#TO another country. and 2. figuring out how to STAY in that country . might end up being difficult.. BUT. if I could just work that

[icewindandboringhorror]

(also feel free in the tags to clarify Why you made the choice you made!! :0c)

[l0verclown]

From pressured to driven Part 1

What happens when you feel pressured to do something you never thought you'd do?

Especially if 4 serial killers are the ones pressuring you.

Slight Ronin x Reader

| spoilers for Killer chat!!! not proofread, probably OoC and this idea randomly came up in my mind at night so you'll probably find mistakes

Part 2:

Never thought you'd be hanging out with serial killers- heck, even date one.

Well here you are, in a difficult situation that might make you regret that you even agreed on staying in that server. But lets rewind a bit, shall we?

After Misaki's successful assassination, she figured she'd stay a bit longer in the country before heading home. Which also led her to the great idea of hanging out with the whole group! (Which only You, Ronin, Angel and V could attend)

Ofcourse, Ronin couldn't miss out, no? After all, being the person who brought the group together, can't be excluded. And, it gives him another reason to go outside aside from work and going on a killing spree.

At first, Angel was a bit skeptical, after all she is the Maria-de-la-Rosa, so hanging out, especially in public, would be a little bit tricky. But after a whole lot of convincing and begging, it worked out and she managed to come.

V was confused on why Misaki wanted to hang out, likewise because 1. He wasn't intrigued on the idea of hanging out, 2. He's not online very often, so he doesn't know the group that good as everyone else. But in the end he figured that it that it could benefit him eventually.

@Angelic: Wait Misaki

where are we meeting up again

@Hitmeuppp: Uhh

what was it called again..

Hage centre???

@K9: Hague Centre.

@Hitmeuppp: YES

THANK YOU

@Goreboy: be there around 2

before i drag you there myself

@Hitmeuppp: Edgy much

@SerialMC: I'll be leaving now

See y'all then!

Just when you typed the last message, you sighed and closed your device.

You wanted to come, they're your friends after all. But they're also serial killers.

Serial killers.

Fuck.

You were so up in the act, that you forgot that you weren't actually a serial killer.

You're a reporter and writer, and the only one who knows is the devils reincarnate himself.

What if they ask you how your recent murder went? Or what if they want you to do something you have no experience in?

There's one way to find out, and that is to go to that hangout.

"Yooo Reader is that you..!?" Misaki screamed from the distance, waving at you with excitement while you walked up to her.

"Wow- You're like 10x cooler than online! And- And-"

Misaki exclaimed with excitement, before V interupted them.

"Misaki, calm down before you scare them away"

"Whaaaat, can't i be happy for seeing my friends before i head home? Are you the funpolice now?"

"Not the fun one"

"Are you allergic to fun or something wtf"

After a few minutes of Misaki just complaining about V, Ronin and Angel eventually showed up.

"Met Angel on the way to here. Figured on walking here together"

"Yeah me and ro-"

"YOU'RE THE MARIA-DE-LA-ROSA!?"

"Wait Sshh!-"

"Yep, The Maria-de-la-Rosa life in the flesh. Or would ya like her to eat your flesh?"

"What is up with you associating me with Cannibalism, Ronin!?"

After A small fight between the two, you guys decided to walk around, grab some food and hang around, talking about just the casual, work, Hobby's and murder. Well only when there were no people around, obviously.

How long has it been? 4 hours? Ignoring the fact that time exists, you spent way longer than you expected to be outside. Didn't expect serial killers to be that fun.

"Guys, i have this good fucking idea" Ronin said before stopping, having a mischievous look om his face and crossing his arms. "Every Idea that you have is a bad idea ronin." Angel sighed out before shaking her head, knowing he had a bad idea. "Ooh Ooh, let me guess- Murder spree? Let the city know our names before i leave?" Misaki said before Ronin pulled out a crowbar from his bag. "Exactly fucking that."

You're fucked.

A murder spree? When you thought you couldn't get any unluckier, this happens. I mean- you could pretend to kill anyone, but that wouldn't work. Not when you're with four other people.

"So, What ya think about it Darlin'? Cruel, fun and informative. Show us some of those killer moves of yours"

"Yeah, You actually never told us about it. I would like to see a reader killing in live 3D!"

"Uh- As much as i wanna see them do it, we shouldn't pressure them."

"Lets hope for you this one does not show up on the news."

"I would love to guys, but i don't have my weapons on me right now. No weapons, no murder"

"C'monnnn Darlin', Such a killjoy are ya? Scared to dig out some guts with ya bare hands? Or do you really want a weapon?"

"Cause if you do, We just gotta head on to the purgatory, There's a fuck ton of guns and knifes there to even satisfy your wildest fantasies"

.

.

.

You were too scared to chicken out, so you just hoped that there was a dead body nearby so you could've pretended you killed it. Hopefully.

"What's the matter? Too fuckin' scared? This isn't your first time killing, no?"

"Yeah, C'monn, i wanna see you in action!"

"Let's not rush them, or we might drive them that crazy that they hunt us"

Misaki picked up a random gun, carefully checking if it is loaded or not. She inspected it, and when she found out it was loaded, she sparked with joy and aimed it to a random alleyway. And Boom- she shot someone. Maybe it was because she is a literal assassin, or maybe she was really lucky.

"Damn, Headshot."

"I can tell that that person has no respect to the fauna of this land."

"First, what does fauna mean, second, you're probably right."

"Fauna means the animal respective to the area"

"The only ones that dare come here are assholes, weirdo's or people that were dared here."

"Wow a free tour by ronin? Count me in"

"Wow that's uh.. Impressive"

You wandered around for a bit before you picked up a random knife, all bloodied and dull, and stopped looking around. No people in sight, so no murders.. For now. You decide to walk into an alley, you said you were going to look for victims, but in reality, you were trying to find an escape.

But there were a few complications-

They would eventually find out that you were trying to leave, and then you'd have four actual serial killers after you.

You could pretend you killed someone, splash some blood on your clothes, grab some random corpse that was already there, and show them. But do you have the guts to do that?

And lastly, even if you did escape, the server would know, Ronin might expose you and then you could say goodbye to your little book.

What are you going to do?

[ladyofrosefire]

saw this post. had a burst of Feelings About Pedagogy. Bon appetite.

Your teachers didn't lie to you.

Well, okay, if you got to your senior year of high school and they're still saying 'a paragraph is 5-8 sentences,' yes there is something wrong, but that seems like an unlikely thing to have happen.

In teaching, we start with 'a paragraph is 5 sentences' for the same reason you might practice a specific type of spin in ballet by putting your hands on your shoulders while you turn half circles. The end result does not work like that, but it builds a skill essential to what the result will look like in the future. Just like practicing with your hands on your shoulders helps you practice balance and spotting, being told 'it must be 5 sentences' or 'it must be 5-8' sentences pushes students used to writing 2-3 sentences to practice developing their thoughts.

It also removes some ambiguity when a teacher says 'I would like a paragraph response' and means 'I would like a well-developed response that isn't multiple pages long.' I've taught 7th, 8th, and 11th graders. If you say 'paragraph' to 11th graders, they understand what boreal-sea is saying, to some extent. They are still practicing recognizing when they have tried to jam two points into one paragraph, but they do recognize that a paragraph is a unit of thought.

The 7th and 8th graders are still trying to figure out:

what a paragraph is

how to think through ideas and write those thoughts down

possibly how little work they can get away with doing (the 11th graders might be doing this, also, but have a better sense of it)

and so on

This list is not exhaustive, and there will be variation by school district/country/etc, however. Something something tumblr post disclaimer about not applying to every situation ever.

TL,DR; Saying a paragraph is 5 sentences is a stepping stone tool used to build skills and clarify meaning and it is NOT meant to stay with a student for their whole career. It is meant to give you a metaphorical flotation device for when when the student is chucked into the deeper water of 'having to write responses requiring enough complexity that you probably need more than 2-3 sentences.' You are not just "feel[ing] that shit in your soul"— you have internalized the function of a paragraph and understand it on some level, even if you have, for some reason or another, never articulated the logic to yourself.

[harlequinoccult]

thank you for explaining the caustic personality!! honestly Vulpine might as well have caustic as his main w apathetic tendencies instead, ig ill find out when the demo is updated XD both personality types fit him too well. honestly he's not that aggressive as a person, he's actually mostly quite polite, but he does have a tendency to stare. the ones who really get to see his aggressive side are the people he dislikes (Host better fucking prepare himself-)

well i figured i'd just finish what i started, and continue on my never-ending ramble. usually i like making Ariel an orphan, it's a bit of a callback to his roots and it fits him, but this time i think the second option i usually go for him fits best: single child of a single mother. she's the only family he has that he knows of, a very loving, religious and hard working lady who was shunned from the community for getting pregnant out of wedlock. the very first fights Ari would get into in his childhood were against kids who would say some unsavory shit abt his mom. having a mother who was blindly dedicated to the same church that constantly made her suffer for the mistake of having a kid without a husband also played a very big part into Ariel becoming an atheist and rebelling against the church in his teen years.

she was p absent as a parent, having to work p much the whole day to be able to support them both, but she tried her best the moments when she was present, and Ari recognizes that and loves her dearly. he started stealing things and got his first job quite young to try to help her pay the bills.

he got arrested when he was around 18 yo, probably getting caught on one of his "heists", trying to steal from the richer houses around, and he hasn't seen her since then. his time in prison was... bad. really fucking bad. the worst, lowest point of his life, in fact.

i have no idea how the legal system works in england and i have no desire to learn, but for what's worth he is caught trying to escape at least once, and spends 2 miserable years in there until he finally manages to leave.

did he actually complete his sentence? lol. lmao.

no. no he didn't. be it by a month, a year, a day, the important thing is he didn't.

is Ariel Fox even his real name? i doubt it. that would be stupid wouldn't it, illegally immigrating to a different country after escaping from prison and using your real ass name to do it, he's smarter than that.

fun fact abt Ari: he does not want to go back to prison. he'll kill himself before they have the chance to catch him.

on a... "unrelated" note, the reason why Carter managed to wrap such a tight leash on Ariel is bc he learned smth he shouldn't have and he's holding that little secret right over his head. im sure you can't possibly guess what he found out that would make Ariel put up w his shit the way he did-

so the fact that Ari ends up in this city (i forgor the name and i can't leave the askbox to check or ill lose everything i typed 😭) is honestly not rlly much of a surprise, nor is the fact that he's p much alone despite living there for years. he's always been a bit of an outcast, a loner, someone who avoids people on purpose. he hasn't seen his mom since he left england, but he looks her up every once in a while. debates whether he should call her. decides it's for the best that he doesn't.

he starts over. new life, new me, or whatever the hell people say. starts off already with shifty connections, he needs a fake identity and a fake birth certificate and a fake everything if he has any hope of passing by unscathed, after all. needs to lay low. not call too much attention. be a nobody. wait until things calm down a bit.

he stays at least a year living like that, settling in, subduing his accent until he can pass it off as having learned it from a family member or some other bullshit. applies for university. becomes just another american college student.

meets someone.

falls in love.

has them taken from him. has his entire life destroyed. again. needs to try to pick himself up. again. is struck with such crippling grief unlike anything he has ever felt before. it's almost as bad as the two worst years of his life.

almost.

he's never letting anything like that happen to him ever again.

anyway! as mentioned before, he was working on getting a doctorate when Carter came along, and he sort of had to drop out after that, to the dismay of his teachers. what was he getting a doctorate on? honestly p much anything would be in-character for Ariel, he's an everything nerd, from language to history to engineering to biology that man wants to know quite literally everything the world has to offer him. his infodumps are the most complete and varied possible, he's a walking talking encyclopedia.

he's an extremely paranoid person who overthinks everything including his own overthinking and really, if nothing else here's to hoping that OD can at least teach him to loosen up a bit-

he never enjoyed doing drugs very much, despite partaking in them quite often in his youth. he's way more likely to experience a bad trip than a good one, so he learned to stay away from them as much as possible, but alcohol and nicotine were a completely different story. he's still addicted to nicotine to this day, the one drug he allows himself to never let go. he was an alcoholic through a big chunk of his life, until someone did Very Bad Things to him when he was too drunk to be able to fight back. that experience just flipped a switch inside of him, it broke him badly enough to make him promise himself to never touch another drop of alcohol in his life, a promise he did very well by until Carter killed his beloved and he had the worst relapse of his life. he's back to being a straight edge now tho, its fine! its not fine

he has immense distaste for the cops of the city, but part of him is kinda grateful that they're so bad at their job or else he would be Fucked. he absolutely despised doing work for Carter, even after he became so numb to it all it made him want to tear his own heart out just to make sure it was still beating. i cannot stress enough how much he suffered inside at the start, part of the reason he started drinking again was to try to ignore how much all of it hurt. at least he could try to make sure Carter didn’t kill innocents. he couldn't really be sure every time, but he tried. he really did.

he probably tried killing Carter at least once. or thought abt it, at the very least. made plans. had it all figured out in his head, down to the last detail, how he would do it and get away with it. ngl, he was probably on the verge of putting it into action when Host sent him that email and just gave him the perfect chance to do it just like that-

as a killer, Vulpine is very much the stealthy type, hiding in the shadows, walking withouth making a sound. if its a group, he'll pick them off one by one, until someone notices and all hell breaks loose or until all of them are dead. if he's forced to kill someone he doesn't think deserves it, he's merciful. very quick, clean deaths, going straight for the vitals, almost painless. if it's someone he thinks deserves to suffer, however... well, he's always been curious to know what a human vivisection would look like.

truth is, he's a sadist. well, a sadomasochist really, but he gets off on making people suffer, and he hates it. he especially hates the fact that hurting the person he loves is such a tantalizing thought. marking them blue and black, covering them in red, it's not really his fault blood is such a beautiful thing, is it? and if his lover wants to do the same to him, well, he's more than happy to oblige. anything for his love. except bondage. getting tied up/held down is actually a pretty bad trigger for him, he hates it, no matter the context

ok well i think that's everything! thanks for indulging me!!

-🦊

The ask is somewhere around here, i know it, but with caustic mcs, Carter assumed they were all bark and no bite. Fitting, i think.

And, given everything, OD is a fitting match, they like learning and they are smart -in their own way- the drugs and partying is for themselves, they aren't the type to pressure people into drugs, in fact, they can and will tell you about the various side effects of any given drug because they think its legitimately interesting.

[lifebyinez]

Tiny Fires - Emily Prentiss x Reader

Chapter 1- The Big Move

-Emily's POV-

"Absolutely Not." I was met with a disapproving groan from the rest of the team. I crossed my arms and shook my head at them. "It is not happening. I am more than capable of defending myself. I am not leaving my house, and I certainly am not leaving the team." They must be crazy, thinking I would leave my house, my job, and my life behind. Especially to live with her. JJ places her hand on my knee. "Emily, we're not asking you to leave. We are asking you to take a break for your own safety. Not to mention the safety of the team." I scoffed at her. This whole situation was pissing me off more than you can imagine.

Years ago, there was a case in Cincinnati that ended in a shootout. There had been 2 unsubs, a husband and wife. Rachel, the wife, had her gun on JJ, and I took the shot that ended her life. James had escaped. We tried for weeks to catch him, but he might as well have disappeared. He was... gone. Well, 8 years later he is back and he wants revenge. I killed his wife, and he wants to kill me. Which is why the team is trying to force me into hiding with my least favorite person on the planet.

Rossi spoke up, "Prentiss, you don't have a choice in this. It's for your own safety." Excuse me? "Im sorry, did you forget that I am your boss?" It was Reid's turn to speak now. "No, we haven't forgotten. But he knows you, in and out. He's been watching you for years, and he's preparing to kill you. Which means he knows that you don't particularly enjoy Y/N, which is why her home is the perfect place to lay low." He had a point. Their plan made perfect sense. Buy a plane ticket in my name, turn in my resignation, and have me disappear to another country. He would follow 'me'  there. There would be an apartment in my name in whatever country they choose. He would drive himself crazy trying to find me, with the fake tracks we would lay. In a way, it was my only option. If I actually fled the country, he would find me. If I faked my death, he would dig up my grave to make sure I was actually dead. If I stayed in a hotel, he would see the card transactions, the name it was in, and he would figure it out. Honestly, I know staying. with Y/N is the only safe option, but I do not want to accept it.

Y/N was a pain in my ass. Every time we were on a case, it was like she was trying to get herself killed. She just brushed it off when I yelled at her. I  honestly don't understand how she got here, let alone how she is still alive. I would have fired her a long time ago, but she is fantastic at her job, I'll give her that, But that's all she has going for her. It almost cancels out her amazing profiling skills. Almost. I wouldn't say I hate her, but her carelessness with her life absolutely infuriates me.

"Even if  I  agree to this, what makes you think she will?" I asked. Penelope spoke, "Maybe because she is absolutely desperate for your approval. That and I already asked her, she said yes." I groaned. Of course, she would, another stupid and dangerous thing for her to do. Of course, she's all for it. "And what if he figures it out? He'll target her, you know." I said. JJ sighed, "We have it figured out, Emily. You and her just can't know those details, but he won't know. You just have to trust us. Please." I thought about it for a moment. They're not going to let this go, and my options are limited. "What about Sergio?" I desperately tried to find any reason to not go through with it, but it was becoming more apparent that I didn't have another choice. "Oh please," Garcia responded, " you think I didn't think about that? You know Y/N loves cats. She said you're both welcome as long as you need."

"Fine."

I wasn't allowed to pack anything. The movers had to do it all, for fear of him following me. And right now, I looked completely ridiculous. Blonde wig, a lot of makeup, sunglasses, bright clothes. I looked nothing like myself. I was riding in the back of the SUV, completely hidden by the tinted windows. This get-up was completely unnecessary, but they insisted. Derek was driving, and trying to make small talk. I was too pissed off to give more than a 3-word reply.  45 minutes later, I was in front of Y/N's house. I have to admit, it was impressive. It's beautiful here, the house was completely secluded. Surrounded by woodlands,  with a small creek running alongside the house. The house looked like an oversized cottage, it was lovely, and totally Y/N. I'm surprised she was able to afford this, she was much younger than the rest of the team, and as far as I know, she didn't come from money. Either way, I could think of worse places to go into hiding. Even if it was with someone as intolerable as Y/N.

Y/N was standing on the porch with Sergio in her arms. What the hell? Sergio doesn't let anyone pick him up. Especially strangers. She smiled at me and took Sergio's paw and waved it. Derek looked back at me. "Go into the house, and go fast." I nodded. " And Emily? Try and release all of that tension you have with that poor girl. And when you do, feel free to send me the video." Oh my god, he will never let up with that, and it's ridiculous. When Y/n first started, the team liked to joke that she was exactly my type. To be fair, they weren't wrong. Her  y/h/c, y/e/c, and that body... But none of that mattered the minute she opened her mouth. "In your dreams, Derek." I said as I got out of the car. I speed walked up the porch, and she held the door open for me.

"Hi! Welcome home. I know you're probably tired, but I figured we could get the tour over as soon as possible, so you'll have time to relax?" I just nodded at her, already finding myself getting irritated. I saw a flash of disappointment in her eyes, but she turned around before I could study it. She turned to her left. "That's the living room, TV remote is on the coffee table. I don't watch much TV,  so it's pretty much always available, and if you want to watch something and I'm using it, just let me know. I'll find something else to do." She spoke quickly and with an excited tone in her voice. "You do not have to do that, this is your house." "I insist! if you're going to be cooped up here for a long time, you at least have to be entertained." Before I could argue with her, she turned to her right and started walking. "This is the family room. This is where I normally hang out when I'm not downstairs. But if you want to be in here and I'm annoying you feel free to kick me out." Geez, now I'm starting to feel bad. I was about to say something but she continued on. She pointed at the piano "I can teach you how to use that if you want." She didn't give me time to respond before walking through the French doors into the kitchen/dining room. The kitchen was adorable, filled with little nicknacks and foliage that just screamed Y/N. It was very much her home. "I went grocery shopping before you came, but I wasn't sure what you liked. I put a little notebook in your room for you to make lists of what you would like me to pick up when I go shopping. I can go tomorrow if you'd like." I didn't answer her question, instead, I asked my own. " Why do you have a table that big if you live alone." She stopped in her tracks. I couldn't read the expression on her face. She stumbled over her words. "oh, uh... That's probably a story for a different time." She started walking towards the stairs. "Downstairs is a bar, bathroom, and laundry room. Drink whatever you would like." She started walking up the stairs. There was a cute little loft area. There were lots of candles, plants, and cute decorations that matched y/n perfectly. She lead me to a door and held it open for me. I walked into what I presume to be her office. There's a small couch, a desk with her computer, and a lifetime supply of books. Every room had touches of y/n's personality. "Read anything you want, and let me know what kind of books you like. I get a really good discount at this little family bookstore 20 minutes away. I guess you can say I'm a very loyal customer." She smiled at me, I didn't smile back. "The password on the computer is in that drawer, use it whenever you'd like." She turned and walked out of the room. We continued on with the tour, showing me the main bathroom. She opened another door, "This is my room." The room isn't what you'd expect from a 26-year-old girl. There were a lot of older art pieces, another bookshelf that was stocked to the brim. A soft orange color painted the walls, and just like the rest of the house, so many plants. I started to wonder how she managed to keep all of them alive.

It was all so Y/N. The paintings, the old-timey decor, the plants. It was all her, and it was actually quite endearing. If only she wasn't insufferable. She looked up and me, but I didn't meet her eyes. "Okay, are you ready to see your room?" I nodded at her. She lead me across the loft and opened what I assumed to be my door. "I'm sorry it's so plain, I didn't have much time to prepare." I don't know what she's talking about, the room isn't plain at all. Little touches of her sprinkled throughout. I nodded in her direction again. I was about to say something but she spoke first. She looked like she was trying not to cry. "Look, I know you would rather be anywhere else in the world right now, and I'm sorry you got stuck with me here. I'll try and stay out of your way." I wanted to say something, to apologize, but nothing came out. She waited a moment to see if I had anything to say, and when I didn't, she walked out.

I'm an idiot. That was so incredibly rude of me. I need to apologize.

But I should probably let her have space. I'm sure she's not happy having me here. It's certainly going to be an adjustment for both of us.

I looked around the room. She had obviously prepared for this. The bed was made perfectly, but there was a basket of extra blankets, sheets, and pillows on top of the dresser. And on the nightstand, a basket of snacks. All of my favorites... how did she know what kind of snacks I like? Taped to the basket was a note reading 'Welcome home'. Oh my god, I am a jerk.

I could feel the exhaustion taking over my body. I didn't bother changing my clothes, I just laid down and drifted into a deep sleep. So deep, that I didn't hear the knocking on my door, or y/n entering.

When I woke up, it was dark outside. I rolled over to check my phone to see what time it was, but my hand landed on something soft and warm. She made dinner. And it smelled absolutely amazing. I took a closer look and could immediately tell it was all homemade. Chicken and gnocchi soup next to a plate of chicken marsala. Oh my god, it tasted even better than it looked!

Then it dawned on me, I still hadn't apologized.

I knocked on her door, and I heard no response. Okay, she must be downstairs. But she wasn't in the living room, or the family room, or the kitchen. Now I'm getting worried. Where the hell would she go this late? "Y/n!" I called out, not caring that my voice was shaky and panicked. No answer. I called again, but still no answer. I rushed downstairs. She wasn't in the bar, the laundry room, or the bathroom. I tried to check another room, but it was locked. I yelled for her again, but still no answer. I called her phone again and again. Each time it rang and rang until it went to voicemail. I checked every room in the house again, and I still didn't see her. I felt like I could throw up. I checked the living room, and just like the other 3 times I looked, she wasn't there. I was about to call Garcia to trace her phone when lightning flashed outside. I instantly calmed down. She was outside. Who the hell goes outside during a thunderstorm at 1 in the morning? I opened the door but she didn't hear me. I took a second to admire her like this. No mask to cover her feelings. Just content to be outside. Truth be told, she looked gorgeous. her hair fell over her shoulders. She didn't notice as I moved closer to her, content to just stare at the rain. I put my hand on her shoulder and she yelped and jumped back. She looked up at me, her eyes wide with fear before softening upon seeing me. "Oh, it's just you. You scared me!" I took a good long look at her before speaking, "You scared me more." She looked confused but didn't question it. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you liked to sit outside during storms either, I'll go and give you some alone time. Does she really think that I hate her that much? I didn't respond as I sat down next to her.

"No, you don't need to go."

[myzzjolanda]

Biggest fears

So eh, I might have done a thing again. Not sure if it's any good, but I loved writing it. This idea had been in my head for a while now and I wanted to share this. Might have some language mistakes because English isn't my first language, it's late and I'm tired. Enjoy!

Pairing: Larissa Weems x reader

Show: Wednesday

Warnings: none, but a bit of angst and fear of rejection I guess?

You've always sucked at love. The short story about it was that you were scared of it. Scared of being happy and being loved and then being hurt. Long story was that you were bullied for a long time untill you were 17, and in that period never dared to ask someone out. What if they just laughed at you and tell every person they knew of about that ridiculous thing you asked? And then the next day, the bullying at school would be even worse. You decided to save yourself from the embarrasment. After you were 17, things got better. You weren’t bullied as much anymore, but you still did have a lot of shame in you. Your selfworth was low, you still hadn’t had a boyfriend or girlfriend and you were just feeling not that pretty or interesting at the age of 25 you had your very first ‘boyfriend’, who, looking back at it, just did things for sex so that ended quickly. He was trying to hide you a lot and while you were together it was just sex. You both decided this wasn’t going to get better the best thing was to end things. You were quite angry with him for this, since you trusted him with being a virgin and all and you felt used. He didn’t seem to care much. In the 2 years that followed, you dated a bit more but it ended all in nothing. At that point, you decided to quit love. The hurt wasn’t worth it, if everyone decided not to want you.

And here you are, at 30, being in love with a tall, blonde woman who is so pretty she could be a godess. You didn’t know how it exactly happened. You had decided to do your masters abroad and choose a small university in the United States. The masters suited your bachelor well and you loved that you could experience this in another place than your own country. You had decided to take a part-time job in a bookshop in Jericho to earn some extra money, and that was where you met her. She walked in on your first day at work, which happened to be a rainy Saturday, with so much grace and the brightest smile you’ve ever seen. Appereantly she always bought her weekly newspaper from the UK there, since it was obvious that that was where she was from. You noticed that after some weeks, you started to look forward to her visits to the shop. Although you decided a good while back not to do love again, you did decide it wouldn’t hurt to befriend her right? She seemed really sweet and you’ve noticed you both had some similar tastes. Both loved reading, history and classical music. You found out her name was Larissa Weems and that she was the headmistress of the school for outcasts. She was well respected in the city, but still down to earth and really sweet and friendly. You could be easily just friends with her. Although you were madly in in love with her, you’d rather be just friends. You were too afraid that telling her your feelings and/or becoming a couple would ruin what you had build up with her. You figured that as long as you could just be friends, you could manage.

That was untill the moment at your weekly coffeemeeting after your work, when Larissa started to look a bit more serious. “Y/n? I want to ask you something.”. She looked around, almost to see how many people there still were in the Weathervane. Since it was near closingtime, it was almost empy, just the barista and the two of you. Your heart sank when you saw Larissa’s face. She looked really worried, but also hopefull. You put on a brave smile. “Go ahead!”, you answered cheerfully. She took your hand. She stayed silent for a terrifying long moment. “I think I’m starting to like you.”, she said with a soft voice. You felt the sensation of panick rise in your stomach. It was so much, it almost hurt. Your mouth felt dry. “Y-you like me.”, you answered. She nodded, almost afraid. You freaked out. You were scared, you had decided not to do this anymore, because you were always scared. “I got to go.”, you said, standing up and almost running away from Larissa. “y/n!”, she tried yelling out you. If you had looked back, you could’ve seen how scared Larissa looked when yelling for you, and then sad after you run out of Weathervane. But you didn’t look back. You were to scared of what you would see. In your mind, you’d know this would be bullshit, but you’d still have a guttfeeling that someone would be lauging at you, because of the way you've just behaved. Perhaps Larissa was laughing because of you. Perhaps she thought you were weird because of today. She wouldn’t be the first one to think so. When you got home, you were brave for a few mlre minutes. You quickly changed into your comfy pyjama’s, put your phone into your charger and then ran to your bed. You hugged your teddybear tightly, and then cried. You just cried long untill you fell asleep.

Larissa felt the urge to call you quite often for the next couple of days, but she couldn’t do it. You looked so scared when she admitted her feelings to you. Did she say something wrong? She never ment to hurt or scare you. She decided she’d leave you be for the moment. Perhaps you’d just wanted someone else than her. Someone better or so.

In the next couple of weeks, you noticed that Larissa wouldn’t come over for her weekly newspaper anymore. Instead, she always asked one of her teachers to pick it up for her. Although you didn’t like to admit this, but this probably even hurt just as much as getting your heart broken after a relationship. You wanted to make it up to her, but you didn’t know how. Perhaps she didn’t want to have anything to do with you anymore. You just ran away from her, no explanation, no nothing. If she still wanted you, she would’ve visited the shop again, wouldn’t she? On the other hand, perhaps she was just as hurt and scared as you are. You made a mental note to text her when you were of from work. That gave you a bit of time to think wha you wanted to text her. You decided you’d rather text Larissa than to call her, because you were still scared of her reaction. You’d rather read her reaction than hear her angry or upset reaction.

That night, you still didn’t know what you wanted to text Larissa. You sighted. “I messed up, didn’t I?”, that would be short. But isn’t it a weird message to send, after all this time? For the time being, you couldn’t think of anything better, so you just pressed send. You were worried that if you’d wait any longer, she wouldn’t read the message anymore. And then the scared waiting began. And then all of a sudden, Larissa her status changed to ‘online’, and the status of the message changed to ‘read’. You panicked even more. You started to breathe more heavily. You layed down in bed, pressed your teddybear close to you again, and started typing again. Hopefully to make things better again.

“I’m sorry I messed up, I didn’t want to hurt you. I got scared. Not scared of you, but I’m scared of love. I didn’t want to mess up. I think I like you too. I miss you and I’m sorry.”, you typed, and pressed ‘send’ again. You waited again. Larissa was typing now.

“Are you home now?”

“Yes. But I look like shit now.”

“I don’t care, so do I. I’m coming over.”.

Your eyes got wide. What did this mean? Is Larissa angry with you now? Was she going to yell at you? She was so tall, she could tower over you so easily and when she would yell… or was she just happy that you said you liked her too? Different scenario’s were happening in your head now, one even worse than the other. You didn’t want to think of the positive scenario’s. What if the end was bad anyways?

Your doorbell rang way too early to your liking. You carefully opened the door, and saw Larissa. Despite the situation, you were so glad you saw her. You noticed she didn’t look happy, nor angry, but she looked… sad? You never saw anyone look so sad towards you. “Hi.”, she said. She tried to smile. “can I come in? I did bring that wine you liked with me.”, she continued. That cought you of guard. You knew she was sweet, but in those weeks without her, you forgot hów sweet she was. You just simply noddrd and made way for her to get in. You walked her to your kitchen and grabbed two wineglasses. You watched as Larissa poured the both of you a glass lf wine. You decided to break the silence. “Larissa, I-“ “No, wait. Sit.”, she demanded. Oh. Yeah. That would be handy. You sat down and played with your wineglass a bit. Suprisingly to you, Larissa’s face softened a bit. “I can tell you are nervous, y/n. Can you tell me a bit what scares you?”. You shrugged. You didn’t even know where to start. Slowly, you answered: “Love, I guess. Never had much friends in school, got bullied, had my first boyfriend at 25 who took my virginity and left me shortly after, dated a bit afterwards but no one wanted me. I think I always felt unlovable and those things didn’t make anything better.”. You felt your eyes sting. “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”, you added softly. Larissa remained silent for a few minutes. You didn’t dare to look her in her eyes. Eventually, she took your hand “did you mean it? In that tekst? That you liked me back.” You looked up again. You felt a weird hopefull feeling in your belly. You couldn’t supress a smile while you nodded. Larissa smiled back while she squeezef your hand. “Good. Because to me, you’re not unlovable. You are the sweetest, prettiest, purest person I’ve met and I’d love to have you in my live.”, she said. “Really?”, you answered, ashamed almost immediatly of how happy you sounded. “yes.”, Larissa answered, while she pulled you onto her lap. “And I know you’re still a bit scared, I can see it in those pretty eyes of yours. But I don’t care. We can do things as slowly as you want this to be. I want to wait for you. Because that is what you do when you love someone. As long as you allow me to call you mine. I love you, y/n y/l/n.”. You felt like you could cry. You admitted your biggest fear to Larissa, and she still loved you. She was even willing to wait for you. “I love you too, Larissa Weems.”, you answered, and then kissed those beautifull, red lips. “but indeed, please wait for me if I get scared again.”, you hummed after the two of you let go of each other again. Larissa smiled her prettiest smile at you. “I will, my love, I’ll always wait for you.”.

[pocketramblr]

AU where Stain and Dabi a terrifying and successful villains. If you wanr to give them a twist it’s on you.

1- Stain, on hearing the nomu start to wreak havoc on Hosu, decides not to bother toying with a hero student, annoying as that one might be. Stain is terrifying because he's efficient. He cuts Native's throat, tells Tenya he should have focused on the hostage, and leaves. His shtick works because he sticks with it. He's the Hero Killer. Not a child killer, not a villain killer. So he won't let his return attack on the LoV be spotted by any public, but he'll be sure to make it clear he's not with the league. He vanishes before Tenya or Izuku can find him.

2- had Touya joined a different chat room one link above what he clicked, he would have ended up pulled in with Dr. Ujiko. Instead, he fell down the MLA pipeline. And when he runs away, he doesn't end up in a hospital. He ends up a favorite of ReDestro.

3- Dabi stays there a while, with support equipment to get his fire even stronger without hurting him. ReDestro delights in his enthusiasm and dramatics. Dabi thinks ReDestro is an idiot, but he tolerates it because it's all for his grand revenge plan. Until, eventually, there's only so strong Dabi can get. There's weaknesses in his quirk. Geten shows promise too. So Dabi acts, but this one has learned his lesson from the failed attempt to kill his first replacement in Shoto. Instead, he frames his cousin for killing ReDestro- after all, they can't find fingerprints on a half melted icicle, and they wouldn't look anyway when Geten seems obvious there. Dabi inherits a lot of money and Detnerat equipment, then leaves. He didn't care for the MLA's goals, after all.

4- not caught, Stain continues his thing. He kills three heroes in each city. He just does it faster now, because every time Shigaraki figures out where he is, nomu or LoV members tend to go there too. Between Stain, the LoV, and a mysterious villain who keeps setting massive fires, heroes are on high alert and full patrol. It gets worse after Kamino. Rather than canon where the HPSC gets higher standards at the exam, now they're desperate for numbers. Stain follows All Might, who asks if he's going to be killed for failing at kamino. Stain scoffs, since he beat AfO then, and says no- as long as All Might is continuing in doing all he can. Which means making his students better. Which means taking care of himself, not giving in to Nighteye's prophecy. All Might asks how he knows about that, and Stain leaves without explaining, but it's clear to All Might that Stain can get too close to UA, which means the students are in danger of his high expectations as well. He brings this up, and they decide to disallow internships instead... Until the HPSC forces them to reverse that. Still, Nedzu warns Nighteye that Stain might be heading his way, and that he won't have Mirio or Izuku as interns until that's taken care of.

5- since the HPSC let more pass the exam this year instead of less, everyone in 1A got their licence. Shoto takes an internship with Rocklock. Dabi attacks the agency, and Shoto barely manages to keep an ice wall around them to save their lives. Dabi tells Shoto good luck and vanishes, and Rocklock sends him back to UA since he kinda has to focus on rebuilding his agency. Shoto, who's figured Dabi has something against Endeavor and will follow him if he goes to another agency, asks Izuku if he wants to join him at his father's for their internships, unaware this will end up bringing both Dabi and Stain down on the team. But hey, they're the number one hero agency in the country now. Surely they can handle two villains, even if they're that bad... Right?

[warmaidensrevenge]

Moving on

Pairings: Joseph Quinn x plus size reader x Evan Peters

If you want to read my other work you can find it HERE

A/N: Hey everyone. I am back. Still working on some fics and it's taking me longer to come up with endings. Seems like I'm at a writers block for two of my fics. If anyone has any ideas to help I would really appreciate it. Update: life sucks but I'm doing better. I have a trip coming up to see the love of our lives and I'm so nervous. I think I might be too in my head to comprehend that I'm going to meet Joseph Quinn. Hopefully things will get clear when I do. Anyways, this is a request I had sitting in my inbox forever. Thanks @generouspuppypuppy. It is different from your exact suggestion. But I still hope you like it. Thanks for reading. As always feedback is greatly appreciated and ask/comments are always welcomed. Kay love ya bye.

Word count: 3,250

I do not give permission for my work to be used or published anywhere else. Please be respectful to all creators.

Warnings: 18+ hurt/comfort, cheating, heartache with a happy ending.

Summary: One mistake, time apart, new love and a baby.

🖤

You sat there in disbelief in what you just heard. You were just so happy this morning. Your boyfriend of 3 years just got home from filming. He had gotten a part playing a new character on Stranger Things named Eddie Munson. After 6 long months Joe was home. And he was sitting across from you on the couch, telling you he cheated on you with his co-star Grace. The moment you heard it, all the air was sucked from your lungs and your heart sank. Not knowing what to say so you just sat there. 

" Love. I'm so sorry. I never meant for it to happen." Joe grabbed your hand.

That's when you finally looked at him. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy. With tears rolling down his thin cheeks. It's been a while since you've seen him in person, and all you could think of was how skinny he was. 

You felt tears fall and you looked away from him to wipe them away. 

" Love…please say something." 

You didn't look back at him. You pulled your hand away and went to the room. Joe followed. 

He watched you grab your duffle bag and started shoving things in.

" No." He said, grabbing your hands. " Please. I can fix this."

You jerked your hands away and continued packing. Joe sat on the bed and cried harder. His eyes follow you back and forth throughout the room. He tried to talk but you weren't listening. Once you had everything you went to the door and stopped. With your back towards him you sniffled.

" I'm gonna stay in a hotel…I need time."

He stood up and started for you but you practically ran away. Joe caught your eye as you closed the door. 

"Love?"

" Goodbye Joseph."

His heart sank. You never called him by his name. The only time you had was when you first met. That was almost 6 years ago. He noticed you immediately while he was on the set for Howard's End. He honestly thought you were so beautiful. He remembered seeing you in a lot of small stuff. Mostly just plays. But he thought you were talented. And he was in love. Though at the time he thought being from 2 different countries that your paths would never cross. But boy was he happy to be wrong. Your part in the show was small. Which surprised him but the few lines you had were well done. His part was small as well so you guys spent a lot of time together. Before he knew it he lived part time in the US. He started off as your roommate. Then that turned into dating. 3 years later and he was never happier. He was ready to get married and start having kids. But he fucked all that up. A drunken mistake caused you to leave him standing in your guy's home all alone. He knew you all too well. When you were hurt or when you guys argued, you shut down and walked away. Later coming back to figure things out. And though he was breaking down, he hoped that tomorrow he would get to talk to you. But that's not what happened. One week went by and then another. He hadn't received word from you. On the third week he came home after a meeting with his agent and found that all your things were gone. Your side of the closet was empty. All your drawers were emptied and your side of the bathroom sink was bare. Joe leaned on the wall and sank down to the floor. Burying his face in his hands.

He cried harder than ever. " What have I done?" 

A good 20 minutes passed when he finally calmed down enough to call you. He went to the living room and saw an envelope on the coffee table. Inside was your 1 month move out notice. Joe's heart shattered. 6 years of friendship, 3 years of a life together and it was over just like that. That wasn't going to happen. You were his everything. So he called you. You had agreed to meet him later on and he had hope.

When he arrived at the coffee shop you were already there. The moment he saw you he could feel your heartache. You had a frown fixed on your lips and dark circles around your eyes. 

What have I done to you my love?

He approached you and you quickly glanced at him. Then looked at your cup of tea. He sat down and took off his jacket.

" I took the liberty of ordering you tea." Your voice was lifeless and distant.

" Th-thank you."

You didn't look at him but gave a thin lip smile. He took a sip of his drink. When he put his mug down, that's when you pulled out a magazine from your bag and set it in front of him. Turning to the page you wanted him to see.

" I got this that night I left…it says there that you and Grace admitted to having a crush on one another."

Joe felt the blood drain from his face and his heart started to race. You finally looked him in the eye and all he saw was sadness.

" I thought we had an open door relationship." 

" We-we do." He stuttered.

" If that's true then why did I hear about this in there and not from you?" 

" I-I…"

You sighed and brought your hand up to wipe tears away.

" Joseph, I love you. And I came here for that reason and that reason only."

Joe winced hearing his name. All he wanted right now was to hear you call him Joey.

" What can I do to fix this? There has to be a way."

You shook your head. " There isn't."

" No! Love please."

He reached for your hand and to his surprise you didn't jerk away. Instead you just stared at your hands for a minute.

" The only way you can fix this is if you could go back and have one less drink. Or if you left early and came home to me." 

" I…" his voice trembled. " So this is it? You're going to let one mistake throw everything we worked for away?"

You pulled your hand away and met his tear filled eyes with yours.

" It wasn't me who decided that for us. That was you. Not being honest with me from the start is what broke us. How can we be together now? I can't trust you…I love you. I really do. But I can't be with you anymore."

He watched you get up and grab your things.

" Take care of yourself Joseph."

He hung his head. " I love you Y/n. And I always will."

" I will too."

…

A year went by and you got the role of a lifetime. Starring in a new show called American horror story. Acting side by side with Evan Peters. He was amazing. His range inspired you. You guys had worked so well together that in seasons to come you and Evan were offered roles as each other's love interests. After the break up you and Joe kept in touch. When Stranger Things season 4 came out, Joe didn't expect the amount of fame that he would get. Suddenly his life was turned upside down. It was incredible, but overwhelming. He did so much and traveled everywhere. He was happy, but very lonely. Since you there had been a few flings. But none that he wanted to pursue. That was because he had already found the nice girl he was looking for. He knew that you had moved on, however he couldn't. Seeing you with Evan was awful. You looked at Evan the way you used to look at him. Which hurt him more than words could describe.

Evan was ring shopping. TMZ had caught up with him outside a jewelry store. Not wanting you to find out that he was in fact buying you an engagement ring, Evan went to the store next door. Evan knew from the first kiss you and he shared that he was going to marry you. At that time you were still hurting over Joe. Rightfully so. So he chose to be your friend and help you through the pain. And once you were better he asked you out on a date. First it was weird for both of you. But at the end of the night you kissed him. After that you guys became inseparable. 

Now it was a year and a half  later and Evan was ready to make you his wife. 

Joe and Jamie were both good friends with you and Evan. So when Joe and Jamie received an invite to watch season 3 of American Horror Story. They were excited. Joe hadn't seen you in months and knowing that you and Evan were together, he was going to try and talk to you. Maybe he could get another chance.

When he and Jamie went to your loft, he was extremely nervous. Then you opened the door. You looked more beautiful than he remembered. You greeted them with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. That's when Joe saw the worst thing ever. He saw a beautiful diamond on your ring finger. He was in such a state of shock he froze there in the doorway. 

" Common Joey. " You said with a smile. 

You grabbed his hand and pulled him along to join the party. Turned out not only was it a watch party, but an engagement party. You had said that you didn't want any presents or anything like that. That's why you disguised the party. You wanted not only to share the success of the show but to celebrate the happy news with everyone you loved. 

Joe was wrecked. He tried his best to fake a smile. But as the night went on his heart broke over and over again. He saw how truly happy you were and part of him was happy for you. But he couldn't help but remember when he made you that happy. He sat there watching you with Evan. Seeing that twinkle in your eyes again. He wanted to drink. But since the break-up he stopped. Jamie was talking to your brother Bill when he saw Joe in his head. 

" Hey Bill. Are you on good terms with Joe?"

Bill looked at Joe and nodded.

" Is there somewhere we can talk in private?"

Bill looked at you and you were cuddled up with Evan on the couch. Laughing away.

" Yeah. Let's go out to the terrace." He said.

Jamie got Joe and went to join Bill outside. They all lit up cigars and started talking. Bill had a heart to heart with Joe. And he admitted that he always thought he would be going to yours and Joe's engagement party. Joe was grateful for the conversation. He and Bill were on the outs after the situation. However, Bill forgave him once you did. Joe always thought of Bill as a brother he never had. Well the whole Skarsgard family was on a whole nother level when it came to famous family's. But all of them were close. And Joe loved that. He loved how family oriented you were. And the fact that Joe's mom absolutely loved you. She had never liked any of his previous girlfriends. But the second she met you she immediately approved of you. Maybe it was because you weren't selfish, or full of yourself. Sure you looked nothing like the women he had dated before. But you were still very beautiful. You were kind and very humble. Everything about you screamed wife material.

As he stood there burning out his cigar, he regretted the 3 years he waited to ask you to be his wife. He regretted his mistake and losing you. So he decided to put the plan to win you back aside and apologize to you. Jamie had to leave early due to an early flight. So he left Joe to grab an Uber. The party started to simmer down and Joe was going to leave. But he asked if you would walk him out. Which you happily agreed to.

You guys silently walked down the hallway to the elevator.  Joe pressed the down button and smiled half heartedly at you. The doors opened and he held out his arm for you to go in first.

You smiled sweetly up at him. " Thank you Joey."

Joe felt his heart flutter hearing you call him that. A nickname you gave him a long time ago. Once you were both in you reached over and pressed the ground floor button. It was quite a ways down but the silence you shared was nothing but comforting. It always was. 

Joe cleared his throat. " Did umm did you have a good time?"

You looked away from the red numbers that said the floor you were on to him.

" I did. I'm so happy you and Jamie came."

" Me too…just wished I could have brought you a present."

You scrunched your nose a little and let out a nose laugh. 

" Joey, you being here was better than any present you could have given us. Besides, we don't need anything."

Joe nodded and looked at the numbers counting down. That's when he noticed the music. The song was an elevator version of Dreaming of You. He looked at you and saw your head slightly nodding to it. It's been so long since the last time you and he randomly dance somewhere. Those times were usually abrupt but so special to him. Every time he swore he fell deeper in love with you. Now not being any different. He grabbed your hand gently and twirled you. You laughed softly and beamed at him as he pulled you into his arms, swaying you back and forth. For a minute you guys danced until the doors dinged and opened. Joe reached for the close button and continued to dance with you. 

In a whole year, this was the first time you and he were alone. And he wasn't ready for it to be over. 

" Love, I'm really happy for you."

Your smile got bigger and your eyes were just slits. Joe's heart melted all over again. 

" Thank you Joey."

He twirled you once more, pulling you closer than before. 

" Love, I know that I've apologized countless times for my mistake. But what I failed to do was apologize for not saying that I would never do that again…I did not apologize for breaking your trust and for ruining our future. I never apologized for the tears you shed because of it or the hurt and betrayal you felt…for all of that, I am truly sorry. "

You were quiet for a moment and both of you stopped dancing. You then lifted to your toes and placed one soft kiss upon his cheek. After, you planted your feet back to the ground. 

" I've forgiven you a long time ago Joey. There's no need sorries again."

Joe hung his head. "I-I know. I just…I just need you to know if there was anything I could do to take it back, I would have done it in a heartbeat." 

You cupped his face causing him to look at you.

" I know you would have Joey. And I love you. I promised I would always love you. No matter what happens from this day forward. I want you to be happy. I want you to move on and forgive yourself."

He nodded and felt tears coming. " I love you y/n."

You kissed his cheek again and gave him a hug. When you tried to create some distance between you two he squeezed you gently once more before taking a step back. 

" I better let you go. Your fiance might worry that I've stolen you away."

" Can't have him thinking that."

Joe gave you a half smile and pressed the button to open the doors. He took one last look at you and waved.

" Travel safe Joey.

He gave you a nod and took his leave. 

I will love you forever. He thought

…

That night when everything was cleaned up you and Evan changed into your jammies. Evan was getting the bed ready when you left for a minute. When you came back you were holding a single vanilla cupcake. 

" What's this?" Evan grinned sitting down on the bed. Holding his hands out for you.

You blushed and went to him. Sitting on his lap. 

" It's for you….there's a surprise inside." 

You lifted up the sweet treat and peeled back the lining. 

" Take a big bite Eban."

Evan chuckled. He absolutely loved when you called him Eban. When he first met you, you thought his name was Eban. And he just thought it was so adorable that for 3 months he let you call him that until someone finally corrected you. But after that he insisted you keep calling him that.

He kissed you briefly and then took a very big bite. When he looked at you, your eyes were wide and started to fill with tears. He quickly cupped your face.

" What's wrong pumpkin?"

You laughed a little and sniffled. 

" Eban, I'm pregnant…and according to this blue filling." You lifted the cupcake showing him. " We're having a boy."

He stopped mid chew and mumbled a 'w-what?'

" I…you know how I don't have normal menstruation?"

He nodded.

You looked down and brought your hands down to rest on your thick thighs. 

" Well turns out I'm four months pregnant. We couldn't tell because I'm…well big… and umm remember the one month where we thought I had a bad case of the flu?"

Evan started to chew. " Mmhmm."

You met his gaze. " Morning sickness."

Finally getting the cupcake down he licked his lips. " Pumpkin, you're not joking are you?"

You gave him sad eyes and frowned, shaking your head.

" Oh My God!"

Your eyes widened again and he pulled you into a kiss. After, he kissed all over your face and your neck.

" Baby, baby, baby! You're having my baby?"

You giggled and squirmed when he kept kissing your ticklish spot on your neck.

" Y-yes…. Eban…y-yes."

" Oh pumpkin. I can't! I'm so…fuck! Kiss me baby."

You laughed again before you did. 

" Mmmm….yes… you're making me a daddy baby?"

You smiled against his lips. " Yes I am Eban."

He kissed you over and over again until he abruptly stopped.

" Shit pumpkin. Do you want to get married before or after the baby comes?"

You gave him a tender kiss, wrapping your arms around his neck. 

" Hmmm. Do you think if we have an officiate come this weekend, it would be too soon?"

Evan kissed you once more and slid you off his lap and went searching for his phone.

" What are you doing, Eban?"

" I gotta call our moms. They are gonna be so happy."

Your eyes followed him and he paced calling everyone you and he knew, to tell them to come over on Sunday for a wedding. After every call he would come to you and smother you with kisses. About an hour later he finally came to lay down. He put his hand on your belly and started running his thumb back and forth. 

" Can…can I make love to you?" He asked in his sweetest voice.

You leaned in and before you pressed your lips against his you whispered.

" Always."

…

@salenorona23

[liliesandthemoon]

Commenting on all lines of Glane in Gawain's 5* fates because he is all I think about lately ✌️

First things first, a little introduction here, because some people might be lost.

INTRO: WHO THE HECK IS GLANE?

✨Glane ✨ was Gawain's colleague when he was serving as a knight at Dalmore. Gawain jokingly says he just "tolerated" him, but by the way he happily salutes him when he sees him again in his fates, we can easily figure out they were close friends back then.

In Gawain's journal lines he talks about Glane too! He says something about how shocked he is to see how the huge introvert that used to laugh everything off he used to known is now the knight order commander.

Okay so you want to know more about him?

Let me tell you MORE ABOUT HIM!

First impressions are very important, not only in real life but also in fiction, the way one introduces a character can make people fall completely in love with them or despise them forever.

Glane ''Haha'' counter: 1

In our first encounter with Glane ( Light Gawain's 5* uncap fates) we can see he is a very humble, laid back person, who also likes to tease and joke from time to time.

First thing he does after seeing Gawain, the man everybody in Dalmore used to fear, is tease him about his ''triumphant return''

Glane ''Haha'' counter: 2

He completely ignores Gawain's ''tsunderistic'' antics not giving them any importance.

Gawain is very shocked when Glane reveals he is now the commander, and says that this is very bad news, we learn that Glane used to be in charge of logistics, so he is not the person most adequate to be the commander, but since there is a lack of strong knights in Dalmore (more like there are none at the moment) he is the only one Florence could count on to do the job.

Can you imagine being on that situation? You are just chillin' taking care of the logistics of the duchy (that are most of the time just organizing things, not actually being in the frontlines) and one day they ask you if you could be in charge of the knight order because there is nobody adequate for that job (meaning that ALL the knights the Dalmore knight order currently has are weaker than a guy that works at logistics)

Personally I think that my brain would have just exploded right there, not only for the great responsability entrusted to me, but I'd be also thinking ''Wow my country really sucks ass''

Glane ''Haha'' counter: 3

BRO IS LITERALLY AN ANGEL AAAAAAA. He is so goddamn responsible!! He is doing his best for his country when he knows he is not even that strong to be giving an example to the rest of knights!! The reason the knight order is even functional right now is because he took that position!! Next time anybody goes to Dalmore you'd better say ''THANK YOU GLANE!''

MORE ABOUT HIM PART 2

Glane drinks his Respect™ juice every morning. He likes to resolve conflicts by speaking things out, when Bertilak is dissatisfied with the training he tries to figure out why by speaking directly with him

Bertilak : * insults his uncle at his job*

Glane: Oh damn (proceeds to shrug it off and adds another Haha to the counter)

Being laid back doesn't mean he won't intervene on things, when Gawain was going to beat Bertilak's ass fight Bertilak in a duel he wanted to stop him, worried Bertilak would get hurt.

Oh by the way Glane is a healer!

Skipping scenes, next day while they were both training the knights a sorceress comes in a hurry saying Florence has sent a telepathic message saying Bertilak was in danger.

The way he tells the mage to stay calm to be able to figure out what is the situation is *chef kiss*

Glane manages to keep his cool even when he knows his nephew and Florence are most probably in danger, I find that so impresive, him keeping calm and assesing the problem like that... in my eyes he is just the coolest!!

And in Gawain's eyes he is also the coolest!! He might lack physical strength but I believe his mental strength is insane!

We don't see him again till the end of Gawin's lvl 100 fates (Bertilak is taken on a journey with the crew in these fates)

While Bertilak was out, he worked too, organizing the ideas Bertilak gave, trying to improve the order's battle tactics. I find this important too, Glane not only listened to Bertilak, but he also made sure to take his ideas into consideration.

In conclusion: I love him, he is very cool, he is very responsible and very chill, lemme give him a kiss

Extra,my favorite voicelines:

The way he says Ojousan and his silly haha laugh at the end make me ascend to heaven

Thanks for reading till here~ Hope I could make somebody out there appreciate this man more with this <3 and thanks granblue for having a humongous cast!

[veebs-hates-video-games]

I'm glad I waited until the last minute to figure out how I felt about the games I played this year because there were some surprise changes right up until the end. I think I managed to get most things I played this year that weren't just demos onto a list and will have opinions on them.

There will potentially be too many to tag properly, but maybe I'll try linking the game titles to the tags and see how that goes, which should bring up any previous posts about them with more detail (although I still haven't finished updating all the old posts to the new tags yet as of writing this so they might not all work right away).

Also except for the final category stuff within each group isn't really in any particular order, and there's no hard boundary between some of the categories where I think everything in one is definitively better than everything in another (e.g. I think Aria of Sorrow is better than at least some of the stuff in the "pleasantly surprised category", but I liked it exactly as much as I expected to so it is where it is).

So starting from the worst:

Fate/EXTELLA LINK was the least fun I had with a game all year. It's like what if a Musou game felt worse to play and also had an extremely uncomfortable level of pandering to weebs and their waifus in the writing. Blech.

Diablo 2: Resurrected is literally unplayable without creating an account and being online even though D2 has always had offline single player. They don't actually mention this. I only have it because it was cheaper to get the bundle with D2 and D3 than D3 by itself.

Super Mario 3D World is the least fun I've had with a Mario game in literally decades. 3D movement with a fixed camera is awful. I still like the full 3D games and the 2D ones, but this is nope for me.

Pendula Swing is honestly probably fine on a different platform (read: with a mouse and keyboard), but the Switch version is borderline unplayable. The idea seemed interesting but it was so clunky I couldn't get into it.

Ys Origin just hasn't aged well. I played it a long time ago and it was in the "fine, I guess" category, but trying to replay it after some of the newer ones (which will be further down the list) was rough.

And then games that were mostly just disappointing to me:

Diablo 3 is one of those things everyone kept saying at least feels the best to play out of all the modern ARPGs for years, so I finally gave in and tried it to see what all the fuss was about. It feels like Torchlight 2.5 with a bigger budget and was kind of uninspiring overall.

The Outer Worlds was something I was really hopeful about, but I just didn't find anything at all about it enjoyable.

Pokemon Picross is just a bunch of free-to-play bullshit ruining something that could've been fun. The world is better off with the eShop shut down so no one can play it anymore.

Persona 5 Royal is another one I was really looking forward to that I just did not click with at all. The first few hours were full of minor annoyances and did very little to win me over.

AI: The Somnium Files had potential and sounded interesting, but moon logic for solving puzzles should've stayed in the 90s and I could do without all the random horniness.

The World Ends With You: Final Remix and NEO: The World Ends With You are frustrating because they have so many interesting ideas and a neat presentation but just aren't any fun to play, especially the first one.

Tales of Vesperia just hasn't aged super well I think. I know there are people who like it, and I was looking forward to it, but I think I would've had to play it closer to stuff like Tales of Symphonia to appreciate it.

Inscryption is not my thing at all. It's a shame because I loved Pony Island, but I just couldn't get into this one.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is a Donkey Kong Country game, which have always been just ok to me. I should've remembered that and not bought into the hype over the years.

Next is stuff I liked the idea of but didn't really like playing enough to stick with it:

Titanfall 2 has really neat movement and stuff, and I've heard the later levels do some interesting stuff, but beyond that the actual combat wasn't really my thing.

Ori and the Blind Forest had too many frustrating bits to keep me playing through the parts I did like.

Disgaea 4 seemed fun and like it had a lot of potential, but I always find that kind of SRPG way too fiddly, ever since I tried the original Final Fantasy Tactics.

Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God is just a worse version of Blacksmith of the Sand Kingdom (see later on the list), which is understandable because they made it first.

Bravely Default I mostly played a couple years ago, but this year I put another dozen hours in and finally gave up on it. I really like a lot of stuff about it, but there were just too many things that frustrated or annoyed me.

They Bleed Pixels seems like fun and has some good pixel art (mostly the story stuff outside the gameplay segments), but I don't think it's for me.

Hero Hours Contract is an amazing idea and I love almost everything about it except for actually playing it.

Luckslinger took forever for me to get around to. The idea of luck being a consumable resource you have to manage is really neat, but I wasn't really enjoying the actual game, even if "pixel art hip hop spaghetti western" sounds great on paper.

Carto is one I don't really have anything against beyond apparently glitching it into an unrecoverable state and not being invested enough to start over.

Cris Tales is another one of those ones where I like a lot of stuff about it except for actually playing it.

Anarcute was a lot of fun for a little while, but it started introducing more elements I tend to not really like. Definitely one of the cuter games on the list with one of the best theme songs though.

Followed by things I had mixed feelings on or the "fine, I guess" category:

PixelJunk Eden 2 was fun enough, but they changed things from the original in a way that seems to be to make it more suitable for mobile, and I feel like most of them made it worse.

Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars didn't quite stick the landing. I loved the idea of everything being cards on a table with a single narrator/GM running everything, and the world and characters were interesting enough for a while. It didn't quite hold up for me all the way through to the end though.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is...better than Breath of the Wild, at least? It's smoothed over a lot of my biggest annoyances with that, and it's amazing that half the stuff in it even works at all, but it still doesn't feel like Zelda to me and has been pretty low priority to get back to and finish.

Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness and the Secret Hideout has one of the worst openings of any game I've played in years and absolutely awful pacing. It did seem to finally have opened up and gotten potentially rather good where I left off (and might get back to one of these days), but it shouldn't take half a dozen hours for that.

Yoku's Island Express is a clever idea and was a pretty good time for a while, but it's also one of the buggiest things I've played in the past year, and that's what drove me to stop playing.

Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age is frustrating to go back to. I loved the demo when I played it a couple years ago, but redoing everything now because I'm playing the full game on a different platform kinda sucks because of how slow the start is.

Will Die Alone has an interesting premise and way of interacting with it, but it stops short of quite saying as much with it as I would've liked.

Chaos;Head Noah had so much potential that kind of got wasted in the end. I really liked a lot of stuff about it along the way, but it's also kind of a mess. Hopefully when I get around to Steins;Gate they'll have learned to do it better because the anime for that one was great.

I'LL KILL HER is basically an interactive comic book, and the main strength is the art. The rest is fine I guess. Every content warning for this one.

Murder by Numbers is a constant mix of mildly amusing and mildly annoying. I hope they can even things out if they make more games in the future.

And then games that were pretty good but not my favorites:

Kuukiyomi: Consider It is a silly idea and doesn't overstay its welcome. I haven't felt an urge to play the sequels so far though.

Theatrhythm Final Bar Line is definitely the best in the series and has tons of great music, but I still have some issues with this style of music/rhythm game that keep me from completely loving it.

Cadence of Hyrule was kind of annoying when I first started playing the demo, but once I got the hang of it I had a pretty good time mostly. The huge difficulty spike at the end left me less happy with it than I was for most of the game though.

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow is probably the best game in this category, much better than most of the others, and my favorite Castlevania game, but it's a little short of being one of my favorites overall this year.

Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet is probably my second favorite in thie category and rather cute and silly.

One Night: Burlesque is the "worst" game in this category and doesn't entirely succeed at what it's trying to do, but I appreciate the effort and the overall vibes.

Gunma's Ambition -You and Me Are Gunma- is literally just a single joke drawn out for like an hour, but they lean into it enough to make it work.

LOUD: My Road to Fame has a couple weird design decisions that make it a bit frustrating toward the end, but up until then it's a surprisingly fun music/rhythm game with decent original music.

Lara Croft GO has some pretty decent puzzles in it and is probably my second favorite Tomb Raider game at this point, but I also had some Issues with it that held it back a little bit.

Next are the ones that I was pleasantly surprised by that were better than I expected:

Pixel Puzzle Makeout League was not what I expected. I figured it would just be picross with a silly dating sim on top, but I had no idea about the themes and ideas it would go into, and the entire ending section of the game in general was great and totally unexpected.

Blacksmith of the Sand Kingdom really surprised me. I had zero expectations going in, and while it isn't quite great at anything it's good to very good at a lot of things and was pretty satisfying in the end.

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is the most Zelda-like game I've played this year (with close competition from another game down the list), and an actual Zelda game came out this year. Exactly as long as it needed to be and went in a more interesting direction than I thought it would.

Majotori is something I accidentally stumbled on because it was on a list of games that at least tangentially have lesbians in them, and it's delightfully silly.

Death end re;Quest really surpassed my expectations, even if I have significant enough issues with it that it's hard to recommend without caveats. it did some surprisingly interesting things though, and I keep thinking about it from time to time.

Rabisco+ was an impulse purchase because it randomly came up and was very cheap and I had no idea what was going on in the cover art. It turned out to be a short but pretty fun arcade-style puzzle game.

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana was the first Ys game I played since Ys Origin first came out in English, and the series has really come a long way since then and is much better these days.

Demong Hunter was basically an impulse joke purchase because I had to know what makes a demong different from a demon. I still have no idea, but this was way better than I expected from what initially seemed like a cheap mobile game.

Ys IX: Monstrum Nox wasn't quite as good overall as the previous game in the series, but I still had a lot of fun with Goth Adol, and all the new movement abilities added a lot to it.

Perfect Gold did a surprisingly decent job of having flawed characters who worked through problems in their relationship without making them annoying or unlikable like often happens.

Trigger Witch is the other most Zelda-like game I played this year. I totally grabbed it because of the cover art and it was on sale, but it's a pretty solid twin-stick shooter mixed with the LttP/LA era of Zelda.

Will You Snail? was pretty unknown to me before I started playing because I somehow avoided anyone else playing it or talking about it, but it turned out to be a pretty good precision platformer with a fun gimmick, which is hard to pull off for me because I can be kinda picky about how platformers feel to play for some reason.

Vivid Knight managed to absorb nearly all my game time until I finished it, which I did not see coming. I did eventually start to see the cracks in the systems and stopped enjoying it as much, but up until then I got pretty wrapped up in it.

And finally the ones that were probably my favorites, not necessarily in order but with the best generally toward the end:

Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition and Xenoblade Chronicles: Future Connected would be more toward the top of the list except this was a replay so I'm disqualifying it. I played the Wii version originally, and they sure did improve almost everything in an already great game in this version.

Bowser's Fury was about as enjoyable as Super Mario 3D World was unenjoyable. I'm not sure it would quite work for a full size Mario game, but there were some good ideas in this one.

Trials of Mana really polished up an older game that I thought was kind of underwhelming back in the day and turned it into something I had a great time with. Between this and the recent announcement of the new game I'm cautiously optimistic about something good in the Mana series finally happening for the first time since the PS1.

Harvestella really caught me off guard. I was expecting a farming sim with some Final Fantasy-style nonsense on top, and it turned out to be 85% JRPG with a story I liked more than anything FF has done in years.

Can Androids Pray is the most last minute addition to this list on December 30th. When a short story (in any medium) really focuses in on a single relationship or conversation or event or idea so well that it implies the existence of the entire rest of the universe around that my brain just starts vibrating. This is one of those.

The House in Fata Morgana takes a long road to get to its ending and the characters earn every step of the way there. It also surprised me by being a totally different flavor of queer than I expected.

Unpacking wins the award for best vibes. I had a lot of feelings about this one, probably including some they weren't expecting people to have when they made it, and it does a better job telling a story than most stuff on this list despite having no visible characters and almost zero dialogue.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim I think wins for my favorite story/writing this year. People said it was a great sci-fi story, and not just for a video game, and they were right.

Fire Emblem Engage is the winner for my favorite gameplay. They absolutely nailed a lot of the mechanics and systems on the game design side of things, and it's my favorite Fire Emblem game at this point.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed gets this spot for my favorite overall. They polished the already great gameplay of XC3, introduced some great new characters and brought back some old ones, and managed to expand on a lot of the story from the entire trilogy and tie up a bunch of stuff all at the same time.

And I guess that's finally that. There were some pretty big disappointments for me, but there were even more really great games I played and ones I had no idea I'd like as much as I did. I think I'm just going to tag stuff in the final two categories (since that's what'll fit) and call it a day.

[fleurcareil]

Central Saskatchewan: Great Sand Hills, Sask. Landing and Manitou Beach

Driving from Alberta into Saskatchewan was immediately clear from the road condition; similar to driving from the Netherlands into Belgium, the way my car suddenly started rattling left no doubt I had crossed the border! 😂 The convoy of cars that I had been keeping up with also suddenly dissipated, so I was all alone on a crappy road in the middle of nowhere while dark clouds were brewing on the horizon - welcome to Saskatchewan! 🙃

Driving here (on older roads, they do also have top-notch new asphalt) gives the sensation of being drunk on a rolling boat 😝, constantly going up & down from left to right... there's actually no potholes but I'm guessing the asphalt's ability to withstand the cold winter might make it more ellastic so that it sags all over the place... on some stretches my head shaked so hard, I felt like a bobblehead! 🤣 (less good for my stomach though)

When I finally made a right turn after 245 km on the same road out of Drumheller, it was as I had suspected on a gravel road; I was now squarely back on the Prairies! 🤩 The gravel roads are in good condition (although the Manitoba ones are even better), but the loose gravel does mean I need to be more focused to stay in the tracks, so it's tiring and slower.

I didn't take many pictures of the scenery as it's exactly the same as when I drove westward through the province 😁 (albeit that was a more southern route than now on my return), so please check out my earlier blog if you're curious how the Prairies looks like, basically one field after another. I did include below pic of what-I-presume is a blooming wheat field, as it looked really golden! ☺

My first stop in Saskatchewan was at the Great Sand Hills near Spectre, where the cowboy way of life is idolized in a pretty stone mural and an arch of old (mostly falling apart) boots.

The sand hills are a remnant of glacial lake deposits, similar to the Spirit Sands I had hiked in southwest Manitoba. Where this used to be a vast expanse of moving sand dunes, most are now stabilized due to vegetation, so there's only a few truly sandy ones left over (which are expected to be gone by the end of the century). Despite them not being so high as I had expected - when driving along the flat fields, I had already been wondering why I didn't see them miles away - the reserve protects a small island of native prairie ecosystem in the middle of farmland so that makes them valuable just as they are!

During a little hike through the dunes, the only thing you could hear was the wind rustling through the bushes and the bellowing of cattle 😀 which was very relaxing until a cow family suddenly came directly my way! The male was looking at me while advancing towards me so not knowing what to expect, I backed off... turned out they really just wanted to walk over to another patch of grass behind me, so off they went over the dune. 😁

An hour further east, I checked in at Saskatchewan Landing provincial park on Lake Diefenbaker for a two-night stay. The lake is a massive 225km-long (almost as long as the Netherlandsb is wide! 😮) hydro reservoir that feels like an oasis after descending from the grasslands plateau, as it's green & lush with vegetation. It explained all the boat trailers I had seen driving on the dusty prairie roads which had felt really odd! 😅

I had wanted to capture the sunset but ended up talking at length to a Canadian-Belgian couple who recognized my accent 😀, so I missed the pretty pink colours but instead I did see a mesmerizing full moon! It had just been a few days that India had landed on the moon so it was special to consider that there's now a piece of that country so far away (I congratulated my Indian friends)! ☺

The next day, I had planned and indeed did absolutely nothing all day!! 🎉 As you'll have figured out by now, this is not something I do often (last time was at Kouchibouguac in New Brunswick over 2 months ago), but it was supposed to be a real summery hot day so was excited about getting to the beach.... it turned out to be only 22 degrees, cloudy and with a lot of wind so my beach-bumming did not completely work out as I had hoped 🤨 but still had a glorious day of basically sitting at the campsite, sitting at the beach (with clothes on) and then back to sitting at the campsite 😂

On the way to the beach though (a 2k drive to the other side of the lake), I had to pay my respects ofcourse to an old bison rubbing stone, and also checked out the viewpoint which really shows how the lake creates this green ribbon in an otherwise yellow-brown landscape, aka an oasis!

Having had such a long lazy day (including eating a delicious raspberry cheesecake icecream 🤗), I already had all the veggies prepped for roasting on the fire by 6pm (which is very early as I usually only set up camp by 7) but it felt a waste to start the fire when it was still light, so I ended up having a late dinner after all 😅. Over my beers, I came up with the idea that I could create my own cozy "virtual fireplace" video that I can play on my laptop on cold winter days... what do you think?!? 🤣🤣

The next day, the air felt different and when I walked over to the lake to watch the sunrise, it was confirmed; the smoke was back and the sun was really struggling to break through 😒. Too much wind to paddle so I left early hoping that things might be better elsewhere.

Same scenery as the day before 😜 (never boring though!), but I did capture one more "golden field" as example of the absolute nothingness... in a way, Labrador and the Prairies have this flat, monotone landscape in common despite their widely different geography, climate and ecosystems; that of Labrador is a sea of trees and here it's a sea of fields... In contrast, Québec, Ontario, BC and the other provinces have a much more varied landscape of ocean, lakes, mountains, forest AND fields.

When driving, the road oftentimes looked black from insects which I wasn't sure what they were (not flies luckily! 😅), until the gentleman at the gas station explained while cleaning my windows, that they're crickets eating grasshopper eggs... as it had been a dry summer, there were lots of grasshoppers and as a result the crickets had a bumper year, great example of prey-predator cycles! PS. Unfortunately a few miles after the gas station, there was a lengthy stretch of roadwork & gravel detours, so that meant RIP for my short-lived clean windows...

I found a few days later a cricket who had hitchhiked in my trunk, so he/she was quickly booted out when I saw it - I had already searched for whatever culprit snacked on my paper towel and was relieved it wasn't a mouse 😜.

The gas station was in the town of Outlook, and I must admit it took me a while to remember why it sounded so familiar... just shows how 3.5 months off work can undo a lifelong of using Microsoft email! 😅

But the real reason I took the picture of the sign was that for a long while these signs had perplexed me... when I had driven westbound into Saskatchewan from Manitoba the signs appeared, all with a "1" behind a name, and confusing them with city boundary ones that are typical in Europe it seemed as if each village was being numbered, e.g. Outlook 1, Outlook 2... which seemed such an odd thing to do (but Québec does have similarly numbered hydro dams & associated villages, e.g. Manic 1 to 5)! Only what must have been at the 20th sign or so, I realized that it indicated the next village 1km away 🤣🤣🤣 it took me a while to realize there was never going to be an Outlook 2... what can I say... my brain is also on a break!! 😅

Lastly, when driving around, the dry summer that the gas station guy had talked about was apparent in either completely or partially dry fens, the little ponds that dot the landscape and are a source of water for the farmers... the dried fens have different colours than the surrounding fields (white of salt or green for younger vegetation) which gave pretty visuals.

Having left early, I arrived just after noon at Manitou Beach which has as unique feature an extremely salty lake, 3 times the salt content of seawater, so that it's aptly referred to as Canada's Dead Sea! 😃 I had to try it ofcourse, and yes, swimming was basically impossible in the disgustingly salty water as each time I tried to go underwater, it would just push me up 😲... a really weird experience! Once I started to dry, my arms and legs turned white from the salt deposits so luckily there was a shower on the beach to rinse it off. It's a groundwater fed lake that through evaporation results in high salt concentrations, which are attributed to cure a whole list of diseases... as I tend to be covered in cuts and bruises, it was almost painful as the salt would sting all open wounds!

On my walk back to the campground, I admired the various wood carvings that were on display from a contest a few weeks ago... at it's an annual competition, the village is full of wood carvings including random ones of chimpansees, Belle & the Beast etc... there must be a theme each year?? This year it seemed related to Canadian nature (although not sure the stingray and turtle live here, maybe on BC's coast).

I really enjoyed the floating so I returned to the salty water, but then at the spa where it was heated, even better! 🤗 someone mentioned to me they come here every winter... if I would live nearby and had -40C winters, I would sign up for a membership in a heartbeat! There's noodles (as used in aquarobics) to help you balance in a vertical direction as the feet want to float up all the time 😜, or you can just lie back with your head onto a noodles and float away... Divine!

Topped off the evening with a cheeseburger & onion rings from the food stand on the beach and then a campfire with a s'more... oh la la, it feels so good spoiling yourself 🤩

Wildlife: 7 gophers, 1 deer, 1000+ crickets

SUPs: none

Hikes: one at Great Sand Hills

Distance driven from last map: 1,668km

[ankurvyas1]

High School

Local laws and international laws might be a little different but humanity's laws are pretty much the same. Anywhere in the world you go, if an individual kills another individual for money, sx, power, position, influence, sport, greed, intolerant attitude, or any other inhumane reason, they must get punished. e.g. 09/2001, Afgha......, 2003 and every subsequent action inhumanely done to not get punishment.

Locally, people are going to work and working hard honorably to make money to buy food they can eat with respect, then make money to build whether it is a business or their employer and then use money to drive nice cars, and live life. That is the American way. Not what really and actually happened above.

“Acquire knowledge. It stays with you for a lifetime.”

I was never taught to acquire knowledge. It just sort of became an interest to me, then a desire then an outright passion. I love to read. I love to listen. I love to observe.

When I was in high school, I read a 400-page psychology book at the very back of the room in a class that wasn’t about psychology. I don’t know why it just interested me. I’m not saying you should read a psychology book; just pick up something that interests you but always keep your brain alert and accepting. Always talk to people that aren’t similar to you. Why? To listen and learn from them. Always read something that isn’t similar to you. Why? To acquire knowledge.

For high school students who need academic help:

“No man is an island.”

Ask for help. The only dumb question is the one not asked (except for one). In high school, I would read everything I didn’t understand once. Then I would use angular brackets to highlight the most important things. Then I would read only the text within the angular brackets. Then I would keep re-reading it until I knew it by heart. I’m not super-smart. I just knew how I learned. It might seem ironic, but I taught myself how to learn. You have to understand how you think. When you understand that, it is a lot easier to figure out the steps of learning. For me, it is through re-reading the most important things. For you, it could be something different. Whatever it is, figure it out and then apply it.

In my senior year, I taught a tall black basketball athlete that needed tutoring so he asked and I agreed. We would go to the local fast food restaurant (which one doesn’t really make any difference) after my cross country run and his workout and I would just stay with it until he understood. He wasn’t an idiot or a genius. He just needed someone to show him the way, the right way to learn and he asked for help, which was the first and biggest step that he took. He acknowledged his own limitations and he didn’t have an ego (which means a willingness to learn). I wasn’t in basketball, I wasn’t as tall as him, I didn’t have as many girlfriends as him, but he didn’t have an ego (plus he needed to clear a certain GPA or he wouldn’t be able to play in college because of graduation from high school).

For high school students that have a part-time job:

I worked at Del Taco during I think my sophomore or junior year, usually on the weekends, and maybe 1 or 2 days during the weekdays. One time, it was raining hard and I didn’t want to use that as an excuse. So I put on an old t-shirt, pants and a light jacket in a plastic bag then in a school bag, I put my clothes that I was going to change into when I reached Del Taco. I got drenched. I mean soaked. Then I went to the bathroom, changed my clothes, and went to work. I cycled there with my bicycle that I bought with the money I earned from my newspaper delivery route.

As I mentioned earlier, there’s nothing wrong with working part-time in high school or in the university if you understand that it is just the means to the end not the end itself.

For high school students who have low self-esteem:

Sign up for the Yearbook Club. It’s great. You get to take pictures of cheerleaders. You have an excuse to talk to them. All kidding aside, low self-esteem is due to reasons best known to each individual. Later on, I describe about knowing yourself – the way you think and consequently feel – and knowing the other person. You don’t need to read a psychology book. As I said earlier, you need to understand the way you think, then understand the way the other person thinks. When you do, you’re golden.

Mr. Kaufhold, my Yearbook teacher, in my senior year, when I was late to class right after lunch, said, “Oh, Ankur, you just missed my lecture on tardiness.” I loved that wit. It was my senior year so it was difficult to worry about after school detention when I knew I’d be in college within a few months.

Bullying:

I was cool with a lot of people in my high school, but there was one person who for some reason just didn’t like me. I didn’t try to befriend him or ask him why. I just did not pay attention to him. So in my language class, he was just like I’m going to fight you after school and I was indifferent because I knew the guy didn’t realize my friend had sat next to him, heard him say that and told him to back off. I didn’t care either way but there was no fight.

For high school students that smoke:

With Indian culture (not Native American), my parents never told me don’t smoke. They just expected it, but I would say to the parents of children with multi-cultural backgrounds, don’t just expect that your child will not smoke. The way I learned to not smoke is in my senior year in high school, I saw a picture of a lung of a decades-long smoker that had cancer. The lung looked decayed, dirty, and dark. It was next to a picture of a healthy lung. The first reaction I had was I never want my lungs to look so unhealthy. If famous people who died from lung cancer or pictures of unhealthy lungs were shown to high school students or were on the pack of cigarettes, there would be less smokers that would in turn live longer and lead productive lives.

Participate in a sport:

Physical activity is known to release endorphins which help you release stress and feel good mentally. You will feel better. If you’re not good at the sport, it’s alright. Just work out. You will also have more self-esteem and, of course, if you cross country or track, like I did in my high school, you will have healthier lungs. Participating in a sport is also for high school students who are fat or unhealthy. Physical activity also fosters social connections because of shared activity. It also gives you a sense of pride and worth when you physically accomplish something. I remember in high school there were always students that slacked in physical education and the teacher didn’t really care but I think it is absolutely necessary in today’s world. Runner’s World is a great magazine for cross country and track. I think the high schools should keep similar sports magazines for the different sports. Also, in the freshman year of high school, I would suggest students only sign up for one sport. High school is much different than junior high school or middle school. With the hectic schedules, it can very quickly get overwhelming. Then as the student gets accustomed to the busy schedule of managing a sport along with academics, they can think of joining a club or other extracurricular activity or even another sport. I think that’s much better than to try to do more than possible.

I understand the parents that want to move into better neighborhoods for the high schools but why not just increase the level and strength of public education. Give the teachers higher pay. Then equip the public schools with the library books, tools and technology needed to compete. Eventually it works out because when the teachers are better at their jobs, the students are more likely to go to a university. More education means higher salaries. The people are less likely to commit crimes and go to jail, which means the government spends less money on incarceration and rehabilitation. The people are less likely to be homeless so there’s less social spending. The government then has more money on more critical spending in technological infrastructure, roads, waterways and other areas like Veteran Affairs. It also means more innovation, which is described with examples later. All of this means the national economy grows and is more competitive internationally. It all goes back to a quote by Lincoln:

“You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

Don’t sell the sizzle or the steak. You just have to step up. I cannot stress this enough. You cannot fool all of the people all of the time. So, it is better to increase capability now so when it is time to step up, you’re ready to compete.

For high school students who don’t know if they should go to a university:

Yes. Get higher education. The first two years of your university days are general subjects anyway. You will learn so much. I would encourage students to join clubs, fraternity/sorority, language courses, things which you are interested in. You will naturally find what you want to do with your life. Talk to your high school guidance counselor if you aren’t sure of the major. It’s alright. Just attend a university. Don’t even worry about financial aid. If you don’t qualify or you just cannot afford it, then go part-time and work part-time. Whatever you’re earning from your part-time job is pale in comparison to what you’ll earn when you are a university graduate.

When I went into my science teacher’s room in the 12th grade, there was an awesome poster. It had the Earth, then its relative size and position to the Sun, then the Sun’s relative size and position to the solar system, then the solar system’s relative size and position to the galaxy, then the galaxy’s relative size and position to nearby stars and then the universe. It was mind-boggling. Then there should have been a quote:

“There is other life in the universe or we’re all alone. Either way, it’s scary.”

You’re on the Earth for a reason. Find the reason. Then use your time purposefully and with conviction. Remember the following quote by Roosevelt:

“If you fail, fail while daring greatly so that your place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

I didn’t take a creative writing course until the University of California, Riverside (UCR) but I can say to the high school students writing their college/university admissions essay:

The reader of your essay has read thousands of essays. They can spot a fake from the real deal a mile away. So be true to your reader. Talk about the skills you learned in high school, how you will apply them to succeed in higher education and the skills you want to learn.

In my college essay, I wrote that my cross country coach once told us: “Everyone wants to win and the will to win. Very few have that will to work to win.”

I got accepted to an advanced biomedical degree program where you get your Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree in seven years, but I still think they confused my application with someone else’s so somehow I got accepted into a program where only a dozen like them existed in the entire country. The admissions rate is as low as the admissions acceptance rate into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you don’t make it, you’ll still be among the stars.”

[gentrychild]

Idea: how would each member of the IC of Anyone act if they happened to find themselves in the middle of the movie Purge?

I have never watched those movies but basically, any crime is legal for an entire night and if people come into your house to kill you, you're on your own.

I am going to assume this is the BNHA version of the movie purge, where people have quirks, and the Purge was made to remind people how good they had it now that there were quirk laws since the Dawn of Quirks. It also happens in the US.

Kurogiri

He finds himself a nice home in which to chill and does not move from there. He is not interested in fighting. He doesn't care about the general craziness. He might pick up a cat there. Anyone trying to break into this very nice home will be warped into another city but people are welcome if they want to also chill.

Nagisa

Nagisa would be absolutely terrified. She is a hacker. She isn't used to violence and right now, she is in a setting where people might want to gleefully murder her for unknown reasons. She is clinging to Kurogiri's arm the whole time. Before Kurogiri stops her, she keeps watching the horrible image of the CCTV.

Dabi

He would go out, robs a grocery store, and incinerates anything trying to implement the grocery curse. He finally arrives to wherever Kurogiri and Nagisa are, extremely smug.

He meant to leave again and to keep an eye on Shouto who is running around (of course he is) but, and he will deny it to his dying breath, he stays in the fancy house to reassure Nagisa. Between Kurogiri and him, more and more people flock to the house (who might be a villa now that I think about it) to seek sanctuary. They watch Disney movies the whole night.

Hawks and Shouto

They are out there, saving people. An entire night of running/flying around and preventing violent crimes. At dawn, they have to call Kurogiri to pick them up and get them to safety because they are too exhausted/in pain to go back. They are haunted by all the people they didn't manage to save.

All for One

Two things can happen:

1 - AFO doesn't change anything to his habit. This man goes to the restaurant, does some shopping, enjoy whatever is still open during the night without worrying one bit because if anyone attacks him, he can simply vaporize them.

He is untouchable.

2 - Or, to prove a point, AFO commits all the non violent crimes, proving by A + B that the Purge is a very stupid moves. He starts fires? Whoops, no fireman to take care of those. He commits some good old industrial spying and gives enterprises secrets? Well, have fun watching a behemoth of a company falling from one day to another and special, hand-picked companies being the ones with a monopoly on the market. He does all the white collar crimes, he makes people destitute and others richer than ever, he just brings chaos wherever he goes.

Izuku

Every people who had a hand in implementing the Purge and who is benefiting from it is killed. It starts with the President then it trickled down, like a curse.

Their bodyguard can't save them. Whoever is doing this is unstoppable. All those powerful people who thought they were untouchable are freaking out but whoever is killing them can't be killed, can't be bribed, and can't be reasoned.

Five minutes before the Purge ends, this grim figure wearing a hoodie warns them that the members of the government who implements such laws do not deserve to live and that on every Purge night, he will find them and force them to know what the victims of the Purge, those people who are too poor to flee the country or to hire people to protect them, have to go through.

That person disappears before the eyes of a dozen of people as soon as the Purge night is over.

By the time the next Purge arrives, laws are in place where it's now illegal to kill politicians/people who have large companies (money, read money).

It doesn't save them.

In the next week, the Purge is abolished.

[kishimotomasashi]

There’s an AU I have, Team Hebi-centric, in which Obito never tells Sasuke the truth about the Uchiha Clan massacre (because he died where he was supposed to: underneath the rock. The Kyuubi attack was an accident of poor sealing while Kushina was giving birth) that I’ve been mulling over for a while. I don’t think I’m gonna get it written any time soon so I might as well share the ideas I had in mind!

Setting?:

After he’s killed Itachi, Sasuke is first found by Team Hebi and not the retrieval squad 2, so they hide away in a site where they can’t be found

Sasuke after the fight is kind of... unresponsive, more than usual, for a few days. The others get it, and give him the space he needs, but also Suigetsu tells him he needs to figure out what he’s gonna do next soon so they know whether to hand him back to the Konoha group or to find another mission to do while they’re still a team

Sasuke isn’t particularly inclined to head back home. He doesn’t think he can just go back and pick up where he left off-- and he suspects Team 7 will insist that he can, but as far as he feels, there’s too much baggage associated with the place already. Sasuke’s lived his life in a way where he’s continuously going back to his grief as a motivator, but now that there’s no obsessive focus on revenge behind it, and just grief... he doesn’t really want to deal with that. Going back home means going back to the compound means going back to the graves, and he doesn’t think vestigial affection from a time where it briefly looked that he could ever think of anything else would be enough to prevent the pain of it.

So his choice is that he stays with his new team, and that their next mission will be helping Suigetsu collect his swords.

The... plot?:

The idea is to focus on each member of Hebi, and have them wonder about their place in the world now that they’re so removed from the Hidden Village system.

Suigetsu’s the only one who starts off having plans to actually re-enter that world, but his hopes are dashed because due to the Akatsuki’s actions, there’s an increased hostility towards rogue shinobi in every village. In this AU, since Hebi are never called to capture Killer Bee by Obito, Kisame ends up doing it, actually succeeding, and the Raikage directs his anger towards Kiri to get its shit together concerning their nukenin. This + Pain’s destruction of Konoha means pardons are off the table for any nukenin, and any shinobi, regardless of what they actually do, working outside of the Hidden Village system becomes automatically suspect. Naruto and co. try to argue Sasuke shouldn’t count since he killed Orochimaru and Itachi but ofc Danzo isn’t having it.

Since they’re all on the run anyways, Hebi stick together, and their lives are spent taking any mission they can from whoever’s willing to pay to sustain themselves. They all grow closer, as a result, they learn about each other, and find out they have things in common. Little by little they start to empathize with each other.

Juugo and Karin, starting out aimless, find traces of their own origins little by little during their travels. And so along with helping Suigetsu find his swords (that he’s still looking for despite his situation with Kiri because fuck them anyways, he trained his whole life for this, and he will cut Chojuro’s arms off to steal his if he has to), they’re also looking for every trace of Juugo’s clan they can find and they pay a visit to the Land of Eddies for Karin’s sake, too.

Also during their travels, they meet a lot of different people of different backgrounds: nukenin turned civilians, many civilians who don’t few the Hidden Villages and/or the 5 shinobi countries and their Daimyo positively, people from countries/villages destroyed by the shinobi wars, etc. They learn through the eyes of others how shinobi violence is perceived, how it ruined so many of their lives, their own complicity in it, and... it’s a lot to process. It’s more difficult for Suigetsu, Sasuke and Karin: Suigetsu and Sasuke because they were raised shinobi and within the Hidden Villages, Karin because she has an aversion to empathizing with people in general since she had to stop doing it entirely to survive working under Orochimaru. Juugo has a better time understanding and accepting that because he was shunned by most people to begin with, and doesn’t have any particular attachment to the Hidden Villages anyways. In the end they all register what they’ve learned though, and Sasuke and Juugo in particular are more inclined to help the people they meet in their travels all they can: rescuing people from human trafficking, simply helping people in villages/towns they briefly stay in about their day-to-day activities, teaching people what they can about chakra so their day-to-day activities are easier, etc. Local kids who only know how to murder and do violence unexpectedly become humanitarians. They still sometimes do murder and violence though, but like in the productive way, like murdering the people who were selling kids to Orochimaru.

I intend for Sasuke to eventually learn the truth about the Uchiha Clan Massacre evetnually but he learns it only after experiencing all of the above. He learns it through Danzo specifically, but I haven’t worked out exactly how that happens yet. Anyways that firmly keeps him out of Konoha and with the collaborative effort of him, Karin, Suigetsu and Juugo, Danzo dies.

That’s about all I have on this, for now. I’m not as sure on how this story will end as how it begins and develops.

[laryna6]

More of the ‘alien attempts to convince human to become co-monarch of the dead and also defend humanity together in an eternal partnership, humans make assumption that someone pulling out all stops to convince human to ‘protect my kids with me’ is after a romantic partnership specifically’ ‘verse:

I was like ‘would there be angst when Sung Jin-Woo is wondering why Ashborn hasn’t set a date yet?’ and then I realize that his family thinks Ashborn is courting using Korea-specific traditions, so it makes sense that a being from another planet would not have a fortune-teller knowledgeable in the stars around this specific planet on tap.

Or actually, according to another source, the groom sends a doc with his astrological data and the bride’s family proposes the date since like, there’s extra stuff that has to be taken into consideration on their side.

So maybe it’s after the initial meet-the-parents and also have their first supervised meeting that Sung Jin-Woo’s going ‘hey I need the moment of your creation down to the hour in terms of both earth calendar and the seasons on your planet and like whatever info you can give me on what the movements and locations of local celestial bodies would have been at the time relative to that planet and images of where stars would have been as seen from the planetary surface - that sort of thing, as much as you can of that. Also have you got any constellations or significance attached to any of that.’ And there probably is given the ‘fragment of brilliant light’ thing and that the creator that is Ashborn’s parent came from the stars, so like, the approach vector??

And then obviously asking Jin-Ho to find the person to do the calculations, so like. Someone is going to get paid enough to be set for life for trying to figure out what is a good day for two spirits to be united with each other and also heaven and earth when there are two earths involved.

Research astrology, or actually research theology, since we’re dealing with one god of light and law-> god of the dead and one human -> god of the dead. Jin-Ho would absolutely manage to find someone happy to be working on that sort of problem.

Thankfully the fortune teller will be able to correct them that SJW needs to be the one wearing blue and Ashborn wearing red. SJW also asked Ms. Selner to help them out with it.

Traditional Korean marriages are very family-centered and Sung Jin-Woo is a very family-centered person and takes commitment seriously, so he’d probably dot the is and cross the ts for all the parts of traditional ceremonies insofar as that is possible rather than taking any cues from current Western/Christian marriage practices since on a ritual level those are committing to a relationship between three parties (individual + individual + god or government) rather than two people + their families (in the context of the worlds and spirits they’re connected to). Igris’ people probably have some eternal commitment/blood (sap) brotherhood ceremony he’d try to incorporate to cover Ashborn’s side of things since the rulers themselves don’t have a marriage tradition.

...since his understanding of ‘marriage’ is ‘2+ beings swearing eternal partnership where they share a domain and shelter and maybe create other beings together and also join together’ Ashborn would probably go ‘yeah that is absolutely the human word for what I am going for here.’

So Jin-Woo going ‘so is this a good day and time for us to get married and just to be sure is my apartment going to be okay to do it?’ and Ashborn is ‘well for you to become my equal and ascend to your power as a fellow death-god your soul will need to enter my shadow but there’s no reason you can’t do that from your apartment’

They work out that Jin-Woo does that, then Jin-Woo summons Ashborn as a shadow so his actual spiritual body isn’t there since it can’t survive on earth yet and they do the human ceremony of commitment and exchange of vows.

Next problem is wedding invites, and actually Il-Hwan is in communication with rulers in canon so he probably CAN ask them to come and WILL in case of any funny business. But there’s limited space in apartment, so two of them are going to have to attend from inside Go Gun-Hee and Thomas Andre, who is going to take up a ton of space as it is.

Wedding invites include a date for a meeting sometime in the previous two days so Jin-Woo can explain what’s going on so nobody freaks out, throws down, and wrecks the building. Mom goes ‘do you want me to come help explain’ and Jin-Woo is ‘ILU mom’

Homosexual marriage is not legal in SK, and although a marriage between a man and a genderless being is in fact a heterosexual marriage it’s probably still not legal, but Sung Jin-Woo’s only interest in laws and regs is ‘how do I keep them from getting in the way while I do whatever I want’ so he probably does not give a solitary damn what the government thinks of his marriage status, but GGH might be ‘oh heads up someone vital to this country’s survival is marrying a genderless person so you might want to recognize that as a thing to make sure you don’t piss him off’ and like, every country wants s-ranks so getting Ashborn docs is trivial. They’re probably even accurate.

So media is now blowing up because marriage of most powerful hunter is Big News and ofc they are pissed since it is actual canon that when when Sung Jin-Woo holds a press conference it is a sign of the end of the world. So they have to settle for AhJin guild’s press releases and whatever Go Gun-Hee and Thomas Andre feel like saying. And they are both benevolent bastards.

Ok, so... staying at bride’s house for three days after ceremony...

Couples are supposed to control their emotions and be somber and reserved during ceremony, fortunately for Sung Jin-Woo. It will be clear that they are both taking this as a Very Serious Commitment.

Korean weddings are two families becoming one as well as the two people, so like, the rulers are now Sung Jin-Woo’s Family, as well as him being grateful to them for saving his dad, so.

Ceremony is begun by entrance of The Moms. If Sung Jin-Woo gets informed re. Ms. Selner containing a piece of the creator, he absolutely will hit up the US to borrow her. She is a grandma, in the peaceful timeline at least, so presumably she is a mom.

Problem: since Ashborn has the yin element, does that mean ceremony needs to take place at his family’s place? Either way, after the ceremony at the bride’s family’s place, there’s a second ceremony at the groom’s family, so to an alien planet it is. Dates and chestnuts are supposed to be offered by the guest family at the second ceremony, and dates and chestnuts only grow on earth, so that works with the first ceremony being at SJW’s apartment. With pomegranate seeds added to cover adoption of undead children.

I was thinking SJW googling ‘marrying a god’ traditions to find things he might want to incorporate so make this ironclad? But like, a professional has been hired, so.

I was like, SJW planning a honeymoon since hosting Ashborn on earth? But like, SJW would absolutely go ‘best place on this planet is my apartment with my family’ so the fact that’s the traditional post wedding thing is just ‘yes perfect.’

‘Spend time with my family, spend time with Ashborn’s family, kill everything that poses a threat to our families‘ is optimum scheduling *nodsnods*

[alltheworldsinmyhead]

ON FEYSAND’S PLOTLINE IN ACOSF

              !!!!MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE ACOSF!!!!

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Let’s be honest for a while, okay?

ACOCF had potential to be SJM’s best book, if not for any other reason then because of the sheer idea of it. Coming-of-age, healing story of the most complex and polarizing character she has ever created set in the time of peace, away from the familiar setting (according to the later changed concept which still remains in the snippet at the end of ACOFAS), development of her arguably most feisty and angsty love story... It could be her absolute trumph. Even with the change to stick to Velaris instead of exploring the Illyrian culture of the Mountains and with the added conflict of the Mortal Queens and Koshei, it still could work quite well. 

It didn’t. For many, many reasons, but the most important one, in my opinion, being the feysand pregnancy plot. 

Nothing about this plotline made sense. Not a single thing. From start to finish, it was an absolute disaster from the character-writing POV, from the narration POV, from every single context of it. It broke the rules of real-life logic, it broke the rules of this fantasy world setting and it completely exposed that Rhysand, while not a bad guy, is a pretty terrible partner, even worse ruler and an absolutely terrible contender for the High King title. 

Let’s break this whole mess down (and expect this post to be mammoth-sized. it’s not my fault, though, write to SJM if you have any complains):

1) Feyre, 21, decides to get pregnant, even though less than a year earlier, she expresses the delight with not being forced to bear children to her new mate and told him herself she wants to wait a while and enjoy her life with him. Feyre decides she wants a baby though and Rhysand goes along with it, even though he is aware how young Feyre is and how hard her life has been up until this point. He wants a baby too much to have an honest discussion with Feyre about it, to stop and wonder what is the reason for her sudden change of heart, to reassure her that they have a lot of time ahead of them and don’t need to rush. No. She mades a sudden decision to have a baby after A YEAR OF MARRIAGE and not much more of being turned fae, JUST AFTER having her whole world put upside down, having received a completely new title and responsibilities, surviving the wat and being mated. Great. 

2) Feyre decides to get pregnant and Rhys goes along with it less than a year after the end of the bloody war. It is politically a delicate time, everyone is still not sure how the balance will shift, some countries don;t want to sign the peace treaty, etc. There are a lot of enemies and a lot of turmoil remaining. But sure. Let’s have a baby. Perfect time to add yet another target, another weakness that can be use by the Mortal Queens, Beron or whatever else with malicious intent towards the Night Court. 

2) Feyre gets pregnant after approximately a year of trying. I know healthy people of reproductive age for whom it takes ages more than this. Fae’s pregnancies are rare af and precious and happen once in a blue moon, but ofc SJM broke the world’s rules for her darling Feyre. And again, for Kallas and Vivianne who are also expecting the baby, even though it has been a maximum of 3 years since they’ve mated. 3 years is also not a particularly long time to try to have a baby for those who have issues with their reproductive systems like Fae women. Thank you, next. 

3) Rhys has unprotected sex with Feyre in her Illyrian form when she conceives, even though he knows full well having a winged baby would kill her. He does it anyway, for shits and giggles apparently. They probably have sex in the sky above Velaris, for all we know. 

4) The baby has wings. Now, the whole explanation with Illyrian wings being bony (bc they resemble bat wings) and Seraphin ones being more flexible (bc they resemble bird ones) is so insanely stupid that it takes around 3 seconds to wikipedia this shit and find out it’s exactly the opposite. But okay, the baby has wings and Feyre will die while giving birth, along with the baby. Madja forbids Feyre from turning into an Illyrian to carry the pregnancy because it MIGHT hurt the baby. Now, remember, Feyre conceived while in Illyrian form and then turned into High Fae. The baby survived it just fine. The baby MIGHT be hurt by Feyre turning .... but it will FOR SURE die if she stays High Fae and Feyre will too. Idk about you, but I would take the risk of MIGHT instead of FOR SURE. Especially when she is already in labour and dying. Cauldron or Nesta or idk who alters Feyre’s pelvis after the baby is cut out of her for no apparent reason but to allow feysand to make exactly the same mistakes later on. How convinient. And Nesta also alters her own pelvis bc god forbid she won’t be able give Cassian babies like the little useful mate she is now. She should’ve probably done it with Elain too, just in case she decides to fuck Az in the future, because fuck consequences and fuck the stakes in the story that make the readers actually CARE about characters bc they know the author may actually kill them and not save their life every fucking time.  

5) I don’t even want to comment on the fact Rhys hid the true danger of this pregnancy for Feyre and their family went along with it. It is absolutely disgusting. And Nesta telling her and that being condemned as the act of the ultimate cruelty which is a final straw to break her self-loathing back.... is abhorrent. It made my sick, actually, phisically sick. There is no justification for it. No at all. And the fact that they did not even consider abortion sends a message that I really don’t want to think too much about it. Feyre was 2 months along when they learned the baby is winged. 2 months. 8 weeks. It wasn’t a baby yet, let’s be honest. They could’ve at least discussed it. She - oh my god, I cannot believe SJM wrote it this way, I’m gonna be sick. 

6) For the entirety of Feyre’s pregnancy, they have no plan to really help her. Labour plan? Haven’t heard if it.  They have money and power and access to the healers of the whole land. And did not figure out how to stop her from bleeding out after a fucking C-section. THIS WORLD HAS MAGIC AND THEY COULDN’T STOP HER FROM BLEEDING OUT AFTER A FUCKING C-SECTION. Didn’t even ask Thesan, the High Lord of Healing, to be present. Cassian had guts hanging out of his stomach and survived. Az was fucking slashed apart in Hybern and survived. But yeah, Feyre was on a brink of death after a C-section. Great, Sarah. Keep it up. Let’s force the thought into young girls’ heads that labour is the most lethal thing ever, why not. 

7) Also, for the entirety of Feyre’s pregnancy, Rhys keeps quiet about this idiotic bargain. He, as far as we know, doesn’t make any plans for the moment when him and Feyre and possibly their baby are dead. If they died and baby survived.. who would take care of it? Does Rhys have a conversation with his family about it? NAH. Doesn’t write any sort of plan how to keep the Court going, doesn’t inform even the closest of his co-workers how they should proceed to act after he’s gone and his and Feyre’s power go to god-knows-who. Their deaths would mean a sure chaos for the weakend and fragile Prythian and the Night Court especially and yet nor Rhys nor Feyre make any sort of preparations for it. Rhys doesn’t tell his brothers or Mor or HIS SECOND IN COMMAND they will all soon have to somehow manage without him. He was about to just leave them to their own devices and told them in the last. possible. moment. 

And this man - this man is, according to Amren, the best candidate to handle the whole country? To unite it? This fool who makes idiotic bargains, who thinks first about his cock and his own selfish desires and considers his subjects and his responsibilities as a High Lord last and least important of all? Who has so much trust in his wife, in his High Lady, the mother of his son that he doesn’t tell her she will almost surely die on a birthing bed because it MAY UPSET HER? 

This plotline was the straw that broke my back. ACOTAR, at it’s heart has always been a ya fantasy with added ‘spice’ and I was willing to bend my critical-thinking skills in many cases and forget and forgive many smaller idiotic issues in this series. But this? It is not idiotic. It is massive and stupid to the point when it becomes insulting to the reader. It was a plot straight out of a bad fanfic, not something that should be in a published book written by someone who writes for a living. You could even argue that Twilight has handled this toxic trope better.  I have wasted my money on this book and thinking about it will always be painful for me. So yeah.

ACOSF could be great. Ended up quite pathetic.