willing to sacrifice her artistic vision just because this ending is what sells. I feel like if they’d cut out all that stuff about the contract negotiation--which seems only to have been put in because Gerwig wanted to show off this bit of trivia about Alcott’s business acumen--the ending would have been a million times more coherent on a plot and thematic level.

I can believe that the sunlit ending at Plumfield is Jo reaching happiness by giving of herself to others. Everyone is using art to give to others--Bhaer is teaching music, Laurie’s teaching some kind of drama class, Amy’s teaching painting.

The shot of the gold leaf being stamped onto the cover of Little Women, which had seemed like the final stroke saying “this ending is fiction” now seems to be saying that “this is the way the story really ends.” It’s helped by the fact that after Jo gets the book in her hands, we cut to the image of a group of little girls playing pretend--it’s Jo being satisfied in her book not because it’s her achievement or a source of money, but because she knows it will inspire another generation of little girls. Thus we can have Jo achieving artistic and personal fulfillment by publishing the book and teaching at Plumfield.

If it wasn’t for that contract negotiation scene, there wouldn’t even be a question of what the real ending was supposed to be. There’s only one version that shows Jo prioritizing the giving part of art and marriage over any selfish gain, and I hate that the ending muddles it so badly for the sake of misplaced meta-feminism.

[unscharf-an-den-raendern]

Translation:

Kraftwerk: We’re a radio station

Photo caption: Kraftwerk, dressed up for rich uncle Alois’ birthday; in the middle Florian Schneider-Esleben (above) and Ralf Hütter.

For almost two years, Kraftwerk didn’t go on stage in this country and you had to go abroad to see them live. On October 10th they played in the well-visited Roundhouse in London where some people even started dancing and enthusiastically singing along to the German lyrics. It was their last concert on a five week European tour through Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, France and England. Asked for a summary of the trip, Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider, who always give interviews together, answer with a short “correct”.

Ralf: It was our first European tour, last year we only played in America for three months. Now it’s Europe’s turn because our new album will be “Transeuropa Express”. And this tour was so to speak a mental stimulus for the LP.

ME: What did you find most striking in America?

Florian: It made us realize where we actually come from, who we are and why we affect people so strongly. We noticed a strong effect, a big astonishment.

Ralf: This incredible distance, flying over the transatlantic literally gave us confidence. Suddenly you see yourself standing on stage like an observer.

ME: Did that make you more free?

Ralf: A bit. It was always incredibly hard for us here. While we were accepted, our things didn’t catch on. They always called us weirdos, tinker freaks. While the people in America immediately accepted us, just like we accepted ourselves.

Florian: Even though they were a hard audience to some extent. Rockers...

Ralf: ...they were really into it, started dancing... That brought us further. In Germany, we might have isolated ourselves even longer, would have become paranoid. There we could come out of our shell and now we go even further.

Florian: Our breath became longer, we can blow more into it.

Ralf: We also had a lot of colored people in the audience. In Germany, a lot of people still think our music is just culture. Some people there called it space boogie or techno boogie.

Florian: One guy spontaneously said that one of our songs was like a boogie from a typewriter and a vacuum cleaner gone wild. I agree with some of it, there are real comics going on, the machine plays itself.

ME: You have a lot of new machines, what’s on stage actually?

Ralf: I have a laser light organ. It’s made in America and better than a Mellotron. You have optical records that produce the sound and are scanned by laser light pressure.

Florian: Of course, that system has existed since the film era.

Ralf: I also have a sequencer, an automatic music machine that plays the repeating melodies.

ME: That sounds a bit like a fortepiano?

Ralf: Yes, diddle-dee diddle-dee...and then our two small synthesizers.

ME: Unlike before, one hears a lot of voices and vocals in your songs now.

Ralf: I’m particularly interested in the human voice. We worked with it a lot in the last two years because we sometimes develop certain motives out of the human voice. I only use human vocals on the optical records, sometimes violins...not just instrumental music like before but pre-recorded human voices, speech, words, poetry and that speaking typewriter.

ME: Is that the monster voice announcing you?

Ralf: Yes, that’s a completely artificial voice, a talking machine.

Florian: A speech computer. When you press “a” it says “a”. The keyboard is extended so you can not only enter letters but also diphthongs, brighter, deeper, etc.

Ralf: We also have those two electric drum kits and the light barrier drum kit.

Florian: So, when the light barrier is broken it triggers the contact. It drums. And we also built something ourselves, an electronic flute, a magic flute.

Ralf: All instruments we developed with our engineers are patented. We want to mass-produce them so other people can play on the as well.

Florian: Then you can play eletric drums at home. You can just connect them to your stereo system.

Ralf: These electric instruments are a lot easier to play because you can translate a sound idea much more directly. You can’t reproduce a car on a piano that easily.

Florian: It’s electronic home music, a lot of people are writing to us, saying they’re interested it in.

ME: How are your songs created?

Ralf: In the studio through fumbling around, coincidences or by playing around; through mental drafts, so work on the drawing board, or just sound finds on the instruments. Or at concerts, sometimes we play a song on and on and then a new song grows out of it like a tree branch.

Florian: We’re in state where we could play basically anything. Of course we need some distance between idea and realisation sometimes. But the path has become very short by now.

ME: Would you find it derogatory if I referred to your music as naive electronic?

Ralf: Hard to say, some call it intellectual, some call it naive...

Florian:..simple

Ralf: I think it’s everything at once.

ME: I think that Electronic is particularly transparent and comprehensible in your band.

Ralf: Yes, transparent, that’s better. We also want everyone to be able to recognize what we’re playing right away. We don’t want to convey something else with these means, something behind the stage, but only what’s up front. That’s also why we have the neon lights standing behind us so we’re transparent.

ME: A lot of your songs have environmental sounds as a topic?

Ralf: We’re interested in acoustic phenomena all over the world and that’s something we can convey now. It would be best if the people who walk out after our concerts and no longer consider the sounds around them as noise (of course only those that aren’t damaging to hearing) but consider them to be normal environmental sounds. The world of sounds is music.

ME: Do you always have a specific concept for your albums?

Ralf: We don’t write twelve songs, one about love, the next one about pants, the third one about football. Even when the things are different, cut-ups, there’s always a red line running behind it. It’s always there, latent.

ME: Even when you’re playing tapes?

Ralf: Yes, we also play tapes and cassettes. Then someone presses the button and leaves the stage. We show exactly what we do.

ME: Why tapes anyway?

Ralf: A tape is an instrument too, an acoustic machine.

ME: You have a very differentiated and unusual stage show now. Slides, the metal cage where a head danced up and down in black UV light, the signal play with the hands which trigger the impulses at the light barrier drums at the same time. Are you planning even more?

Ralf: The man in the UV cage is the prototype, we did that for the first time on this tour. But we want to show even more clearly that this is some kind of man-machine, a kind of ballet - dancing and making music at the same time through movement, so making music while dancing.

ME: You are remarkably concerned with Radio. I’m not just thinking about the last LP.

Florian: It’s a homage to the radio, the first electronic studio that existed. Back then, people like Stockhausen always made music directly on the radio.

Ralf: We always listened to it in the past. It was called Nachtmusik (night music). That’s our background too, that’s why we had the idea to form a completely electronic band. In America the people always asked for the reason and we only realized it when we remembered how this Nachtmusik fascinated us. When it was completely dark and we had to go to bed and could listen to the transistor radio from under the sheets. We’re interested in the radio awareness/ consciousness (translator’s note: “Bewusstsein” can mean both of these things, I don’t know which one Ralf meant).

Florian: And everyone can try these things out themself. When you tune in on a station on the radio and hear the pre-formed information, how it’s meant to be, you just have to tune out a bit, for example at night on short wave and you hear the craziest sounds, morse codes, pure sounds, it’s insane. Radio Cairo and so on...This idea, album as radio...

Ralf: That fascinated us immensely. We always wanted an own...we saw ourselves, Kraftwerk, in the Kling Klang Studio as a radio station. But it’s not legally possible in Germany. In America we met guys from our generation with their own radio stations, somewhere out of town in an old mansion. And they broadcast into the night from there, just like they want to, right off the bat...

Florian: They have their own radio programmes.

Ralf: ...and just send their very own thoughts into the ether...and we see ourselves as a private radio station.

[mittensmorgul]

The Tumblr Beta Version: an objective analysis

I was tempted to just type “it sucks.” And while that is an objective analysis, it’s not exactly helpful. I’ve sent several requests to @staff and @support to restore my account to the old tumblr dashboard format, and received the same automated reply twice now. I’ll copy/paste it here so everyone is on the same page:

(lol, I had to go back and edit this, because apparently the beta version doesn’t display block quotes on the dash. So I’ve also put the block quotes in italics... hopefully it’ll display properly... note after editing: nope, it doesn’t display italics either... how the heck am I supposed to differentiate quoted text? I’ll start each quoted bit with an asterisk, I guess...)

*Thanks for reaching out about the beta dashboard.

*We're currently testing it out, and your account seems to have been selected to take part in the test. Thanks for your patience while we work on it! At this time there is not a way to opt out of testing. You may see your Tumblr experience return to normal as we continue testing.

WE CAN ONLY HOPE.

*In the meantime, check out some of the new features available only in the beta dashboard:

OKAY TUMBLR, IF YOU INSIST, though I would MUCH rather have back all the functionality I personally invested into this website through xkit... you know... making the site ACTUALLY FUNCTIONAL. Let’s see what this beta version has given me instead of functionality:

*Change Palettes: Go to the person icon, then click "Change Palette." You'll find the classic Tumblr blue, dark mode, and a few other color palettes for your dash.

So I tried out all the color palettes. In addition to the ones mentioned here, there’s one that’s trying to look like a green screen terminal that gives me flashbacks to the early 80′s. There’s a reason we stopped using green screen terminals... Another one is “canary yellow.” It’s very yellow. The “classic tumblr” isn’t actually classic tumblr... all the post boxes are dark blue with grey type, not white with black type. And all the other colors are the insanely bright fluorescent of the new Dark Blue standard tumblr scheme. Which means links are practically invisible unless I highlight them. It’s migraine inducing. The one theme with a light colored background is called “Concrete” or “Cement” or something like that and even that only works for about half an hour before the migraine aura really kicks in. I just want my Old Blue via xkit back. You know, what tumblr actually used to look like. I don’t want any of these horrible color palettes. None of them work for me.

*The new "meatballs" menu: This is where you can copy the post link, unfollow the Tumblr who made or reblogged the post, or report a violation to our Community Guidelines.

I could do all of this from the user menus with xkit, too. I don’t regularly report violations or have the urge to block people I have chosen to follow. Why on earth would I want to do any of this? And why would I want these features located directly beside the post link copy feature? 

You know what I do miss? I miss the xkit timestamps feature. I didn’t have to hover dangerously close to the KILL IT WITH FIRE meatballs menu in order to see when a post was made, and in this era of disinformation and misinformation spreading around this site faster than Covid-19, being able to see when a post was ORIGINALLY created is a far more useful feature than an easier way to block people. For reference: I currently have three blogs blocked. Two of them are pornbots. One is a nazi. If I don’t want someone’s content on my dash, I don’t follow them. This “feature” is entirely useless to me.

*A quick note: Pagination is not supported in this beta test, but we're collecting feedback to send to our engineers.

THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST. This beta test might actually be tolerable if I wasn’t trapped into endless scrolling. If I could page through my dash, refreshing it every ten posts or so. You know why? Because once I scroll about 30 posts down my dash, tumblr starts overheating my laptop under the load of ALL THOSE POSTS. Things start malfunctioning-- it takes longer and longer to load new posts the farther I scroll. And the keyboard navigation (both page down and hitting J to advance to the next post, and even just using the down arrow to scroll as I read a long post) freeze and stop functioning. One of my laptop fans has actually begun to malfunction.

You know why this wasn’t a problem on the old version? If the data load got to heavy, I could open a post in a new tab, click view on dash with xkit, and voila! Brand new tab! I could close the malfunctioning tab and everything would be refreshed to normal! But without pagination, THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE.

Also, after reblogging a few posts, the beta version of this site breaks, and doesn’t open a post tab to add commentary or even tags. It just... reblogs the untagged post with no warning whatsoever. You know... that’s really really not cool. I tag EVERYTHING. Well, almost everything. The tags are the only way to keep track of the 40k+ posts on my blog. And warn people that I am posting potential spoilers, or other specific content. It’s REALLY inconvenient to have to either immediately go to my blog to edit the post and add tags, or even comments. The alternative is to scroll up to open individual posts I want to reblog in a new tab, and then reblog directly there. Ironically enough, THOSE pages actually open with xkit installed, and everything (surprise!) functions perfectly there.

It’s perfectly reasonable to understand why this specific issue has limited the number of posts I reblog. Reblogging content should not be this much of a hassle. Creators have been complaining for a while that reblogs have drastically slowed down, and I think making it even more annoying and difficult to reblog posts will not help this problem.

Also, with xkit enabled, there’s a function that auto-loads images as you scroll, so the images are always visible BEFORE they appear on screen. I don’t have to look at the colored boxes and wonder if this is a post I’ve already seen or something I should sit and wait for. Don’t even think about watching tumblr videos. Loading priority is given to the ads that you cannot pause or dismiss, so that video loads and plays in choppy two second bursts instead of being given priority. Since that’s the content I am actually here to consume, it kinda makes me want to do the opposite of patronizing anyone who advertises here with graphically intense ads. And then when you scroll away, with xkit, gifs and videos you’ve scrolled past STOP loading and playing, which I think might be contributing to the intensity of the resource hogging that’s literally melting down my laptop.

And for reference, I have a pretty decent little gaming laptop. A blogging platform shouldn’t be driving it to the brink of frying itself. I didn’t realize just how much xkit worked to streamline this and provide basic functionality to this site.

*And lastly, if you're an XKit user, know that the XKit team is working hard to update things on their end to make it compatible with the beta dashboard.

And this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what I’ve lost without xkit. And this is a really REALLY garbage response to user complaints. “Oh, yeah, sorry we made our site suck even worse, but those nice people who do our jobs for free will surely fix our garbage soon!”

Dear wonderful people at @new-xkit-extension, I love you, and I miss you, and while I wish xkit worked with this beta version I’ve been forced into living with, I truly feel for y’all who are trying to deal with this nonsense on behalf of all of us.

And to the folks at Tumblr... maybe try to just... make your site actually more like xkit. You know, actually functional. None of these special new features are useful or functional to me. I respectfully request for a fourth time to be removed from this inane beta test.

Give us OPTIONS. Let us display ALL THE TAGS without having to click a button. Let me have back my Activity+ that actually allowed me to interact with people from my dash! That showed me real-time inline notifications in a way that I could reply to with a single click! Bring me back to my column of open messaging conversation icons so I have easy access to the people I talk with throughout the day instead of closing them all every time I refresh the page. I already feel socially isolated in freaking quarantine, please stop shutting off all my avenues of communication!

Let us have pagination! I mean, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to force heavy users of this site into a beta version that doesn’t allow us to opt out until your engineers had actually figured out how to make it work in a very basic way.

*Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with!

YES. PLEASE REMOVE ME FROM THIS BETA TEST NOW. I have let you know exactly what I want from this site. I just want it to ACTUALLY WORK. For someone who spends 12+ hours a day on this site, this beta test version is NONFUNCTIONAL. PLEASE ALLOW ME TO OPT OUT. I AM LITERALLY BEGGING YOU. I WILL ACTUALLY PAY YOU CASH MONEY TO ALLOW ME TO OPT OUT OF THIS AND GO BACK TO HAVING A FUNCTIONAL BLOG AGAIN. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!

PLEASE! 

I AM OFFICIALLY AT THE END OF MY PATIENCE FOR ENDURING THIS NIGHTMARE.

(one final quick note... I’ve only been back on my dash long enough to make the parenthetical edits-- i.e. adding italics that don’t display and then adding the asterisks at the beginning of each section of quoted text, and already my laptop is overheating again. For reference, I originally typed this entire post from within my tumblr inbox page-- which still functions normally with xkit-- and spent over an hour on it. My laptop was fine the entire time. Clearly the issue is this beta version of the website. I will never forgive tumblr if y’all fry my literal only portal to the outside world at this time. PUT ME BACK TO NORMAL NOW. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY INFURIATING AND ENTIRELY UNACCEPTABLE. Thanks)

(oops apparently i lied... when the asterisks and the previous final note failed to display, I thought that seemed suspicious, and realized that I literally needed to refresh my entire dash in order to see edited changes. Funny how xkit enabled me to do that in real time, which is just another bit of functionality I’ve lost with this beta program. Please guys, this is really, really not working for me at all, just put it back.)

[horizonwitch]

The Archangel Theory - A Possible Explanation to MCR's new symbolism

Hello! This is a very long post, but I hope it’s worth the reading. Sorry.

I am Nana, and today I bring you a fan-theory on the meaning behind MyChem's symbols presented to us in the occasion of the band's return announcement and later on, at the actual reunion concert day.

First Considerations:

1. being it, as the title implies, a fan-theory, I do not claim any of the exposed to be factual when associated to MCR. I bring this thread to you guys in hopes that we can discuss, expand, teach and learn with each other, and maybe come to some sort of conclusion. Riddles are fun to play, especially together. I love riddles in fandom experience. :)

2. I highly apologize for my limited vocabulary and weird phrasing. I am not a native english speaker, but I'll try my best to make this understandable to everyone;

3. Despite my personal beliefs and stupid jokes, I mean no disrespect to any religion or symbol mentioned in here. (just as much as I believe MyChem also doesn't, on the wild possibility of this thread being on point with what they planned, lol).

That being said, before we start, I have some thanks to give:

this theory was only put together thanks to my lovely mychem group chat, composed by Raffs, Clara, Caroline and Hana. thanks for all the time and effort we shared, and for holding my brain with your bare hands when it was about to melt, friends.

Also thanks to Frank Iero himself, for laughing at me on twitter for me not being able to understand the reunion clues, despite "wearing a California 2019 shirt for 6 years". I humbly accept the possibility of this theory having nothing to do with the truth, but I sure hope I can laugh back at you in the end, rat. I love you.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, let's finally head to The Archangel Theory, or, as I like to call it, The “If We're Not Careful We'll Turn Into Catholics” Theory, and how it all started.

It was Halloween. Everyone here was minding their own damn business (I was being a clown on twitter, Hana was putting on her badass revenge-themed makeup. You know, the usual). And we all know what happened: MCR raised gracefully from the dead, dropping brand new symbolism and a stunning angel image to our poor panicked hearts. A few days later, when Hana’s crying ruined makeup was long gone and everyone calmed the F down a little bit, people started to ask themselves: okay, cool, but what does it mean?

Like many of you, the first thought that crossed my mind was tarot. Because, well, how f-ing cool would it be, right? I draw tarot everyday. I just loved the idea. Mychem posting a latin countdown with some eerie photo was just… yea, I was very excited with this.

Many of us also associated the symbols with past albums and even with the members themselves. All of these theories are very valid to me, and I loved reading them. I agree with many points raised.

Well, everything was fine (as fine as it could be, because I am so damn curious). The Return concert happened at the faithful date of December 20, California. We all freaked out and enjoyed the noble services’ of days_fate and diet_shampoo’s streaming. All that jazz.

But then: well… another angel. I started to think to myself: is this a pattern? The show ends, we get very emotional, everything is okay (i hate this pun) with the world. Frank Iero makes a post-concert post on instagram, talking about how everything was pure Magick. With a K.

For those unfamiliar, this is an occultist term related to Aleister Crowley’s Thelema, to differentiate the religious concept from the “stage magic” that we are used to. A very carefully picked name that I highly doubt someone would drop around without knowing what it implies.... Don’t even start me with the K and C keys being so damn far away from each other on a keyboard.

At this point me and my groupchat were starting to be very done with Frank’s clownery (we indeed love him very much for that), and so we started to hurt our minds every single day since then. that’s the result:

THE ARCHANGEL THEORY

Let’s Return™ to the basics: angels and, probably, tarot.

Funny enough, there are actually angels in tarot cards. There are many types of decks, but for this we are using the most famous one, which most people believe holds ancient symbolism, The Rider-Waite Tarot.

There are many angels and archangels mentioned in the Bible (only a few by name, tho), but only four of them made it into being represented in tarot cards: Uriel, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael. Let’s get the gang together and meet the holy crew (please, forgive me for the puns).

Uriel:

whose name means “the light of god”, “the flame of god”. It’s the Wise Angel, often pictured as the one who holds books and scrolls and bears holy knowledge and understanding. or Clarity, if you will. They’re sort of the goth one™, associated with the Tartarus and being pictured as pitiless as any demon would; even holding the key to Hell during the end of times, Uriel is described as the angel who watches “over thunder and terror”. Uriel is sometimes even mistaken for a demon (apparently, the eastern catholicism accepts Uriel identity as an archangel, while the western catholicism gives more credit to its dark side, and does not encourage worshiping); this duality comes from the notion that very often, enlightenment may be the end result of dark times. Every archangel has many, I said MANY symbols attached to them, so other elements associated with this angel can be found on the image attached to this post.

About Uriel’s Tarot Card: if you were raised in a catholic family and slept through as much catechism as I did as a kid, maybe you’ll be surprised to know that Lucifer, Satan and Uriel are all different beings. Let it be a lesson: no matter how edgy of a teen you are, please accept knowledge from any possible source. Putting this thread together would’ve been so easier to me now if I did, haha... That being said, our angel Uriel is actually the Devil in the Devil Tarot card, which meaning touches on addiction, obsession, feeling imprisoned or restrained, but it being only an illusion of powerlessness. This card is an invitation to free yourself, fight distractions and temptation, and finally fulfill your destiny. Please, consider that tarot readings are very deep and variable; there’s extensive books only on tarot meaning, so I won’t explore much on each card. that’s just a very general notion.

Some sources also consider Uriel to be the responsible for the change represented in the Death card, despite not being directly pictured in such card. As stated before, Uriel is associated with the concept Death brings, being a turning point, and ending route.

The symbolism presented in the Devil card (as for the Rider-Waiter deck):

“At the foot of the Devil stand a man and a woman, both naked and chained to the podium on which the Devil sits. They appear to be held here against their will – but look closer, and you will notice that the chains around their necks are loose and could be easily removed. Each has small horns on their head, like the devil’s, a sign that they are becoming increasingly like him the longer they stay here. Both have tails, a further symbol of their animalistic tendencies and raw instincts, and the grapes and the fire on their respective tails signify pleasure and lust.”

Poor people. If only they knew better. A lil bit of Clarity, huh?

That’s it for MCR’s clarity symbol, conveniently shaped as a candle.

Michael:

whose name means “who is like god” (being it a rhetorical question, to mean that no one equals to God). It’s the Protector Angel. They’re the leader of angels in the battle against demons, Defender of God’s realm against Satan in the Book of Revelation. Michael is a warrior, and is often seem with the sword in hand, to allure to the idea of bravery. They’re described as the angel of strength, protection and Courage.

About Michael’s Tarot Card: Michael appears on the major arcana Temperance. In fact, even the name “Temperance” comes from the process of refining and strengthening materials in metallurgy. this one likes swords a lot, huh. That’s a card which meaning touches on patience and prudence. It means already having a clear vision and knowing what you want to achieve. Now It’s all about thinking before action, and accepting the balance of things, blending the opposites to achieve an ideal solution. Apparently a very suited card for a warrior of faith. Prepare yourself: in my research, I’ve found a source that associates this card with the color blue (the very same of the archangel) and the musical note G. Yes, the universe has a strange sense of humor.

The symbolism presented in the Temperance card: “The vessels in the angel’s hands represent the vessel that contains eternal life. The flowers are Irises symbolising the goddess Iris who links God to humanity. Iris travels from one end of the world to another, into the depth of the sea and the underworld. The angel’s feet, one on land and one in water, symbolise the unification of the external and internal, conscious and subconscious. It also represents testing the waters before jumping into the unknown. The red wings on the angel represent blood which symbolizes life. The sun conceals a crown which represents a connection to higher power. The triangle on the angel’s dress is an equilateral triangle and symbolise spirit, divinity, fire, life, prosperity, and harmony. It can also symbolise God and the holy trinity. The square outside the triangle represents protection and stability.”

The MCR symbol for Courage is a drop. is it a drop of blood? for an warrior angel and their endless battles on God’s behalf? Of water, the waters of unknown? The water of balance of life? I don’t know.

When Michael / was a young genderless being,/ their father…

Gabriel:

whose name means “strength of god”. It’s the Messenger Angel; Gabriel is often portrayed playing the trumpet, to make announcements of God’s will. (many angels play the trumpets on Revelations book,, but Gabriel seems to be the most intimately attached to this concept). In the hierarchy of angels, Gabriel seems to occupy a very high position, being knows as the “Left Hand of God” (our Michael aforementioned being the Right-hand angel).

Their famous appearances on the Bible includes appearing to Zechariah and the Virgin Mary, foretelling the births of John the Baptist and Jesus. Islam also has Gabriel appearing for many prophets, telling them the divine plans. In a way, all those messages are basically callings to a higher purpose, a proof of faith, a personal Sacrifice. This idea is reiterated by the symbolism of Gabriel’s tarot card.

Gabriel is also one of the Angels of Death (depending on the religious we are speaking about, there are over 14 different angels with this role). Not in a dark way, their role is to comfort and bring peace to the deceased, guiding them into the light. Gabriel is therefore an angel of mercy, redemption achieved through a proof of faith (often a self-sacrifice, of any nature), after a fair judgement. speaking of which…

About Gabriel’s tarot card: Gabriel appears on the major arcana Judgement, which meaning touches on taking responsibility for your actions, speaking the truth. It’s a beginning/ending type of card, but a different kind of change than the one represented on one of Uriel’s card, Death. While Death brings something unstoppable, more powerful than anyone’s options, Judgement usually portraits something you can actually choose to take part in. But it also your responsibility any consequences of not taking this step. A fair judgement, indeed.

The Symbolism presented in the Judgement card: “The angel with the Trumpet could be a reference to the angels and the seven trumpets in Revelation, bringing apocalypse and resurrection. The white banner with the red cross can be St. George Flag, and a reference to Saint George gives Judgement the symbolism of sacrifice done in the name of our faith. Both the flag and the trumpet are military symbols of authority. A man, a woman and a child are being called from the tomb of ego consciousness. The three people are reflected on the other side of the river, another symbol of the soul’s victory over death. The three people are also a symbol of the three pillars of the tree of life. The man and the woman has changed side from the familiar feminine on the left and masculine on the right. In Judgement it is the other way around. Perhaps it is to unify us and to tell us to look at a situation from a different perspective, from within. You are seeing the pillars from the Angel’s perspective. This symbolises to raise your thinking and ask for Divine Perspective. The mountains represent the structure that surrounds us all.”

Calling all units! Time for the ultimate vibe check.

I guess that’s it for our third MCR symbol, Sacrifice, shaped as hand. Is it a left hand, just like one of Gabriel’s titles? that would be interesting.

But not so fast.

Now we come to an interesting point. Gabriel is the first of our angels to have a sculpture used by My Chem. :) It’s actually endearing how, if this assumption is correct, they chose the messenger archangel to bring the good news: mcr is alive!

About Gabriel’s sculpture: our Return angel, as some of us already know by this point, is actually a piece called “Angelo e Alma”, by italian artist Pasquale Rizzoli. It is located on Cella Magnani, a memorial chapel of the Magnani family, inside Certosa di Bologna, which is a very antique monastery, later transformed on a monumental cemetery for many italian families. You can take a look here, it’s stunningly beautiful.

Finished in 1906, this piece was a commission by the widow of a war veteran called Natale Magnani, who apparently died young. As far as I understand written italian, since I speak portuguese (latin languages perks, yey!), it’s still difficult to me to do further research on this family. Being it an old, traditional italian family, there’s tons of Magnanis, but there’s little to no info on Natale or his wife’s lives on the internet, it seems. If you’re italian and have any info about this, please comment. It can actually be relevant to this thread.

This sculpture portraits an angel ascending to heavens, guiding a soul (represented as a woman in a long dress). There’s rose branches and lilies at the feet of both the angel and the soul, as they fly together. These flowers pay homage to Magnani’s family blazon, as stated by the Storia i Memoria di Bologna Project website, that also offers on their site a brief explanation on the meaning behind the many other plants on this piece. they all basically allure to death, sleep, and resurrection. you can check it out here.

The presented symbolism, being an angel appearing to a soul in their travel to the spiritual realm, and even the flowers used, lead me to conclude that this sculpture very likely pictures our Archangel Gabriel, in their judgement roles again.

Now, our holy rpg party already has a mage, a paladin and a bard. It’s time to introduce the most underappreciated (and my personal favorite) class:

Raphael:

whose name means “God heals”. Raphael is the angel for healing, thus making ‘whole’ everything that has been broken. They’re also a patron for lovers, role that he plays by using his healing powers in a non-literal way. Pay attention to the “fixing the broken and making it a whole again” part, that’s the connotation.

Both of these titles come from the roles Raphael played, depicted on the scriptures: the most famous ones being when Raphael was sent by the Lord to heal Tobit of his blindness and to deliver Sarah, his future daughter-in-law, from the demon Asmodeus, who killed every man she married on their wedding night before the marriage could be consummated.

Another famous role commonly related to Raphael is about the Pool of Bethesda. Despite not being mentioned by name, manuscripts of John 5:1–4 describe an angel that blessed this pool, healing the illness of those who touched its waters:

"an angel of the Lord descended at certain times into the pond; and the water was moved. And he that went down first into the pond after the motion of the water was made whole of whatsoever infirmity he lay under". It’s usually given credit to Raphael for this action, since they’re seem using healing power to fulfill God’s will in many occasions through the Bible.

About Raphael’s Tarot card: Raphael appears on the major arcana The Lovers, as the angel blessing the couple depicted. This is a card about romantic, even sexual, attraction, but not purely that. It’s about finding peace within yourself, and in someone else, about the journey to pick “the one” for you. Making a whole out of two halves is a common concept associated with this card.

Symbolism presented on The Lovers card: “the man and the woman in the image are being protected and blessed by an angel above. The couple seems secure and happy in their home, which appears to be the Garden of Eden. The fruit tree with the snake behind the woman is a reference to that story, which tells of humanity's fall into temptation and into the realm of flesh and sensuality. The angel depicted here is Raphael, the angel of air - who is of the same element of the zodiac sign that governs this card: Gemini. Air is associated with mental activity, and communication in particular, which is the foundation for healthy relationships. His blessing seems to give this card a sense of balance and harmony, the symbolization of union in a grand and cosmic sense between two opposing forces.”

Another source adds: “The couple stands in a beautiful, fertile landscape, reminiscent of the Garden of Eden. Behind the woman stands a tall apple tree, with a snake winding its way up the trunk. The serpent and apple tree represent the temptation of sensual pleasures that may take one’s focus away from the Divine. Behind the man is a tree of flames, which represent passion, the primary concern of the man. The twelve flames suggest the twelve zodiac signs, the symbol of time and eternity. The man looks to the woman, who watches the angel, showing the path of the conscious to the subconscious to the super-conscious, or from physical desire to emotional needs to spiritual concerns. The volcanic mountain in the background is rather phallic and represents the eruption of passion that happens when man and woman meet in full frontal nudity.”

Despite the latter being a bit too horny for my tastes, lol, both descriptions reiterate Raphael’s influence on the role of patronizing health and union, a journey of Devotion.

Oh, about the MCR symbol, shaped as a half-sun. at first I couldn’t find a correlation to Raphael and this sun shape, as for the first three angels it was very clear to me since just as I started reading about them. Then I realized the huge sun portrayed on The Lovers card, behind Raphael.

Despite holding its individual meanings, Tarot cards are not meant to me taken isolatedly. (that’s one of the reasons many people are not found of the single card yes-or-no type of drawing). That being said, it is not a surprised to find traces of one card on another, and many shared symbolism. As for the sun, it appears multiple times on the Rider-Waite deck, but only one card holds the same exact half shaped, upside down, centered sun as the MCR symbol. and that’s The Lovers. :)

Now, our romantic archangel lead us to a very lovely part:

About Raphael’s Sculpture: as we waited for MCR to dramatically drop the curtain at the reunion show, we were being watched over by a piece nicknamed “Angel of the Waters,” from the Bethesda Fountain (have you heard this name before?), located in the Bethesda Terrace, Central Park, in NYC. sculpted by Emma Stebbins in 1864, this piece’s history, together with Central Park’s history can be fully read in this awesome article that my friend Clara found: here.

But since we’re already here, let’s try to make a shorter version, focusing on what’s relevant to this thread.

Upon release, the angel, which stands and above and blesses a water fountain, was directly associated with the Bethesda Pool mentioned in the Bible, and the healing acts of Raphael. On the dedication pamphlet it was quoted the very same passage from the Gospel of John, chapter 5, verses 2-4 I’ve mentioned before. It’s a shame I couldn’t find any pictures of this pamphlet on the internet. Old documents, huh. NY people, if you have access to this, I’d love to see it.

If we stopped there, it would be enough evidence to assume the connection to Raphael, but there’s more! There’s some particularities about this statue.

Its conception was a huge deal: Emma was the first woman to receive a major sculptural commission in New York City. Also, she had a female lover, the world-famous American actress Charlotte Cushman, who, for Cedar Miller, historian that wrote about Central Park and Emma’s statue, holds a huge impact on the Angel of Waters actually making into existence. In 1869, Cushman was diagnosed with breast cancer. In addition to having two mastectomies, Cushman tried water cures in England. (Water cures were a big craze from the 1830s through the 1860s). The historian who wrote about them finds it another connection to the statue itself. Unfortunately, Cushman's treatments were ultimately unsuccessful, she passed away in 1875. Emma followed her not long after, in 1882. To this day, the statue remains, and to NY is a gathering place to find tranquility, peace of mind, even in the darkest times through the its 141 years of existence. It’s a place to heal yourself.

It’s not your average Raphael statue.

We have the archangel connection, a devoted couple's backstory, and lesbian/sapphics rights. I don’t know about you, but I can even picture Gerard Way carefully picking this himself, haha.

Oh, a spicy fact I’ve learned while writing this: This angel sculpture is actually even older in MCR’s history, tracing back to revenge era merch. (I didn’t have much access to mcr merch back in the day so I didn’t know about this, I apologize!)

I guess someone got nostalgic for some catholic aesthetics, huh. Bless!

Angels in tarot, bonus addition:

It is valid to mention that not only all of the 4 mentioned archangels have their individual cards, they also appear together in a single card, The Wheel of Fortune. In this card, each angel can be seen in a corner: Raphael (Aquarius) is upper left, Gabriel (Scorpio) is the eagle, Michael (Leo) is the lion, and Uriel (Taurus) is the bull, appearing in disguise, a common thing for angels though the scriptures, it seems.

If you draw tarot, you understand how big of a deal it is. If you’re not familiar, here’s the basic notion: “The wheel of fortune is a card about cyclical change. The wheel keeps on rolling, churning events in a ceaseless progression of ups and downs, either way freeing us from the past. No one can escape its cyclical action, which can feel somewhat terrifying -- no matter whether we are rising or falling. When one is balanced on top of the wheel, there is a moment of crystal clarity. However, the only part of the wheel that's actually not going up and down is the hub, which represents your eternal self. Every one of us will occupy all the points on the wheel at one point or another. The cycle of the wheel is its lesson -- and we can learn to take comfort in it. If you don't like the look of things right now, just wait -- things will change. Of course, if you do like the look of things right now, enjoy it while it lasts, because that will change too!”

It is quite a powerful card that holds all of the aforementioned symbolism. Woa.

More symbolism seem on this card includes:

“The Wheel of Fortune card shows a giant wheel, with three figures on the outer edges. Four Hebrew letters – YHVH (Yod Heh Vau Heh), the unpronounceable name of God – are inscribed on the wheel’s face. There are also the letters TORA, thought to be a version of the word Torah, meaning ‘law’, or TAROT, or even ROTA (Latin for ‘wheel’). The middle wheel has the alchemical symbols for mercury, sulphur, water and salt – the building blocks of life and the four elements – and represents formative power. On the outer circle is a snake, the Egyptian god Typhon (the god of evil), descending on the left side. The snake also represents the life force plunging into the material world. On the right side rises the Anubis, the Egyptian God of the dead who welcomes souls to the underworld. And on top of the wheel sits the Sphinx, representing knowledge and strength.”

THE SECOND SET OF SYMBOLS - STILL A MYSTERY

So, after all this, if any of this is correct at all, we just learned the meaning behind the first four MCR symbols, released on halloween: Clarity, Courage, Sacrifice and Devotion.

Now, what about the ones released at the reunion show, on the merch truck? Well, my friends, we still have a lot to think about.

I am a doctor, and in my profession there’s a saying which instruct us to always think of what seems like a complicated situation, with many possibilities, as a single disease causing many effects. That was my train of thought as I tried to associate these new symbols with the Archangels that we already have. It may have nothing to do with that at all, but it’s worth trying.

Differently from the first set, the second set didn’t get an official release, and does not hold text captions to guide us on it’s meaning. the symbol shapes, however, are easier to associate with tarot cards than the first ones, in my opinion. I’ve seen people online trying to guess it too.

Having the angels and their aforementioned traits as a guiding line, I used some symbolism associated to each one to connect them to a new symbol, as you can see on the picture attached to this post.

I have some major problems with this, tho, the biggest one being the order of the symbols not matching the first set sequence. We had Uriel (Clarity) / Michael (Courage) / Gabriel (Sacrifice) and Raphael (Devotion). The second set order was Sword / Moon / Tower / Wand, so the sequence goes like Michael / Gabriel / Uriel / Raphael. It doesn’t match. Please, help me.

THINGS THAT KEEP ME UP AT NIGHT: ABOUT WITCHCRAFT AND… SOLDIERS?

During the past weeks of my life I’ve been researching all types of things to break this down, so I came across some very unsettling things that may be just wild coincidences or... something else? Just in case, I am putting them here in case anyone finds some connection that I couldn’t.

Sigils and Pagan influences, maybe?

As some people on twitter and reddit noticed, Gerard was using a sigil on his arm that reads “My Chemical Romance”. Every Archangel mentioned here also holds its own sigil, which is shown on the picture attached to this post. While I was excited about the dates for new concerts, I started to think, is there anything special about these dates? I tried to not overthink it because we probably have major influences of disponibilities and,,, Label issues...I don’t know? some very practical stuff going on. But still, I came across an interesting match.

There’s 8 sabbaths, composing the Wheel of the Year, “an annual cycle of seasonal festivals, observed by many modern pagans, consisting of the year's chief solar events (solstices and equinoxes) and the midpoints between them.”

eight sabbaths, eight symbols, huh. Initially, I tried to connect each symbol to a sabbath, but it was very… not satisfying enough to me, so I’m leaving that out; nonetheless, I still believe they hold some meaning similarities.

And it doesn’t stop there.

That our lovely wheel of the year: here. We’re using a northern hemisphere version, since MCR is based in the USA.

The band returned on Halloween, which is the Samhain that occurs between Oct 31 / Nov 1. There’s some minor variation on dates because the Celtic day begins and ends at sunset.

Return Show took place in California, Dec 20: which marks the start of Yule. (Yule dates range from Dec 19 to Dec 22, for the Celtic calendar reasons)

The next sabbath is Imbolt, that takes place on Feb 1 / Feb 2. MCR has nothing announced for this date until now.

2020 concerts will happen during the week of March 20, 21, 25, 28 and 29, In Australia, New Zealand and Japan, as for now. That marks the start of the Ostara sabbath, which start range is March 20/21.

so… can we expect something (anything?) being announced at Feb 1 or 2, or near that? What about all the remaining sabbaths? Is that a reach? is it related at all? oof.

Who said Danger Days isn’t goth enough?

Another VERY interesting thing my group chat found on the internet during our MCR tarot obsession. If this theory is correct, this is not the first time they would be alluring to it. Please look at this pic of Grace Jeanette, The Girl in DD universe, posing with the mailbox on the set of the “Art Is The Weapon”/“Na Na Na” video shoot (2010). (Exact source and photographer unknown; likely taken by Jeanette’s mother). (big thanks to tumblr user killjoyhistory).

Bellow the big “OH HELL” we have four tarot cards, on the very same deck we used for this thread, the Rider-Waite deck. The cards are The Tower, The Devil, Death and Three of Wands.

Please note that it may have no correlation to future works, since DD itself had religious symbolism with the Phoenix Witch and this mailbox (go read the comics if you didn’t already. DD rights!), it may be a DD-only thing. Also, please note that 3 out 4 of theses cards were already mentioned in this thread, all possibly related to archangel Uriel.

To wage this war against your faith in me, MCRMY.

So. This one will sound weird and maybe a reach too, but, hey, mychem is alive and breathing, I guess there’s nothing really impossible, haha….?

Are we all familiar with Gerard liking a lot that green coat? After all those years, I guess so.

Indeed, our lovely frontman used yet another green jacket as his return outfit. This time, it was a military one. As a foreigner, and being very ignorant on how the US Army works, I got curious about the badge on his jacket. Maybe that’s common sense to you guys and I’m just embarrassing myself, but hey! be kind to someone who’s sort of dying inside after all this thinking process, would you?

The badge on Gerard’s jacket happens to be from the 1st Armored Division, a.k.a the Old Ironsides, named after an old ship (and the world's oldest commissioned naval vessel still afloat).

Actually, the nickname “Old Ironsides” trace back to England in 17th century, during their Civil War, but I didn’t find many relevant content / possible connections, besides them being mostly Protestant, in terms of religion… referring to them after all this catholic-conception angel talk is some sort of metaphorical war going on, MCR? Who knows. History-loving english folks, I’m counting on you too now to confirm this, lmao!

The American side of the “Old Ironsides” term, after being passed down from England during their Independence Wars (please be kind with me, my knowledge about american independence is almost 100% from Hamilton the musical lmao, help me) apparently resides, mostly on the US Army/Navy.

Interesting coincidences (?) about this: the Old Ironside ship, aka USS Constitution, has a familiar date on its history: November 1. I’m quoting its construction period info: “Her keel was laid down on 1 November 1794 at Edmund Hartt's shipyard in Boston, Massachusetts under the supervision of Captain Samuel Nicholson and master shipwright Colonel George Claghorn.”

I didn’t read much about it since I’m already at edge with everything I’ve been researching but, it seems it was a very adored ship. In fact, one of the reasons it’s still in active service it’s because a poet even made it a famous poem about this ship, that you can read here. It’s symbolic and adored, it seems.

About the homonymous 1st Armored Division of the US Army, which badge Gerard used during the return show: being the first armored division of the U.S. Army to see battle in World War II, it also holds a huge historical meaning.

Again, I don’t have much info to share about this and I think some of you will find possible connections on this better than I would.

But wtf does it have to do with all the angels, Nana?

Well, as mentioned before, angels fight battles in the name of God. They’re heaven’s military. Michael, especially, is a warrior angel and leads God’s troupes against the demons.

Something interesting I’ve found relating Gabriel (which statue, let’s not forget, was commissioned by a war widow) to the war concept was the hebrew poem "Elifelet" (אליפלט) written by Nathan Alterman in 1958, often turned into music and played on the israeli radio. it tells of a heroic, self-sacrificing (hm…) israeli soldier being killed in battle. Upon the protagonist's death, the angel Gabriel descends to Earth, in order to comfort the spirit of the fallen hero and take him up to Heaven. It’s very touching, and you can read it here.

I’m not saying any particular work like this poem is relevant to MCR’s possible new concept. (let’s not be political here, but also be honest: Israel wars are a delicate matter to bring up). We’re solely working with symbolism and history. Please keep that in mind.

MCR has touched on war thematics before in many occasions (I will not mention all of them, as I believe that as a fandom, we’re aware of that, and we can help new fans to understand it if needed. This text is already TOO LONG). Maybe it’s time for them to talk about some conflicts again, literal or metaphorical? Let’s wait and see.

Oh, one last thing. There’s actually a whole another navy air test and evaluation squadron, the Antarctic Development Squadron Six (VXE-6 or ANTARCTIC DEVRON SIX, commonly referred to by its nickname, The Puckered Penguins). They’re based on California (lmao) and their motto is… Well, “Courage, Sacrifice, Devotion”. Uriel kinda left behind again, huh. I’m sorry sweetie.

Again, I apologize if this last section (or even the whole thing..haha…) looks far-fetched, but I just… had to take it out of my chest, sorta? Sorry.

That concludes our Archangel Theory. Thank you if you took your time to read through it all.

List of things to maybe expect in the future:

Something on Feb 1 / Feb 2

Two more angel statues, being them related to Uriel and Michael in some sort of way. I’ve tried to find any suitable matches but… there’s just too many, and as we’ve seen it may even not be officially claimed which angel is portrayed. So let’s wait and see.

More pagan symbolism?

Something about War??

Cryptid posts related to UK and paganism, January 17th and January 24th.

## EDIT (01/12): about new mcr cryptid posts...

If you’re following MCR new updates, as for now you’re aware of the United Kingdom Stuff going on... Interesting coincidences (or is it?) about those:

Both posts were made on the same day the lunar cicle changes. This month, the moon shows up a different form every friday, so maybe prepare you heart for January 17th and 24th. Also, I believe they’re using London time for the updates. in fact, the most recent post (the video with theban alphabet) was posted only 30 minutes after midnight in London. So I’m adding that to our list of things to expect in the future.

Also, someone at warner might be in trouble right now. the ig account for Warner Music Artistic Services (@wmas) posted a variation of the video posted by MCR, only a day later, featuring another order for the theban caracters, a slightly different UK flag (it was somehow merged with a picture? it’s difficult to tell), and a new frame that consists of a forest, similar to the one Gerard posted on his own instagram, and the one featured as background for the skeleton holding a witchcraft-related dagger photo from 2 weeks ago. Differently from the previous mcr video, which was silent, this one featured a sound, if my ears are not mistaken, a very dramatic C# note played on piano or organ (church instruments, huh. funny. but it could be worse, at least is not a G note...)

The video was labeled as LFG, that could mean a million of things. the most relevant ones, I believe, could be “Looking For A Group”, a classic D&D/RPG term (If I close my eyes long enough I can hear distant circus music playing in my head, for I have compared the four archangels to a holy RPG party weeks ago...)or “London Forest Gate”, a neighbourhood in London. please tell me if you have any ideas about what else it could mean, haha....

This video was deleted, but you can still find it around on twitter.

Well, that’s it for now. I’ll keep updating this post as more content is released. Keep running!

[soulbutterlanguages]

My Language Routine for Quarantine

Vocabulary

first I make a short list of words that I want to work on. I recommend finding a list of 1000 most common words of your target language and taking from there, or maybe a book or television show. One problem I have with school and themed lists are that many of the words don’t actually come up in casual conversation all that often. It’s great to know “knee” but how often do you actually talk about knees? Therefore take your list from high volume utterances. 

Taking from television is also a great way to accumulate slang into your vocabulary. 

Once you have your list, find translations. I like to color code it like this;

(sorry for the quality) I have my two target languages, and my mother tongue in a ridiculous color that I don’t really want to look at. (it’s easier to read on my card than in this picture.) But if I forget, I could still figure it out easily enough. 

If you have the means to draw out the vocabulary word, this is proven to be more effective than to simply associate it with words of your native language.

All in all, do not make your native language as easy to access as your target language (see image).

Also, it doesn’t help to learn by the phrase. Believe it or not, Pinterest is a great source for already made lists of phrases in most major languages.

Grammar

This is one of the more difficult things to practice without a native speaker present. Dedicate a page of a journal, or word doc to write down the rules of the grammar rule you want to learn. 

Other things you could include on this page

-why it confuses you / what other rule you get it confused with

     ~find the answer and explain it to yourself

-find examples and make up your own

-comparative diagrams of rules if applicable

Application / Writing

The only way to learn is through application!!! Try to krank out a short story or rant that strings your vocab words together and utilizes or target grammar rules.

If you can, have someone check it for you. There are plenty of free apps that connect you to native speakers over chat, (of course be careful,) like HelloTalk.

Reading

This is the easiest to work on by yourself!! There are so many resources online!! Articles/songs/poems/short stories are all at your finger tips.  Try not to start with something too long, so as not to wear yourself out.

My recommendation would be when you find a word or phrase you don’t know, write it down and use context clues to guess what it means. (Write that down too for future vocab list.) Under your guess in a different color, (or just differentiate the two somehow,) write the actual translation. Using pons.eu is my favorite because it gives you every different meaning and explains examples.

After you finish reading, put that paper away with all of the previously unknown  words, and reread the text. See how much you remember of the words you didn’t know and mark the ones you miss again, so that you can work on those more. 

Side note; Songs are great to analyze!!! Especially if they’re songs you listen to often. It introduces you to a more poetic form of literature that is crucial to any language!! Plus you can now sing along and actually know what they’re saying. 

Learning lyrics in other languages has actually helped me when taking tests. When learning conjugations, genders of nouns, or even grammatical cases, this can be super helpful, easy to remember, and fun !!!!

Here are a few news sources that offer many languages

euronews   dw.com   uk.reuters

Keep track of your learning!!

Keep a journal or ongoing word document. 

Things you might include in an entry;

-date

-time spent

-activities finished/attempted

-how satisfactory the time spent was / how much you feel as though you progressed

-(goal for next time)

You don’t have to work on writing/reading/grammar every single day. Just make sure if you teach yourself something, that you put it to use. In addition, if you scoured over a vocab list two weeks ago and have since forgotten some of the words, keep applying them until you feel natural using the word or grammar point.

Hope this helps someone !

[cinnbar-bun]

New Family

A/n: okay so,,, I love the baby summoner idea a lot and I wanted to do... an interesting take. @pokemagines hope you enjoy!!! Baby Summoner is gonna be a young girl and will just have a made up name I choose, but if you choose to see them as smth else, that’s cool too!!! This is just to make it easier for me, and there is slight... Alfonse x reader??? Or Sharena x Reader, if you want it. ~Spoilers for FEH~ also, this is like a... part one? Of sorts?

Alfonse, Sharena, and the Summoner were patrolling once more. They walked in a clearing that edged between a large forest, making sure no enemies were taking refuge there.

A small rustle came from some nearby bushes and the group stopped. Alfonse drew his sword as the Summoner slowly pulled out Briedablik. The others followed suit and waited with bated breath as the rustling grew louder and closer.

Alfonse stepped forward, leaning his head over to see what was causing the noise, when a small squeak made him jolt back. A small figure jumped out the bushes before they screamed loudly.

“Get away! Get away!” They yelled, falling backwards as they sobbed in terror. Alfonse and Sharena dropped their weapons hurriedly as they went to comfort the young child.

“Hey, hey, don’t worry. We won’t hurt you!” Sharena reassuringly smiled. “Are you alright?”

The young girl sniffled before she nodded. Alfonse crouched down and did his best to smile.

“I’m Alfonse. Prince of Askr. This is my sister, Sharena, and that’s our Summoner, (Y/n).” Alfonse pointed to every person, and looked back at the child. “What’s your name?”

The child shook its head.

“Lif said I shouldn’t talk to strangers.” They quietly mumbled.

“L-Lif?” The three gasped. The child nodded before their eyes watered again.

“I-I... I went off without him and got lost. I don’t know what to do anymore. H-He’s probably very mad at me now.” The child hiccuped and did their best to rub their eyes.

You frowned as you knelt down in front of the child and held their hand gently.

“I don’t think he is. Here, come with us. We’ll keep you safe, okay? You shouldn’t be out here alone.” You knew exactly how it felt to be so lost in a strange new world. The child clung onto you and you squeezed their hand as a sign that you would protect them. They seemed to relax with you.

Alfonse and Sharena got up and looked at the young child again. With what they could see... strangely, they looked similar to you. As if they were a smaller version of you. But something felt off about them, almost familiar, that differentiated the child from you.

It wasn’t the time to think of that, as your patrolling session was coming to a close, and you wanted to make sure your new friend was safe. Sure, they may have been affiliated with Lif, but given his recent disclosure on his real identity, you knew there must be more to this. If he really was the future Alfonse, the one who carried your weapon so long even after he lost you, the one who thought of Sharena almost every waking hour, then surely, he made sure to care for this child for a reason. They didn’t even seem fearful when they talked about Lif, so you could only assume they cared as much for the undead warrior as he seemed to care for them.

The young girl beamed at a bushel of multi-colored flowers and tugged herself away from your hands and ran to them.

“So pretty!” She gasped, she reached out a hand to pick one out but she flung her arm back to her side. “S-sorry... I don’t wanna kill them... Lif said that if I pick flowers I’ll kill whatever life it had. I don’t want to do that.”

You three looked at each other in slight confusion and shock, before Sharena stepped forward. She picked a rose from the bushel and placed it in the girl’s hair.

“You’re fine. Really. These flowers are grown for everyone. Besides, we can always just plant more!” She smiled. The girl opened her mouth before she grinned and nodded.

“Thank you Miss Sharena!”

“Just Sharena is fine.”

“Okay Miss- I mean... just Sharena.” Alfonse couldn’t help but chuckle at the conversation, and he looked at you.

“Hah, it’s almost strange but... she kind of reminds me of Sharena when she was young.”

“Is that so?” You responded. “I think I see it though. She looks so happy no matter what.”

You two looked as Sharena and your new friend were happily babbling about flowers, and the previous tension faded away.

“-and this castle is for the Order of Heroes!” Sharena pointed, and the girl gawked.

“Really? There’s an Order of Heroes? Can I be a hero?” She asked, her doe eyes glimmering hopefully.

“Of course you can.” Alfonse answered.

“Yay! Lif should join too! He’s so nice! Besides, he’s so shy and needs new friends. I think he’d love these flowers!” The girl clapped her hands together.

The awkward silence that ensued went unnoticed by her. You three looked at each other once again, unsure of what to say. Despite his reasons, Lif was perhaps anything but a hero. But in a small part of your heart, perhaps even everyone else’s, the tiny, inkling feeling about how he once was, maybe even still, Alfonse.

“D-do you want to meet other heroes?” You asked, trying to break the silence. The girl held your hand and cheerfully exclaimed for you to take her.

As you two stepped into the castle, Anna came marching in, a tight frown on her face.

“Where were you guys? You had us worried half to death! Time is money and-who... who’s this?” She pointed at the young girl in confusion, and you three awkwardly laughed.

“She was a young lost girl. We can’t have her outside all alone! Especially now with...” Sharena rose her eyebrows and motioned her hands wildly.

“Alright but... what’s her name?” Anna asked.

“Uh...we don’t know...” Alfonse looked off to the side.

“You two...” Anna sighed before she looked at the child. “Sweetie, what’s your name?”

The girl hid behind the crown prince and princess, and Alfonse stroked her head lightly.

“Don’t worry. You can trust Anna, she’s our friend.”

“I-If you say so...” the girl stepped forward. “My name is Henriette.”

You all gasped, and the two siblings froze.

“S-sorry. Repeat that?” Anna asked.

“Henriette. Is my name ugly?” The girl’s lips began to quiver. “B-but... Lif said my name was special...”

“Oh uh... no it’s great it’s just... sorry for scaring you. The Queen is named Henriette too. She’s our mother!” Sharena tried to comfort Henriette.

“Really?! She’s a queen?!” Henriette exclaimed. “I wanna be a Queen too!”

“You will be. Anna, come on, I wanna show her around. I think lots of the heroes would love to meet her.” Sharena explained. Anna seemed to think about something before she shrugged and agreed, the two walking off.

You looked at Alfonse, who seemed troubled as he furrowed his brows.

“Alfonse? Are you alright?” You asked.

“Yes its just... Henriette...”

“What about her? You don’t think she’s a spy or planning something bad do you?”

“While I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility, I’m more curious about her... family...”

“Huh? Family?” You rose an eyebrow.

“Well... she just looks um...” his cheeks turned pink and he seemed embarrassed to speak.

“What? Alfonse what are you trying to say?”

“I think she might be...our future child. I-I mean not you and me specifically! But like... maybe? But also, possibly Sharena?” He waved his hands in front of him as his cheeks flared red. You cocked your head.

“What? What in God’s name gave you that idea?” Now that he mentioned that, you could almost piece together a somewhat coherent idea. Alfonse was always good at reading into things like this.

“I mean... she looks almost like you. But similar to us too. She acts just like Sharena. Lif has been watching over her, and he’s...” he couldn’t finish that part. “And her name is Henriette. The coincidences are too big.”

You understood now.

“But... what do we do now? Should we ask her or...?”

“I think it’s still too early to tell. We might need to get it out of her slowly. But this is just my hypothesis. I think it’s best we protect her and let her relax. If she’s been with Lif then... there’s no telling what she may have had to deal with.” He trailed off.

“I understand. I think maybe we should just... let them be? I don’t think they’ve had the chance to be a kid. But we should probably go find her before Anna tries to teach her about swindling people out of money.” You chuckled. You were about to walk away when Alfonse grabbed your hand.

“Um... (Y/n)... I know this is a lot to take in but don’t tell this to anyone else. I don’t want to make things awkward or give them hope about something that may or may not be true. I don’t think it’s fair to Sharena to tell her that Henriette may be her daughter or niece.” You nodded.

“Your secret is safe with me.” His face softened.

“Thank you, (Y/n).” He said your name breathlessly and smiled, “I know I can trust you with this.”

You two walked around the castle trying to find Sharena and Henriette, and after about an hour of searching and asking around, you found the two in the kitchen. Sharena was gushing about vanilla cakes while Henriette munched on some cookies, engrossed in every word the Princess was saying. Feh was on Henriette’s lap, the bird being stroked by the young girl.

“There you two are!” Sharena waved you over. “Come on, I want your opinion about my cakes.” She stabbed a fork into her creation and placed it to your mouth, eagerly awaiting for you to try it. You opened your mouth and ate the cake, sighing euphorically as you tasted it.

“That’s so good, Sharena. You always make the best desserts.” She blushed at your compliments and waved her hand dismissively.

“Oh you’re just exaggerating!”

“But I’m not! Seriously!” You exclaimed.

Henriette looked curiously at you two, and you looked back at her.

“Henriette? What’s up?” She pointed at the window, meekly raising her index.

“W-who is he?” She asked, pointing to a young green haired archer.

“Oh? Do you mean Rolf?” Sharena asked. Henriette nodded. “Oh I see! Do you want to be his friend? I’m sure he’d love to have someone his age as his friend!”

Henriette stood up, causing Feh to flap her wings erratically from the sudden jump.

You held out your hand and Henriette skipped over to you.

“I’m going to have a friend! That’s going to be so fun! What do I say? What do I do?” She nervously asked.

“Hey, don’t be afraid. Just act natural. Rolf is very nice, so he won’t hurt you.” You assured.

You two walked outside and you waved your arm in the air while shouting for the young boy.

“Rolf! Hey, Rolf!” You called. The archer looked up at you curiously and ran over to you.

“Summoner! Hey!” He greeted.

“Rolf, I want you to meet Henriette! She’s a new friend who’s going to be staying with us for a bit.” You placed your hands on Henriette’s shoulders as she bit her thumb.

“Really? Hi, Henriette!” Rolf extended his hand. “I’m Rolf!”

“Hi, Rolf!” She bit her lip before she gripped his hand back and shook it.

“She’s new here and since you’re about her age, I thought it’d be nice if you two got to know each other.”

“Will do, Summoner! Henriette, what do you like to do?” Rolf asked.

“Um... I don’t know? Usually I read or play hide and seek.” Henriette responsed.

“Oh okay! Do you know anything about archery?” He asked. She shook her head. “Alright! Then I’ll show ya!” He extended his hand for her to grip, and she did so without a second thought. Rolf grinned as he began to run, Henriette giggling as she ran with him.

You watched as their figures became smaller and smaller. It was a cute sight to see.

But the happiness was short-lived as you thought of what Alfonse said.

This was possibly my child.

It haunted you, honestly. It was just such a sudden notion, and one you didn’t know how to process. In a future where all hope was destroyed, you had a child... with Sharena or Alfonse. Or, this child wasn’t even yours at all. It was tough to think about. You pushed it in the back of your mind. It wasn’t something you should think of now. Besides, maybe Alfonse was wrong. Maybe Henriette really had nothing to do with any of you, and you were just overthinking.

It’s still too early to tell...