#I'M REALLY REALLY HAPPY TO HEAR YOU LIKE THEM;; ;-;

[tthoroughfare]

garden daisy (part 2) // ellie williams

*･゜ﾟ･* summary: ellie makes a new friend, and you feel all weird about it.

*･゜ﾟ･* pairing: modern!ellie x reader

*･゜ﾟ･* content: sfw

*･゜ﾟ･* length: 1.6k

this is part two of this series! find part one here

okay so i feel like the way i've organized this series is kind of confusing as it started as a random blurb... technically part one is this blurb however the real story starts in the xmas fic! the blurb just kind of exists floating around somewhere before the events of that and sets up the dynamic. call it part 0.5 i guess. also i'm so sorry if ur name is haley it was genuinely the first name i thought of hahaha

after christmas, once you’re all settled back into life at college, ellie gets a new job. it’s just a few shifts a week at a music store, but she seems to be enjoying it. you’re happy for her; it’s nice to see her getting out of the apartment more, doing something that allows her to be in her element.

but then she starts mentioning a girl she works with. like, a lot.

“dude, look at what haley sent me today, i was dying.”

“haley had, like, the coolest shirt on at work.”

“oh my god, so i found out haley likes comics, too.”

at first, it doesn’t really bother you. then, it’s a case of you trying not to let it bother you. why even should it? she’s allowed to make new friends; her life doesn’t revolve around you.

still, you don’t like the way your chest starts to twist every time she gets mentioned, every time you see ellie smiling at her phone. you can hear them on facetime frequently through the thin walls of your apartment, and you more often than not end up shoving your headphones in to drown it out.

they start spending time together outside of work, too. she mentions that they’re going to see an exhibit together on a shared day off, and it takes everything for you to look up from your laptop, give her a tight smile and utter, “cool.”

you can tell she’s a bit dispirited by your reaction, like she’s debating saying something. she leaves it, though, just nodding once and pursing her lips before walking away. you kick yourself for it immediately — wishing you’d tried harder to appear enthusiastic for her. you’re worried it could be the seed of a wedge being driven.

it’s not like she’s completely neglected your friendship. you live together. you see her every day. she still gently knocks at your ajar door, poking her head around and asking if you want to watch a movie with her. you make dinner together on friday nights, something you’d done since you moved out of the dorms and got a semi-decent place.

you’re just so used to it being the two of you. sure, you both have other friends, but you’re best friends. you can’t help but feel a little uneasy all of a sudden someone new is making their way up the ladder, ellie not having quite as much time for you anymore.

at least, that’s what you tell yourself the reason is. you know the real one.

you eventually meet the esteemed haley when she comes over to hang out, and to your petty dismay she well and truly lives up to the boasting. you’ve seen pictures of her (as in, you found her on instagram and stalked her at two in the morning), but she’s even prettier in person. she’s sweet, too, giving you a hug and saying how great it is to finally meet you. ellie talks about you all the time, apparently.

the evening’s spent with the tv on, a few drinks sipped. you’re on one side of the couch, ellie on the other, new friend in the middle. you hate how genuinely likeable she is; she goes out of her way to speak to you, asking you questions about yourself and chatting jovially when you find common ground. she’s cool, smart, witty — it’s impossible not to compare yourself, and feel subpar. like old news.

and you wish you weren’t, but you’re reading into every little thing. the way the two of them easily bounce off of each other’s jokes, the way you can see even where you’re from how ellie’s eyes light up when she looks at her. deciding three’s a crowd and you’re just hurting your own feelings, you call it pretty early.

when you stand after finishing your drink and announce that you’re going to bed, you note the way that ellie’s face drops. “oh… really?”

you scrunch your nose, trying to sound untroubled. “yeah, i’m kinda tired, so…”

“m’kay,” she replies, chewing slightly at the inside of her cheek. she knows you better than that. since you first met, you’ve never been ‘kinda tired’ by nine.

after a pause and a quick look back and forth between the two of you, haley gives you a smile, reiterating her earlier statement. “well, it was so nice to meet you, anyway.”

you return it, nodding. your eyes flit to ellie for a split-second. “yeah, you too. see you both later.”

with that, you place your glass in the sink across the room and head off down the hall.

you change and get ready for bed, although the plan was never to sleep. you’re nestled under a blanket, lights dim and a candle burning as you keep your eyes trained on the bullshit stream of youtube videos you’d put on. you’re not really paying attention, mind well and truly elsewhere; simultaneously feeling sorry for yourself, and like the most petty, mean person in the world.

you feel pathetic for wishing ellie’s new friend wasn’t so easy to get along with. she came off as a nice person, and not in a sickly, fabricated way. you could understand how she’d easily tugged ellie out of her shell. a part of yourself had been secretly hoping she was irritating, or bitchy, or weird towards you — you just wanted something to latch onto, something to validate all the uncomfortable emotions that had been swirling ever since she became prominent.

but there was nothing. now all you’re left with is a weird bitterness towards a perfectly normal, sweet girl, her only crime being fetching up a childish possessiveness within you.

you don’t even understand why you’re like this over her in particular; ellie was always an introvert, but it wasn’t like she was a complete recluse. she’d had a serious girlfriend in high school, seen a couple of girls your first year of college, and you don’t remember feeling anywhere near how you are right now. you just guessed you didn’t have as much understanding of how you looked at her back then, combined with the domesticity of now having your own real place luring you into a warped way of thinking.

you hear haley leave around an hour and a half after you’d taken yourself to bed, followed by ellie shuffling around the kitchen space. the tap runs and there are a few clinks as she washes then places the three glasses to dry, hitting the lights off. her room’s further down the hall from yours, and she hesitates as she’s making her way there.

a few light taps sound from the other side of the door. “you asleep?”

“… no,” you call out softly, watching as it cracks open and ellie picks her way in. wordlessly, she plops herself onto the bed next to you, arm behind her head. you shift away a little, offering her more room.

“what’re you watching?”

“uh…” grabbing the remote, you pause the video for a beat so the title shows. you’re not even sure; you’d just selected the first you saw, then let the rest autoplay. “… ‘six most disturbing forest encounters caught on camera’.”

she chuckles. “spooky.”

“eh… they’re all fake.” you look up at her, smiling a little.

“could’ve fooled me.”

“i’m sure,” you laugh lightly, feeling the need to turn away when she goes to meet your eyes.

it’s quiet for a while, but you can sense she wants to say something. it’s not like one of the times she waltzes into your room simply to hang out, sit at the side of one another peacefully.

“you okay?” she eventually asks gently, turning her head to regard you. you don’t meet it.

“yeah, i’m fine.”

“you sure? ‘cause… i don’t know. you seem a little…”

“i’m all good.” glancing up, you offer an unconvincing, flickery smile. “don’t worry.”

“… okay.”

you can tell it offers no comfort, but she doesn’t push it. just settles further into the bed, scratching at her chin.

her eyes dart from the tv screen to the wall, then back to you. “haley’s cool, right? guessed you guys would get along.”

“yeah, she seems nice.”

she’s really not being subtle; but then again, neither are you. you’d been perfectly friendly while you were all together, but the way you’d disappeared coupled with your increasingly half-hearted responses whenever she was brought up pointed elsewhere.

“seriously, what’s up?” she turns onto her side to face you, resting her head on her arm. “i don’t like this.”

you roll your eyes, sighing as you turn, mirroring her. “it’s stupid.”

“what’s stupid?”

your mind flashes with a million ways you can get an overview of your feelings out, without having to tell her the root cause. “i don’t know, i’m just… like, used to it being… y’know, me and you.”

she pulls a face, letting out a fond scoff and furrowing her brow. “what do you mean?”

a tiny groan sounds from your throat, fingertips rubbing at your eye. “i’m just being stupid. fuckin’ embarrassing.”

laughing quietly again, she narrows her eyes a little. “what, are you, like… jealous?”

“no, i just… i don’t know. ignore me.” you’re trying to ignore the way you can feel your cheeks heat up when she says that word. you’d known all along that’s what you were, but being confronted with it is a whole other sensation entirely.

she doesn’t say anything for a moment, just keeps a small smirk on her face and looks down. “that is stupid.”

“right. thanks.”

“no, like…” subconsciously shuffling closer, her leg brushes yours. she quickly moves it. “dude, i can have other friends, but no-one’s gonna be you.”

you blink, thrown by her sincerity. you’d half-expected her to poke a little fun, call you a dumbass. she continues, your eyes meeting hers as she settles her head into the palm of her hand. “you’re always gonna be my best friend.”

yeah, i know, you think. that’s the problem.

[deeplyshalllow]

Glinda gets what she deserves at the end of Wicked

I don’t necessarily mean this in an all negative light either, Glinda’s ending is bittersweet – sad, but hopeful. But she does not deserve an all out happy ending at the end of the musical.

I don’t know if I’m gonna be crucified for this, but here goes.

Glinda in Act 2 is a key part of a fascist regime. She doesn’t just live in it, she isn’t forced to take part in it and she’s not working as a double agent (like Fiyero). She knows what they are doing to the Animals (which includes separating infants from their mothers and putting them in cages, and making Animals so afraid they literally forget how to speak), she knows and loves people it is hurting and yet she continues to actively promote it.

(I won’t point out the connections to real world situations, but I’m sure you guys can all think of examples and think of how you feel about people who are active participants in helping such regimes.)

We see she knows all this too. We see she excuses it for her ego and the power:

Glinda: Do you think I like to hear them say those awful things about her? I hate it!

Fiyero: Then what are we doing here? Let's go, let's get out of here!

Glinda: We can't leave now, not when people are looking to us to raise their spirits.

Fiyero: You can't leave, because you can't resist this. And that is the truth.

Glinda: Maybe I can't. Is that so wrong? Who could?

Elphaba: No, of course you never! You're too busy telling everyone how wonderful everything is!

Glinda: I'm a public figure, now. People expect me to...

Elphaba: Lie?

Glinda: Be encouraging!

And if one could possibly argue (weakly) that, given she’s not actually doing any of the regime’s actual violence, just keeping people’s hopes up she’s not as bad as those who are, she gets worse:

Morrible: Well, we'll just flush her out and force her to show herself.

Wizard: But how?

Glinda: Her sister

Morrible: What? What did she say?

Glinda: Use her sister. Spread a rumour. Make her think her sister is in trouble and she will fly to her side... and you'll have her.

Even if one argues that Glinda is somehow not clever enough to realise that they’ll end up killing Nessa, she sure as hell knows it will get Elphaba captured. And there’s no way that Elphaba being captured won’t lead to the execution of her best friend. Yes, she’s heartbroken, yes, she might not have said this when emotions weren’t running high, but it doesn’t make her terrible words less deadly (and bear in mind Elphaba hadn’t even done anything to hurt Glinda! It was Fiyero who chose to go with her).

Glinda only really starts realising what she has done in March of the Witch hunters, when Nessa is dead, Fiyero is tortured and presumed dead and Elphaba has descended into madness – all because of her own action. And, kudos to her, this is when she decides to change, she immediately goes to Elphaba and tries to warn her about the Witch Hunters, apologises and ultimately Elphaba trusts her with the Grimmorie and to continue her legacy (which she immediately does by overthrowing the Wizard). She has started down the track to good but she still has a long way to go.

I am not the first, nor will I be the last to point this out but “Goodness knows the wicked’s lives are lonely, goodness knows the wicked die alone”, sung by Glinda,is clearly not about Elphaba. Elphaba was not wicked, nor did she die alone (literally Dorothy was in the room and metaphorically Glinda supported and loved her). Glinda is singing about herself, Glinda knows she has been wicked, Glinda knows that it is her own actions that have lead to the “death�� of her friends.

So what Glinda is left with is a chance to do good. A chance to live up to her name and make up for what she’s done. A chance to use what she’s most talented at, making people like her, to continue the legacy of her best friend. Despite everything, Elphaba does trust her, if she didn’t she wouldn’t have left her with this responsibility.

Glinda: Fellow Ozians, friends, we have been through a frightening time. There will be other times and other things that frighten us. But if you let me, I'd like to try to help. I'd like to try to be... Glinda the Good.

This is why she is going to “try” to be Glinda the Good, because she hasn’t been good yet. She has learnt a lot of very hard lessons through the narrative, been dragged kicking and screaming out of her selfishness, ego and giving into her worst impulses and is grateful for a chance to repent. And honestly, I’m sure she will suceed.

And one last thing:

Elphaba: I only wish...

Fiyero: What?

Elphaba: Glinda could know that we're alive.

Fiyero: She can't know, not if we want to be safe. No one can ever know.

I know a lot of people take ire with this line. But Fiyero, always the best strategist of the group, is right. The last time Glinda was trusted with important information it led to a death and two more people nearly dying. She has not earned that trust yet.

But, remember, Glinda isn’t stupid, Glinda is in a position where she’s going to have to think more and more. Glinda has presumably seen her roommate get wet before, she saw Fiyero’s reaction to the rumour, no matter how much searching happens Fiyero’s body never turns up, how long is it really going to take for her to connect the dots? Sure “Glinda can never know” for sure, but she sure as hell can be comforted by the fact she’s almost certain her best friend did not melt from a bucket of water.

[markrosewater]

hi Mark! i noticed in "#1202: Psychology" you didn't make any mention of the two aesthetic profiles Vorthos and Mel, and i was wondering whether any of the decisions being made specifically take them into consideration. like i ask this because one of the biggest changes to Magic this year (UB coming to standard) is something Vorthos care the most about but it seems like nothing has been done to directly address them as an audience

The aesthetic profiles aren't rooted in psychology like the psychographics, so that's why I didn't touch upon them in the psychology podcast. I'll probably do another aesthetics podcast one day (I did one as part of my "20 Lessons" series) and I'll talk about them there.

The concept of Vorthos, at its core, is about appreciating the creative elements of card design above all else. Many Vorthos adore Universes Beyond because we've done a very good job at capturing the various properties in Magic card design form.

But yes, there's a subgroup of Vorthoses that care specifically about Magic's creative world building, characters, and story. We're spending a lot of time and energy to make sure the products set in the Magic multiverse are doing a good job of representing it. 2024 had many successes (Bloomburrow, Duskmourn, and Foundations) in this area, but also some failures (Murders at Karlov Manor and Outlaws of Thunder Junction). The creative team is trying to learn from them and lean more towards the type of creative execution that make this group of Vorthoses happy.

As I've been saying a lot, Magic excels at being additive, but has issues with being subtractive. If you want cool Magic settings and characters and stories, we can and will continue to do that. If you want us to stop doing non-Magic settings, characters, and stories, I can't help you there. There's a big audience that enjoys that and so we're making it for them.

I do hear that there are players that are sad that non-Magic elements will mix in gameplay with Magic elements. There will be many limited formats, and a few constructed formats (like Cube or Premodern) where you can avoid that if it's important to you, but the number of players who will only play with in-Multiverse components is low enough that it's not something we're focusing on in the main sanctioned formats.

It's not that I'm not sympathetic. Go back ten years and I was one of you. I fought hard against non-Magic elements for many years. What finally swayed me was seeing how much I enjoyed it when a license that I truly loved got brought to Magic. There's something so exciting, so glee producing about combining two loves, that I became a convert. I want to make people as happy as I was made.

I know this isn't the answer you want to hear. I try to use this blog to be as honest with all of you as I can. Magic keeps changing and evolving because we try to do things that players will love, and there are a lot of players that truly love Universes Beyond.

That said, we're not abandoning in-Multiverse Magic. We're still making three sets a year (the standard for the majority of Magic's life), and we're truly taking to heart the lessons of 2024 (more worlds that are our carefully crafted take on the tropes and less just a place to show them off). Making the Magic multiverse the most compelling and exciting thing possible is still our goal, and there are a lot of people working really hard to continue to do that.

I think the future is bright for the Vorthoses, but I truly understand why some of you are sad with Universes Beyond coming to Standard.

[media-thots]

Coming to a piece of media years late is really interesting in how it affects your approach to it once you finally get around to enjoying it.

I'm finally playing the Portal game duology. I've been hearing about both games ever since they were released. I've been exposed to many spoilers just through internet osmosis. Because of that, my experience is likely nothing like it was for the people who played the games on release. But I don't think it ruins the horror entirely.

I've already completed Portal (1) and prior to playing that, I was aware that a robot named Glados was not to be trusted. I didn't know exactly why she shouldn't be but cake was involved somehow. Once I started playing, I was already on guard/edge, looking for something threatening related to this robot. It wasn't hard to deduce that she must be watching me though the surveillance cameras but otherwise she didn't seem so threatening, at least the first few levels.

The testing environment turned dangerous due to the toxic water, plasma pellets, and the gun turret robots, but these were all created by Aperture. This unethical company created these unsafe environments and tools, it's their fault I'm nearly dying. While I was still unsure about this robot I kept hearing through the levels, I began to chalk up her lack of concern for these hazards to the scientists who programed her. They were unconcerned/uncaring therefore so is she. This still makes her dangerous, but not malicious.

Well. I learned to my frustrated horror that she actually is maliciously out to kill me and now I'm in a 'kill or be killed' scenario. I was frustrated because I should have known better, everything I've picked up on about this game for years says Glados cannot be trusted, Glados will hurt you. And even with the warnings within the game itself by the past test subject who left messages, I still was ready to believe that this advanced robot did not have the agency to actively choose to hurt me. And yet she did, and I had to reflect on the fact that she watched me complete test after test in eager anticipation for when she would kill me. And now I had to kill her to have a chance at escape.

Once I destroyed Glados and she claimed that this collapse would kill me too, I was okay with that, knowing that if there are any other people to be "tested" that Glados couldn't torture them. I land outside, clearly hurt but Glados lies in ruins, it's okay. And then I'm dragged back inside. And I'm newly horrified by the realization that, of course, Glados isn't the only robot in this insane facility and everything I did to get out of there didn't matter. Also, Glados must have a backup somewhere because what testing facility wouldn't have a fail-safe?

I had so many spoilers and I still was taken in by the story and got to experience the horror of it. I think that just goes to show how well it was made. Very glad I finally got around to it.

I've started Portal 2, I'm already aware Wheatley is not to be trusted but I've so far avoided the exact reason why. (Please don't spoil). I'm not happy that I'm Glados' test subject again but the puzzles have been fun. I'll update with a Portal 2 reflection once I'm done.

[lostbookmark]

MDNI 🔞

Main Masterlist here

Finding Masterlist here

Summary: After a failed engagement, you move back home and reconnect with your friends. Maybe, just maybe you can find love with someone you never expected.

Pairing: Yoongi x F. Reader

Warnings: Explicit Sex, Swearing, Cheating (Not Yoongi), Fighting, Protected/Unprotected Sex, Toxic Past Relationship,

Genre: Enemies(?) to Lovers, Neighbors to Lovers, Small Town romance. Hurt-Comfort, Slight Angst, Romance

SMUT!

Jungkook, Jimin, and Tae all stood around you as you held a small mason jar that was filled to the brim of jelly in your hands. You had spent all evening following your grandmother's recipe carefully. You had read through it so many times that you probably had it memorized before you even started cooking, but you were still careful and followed it step by step. You watch as each man smeared some red jam on a piece of your freshly baked bread that you made that morning. Chewing carefully, they looked thoughtful as they took in the flavors. They looked at each other. It was like they were having a silent conversation with their eyes that they only understood. You'll take it as a good sign.

“It's good,” Jimin said with a little awe in his voice.

“It's really good,” Jungkook said as he put more on his slice of bread and shoved it in his mouth.

“This is exactly what I was looking for, Y/N. How many different flavors do you think you can do?” Tae asked.

“I'm not sure,” you say. “Her stack of recipes is quite large.”

“Uh oh,” Jimin whispered, and all your eyes shot to look at him. “Yoongi's only member and president of his fan club is here.”

“I bet he's happy,” Tae says sarcastically.

You turn around, peeking around the corner, and see a pretty woman at the front of The Tannie Farms tent. She was playing with a strand of her hair as she leaned toward Yoongi, who was trying to be nice earlier and offered to watch the front so the guys could try your jam. You can feel your stomach drop while watching them. He didn't look interested, but that didn't stop the jealousy from kicking in.

You and Yoongi have done a good job at avoiding each other since the bathroom incident. He was still cordial and gave you a slight head nod if you ran into each other, but that was about it. Neither one of you actually attempted to start a conversation or let your looks linger very long. You can feel the heat start to creep up into your cheeks, remembering how you pressed yourself against him. You certainly remember it at night when you're alone in bed that still rests on the floor.

“I know what happened?” Jimin whispered in your ear, knocking you back into reality. He handed you a piece of paper that looked like a test page from a printer. “Maybe you can return the favor and help him out. I think his girlfriend needs him to sign this.”

“What? No, she's flirting with him. I don't want to get in the way,” you hissed.

“He doesn't like her,” Tae says. “She is a teacher at the middle school. We talked with her class about greenhouses, and she's been drooling after him since. He usually runs and hides when he sees her.”

Jimin makes a shoo-ing motion with his hand as he turns back to his friends and continues to eat. You sigh and take a deep breath. You were never a good actress, and you think that she will probably see right through you.

One…two…three.

“Yoongs, babe, we really need you to sign this,” you tell him as you press yourself into his side and hand him the paper. Yoongi looks down at you with wide eyes, confusion swirling in his dark brown orbs. You swear you hear laughing from behind the tent. Have you mentioned that you need different friends? “Yoongi, sign…please.”

Yoongi looks at the paper and then back at you. You smile at him innocently and blink your eyes with a purpose. You think it finally clicks as he grabs the pen from behind his ear and puts his signature sloppily on the white paper. You turn your attention to the woman glaring daggers at you. You notice that she definitely undid a couple of buttons from her top.

“Hi, I'm Y/N. You are?” You ask her with a pleasant smile on your face.

“Sana, I'm a friend of Yoongi's,” she tells you with a smirk. Oh, she was that type of woman. Game on, baby.

“No, you're not,” he said, handing the paper back to you. Sana's smirk falters a little bit. You wrap your arms around his waist, and you feel him stiffen.

“Oh, well, this is awkward. I'm his girlfriend,” you tell her as you stroke your hand across his chest, making her smirk finally drop. “I've never heard of you before… strange. I need to get back, but you have a wonderful day.”

You look at Yoongi, pursuing your lips. You want to see if he was willing to play along. He didn't move. Moving your finger to your lips, you tap them with your finger, indicating what you wanted. Slowly, he leaned down and pressed his lips to yours. Your arms go around his neck, and his hand comes up to rest on your hips. You're not surprised to find that his lips were a little chapped as you always saw him licking at them…not that you ever paid that close of attention to him. You pull away when you hear Sana clear her throat. You smile at her as she glares harder at you.

“It was nice to meet you,” you tell her and walk away.

Your three friends start clapping when you get back to them. Your eyes zero in on the mason jar and see they finished off the jam. You shake your head at them as you continue to look at your empty jar, and they just shrug their shoulders.

“We're growing boys,” Jungkook said, handing the small glass container back to you.

"You're all grown men,” you correct him and take it from his hand. “How did you eat it so fast?”

“You three get back out there,” Yoongi tells them, and they scatter fast. “What was that?” he asks you.

“They told me to do it,” you defend yourself. “They ate all the jam and bread. I wanted you to try it.”

“Don't change the subject,” he tells you, crossing his arms.

“They said you didn't like her. Consider it me owing you one after…you know …. nakedness.” You say quietly.

“Don't worry about it. I didn't see anything,” he mumbled, turning red.

“Maybe, you can stop by tonight? I can rectify this whole thing,” you say as you play with the empty jar. Yoongi gives you a double take. It takes him a few seconds before he nods his head dumbly at you in agreement. “Great, I'll be waiting.”

You didn't actually expect Yoongi to show up. You were finishing up a bigger batch of the strawberry, raspberry combo jelly for next weekend when there was a knock at your kitchen door. You give Yoongi a small smile and wave him in. You noticed that he had changed since that morning. Gone were the baggier jeans and flannel shirt. He changed into more fitted jeans and a white tee-shirt that fit perfectly on him. His hair looked like it might be slightly damp as if he just got out of the shower. He looked good, he looked…confused?

“What?” You ask him as you transfer the steaming pot to a cooling rack.

“You made jam?” he really was confused. “I, I thought,” he can't seem to finish his thought. “I'm such an idiot. I’m just gonna go.”

“Wait, don't go,” you say hurriedly. “ I wanted you to try this, and I also wanted to apologize for what happened on Sunday for real. I mean, even though you were the one to barge into my bathroom. “

“You were screaming,” he defended himself. “How was I supposed to know you were naked laying in the tub?”

“So you did look. You liar,” you said, pointing your finger at him.

“You jumped on me,” he yelled, stepping closer to you. “How could I have missed it.”

“You could have closed your eyes,” you step to him. You are so close to him that you're almost touching him. “You probably got off on it.”

His eyes turned to slits. A heated gaze burns its way through you as Yoongi bends down. Your faces are level, and you suddenly start to breathe a little heavier. Yoongi's stare drops to your lips as he runs his tongue over his own. You follow its movement with wide eyes and swallow hard.

“What if I did?” he whispers, tilting his head to the side. Your heart stops, wondering if you had heard him correctly.

“Yoongi,” you whisper his name, but you think it may have come out as a whimper.

His gaze darkens, and a smirk crosses his face. Yoongi leans in the rest of the way and grazes his lips against your own. He's giving you a chance to pull away. To tell him to stop and you think that you should, but you don’t…you can't. His eyes meet yours again before he claims your lips fully. Lips press firmly against your own as his hands pull your body completely against him. His hold on your hips is tight and needy. His tongue sneaks out and licks your bottom lip, asking for you to open for him. You do, your tongues crashing together like you were fighting for dominance. His hand lightly twists in your hair, tilting your head back, giving him all the access that he needs to plunder your mouth with his talented tongue rolling against yours. You let him have control.

“I haven't stopped thinking about you,” he growls into your neck, nipping at the sensitive skin, causing it to turn slightly pink after he pulls away from your swollen lips. “The feeling of you pressed against me all wet. The way your hands grabbed on to me. I can't get it out of my head.”

You push him away, and he stumbles back in shock. He has to grab your kitchen chair to stop from tripping over and falling onto his ass. You snatch the bottom of your shirt, hastily pull it over your head, and chuck it at him. He catches it, rubbing the material between his fingers as his gaze roams your newly exposed skin. Dropping the shirt onto the floor, he grabs the back of your head, bringing you to him once again. He doesn't waste any time kissing you and pulling your cotton shorts down your thighs, letting them drop to the floor. You kick them away with your foot and reach around to unhook your bra, pulling it off yourself.

“Fuck,” he groans, appreciating the newly exposed skin. Yoongi lifts you by grabbing the back of your thighs and sitting you on the counter. It's cold and you squeal at the sudden temperature change. “Sorry,” he grunts, tearing his own shirt off over his head. “I'll warm you up in a minute.”

His hands work quickly to remove his belt. His eyes never leave your panting figure as you sit and wait for him. You press your legs together as he finally drops his pants and steps out of them. He leaves his underwear on. You're slightly disappointed, but you guess it's only fair. You have yours on, too. Yoongi steps to you and grabs the back of your knees as he pulls your bottom to the edge of the counter. Your legs spread open around his hips, and he steps in between them. Tongues meet again as his hands roam every inch or your naked skin, attempting to take the chill away from your body. Yoongi drops his kisses down across your jaw and lowers his head, kissing a wet path further down until he takes your nipple in his mouth. Teeth lightly bite down, making your arch your back. Your breasts press further in his face, and it has him moaning into them. Yoongi's hand slides over the side of your neck and to your breast, cupping the fullness. His fingers plucking at your hardened nipple on your neglected breast have your hips rolling against his flat stomach, seeking that delicious friction. One of your hands goes into his hair, moving his hair off his face, and your other grabs the cabinet handle as you try to keep yourself upright.

You shiver noticeably as goosebumps break out over your skin as he teeth graze your other nipple. Standing straight, he pulls you flush against him, sharing his body heat. Your tits are smashed against his chest as he wraps his arms securely around you. His breathing has seemed to pick up just as much as yours has. He stares into your eyes for a moment like he’s checking for an answer to an unasked question. Whatever it was, he seemed satisfied as he picked you up from the counter. Yoongi turns and lays you gently on your wobbly kitchen table, pulling you so your ass is at the edge. You ignore the cold shock this time as you reach between your legs and grab the waistband of his underwear, tugging at them

“Is that what you want?” he chuckles, and you nod your head rapidly. “You have to say it. Tell me what you want.”

“I want it,” you tell him and tilts his head to the side studying you. He smirks and laughs at you.

“I don't know what ‘it’ is,” he teases you. His hands run slowly up your thighs, fingers hooking into your very damp panties as he pulls them down your legs. He throws them over his shoulder and spreads your legs open wide. He licks his first two fingers and runs them back and forth over your sensitive clit gently making you hiss between your teeth. “Tell me.”

“I want you to fuck me,” you moan, your hips start to move against his fingers. You wish he would put more pressure on your excited bundle of nerves. “Yoongi, I want your cock.”

That one seemed to do it for him. He spreads your burning core open with his opposite hand, his fingers slowly entering your wet entrance. You sigh at the sensation, but it's not enough. You spread your knees as far as you can,trying to get him deeper. He huffs out a laugh and swiftly bends his head down licking your clit only once before moving his head away. Your hips jump on their own and your hands delve into his hair trying to keep him there. His tongue traces an invisible line on your thigh and pumps his fingers into you faster.

“I knew you would like this. Listen to how wet you are,” he smirks against the soft skin of your inner thigh as watches his own fingers fuck you.

He was right. You were dripping wet. The wet, squelching noises sounded so loud in your quiet kitchen as he worked his magic. It sounded so obscene. You moan. It's been so long since you felt like this. The wanting, neediness of the lust and desire that you have lacked for years. In fact, you’re not even sure that you have ever felt like this. You have yearned for this, and you couldn't believe that Yoongi was the one to give it to you.

“Please, please, lick it again,” you beg wantingly, hips squirming around. Changkyun never did this. He never did a lot of things.

Yoongi doesn't hesitate and dives in. His tongue is unrelenting on your clit, flicking it back and forth with rapid strokes. He pulls his fingers out of you so he can push your legs back by the back of your thighs. It leaves you completely open and utterly exposed to his feasting. His insistent tongue changes pace as he draws achingly slow circles around you. The teasing has you squirming to get closer to his mouth. He takes pity on you and he rests your legs on his shoulders. His skillful tongue works its way into you. This is a whole new spine tingling sensation that you have never felt before. You reach down, taking his hands into your own. Slowly you bring them up to your body so he can grab your breasts. He groans into your pussy as his hands squeeze your tits. Your legs start to shake around his head. Your insides start to tingle and tighten until it suddenly stops.

Pulling back, Yoongi places one more kiss on your clit. You're mad. You were so close and he took that away from you. You were about to voice your displeasure until you watched him lean down and grab his pants. Reaching into his pocket, you see him produce a square foil packet. Yanking down his own underwear, you watch as his hardened cock slaps his stomach as it springs free. He rips open the condom and watches you laid out before him as he slides it on. Leaning over your body he kisses you once more on the mouth,

“How old is this table?” He asks seriously.

“Old,” you tell him, and he nods his head like he expected that answer.

Pulling you off the table, he guides you back to the counter. He presses your front against the granite. Grabbing your hips he pulls them back and he presses his hard cock against your ass, grinding it against you. You roll your hips back further making him groan in pleasure. Yoongi gently places kisses across the naked skin of your shoulder and the back of your neck. Trailing his tongue up the side of your neck, he bites your ear lobe.

“Are you sure you want this?” He asks softly in your ear.

“Yes,” your voice was breathy.

“Fuck,” he whispers. “Okay.”

Yoongi bends you further forward, making your ass pop up more as you are forced to stand on your tippy toes. Reaching between the two of you, Yoongi runs his cock along your pussy before he slowly starts to enter you. You can hear him let out a shuddering breath. He holds still and grips your hips tightly.

“Did he ever fuck you?” he asked you, his voice tight. You nod your head yes and he laughs lightly. “Didn't do a fucking good job then.”

With a quick thrust, Yoongi was buried all the way in you. You moan loud as your hand reaches up and grabs that cabinet handle again, holding on for dear life. Looking over your shoulder, you see Yoongi swipe at his forehead. He must be just as affected as you were. You push your ass back onto him, and his eyes fly to you. Biting your bottom lip, you smile at him and nod. Yoongi places his hands on your shoulders as his hips roll against your ass making your body rhythmically rock forward.

Your head falls forward loosely as you take in the sensation of him inside of you. The way his hands grip your shoulders, keeping control of your body. His thrusts start to speed up, and the counter edge starts to dig into your stomach. You don't care, though. He feels too good.

“Harder, Yoongi,” you gasp.

His hands come down, fingertips trace down your back and grab at your waist, pulling you back against him to meet every thrust. Your body starts to surge forward faster as his hips snap into you as he picks up the pace of his strokes. Sounds of slapping skin pierces the air in your kitchen as your bottom meets his pelvis over and over again. Your eyes start to roll back. Sex has never….and I mean never been this good.

Yoongi pulls out of you and grabs the back of your knee. Swiftly, he brings your leg up to rest on top of the counter. Thrusting himself back into you with a groan and a curse, his hand races down the front of your body over your hip until his fingers land on your clit. Skilled fingers start circling your overly sensitive bud.

“Oh, shit,” you moan and rest your face against the back of your hand.

“I know, I know,” he says breathlessly, continuing his relentless pace. Your heartbeat starts to quicken, your toes start to curl, and the delicious heat begins to spread across your body, making your skin flush. “Look at you, shit.”

“Yoongi,” you whimper.

Your walls start to clench around him as his fingers still work on your clit. Your hand drops down to stop him. He stops the circling and presses against it firmly instead as his cock still works its way in and out of you. Your eyes squeeze shut, your body tenses. You gasp.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Yoongi grunts, giving you one more hard thrust. He stills, and your walls continue to clench around him, milking him for all he's worth.

Dropping his head onto your shoulder, he catches his breath before pulling out of you. Carefully, he places your lifted leg back on the ground. His hand lightly rubs at the knee that was pressed against the granite counter, holding your weight. You stay bent over your counter, afraid to look at him. You don't know what to do now.

“You okay?” He asks, kissing your shoulder.

“Perfect,” you answer.

You look over your shoulder at him, and he smiles at you. For the first time…you truly smile back.

Tagged Readers:

@mar-lo-pap, @bontensbabygirl , @daisies-and-dandelionpuffs , @redragdoll, @svnbangtansworld , @wobblewobble822 , @busanbby-jjk , @pitchblack0309 , @bluesiebirdie

[lesaurita]

♡︎ Shinso Hitoshi as your boyfriend ♡︎

Pairing: fem!reader x Shinso Hitoshi

Genre: fluff

Warnings: suggestive content, possessive!Shinso, jealous!Shinso

•° his hair is always in knots, you can't tell me otherwise. he'll never admit it, in fact he'll say that he only does it because it makes you happy, but he loves it when you cuddle him like this: with his head on your lap, while he lets you comb his hair and run your hands through it. There have been many times when he's fallen asleep in this position, and every time you catch him when he tries to get even closer to your body with his face.

•° he's not a fan of PDA, but if you really insist, you can hold each other by the pinky. Just know that if you meet someone you know while you're walking, his hand will immediately leave yours. He's very shy, what can you do?

•° I'm convinced of this when I say it: HE'S POSSESSIVE! maybe even a little too much at times, it could be a red flag, but he thought it was obvious the day you got together, that you are his and no one else's. When he sees that someone is taking things a little too far with you, he doesn't think twice about reaching out to you and making that someone understand who you belong to.

The boy in front of you was clearly hitting on you, you told him several times that you're not interested and that you don't want to have anything to do with him, but no, some boys are just empty-headed.

Luckily for you, you can't say the same for the boy though, you feel the presence of your boyfriend coming from behind. An arm slides around your waist and pulls you back, making you slam into Shinso's chest.

"That's enough." you hear his voice close to your ear: it's low, hoarse and you can feel the annoyance dancing between the words.

his grip on your waist tightens, and you're sure that it will almost certainly leave its mark for the next few minutes. it's a clear sign that he wants to send, but not to you, to the bastard in front of the two of you. he knows that you know that you are his, but the bastard has yet to figure it out.

"Leave, before I'll make you." shivers run down your spine, and judging from the way the boy in front of you swallowed, he felt the same way.

•° At first he was against it, but he can't resist your sweet eyes that implore him, when you beg him to use his quirk in bed. at first he thinks it's unfair to you, but in reality, deep down, it's the excitement that gets the better of him. the idea of ​​being able to have absolute control over you, being able to tell you what to do without you saying anything, the way you're submissive to him...he just can't help it, but to turn himself on. He's always seen his powers as a bad thing, like the powers of a villain, but if we look at it from this point of view, it couldn't have gone better for him.

•° he reminds you that he loves you in the most random moments of the day, as long as it's just the two of you and no one else. You can be doing the most casual things, like cooking something, listening to music together and he will pull you close with a hug, whispering in your ear how much he loves you.

•° he has black humor. on the surface he may seem like the usual guy who never jokes, always serious and shy, but give him time to open up to you and be ready for the jokes you would never expect to come out of his mouth. he has a humor, you just have to get it.

•° he is definitely the type of guy who would rather stay home and watch a movie in peace, rather than go to a party, drink and dance. If instead you are the type who likes to go clubbing, you can be sure that he will be your personal driver both there and back. He will never let you go home alone, with a taxi or an uber or with someone. Just call him and he will already be in the car to pick you up.

•° Pet names. He has a ton of them. Eery day he calls you by a different name, but there's one that he particularly likes, and above all that has a certain effect on you: doll. He just sounds so majestic when he calls you that, it's impossible for your knees not to tremble at that sound.

•° he always compliments you, for everything. You got a good grade in school, you did well in practice, when you look beautiful in a dress. He doesn't care, whatever you do, he'll compliment and praise you.

"Shinso! Look, I got an A on the test!" You show him the test, but in reality he hasn't even had time to look at it, since you immediately jump on him.

His arms immediately meet behind your back and he squeezes you tightly so that he lifts you up and makes you spin in the air.

When he puts you back down, he presses a kiss on your head and with a sweet voice makes your heart melt: "Good girl, I'm so proud of you, doll."

•° in my opinion, Shinso is the kind of boyfriend who would ask (force) you to sit on his lap and do his eyeliner (even better if he asks you to do his waterline too, he'd look so good). Plus he loves seeing your face focused just a few inches away from his, while his hands remain on your lower back. Shinso with makeup>>>

•° when you both became adults, at eighteen, he'll beg you to get a tattoo together. He wants your love to be seen by everyone, what better idea than to tattoo it on your skin. Oh, and don't be surprised if after a few months you see his pale skin covered in black ink. Not long after you'll be running your hands over a body almost full of tattoos.

[twig-tea]

The Fragrance You Inherit Remained Gentle and Kind

The Fragrance You Inherit was such a gentle and kind show. I loved so many things about it: The performances, the music, the colouring, the pining, and above all, the kindness. I've said before and I will repeat: this is a show about good people who love each other doing their best to be kind to one another, and it was a pleasure to watch. Run don't walk to Siiri's blog @isaksbestpillow to download the show with her subs. Spoilers for the finale to follow.

The interpersonal relationships were the star of this show: The mother/son relationship between Toki and Sakura, Sakura's friendship with On-chan, Toki and Kanae's budding romance and learning what it means to be in a relationship together, Sakura and Mone as reunited old friends and how they immediately regress into giggle-fits in each other's presence, Kanae and her father and how Hoshii-sempai remained a lovable and supportive dork through the whole series, Sakura and her own mother, and even Toki and On-chan and the loving uncle/nephew-like relationship they build...all of them were perfect, loving, and sweet. And the relationship parallels were used well to move things forward--Mone sees the parallel between herself and Sakura in the past with Toki and Kanae in the present; Mone draws from her relationship with Toki to understand her relationship with her own mother better; and Toki draws from his experience with Kanae to understand his mother better (and vice versa, he draws from his mother's relationship to understand his own better too).

I said after ep 1 that my expectations for this show were that we would get closure for Sakura and we did, in a series of beautiful scenes. I love how the series is bookended by two very different weddings that Sakura attends with very different emotions, and how much support Sakura has around moving on and seeking happiness for herself. Though we didn't see the scene, we got enough of Toki and Kanae's relationship that I believe that Kanae also knows about Sakura by the end of ep8, and her giving Sakura the flowers is tacit approval for Sakura to go out and date (a woman).

In addition to the confession scene, I absolutely loved Sakura's coming out scene with her mother; the way this was done to underscore the importance of a child's happiness to their parent was well done and was a good message to send. Generally the message about coming out in this show was that it is not something you owe anyone but is a gift you give the people you love so that they know you better and as a benefit, by knowing more about you, their world expands. I liked this message.

I had also said in the same post-ep1 post that this show seemed gearing up for a teenage boy meltdown, but I did not predict how sweet and loving this meltdown would be. Toki is the most thoughtful and caring teenage boy of all time. The scene with him and his mother on the phone in episode 7 made me cry so much! I really appreciated that the show was clear that Toki had absolutely no reason to ever doubt that he was loved by his mother, but that the evidence of his life and their history was not enough to break through the teenage melodrama when it hit, and he needed to hear it from her directly. I have to stop and give kudos to Sakura's actor Hoshino Mari, who did a phenomenal job. I felt her desperation and concern for her child so strongly, as well as her relief.

While I'm giving shout-outs, I also need to shout out Takeda Kouhei, who was perfect as the sardonic and empathetic gay bestie On-chan. I was so happy to see him every time he appeared, he always gave excellent advice, and his presence was so soothing.

And while Toki and Sakura were the core of the show, I really appreciated that all of the characters felt like they had their own motivations and drivers. It would have been easy to have made Kanae one-dimensional or without agency, or to have made Hoshii-sempai a distant or unsupportive father, or Mone the passive recipient of Sakura's feelings. But the show balanced all of these characters as distinct people who each had their own perspective.

Thank you again to Siiri for subbing this series and making it available for all of us to watch; this was another gift of a show. And thanks to the giffers who giffed this show, especially @easterndelights !

[out-there-tmblr]

Young Zaundads wip (23)

***

Silco's a little standoffish the next day, keeps a bit more space between them as they work, but it's a small tunnel and it's not big enough to keep his distance for long. By the afternoon they're working side-by-side again, shoulders brushing as they clear rubble.

"I've been thinking about last night," Vander says, using the gauntlets to break a large boulder into manageable pieces. He picks up the largest rock and takes it to the cart.

"You want to talk about that here?"

There's a loud metal clang as Vander drops his rock and it bounces off the side of the cart. He gestures at the tunnel around them, the grey-brown rock fading into black at the edge of the lantern's light. "What? You wanted to discuss the amazing views instead?"

Silco rolls his eyes but he smirks. "Point made."

"I was thinking. If we wanted to try that again," Vander holds up a hand to stall Silco's inevitable complaint, "maybe we could try it the other way around. Like… Swap who's doing what."

Silco glances down and seems to remember that he's carrying a chunk of rock. He takes it over to the cart and drops it in. Then he cautiously says, "Is that something you want?"

"I'm curious." Vander shrugs. He's never been great with words. "It's not… you know. A big thing but… yeah."

Silco watches him with those clever blue eyes. "Hmmm."

Vander doesn't bring it up again. He's quite happy to spend that night enjoying the comfort of their new bed, soft mattress beneath his knees and Silco sprawled out on the sheet, his thighs hooked over Vander's shoulders and cock warm in Vander's mouth. He likes the way Silco digs his heels into Vander's back. He likes the way Silco arches off the bed, fingers clawed into the sheet. Likes the way Silco chants his name, over and over, like there's nothing else in the world but them.

***

"Where are you off to?" Vander rumbles as Silco stands up from the table. Across from them, Felicia and Benzo keep recounting the story of the day, how Mattis dressed in a hurry and forgot his belt, and had his pants threatening to fall down all shift long.

Silco wraps a hand around Vander's neck, thumb sliding beneath his collar as Silco leans down to talk quietly. "I want to check something with the harbour master. I'll stop at Babette's on the way back, see if there's anything her workers need."

"Want me to come with?" Vander offers, but he suspects he already knows the answer. Silco's been restless tonight; he probably wants a break from the noise of the mess hall.

Silco shakes his head. "No need. I'll be back by curfew."

Vander turns back to the conversation and gets to hear how Mattis' pants fell down while he was swinging a pickaxe, giving everyone a view of his underwear.

"He didn't realise," Felicia says, grabbing her ale. "Not until he tried to step closer and nearly fell on his face!"

"Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy," Benzo adds with a mean grin. "I think there were a dozen miners reminding him to wear his belt tomorrow."

It's a good night. They don't talk about anything important – just little moments in their days, stupid jokes made at each other's expense – but it feels good to drink and laugh. Vander likes Silco, likes spending time with him, but Silco's not big on smalltalk or storytelling. Not unless it's a story with a clear message of how bad the mines can be.

It's not that Silco's wrong, because he's not. Vander gets it when he points things out, that things are unfair and more cruel than they need to be, but he lives it everyday. He doesn't want to spend every conversation talking about it as well.

"So," Felicia says, tossing her hair over her shoulder and then leaning in, "is the honeymoon over? Have the sex chems worn off? Are we going to get to see our friend Vander again?"

"Without Silco glued to your side?" Connol adds.

Vander frowns. "Do you not like him?" he asks, and there's a long look between Benzo and Connol that he really doesn't appreciate.

"I wouldn't say that," Benzo says.

"We don't know him very well." Felicia shrugs. "We like him enough but we really like you. And you're… different when he's around."

"Dopey," Connol says.

"Lovestruck," Benzo adds. "You spend more time watching him than talking to us."

Connol laughs. "And it's not hard to guess what you're thinking."

"Well, if I'm so missed, I'll make more of an effort to spend time with you," Vander promises and Connol gives him a sarcastic thumbs up gesture. "But I might get busy again. Silco's got a new project in mind."

"What?" Benzo asks. "Smuggling in every gas mask in the undercity isn't enough for him?"

Vander shrugs. The gas masks really have been popular. "He wants to set up a market."

"We already have the company store," Felicia replies. She sounds confused but it's better than being dismissive. "What would be the point?"

"We could buy goods that we'd never afford in Piltover. If they'd even sell it to us in the first place." Vander's never tried it himself but he's heard stories of stores that refuse to accept bronze. That will only sell if you have the exact price in gold and silver, while the miners and cannery workers are always paid in bronze. "It could be between here and riverside. Where there's space to build and land that no one cares about."

"Sounds Iike a lot of work."

"Yeah, well, the sex chems tell me he's worth it." Vander swallows the last of his ale and gets up to order another. When he gets back, the conversation has turned to teasing Benzo about the girl at the counter who keeps smiling at him.

When it's half an hour to curfew, Vander decides he'll surprise Silco and meet him at Babette's. It's the kind of idea that seems brilliant after too many ales.

It's pay week again, so Babette's tents are set up outside the mine gates. There's a colourful string of lanterns glowing in the dark, linking the tents together. He steps inside the biggest one, in the centre of the colourful cluster, and Bani and Wave nod at him.

"I'm looking for Silco," Vander says, doing his best to stand upright and not look like he's spent the last three hours drinking.

Bani laughs but Wave is more helpful. She leans a hand on Vander's wrist, her bangles clattering as she moves. "He's in Kane's tent. Under the blue lantern."

Vander doesn't know all of Babette's Workers. He can't picture what Kane looks like but he follows the instructions, and finds Silco sitting with his back to the door and a solid, blonde woman tilts his face up and swipes a tiny brush at his face.

"Sorry, honey," Kane says with a sweet smile. "I'll be with you in a minute."

"I'm here for Silco," Vander explains. "I'm just here to–"

Vander snaps his jaw shut when Silco turns around. His eyes are lined with something dark, making his eyelashes look thicker and darker. There's a streak of electric blue under his eyes, making his blue eyes mesmerizing. His lips are red and shiny, like they've spent half the night kissing. His skin is pale and flawless, and he looks too beautiful to be real, like some fairytale creature back when gods appeared to mortals.

Vander takes a few steps forward and then doesn't know what to do.

"I think he likes it," Kane says in a loud whisper.

Silco stands up and slowly walks towards him. He looks incredible. "Do you like it?"

Vander swallows. "I'd kiss you right now if I wasn't scared of messing it up."

"Let's go home." Silco smiles, looking very pleased with himself. "You can mess me up there."

***

[kalinara]

So aside from the "Scott in a speedo" bit, (which I've seen folks dismiss as a joke, but honestly, never really sure how that works as joke that those two characters would make, but okay), there's one scene that, to me, makes the Throuple explicitly canon.

So these are two pages from X-Force #18. And it may be surprising to see me positively reference a Ben Percy comic, since his work generally isn't to my taste, but there you go.

So on its face, this is a pretty standard Ben Percy, Logan and Jean scene. There's some cute banter/flirtation and a bit of making out. Logan's theoretically got plans but he doesn't seem averse to some additional activity first.

But there's also a LOT to unpack here.

First: This cute makeout session is taking place on the Moon. You know, THAT Moon. In the Summer House. And Scott, as we see at the bottom, is physically present.

So if the impending make-out session hadn't been interrupted by Quentin Quire shenanigans, it might well have resulted in a trip to one of the bedrooms.

You know. The adjoining bedrooms. With no doors.

Second: Scott appears to be dressed for bed when he comes in. He asks Jean if she's coming to bed. Indicating that they likely had plans to sleep together, at least in the same bed.

Which means, Jean was making out with Logan right before she goes to bed with her husband. And again, if not for Quentin Quire's nonsense, it might have continued. Again, right before her plans to go to bed with her husband. The logical interpretation then is that her next step would likely have been to ask Logan to join them.

Third: As annoying as I've always found Logan's entitlement toward Jean to be, I generally think he's portrayed as too honorable to make out with a woman in the house she shares with her husband.

I note also that Scott's position in the doorway, and the lighting, makes it unlikely that he wouldn't have seen them making out before they pulled apart. He seems pretty unbothered.

Now naturally this only proves polyamory, but even if you go with the official stance that this is just a V situation, ne'er shall the penii touch. There's a lot of weird implied voyeurism here. Which leads to:

Fourth: Scott asks Jean if she's coming to bed. With Logan here. He wasn't present to hear Logan talk about vampires, so he doesn't really know if Logan is staying or leaving. Which means that he's happy sleeping with his wife, with Logan in an adjoining room with no door. (He's also a polite guy, he has to realize the next logical step would be Jean asking the man she's making out with to join them, he seems fine with that idea too.)

Even if they're not directly fucking, there's a three way relationship here. Personally, though, I'm taking this to mean they're all three fucking. It's just that the men are too...men to talk directly to each other about the whole thing.

[saphig-iawn]

Building up Momentum

Hello darlings. Posts are going to be somewhat infrequent from me in the coming week or so. The dust has largely settled on my sidejob which means that the queue I had setup while I was busy training has come to an end, and because I was not conducting sessions during that time, wonderful new stories of my sessions aren't really written yet. As I write them and get them to you all, I want to be open and talk about what I do and how I place it in context of my life.

To be brutally honest, I fucking love what I do as a domme and a hypnotist. I have spent so many hours bringing people's fantasies to life and it makes me so happy that people want to support me with their trust, their money, and their kink. The reason why I picked up a sidejob was because I was growing increasingly anxious that things would dry up with my services I provide. Despite having so many lovely people and clients who support me, I was terrified that things were going to abruptly end and I would be in trouble.

The anxious side of me wants to prepare for so many worst case scenarios, but rather than rotate things in my mind endlessly, I figured coming to the people who have been supporting me with questions would be the best thing to do. Below is a poll with a list of things that I could do in order to keep the lights on while also providing the services and experiences I love providing.

One thing for certain, my writing of sessions will remain free. I'm not locking them away. Not only do they function as a means for people to see my services and see what experiences people have, but the people who they are based on get a little pedestal to be displayed on. They add to the community of hypnokink, they allow me to meet so many of you and share our stories and experiences, and I think locking them away behind a paywall would be, quite frankly, shit.

So, please, vote how you feel, vote if you are able to do what they options say, vote if you would if you had the time/money/rsources/spoons. I would love to hear from you!

Lots of love,

Miss Saphi

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Our Youth: The Responsibility of Adaptation

I regret to inform you all that I dropped Our Youth a few weeks back. Which is tragic because I was so enamored with it at the beginning that I literally went and searched up the manwha and devoured it all in one sitting.

Now, I can definitively say that I do think the first part of both the manwha and the show is the strongest. BUT I want to talk about the two changes I saw in the first half that I do think negatively impacted how the College Years landed. (Forgive me if I get some of the details slight off I'm too lazy to go back to the manwha and check).

For the sake of expediency, I am going to keep the names from the jbl even when talking about the manwha, but please know that Minase and Haruki have different names in the Korean graphic novel.

I. The Big Change that Had a Big Impact

First, I want to talk about the events that get Haruki suspended/expelled from school.

The Show: The bullies Haruki hangs around in school rob a store, Haruki confronts them, Haruki gets in trouble with the school, Haruki...takes the blame for some unknown reason?

The Manwha: The bullies Haruki hangs around bullies a student so severely over the course of the school year that the student attempts suicide. Haruki has never directly partaken in the bullying (keeping with the categories Minase breaks people down in to) but he is a bystander. And when he hears about this student's suicide attempt he realizes that he really should not just be letting the bullies get away with shit like that. He confronts the bully, calls him out on it, and in front of the entire class and as the teacher walks in that fucking piece of shit kid cries and wails and cowers in fear of Haruki making it look like Haruki is not only threatening him but is also the main perpetrator of the bullying that pushed a child to attempt suicide.

In my opinion, there is a huge difference in the stakes and the consequences here, and I think the way the show played it out not only lowers the stakes but detracts from the messaging around the perception of kids like Haruki. The bully in the manwha weaponized the fact that all the teachers see Haruki as a violent delinquent because he...checks notes: choked a teacher who was sexually harassing a student and threatened him to prevent it from happening again and the fact that Haruki is technically culpable because he watched it happen and never stepped in, in order to take the heat off himself and avoid getting in trouble.

In the show Haruki just immediately backtracks on his fight with the bully at the pool hall and takes the fall, suffering the consequences for something he very much didn't do. Haruki's suspension does not induce the kind of rage it would have if they had gone with the manwha version, and Haruki's pulling back from Minase also would make far more sense in the context of Haruki's reaction to finding out about the student's attempt and the part he played in it.

II. The Small Change that Had a Big Impact

Now, I admit I am often guilty of finding a lot of small moments in media to often be what sticks with me, and I can get annoyed when I see an adaptation that might strip away my favorite little moments, or favorite little lines (RIP "call me child one more goddamn time" from Critical Role, you will always be famous to me)

But in this case I do feel it is fair of me to say that making this specific tweak to the story should have caused a hell of a lot of edits to the second half of the story in order to make it compelling. What would that be?

The Show: Minase's father makes a queer indie film. Minase and Haruki attend the film together, there is a happy ending, and Minase finds a label that speaks to his feelings for Haruki.

The Manwha: Minase's father makes a queer indie film. Miase and Haruki attend the film together, there is a sad ending and Minase does not find a label that speaks to his feelings for Haruki. In college, Minase learns that his tutor is gay and has a partner and is happy with his life and this is where he starts to parse through his feelings for Haruki and adopt a label/definition of his queerness.

Small tweak, huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge difference in vibe and in justification for what comes next. In the manwha Haruki and Minase do not see each other for six years because of a phone mishap where one of them had their phone turned off for months in order to focus on studying, and the other got a new phone number or something thus they did not really see or hear from each other. They have an accidental run in in college and they restart their relationship but it still takes them some time.

I dropped the show before I got to the college years so I do not know what if anything happened there, but I do think that when you actually did nothing wrong to warrant getting suspended from school, you know where each other's houses are, you know what your feelings actually are, and your external experiences with queerness are generally happy it is extremely difficult to make being separated for six years feel compelling or believable.

I think it is a little bit more believable when you have a character who is actually culpable in the bullying that led to a suicide attempt, your supposed "school friends" who you kinda have always hated tries to make himself the victim, you don't have a label/definition to put your feelings to, and your only external experiences with queerness are sad and tragic that you might do what Haruki did and assume that Minase also started seeing you negatively and no longer cared for you.

Anyway, I don't think I have a solid conclusion to this post beyond I think if the writers were interested in lightening the mood around the school situation and giving the boys a happy queer ending in high school so they could feel comfortable with their feelings, that's totally fine, but then I think they needed to make some tweaks to the back half to justify those decisions a bit better, at least based off of what I have seen and heard about the way the back half played out.

[zepskies]

Aww yay!! I'm so happy to hear that. 🥹💗

so far what I love the most about this series-verse is how, authentic and genuine dean and mila’s relationship is <3 I think maybe I mentioned it when reviewing THC but truly their love feels so sincere 🤍🤍

Omg thank you!! What an amazing compliment, and now I'm blushing. 🥰🥰 With everything these two went through in THC, I wanted their connection to feel real and natural now as they continue learning each other.

I feel like in today’s day & age relationships can be so complicated because there are too many trivial outside factors, but for them in this universe, it’s really just as simple as two people who care a lot for each other making it work. and i absolutely love that 😭💗

Oh God yes, totally agree. 🙃 And there are complications around Mila and Dean, but when it's just the two of them, Dean gets her to remember that them choosing to be together can be as simple or complicated as they allow it to be. It's a choice, day by day, working together. 💕💕

they’re so sweet to each other :’)🫶🏽 even when he puts his foot in his mouth; as soon as he made that comment when learning about the chief I shook my head lol, oh dean 😂

Ahaha he's trying his best. Oh Dean. 😝

But he's so damn charming and adorable, she can't help but let him back into her good graces.

mystery dude better back up!🤺 I do not trust that man at all so far, he gave me such a bad vibe :/ for his sake he better not try anything because not only will dean protect his wife, mila is clearly not to be messed with 🤣 which brings me back to how much I admire her strength! I love that she will speak up for what matters.

He's being sneaky about it, isn't he? 😒 But YES, if Mila doesn't mess him up first, Dean definitely will. 💞 Mila's not one to take things sitting down either.

the thought of dean getting picked on makes me so sad because it’s like, classic bullying :((( I wanna hug him so bad. especially since it’s already been so hard leaving everything and everyone he had behind — the weight of hazing & hard judgement on top of adjusting to everything new must be draining :( honestly I admire his strength too i’m glad she’s providing him with the support he deserves 🫶🏽 because yeah even though he can handle it, he shouldn’t have to ✋🏽😔

Ikr? 😭😭 Dean doesn't deserve this at all, considering how hard he's working to be respectful to their customs, but it's kind of par for the course (he's honestly lucky they let him live). It will get better for him (eventually), but you're right, it is draining for him, even if he doesn't want to admit it to Mila. She's doing her best to be his support system. 💞

also, I did not expect baby x mato but you know what, i’m here for it 😭🙂‍↕️

omgg I was hoping someone would like that part. 😂😂 I honestly didn't plan it when I was writing THC, but it came out when I started developing Outlander. I thought it was a cute lil' tidbit, and it's actually going to play more into the plot later. 😉💗

I'm so excited for you guys to see what's coming for this little series!!

Outlander - Part 1

Pairing: Dean Winchester x OFC 

Summary: Dean Winchester has been stripped of his military rank, but he’s living happier with his new wife, trying to adjust to a new life in her tribe. What will it take for her people to accept him, especially when the battle for her heart might not be completely won? 

AN: Ready for some more Cowboy Dean? Here we go with Outlander Part 1! This is a sequel story directly following The Honorable Choice, where Dean not only saves the member of a Native American tribe, but falls in love with her. (She saves him a lot in return.) Now, he’ll have to learn how to live in her world if he wants to stay with her.

This sequel series will be 4 parts! 💜

Disclaimer: I first got inspired to write The Honorable Choice for @jacklesversebingo after a recent rewatch of Spirit: The Stallion of the Cimarron (with a tinge of Yellowstone in the mix). I’ve done a fair bit of research for this now ongoing series, both on the Native American Lakota tribe, and on American history during this time in the late 1800s; AKA: the Old West, during the American Indian Wars.

Jacklesverse Bingo24 Prompt: Western AU

Word Count: 5.3K

Tags/Warnings: 18+ only. Suggestiveness/implied smut and spice, hunting (in the more traditional sense), angst, hurt/comfort, and romantic fluff. **Pronunciation guide at the end!

🐎 Series Masterlist || Bingo Masterlist

Part 1: Two Worlds

Her people call this river Little Cheyenne. It’s because Big Cheyenne cuts through the land of the Sioux Indians by half, but Little Cheyenne almost meets it in the south, stretching all the way up to the Black Hills.

Mila’s tribe has always lived near this river. Its waters have bled red during battles with other tribes, and sometimes during battles with White Men.

The White Men’s fort, the one her husband came from, lies farther down in the south. The tribe had to move their village higher north along the river after Mila returned with Dean Winchester, just to be safe.

On a cloudy afternoon, Mila scrubs at a bundle of dirty clothes until they’re clean. She rinses them off in the river and is thorough about her work, but she knows she can’t be here much longer. She has a stew simmering on hot coals in her tipi…

Well, the one she now shares with her husband.

Unconsciously, she smiles. She remembers leading Dean through the tribe, to the place where she hoped he would find rest. They stopped at the foot of her tipi. 

“This one’s yours?” he asked.

She paused, giving him another small smile. 

“Ours.”

Mila continues scrubbing, though she frowns when her fingers slip through a tear in one of the new tunics she made for him (even though he keeps calling it a shirt). The tear was made by a blade, or maybe an arrowhead, she realizes. 

The crunch of feet on the riverbed’s gravel makes her raise her head and look over her shoulder. Unease prickles down her spine. She braces herself for a familiar shadow, come to disturb her peace.    

But then she relaxes. She’s being joined by two of the older women in her tribe. Mila has known them her whole life, and so she calls them tunwin. Aunt. They both greet her kindly and kneel beside her with their own bundles of clothes for washing, but Eyota, the older one, has a sharper eye. She is their tribe’s medicine woman. 

“Your husband wears out his clothes,” she remarks.

“He’s been working hard training with Šóta and the other men,” Mila explains.

“He seems to be learning quickly,” says Misae. She has a more playful glint in her eyes. “Who knew that you could catch and tame a White Man. Looks like they are no different from wild horses.”

Mila smiles slightly, but it’s not genuine. She nods in agreement. “He’s learning quickly.”

She holds her tongue from saying anything else, even though she wants to. Dean isn’t a man to be tamed, any more than she was, in his people’s eyes. She aims to change the subject. 

“Do you have any good herbs or spices for wahonpi? I’ve had the stew simmering all morning,” she asks Eyota. Not only is she a gifted healer, but Eyota is also one of the best cooks, and she knows it. She nods and straightens her shoulders the way she always does when someone asks her for advice—and even when they don’t ask for it.

“Of course, child. What you need is…”

“Goddamn it,” Dean huffs under his breath.

The jackrabbit flees from him again, or more accurately, from his terribly aimed arrow. He’s an excellent marksman…just not with a bow, it seems.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing wrong here, and he’s not likely to figure it out. Not by the way Takoda, Šóta, and the other men are laughing at him.

Dean resists the urge to roll his eyes. He knows when he’s being hazed.

These men are bare-chested warriors, each of them richly tanned under the sun. Most of them wear their hair long, half of it gathered high on their heads, or braided in some way. Šóta is his wife’s cousin, and as the Chief’s son, he wears a small adornment of eagle feathers threaded into his hair. His closest friends are Takoda and Otaktay. Both of them laugh at Dean the most, and in their language, using just enough gestures and body language that Dean knows he’s being talked about. They point at his boots and his brown Stetson hat—two of the only things he’s kept of his own that make him feel comfortable in his own skin.

Finally, Šóta goes over to him. “Good try,” he says, in his usual patronizing tone.

Dean knows he can’t punch out Mila’s cousin, no matter how bad he’s asking for it. Somehow, Dean manages to hold onto his temper.

“What’re they saying?” he asks lowly, gesturing at the two chuckle brothers.

Šóta’s lips twitch. He glances down at Dean’s feet. “They say your…shoes are loud on the earth. You give yourself away before the animal even catches your scent.”

Dean’s given up a lot of things, but his boots won’t be one of them. He wants to learn. He wants to belong here, in Mila’s world, but he also wants to stay himself.

So the men move on, mounting their horses. Dean rides with Baby at a plodding clip. Her black coat ripples with a healthy sheen. He thinks she’s come to enjoy the more natural surroundings and freer pasture of the grasslands, and he can’t deny, this part of it all feels right. The sun peeks through between the dappled leaves of oak trees, painting the ground in red, green, and gold. It’s quiet and beautiful here as Šóta leads the pack through the forest, just southwest of the village.

Eventually, he stops them between a denser thatch of trees and shrub. He raises a hand signal that Dean’s come to recognize. He raises his bow belatedly after the others though. He follows Šóta’s line of vision, and there is a deer grazing in a small clearing. A young buck.

Šóta signals at Dean. Try again, his eyes say.

Dean takes in a deep, quiet breath through his nose, and he takes aim.

He really misses his damn rifle.

Dean shoulders the sting of failure while he makes his way through the camp, leading Baby by the reigns. He drops her off at the large horse pen. There he feeds her and brushes her long coat, all while murmuring soft affectionate things. She’s still one of his only friends here.

But even she leaves him short to join her new friend, Mato. The two have become thick as thieves. Mato greets the black mare with a friendly whinny. Their noses touch in affection, and Mato playfully nips at her ear.

Dean raises his brows. “Well, that’s a little more friendly than usual. You guys start courting when I wasn’t looking?”

He walks over to Mato, who’s softened up to him in recent weeks.

“You sly dog,” Dean remarks, smirking. “Didn’t even ask me for her hand.”

Mato blows a hot breath through his nose at Dean, who has to blink, wiping his face.

“Now that’s just rude.” Still, he offers the mustang an apple from his pocket. Mato takes it from his palm, letting Dean rub his neck while he munches on his snack. “As fathers-in-law go, you lucked out, pal. See? I’m a delight.”

He wouldn’t be surprised if Baby had her first foal by spring. Dean grins at the thought, but it soon falls. If only his father-in-law were so easy to please.

His mind dwells on it as he starts making his way back to the heart of the village. Chatan, Mila’s father, hasn’t warmed up to him any better than Šóta or the other men. Tahatan is the only one of them who treats Dean civilly, and overall, he seems to be a good leader.

Dean has that thought, just when he sees the older man himself walking with a woman Dean sort of recognizes. She wears a long necklace made of blue beads and seashells. Tahatan goes into her tipi, even though Dean knows…that woman isn’t the Chief’s wife.

Dean raises his brows, but he subtly pivots on his heel and takes a different route back to his own tipi. Whatever he just saw, it’s definitely not his business.

“Honey, I’m home,” he teases.

She welcomes him into her arms, her hands traveling warmly up his shoulders. He bends to kiss her, soft and slow at first. And then deeper, sucking on her lower lip and teasing her with a sensuous tongue. She hums in surprise into his mouth, making him smile.

He’s exhausted and feeling low, but he doesn’t want to let on to her. He just wants to forget about his day, and hopefully recharge with a better night.

“How did it go today?” she asks, after he allows her to breathe.

Dean nods (and lies). “Pretty good.”

She waits for him to continue. When he just continues to hold her, she raises her brows up at him.

“Dean?”

“What? I’m workin’ on archery. Lots of progress.”

She eyes him in suspicion, and he knows he doesn’t have her fooled. Actually, she looks like she’s going to press him about it, so he releases her from his hold and goes to change out of his dirty clothes to avoid her gaze.

“Hey, uh, maybe it’s none of my business, but I saw the Chief go into some other woman’s tent today. Holding hands, bedroom eyes, the whole deal,” he says while he changes. He glances back at her and waggles his brows. Mila smiles slightly.

“Did she wear her hair in a half-braid, or did she wear a necklace made of seashells?” she asks.

Dean’s surprised that she doesn’t seem surprised, but he thinks back to what he saw.

“Uh, seashells. Yeah, she wore seashells,” he says.

Mila nods. “Yes, that woman is also his…the chiefs of my people are known to take more than one wife.”

At that, Dean becomes even more surprised. He finishes dressing and leaves his boots by the tipi’s entrance. His raised brows even out into a smirk.

“Well, okay. Guess it’s good to be Chief,” he says.

Mila’s lips purse as she eyes him narrowly. She goes back to stirring the stew with a wide, wooden spoon. Dean doesn’t see her reaction, but he does notices that something’s missing from his side of the bedding. He frowns.

“Hey, where’s my gun?” He asks Mila, who shakes her head without looking at him.

“I moved it,” she curtly replies.

Dean’s frown deepens. He touches her arm to get her attention.

“I’d rather you didn’t do that, baby,” he says. He’s made sure that she knows the basics of a gun well enough, but he doesn’t want to take the chance of her hurting herself.

“Don’t leave it out, then,” she snips back. “It shouldn’t go where we sleep.”

Dean tilts his head at her. He’s a bit confused at her tone, especially because they’ve had this conversation before.

“I have it there just in case something happens at night,” he reminds her. His pistol is really just for emergencies though. There are only three bullets left in it, and he can’t exactly go shopping for more. 

Dean realizes then that Mila’s mood has shifted. He approaches her from behind.

“What’s wrong, huh?” His hands find familiar purchase along the curve of her waist. He swipes her braid away and presses a kiss where her neck meets her shoulder. More teasingly, he asks, “What’d I do now?”

Mila remains tight-lipped, until she glances at him over her shoulder.

“Do you want another woman?” she asks.

It’s a simple question, but it succeeds in completely tripping him up. He blinks at her, incredulous and bewildered.

“What?”

She continues shredding another herb to put into the stew. Somehow, it makes the broth smell a bit worse. 

“You seem to admire the Chief for having three wives, so you must want another one too,” she says.

Holy shit, three wives? Dean wonders. The man must be a saint. Look at the hell I’m catching with one.

He can’t help but laugh, a deep belly chuckle that does nothing to take away Mila’s ire. She glares at him now, genuinely upset, and Dean knows he’s starting to shit the bed on this one. He sobers up and raises his hands in surrender.

“Sweetheart,” he says, in a placating tone.

Despite her annoyance, she allows him to hold her again. He plies her with more tantalizing kisses along her neck. He breathes in the sweet-smelling oil she uses on her hair.

“You’re more than enough woman for me. You know that, right?” he whispers against her skin. It earns her slight shudder, and he smiles. He teases the spot just under her ear, grazing with his teeth, then soothing with his tongue. She can’t help but writhe against him a bit. It stirs a well of desire in his lower belly, especially when he squeezes her hips, pressing himself to her from behind.

She tries to remain strong as she clears her throat, no doubt feeling his growing hardness against her. She starts to blush hotly.

“It’s all I can do just to make sure you stay sweet for me,” Dean says, a hint of teasing returned to his voice.

Mila finally breaks into a laugh. She reaches back to swat him on the head, but his ministrations work. Once she manages to escape from his grasp with a teasing smile of her own, she more happily serves him a bowl of stew.

Dean smirks. Fine, he can be patient. He’ll just have to wait until dessert, then. After a moment to calm himself, he sits down on the ground beside her and brings a large spoonful of stew to his lips. There, he pauses. The strange taste that assaults his tongue nearly makes him choke, but he does his best to swallow it down. The meat’s tough as nails, for Christ’s sake…

Hearing a spoon clatter against the bowl, he chances glancing at Mila. She sits stock still, her brows furrowed as she frowns. Slowly, she sets the bowl down and says,

“Stop eating.”

She looks angry at herself. Dean feels bad for her, his sympathy striking at his chest.

“What do you mean? I’m hungry,” he says, and gamely takes another couple of bites.

She just watches him. Her upset worsens while he tries and fails to cover up a hacking cough.

Finally, Mila can stand no more. She takes the bowl from him, making some of the foul broth slosh over their hands and onto the ground. She tried to make wahonpi, one of the most basic soups in her people’s culture, made from bison, potatoes, corn, and carrots stewed in the broth.

Eyota told me it was simple! she thinks in dismay. How did it go so wrong?

“It’s no good,” she says, her voice hard. “I will go to my mother and see what she cooked. She may have extra for us.”

She rises to her feet, and Dean quickly follows her. He catches sight of her tears, even though she turns her face away from him to grab her shoes. He reaches out and stops her with a hand on her arm. He tugs her back to face him.

“Hey, it’s okay. Why’re you getting so upset?” he says. “I’m not picky. I’ll eat whatever you make.”

Or maybe next time, I’ll try doing the cooking, he thinks.

“Because!” she blurts. Tears well up in her eyes and begin to slip down her cheeks, no matter how much she tries to brush them away. “Because you shouldn’t have to eat it. Because it should be good. You deserve to eat something good!”

Mila finally realizes why her mother tried so hard to teach her these things. She’s embarrassed, feeling sorry for herself, but it’s also far worse than that. Her heart hurts knowing what Dean has gone through, and what he continues to go through for her sake. The least she could do is make sure he eats well, and it seems she can’t even do that.

“Mila,” he says with a sigh. He guides her into his embrace. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

She can’t allow herself to be comforted. She pushes at his chest to look up at him.

“You think I don’t know what happens outside?” she says. “It’s a small village, and people talk when they think I’m not listening. I know what the men are doing to you.”

Dean shakes his head stubbornly. “It’s fine. I can handle it.”

“You should not have to,” she insists, resting a hand over his heart. “You have proven yourself to be a man of honor. Tahatan said it himself. They should not be this way.” 

Dean smiles ruefully. “I can handle it.” 

He bows his head and captures her lips, plying her with a deeper kiss. The heat of it grows and becomes more than a distraction, more than comfort. It strips everything else away, until it’s just the two of them again, like the night she found him at the riverbank and held him until he woke up in her arms.

What they eat doesn’t matter. Other people don’t matter. All that matters is this.

He squeezes her hips and presses her harder against him, so she can feel every part of his desire. She moans into his mouth, curling her fingers into his shirt. So he guides her down to the bedding, where he shows her what he’d rather get a taste of.

Later that evening, Mila and Dean have dinner with her parents. Her mother, Weaya, is a gracious host, treating Dean both like a guest and a proper son-in-law. She gives him a special cut of braised bison meat, not to mention extra corn and potato hash. Chatan says nothing to him and eats in gruff, stoic silence. 

Dean can tell it both hurts and annoys his wife, but he has to focus on answering Weaya’s many questions about his life—mainly about his family and the farm he grew up on. In some ways, raising crops and rearing up cows, chickens, and horses there isn’t so different from the Lakota village.  

“You must miss that place. Your home,” she says. Dean meets his mother-in-law’s eyes, pausing in polishing off the meat sauce on his plate with a piece of bread. Chatan looks up from his meal, and so does Mila, who hesitates too. He sees the thread of her concern there, behind her eyes, so Dean hides the stab of sadness that hits him every time he thinks of Lawrence. 

“Sometimes,” he admits. He looks over at Mila. “But I’m not alone. That’s what matters.”

She smiles at him softly. Dean has the urge to take her hand, maybe raise it up to his lips, but he’ll leave that for when they’re alone. He doesn’t want to upset her father any more than he has just by sitting in Chatan’s house. Tent…whatever.

He’s glad when, after almost another hour and a round of hot tea, Mila finishes chatting with her mother and stands. It means they can finally get the hell out of here. No disrespect to her parents, but with so much change happening so quickly, Dean had been able to put Lawrence out of his mind for a while. Tonight he thinks about his mom and his brother more than makes him comfortable on their way through the village. He follows Mila inside their tipi, then starts up a candle while she gets ready to rest for the evening. 

Living here is like going back in time—before the lantern, before indoor plumbing and the water heater. It’s not a huge hardship for Dean, who’s spent a lot of his life sleeping on hard, dusty ground, or military bases with less than most modern amenities, but it’s still another adjustment. 

He undresses down to his pants and settles down to the bedding and furs, waiting for his wife. She kneels beside him after undressing down to just her shift. He lays on his back with an arm tucked behind his head, and he watches her unbind her long, dark hair, undoing the braid from the bottom strands. She has this concentrated look on her face, like her mind is far away, even though she’s right here next to him. He threads his fingers through her loose hair while she works, giving her a smile.   

“You okay?” he asks. 

Mila pauses. She lets her tresses escape from her fingers and reaches for him, laying her hand on his chest. Dean holds it there and finally allows himself to press a kiss into her palm. 

I’m sorry, is what she wants to say, but she knows he’ll only reply, For what?

So she lowers down and slips into his warm embrace, as if this can make them both forget the day. She rests her cheek over his beating heart. 

“You will never be alone,” she promises. 

Dean quirks a smile. Instead of answering, he brushes her cheek tenderly with his hand, and he closes his eyes. A few deep breaths later, and he finds sleep.

The candle slowly flickers out.   

On most nights, Mila falls asleep before Dean, and so his light snores don’t bother her. Tonight, even though she’s tried, she can’t tune out his rumbles. Or maybe it’s her own mind she can’t tune out.

She carefully maneuvers out of his hold and slips on her shoes. Maybe the moon will give her clarity tonight. 

She pushes open the front flap of the tent and steps out into the cooler air. She looks up at the moon’s white-blue glow, a wide crescent peeking out from between two large clouds. A strong breeze tugs at her hair and flutters her lashes when she closes her eyes. She crosses her arms when goosebumps spread across her tan skin.

“What troubles you, Kimmímila?”

The voice is steady and male, and all too familiar. Still, the intrusion startles her. Her eyes fly open wide and she jolts, inhaling sharply. She frowns when she realizes it’s him. 

“What are you doing? It’s late,” she says.

He steps out from the shadows with his pipe in hand. He smells strongly of tobacco. Her father and uncle smoke as well, but she doesn’t like it herself. She’s glad Dean doesn’t either.  

“Easing my mind,” he says, raising his pipe. “I see you’re up to the same thing.”

Mila shakes her head. She returns her attention to the moon. “Go. You shouldn’t be here.”

“Are we not friends, Mila?” he says. “Can’t we talk and share like we used to?”

His voice is disheartened enough that it earns her gaze. She sighs at him. 

“I am sorry, but I can’t give you what you want,” she says. “Don’t test me anymore.”

He pauses with his pipe in hand. It drops to his side, and he takes measured steps closer, until he’s looking down at her. Even with the litheness of his form, he’s still taller and broader than her. His long, dark hair is half pulled onto the top of his head, threaded together with a beaded leather string she made for him when they were children. He has used it ever since. The rest of his hair lays loose down his back, brushing his arms. 

“If you actually loved him, it wouldn’t be a test,” he teases.  

He tries to touch her cheek, but she guides his hand down. She shakes her head and steps away from him. 

“This isn’t a game,” she says. “You know I mean what I say.”

His anger and frustration surfaces, with a sharp exhale of breath and the crunch of his dark brows.

“You would choose the Outlander over your own people,” he accuses.

Mila’s gaze is firm as she heads back to her tipi. If he will not be reasonable, then she will make it clear enough to hurt. 

“I choose him over you,” she says. 

Then, she slips back inside.     

The shadow outside remains, just long enough for the moon to become clear past the moving clouds. 

In the morning, Mila goes to her uncle, Chief Tahatan. She finds her parents there in his tipi as well, all of them sharing breakfast. Her aunt passes around more bread and wojapi, a sweet mixed berry sauce, while her father is resting a broken ankle. He’s complaining again, even though it happened over a week ago now. 

“If you hadn’t let the horse buck you off, you wouldn’t be hurting,” she says sharply now. She’s become annoyed with his griping. “Or better yet, you can finally admit that you’re beyond the years of breaking young stallions.” 

Chatan is the Horsemaster of their tribe, and has been since Mila was a little girl, inheriting the position from her great uncle, the former chief’s younger brother. Mila knows, however, that Chatan is getting too old to do the harder work. Many years have meant many battles too, and they’ve taken their toll on his bones. 

An idea grows in her mind, and she goes to sit beside her father. She applies the poultice Eyota gives Weaya for him, before rewrapping his ankle.

“Father,” she begins, imploring him gently, “perhaps Dean could help you care for the horses.”

Chatan eyes her with a frown. “Your husband already has his hands filled with training.” 

“Šóta and Takoda can’t do it all themselves, and Dean has experience with breaking young horses,” she reasons.  

Chatan ignores her and hefts himself to his feet without her or his wife’s help. He leaves with her mother on his heels, even though she looks back at her daughter apologetically. You know your father, her eyes say. 

Mila frowns at his back, both frustrated and upset. When they’re gone, she heaves a sigh. She remains determined though. 

She goes to Chief Tahatan next. He sits in his chair of whicker and wood while he smokes his pipe. Her aunt has gone to help the other women harvesting chokeberries and wild onions. Mila will go there soon, but first, she has business here.

“Uncle,” she says. 

He makes a sound of acknowledgement, crossed between a grunt and a groan. He knows what's coming. She kneels at his feet and touches his hand in a sign of humbleness, reverence, and familial love all at once. 

“Uncle,” she repeats. “Dean has done nothing but try to please Father, but still, he’s being stubborn…will you talk to him? Please?”

Tahatan sighs deeply. “You must understand your father, child. The decision you’ve made affects us all.”

“I do understand, Uncle. But the truth of it is, none of you have given Dean a chance to prove himself.”

“His chance is right now,” Tahatan says, his tone more stern. “Have I not been gracious? Did I not allow him to stay and live among us?”

“Yes, but you continue to judge him in your mind, like everyone else,” she says. The Chief remains quiet. She moves to stand before him, holding his gaze directly. “Let us perform the Huŋkápi.”

Huŋkápi. The Making of Relatives. Her people first created the tradition to make peace between Lakota and rival tribes, like the Ree. It can even be used to unite extended families within the tribe, especially in times of marriage. There is no better time for it, she thinks. 

The Chief shakes his head. “Kimmímila.”

“Is he not my husband?” she says. “In the eyes of our people, this is the joining of two families, and accepting an outsider into our tribe. That is exactly what the ceremony is for.”

“He has no family,” Tahatan snaps. “It is not exactly the tradition.”

“Then let us make it new,” she argues.

Tahatan hesitates. He shakes his head and rubs at his chin in a gesture of long-suffering. He thanks the spirits that he never had daughters. While he loves his niece, he has never envied his brother. 

“I will think on it,” he says. 

Mila frowns, but she tries her best to accept this, for now. She thanks him respectfully and leans in to kiss his cheek. Tahatan grunts an acknowledgement and watches her go with another shake of his head, despite a small smile. Between her and his sons, they will keep adding years to his life. 

On her way out of the Chief’s tipi, she runs into her cousin, Šóta. He walks with all the comfortable cockiness of a rooster among his harem.

“Good morning, sister,” he greets, even as he playfully pulls at her braid and tosses it into her face.

She flicks it away and meets him with an irritated frown. She’s in no mood to be teased, especially by him. “You’re still a child.”

“Ho-ho, hey now,” he chuckles, and he cuts off her path by standing in her way, crossing his arms. “Watch it. When I become Chief, don’t think I’ll let you talk to me so disrespectfully, my sister.”

“Just because you will be Chief one day does not make you wise,” she says. Her voice is as sharp as the snap of a blackberry vine. “And don’t call me sister. You have lost that right.”

Šóta finally becomes serious; he realizes that she means what she says.

“What are you talking about? What have I done?” he asks, more earnestly.

“It’s what you haven’t done,” Mila snaps. “If you were a good leader, you would take your father’s words to heart when he accepted my husband into our tribe. If you were my brother, you wouldn’t let the men mock him. If you were a man at all, you would do what is right. You would be guiding him right now, instead of letting the others ‘train’ him.”

She storms away from him, leaving Šóta feeling irritated, but also with an uncomfortable feeling beginning to churn in his gut. 

Mila moves brusquely through the camp until she reaches the clearing edged by the forest. There the horses are fenced in. They’ve been given their food and water for the morning, so they’re rather frisky as they clop around and graze.

She looks for Mato. Baby is no doubt with Dean today, so the Kiger mustang keeps to himself underneath a large sycamore tree. His tail flicks when she approaches, and he turns to her with a sound of greeting. She allows her hand to run along his dun-colored coat as she draws closer.

“I need you, my friend,” she whispers. 

She holds his snout, pressing her forehead against his as she squeezes her eyes shut against the burn of frustrated tears. Mato bumps her shoulder with his nose, softly whinnying. She smiles, sniffling, and rubs his cheek. 

“Let’s go for a ride.”

AN: Well, here we go! Sorry for ending on some angst, but here we've got the pieces in motion for a fun-filled, four-part sequel. 😂💜 Dean and Mila are both struggling in their own ways while he tries to navigate this new world he's trying to live in.

And how do you think he's gonna react to the "mystery man" trying to win her back? 😬

Pronunciation Guide:

Šóta ("sho-tah") Chatan ("chat-tan") Tahatan ("ta-hat-tann") Otaktay ("ogh-tac-tay") Weaya ("we-ayy-ya") Takoda ("ta-koda") Mato ("matt-toe") Misae ("mee-sah-eh")

Next Time:

But she feels a shadow at her feet as she ventures through the village. They are getting bigger as a tribe, harder to move when they need to, and it’s more mouths to feed, but it’s also a good thing. Despite all the challenges the past few decades have brought, their people are enduring. 

However, she pushes these thoughts to the back of her mind when she feels a prickling down the back of her neck. It’s followed shortly by the strong hand that closes on her wrist, and the man that calls her name. 

She gasps and whips around. He is there, gently shushing her. She glares at him and tries to pull her hand out of his grip. 

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[lunarriviera]

new year's letter from halan, january 1998

dear everyone, hello, it is i, captain zheng bei of the halan public safety bureau anti-narcotics task force. things are going well however there have been a few challenges this winter so i thought i would take this opportunity to update you on our progress here in halan.

first of all there's xiaoguang and nan nan. everyone is really happy that xiaoguang sat up again and started talking and getting better, me most of all. i might have cried a little and i definitely hit him. the weird thing is he speaks exclusively cantonese now and we're not sure why but hopefully nan nan's cantonese will get better so they can communicate. gu yiran says it doesn't really matter because they could never actually communicate in the first place and i don't want to say gu yiran is right but just in this one specific instance he might have a point. anyway nan nan seems happy and they sing a lot. and make other noises as well but we aren't going to talk about those.

zhang xueyao is also doing well, she has some kind of boyfriend but she won't let us meet him and i find that somewhat distressing. i'm worried if he is ugly or maybe has two heads. or what if he's really tiny. maybe he's only like 150 cm tall and she just beats him up all the time, something that would not be good for a police officer to do. on the other hand she seems a lot calmer and doesn't chase guozhu around the office anymore trying to kick him, so i guess it's been good for her. again gu yiran claims that the boyfriend is probably completely normal and just afraid of us but i don't know why that would be true. we're only cops, there's nothing scary about any of us?

ding guozhu has not changed in any way whatsoever, he has knitted eight sweaters this winter and at this rate the only one of us who doesn't have a sweater is me. that's because i don't wear sweaters because i never get cold. i only wear t-shirts even when it's -30ºC which it is right now. gu yiran on the other hand is wearing three sweaters at this very moment in his lab but i can still hear him bitching. i told him when he wears three sweaters at once he looks fat and he told me my head is fat. i told him his head is stupid and he looks stupid and then he told me i am an unmitigated idiot and then we wound up in a supply closet in the hallway and then some other stuff happened. when we came out of the supply closet somehow i was wearing one of guozhu's sweaters. surprisingly it is very soft and kind of nice, and guozhu made it red, my favorite color, and tried to give it to me so maybe i will keep it after all.

then there's uncle. he went on vacation with his granddaughter to hangzhou and they never came back. i think he likes it there, he keeps sending us photos of them by the lake eating sugar pastry in shirt sleeves and smiling. we have all started using email now and uncle likes it the most because he says he doesn't have to waste money on postage anymore. gu yiran tried to explain to him that electricity and telephone usage also cost money but uncle says he's already paid for those so it doesn't count. anyway he keeps sending very large photos that clog up the office inbox for several hours while they download. sometimes there's a lady in the photos, i keep asking him who that is but he never answers. gu yiran says when he feels like telling us about her, he will. here's an old picture of him with gu yiran because it's how i like to think of him, still here with us.

ma and ba are fine and nan nan finally talked them into closing the restaurant one day a week to take some rest. they are saying they might go visit uncle in the spring, or go to shanghai. they are a little bit upset that gu yiran and i moved out, but they also like having nan nan out of their apartment so that worked out okay after all.

i guess that's the big news, that gu yiran and i moved to a new place. it was sad to leave the building but after the incident with the wall we figured it was probably time. i explained to ma and ba how the hole was only an accident but it was still a very big hole so they were right to be upset, we all worked very hard one weekend to tear the wall down and replace it with a better one. the hole wouldn't even have happened if gu yiran and i hadn't had a fight, but we did, and then we weren't speaking so he went home to do his experiment in the apartment instead of in the lab, and there was sort of an explosion. but it was really my fault, because if i hadn't called him an arrogant cocksucker we wouldn't have fought. on the other hand if he hadn't gone after six drug dealers in the chicken van by himself with nothing but a baseball bat and some sock bombs then i probably wouldn't have called him that. so i guess maybe we were both to blame.

the good news is our new apartment is very solid and sturdy, we found this out on the first night when we walked in the front door and gu yiran threw me bodily up against the wall and proceeded to [redacted] me. he says that as a true scientist he has to keep conducting ongoing tests to ensure the structural integrity of our domicile and i'm not entirely sure what that means but as long as he keeps slamming me up against things honestly does it really matter.

here he is studying and looking very handsome and also cute. when he catches me taking photos of him studying, he hits me and tries to get the camera away from me, i don't mind because when he starts hitting me it's sort of funny and also easy to tickle him. it turns out gu yiran is very ticklish, and when he starts laughing and his glasses fall off and his hair gets messed up he looks even cuter and then we usually forget about studying or taking pictures or hitting or tickling.

well that's about all the news from halan. there are always new drugs and new dealers trying to make money off them so we stay pretty busy. director gao says i can't say anymore about that because it's official police business but i will tell you that even though we have a new office and a bunch of new recruits from the academy, i still miss the old cafeteria, and uncle bringing noodles and bao for the team.

PS gu yiran says he wants to get a cat. at first i wasn't sure it was a good idea considering his track record with houseplants, but then i thought about it and decided i don't mind being the one who mostly takes care of the cat. after all i do a pretty good job with xiao ran.

[craziestfangirl98]

I would first like to start with, I get why THK team decided to refrain from releasing the episode last week and having to take an extra week's break now because if they would have done that, I wouldn't be able to function.

This episode was insane. But so so meaningful. I am enjoying this show more and more the deeper it goes and I'm really excited to see where it goes from here.

Since the beginning of the series I've been hoping that we'd see more of Fadel and Bison's interactions and I finally got it now. Can't say how happy it made me. Even with how it hurt, it felt so fulfilling to see them as brothers.

The guilt and heart break in Bison's eyes while telling Fadel the truth about bringing them into his life and 'hiring' Style made me see the side of Bison that is still young and naive but cares for his brother whole heartedly. I also love that although Fadel didn't forgive Bison and told him he'd 'deal' with him later about his betrayal, he was still there with his brother for the most part. Scared and concerned and worried about the heart break that he would experience. Even on his birthday, Fadel made sure to take care of Bison and got him a cake and a candle, which would mean a lot considering they were both adopted into this business and became brothers.

I think I deserve points for thinking it is mother who ends up hurting Bison considering Keen did bring out a gun but was beaten to the punch because Bison's impulsive ass couldn't stop himself from intervening into the situation.

Throughout the entire episode I was waiting with bated breath for the ball to drop and when it finally did in the hospital room and the bathroom for KantBison and FadelStyle respectively I had to physically let go a shudder terrified of what is to come.

I like how most of the fandom read Fadel and Bison accurately in terms of Fadel at least giving Style another chance and allowing to hear him out while Bison just blew his gasket so to speak.

I love that Style's reaction to it all was just to take it in stride and make Fadel's life more chaotic not because he hates him but because he loves him and wants to prove that 'i might have been coerced into loving you but I know nothing but loving you now and will do so forever.' I find it equal times hilarious and adorable. Something about Style continuously choosing Fadel makes me believe that the ex might have left and deceived him.

I knew when I watched the trailers and we were revealed that there would be a Kant jumping off the boat scene while he has a phobia of the water, that it would hit me hard. I was not prepared for that to happen today. Especially not the way it did. I had no doubts about Kant loving Bison but to see his heartbreak and grief about the reality of their relationship, his palpable fear towards Bison and his guilt towards ratting them out to the cops is all so clear in his face but so is the resignation and determination that he has to do this in order to convince to Bison and First is such a phenomenal actor for it all.

I do believe, in the heart of my hearts, Bison jumped straight after Kant to rescue him. I don't think he thought Kant cared enough to jump and would jump straight after. Because I don't think they will ever get to establishing trust otherwise.

Next week both the couples are going to be surviving alone, FadelStyle trying to find KantBison while they are dealing with the aftermath and the consequences of today. I don't know how I'm going to be waiting and going back to work. Sigh... Let's see.

Anyway, let me know what you all are thinking about this episode. Week by week it feels like it is going to be a tragedy instead of a comedy all though I doubt it. The angst is angsting and it hurtssssss.

[pansyfemme]

you probably hear this often on the genderfuckery webbed site, but i just wanted to let you know your fashion and gender expression and confidence are so fucking inspiring. i'm in the throes of questioning my gender at the moment, and it means a lot to see someone so unapologetic in their expression. it makes me feel like maybe i don't give a fuck what my gender is, and i should just wear what i want to wear and be who i want to be. before i saw someone like you expressing that attitude, i never even considered that my dreams don't have to stay on a pinterest board -- i can just live them, if i so choose. so basically thank you for being you. you have brought me so much hope and joy.

thank you! i really love existing as i am, life is a lot about doing what makes you happy and keeps you going. I wish you well

[antivanlights]

I have WRITTEN MORE about this concept. It's like 1k words so I'm adding a cut on this one too... Oh, Illario.

Alright, so I’m thinking that in this scenario Illario would obviously go through a rollercoaster of emotions. At first, he could just play it cool, flirty and stupid casual. Their “thing” happened like 8 years ago (I picture my Rook to be around 30), so they’re basically total strangers now anyway, right? Their interactions are brief and they dance around each other with ease. He doesn’t particularly care about Rook, nor their plans immediately. Figures they won���t get very far, certainly not with his possessed, traumatized disaster of a cousin tagging along. Fighting against gods? He’s giving the group a month or two, tops.

MEANWHILE: Imagine how Rook would feel by falling for a Dellamorte again. I’m sure they wanted to bash their head in against the fish tank in their room upon realizing how totally smitten they were. Perhaps the first few flirts were playful - just a Crow following the script. But as they continued to get to know Lucanis, Rook realized how different he is - how lovely. He’s funny, he’s sweet, he fights really cool doing all sorts of stabby flips... but he’s also hurting and he needs support and Rook wants to do everything, anything they can to help and AARRGH! Now all the flirts are real and Rook can imagine a life with Lucanis while Viago’s familiar voice is echoing in their head: Idiot!

Back in Treviso Illario is actually smug, entertained even when he discovers that Rook and Lucanis have something going on. “Ah, my cousin seems to have taken a liking to my leftovers.” On top of that, a part of him is making it all about himself. Is Rook entertaining Lucanis to get back at me? How fun.

But unfortunately for Illario, the bond between his cousin and Rook is very much real and he is NOT a part of the equation in any shape or form. Rook’s team keeps securing victory after victory, and his cousin is looking more alive than ever. Demon aside (Why isn’t anyone complaining more about the demon? Hello?), Lucanis is now surrounded by friends, regarded as a funny and generous companion (What?), and he and Rook keep giving each other these looks. So now he’s feeling jealous. And a tiny part of him is terrified of the thought that all this happiness and glory could have been his. What if he hadn’t toyed around with Rook? What if things had somehow worked out and he had been the one to join Rook’s team? Would he be smiling like Lucanis? Would he be on a completely different path? A better one?

He catches Lucanis glaring daggers at him from the distance one day. Does he know? He probably knows. (I picture Rook telling him about the disaster with Illario, and Lucanis telling them about the embarrassing thing with Viago in return one evening over wine and snacks.)

So when his schemes fail and he falls to his knees, bloody and disgraced in front of his cousin, he accepts Rook’s disdain. And yet…

SCENE!

Rook entered the heavily guarded wing of the Dellamorte villa, nodding at the guards as they made their way to Illario’s room. He was being kept at the villa for questioning, but Rook figured that this was also another way of protecting him. That said, they were keenly aware of the magical wards set at every door and window – most likely set to incapacitate or eliminate Illario if he tried something.

Pushing open the door to his room, Rook stepped inside. Illario was sitting at the edge of his bed, just staring out towards the balcony he could not step out into. Upon hearing the door and the accompanying steps, he turned to watch as Rook casually made their way inside. Rook closed the door behind them and leaned against it. Rook spoke first, arms crossed against their chest.

“Won’t lie, what you did was horrific and they should’ve probably cut you down on the spot.”

Illario threw himself back, laying on the bed while his feet dangled off the edge. “Ugh, is that all you came here to say?”

The was a brief pause before Rook let out a breath. “Nah. What I wanted to say is that as horrific as it was, you were exactly who we were trained to be. I get it, I guess…” Rook turned their face to look towards the balcony before they continued. “My point is… You can make a choice now.”

Illario audibly scoffed, propping himself up on elbows to look at Rook. “Are you suggesting I can still be redeemed, Rook?”

Rook shrugged but did not meet his gaze. “You’re still alive, aren’t you?”

Illario opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. Rook met his gaze and they remained like that for a few seconds.

“I’ll get going now, have a meeting. I’m usually around if you need someone to talk to. As a friend. Just let your guards know and they’ll find me.” Rook quickly turned around and exited to room, the door shutting gently behind them.

Illario lay there, half-stunned as he stared at the door. “Friend?”

END SCENE!

So after that I feel like Rook, Lucanis, Viago and Teia will continue their work to reform the Crows into something less… exploitative? They’re an assassin’s guild, sure, but the constant infighting, cruelty, and awful training/recruiting tactics made for a terrible business model in long need of change.

At some point, they’ll likely let Illario out of his containment unit and just tell him to help out with a ton of things (under careful supervision). I’d like to think that at this point, he’d start to come in regular contact with all the companions and members from their allied factions. Eventually, he’d have the opportunity to forge genuine friendships. Maybe one day he’ll pull through a tough situation and save everyone’s asses.

Later on, he’d be able to make a choice for himself, for his future - be it within or out of the Crows. Though he’d probably have to fake his own death and forge a new identity to get away from it all. But I’m sure the team would help.

Alright that’s all I got this time. Thanks for joining me in this pit of lunacy.

Imagine how wild it’d be if Illario were Crow Rook’s ex. I know it’s crazy but listen: the drama of it.

Full conspiracy-theory level rambling under the cut.

Imagine Rook, long before they got their nickname, working their way through their training, a proud new member of House de Riva. They’re talented, but reckless and naïve. Viago does what he can to instill discipline and wisdom on his charge, but he’s not a miracle worker.

At the same time, Illario is perfecting his skills, mapping out his ambitions. They meet out of pure coincidence, but Illario’s attention immediately clings to them – what a pretty, new toy he has found. His charms work and a young Rook is dazzled. Perhaps its their naïveté, perhaps they’re still trying to find some good in the dark alleys of Treviso. Unfortunately for them, it’s over as soon as it starts.

Rook is promptly left alone to their thoughts – heart broken and personality hardened. “I have better things to do. Bigger plans to follow.” Illario will say as he walks out on them, content with having gotten to play with the pretty toy, content with having broken it. “We have never met. You understand, right?” With that, he will leave, never waiting for a response.

Now, Viago won’t know the full picture, but he will understand that something happened. He’s no stranger to situationships and he will feel that this one was bad. From there on, he will make sure that his protégé’s business never crosses paths with that of the Dellamorte’s. Rook’s career in the Crows will continue with them never coming into contact with anyone from the House – for better or worse.

Years later, Rook is in front of Caterina Dellamorte. Rook and Illario play their parts: they have never met. Viago will play along. It’s none of my business, he’ll think.

But now imagine, Lucanis is alive and well - he's even reached an understanding with his demon. He has found true companionship and love with Rook – and its real. By the Maker, it’s real. Illario can see how they look at each other, how they fight together. Their smiles, their discrete touches. By the end of their adventures, Lucanis has also gone and freed their home, saved the world and secured the seat of First Talon.

Meanwhile, Illario sits alone in a room on the far edge of the villa. Marked as a traitor, completely disgraced. All his plans failed. He’s angry and he’s jealous and he can remember how Rook feels under his touch.

And all this misery? It was dealt by his own hand.