#I'm reading and rereading this and it keeps sounding like I'm saying that being abandoned was the right thing for him

[canisalbus]

Sobbing over Machete, who can only be seen smiling in one part of the growing up compilation, as a wee little lad.

Sobbing over the face that he was a toddler in that part, a child who had yet to be separated from his family or know the abuse of his "teacher," who only knew the joys of cute snails and holding his favorite pet chicken.

It seems like all of his issues were compounded after his family left him :(

It is what it is. Considering the cards he was dealt, he managed to play his hand pretty well, I think. I've been mulling over this a bit lately, and I'd go as far as to say that in the eyes of his contemporaries, his childhood probably wouldn't even have been unusually unhappy or unfortunate. By most metrics he was a wildly successful individual.

Historically speaking, child abandonment has been more widespread than a modern day person might initially think.

(source)

I'd also like to believe that his parents meant well and the decision to give him up wasn't an easy one. They were going through an impossibly tight squeeze of financial and emotional hardship, and Machete, the youngest child, was constantly sick with mystery illnesses they didn't know how to deal with (anemia + weakened immunity system being the main cause for most of them). Rather than having the entire family suffer and starve, they arranged to have him be left at a monastery, hoping to give him a fighting chance to survive.

If there's a silver lining to it, it was a immense stroke of luck he ended up somewhere where he was looked after (monks were known to have better understanding and access to medicine than commoners). Moreover, he was also taught to read, a rare and priced skill at the time, which ultimately enabled him to claw his way into the upper echelons of the society. Not only did he survive, he prevailed against all odds.

Machete himself probably has mixed feelings about his childhood. He doesn't like to think about it, and (like most people) doesn't realize or admit the extent it affected him. His parents only exist on some conceptual, untouchable level to him, and I don't think he has any desire to try to find out who they were and if they're still alive. He might harbor some repressed, aimless and faceless resentment for them for deciding to wash their hands of him for a reason for another. Maybe it's the root of his inferiority complex and persistent sense of inadequacy, knowing there must've been something wrong with him for that to happen. But then again, it's hard to truly miss something or someone you don't have a personal connection to, or any memories about. In the end, he wasn't worth their time then and they're not worth his time now.

He can recall some of his time in the monastery and it was mostly a pleasantly uneventful existence, filled with strict but soothing routines and a sense of community. His mentor (father-figure, whether he likes it or not) was a cold and brutish man who disciplined him harshly. His relationship with him is tense and inflamed, but he realizes he wouldn't have gotten as far as he did without his tutelage, connections and patronage. If he hadn't sponsored his studies in Venice, he would've never crossed paths with Vasco either.

[butterflydm]

wot reread: a memory of light (chapters 24-31)

spoilers for a memory of light, the final book.

Everything that Tuon thinks about her life really does sound like it's going to make Mat so miserable. All the obligatory pomp and circumstance, even in private (because you're never in private when you have slaves!). But, hey, he'll get rewarded with sex every time he saves Tuon's life, so who needs happiness? (/sarcasm)

Given how many truths about the Seanchan have been withheld from Mat in order to get him to this point, I wonder how many of those truths it would take for him to abandon ship?

Note: I am going to be questioning and interrogating Mat's actions, words, and behaviors a LOT going forward and not taking much at face value. And that kinda extends to people talking about him: what do they know and believe about him, etc? Whose PoV are we in when certain things are said or revealed, etc? This is mostly for two reasons: a. I am sussing out how much wiggle room there is for writing fic about Mat in this time period and b. I want to try to not make assumptions based on my first thoughts when I'm reading each PoV.

2. Beslan says that Mat has changed and "I don't know what to make of him any more." Beslan is all-in on the slavers now, which makes him a very great disappointment to me. I guess we can't be that surprised. He enabled his mom being a serial rapist, so I guess it shouldn't be a shock that he's willing to enable slavery as well. What Beslan says about Mat is... hmm. How well did Beslan ever know Mat, I guess is the question that immediately springs to mind. Beslan was the son of Mat's rapist, who allowed that his mom was maybe going too far with Mat but still was basically a momma's boy despite the rape. And the last time Mat saw Beslan, he was a revolutionary who was willing to stand up against the Seanchan even when his mother was not, so I suspect that he would also not be certain what to make of you, Beslan. Honestly, given that Beslan's last experience of Mat was "wants to escape Ebou Dar no matter what", the most surprising thing for him should be that Mat voluntarily returned to Ebou Dar.

But everything that Tuon thinks here about how Beslan and the Altaran people have been "properly tamed" does give me that gross feeling that she (and many of the Darkfriends in the series) gives me in her PoV chapters. If Mat could actually see her thought processes, all his fantasies about how she's Not Like the Other Seanchan would go up in smoke.

3. Selucia slightly shades Tuon on how she hasn't broken Mat to fully proper behavior yet (he's cursing at some news they've received) and Tuon immediately decides that she needs a new Truthspeaker so that Selucia can go back to being only her Voice (and not speak any opinions that aren't exactly your own, Tuon?).

An Empress must be "crafty", "strong", and "skilled" to sit on the Crystal Throne, Tuon thinks.

Ah, I guess that's why she died pretty quickly in Aviendha's alternate future. Tuon doesn't have any of those qualities. It is interesting to think about how Tuon pumps herself here up with an impossible goal: that she be strong enough to live forever (as the Empress is meant to do and yet how every single Empress has failed to do) so that she can bring 'order' to the world. Just as Fortuona is not living up to the fictional Tuon in Mat's head, she can't possibly live up to the Empress that she believes that she needs to be.

There really are hints, here and there, of the interesting character that Tuon could have been. She just needed so much more character work. I do think she's been more interesting under Sanderson so far, though, at least than she was in CoT & KoD.

4. At this moment in time, Tuon is regretting her marriage. Mat's fancy Seanchan uniform keeps snagging on everything that he passes and her other generals find him baffling. She married "chaos itself". This feels like another place where we're being told one thing and shown another. What has Mat actually DONE that is chaotic to Tuon's plans? He saved her life and advised that she not be stupid enough to actively try to sabotage Rand saving the world, but he didn't challenge her on anything or fight her on anything.

This really does show the all-or-nothing attitude of the Seanchan: Mat has bent so much to accommodate Tuon that he's practically unrecognizable to who he used to be but that's still not enough for her. Nothing but complete and eternal submission is enough for her. He can do everything she asks but if he doesn't have the right attitude about it, then she's still unhappy with him.

5. Oh, "the Prince of Ravens" thinks that they're joining the battle too late? MAYBE he shouldn't have deserted on the eve of the fucking Last Battle then? Sanderson suddenly inserting a feeling of urgency in Mat about getting to the Last Battle feels so ridiculous. Mat didn't give a shit about the Last Battle a couple of chapters ago. He ran away so that he could have some drinks in slaver town. The Last Battle has been happening for at least a week at this point.

Mat being someone who is creating urgency and rushing would make so much more sense if he'd gone to the Seanchan as a negotiator and not as a deserter.

We do get confirmation here that Mat is now the second-highest ranking member of the High Blood, after Tuon herself. And the mere fact that Tuon thinks here that he would "never be a rival" makes me feel like narrative irony would have insisted on him being the one who topples her from her throne.

6. This is when Tuon renames Mat as "bringer of destruction" (aka Knotai aka I am not using that name in this reread ever again). Mat deciding that he likes being dubbed a "bringer of destruction" is another thing that feels bizarrely out of character but I will note that this is all in Tuon PoV, so we don't know how Mat actually feels about the name (I'm pretty sure he doesn't start calling himself that in his head at any point). And we've seen that Tuon has a very difficult time reading Mat, so if he was giving off any tells that he was lying, she would certainly never pick up on it. She glares at him after the renaming and wills him not to argue with it, so his response might be Mat picking up on her cues and responding.

"The Pattern had placed [Mat] before her, had shoved him into her arms." It sure fucking did and it was so incredibly annoying to read.

Tuon also does (internally) note here that Rand was 100% correct about how fragile her rule here is.

Haha, after Selucia uses their handtalk to call Tuon out on the risks she's taking, Tuon thinks again that she needs to replace Selucia as a Truthspeaker so that Selucia can go back to being a good little parrot and stop having opinions (this is a mild paraphrase of her thoughts).

7. Ah, this moment is in Tuon's PoV but it actually does still manage to be pretty clear exactly how much she is disappointing Mat when she considers the idea of going back on her word and swooping down on the Aes Sedai to capture them all as damane rather than going to aid them as allies. That's the moment of Actual Fortuona failing to live up to the Fictional Tuon in Mat's head that I was remembering. Back during either TGS or ToM, Mat realizes that it was likely that Tuon didn't stay in CoT & KoD because she was being honorable and keeping her word but instead was staying because of the prophecy about him she'd gotten, but he kinda just ignored the implications of that realization.

The mere fact that Tuon considers the idea of breaking her word here would remind Mat that her word is meaningless (and Mat has developed, as we have established, a fey-like obsession with keeping his word). It is interesting how Tuon thinks of herself as the embodiment of order and yet so easily considers throwing away a treaty and going back on her word; yet she considers Mat the embodiment of chaos when he does his best to always live by his word no matter what the personal cost. Mat probably would push it away again here (she does make the right choice when it comes down to it) but it's another place where Actual Fortuona would be a disappointment when compared to Fictional Tuon in Mat's head.

Ultimately, when Tuon decides to keep her word, it isn't out of honor but due to the omens telling her to bet on Mat.

I will note at this point in time that Mat is still being informal and using "Tuon" freely.

8. We get a glimpse of how pressed things are on Lan's part of the battlefield before shifting over to Elayne's. Birgitte tries to keep Elayne in the command tent and Elayne finally snaps, telling her that if Birgitte can't follow her orders like all the other soldiers are willing to do, then she will release their bond. I'm sure Elayne gets hate for this, because she gets hate for everything, but I found it very cathartic after how much Birgitte has been getting on my nerves in this book. And Elayne's right that she's more useful out there doing things -- she is an extremely powerful channeler. It is a waste of her talents for her to sit in a tent.

9. Hmm, yeah, as Rand enters Shayol Ghul itself, he notes that time is affecting him differently. He can tell that one of the women that he's bonded to is in pain but he can't tell who it is and he worries over Elayne and Aviendha.

Though the knife worked to shield Rand from the Dark One's eyes, Moridin is still waiting for him there. I wonder how long he's just been kneeling there. So, yeah, before Rand can get to the Dark One, he has to take care of Moridin.

Anyway, we learned in Siuan's PoV just before this that Min was sent to the Aes Sedai camp with the message "The Seanchan fight the Shadow." You know, I like that message because it doesn't overpromise anything and it doesn't set up expectations that the Seanchan won't be absolute douchebags, as they certainly will be.

10. Luc Mantear and Isam Mandragoran's story as Slayer really could have been heartbreaking and fascinating if Jordan had ever actually leaned into the implications of it. They're both essentially collateral damage -- Isam was left behind when the Blight swallowed up Malkier; Luc was sent off into the Blight to 'seek glory' in order to help wedge an opening for the Mantears to be pushed off the throne of Andor. But the books never explore that.

As it is, Slayer is just... this disconnected assassin who shows up once in a blue moon, and there's not really any substance there to hook onto.

After a... really long battle involving Slayer and the red-veiled Aiel channelers, Perrin fails to kill Slayer and Slayer ends up escaping. Lanfear shows up to heal Perrin and she continues to seem vaguely irritated that she's interacting with him ("You can be such a child"). He sets the dreamspike up inside the cavern to protect Rand and asks the wolves to guard the outside of the cavern (this is all in TAR).

11. Egwene feels so gross as she heads towards the meeting that she is about to have with the Seanchan, because she knows that the Seanchan fighting means damane fighting, which means forcing slaves into battle.

Tuon sits on her mobile throne, with a train being held by eight slaves in transparent robes. Literally every time Tuon's lifestyle is described, it just sounds like something that is going to make Mat so incredibly miserable.

lol, the narrative tries to convince us that Tuon is "calculating" and "discerning" through Egwene's description of her eyes. I've been in the girl's head. I'll grant you "manipulative" and "can spot an obvious clue when it's shoved under her nose" but that's as far as I'll go. Egwene, you were absolutely right when you assumed that Tuon would be coddled and spoiled. I speak as someone who was forced through two long books of "a brat goes on a circus tour and throws several tantrums".

12. Anyway, both Egwene and Tuon feel contempt for each other -- Tuon for what Egwene inherently is as a person (a channeler) and Egwene for the person that Tuon chooses to be (a slaver).

Which we can see in the way they talk to each other -- Tuon calls Egwene an animal, while Egwene calls Tuon a criminal who would be at home with murderers and rapists. Tuon sees what Egwene is as the problem with her, while Egwene sees who Tuon is as the issue with her. These are not the same as each other.

13. So here on page 471 (hardback version), Mat has finally shown up to the Last Battle. Over halfway into the book! Literally makes me want to stab a wall that Mat spent half the book just fucking around with slavers instead of helping with the Last Battle. I assume we're supposed to feel like the Seanchan coming to help would be impossible without Mat, because he shamed Tuon into actually keeping her word, but there were better roads of getting Mat there that didn't make him a deserter and a defector. But I'm guessing making Mat those things was the point of his impossible teleportation logistics between books.

Just. Ugh.

14. The reason that Egwene realizes that Mat is here, among the collection of "frozen Blood in various poses" around Tuon, is because Tuon turns to berate him for not telling her that Egwene was once captured as damane and thus making her show her ass in public when she tried to argue that Egwene would understand how great being a slave is if only she'd tried it.

The question I have here is: are we supposed to believe Mat when he claims that he only didn't tell Tuon about Egwene having been captured as damane because he 'didn't think on it too long' that Egwene's captivity had happened. It's in Egwene's PoV so we are, once again, not in Mat's head. The main good quality that Mat has been able to hold onto when he's been around the Seanchan has been keeping his friends' secrets. tbh it seems more likely to me that he just didn't think it was Tuon's business (it would have been a pretty big betrayal of Egwene's privacy for him to confide that in Tuon, imo?). But, yeah, Tuon explicitly says here that she is going to have a "not pleasant" conversation with Mat about him holding back information on her. And it pretty clearly comes across as a threat.

Yikes.

15. Egwene does seem to believe here that Tuon has made a grave mistake by marrying Mat... but it's explicitly because Mat is ta'veren and Tuon has trapped herself into his web. And it amuses her because she assumes it can't mean anything good for Tuon or the Seanchan in the long term. (I mean, given that Mat has gotten hundreds of thousands of people killed on the Westlands side... yeah, it does seem like a lot of dead Seanchan are in the future on Tuon's side, and Mat might never even realize he was the enabling factor). So this is the one time that I'll allow for a character to be amused that Mat has married a slaver -- Egwene clearly sees this as Tuon having screwed herself over in the future without realizing it.

Though Mat does throw out a "may she live forever" (eyeroll), he is also still calling her 'Tuon', despite the threat of execution. And note that Mat is still of the opinion that "being ta'veren has never gotten me much" so he doesn't seem particularly happy about being married.

16. Yeah, Tuon also makes it very clear that the new clothes and the new name are deliberate attempts to separate Mat away from his past connections and make it clear that Tuon owns him now. "He serves the Seanchan, the Crystal Throne, and the Empress."

She is isolating him from his previous friends and making it clear that he belongs to her. Egwene is 100% right in her instincts that he needs to be saved from Tuon, even if Mat himself doesn't realize it (or, potentially, does realize it but isn't willing to admit to it).

17. So Egwene has to renegotiate with Tuon because now that Rand is gone, Tuon is forcing everyone to start from page one with her again, because she is a coddled and spoiled brat who wants to eke out more concessions if she can get them.

But the results of Tuon attempting to re-negotiate with Egwene now that Rand is off on his mission actually ends up backfiring on Tuon overall, I think! -- Egwene gets Tuon to agree to leave Tremalking alone (because they haven't found a compliant Sea Folk leader along the lines of Beslan to lend them legitimacy) and Egwene makes a spirited attempt to get Tuon to agree to allow women who have just been discovered but not yet collared the opportunity to choose to go the White Tower instead, leaning on Tuon's stated belief that marath'damane want to be slaves so it's no big deal to offer them the option of freedom.

But Tuon does balk at this idea, unfortunately, because she gets scared when Egwene mentions that all sul'dam are marath'damane.

18. Egwene, because she actually is discerning and calculating, picked up on what Tuon said about having trained damane herself and says, in front of the Blood, that as a sul'dam, Tuon is capable of channeling. Which Tuon already knows -- she learned this in KoD -- but she calls Egwene a liar because living in denial is the only way she can keep her power base and nothing matters more to Tuon than sucking up all the power in the world. It really does suck so much that we came up to the brink of Something Actually Happening with the Seanchan storyline and then backed away like cowards. There will never be any outriggers! Pull off the damn bandaid while the books are still running!

We don't get any mention of the Blood or the various damane & sul'dam who are around reacting to this bit of information either, but they do hear Egwene call ~their Empress~ out on being a liar, and call their Empire out on being a machine of cruelty that tortures women into fates worse than death. Will that matter? Who the fuck knows. Maybe one or two of the Blood here will feel a pang of conscience, as Leilwin née Egeanin did, and begin the slow and painful process of changing. Or maybe not.

And it is satisfying to get to see someone calling Tuon out on what a hypocrite she is -- she's all for preaching that other people should get put into the collar because they're just ~meant~ to be slaves but of course she wouldn't do it to herself. Of course she wouldn't. The idea terrifies her to death, I'm sure. Which also shows how deeply in denial she is when she claims that marath'damane just naturally want to be collared and anything other than that is a weird outlier. She knows damn well that it isn't true, because she doesn't long for the collar herself. But if she stuffs her fingers in her ears and just shouts that she's not marath'damane loudly enough, she can make herself believe it.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that Tuon did not go into this conversation looking to be publicly accused of being marath'damane herself, especially not in front of a crowd of Blood, so I feel like this one was a win for Egwene.

19. When things get to be really heated between Egwene & Tuon, with Egwene embracing the Power, Mat intercedes. What Mat says here is gross and demeaning; and I think we can all agree on that (a threat to take them over "over his knee" as if that would even be possible in this situation), but Egwene doesn't take it seriously for a second because she can see that Mat is trying to deflect her and Tuon away from each other and onto him (also frustrating though, because I really wanted something to Actually Happen with Tuon).

Also, we get a reminder that Tuon is a big ol' liar about not being jealous over Mat and other women, because she stares at where Mat's hand is touching Egwene's chest until he lowers his hand.

It also leads to another threat from Tuon about how she and Mat will have "many words" tonight, but they do both back down. But, wow, Tuon is so jealous over Egwene here, which is hilarious from the perspective of actually knowing anything about Egwene and Mat's friendship.

(sadly, I must take away Egwene's right to be amused at Mat's marriage at this point in the conversation, when she bizarrely attempts to commiserate ??? with Tuon over Mat's foul language)

Also, I will note that Egwene offers to help free him from the Seanchan, Mat doesn't tell her that he doesn't need to be freed, he tells her that he can handle it on his own. Slightly different things. Do you have an exit strategy, Mat?

Egwene is still determined to help Mat get free of the Seanchan somehow. AU idea where she does!

So, Mat leaves with Tuon and we know that she plans to have a 'not pleasant' conversation with him. So I will mark that in my notes to keep in mind the next time we see Mat.

20. As we've been going through the various battlefields, the 'great captains' have continued to make bone-headed mistakes. As we return to Elayne, it seems like this is coming to a head, as Tam confronts Bashere.

(and, no, she doesn't think about how Tam is Rand's dad and will be her kid's grandfather. Why would she, apparently?)

Tam accuses Bashere of not using scouts and falsifying scouting reports instead, saying that Bashere is to blame for the bad tactics that have happened in the recent battles. After considering how badly they've been trapped by the Shadowspawn, Elayne orders Bashere relieved from duty and has Talmanes take him away with the Band's Redarms.

And now Elayne is the one leading the army here, not Bashere.

21. Bryne gets one right for calling Tuon "that Imperial monster of a Seanchan leader". I have to admit, so far, there is less of the "let's hold hands with the Seanchan" vibe that I remembered and more "ugh, fuck, I guess we gotta hold our noses and deal with the Seanchan" vibe, at least in most chapters. It's really Mat's bizarro-world PoVs that tend to throw everything else off, and Mat has been kept ignorant of the Seanchan's recent actions under Tuon's guidance.

Bryne actually made Min do some real work by having her clerk for one of his people! Okay, Bryne has two rights. This is the first time Min has done any real work in what feels like forever. Being away from Rand is already doing her some good. But now the tent she was working in has been destroyed, so he puts her to work as a messenger (Min actually volunteers, which is definitely better than how she behaved when she was with Rand).

I kinda feel like my own opinion of the romances in WoT does hinge pretty strongly on "do they become less interesting characters when they are spending time with [love interest]?" but also on "what else do they have going on besides being [main character]'s love interest?".

ex. I liked Min best in TSR and once she starts really one-note obsessing over Rand in TFoH and onward, my interest in her nosedives because it feels like she has zero interests or drives outside of Rand. Get a hobby, Min! One that isn't about Rand (so the interest in 'philosophy' doesn't count). There's this incredibly depressing scene in, I think it was TFOH but it might have been the very start of LoC, where Elayne wants to talk to Min about something other than Rand and Min is just completely incapable of turning off the Rand-obsession long enough to think of a single good thing that doesn't revolve around Rand-Rand-Rand (the scene was not meant to be depressing but it definitely made me go 'yikes, Min, please get literally anything in your life that isn't about Rand').

22. So Min is off to the "Seanchan Empress" to tell her to send cavalry to the battlefield. Because Tuon is currently doing her best to hold back as many of her forces as she can and is negotiating them out piece-meal.

When she arrives at the Seanchan camp, Min notes how many forces are just lazing around doing nothing when they could be helping in the Last Battle. Min thinks for a moment that she wishes that she could have gone with Rand to Shayol Ghul but she has finally realized that she's only a liability to him in situations like that. Finally. I do note that apparently Rand had to 'forbid' her from going, though, so if he'd let her, she would have happily been a liability to him.

Anyway, Min was told by Rand to keep an eye on Fortuona, so I'll keep that in mind.

23. "Speak what criticism one would about the Seanchan -- and Min had a number of things she could add to that conversation -- they certainly were organized."

I really wish that Sanderson actually let Min think some of her specific criticisms about the Seanchan here rather than the narration veiling it. Because the way this is written ends up praising without critique, because the criticism remains politely unvoiced. One must always be polite about the slavers who want to dehumanize your friends and your lover, I guess.

Min was in Falme with Egwene! She actually saw Egwene being punished! She was even blamed for some of Egwene's punishments (which were all Renna's fault, of course, and not Min's) and she listened to Egwene scream and cry out in agony.

Let Min actually remember some of that in the text here rather than sweeping it all under the rug! She knows that the da'covale are slaves, for example, because she was in Falme. But instead of calling them slaves, she calls them "immodestly-dressed young women". Let Min actually have a thought here about how she disapproves of slavery! Put that on the record!

And Min thinking here that the Seanchan "couldn't possibly be as prickly as the Aiel". You... you literally listened to Egwene weeping in pain while she was being tortured for such crimes as "wanting to keep her own name" and "not wanting to be a slave" and "letting her friend visit her". wtf, Min.

24. Min has never seen Mat's hat before, but she thinks here that he has topped his new silken Seanchan outfit with his "familiar hat". I really do wonder if there was a draft of AMoL where Mat was in Merrilor, because then Min and Mat would have had a chance to meet back when Mat was in his old clothes and it would make sense for her to recognize his hat here. Because as it is, that's literally a nonsense thing for Min to think. The last time she saw Mat was at the end of book 2. Mat got his hat during book 4.

Min and Mat reunite like old buddies. They barely know each other. Let's tot up the times that they've met:

off-the-page in-between TGH and TDR, while Mat was dying from the dagger, in the handful of days that Mat was there before Verin took him & Elayne, Egwene, & Nynaeve off to the White Tower

That's it. That's the only entry. Mat didn't meet her in Baerlon -- Rand told him about her afterward. Apart from that, their only possible knowledge of each other comes from what Rand might have passed along. It is genuinely bizarre that they are behaving like old friends. They met once, almost two years ago, when one of them was dying. Mat has seen her having sex with Rand from time to time in his color swirl visions, but Min doesn't have access to that. They missed seeing each other in Caemlyn by four days, because Rand sends Mat off to Salidar before Min shows up with the embassy. They are the next best thing to complete strangers to each other, except that Mat has unintentionally seen Min naked several times.

It's Min and Perrin who have a friendship. It's funny, how Sanderson buffed up Perrin's friendships with Rand & Mat, but erased Perrin's friendship with Min. Perrin and Min, per canon, spent a lot of time talking to each other in between TGH & TDR (more time than either of them spent with Rand, who spent most of his time either brooding alone or arguing with Moiraine).

This is definitely "writing to the epilogue" convenience. But it could have made sense if Mat and Min had met back in the early chapters of the book while Mat was in Merrilor after he'd returned with Moiraine & Thom.

25. Mat tries to press Min for any new viewings about him. That's... interesting. Someone wants a new fate? I'm feeling curious about how Mat and Tuon's 'not pleasant' conversation went. Min deflects the conversation to viewings about the Seanchan general and I really don't care. Except to note that, sadly, Galgan probably won't try to kill Tuon because Mat is now the next one in the line of succession.

26. Why in the world would Min bow to Tuon? Seriously, girl, wtf. This is what I mean about how the narrative itself feels like it tiptoes around Tuon. Why would Min care so much about respecting Seanchan titles and nobility? She thinks here that she doesn't care about any other nobility but somehow the word 'Empress' triggers the worship reflex in her hindbrain or something? wtf. "It was only proper to show respect to Fortuona". Literally why? Why is the emphasis in Min's chapter about being polite to the slavers? Why is that the overriding vibe of this section -- Min's desire to make a good impression on the slavers? She didn't try this hard (or at all) with the Aiel. It's things like this that make me feel like Tuon must be ta'veren, because that feels like a thought that Tuon just plopped into Min's brain without permission.

Also, after Tuon enters literally just as Mat has mentioned her to Min, Mat then quotes "Say the name of Darkness, and his eye is upon you". Um. Yeah. So I feel like that 'not pleasant' conversation didn't go very well. (*whispers* he just compared his wife to the Dark One */whispers*).

He is also still using "Tuon" in casual conversation. And he doesn't get down on the floor, even though everyone else (including Min, for whatever reason) does.

27. And Mat is straight-up baiting Tuon in this conversation, or at least it feels that way (and using Min as a weapon while he does it). Yeah, I get the feeling that 'not pleasant' conversation went extremely poorly (was telling Tuon that Min is "the Dragon Reborn's woman" his way of trying to protect her from being poached by Tuon but Min didn't pick up on it? or was it his way of assuaging Tuon's raging jealousy issues by letting her know that Min is 'taken' and Mat doesn't plan on screwing her?)

I almost wonder if he's testing Tuon here -- seeing if her threats have any teeth? She told him that she could have him killed if he kept using the name 'Tuon' and he has not stopped, not even after the 'not pleasant' conversation. Kinda interesting that Mat seems considerably more combative with Tuon after their 'not pleasant' private discussion than he ever has been before. Wish we'd gotten to see that conversation (important moments, etc.).

Mat warns Min that Tuon snatches people up and doesn't let them go -- Min here thinks that Mat sounds "almost proud" but tbh I don't give Min much credit for her insight into people so I will take that with a grain of salt -- and yet Min (who can never resist blabbing about her viewings to everyone in sight) immediately spills about a viewing that someone is going to try to kill Tuon.

Literally why in the world would she bother to say anything? Why would she do this to herself? Rand said nothing about going out of her way to save the head slaver's life.

Min does have the habit of being swept up by people who have stronger personalities than she does -- Moiraine, then Siuan, then Rand, then Cadsuane, and now Tuon, I guess.

I do have to crack up at Min lying to herself and saying that she hasn't accidentally blabbed a viewing in years. Even if she doesn't remember blabbing Elayne's pregnancy to the entire royal palace of Caemlyn, she sleepily blabbed out Melaine's pregnancy without thinking about it too and we know she remembers that one because it was the whole basis for why the Wise Ones treated her as an ~honorary Wise One~ for, like, two books.

If Min didn't already have an established habit of constantly talking about her viewings, I would chalk this up to Tuon being ta'veren as well but... she does.

28. Tuon just goes up and touches Min's face without permission. Probably thinking about checking her teeth. Anyway, she pronounces Min a 'Doomseer' and Min has just screwed herself for the foreseeable future.

Tuon views Min as a "gift" that Mat has given her to "pay your penance" (presumably for not volunteering information about Egwene) so... yeah, that gives us some insight into the 'not pleasant' conversation. I wonder if Mat will think back to it at all in the next PoV we get from him. Probably not. I feel like I would remember that.

Tuon names Min as her new Truthspeaker, probably thrilled that she can now shove Selucia back into the box of not having any opinions that Tuon hasn't told her to have. Her emotional support slave was having too many independent thoughts and we can't have that.

Anyway, Min's viewings never really helped Rand, so she probably won't actually help Tuon much either, so I guess that's a relief.

But, yeah, not a fun situation for Min. Though I guess Mat now has company in his hellhole of a prison, so there's that.

...okay, now I've got "Two Lost Souls" from Damn Yankees in my head.

29. Just as Tam picked up on how Bashere's 'tactical mistakes' keep helping the Shadowspawn in the last section, Lan has picked out the same when it comes to his own 'great captain' -- two reserve forces were both sent to shore up the same hole in the lines, resulting in confusion and also the ranks being too thin in other places.

30. So, yeah, the set-up continues for Team Light to be forced to trust the General of the Slavers with the armies despite his recent horrible life choices. We note here that it has been 'weeks' for Lan now.

Lan countermands Agelmar's latest order, as he's realized how badly it would expose part of their army and compromise any potential retreat, so Lan has de facto taken over the army here, just as Elayne has over in the Cairhien/Caemlyn section of the battle.

31. Mat lets us know here Min has also been re-dressed in fancy Seanchan clothes. Apparently without any attempt to stick in her own clothes? She's an 'honored holy woman' per Tuon, so you would imagine means she has leverage to wear her own clothes if she wants. (of course, if it doesn't give her any leverage, then that would be useful information for the reader to have)

Anyway, we are back in Mat's head, for the first time since his disappointing reunion scene with Rand. We've seen him from the outside a few times since then -- in Tuon, Egwene, and finally Min's eyes.

Mat announces that he needs to go out and look at the actual battlefield. He thinks in his head that it's because the maps are "too simplistic" but I wonder if part of his motivation is taking a chance and getting some fresh air while his ~slaver bride~ is off doing "some empressly duty". I'm still curious about that 'not pleasant' conversation of 'many words' that they had after Tuon and Egwene met. He also yanks off part of his 'Seanchan uniform' here, leaving himself in his scarf, medallion, and breeches. He'd rather walk around shirtless than wear the fancy Seanchan duds, it seems.

(this life is going to make him so miserable)

32. Yeah, Min is now wearing a dress, with no apparent protest. Mat notes that she's pretty and then additionally notes that he needs to be careful with smiles around women now because his wife might stab him if he smiles too much at other women. So, yeah, I'm thinking part of the 'not pleasant' conversation was Tuon making her jealousy issues very very clear to Mat. But despite Mat's protests that hooking up with Rand means that Min is "practically his sister", his narration does make it clear that he's attracted to her.

(this life is going to make him so miserable)

"Mat had always considered Min on the boyish side" - you met her one time! During the foggy period of your memory when you were dying! The narration really is behaving like Perrin and Mat's friendships have been swapped around in this book -- Perrin is the one who has the stronger friendships with Rand and Elayne now; while Mat now has the stronger friendship with Min. Before this book, the opposite was true of all of those things. I guess we can assume that this is about Rand & Min screwing in the color swirls but Min would have been at least partly naked for a lot of those.

33. Anyway, Mat had his own clothes hidden away and changes into them now, when Tuon isn't here to protest, and then sneaks off to look at the battlefield before she can come back to berate him again. Lessons learned from his time with Tylin?

(Min does say here that she's tempted to strip off too, but she keeps wearing the Seanchan clothes for whatever reason)

We do also learn here the very important information that the Seanchan guards respond to bribes (Mat bribed them into keeping and hiding his clothes for him here). Though Mat also notes that it's only the free guards and not the slaves.

34. It's so sad here that Mat has to feel grateful that Tuon "understood that [Mat] needed" the foxhead medallion and returned it to him. He's grateful that he's allowed to use his own personal items and that she didn't permanently keep what she'd stolen from him.

(this life is going to make him so miserable)

...hmm. I'm going to keep an eye on the medallions. Because technically Mat has two right now (his original and a copy that Elayne made), but he hasn't mentioned the second one at all.

35. Sadly, going for Pips means that "unfortunately, someone had time to alert" Tuon that Mat was slipping away, and so she comes to confront him (so I was right about part of the reason behind him bailing on the command tent was trying to get away from Tuon).

Mat once again warns Min that it's very dangerous here: "they know how to treat a fellow, as long as they don't behead him. I'm still trying to figure out how to prevent that from happening."

Hmm, Mat gives Min the "sell" on staying with the Seanchan... he says that it would help Rand because she can attempt to mislead Tuon about her 'omens' to try to guide Tuon onto a less-awful path. I imagine that's how Mat is justifying his own choices too but we saw that when he actually had a chance to try to guide Tuon onto a better path, he froze and said nothing while Rand did all the negotiating. But Mat does make it clear here that he still disapproves of what the Seanchan are doing; he's just... sticking around and helping anyway for whatever reason.

But, yeah, "lie to Tuon to try to subtly direct her choices" being part of Mat's advice to Min is... illuminating, to be sure. Did Mat lie to/mislead Tuon during their recent 'not pleasant' private discussion?

36. Yeah, we see here very directly that Mat doesn't always mean what he says around Tuon, when he pretends to be happy that she's coming along with him to survey the battlefield while "groaning inside". This is what I was talking about back when I was questioning all of the other character's interpretations of Mat's behavior in the previous few chapters -- most of the characters in the books are not very good at reading Mat. Tuon has failed to accurately judge him on multiple occasions, Egwene will always at least partly see him as the troublemaker from her hometown, and Min barely knows him.

Also, Mat was expecting to be berated for changing his clothes but Tuon says nothing about it at this time. Hey, Min, maybe you should take the opportunity to change yours too?

It is good to see Mat attempting to push back on Tuon, even if it's on relatively minor things.

It really is the decision to make Mat a deserter that screwed his characterization over so hard in this book. If Mat had gone to Merrilor and then gone to Ebou Dar, pretty much everything would make more sense. There's only a couple of scenes so far that have 'needed' Mat to be a willing traitor in order to play out the way that they did (mostly just Egwene's shock at seeing him hanging out with the Seanchan) and almost everything else would make more sense if Mat had gone back to Ebou Dar as a negotiator on behalf of the Westlands.

37. On the minus side, we have some really weird stuff here where Mat dehumanizes one of the Seanchan generals for the crime of being a woman that he doesn't want to fuck. While Mat did start basically thinking about every woman that he met in terms of fuckability back around... A Crown of Swords, I want to say... he didn't act like 'not being fuckable' made women unpeople and he's kinda going that way here and it's super gross.

38. On her own front in the battlefield, Egwene sees a huge tactical blunder by Bryne that leaves one of their flanks wide-open to the enemy and vulnerable, and now she is also going to go question him, as it looked distinctly like he set up a trap that benefited the Shadowspawn. So that's all of the fronts except Ituralde (who is just outside of Shayol Ghul).

After questioning Agelmar, Lan suspects it is Compulsion that is behind his recent poor battle decisions, and Lan has him relieved from duty. Also, Tenobia conveniently gets killed on the battlefield and brings Faile one step closer to ruling Saldaea.

39. Back with Mat, Tuon, Min, and Selucia. Poor Selucia. She got half a book of being allowed to have her own opinions but now she's just Tuon's Voice/bodyguard again and gets to speak no words but Tuon's.

Min is obediently telling Tuon all her viewings and her interpretations of them, just like she always does when she's under the thumb of someone with a more forceful personality than her own. This is kinda why I feel like Mat's hope that she will lead Tuon onto better paths is likely not going to pan out -- because Min's viewings do not have a moral component, not that we're aware of, and she is spilling them all out indiscriminately.

And Tuon will likely continue to be her own horrible self, no matter what viewings Min has. But I guess we'll see how that relationship plays out.

Min has not only told Tuon all the viewings she had about Tuon but also her viewings about Mat, over Mat's protests. Min likes to claim that she doesn't do things like that, but wow, she does it all the time. It does feel like fandom doesn't really acknowledge that both Min & Perrin lie about themselves in their own heads just as much as Mat or Nynaeve do. Min believes that she's discreet about her viewings, when she's a blabbermouth most of the time, and Perrin believes that he thinks things through before he acts, when he's actually wildly reckless and impulsive pretty frequently.

40. It's interesting that Min and Mat greeted each other like old friends yet are now essentially working at cross-purposes -- Mat suggested to Min that ('for Rand') she mislead Tuon in order to craft a narrative that would make Tuon soften towards Aes Sedai (and also more minor things like "try to get her to stop wanting to get rid of my hat") but Min, like Galad, wants to be rigidly honest and is telling Tuon everything, not giving a care that she's telling Tuon other people's secrets (and we know she's telling real secrets, because she's now told Tuon all of Mat's old viewings that we know from before, against Mat's express wishes). So Min is essentially unintentionally teaching Mat that she is not an ally to him and that she will sell him out to Tuon if he confides in her. Which means that Mat is, once again, all alone in the middle of an enemy camp that he feels obligated to stay in (now matter how unhappy it makes him) Because Wife.

Mat and Tuon really is peak "enforced heterosexual monogamy" culture. They explicitly are married due not to their own desires but to external pressures (the prophecies) and feel obligated to stick it out even though, on Tuon's side, she feels like she has a wildly chaotic husband that she doesn't know how to control and, on Mat's side, everything about the situation is constantly making him miserable. I believe he thinks at one point (in some future chapter?) that he could be happy if it was just him and Tuon in a life far away from the Seanchan but... that really is him picturing himself and his Fictional Tuon character (not cold, not possessive, Not Like The Other Seanchan) rather than himself and Actual Fortuona. I'm sure Mat and his fake Tuon could find happiness running away from the throne, but fake Tuon doesn't exist so... yeah.

41. Mat is able to get "five minutes" by himself and rides down to talk to Perrin's slaver BFF Tylee. Much like Egwene had just realized, Mat learns here from Tylee that Bryne is making bad calls that are compromising his army.

*sigh*

Mat stuffs himself into Seanchan armor at this point. Well, he had a spine about wearing his own clothing for, like, five minutes. Maybe that's all we can hope for out of him these days. It is at least real 'on the field' armor rather than the ceremonial silk this time.

Also: Tuon's desire to constantly be keeping an eye on Mat vs Mat's desire to have some breathing room seems like a fight in their marriage that is going to reoccur a lot.

42. Anyway, Mat goes to personally take a unit out to relieve Bryne's soldiers because it looks like they've gotten very bad orders and he needs to correct them personally. I... don't have an issue with this apart from the whole "ugh, Seanchan" thing? Mat can see that the battle is going extremely poorly and wants to investigate from the inside because from what he can see, it looks like the general in charge is deliberately ordering bad tactics. That's not something that Mat can fix simply by sending contrary orders because he is not the main general of this battlefield. Bryne is. So Mat going out to take direct control of a specific part so that he can, essentially, undermine Bryne's bad orders before he goes to deal with the root of the issue makes sense because this is a time-sensitive situation.

Tylee tries to give Mat some damane slaves for the battle and he refuses.

Once again, like it did in Min's PoV, the narrative has yet another character praise the Seanchan's sense of organization while implying that the character has critiques about the Seanchan but not mentioning the specific issues that they have. Actually let Mat share his critiques about the Seanchan with the reader! Stop veiling the critiques behind "oh, I have some issues but I won't say what they are".

43. Mat is really really attracted to the enemy Sharan channeler. Until she tries to kill him but, yeah, he literally stops and stares at the channeler on the opposing side. Though that doesn't stop him from knocking her out with his spear when her weaves fail on him and he's able to get close.

*resigned sigh*

After this battle, Mat is now willing to throw damane slaves at the enemy.

Mat has also really really impressed the Ever Victorious Army. Something to keep in mind for post-canon 'Mat conducts a coup' thoughts. Between Egwene feeling like Tuon has accidentally gotten herself trapped in Mat's ta'veren web, Tuon's own "[Mat] would never be a rival" thoughts, how swiftly Mat is winning over the officers, and Mat's own words to Min about how she should craft a narrative to deceive Tuon into behaving the way she wants her to behave... there are some interesting puzzle pieces here for a post-canon "Mat deposes Tuon and takes over the Seanchan Empire" or "Mat tricks Tuon into thinking she's in charge while he's the real power in the Empire" storyline.

I really wish that Sanderson & Team Jordan hadn't made Mat a deserter at the start of the book; it really did start Mat off on such a bad foot, narratively-speaking, by weighting him so heavily on the side of the slavers without any kind of narrative justification for the choice (we still don't know how Mat got to Ebou Dar originally -- Sanderson really was like "okay, it makes no sense, so I'll just let readers fill in a reason that they can justify to themselves"). But even with that massive off-the-page weighting on the side of the slavers, Mat is listing back towards the Westlands side of things (as he has done time and time again). Over and over, Mat gets forcibly yanked over towards the Seanchan and then starts drifting away from them again (requiring another heavy-handed course-correction from the Authors).

44. Mat does change back into his "Two Rivers" coat here. ...wait, Mat's coat is a "Two Rivers" coat? When did that happen? When did Mat go back to the Two Rivers to get a coat? Or did he get it from Perrin's army? Anyway, he did change back into his own clothes after the battle.

Oh! Oh, this must be a coat that Elayne's person picked out for him (as per his request in ToM)! Elayne's person found him a Two Rivers coat? She really is magic. I love her.

Mat does realize here that the Sharan channeler that he captured is almost certainly going to end up damane. Should have just killed her.

45. Tuon is currently so pissed at Mat that she's only speaking to him through Selucia (now back in her role as Tuon's opinionless Voice). Mat notes this as a 'bad sign' but he also does keep calling her Tuon. Maybe he doesn't back down and start referring to her formally as she told him to do; maybe that was something that my memory was incorrect on, which would be nice.

"Your life is no longer your own," Tuon tells him through Selucia. I wonder if that's also part of the reason that Mat went out on the battlefield -- a way of declaring that his life is his own, even if that means potentially throwing it away.

Mat references Nynaeve here -- I'm not sure whether or not Tuon got Nynaeve's name in the conversation she had with Rand and Nynaeve back in TGS. I'll go check.

Yep, Rand says Nynaeve's name when she chastises him for trying to pretend that he doesn't care about Mat in front of Tuon. So Tuon knows that Mat is talking about a channeler here.

46. Yikes. Tuon 'gives' the Sharan channeler that Mat captured to him as his own personal damane slave. He tries to give her back to Tuon (also gross and yikes) but Tuon won't let him. Mat does refer to her as a channeler and not marath'damane but... ugh. But this is the continuation of Tuon's campaign to brainwash and integrate Mat into being fully-Seanchan, so her actions here are no surprise.

Mat is now given control of the Seanchan armies over Galgan, and they send Min back to Egwene to tell her that Bryne is helping the Shadow with how he's behaving with the army.

47. So things are incredibly dire and yet there have been no thoughts of "wow wish Mat were here to blow the Horn of Valere". It's so bizarre that everyone is just completely chill with a powerful artifact that is literally meant for the Last Battle to be just hanging out unusable!

Anyway, the Black Tower Asha'man show up here to relieve Elayne's people, who are sorely pressed.

Here's my thought: I think Sanderson was too much in love with the whole "on the very edge of being broken, the cavalry shows up" idea aka Gandalf coming to save the day at Minas Tirith. Not everything needs to be last second like that. If everything is dramatic then nothing is truly dramatic. In real life, you wouldn't wait until after the point of hope to blow the horn that brings a magic army to fight on your side. You would want to do it as soon as it looks like your own forces aren't going to be enough.

48. Min stayed dressed in all her Seanchan finery to go deliver her message to Egwene. Min's conversation with Egwene is so bizarrely tone-deaf on Min's side of things? She complains about being ~pampered~ by the Seanchan and that their rich food isn't to her taste and when Egwene ~reminds her~ that Egwene has 'enjoyed' Seanchan 'hospitality', Min is basically just "Oops, yeah, my bad, oh well, back to business."

Wow, Min's lack of empathy for the horrific trauma that she witnessed Egwene going through is kinda shocking.

For your consideration, Min in Falme:

When Min asks Egwene not to kill herself out of despair, Egwene tells her that she physically can't. That she can't use anything that she thinks of as a weapon.

She tells Min:

"A few weeks ago I considered hitting Renna over the head with that pitcher, and I could not pour wash water for three days. Once I'd thought of it that way, I not only had to stop thinking about hitting her with it, I had to convince myself I would never, under any circumstances, hit her with it before I could touch it again. She knew what had happened, told me what I had to do, and would not let me wash anywhere except with that pitcher and bowl. You are lucky it happened between your visiting days. Renna made sure I spent those days sweating from the time I woke to the time I fell asleep, exhausted. I am trying to fight them, but they are training me as surely as they’re training Pura.” She clapped a hand to her mouth, moaning through her teeth. “Her name is Ryma. I have to remember her name, not the name they've put on her. She's Ryma, and she's Yellow Ajah, and she has fought them as long and as hard as she could. It is no fault of hers that she hasn't the strength left to fight any longer. I wish I knew who the other sister is that Ryma mentioned. I wish I knew her name. Remember us both, Min. Ryma, of the Yellow Ajah, and Egwene al'Vere. Not Egwene the damane; Egwene al'Vere of Edmond's Field.' "

...

The door swung open, and Renna stepped in.

Egwene jumped to her feet and bowed sharply, as did Min. The tiny room was crowded for bowing, but Seanchan insisted on protocol before comfort.

"Your visiting day, is it?" Renna said. "I had forgotten. Well, there is training to be done even on visiting days."

...

Renna puts on the bracelet and senses that Egwene was channeling without permission:

"You have been channeling." Renna's voice was deceptively mild; there was a spark of anger in her eyes. "You know that is forbidden except when we are complete." Egwene wet her lips. "Perhaps I have been too lenient with you. Perhaps you believe that because you are valuable now, you will be allowed license. I think I made a mistake in letting you keep your old name. I had a kitten name Tuli when I was a child. From now on, your name is Tuli. You will go now, Min. Your visiting day with Tuli is ended."

Min hesitated only long enough for one anguished look at Egwene before leaving.

...

Then, in Min's PoV right after she leaves the room:

Outside in the low-ceilinged hallway, Min dug her nails into her palms at the first piercing cry from the room. She took a step towards the door before she could stop herself, and when she did stop, tears sprang up in her eyes. Light help me, all I can do is make it worse. Egwene, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Feeling worse than useless, she picked up her skirts and ran, and Egwene's screams pursued her. She could not make herself stay, and leaving made her feel a coward. Half blind with weeping, she found herself in the street before she knew it. She had intended to go back to her room, but now she could not do it. She could not stand the thought that Egwene was being hurt while she sat warm and safe under the next roof. Scrubbing the tears from her eyes, she swept her cloak around her shoulders and started down the street. Every time she cleared her eyes, new tears began trickling along her cheeks. She was not accustomed to weeping openly, but then she was not accustomed to feeling so helpless, so useless. She did not know where she was going, only that it had to be as far as she could reach from Egwene's cries.

Compare all that to Min right now: wearing Seanchan silks and whining about how their fanciest food isn't to her liking.

Anyway, she delivers her message from Mat, and Egwene says that she'll take it under consideration.

49. In Ituralde's PoV, we learn about the kinds of nightmares that Graendal has been putting in their heads, and the kinds of thoughts. Three separate times, Ituralde has almost given an order for his men to engage in a direct assault against the Shadowspawn but then been able to pull back again before he gave the Graendal-influenced order, so he's doing better than the other captains. I wonder if his experience in getting all those confusing messages from 'his king' (but actually Graendal) is helping him here. We see him fighting the urge to give one of those bad orders now and he's fighting it extremely hard and then Perrin shows up before he gives in and says it. And Ituralde is so relieved to give up his command because he can tell that something is wonky with his own thinking!

50. Egwene notices that Gawyn doesn't seem tired but he does seem 'strangely pale'. :-(

Thinking about Mat makes Egwene feel "strangely sick". That is such the mood when talking about post-WH Mat, yeah. We are twinsies in this feeling, Egwene. But after thinking it through and remembering the times when Mat has come through when needed, she decides that she is going to trust him, though it makes her feel like she's a fool for doing it. "Mat could be wrong. He was often wrong. But when he was right, he saved lives." and "[Mat] was a scoundrel and a fool but she trusted him. Light help her, but she did. She trusted him with her life."

Not sure Mat deserves that right now, tbh, but it's a sweet thought from Egwene.

And maybe he does.

I'm thinking about 'a ribbon that felt like a chain'. Thinking about Mat considering his father's advice for dealing with cheats during a trade. Thinking about Mat telling Min to pick and choose between her viewings to attempt to guide Tuon onto a better path. Thinking about Mat putting on a Two Rivers coat during the Last Battle.

Maybe he does.

I guess we'll see.

The ultimate factor, once Egwene realizes that Bryne was Compelled, is that she knows that Mat cannot be touched by saidar or saidin, so he is the only general they can trust not to be corrupted by the Forsaken.

[mediumtires]

i'm rereading copper and wool and did you ever say what christians anniversary gift was for toto 🤔

okay okay SO! this is so funny, a few weeks ago the first person ever (shoutout to FallingStar on ao3) actually guessed right! it's sheep! to me it was so obvious (copper and wool etc) but looking back now, it really wasn't. so christian's anniversary gift is sheep lol.

when i wrote it i was actually planning a tiny little sequel but I abandoned it and now it's collecting dust on my desktop. that being said, i’ll put it here (unbeta-d first draft) for those who might want to read it!

“No. No chance.” “C’mon, be a good sport.” “Nein,” Toto says, trying hard to hide his smirk. “I will not let you blindfold me.”

“What if I were to take you upstairs?” “Are you?” “No.” “Then no,” Toto laughs, a little exasperated, and tries to pull away from Christian’s insisting hands.

“C’mon, darling,” Christian tries again, a wide grin lighting up his features. “You know it’s the standard protocol for surprises.”

“I don’t trust you,” Toto just says and turns away from Christian and the tie in his hands to put the water filter back in the fridge. “Fuck you.” Christian laughs in retaliation and swats the tie at him. “At least close your eyes then.”

Toto sighs heavily and turns back to Christian, propping one hand up on the kitchen counter. “Are you serious?” “Entirely.” Christian knows he’s won when Toto sighs once more in exasperation and rakes a hand through his hair.

“But don’t make me fall,” he instructs. “Or walk me into things. I’m very important.” Christian rolls his eyes. “I know you are. Now, c’mon. Close your eyes. We don’t have all day.” “We don’t?” 

But Toto does close his eyes after all and stretches his hands out to curl them around Christian’s hips. As Christian starts walking, he says, “Y’know, if you would’ve gone for the tie, I might’ve taken you to the bedroom after.”

Toto snorts. “If you want me to tie you up and blindfold you, just ask,” he offers with a devilish little smirk and Christian is glad he’s got his eyes closed. Something to consider. “Maybe later.” He’s aiming for nonchalant, but he knows Toto sees right through him anyway.

When they step out onto the patio, Toto pulls up his shoulders and frowns. “Are we outside?” “Yes.” “Why?” “Can you not just let me do this for five minutes?” Christian asks, exasperated. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

Toto does shut up after that, but it’s mainly because he’s concentrating hard on not tripping and falling when trailing after Christian.

It’s been a few days since their return from Miami and this is the first lull in both their schedules, both of them home early, so frankly, Christian saw an opportunity and took it. Not that he thinks it would have made a huge difference to wait another day or two. Toto hasn’t set a foot anywhere but the chicken coop in a good week, so the probability of him finding out about this is hilariously low. It does make Christian question the whole idea somewhat, but it’s too late now anyway. Still, the Carrera on his left wrist weighs a little heavier than usual.

Toto trips once they reach the gravel path leading further into the grounds and digs his hands into the fleshy bit of Christian’s hips to catch himself. He grunts, stumbles, and Christian can’t help but crack a laugh. “Careful there,” he offers. “Gravel.” He pats Toto’s left hand and then keeps his palm there.

“You are supposed to guide me,” Toto complains, and he already sounds like he’s enjoying this much less than only a minute ago. “You are making me fall on purpose.”

“I’m not.” Christian rolls his eyes towards the sky but keeps moving. “Not everything I do is to antagonise you, darling. Now stop whining.”

Toto does not stop whining because of course he doesn’t. He’s very vocal about how stupid this whole thing is all the way past the chickens, the goats and the donkeys, the pen closest to the house, past their two old ponies, Jacky and Jim, which they had adopted on a whim from the farmer up the road.

For a moment, Christian is contemplating whether he should just push Toto into the pond to humble him. A while ago a bunch of ducks moved in and don’t seem to want to leave again. Christian has grown quite fond of them. More often than not he finds them with the chickens now or waddling around the farm.

“Are we—Is that ducks? Is that the ducks?” Toto has picked up on the distinct flapping of their wings, affronted at the unusual intrusion of their privacy. Christian chuckles at the drake side eying them and pulls Toto further down the path towards the folding. It’s the one attached to the barn at the outskirts of their main property, and Christian had chosen it mainly because it was the one Toto would be least likely to walk into unprompted.

“Almost there,” he says and takes one of Toto’s hands in his so navigating the uneven grounds becomes a little easier. “Should have put on wellies,” he ponders, as he eyes the meadow, the grass long and wet. It’s perfect for the sheep but not exactly ideal for Toto’s dress shoes. They’re Italian leather.

“What?” Toto makes a sound as the damp grass hits his ankles and Christian’s smirk widens. “Christian, you should’ve told me! My boots were right there! These are Italian leather!”

He knows. “I know.” He pulls Toto along. Surprisingly, despite his bitching and moaning, he keeps his eyes closed. “Might have to throw them out later. Shame.” He’ll make sure to keep Toto out here long enough for them to be soaked through and ruined. 

Toto makes another sound, displeased, but Christian can see how hard he’s trying to bite down on his exasperated amusement. Toto’s about to throw a comment back at him when a loud “Baaaaa” cuts him off. “What was that?” Toto pulls himself up a little taller. The sheep must’ve spotted them because there’s another string of agreeable bleating. “Christian, what is that?”

They stop at the fence and Toto, still with his eyes closed, sways a little, gripping Christian’s hand to regain his balance. “Christian.”

“Jesus, yes.” Now that he’s looking at the flock of sheep, all huddled together and warily observing Christian and Toto at the fence, he’s not sure if this wasn’t a silly idea.

He’d come up with it when Toto had one night jokingly suggested they should get sheep.

“Sheep?” “Yeah.” “Do you know how much bloody work sheep are, darling? We can barely keep up with the animals we’ve collected so far! We’re lucky we’ve got Johnny to help us out.” Toto had just laughed and kissed his shoulder and let it go, but then, on a trip to Austria last year, Toto had told him how he’d seen a herd of very specific Austrian sheep every time he’d visited his gran in the countryside and how they reminded him of the better times of his childhood. When Christian started thinking about potential anniversary gifts, it was too perfect to just let go. He couldn’t for the life of him remember the breed Toto had mentioned, but the more he’d looked into it, the more he’d realised that while Austrian sheep are very durable and sturdy, they would probably do less well in the mellow British countryside of Oxfordshire, and so he’d decided on British breeds instead. In the end, he’d just gone for one that looked adorable and was easy enough to maintain. With the accumulation of random animals they already had running around the farm, it wouldn’t make much of a difference anyway. They wouldn’t be using them for wool farming or that, so might as well have them be nice to look at.

The longer he looks at them now, Toto impatient at his side, still holding his hand, the heavier the watch on his wrist feels. Christian isn’t one for huge gestures or anniversary gifts, but somehow things this year felt different. It hasn’t even been a year since Singapore. It still follows them around, the consequences of that day, shadowy and washed out, but he can still feel it, and so can Toto. Christian is just glad they’re still here. They made it to seven years, and beyond, and for whatever bloody reason he thought a flock of seven sheep would be ideal to celebrate an anniversary centred around wool.

“Christian, there’s water in my shoes,” Toto informs him, and Christian turns his head and grins at his city husband, still blind, the corners of his mouth tweaked down.

“That’s a shame,” he says, “You can open your eyes now.”

Toto does so immediately. He blinks, frowns up at the grey sky, rubs at his eyes with the hand that isn’t still holding Christian’s. Christian lets go to lean against the wooden fence instead.

There is a brief pause. Then, “Christian?” “Yes, darling.” “What am I looking at.” Christian turns to Toto with his eyebrows twitching. As if it wasn’t obvious. “Your anniversary gift!” Toto’s eyes go a little wider as he looks back at the flock of sheep, a huddle of white fleece and black eyes. “What?”

“I told you, your gift was waiting at home.”

“You got me… sheep?”

“Well, us, I guess. But yeah.”

“Seven sheep?”

“Well, first of all, Johnny said no less than five.” Christian is getting a little flustered now and so he blusters on in full pretentious confidence of a Formula 1 team principal defending a Max overtake that no one in good conscience should defend. “And so I wanted to get six, but then I thought, well that doesn’t make any sense, does it, when it’s our seven year anniversary and the theme I’m going with is wool. So I got seven. And they’re a family! The two little ones were only born a few weeks ago. I didn’t want to take them from their mothers.” He pulls his shoulders down a little to straighten his back and keeps looking at the sheep to avoid having to look at his husband. “Plus, you were banging on about wanting sheep.”

“You remembered that? That was ages ago.”

“So?”

“Christian.” Toto’s voice is soft in a way it only ever is when he’s about to say something disarming. “Darling. I—” And then he just wraps himself around Christian from behind, chin hooked over his shoulder and nosing Christian’s cheek. “You said they are too much work.”

“Well, you said you wanted them so—” “How do you manage to outdo me every time?” Toto’s voice is awfully quiet. “I really thought I nailed it this year.” Christian breathes a laugh, half of it in relief that he, against better judgement, didn’t mess this up. “You know I love my watch,” he tells Toto, fingers brushing the warmed leather hugging his wrist. “And this isn’t a competition. You got copper, I got wool. Sorted.”

“I can’t believe you got me sheep,” Toto says again. His voice is a little higher than usual, his accent catching on the vowels, making the words come out hitched.

“Well, look,” Christian grabs one of the large hands wrapped around his torso and covers it with his own. “It’s not just—Sure, you said you wanted sheep, but—Look, I know you’re not a farm boy, okay? You’re very much a child from the city and I know you say you love our home, but I want you to feel it, too, I want you to feel at home here and not just come along for the ride and agree to everything I say. Especially after last year, I want this place to be our sanctuary, and if it takes bloody sheep because you said you wanted them, then so be it. There’s your sheep.”

Toto’s smile widens, Christian can feel it pressed to his cheek, and he can feel the pleased little hum too, reverberating down his spine. Toto’s hold around him tightens fractionally. “I feel very at home, darling. You know that, ja? I don’t need sheep for that. Mostly I need you.”

Christian closes his eyes on a deep breath, and sinking further into Toto’s chest he says, “We can put them with the rest of the lot soon. They’ll need another few days or so, until they’re settled in, and then we can move them in with the others.”

“We’ll need a sheep dog now.”

Christian barks a laugh, lets his head thump against Toto’s shoulder in defeat. “Yeah, no, Bernie and Flav won’t do, will they? Lazy little buggers.” “It’s because you feed them at the table.” “Hey, you started that! Flav, with those puppy eyes and you just—Don’t think I don’t know you cut him up steak when I’m not looking!” Toto’s silent laughter comes in short puffs of breath against the skin of Christian’s neck. “No no no no,” he feels the need to clarify even though they both know it’s the truth. “You feed them too, don’t lie.” Christian tries to stifle a smirk. “They are a tad overweight, aren’t they?” “The vet said, last time,” Toto reminds him. “We need to work them harder, or cut out the food.” Christian hums. “It might be time for a third. A puppy will work them alright.” He coughs a laugh, already regretting this, and adds, “Might as well get a cow or two while we’re at it. Not like it matters now.”

“What are we going to call them?” Toto suddenly asks, lifting his chin from Christian’s shoulder to regard the sheep more closely.

“Well, we gotta stick to the theme.” Christian’s mouth lifts into a smirk. “So you better get creative.”

“It’s my turn, isn’t it?” Toto asks. “My sheep, my turn.” “Toto, I swear, if you’re going to name them something stupid—” “You named the donkeys and now I have to call them Max and Daniel!” Christian’s protest dissipates into thin air. “Well, it works, they’re good names.” “Yes, and now it’s my turn.” “Just remember, it’s mostly ewes. One ram, the big one, the rest is ewes, and the two lambs are one of each.” “…ewes?” “Female sheep, darling. So I want no Lewis running around, or George, or whoever you’re already thinking of.” “No,” Toto hums thoughtfully. “Lewis is a goat, not a sheep.”

It's so stupid, it has Christian crack a well-earned laugh.

And bonus (cause I couldn’t work this in):

“You know, they’re like… designer sheep.” “They’re what? Designer sheep?” “Yeah, well, look, we’re not going to use them for breeding, or wool, or meat, are we, so they’re… you know. Nice to look at. Sheep we can keep as pets, more or less. They’re still a durable breed, just. Also nice to look at.”

Toto laughs at him for an hour after that.

Here are said sheep!

“They look a little like donkeys, don’t they?” “You think?” “Ja.” “Well, they’re not, they’re sheep. Kerry Hill.” “Kerry who? Have you named them already?” “What? No, that’s the breed, darling. They’re Kerry Hill sheep. They’re from Wales.” “So basically foreigners, yes? We should give them foreign names. International.” Toto grins at him, then he adds, “We should give them German names you can’t pronounce.”

[kotemf]

🍱 🍘 and 🍡 for the fic writer ask game, answer as many as you like :D

Thank you for the ask!

🍱 Do I read my own fics?

Yes I do! I always give each chapter a read before I publish it just to be sure there aren't any glaring mistakes, then I'll occassionally reread something when I feel like it. I usually go laughing at how stupid it all sounds and cringe internally but that's another thing.

🍘 Is there a fic or idea for a fic that I've abandoned?

Yes! There is plenty of those but the one that I regret the most is my fic idea about Korkie Kryze. That is to say, I can still write it but for some reason I never feel like writing it? I had the idea before I even started posting and I loved it but only wrote like first 100 words before the hype kinda went away.

The fic was supposed to be about Korkie, as I already mentioned. To put it simply, Korkie, after the rise of the empire, joins his aunt Bo-Katan in doing whatever she is doing, probably something to do with the resistance and he keeps asking her about his parents. Bo-Katan reveals that Satine actually wasn't his aunt but his mother and that his father was Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. Obi-Wan is supposedly dead but Korkie refuses to believe that without seeing evidence so he goes after him. He hears rumors about him being alive and that only makes him look harder. The fic starts when he tracks commander Cody drinking away his regret and persuades the soldier to at least go to Utapau with him to find evidence. Cody only agrees because he feels like it's his duty to protect his general's son but he eventually warms up to Korkie. Do they find Obi-Wan? I haven't decided. But I sure did picture a whole ass story as a movie while I am incapable to write any of it down.

🍡 Which of my fics was the most emotionally difficult to write?

Cody Learns to Love. I'm usually not receptive to what's not happening in real life, I don't cry during movies or when reading something sad and I believe that applies to writing too but... with this story, while it's not even all that dark, I sometimes found myself shaking as I type and I cried on Fox's behalf. Read at your own risk.

[girlwithherheadinthestars]

tips for editing novels i wrote instead of editing

these are mainly targeted to people who find it hard to focus on editing (like yours truly) but really helps for anyone.

work section by section. i started doing this and it wasn't working because i kept reading on to the section after instead of focusing on editing the one section so what i did is copy paste the section (each should be no more than like 1000 words) onto another document and work on it there. read it over and over again until it sounds the way you want it to sound that copy paste it onto the other document and move on to the next section.

sit somewhere quiet. absolutely quiet.

no music.

turn off the wifi on your phone and on your laptop.

to get the emotion right in a scene, listen to music that embodies it. can't catch me now (olivia rodrigo) and east of eden (zella day) are what i'm listening to right now. of course, i can't write and listen to music at the same time because that's the kind of person i am but before you start writing, listen to the music and really get in the feels because emotion is what drives a story forward more than plot

i actually saw an author say this, i can't remember who, but it's good to have a song that evokes emotion so you can write the emotion properly

THESAURUSES. lifesavers. i can't come up with the perfect word to describe something because i have poor memory but the thesaurus always remembers (am i even spelling it right?)

drink water. (now. stand up. if you don't istg i'll find you.)

change the cliches. don't say it was a dark and stormy night. say it was a starless night that smothered even the smallest lamp lit in the little window of a small store at the edge of the abandoned town.

don't tell me what happened, tell me how it felt. it was not cold. her nose stung and her fingernails turned blue, she stamped her feet to keep warm, she shivered despite herself, her teeth chattering.

i think the trick is to search for every time you used the word 'was' and change it to a feeling

read aloud. do impressions. make your annoying character sound like your social studies teacher from 11th grade. have fun with it. just make sure the dialogue doesn't sound stiff and make sure the sentences flow well.

as a rule, shorter sentences flow better and are easier to understand

add more internal monologue, have your character try to reason things in their heads, don't have them just observe what's happening.

this is something i struggle with but if you have a mystery with a grand reveal in the end, keep track of what your readers know and don't know. reveal tiny clues that only fit when you finally see the full picture. be as evil with it as you want.

for motivation, reread your favorite scene (mine is the mc and love interest being adorable)

also, imagine the book being published. who would you dedicate it to? how many people would make tumblr posts analyzing it, how many people would make memes, who would the fandom ship?

finally, unrelated to editing, but if you must kill off characters, don't do it just because you want something dramatic and you need the plot to move forward, only do it for two reasons:

a) it completes the character's arc (i.e. they were afraid of death but when someone they truly loved was in danger they jumped in front of a bullet to save them)

b) they're going to come back to life later as a metaphor for phoenixes rising or something

personally, my favorite thing to do is to leave the death ambiguous. no one will know if the character really died or not (not even me)

[kingofattolia]

Hi!

I just really wanted to say, I love you. Or at least I love your writing which just phenomenal and awesome, so I can only assume you are the same. I read Life and What Comes After over the course of a day (I think it was a single day, it might have been two) about a month ago now, and it was hands down one of the greatest fics I have ever read. It is very very rare that anyone can satisfy my desire for hugs and softness in a story (probably because all my favourite relationships are bromances), but you knocked that out of the park. I keep meaning to leave more detailed comments on the fic, as I am constantly going back and rereading, but then I just sit there wondering what to say beyond, "I absolutely love this, I am rereading for the nth time" which I suppose is a nice thing to hear as an author, but I usually like to be more eloquent. ^^"

Ugh, there's so much I want to say, want to thank you for. The nudge to read Shatterpoint. Some practical life inspiration from Anakin. But most of all the push your amazing writing gave me to actually start writing my own fix-it AU.

I haven't started reading Sometimes the Light yet, just because I want to save for some point when I desperately need a boost. (Speaking of which, what are the odds of there being more for that...?)

I hope this puts a smile on your face!

And I will absolutely be giving you a thanks in my author's note whenever I publish my baby.

-@rainintheevening

Thank you so much!!!! This is an incredible message 😭

LAWCA was born of purely my own desire for 100k words of incredibly slow angst and fluff so honestly to this day it surprises me that other people enjoy the same thing. I'm so glad!

Shatterpoint is amazing. Everyone should read it. The lore? The philosophy? The Mace Windu being incredible? Truly changed my Star Wars experience. Alsooooo what is your fix-it AU? 👀 There can NEVER be enough of those.

When it comes to Sometimes the Light... after going nearly 3 years without an update it sounds stupid, but I have NOT abandoned it. I have 2 more chapters written than what's actually published, and wrote 2k more words of it as recently as last week. I have most of the rest outlined and know where it's going.

I have hesitated to start actually posting again though because if I do, I can almost guarantee another lull will inevitably happen given all the obligatory excuses (real life job, prioritizing original fiction, etc. etc.) and I don't want to get people's hopes up and then disappoint again.

[weekend-whip]

Hi, I just would love to say I LOVE your work! It's really well-written and one of my most favorite things to read! I'm a bit curious about how you stayed committed in one project for so long... I've had various multi-chaptered works I posted (and some lying around in the drafts for a long while), but every time i encounter a problem i immediately feel uninspired to post and i immediately tank it. And since I'm doing another multi-chapter fic, I'm scared that I'd abandon it easily. I was wondering how you'd manage to keep on comiting to your own project?

Thank you for the kind words!! 

I have to confess, I’m also extremely guilty of abandoning a project partway through. It’s already happened three times in the recent past for other fandoms (and two of those three times were quite literally smack in the very MIDDLE of the projects as well). One day I’ll go back to them. One day. 

But with this work? It just means too much to me to just up and quit on it (insert ninja never quit quote here). And I’ve gotten stuck plenty of times as well (Chapter 17, Chapter 23, Chapter 28, and Chapter 35 already jump out in particular ghhhhh) but when that happens, I’ve done a variety of things to try and keep the momentum flowing:

Comb back through Notes: Double check to make sure things are still on track in the way you want them to. There’s been countless times I’ve gotten on a writing roll and accidentally write myself into a hole, only to realize it’s because I skipped over something I should have included earlier, or I took too much time on a scene and I have to reign it in to make room for something else. Other times what I had in my original notes doesn’t fit with my vision anymore, and I have to do some reworking there. Or there’s not enough information/context supplied and I have to add in something. Either way, writing out even the barest thing of a plot thread (even if you hate outlines) can help you determine what you should be doing with your story next. 

Read/write other fics/stories. Sometimes my issue is that I’ve stepped away from writing for too long (as I get stupid busy) and it’s not so much that I “forget” how to write, but it can be a little difficult getting back into my “writing voice” and then everything starts to come up bland. By rereading other fics, you can find new inspiration, start to get a mental “language” of how to want to phrase things or describe scenes, a reminder of how to progress with dialogue. etc...basically, for me, it helps me picture my story after days of not really thinking about it, or helps me get a handle of how I want my story to flow. 

Of course, you can always reread your own work, which can remind you of where you wanted to take your plot/characters in the first place and give you a jump start like that... but for me that just makes me annoyed that I can’t read the rest of the fic as *I* have to write it asdfghjk. Alternatively, if you find yourself stuck on one story, start writing/working on another! I know, sounds counterintuitive with the “too many wips” thing, but it doesn’t have to be a full-fledged novel! A oneshot, drabble, a writing request, a practice scene...something small that you’re not necessarily obligated to finish just to get the juices flowing again without the added pressure. That one I can say from experience definitely helps from experience!

Do literally anything else. Sometimes you’re just a bit burnt out and need a break from writing! Give that part of your brain some time to rest, and then when you come back to write, it’ll be with some fresh perspective! Being all-consuming in a project may seem like it’ll help it get done faster, but you can’t drive a car with no gas, y’know? Don’t let yourself get too hung up on writing; it’s supposed to be fun! And when it starts getting not fun, step away before you can too frustrated with it (or yourself). Get a snack, grab some water, draw, do a puzzle, go outside, see some friends, whatever! It’s just as important not to neglect other things you love as well. .... *stares longingly at my gaming backlog*

From my own experience, I do tend to get a reignited itch to write when I’m off doing something else. In my case, let’s say I’m playing a video game, but now that my mind has had time to relax from writing, new ideas and a drive to write actually have the energy to come back full force, so to speak.

Straight up start the chapter/scene/part you’re stuck on from scratch (but don’t throw out what you already have either). Again, sounds counterintuitive, BUT by tackling the problem from another angle (i.e. a different point of view, a different turn in a conversation, simply rearranging the order of events, etc) can do INSANE wonders for finding a way through a block. All those chapters I listed above? All had to be re-written to include everything I wanted that would also flow in a logical way. I look at my older drafts for chapters and wince at my original ideas—but hey, I wouldn’t have the current ideas I have now without them, so can’t let myself feel too bad! 

And by not throwing out what you already have, you’ve got stuff to work with and reference, which is better than trying to go in blind all over again! You can straight up rewrite scenes you weren’t vibing with, rearrange the order of scenes to experiment with the flow, ask yourself why you even needed a scene in the first place...being able to reflect like that is super indispensable, and in the worst case scenario, you’ve still got at least part of a chapter written, so it’s not like you have zero progress at all! 

Take the first/easiest way out, or just eliminate what caused the problem in the first place. It may seem a little dumb, and it’s obviously going to depend on just how big the “problem” actually is or the nature of it, but for the moment, if it’ll help you move forward in the slightest, go for it! Because you can always go back and fix it up later if you want! And if not, you’ve still got a good enough way to get readers (and yourself), from point a to point b. No need to always be perfect; we’re all doing this for fun in the end! And often times a casual reader isn’t going to catch the fact that you may have metaphorically simply put a bandaid over an issue; they’re just here for the fun ride! 

But the biggest secret to keep on carrying on? Love what you do!  Sounds cheesy, but if you’re not fully passionate to begin with, it’s going to be really, really hard to maintain the drive no matter what you do. Always remind yourself of why you started the project in the first place, remember the story you want to achieve in the end, and be a little forgiving to yourself when things aren’t turning out the way you want them to. You just have such high expectations for your work because it means so much to you that you start putting standards on yourself, and that’s not always good for you or your story.

Learn to see problems not as problems but opportunities; a wake-up call for yourself, a check to make sure the story is going in the way you originally wanted it to, or to see if maybe it’s time for a complete direction! It doesn’t mean the project’s not worth finishing; it just means it’s worth so much to you that you’re afraid to see it fail. But what’s more important: achieving a perfect story that made you want to pull your hair out the whole time, or telling an imperfect story you can always go back and fix if you want, but people were able to enjoy regardless because it got done? 

And hey, sometimes you do just have to write a bad chapter/scene/story just to push onward (Chapter 11 of Book 1 is this for me ghhhhh it’s so far from my vision and I never could fine tune it in just the right way I wanted BUT OH WELL). Not saying you should just ~abandon all quality~ when things aren’t going your way, but.......it’s not the end of the world if you do, either. That just means you’ve presented an opportunity for yourself to look back on how you’ve grown! And that’s not a bad thing, right? 

Anyway, that’s just some advice from my own experience/circumstances; hopefully it helped in some small way, at least! ^^

[99liners]

among the tatemae OCs, if you had the choice to choose one of the OCs to switch places with, who would you choose and why?

Let me start this off my saying, I would rather eat a rat before I even think about switching places with a Tatemae oc- but if we don't have choice well-

Kaiho!jk is out of the question like nope nah uh he's the epitome of toxic and I'm not gonna be the wife who's expected to spread her legs open when her husband comes back home. And jk in this is such an asshole! His meaning of "love" is just straight up fucked up. Also what's marriage if he isn't going to vulnerable and open up? I value communication so- kdbjff (ugh the way I reread the story again and was so furious that I had to watch cute jungkookie videos to calm down 🥴)

Moving on to énouement!kth is literally another red flag 🚩 (I mean all the tatemae men are the epitome of red flags-) I really hate materialistic people and as we all know Dr. Kim Taehyung has a habit of flaunting his wealth all the time and especially rubbing it in tanaz's face. Also like you've also said, my goal in life is to to be a doctor and I'm working very hard to get there so I would be fucking furious if someone took that away from me and trampled my dreams I worked so hard on. That would be the biggest middle finger in the face so no💜

Next we have nodus tollens!pjm oh boy I feel like he would be the one who's oc I would switch with- I don't like the idea of being emotionally manipulated just beacuse of my abandonment issues but he seems like the sweetest out of all the others. I also don't like how overly clingy he would be but if he's gonna let me do what I love then I would bare with it ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ

adronitis!knj is a little bit complicated for me- I hate the idea of sleeping with a teacher or professor in the first place so- I would literally slap myself. But at the same time they have this sense of normalcy as a family? After everything that happened. Like from how the story begins they seem pretty content so I wouldn't mind that but the way they got there and the forced pregnancy and stuff? That's just disturbing. I don't like the idea of not being able to work but a family doesn't sound so bad

Lastly with psychomachy!jhs is a big fat no from me. Look I can barely keep up with drama of my own extended family (bcuz they are the issue- our own little family is pretty happy), the last thing I want is for Jung families old ass outdated traditions to get in the way. ALSO I would literally throw hands if they took away my child! Like I went through all that pain let me spend time with my child jesus christ. Although in this Hoseok isn't at fault but he isn't exactly present at all most times and even though I consider myself as someone who would handle a long distance relationship, there is a difference between having a distance and just not being emotionally present 🚶🏻‍♀️

Can't say much about liberosis!myg and aphotic!ksj but I'm hella excited for when their stories come up 😼

So to sum it up- it's either nodus tollens!pjm or adronitis!knj ocs that I would switch places with. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk 🏃🏻‍♀️

i love how kaiho!jjk is just out of the question 😂😂😂 YES it should be that way!!! 👌 and enouement!kth is a disaster waiting to happen.

😂 😂 do all the simps of nodus tollens!pjm suffer from abandonment issues? cause i have major abandonment issues omg 😂😂😂 what is it with us. but you are right, i really don't get along well with clingy people but i feel like pjm is easier to handle, like you know, as long as you don't trigger him.

oh about adronitis, i hate that sleeping with professor idea too! the whole dynamic is fucked up to another level no matter how you see it. writing / reading about it is different, but in reality,,, i cant even think of it.

bruhhhh, you and i have literally the same view about psychomachy!! peak bestie shit.

and no.. even when liberosis and aphotic would be out, your choice won't change. believe me on this one 😃 those two oneshots are going to be so traumatic. i think i should start paying for you guys' therapy 🙄

this ask is part of "among the tatemae OCs, if you had the choice to choose one of the OCs to switch places with, who would you choose and why?"

[otp-holic]

The one place (where something happened) (A03)

“In your life there are a few places, or maybe only the one place, where something happened, and then there are all the other places.” Alice Munro. (or the one where they receive a letter from a familiar name and we go into 4Ks of fluff around a lost afternoon in France)

4K. Lamely explicit at one point. Fanfic + Pictures Inside. Trigger for FLUFF as the main plot. Part of the Never let us lose what we have gained series (AO3)

This was supposed to be a manip with 200 words of bantering and it's now 4Ks of fluff with a few pictures. I've decided to leave them inside the cut because I feel they work better with its context there. I'm sorry for the hassle, but I really hope you give this a chance... unless you have cavities, only like fics with amazing plots or are allergic to shameless fluff.

Please do not repost the pictures, I know this is futile, but… I try :)

DAGUERROTYPE, France 1944 Private Collection.

Steve is cooling down from his very early run, enjoying the feeling of the pink sunrise looming over the awakening Brooklyn streets as he walks the last couple of blocks on the way home, when his phone beeps.

“Check your actual mailbox, we dropped something for you there. I think you should appreciate us making it old-fashioned just for you, grandpas!”

Steve smiles at Sam’s text and as soon as he arrives at their building he snaps a picture of the very common and flat envelope with “Barnes&Rogers” scribbled on top of a Stark Logo, to send along his response.

“Nice try, but this is inaccurate. A letter would have never made its way to us without an address or stamp. We’ll send you a proper thank you card to show you how it’s done.”

He can’t help but chuckle at his own joke rereading the text while he opens the door, and when he looks up from his phone and into the kitchen, he is received by a sleepy Bucky looking at the coffee machine like he looks at Steve during their most soft and embarrassingly cheesy moments.

“You love that thing more than you love me, confess it.”

“In the mornings? Yes. I don’t even like you in the mornings most of the time,” he answers matter of factly. “Want some?”

Steve playfully wiggles an eyebrow.

“No way. Your sweaty self is tempting, but coffee smells better. I might join you in the shower later.” Bucky offers him one of the two cups he has poured and he notices the envelope Steve is holding. “What is that?”

“We’ve got mail!” He hands it to Bucky. “I have no idea what's on it, but Sam texted me to say they had something delivered to our mailbox and there it was. Open it.”

Bucky leaves the cup on the counter, face sparked with a curiosity that makes him look twenty-one (and Steve weak on the knees), and goes for it.

The content is a bit underwhelming at first glance: Another envelope, white, no Stark logo, but topped with a bright green post-it with a note on Pepper’s script.

“This got to me via PR. We analyzed it and checked with the source (no peeking, I swear) and it seems legit. With that return address, it’s likely to arouse your interest. Love, P.”

Bucky tears off the post-it and the letter is revealed to be addressed to Steve Rogers at the Stark Tower, but it is when they turn it around when everything goes still for a second.

The return address is some street in Marseille, but what has Steve’s mouth dry and Bucky’s hand trembling just a bit is the combination of the place and the name written on top: Emmanuelle Jaques Dernier.

“Boom?”, Bucky says, trying to cut through their heavy hearts and taking Steve’s hand. It’s a terrible terrible joke, but Dernier would have loved it and he grins.

“That’s a terrible terrible joke,” Steve verbalizes, “but I think at least we’ve reached the same conclusion.”

“Elementary, my dear Steve,” Bucky answers as he opens the second envelope, only to reveal a folded letter and yet another envelope. “It’s a fucking vault of paper!”

Steve takes the letter from him, unfolds it, and quickly scans it (normal office paper, printed, hand-signed) before he starts reading it out loud to Bucky’s undivided attention.

“Dear Mr. Rogers,

My name is Emmanuelle Dernier and I am the great-grandson of Jaques Dernier of the Howling Commandos.

First, let me tell you that we all in our family grew up with amazing stories and praise for you, Sergeant Barnes, and the rest of the team. I never got to meet my great-grandfather or any of them (you), but I’ve always felt like I did.

In fact, that’s the ultimate reason behind this letter: I ached to honor him and I’ve been putting in order all his remaining letters, pictures, and memories so they don’t get lost forever, and there are many things I’m discovering through this journey. So many pictures and tiny details… and amongst them, you and the rest of the Commandos appear at the most random and memorable moments. Nothing that’s going to make it into history books, more like the stories my grandpa used to share with us over and over again, those important tidbits that make him more human.

Anyway, I was going through the pictures he kept when I came across some war photos that didn’t seem to match the 40s timeframe. Typical daguerreotypes from the 20s in a very bad state, probably taken with a camera from the era in 1944 and developed on a later date by somebody who clearly didn’t master the technique.

They were in a very bad state and hidden inside an envelope that said “Terribly drunk soldiers in France making idiots of ourselves in unique and creative ways. Fun evening, horrible hangover. About 20 miles west of the Maginot Line. Autumn ‘44”. I’m attaching a photocopy of that, I hope you can understand my decision to keep the original.

After restoring the daguerreotypes with some experts, all I got were five very bad pictures with silhouettes of people apparently having fun…. but there was one that got a lot better in the cleaning process that feels important somehow. I’m sending the original, as well as the restored version I got.

I, of course, don’t have the whole context, but I hope it brings back a good memory. My great-grandpa might be in the picture, but I don’t think this one belongs to my family or to a museum.

Thank you for your service, I really hope this letter finds its way to you.

E.Dernier.”

“I can’t believe… Steve, most days I’m convinced that day and that place are a figment of my imagination,” Bucky smiles, remembering. “When I think of a moment of pure joy during the war, I think about that afternoon in France, and it always feels unreal. A bubble of air and laughter while we were so surrounded by death.”

Steve nods, reminiscing about that warm and humid September morning when they arrived at yet another abandoned and destroyed little village, this one about twenty miles west of the Maginot Line. They had orders to lie low and wait for twenty-four hours before they started the maneuver to wipe another Hydra base off the map, and that little town was perfect for that.

Among bomb debris and fallen walls, they found one small building miraculously standing next to the remains of the church, so they decided to set camp under a roof for a change since the weather was being a little flickery with the rain, and they had the rare luxury of time.

The inside of the tiny house was as unusual as the outside: nothing was destroyed beyond being dusty and worn by time, and everything they found (furniture, kitchenware, and even fabrics) belonged more to Steve and Bucky’s early childhoods than to 1944, a living museum frozen in time.

Only it was not a museum, but the parish house left untouched and non-raided: old-fashioned clothes, outdated church books, yellowing clergy collars, and, of course, the wine cellar. Oh, that wine cellar… the havoc it unleashed.

“I remember the absolute excitement when Falsworth found all those bottles of old unscathed mass wine from the parish,” Steve brings his memory to words, looking at Bucky, “I’m still a little convinced that we are going to hell for drinking them.”

“Not for that, probably, but it was a wonder nobody died on the spot of wine poisoning, it tasted like sweet vinegar, ugh.”

“But it did his part, right? Took our minds off things; got us drunk, bold and silly.” Steve answers.

“Apparently not all of us,” Bucky says very seriously, looking at Steve.

“Technicalities… I got drunk by proxy. Seeing you all so happy made me giddy and tipsy, too.”

“I came and went… I remember being a little surprised at the clarity of my thoughts at some moments there when some of the guys were basically drooling on the floor. Now I understand, of course.”

Steve squeezes his hand, not much to be said there.

They were already way too drunk by the early afternoon, drinking to the sound of a sudden rainstorm pouring outside. All of them scattered across the small dusty living room and its adjoining kitchen while they went through all the bottles of wine they had been able to find. Cheering for the foregone priest every time somebody raised a glass, and laughing as if there were no ruins or war on the other side; just silly men (boys, really) laughing their hearts out.

“Earth to Steve… I don’t know about you, but I’m dying to see what the hell that envelope is hiding. Especially now that we know about its time stamp.”

“I’m sorry, me too! Gabe drunkenly handling that old camera and those glass plaques the way he did? I’m honestly impressed that he was able to take any pictures at all,” he muses. “Shit, is it weird that I’m nervous?”

“I’m gonna save us the bantering because I’m nervous, too,” Bucky answers in all sincerity. “Truth is, Steve, I remember everything about that day.”

It��s a new admission, a newly opened door for them because for some reason, they have never talked about that peaceful surreal afternoon, and Steve nods in recognition as he silently goes for the envelope one-handed, not wanting to let go of Bucky’s hand because his surface is way cooler than his wrenching insides. Maybe the picture is an overexposed french wall but maybe…

The photo he extracts from the envelope is clearly the original and damaged one Emmanuelle specified in his letter. Anybody else looking at it would see nothing beyond Dernier’s blurry profile, but since Steve and Bucky were there when this was taken, they know exactly what moment Steve is holding in his hand.

“Buck,…” is all Steve can say, struck by the blurry keepsake.

Later in the afternoon when they had already consumed most of the wine and there was not a single coherent thought left in the room, one of the guys took the parish books and besottedly announced that there was a wedding set for today… thirty years ago. Alcohol fueled a goofy idea that escalated at the speed of light, with Morita saying they were going to a wedding because they deserved a celebration, Dernier confessing that he had once considered becoming a priest, and Dum-dum bringing out all the old fashioned clothes from the wardrobe and deciding they were getting nice and clean for the festivities.

“That’s clearly Dernier in the picture killing it in his priest role, right?” Bucky says, half smiling and interrupting Steve’s thoughts. “You know, I went all-in with that fake wedding party. I was laughing to tears when I saw you put on that ridiculously long and ill-fitting jacket from the 10s, feeling weightless and silly for the first time since sailing off, and God knows we all deserved that. And it was all safe and light-hearted until fucking Morita decided you had to be the groom, and...”

“Were you jealous because I won the dashing groom competition?”

Steve’s attempt at a joke is weak, but there’s truth behind it: Morita chose Steve as the groom (“Cap, you are the most dashing and the least drunk”) to a chorus of excited voices cheering for him. Somebody else, most likely Dum-Dum, chose the rest of the roles (Sarge, best man duty; Jones, camera; Morita, keep the wine flowing; the rest of you, misbehave!) and in the blink of an eye, they were all going outside laughing under a light rain, and about to celebrate Steve’s fictional wedding to nobody.

“How could I be jealous?” Bucky cuts in. “Do you remember all you said to me that afternoon? During World War II and in front of a battalion of men?”

“I was drunk.”

“Fuck you!” Bucky disentangles his hand from Steve’s to use both of them to hold Steve’s face and kiss him with violence. “Tell me. Do you remember what you said?”

As if he could ever forget. He can recall every step he took from the house to the makeshift wedding spot amidst the trees where his best man (looking dapper even in that ludicrous jacket) was laughing along Dernier. He can still smell the petrichor, can still sense the blush coloring his cheeks while hoping nobody noticed and can still hear the beating of his heart when Bucky handed him a battered umbrella (“You don’t deserve to get rained on your wedding day, punk”) and a fucking ring made out his shoelaces (“You’ll have to buy something a little more permanent.”). And then…

“Dernier started the ceremony and he wanted to know if I had somebody in mind and I said ‘of course’.” He replays, his voice barely a whisper. “I said I’d had my eyes on a brown-haired Brooklynite since before I could remember. I said that I was pretty sure those blue eyes were set on mine too and that hopefully those eyes would be set enough to want to marry me even if I had never dared to ask.”

He’s been holding Bucky’s gaze the whole time, and he’s far from over yet, but he needs to fucking breathe before he goes on. Neither of them has moved a muscle for the past minute.

“Then he asked me to repeat the wedding vows after him and…”

“And you said Buck, right?”, Bucky interrupts, voice winded. “You fucking whispered I take you, Buck, as my lawful wedded husband till the end of the line. I heard, Steve. Even if the rest of the world didn’t, I did. But you never said anything, so I always deemed it impossible, a product of the corniest nook of my mind trying to outweigh all those bad things, because not even you could be as bold, reckless, and mushy as to do that,…it’s my fucking fault, I should have known better!”

“Not completely reckless, pal. I was scared shitless as I said those words, but what else could I do? You were right by my side about to put a ring on my finger as my “best man”, everyone, including you, supposedly drunk past recollection, and everybody else too far away to hear my whispers. It was such an easy choice in the end because truth should always win over fear. And those vows were. The truth.”

“You have always been too honest for your own good, Rogers,” Bucky is breathless and exasperated and goes for his mouth again, bringing in all he (they) couldn’t in 1944. “You destroyed me, Steve. My knees were as weak as a teenager’s in front of his first crush. I wanted to kiss you so badly when I heard you say all that there in the open… and I couldn’t even acknowledge it.”

“I know. And for what it's worth, I really thought you didn’t remember.”

It is too much. Is it normal to feel this much? Steve would blame it on the serum enhancements, but he was already overwhelmed at 16, so that’s clearly not the answer.

He craves, no, he needs touching, grounding, closer. Bucky. There’s too much space between them even if they are back to kissing like they would have that day in 44, and at any other time if their own lives wouldn’t have stolen those moments from them.

“It happened.” Bucky whimpers, biting on Steve’s lip who abandons his own stool to straddle him, both of them gasping in sync at the feeling of their cocks, hard against each other’s through their soft pants.

Bucky soon ups the stakes by carding his metal hand through Steve’s hair pulling his head backwards to help himself into that spot on his neck.

“Same two moles as when you were tiny, as when we were at that war... Your cute vampire bite. Favorite spot.” He licks on them with the tip of his tongue. Steve growls on cue and Bucky giggles. “Favorite chain reaction.”

“Buck, you cheater, you know what that does to me!” Steve cries out followed by Bucky’s evil chuckle.”Bed, couch, countertop,…I don’t care, but naked. Now. Stained pants due to heavy petting are too much of a trip down memory lane for me. Let me keep a bit of my dignity.”

Steve stands up liberating Bucky from his grip but aching at the loss of contact.

They are naked and making out in the middle of the kitchen in no time; Bucky steadily pushing him against the refrigerator while fiercely grinding against his crotch.

“Hey, ‘teve,” Bucky pants. “The way this is going, it’s my dignity now that's at risk. I don’t think I can make it further than the floor before I come.”

Steve groans into his mouth just at the thought and they start sliding to the floor the best they can until he’s a human blanket moving over Bucky. With no lube at hand, and no time, that’s their best option.

They kiss and kiss and kiss, his hands not leaving Bucky’s sweaty hair. Bucky’s hands on his ass, forcing their groins closer with one while he (almost absently) plays around his hole with the other, driving Steve crazy in the process. Dicks left to do their own thing through pressure and friction. Everything is working. And fast.

“Oh, fuck!” Bucky exclaims “Can you promise me all this stuff with the letter was real and not a long-con plan to assure your fragile masculinity that I love you more than I love that espresso machine?”

That. That silly unfunny excuse of a joke that screams Bucky all over is what pushes Steve all the way over the edge. He fucking laughs as he comes making absolutely embarrassing sounds, pressing their foreheads and noses together until it hurts, and shaking from head to toe without stoping his pressure on the stupid and smug man under him. His lover. His partner. His unofficial husband. His best friend.

His Buck.

“There’s still too much blood in your brain if you can play that dirty,” Steve states, placing one hand between them grabbing Bucky’s hard cock. “Let’s see if I can do anything about it.”

“Your hand, usually so helpful, but I was already following you after that sound you make when you come and laugh at the same time, shit, it always goes straight to my dick, I’m,…” he keeps talking with difficulty between breaths and moans until he leaves his speech unfinished coming all over Steve’s fist.

They kiss on the lips breathing into each other before Steve rolls over. They are sticky and panting in silence, spread on their kitchen’s floor, Steve’s shoulders crushed between Bucky’s and the dishwasher. Domestic bliss at its most literal.

One lavish fuck and two showers later they reemerge into the kitchen in search of something to eat: Bucky is in charge of the food today, while Steve cleans the mess they left a couple of hours ago.

He’s decluttering the counter when their damaged picture laying there puts a smile on his face but also reminds him of the restored version presumably still waiting inside the disregarded letter, so he grabs the envelope to retrieve its contents: one photocopy (from Dernier’s original writing), and the promised photo.

And it is restored. Everything is clear where it was blurry before: Dernier (so deep into his priest impersonation that he’s not even looking at them), the trees, the battered umbrella, the ridiculous jackets… and them.

“You had the nerve to call me reckless and mushy, Buck?” Steve laughs as he stares at the picture where a very young Bucky is about to put a ring on his finger with the least subtle lovestruck expression he’s ever seen (“and it’s for you”, his brain proudly reminds him) “Wow, you might as well be kissing me there, anything would be more subtle than this!”

“Don’t shame me, you punk, especially not when you were the one responsible for breaking my brain back then!” Bucky answers coming from behind and stealing the picture from his hands to scrutinize it. Goofy grin and raging blush quickly taking over his face. “But you’re one to talk, Cap. You are gazing at that shoelace’s ring as if I were handing you a diamond tiara!”

Steve laughs softly at that and moves his right hand to his pocket, feeling the weight of the little compass he had retrieved earlier from one of his drawers. He used to carry it with him everywhere for comfort, but he has a better option now.

“Didn't you know that shoelaces are forever?” He asks, taking the compass out of his pocket and holding it in both hands as he opens it, nudging Bucky with his elbow to get his attention.

Bucky is confused for an instant while he looks at his young face staring at them from inside the little box. Of course he knew that (he made fun of Steve for days and days) but Steve detects the change in his expression when he notices the other thing.

“Wow, you gigantic sap,” Bucky says, taking the compass out of his hands to double-check he is seeing what he thinks he’s seeing. “You saved my shoelace.”

He had. While they were all celebrating his wedding under the rain dancing to no music, he quietly slipped the little string off his finger and tied it to the most secure place he had back then.

“It’s not a shoelace, you jerk, it’s a symbol. A declaration.” He laughs, stealing the compass back to safely pocket it again.

“You are delusional,” Bucky snorts, kissing the top of his head. But he’s widely smiling and lost in thought as he goes back to their sandwiches.

Steve stays on the spot enjoying the peace in their silent companionship, his focus on the latest news showing up on his phone, the text he’s writing to Sam and the comforting sounds of Bucky moving around the kitchen.

“You might have married me, but I never actually married you.” Bucky blurts out of the blue a bit later, sitting by his side as he hands him a plate with a sandwich and some grilled greens on it. “Do you want mayo with that?”

“Uh?” Steve forgets all about the news and the text and looks at Bucky in confusion.

“Mayo, do you want some?” Bucky repeats nonchalantly.

“No mayo, thank you; but I was actually more interested in the other part, you know, that thing about marriage?”

Bucky looks him in the eye: earnest, blushing and with the same look of smug adoration he had on the picture.

“Oh, that part.” He jokes. “You apparently married me in 1944, but I never married you back. And I would like to.”

“Marry me?” Steve asks and Bucky visibly nods.

“I’m sorry for throwing the idea at you like this, books tell me I'm supposed to have candles, music, and a ring, but you showed me that restored picture and I couldn't stop thinking about it, about proof,” Bucky speaks uncharacteristically slow and very softly, voice trembling here and there while he claps his hand with Steve’s finger by finger for reassurance and as a distraction. “A single photo had the power to transform a moment that existed just as a made-up happy place inside my mind into something tangible and real. Something that would be tangible and real for anybody getting a hold on it and looking at our stupid faces.”

“So stealthy,” Steve says, and they both laugh together.

“Proof, Steve. I was slicing tomatoes and thinking how there’s so much evidence, thousands of files! out there proving that all the stuff that fuels my nightmares were real, but nothing solid about this. Us.” Bucky stops for a moment collecting his thoughts, still smiling even with the heavy subject he just dropped into the mix. “Sorry, I believe I put more time into these sandwiches than into thinking this all the way through so I’m…”

“Take your time, we’ve gone from mayo to marriage to nightmares in five minutes so don’t worry, you have me hooked here.”

Steve makes Bucky laugh again as he intended, and he feels their calloused laced fingers immediately squeezing closer.

“It’s stupid because it doesn’t change anything for us but,.. I don’t fucking know, Steve, I think that picture has messed up with my mind! I instantly found comfort in the idea of people finding facts beyond the nightmares now or in the future. An easy to understand, universal and oversimplified proof of how much I loved you and how much I was loved in return.” Bucky takes a breath and stares at him sporting a million-watt smile. “Marrying you,… I would really love that. And for real this time.”

“Ok, Buck.” Steve instantly replies, eagerness winning over thoughtful and heartfelt declarations. He tightens the grip on their joined hands to drive them to his lips and seals the easiest answer he’s ever had to give.

And it's done!Sorry for the cavities, for going on with the fic when it should have ended and for ending it where it might have had to keep going. It was painful and fun. I'm free!

[tortilla-of-courage]

Describing it as being like home is actually pretty accurate yeah.

And YES! I am totally willing to talk about my modern AU.

I've been calling it the Adoption AU because Time ends up adopting all of the boys. It mostly started as, I saw an edit for a tweet someone did with Wars and Wild that involved Taco Bell (cannot remember the blog or post for the life of me though), and so I wrote a thing about Warriors sneaking out of his university dorm to pick up Wild, who snuck out the window despite his broken arm, and then got extorted by Legend in exchange for silence at 3am.

This was followed by a fic where Groose decided spray painting a public building was a good idea and got himself and Sky arrested, set earlier in the timeline.

So then I made a timeline. Twilight is Time and Malon's biological son, and he found Wild on the side of the road one day (Wild's backstory involves a bad car wreck and an underground hospital, but no conspiracy bullshit. Yet). Wild has no memory, so they keep him. Wild brings home Legend, who was told his uncle died at school before a holiday. They then also keep Legend. Malon finds Four in her barn one morning for complicated reasons, and they keep him too. Twilight finds Warriors, who is in his class, hiding in an alley one day after he ran away from an abusive home and brings him home too. SS Impa (who I've nicknamed Shield because there are enough prominent Impas here that they should get nicknames too) is a social worker who's trying to find Sky a home and has run out of options, and turns to Time, who has a record of successfully housing 'unhousable' youths, and asks if he can take one more. He can. Wild finds Hyrule and brings him home because 'Rule needs a shower even more than Wild does. Hyrule stays. Wind's grandma ends up with Wind and his sister but can't financially take care of both and so Wind ends up with the boys and everyone is +1 Grandma.

Twilight has a fic detailing how he knows Midna and Dusk and I ended up shooting him (oops) but at least their social project gets handed in on time.

Then I started hashing out Time's backstory and suddenly this AU had plot. And organized crime. And a conspiracy. And secret societies.

The summarized version is that the gems from OoT are like, Idk what they do yet. Haven't gotten to a point where I need to figure that out yet. But they are Important and have to be carefully guarded. The Great Deku Tree (just called Deku because he's not a tree here) was Time's foster father before Ganondorf killed him. Also, Ganondorf is Deku's half brother. Because. However Time 'stole' the Emerald and he and Navi ran until OoT Impa (Sage) and Lullaby found them. So Time got adopted into Lullaby's family. Ruto inherited the Sapphire from her mother who also died from mysterious circumstances, and Darunia has the Ruby. Lullaby got the Ocarina from her late paternal grandmother.

Then Ganon finds them and tries to steal the Emerald from Time, so Lullaby goes looking for help and thus finds the sages. Saria is an anonymous hacker who uses the screen name 'Kokiri'. Time reveals he didn't steal the Emerald, he was Deku's heir, and then Navi goes missing. Time is home worried enough that he's physically sick, and Ganon decides to try and attack the home. Only Lullaby's family is Olde Money, and they live in a big, old manor, so Lullaby as Sheik decides to play 'Home Alone' with the secret passages in the walls and they piss off Ganon because when did that brat get a sheikah bodyguard??? Sage and Rottla (Lullaby's mother, who is fully sheikah as well) rush home from a thing and Kokiri is running a play by play watching the security cameras.

I pull in my headcanon that Time was killed in the Downfall Timeline by getting impaled on Ganon's tusk and Ganondorf stabs him with the tusk of a mounted boar head and then Sheik shows up to protect his brother, and then Mama gets home and is not happy to find this man in her home attacking her kids. Time is fine, but Navi stays missing. (She's alive tho.)

Also, Time's foster dad was the last leader of a secret society known as The Order of The Lost Woods, and Time learns this upon meeting Tatl, who gets him sucked into another event that would probably make a good action movie. I have thought too much about the Order and it's hierarchy, but what's important here is that Time ends up with a standing job offer and Tatl and he remain friends and we find out how I fit FD into this AU. It's not pretty. This is where Time loses his eye too.

The AoC came out and I added that Link in as Wild's twin brother and he shows up during the main plot.

Which starts with Twi getting kidnapped. (I'm not really meaner to him than the others, I swear, he's just the most logical choice to be Time's heir. Which he is. He doesn't know this though.)

So he's kidnapped by Ganondorf, who broke out of jail, Zant, who shot Twi in highschool, and Ghirahim, who has some history with Sky I haven't fleshed out yet and a very public rivalry with Warriors over twitter. About six weeks later Sage finds him in an abandoned warehouse (because of course) with a shackle on his left arm and a lot of new injuries. He ends up fine, but he tells Time later in the hospital what happened and he's both message and messenger and Time is this close to just committing murder. Tatl talks him down.

Somewhere here is the half finished fic where I introduce AoC Link as Luke/Knight, and this is as far as I've plotted thus far.

Other tidbits: Wild and Lullaby/Sheik are both genderfluid, Lullaby/Sheik married Ruto, Wild has a very popular YouTube channel, Twi does drag racing sometimes, Sky has a pet bird, Four has DID to explain how the Colours are here too, and Wolfie exists in the form of a random wolf-dog Wild found and brought home that Legend somehow convinced half the family was Twilight. Also, Warriors has somehow befriended an entire sorority and he doesn't know how this happened.

This... got long. As you can see I have a lot of thoughts about the Adoption AU. It's gotten a bit away from me, I'll admit. This went from 'Wild does stunts on his motorbike and keeps breaking bones but somehow not the bike' to 'Twilight got kidnapped and Time is the target of a mafia that Ganon runs and also maybe killed a man once' and I don't know how that happened. Also, this is the condensed version of the summary. My actual summary/outline is much, much longer than this. So if there's any detail you want more on, feel free to say so and I'll happily go into more detail (there are so many things I didn't even mention....)

And yes, Robbie having a bong is very important to my best friend, for some reason. He has one in a modern AU and he probably invented one in canon. I happen to agree that this makes sense for his character, if anyone would invent a bong in LoZ it's Robbie (this is such an anticlimactic end to this ask after the stuff about the modern AU...)

Also, sorry for the long ass ask. I genuinely don't know how to condense the Adoption Au down any further. There's a lot of important plot beats to cover, and I still skipped things.

-Attllhak

oh my GOD???? if you ever write and post this somewhere id love to read it, the level of "crazy" conspiracy/action movie elements implemented sound sosososo cool, from Ganondorf being Deku's half brother to trying to "send a message" via Twi and- just- all of this is SO good.i sat here and reread this ask like 3 times as if that would magically spawn more info about it ahaha

there's so much to unpack here but it's honestly so worth it i love every single detail!!! i can imagine the actual outline being way longer, nad honestly that just makes me the more excited/curious about all that might be missing from this ask - i cant believe it started with Wild and Wars going to Taco Bell of all things

also i can totally see Robbie making a bong, no matter the setting or AU. fits him a lot I'd say

and dont worry about long asks!! i adore opening up my askbox to see one ask take over the entire thing, it makes me really happy aha

[imaginethebeautifulworld]

prussia x reader: silly squabbles

Hello, lovelies~ I was plagued by images of this dumbass and his general ridiculousness, so of course I had to write it all out. This fic is pointless, but I hope you enjoy anyway.

"You are really annoying."

"And yet, somehow, I'm not detecting any real annoyance. Wonder why?"

His words hung lightly in the air, gentle and playful, just shy of taunting.

You did your best to ignore them, trying to focus on your book. But his fingers were moving again, trailing over your back in an inconsistent pattern, heavy enough a presence to register, yet just light enough to torment.

You were sure, in some long-winded, ridiculous, roundabout way, he would blame you for this predicament- for not reading as fast as him, for not paying him enough attention during a lazy day in.

Regardless, you tried to focus on the passage at hand, rereading the same paragraph for the tenth time now as he teased a particularly sensitive spot near your ribs.

He wasn't quite tickling you- not yet- but the shifting tempo and pressure all played upon the obvious threat.

Only mildly irritated- really, you were too familiar with his shenanigans by now to ever be truly annoyed- your focus landed on the bookcase, the only immediate target for your long-suffering gaze. "Do you mind?"

There was a hint of pride in his voice as he answered, a cockiness at successfully distracting you. "Nope!"

His fingers- now having tasked themselves with massaging more than teasing- paused between your shoulder blades. "Why? Do you?"

Rather than allow him another victory, you huffed quietly, pointedly making an effort to lose yourself once more in your book. "No... Not at all."

If he was amused by your answer practically being ground between your teeth, he made no indication of it. Instead, he resumed his massage, keeping his palm mostly flat against your spine, adopting a steady rhythm that lulled you into some semblance of security.

You allowed yourself to relax, turning your attention fully to your tale, praying he would at least let you finish this chapter in relative peace.

It was a hope to be short-lived alas, his posture shifting, bringing him near enough to read over your shoulder.

You were far too invested to truly pay him any mind, but then he was hovering near your temple, fingers drifting ever closer to your neck, once more dancing in that maddeningly light way which he employed solely in effort to agitate you.

You knew what he was doing, and you'd be damned if you'd let him win; summoning every ounce of self-restraint within you, you purposely, blatantly, chose to ignore him.

It took only a few moments for him to acknowledge your determination towards defiance (a few torturous moments where he had started tracing his nails against your hairline and whispered some of the passage aloud), his huff of displeasure bring you a small taste of sweet, sweet victory.

You would have been naive to think he had given up, knew it would be foolish to assume, to dare to presume, that he didn't already have other strategies in mind.

What you couldn't guess, regretfully, was exactly which plan he would attempt next.

When he sat upright once more, leaving you to lounge peacefully on your stomach, you unwisely surmised that he was actually finished with the whole affair, that he'd grown bored, that he would actually leave you to your novel in peace.

Feeling him shift back to the head of the bed, hearing him tapping away at his phone- these factors allied with his distance away from you all allayed your worries, letting you escape once more to the realm belonging to the pages before you.

The temporary tranquility was somehow less than simply fleeting; it had scarcely existed at all.

Not even five minutes had passed, and you felt teasing fingers once more, now grazing ever-so-softly against the bare skin of your ankle.

A jolt of panic fueled your reflexive movement away from him, your legs kicking, book falling to the floor in your surprise.

You shot upright and fixed him with a glare, hoping to convey just how furious you were with him. "I swear to God-!"

The villainous grin on his face revealed vanity in its purest form, and it did nothing to reduce your resentment.

Scowling now, and forcing yourself into an upright position, you narrowed your eyes at him. "What do you want, asshole?"

He was quiet for a moment, by all appearances still savoring his triumph. But then his smile shifted, the self-satisfied smirk falling slowly into something softer, fonder.

It took you by surprise, sent a stutter through your pulse, all irritation rapidly transitioning into confusion. "What?"

He shifted forward, leg bending beneath him as he drew closer.

Suspicious, but not too concerned, you offered an unimpressed expression, relaying your distrust. "Gil?"

There was a flicker to his smile, but it was soon replaced by something far more serious, his eyes languidly studying your features.

Briefly, more a passing fancy, you considered teasing him for his sudden quiet, yet there was something too tremulous tormenting him, and you dismissed the thought as quickly as it came, instead offering your concern. “Teuton?”

Whatever spell that had held him within its grasp was finally dismissed, his head cocking to the side and a considering tone coating his next words. “You love me, right?”

It sounded innocent enough, and his behavior certainly suggested no ill-intent. But you knew him, and knew all-too-well not to fully believe in it. “Is that a trick question?”

You made sure to keep your words only just on the side of playful, but tempered with enough sincerity to assuage any possible self-doubts that may be afflicting him.

It was clearly the right approach, the left corner of his mouth only just hinting at a smile, a familiar spark almost tangible in the air. “It’s a simple question, Liebling. No need to sound so suspicious!”

You felt your eyes narrow as you studied him, his wording only heightening your wariness. “You know- The fact you feel you have to say so really isn’t winning you any points here.”

His grin was back at that, disorienting in its intensity, just enough that you nearly forgot his previous grimness. “I’m just asking if you love me, mein Schatz. ‘Snot like I’m asking you to sell me your immortal soul or something.”

You neglected to point out how those two things were near one and the same, instead choosing to offer a faux sincerity. “Oh no, you’re right. I hate you so much,” you quipped, each syllable oversaturated in sarcasm.

He scoffed, melodramatically pressing a hand to his chest. “I’m wounded.”

You rolled your eyes, leaning down just long enough to rescue your book from the floor, marking your page and setting beside you on the comforter. “I’m sure your pride will be just fine."

“I dunno…” His words trailed off, and you could make out the distinct, irritating sound of him sucking on his teeth. “I think it may be mortal this time.”

You decided to play along, content to lose yourself in the absurdity. “Oh no,” came your reply, emotionless a tone as you could muster, in spite of the smile playing on your lips. “How could I possibly live with myself?”

He hummed, running a finger over his chin as if he were seriously considering it. “You’d probably take my fortune, settle somewhere warm.”

You fought a laugh, unsuccessfully. “Mm, definitely. Have sordid affairs with all the cabana boys and the waitresses.”

“Sing drunken renditions of Mamma Mia during karaoke night.”

“And I’ll adopt some ugly, exotic pet that I insist travels with me everywhere.”

“Only after your third husband disappears after mysterious circumstances, of course.”

He was only half-serious, and you couldn’t resist raising an eyebrow in mock offense. “Only three?”

Your question made him snicker, his eyes shining in amusement, but he didn’t continue the exchange.

Several moments passed, and with them the lingering ridiculousness of the “argument” faded away. There were many of these odd backs-and-forths, all somehow sillier than the last. The quiet was just as pleasant though, and you embraced the comfort it carried.

That was, until, he was biting his lip in thought, his amusement long abandoned.

Concerned, you shifted closer, studying his features carefully. "Gil?"

His eyes were glued to some distant place you couldn’t see, miles and centuries away from the here and now. “You do love me, right?”

“Of course,” you replied almost reflexively, still taken aback by the sudden shift back to solemnity.

“Really?” His eyes turned to yours once more, unguarded, open, a haunting fragility shining in them that made your heart clench inside your chest.

Wherever this insecurity came from, you wished you could rid him of it, tear all traces of it from his psyche, make it so he would never question his self-worth ever again.

As it was, you did what you could, lifting his hand to your lips and pressing a soft kiss to his ring, meeting his gaze as you lingered against the silver. “Would you be wearing this if I didn’t?”

There was a smile, the one you fell in love with: fond, slightly shy, just a little cocky. “Good point.”

You couldn’t help but feel as if something was still off about him however, something bothering him that you couldn’t even hope to guess. “Why do you ask, anyway?”

He took to studying your features again, his free hand rising to trace his fingers softly against your cheek. His eyes were warm and gentle, posture completely at ease. His words however-

“Sometimes I can’t believe this is real, or how lucky I am; some days I swear you’re just a figment of my imagination.”

His words carried an almost unbearable amount of loneliness, layered among disbelief and adoration. They triggered several different emotions within you, stirring them into a frenzied muss of affection and sadness, leaving you breathless.

Several potential reactions came to mind, but were all dismissed as you weighed his words, compared them to the relaxation of his shoulders, the familiarity as he languidly brushed his fingertips behind your ear, lightly teasing your scalp.

You could easily surrender to it, could already feel your own posture relaxing with each steady shift of his fingers. Still, you weren’t quite ready to abandon your prior playfulness, offering a haughty hum to prelude your reply.

“Unfortunately for you, I’m very real.” You felt a passing smirk flicker to life for a moment, blazing brightly before it was gone again, sober sincerity settling once more in its place. “You’re stuck with me, Beilschmidt. Forever…” you finished in an elongated stage whisper.

He breathed a laugh, the slightest hiss, his grin irrepressible now. His tone, however, mimicked nonchalance. “Eh. There are worse things, I guess.”

The tease was impossible to ignore, especially as that all-too-familiar deviousness was taunting in its own right.

You tried to keep your words accusatory, but they came out entirely too fond. “You’re a dick.”

He smirked, offering a half-hearted shrug.

“Guilty,” he sang, almost entirely too proud.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, he was cradling both of your cheeks, and before you could guess at his next move, he was shifting forward, gently pressing a kiss to your forehead. “But I’m a dick who loves you very much.”

Thanks for reading!

[eveninglottie]

sooo just out of sheer curiosity absolutely no pressure would you ever consider continuing your drarry fic?? it’s actually the best one I’ve read, no joke, your portrayals of the characters and just the way you write Harry’s inner conflict is just so stunning I can’t help but wish for more

Nonny you're a peach and a gentleman and this is wonderful 😭

I have, actually, been considering restarting it, but I am going to be honest, I'm kind of scared? I have a historically terrible track record of getting really in my head about what I should or shouldn't be writing. I tend to get really burnt out on my projects (which is a fancy word I use because I also spend a not insignificant amount of time developing "original" (scare quotes because everything I do is pretty much fic but sometimes my ideas for au's are too AU to actually bother bending canon to fit it) stuff as opposed to fic, like I would say it's fifty fifty right now, which should be a good thing but it's really just confusing as hell) after like, a year, of working on them--which actually makes a lot of sense because that's a long time to spend on one thing but my problem is that everything I want to write could easily hit 500k words (at minimum) and have multiple parts and I can't write as fast as I used to.

Like, take Darkling (the Drarry fic has a series name you see my problem). What started as me wanting to write an 8th year fic about Harry and Draco healing from the war and falling in love in the process has turned into this weird melting pot of dark academia meets Celtic meets Slavic folklore meets fae shit meets soulmate au meets time travel fic meets postwar politics meets me basically telling Joanne to fuck all the way off in a reclamation of my childhood, and all of that sounds very cool and interesting and it is, otherwise I wouldn't be writing it, but oh man I am 100k words into the first of three parts and I haven't reached the beginning of eighth year yet.

So I find it all a little intimidating. And it doesn't help that I keep thinking about other stuff I want to write, because Darkling is only the second most recent thing this has happened to, and it leaves me feeling very stuck.

I write icebergs, basically, and I have no idea what the scope of a project or fic or etc. is going to be until I am 100k words in and far too invested to imagine abandoning it. Because honestly like, the only thing I have ever abandoned is a mass effect andromeda fic that isn't actually abandoned, it's just too big to write as fic and has been lumped into a bigger sci fi series I want to write someday.

I'm rambling and this is absolutely disproportional to your question, but I am having a hard time lol. I want to finish it, I really do. I recently reread some of it in the hope that I had actually stopped being invested in it, but no, I am just as invested as I was when I set it down almost a year ago.

And of course all of this mental anguish over what I should be writing leads to me writing jack shit, when I probably could have been close to finishing Darkling this year if I had just kept writing it.

Anyway, yes, I want to finish it and I have considered it but I've lost the ability to write and must retire to the west.

This is very sweet of you though. I love Harry a lot, and hearing people connect with my version of him is incredibly moving and makes me happy I decided to start writing in the first place 💛

[alvfr]

Hello it's me from ao3!!! I've been rereading the Skeptic (and have probably left too many new comments, I'm sorry) and all I can think of is teen "Josie" and Derek if they had met before all of the trauma, I was wondering what you think their dynamic would be?

Hello friend!

First of all, NO SUCH THING AS TOO MANY COMMENTS! I read them all. I cherish them. Some I screenshot and keep in a special folder I look in when I need the boost. I hoard comments like a tiny overcaffeinated dragon with extra talons for typing.

Second of all, I actually started to write a Christmas special for "The Skeptic" with this scenario. Where young Derek meets young Josie in New York. Never finished it, but let's just say that he was a little milder (and recently traumatized) while she had an attitude from hell. Hang on, lemme find you a snippet.

Another passenger came bounding up the steps to the platform and he could hear the loud beat of whatever hip-hop she listened to through her headset. He almost wished he had one of those to block out all other sounds. Laura had gotten him an mp3-player for his birthday a month and a half ago and he used it occasionally when working out. The sensation of being cut off from his hearing left him wildly uncomfortable and he never managed to listen to a full song without pausing it to check for anyone sneaking up. Not that he minded working out in complete silence -- that was his main motivation anyway. Screaming muscles drowning out his thoughts. Counting the number of push-ups preferable to counting all the ways he had screwed up.

His nostrils flared at the thought. Screwing up sounded like he had crashed their mom’s car or something. What he had done was more than a screw up. There were no words to describe what he had done. If it hadn’t been for Laura, if it hadn’t been for the single coherent thought that she did not deserve to be completely abandoned, he would have left. Ran away. Taken on a new identity in Alaska or something, living out in the forest alone. Sometimes he still toyed with the idea. At seventeen, there were a limit to how far he could go though. Besides, he could not do that to Laura.

Although sometimes he thought he only made things worse by staying. One day he’d tell her. One day he’d tell her the whole truth and she could see how things would be better if he left. It’d be easier that way and-

Shit. The train arrived and he had missed the designation on the front if this was the right one. For some inexplicable reason, the subway trains in New York was only marked on the front, which you saw for a split second, and not on the side where you were supposed to enter.

Gritting his teeth, he saw that everyone else was moving forward and the guy in the KFC-uniform had already disappeared into the crowd. He had been the first choice for Derek to ask and normally, he would just wait for the next train, but it was getting late and he needed that damned gift.

“Uh, excuse me,” Derek tried, reaching out to the only other passenger who seemed to have all the time in the world when sauntering over to the cart. The second his fingers touched her denim jacket, she jerked away.

“Get yo’ hands off me!” she almost shouted and Derek retracted his hand in an instant, equally shocked by her loud voice. Wrestling with her headphones to get them out of her ears, she glared at him in disgust and he realized she could not be much older than himself, despite the heavy layer of makeup on her face. “What the hell, bro? You want to get peppersprayed?”

She talked fast and with the hard accent he had come to associate with the Puerto Rican-Bronx population. Fighting the initial instinct to just run, Derek managed to ask: “Sorry, just- is this the train back to Metro North?”

“No, it’s the 4-train heading downtown,” she said with a roll of her eyes, the clear white contrasting with the heavy eyeliner that had started to run in some places.

4-train was all he needed to hear and he gave her a nod, one she completely missed as she was busy putting the headphones back in her ears. Without paying him any attention, she moved to the closest cart, one that looked suspiciously empty. The second the doors opened, he was hit in the face with a heavy odor of newly discarded bodily fluids -- a nasty combination and he dashed forward without thinking to stop the girl from entering.

“You don’t want to go in there,” he said, trying to keep his body language neutral and non-threatening. Not that the girl seemed to be intimidated, rather than annoyed. Her eyebrows were harshly defined which made it even more effective when she raised one of them. “It, uh, smells. Bad.”

Turning on her heel, she headed for the neighbor cart with a vague: “Whatever.” over her shoulder.

Not exactly wanting to follow her, his options were limited as the crackled speaker announced the train was departing. The next cart was also almost empty, but he could not smell anything fresh so he figured he could manage.

“Bro, that pepperspray-thing was not a joke.”

Her sharp voice made him realize he had not only followed her, he had also tried to sit down next to her in his distraction. She had taken the seat at the end of the row and he had automatically went to the next one over.

“Sorry,” he mumbled and dashed to the row of seats on the opposite side.