#That might not happen for a bit unless people are actually interested

[titans-thoughts]

Yep. This is the thing: Gay culture prior to Stonewall (and even for a bit afterward?) was in tiers.

First, you had the bourgeois gay. Owns a nice place in the suburbs, generally good at keeping a secret, such as his subscription to "physique" magazines, or what he does when he calls up one of the models from said magazines for a "photo shoot". Or that guy he experimented with in college or when he was in the Navy. The bourgeois gay was usually single, but may be married as the postwar era pushed marriage or bust. Bourgeois gays often remodeled their basements as bars. These people were generally safe from cops.

Then you had the working-class gay. We would call these guys bisexual, and a very unique form. While they might play with their friends in high school and such, they actually emphasized heterosexual contacts, and certainly didn't see themselves as gay or bi, though same-sex contacts didn't necessarily end even with marriage. Note that there was a definite stigma against bottoms and anyone deemed insufficiently masculine here. But it could be said that same-sex activity was common in working-class America in the 60s, at least among teenage boys. Also generally safe, because they knew to keep their covert masturbation a secret.

Then you had lumpen gays like Marsha P Johnson. Often trans. Lumpen in this case refers specifically to prostitution. So yeah, a victimless crime. This also includes homeless gay teens, thrown out by their parents. And, yeah, just by its nature, this has a very high risk of police intervention.

Now, after Stonewall, something interesting happened. The bourgeois gays and lesbians (I haven't really talked about lesbians, because I know a lot less about lesbian history.) over on the other side of the country put on a parade for the anniversary of Stonewall. (They were the only ones who could afford it.) And that was the first Pride march.

But at some point in the 70s or 80s, a right-wing movement started to exclude gays and lesbians who didn't mimic heterosexuality enough. (Interestingly enough, this same movement would later becomes obsessed with digit ratios and other modern-day phrenology.)

But unless we understand that we're talking about prostitutes specifically when we talk about Stonewall, then we're really just jerking off here.

it's wild how many people, and I'll just call them GenZ because I am choosing violence, are like "The first pride was a riot!" "first brick at stonewall!" "no cops at pride!" "fuck rainbow washing!" "ACAB!" and then like 45 seconds later are like "yeah actually I'm okay banning porn, but like right wingers are doing it for the wrong reasons"

you get those trans women at Stonewall were hookers right? Marsha P. Johnson who everyone loves to talk about, and Sylvia Rivera, started the first trans rights organization, STAR, it stands for Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, Street as in Street walker, hooker, pro, sex worker? Johnson and Rivera paid for it through hooking.

sex work is work, and when the government gets to tell you what you can do with your body, YOUR! body, well mother fucker guess what.

sex negative little victorian nerds, stuff you lot in a locker, the Queer revolution is coming! but what if its... gasp a little problematic? and people actually... fuck?

[docholligay]

Do you think authors sometimes don't realize how their, uh, interests creep into their writing? I'm talking about stuff like Robert Jordan's obvious femdom kink, or Anne Rice's preoccupation with inc*st and p*dophilia. Did their editors ever gently ask them if they've ever actually read what they've written?

Firstly, a reminder: This is not tiktok and we just say the words incest and pedophilia here.

Secondly, I don't know if I would call them 'interests' so much as fixations or even concerns. There are monstrous things that people think about, and I think writing is a place to engage with those monstrous things. It doesn't bother me that people engage with those things. I exist somewhere within the whump scale, and I would hope no one would think less of me just because sooner or later I like to rough a good character up a bit, you know? It's fun to torture characters, as a treat!

But, anyway, assuming this question isn't, "Do writers know they're gross when I think they are gross" which I'm going to take the kind road and assume it isn't, but is instead, "Do you think authors are aware of the things they constantly come back to?"

Sometimes. It can be jarring to read your own writing and realize that there are things you CLEARLY are preoccupied with. (mm, I like that word more than concerns). There are things you think about over and over, your run your mind over them and they keep working their way back in. I think this is true of most authors, when you read enough of them. Where you almost want to ask, "So...what's up with that?" or sometimes I read enough of someone's work that I have a PRETTY good idea what's up with that.

I've never read Robert Jordan and I don't intend to start (I think it would bore me this is not a moral stance) and I've really never read Rice's erotica. In erotica especially I think you have all the right in the world to get fucking weird about it! But so, when I was young I read the whole Vampire Chronicles series. I don't remember it perfectly, but there's plenty in it to reveal VERY plainly that Anne Rice has issues with God but deeply believes in God, and Anne Rice has a preoccupation with the idea of what should stay dead, and what it means to become. So, when i found out her daughter died at the age of six, before Rice wrote all of this, and she grew up very very Catholic' I said, 'yeah, that fucking checks out'.

Was Rice herself aware of how those things formed her writing? I think at a certain point probably yes. The character of Claudia is in every way too on the nose for her not to have SOME idea unless she was REAL REAL dense about her own inner workings. But, sometimes I know where something I write about comes from, that doesn't mean I'm interested in sharing it with the class. I would never ever fucking say, 'The reasons I seem to write so much of x as y is that z happened to me years ago' ahaha FUCK THAT NOISE. NYET. RIDE ON, COWBOY.

But I've known some people in fandom works who clearly have something going on and don't seem to realize it. Or they're very good at hiding it. Based on the people I'm talking about I would say it's more a lack of self-knowledge, and I don't even mean that unkindly. I have, in many ways, taken myself down to the studs and rebuilt it all, so I unfortunately am very aware of why I do and write the things I do most of the time. It's extremely annoying not to be able to blame something. I imagine it must be very freeing. But it ain't me, babe.

Anyway, a lot of words to say: Maybe! But that might not stop them from writing it, it might be a useful thing for them to engage with, and you can always just not read it.

Also, we don't censor words here.

[fafodill]

The exact wording of the ask I got was: 'what if someone was asking deprived!Snape (read my whole essay about him) to "break them off a piece of that KitKat bar?" How would they go about it?'

So today we're going to discuss this. Buckle up people.✨

SO his reaction will largely depend on the context and their current relationship but one thing that will happen FOR SURE every time before anything else is that he's going to think they're messing with him.

What else could it be? This man had been so heavily bullied as a teen his self-esteem is buried and has its own tombstone.

"Here lies Snape's self-image. Spit to pay your respect."

We don't have any canon proof of it happening but many people headcanon that some of the bullying might have been people being dared to come up to him and fake attraction or compliment him (so funny omg) only for him to realize they were just messing with him. It's totally the kind of immature stupid shit kids will come up with (speaking from personal experience here). Not funny but deeply scarring for one's self-image. So being told he's attractive would trigger him in his adult life. Any potential suitor asking him out would be welcomed with him immediately closing up and getting angry at them. They'd need to find a way for him to believe them first.

If you're thinking "this already sounds like a pain", yes it is. Welcome to deprived!Snape. Welcome to Snape, basically. If they want a piece of him, they have to brace themselves for the long run.

He will get angry and leave a lot. Fleeing the situation - since it's a very vulnerable subject for him - will be his go-to move. The whole ordeal will require patience. So what should this person do?

Friend or Stranger?

If it comes from a DE he'll think it's an angle. If it's from a member of the Order, he'll think it's a joke. If it's from a colleague at Hogwarts, he maaaay be a tad less suspicious? In any case, it will depend on how close they are. The more time they have spent together, the closer he'll be to not flip out... too much.

I'm a bit torn about his reaction if it was coming from a stranger. Either it's easier because he can lean into the idea that maybe they're lying about their attraction and he doesn't care (and if he's horny then why the fuck not, it won't affect him as much since they both now they're here for physical release) OR he might not be into it at all because he actually needs a real connection (and I think this is more realistic). Severus is a feral cat, he needs time to trust people.

What else? He could also maybe open up faster with someone not from his usual inner circles (a foreigner or a muggle) as the interactions wouldn't be charged with the same deep-rooted habits and expectations.

I also believe he'd unconsciously feel way more at ease with someone coming from a modest background. A pureblood aristocrat hitting on him would have little chance of getting past his natural distrust of them (unless he knows them very well).

So what should they do?

Build trust

The quality of their interactions and conversations will have a huge impact. Do they have an interesting personality? He needs someone capable of taking him on and keeping up intellectually. Can they keep up with him and challenge him?

Severus has a temper. Can they deal with his bullshit and not give up on him at the first scowl? Argue with him? It doesn't mean they can't be nice, but I don't see him get worked up over someone cowering under his gaze.

They need to be stubborn. He's a Capricorn and he's got the horns. He's hard-headed. They need to not back down when he bites or dismisses their attempts at flirting. One of Severus's classic tactic is to hurt people so they leave him alone, so they need to be able to dodge the attack, make fun of him or retaliate.

If they manage to deal with his temper, they will start to see what's on the other side of the snarky exterior. Then, they'll be able to start kneading the dough (Severus is the dough).

Convince him the attraction is real

That person could go the gentle/honest way, assuring him they're not kidding and explaining what they find attractive about him (he'd be super wary and need days to digest it - if he can). Genuine compliments could work quite well as he's good at reading people but it would be a process and it shouldn't be too much at once. He's NOT USED to compliments so if the person goes too hard, he's going to get overwhelmed, distance himself and reject it. A good trick would be to compliment his intelligence and magical skills alongside physical traits. A 2/3-1/3 ratio would be a good start. He would trust compliments about his big brain way more than anything regarding his cute butt.

Complimenting his presence, aura, voice might be good too as it's not directly related to physical traits. Else, physical starters could include hands and eyes. But I also love the idea of taking him by surprise and complimenting his nose. Might weird him out in a good way.

Or they could go the blunt way (or what I now refer to in my mind as the @maxdibert way) and be like "dude, I really think you're hot, deal with it" and leave him to sort his feelings out like a big boy.

The two strategies can be mixed of course. But at the end of the day, the real problem is that Severus as approximately a thousand confirmation bias in his mind telling him this is not happening. So what could they do to help ease this process?

Make him horny

Less overthinking = more chances to get this piece of ass.

Severus Snape needs to be warmed up. And as stated in my previous essay, he's plagued with the core beliefs that he's ugly, ridicule and undeserving. These beliefs need to be kneaded and challenged enough (not healed, this would take decades and it's not their job), so that he can relax and open up to the idea of intimacy.

Here are a few strategies to do so.

First, de-dramatize the subject. Making the topic less taboo by talking about it in a lighthearted way (no flaunting! certainly not!). A good move would be to joke about it. Deprived!Snape isn't comfortable with the subject but it's because it's evaded him and then he convinced himself he wasn't concerned or interested.

-> Here are some of the things he could benefit from hearing: that sex is not a big deal at all and we can laugh about it. It should be fun, a shared moment, trials and errors are part of it and there should no be judgment about experiences and preferences. People with a high 'body count' aren't necessarily good lovers, it's all about presence and intent etc.

His potential partner could share funny mishaps that happened to them and - when there's an opening - ask him what he would expect from a pleasant intimate moment (that's a very advanced move, don't forget he's bad with words)(it would only work in my opinion if they're both drunk and have been going at it for a while).

Also sharing experiences is a great way to build trust and intimacy (and arousal). He thrives on knowledge so learning more about his potential partner might ease his mind in some way (and give him some free intrusive thoughts). See it as added ingredients to make him simmer.

Though they shouldn't talk too much about the number of partners they had and said partner's skills. This might make him retreat. Again: low self-esteem and always on the lookout for an excuse to sabotage it.

Wait what about drunk!Snape you say? That's a trope we enjoy around here. Although I headcanon him as not being a heavy drinker (if a drinker at all because of his father) it would be a great way to lower a bit his inhibition. A DE would have a hard time sharing a drink with him, same for an Order member (he never stays after meetings but could be coerced), but a colleague could maybe drag him to the Three Broomsticks with other members of the staff and then leave early with him. wink wink Come on, rub his foot under the table and look at him choke on his ale. He'll skin you alive with his eyes and you can just raise a suggestive eyebrow back.

Persistence, persistence.

Of course a bit of physical baiting could help with his dusty libido. After all, they'd kinda be dealing with an teenager, experience-wise. Nothing too bold (though I headcanon that his sooty Cokeworth self would get way more worked up over unabashed desire than delicate courting but he's buried a bit too deep at the moment) but a nice cleavage, some leg showing, a fitting pair of pants or robes might not be a bad move. Since he might be uncomfortable with words, they could flaunt the goods in his face! The man has eyes, let him look and scold himself for looking. Also a few heavy looks, biting a lip and lingering fingers could go a long way for such a deprived man, especially if it's directed at him.

At the end of the day, the trick is to make him able to put his worry aside (or snap, if you find the word sexier).

They could go the provocative way, being insufferable and making him want to shut them up.

They could try some endless teasing until he's a lost hot mess, unable to express what he wants except by going 'fuck it' and going for it.

They could go slower and create a safe space with a weekly ritual (every Friday night meeting for a drink/to grade essays/to hang out) which can lead to a late night snog (floating candles optional).

They could be blunt and go 'I want to kiss you so bad right now' as they leave Hogsmeade together and are walking on the dirt path towards the castle. A gust of wind will prevent him from hiding himself behind his hair and they'll see the flush creeping on his face.

They could hammer the compliments and validation, because Severus craves recognition (is there a praise kink in there? yes). So first it could be his mind, his work, his skills... then the way his cape suits his frame so well, his silky voice... and then bam, hitting the nail on the head with complimenting his mouth. Blabbering mess guaranteed. Might flee but blush deliciously. Or might stop dead in his track and then it's time for them to claim these lips.

Kissing

Clumsy. Tentative. Awkward.

But earnest.

He might freeze at first. Wait, these lips knew how to do that once upon a time... how does it go again? He'll need a bit of time to remember but the best way to (re)learn is practice.

It will be a lot for him. As he's extremely touch-deprived he'd be literally rediscovering human contact. So much to feel, the supple of the lips, their shape, the softness, the wetness.

Honestly, deprived!Snape could get really worked up just from kissing.

(They could honestly make him cum just from this and some grinding. Amen. If he does he'd need reassurance after and still might flee and hide and snarl for a few days because male performance blahblahblah. Hopefully they'd be able to skip this step at this point in the relation.)

But I believe he'd enjoy it greatly and this might be a step he'd want to stay at for some time before going further.

Undressing

I headcanon deprived!Snape as being very self-conscious about revealing his body so it might only be possible with someone he really trusts. It might be painfully difficult for him (might require dimmed light if not obscurity but I mean come on, they're here to look at him and it'd be better for him to rip the bandaid... but giving him the option might help).

Either he'll be too aroused to care (or act as if he doesn't) or he'll feel very self-conscious and look for cues to confirm his belief that his partner will find him disgusting. It's the right moment for them to express their desire.

If for some reason he gets too triggered and leave, they wouldn't be back to square one but again, patience is key. He needs time. Or maybe they could convince him to stay and try to resolve the situation by stopping the intimacy and just talk about something else. It could be good practice to show him this isn't a big deal and that everything is fine.

But at this stage, complimenting him sincerely (no coddling) whilst not hiding their arousal could work nicely. Sprinkling some of the fantasies they had about him as well. ('I've been dreaming about these hands on me', 'You have no idea how much I've been wanting to kiss these lips to make you shut up', 'I laid awake at night thinking about touching this part of you'). Showing appreciation with touch could convince him more though and it has the advantage of preventing him to think too much.

But really, he won't like to focus on his appearance as it's something he has no control over so they should -unfortunately- bite their tongue and keep the flood of horny compliments to themselves at first. A new one might be fed to him once every two weeks to slowly build his confidence.

In Bed

Deprived!Snape is: prideful, yearning for control and very sensitive.

Now honestly I could make a whole other post with the different scenarios where he'd be more top or bottom. Instead, I will focus more on what would happen either way.

He'll want to learn. Because Severus is nothing if not a scholar. He's got a very curious nature regarding topics that interest him so if his partner is showing him how they like something, he'll get super serious about it. He will try to touch them in the exact same way at first and he's a fast learner so once it's mastered, he'll experiment. And he's going to be good at it.

That man got dexterity and an inventive mind. And that's canon.

But his focus on his partner might also be a way to keep control during this highly new situation. Depending on how self-conscious he is about his inexperience, shifting the focus on him might be a challenge. Maybe letting him take the lead could be a good idea. But maybe shoving him against the mattress and seizing control is the way to go here.

Now, he will be very sensitive, won't he?

Yes, he might. He might be a whimpering mess in no time. His partner should be cautious and gentle with him. Severus letting his guard down and letting them touch him is a very big effort coming from him so they should savor it and be sure to make it feel safe if they want this to happen again. Help him relax, let him breathe, don't hesitate to pause if he gets nervous. The walls will be destroyed, moan after moan.

But what if he isn't sensitive?

That's a possibility as well. He's been by himself for years and his wariness of intimacy and people is wired in his cells at this point. He's disconnected from his own body and never pays attention to it. He might also tense heavily once in bed with his partner, the vulnerability of it accentuating the disconnection. He might not feel pleasure, might get frustrated and feel angry or inadequate.

This situation - which I find very interesting and seems like a realistic follow-up to him wanting to kiss for a long time and struggling with undressing - is tricky and will require diplomacy and more patience.

But maybe this could be a dealbreaker for him. If the payoff isn't worth the discomfort, he could easily take it as a confirmation bias that intimacy isn't for the likes of him. The best course of action could be to focus on non-sexual aspect of intimacy.

But this essay is way too long already so I'm going to stop here.

What should I write about next? Is there something you wish I had addressed here? Is there something you'd like me to discuss next?

UPDATE: so a few people seem to be mad at me, demanding I keep on elaborating SO. Let's say I'm done here for the 'how to bed him' part (which was the premise of this essay) and I'll do another one following thoughts and possibly... focusing on the different roles in bed (top/bottom/switch) for our dear Severus. See you there.

TLDR: He's gonna be a pain, his partner needs to have calming draught for their nerves but in the end it will be very rewarding because he's starved and inventive.

[wolfsong-the-bloody-beast]

Ifan is my beloved, and I do enjoy a lot about how he's written, but I would definitely like to see him struggle more with his past and more of it being brought to light. Whether we would find out about it ourselves or he would confess it himself. I would like him to face it with us. As it is, we have to collect bits and pieces all over the place to know anything about his past ourselves. It really does feel like they want him to be this unhinged, violent man, but also won't show it much unless it's a highly emotional situation with a character that pretty much deserves it, where a lot of our companions might react the same way. Yet there are hints to some really interesting stuff, unexplored.

Like the Lone Wolves are mercenaries of the worst kind. They'd do anything for gold. They hunted elves so they could sell them as slaves. After all, they did it to Sebille. And they didn't treat her kindly while holding her captive, either. I know the companions pretty much ignore each other, but Ifan and Sebille should've clashed about this. Roost and his Lone Wolves hurt her in completely unforgivable ways, but Ifan was Roost's friend and a member of the Lone Wolves, but there's no conflict when you have them both in the party whatsoever. It's even more ridiculous when you bring them both to see Roost, because then Sebille takes over and attacks Roost, while Ifan has nothing to say about it.

When you use spirit vision in the Lone Wolf base, there are spirits of murdered children that Roost and his goons tortured to death. That can't possibly be a new thing. Shit like that must have been happening while Ifan was still with them. He and Roost were friends. He had to know about at least some of it. He had to participate in some of the things the Lone Wolves did. In the comic, he's shown to be tracking an elf (to turn over to the magisters iirc). At the very least, Ifan had to be complacent with some of the atrocities the Lone Wolves committed. After all, he's supposed to be one of the most dangerous men in Rivellon. But we can't talk about it much. Sure, we know he's a killer for hire. We can compare body counts, which doesn't necessarily mean anything in a game like this. We can talk about him nuking the elven homeland, which he was tricked into while trying to save the elves, so that is a horrific thing, but something nobody can actually hold against him.

I played an elven Godwoken, who I romanced him with, and the fact that there's a solid chance that he used to help Roost and the Lone Wolves hunt elves, if he didn't do it himself, to sell into slavery is something we can't discuss, and that's kind of insane. I'm all for redemption and drawing a big fat line behind that life in order to do better, but we should get into it first.

It can be a bit hard to believe Ifan is supposed to be the man that the game insists that he is at times, because he's immediately friendly, kind, cares about doing the right thing. He blushes and gets flustered like a schoolgirl when you flirt with him for the first time. (Which is cute, of course.) He only shows his fangs a little when you do something he really doesn't like, otherwise he shows you his whole belly almost each conversation when you're nice to him. This is so funny for romance, because he catches a glimpse of the Godwoken, immediately develops a crush, and is forever a good boy. Yes, his mannerism is still rough and brutish to some extent, and I like that, but it's not intimidating. Yet he's supposed to be somebody who used to murder and sell people out for gold, but you wouldn't know almost anything about it from talking to him.

Ifan ben-Mezd, the Silver Claw, is often actually more of a puppy when the Godwoken is around, while he's supposed to be a wolf, and part of me loves it, and part of me really wishes they also got into the darkness in him that they tease us with. The whole "the hands gently cradling your face are drenched in unspeakable amounts of blood" thing just before sleeping with him is kinda hot, not gonna lie, I'm very much into the feral Ifan narrative, but the thing is that I've been scratching this guy behind the ears the whole game, so it also doesn't perhaps have the intended impact (?), because we have absolutely no reason to feel unsafe around him. His violence is always turned in the right direction. That is, away from us, towards some villain.

For the record, I do like his personality exactly the way it is. I love the moments we get with him in the game. But I also think that his bloody past shouldn't be glossed over like that. There's so much left unexplored there. Walking into the Lone Wolf camp and discovering what they are like and not being able to talk to him about his involvement in all that is crazy. Especially considering that he's clearly trying to be a better man, trying to put some incredibly dark and bloody chapters of his life behind him. He's obviously heartbroken over the deathfog incident, which he was tricked into while having the best of intentions, but we don't see him struggle much with the fact that he was a ruthless killer for hire pretty much five minutes ago, which was his own choice. A choice made after the deathfog incident completely broke him and nothing mattered to him any more, sure, but still his own choice. It would be so interesting to get into it and talk to him about it, perhaps even confront him if you play a character that cares about doing good.

Im throwing rocks at my own roof here, but unfortunately I'd wish that Ifan's characterization was more consistent in-game. Like yeah I'll play and pretend he's a bad boy for ship reasons but 99% of in-game interactions are him being good-hearted and a kind person.

AND DON'T GET ME WRONG there is nothing I love more than a kind rough man, but that leaves scenes in which the narrator has to verbally remind you that that man is a mercenary, or him casually dropping that he kills people. Sure we see OTHER Lone Wolfs do bad shit; but any in-game violence is either something that the party started; or that they are okay with. So when you get into a romance scene and the narrator reminds you that he is a "dangerous man", it falls a bit flat imo

[slowcatsisland]

Hey, i love your stories, can you do how the warlords (specifically Mihawk, Jinbei, and Crocodile) would react to finding out the reader is a former slave, but the reader is also a warlord themself, it can be platonic or romantic, I don't mind either way.

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Warlords; Involved With A Warlord That’s A Former Slave

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A/N: established romantic relationship (well as romantic as u can get with some of these guys..) Takes place before the Warlord system was abolished. I had a hard time writing this without it sounding too ooc so if u have a different thought abt how some of these warlords would react pls comment and lemme know! I was gonna include Blackbeard but lowkey idek how he’s react I don’t understand him that well and I have free will to not write abt that lil hoe

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Dracule Mihawk: Mihawk was approached by you initially before the two of you became involved with each other. Your abilities and admirable Haki gained you some respect from Mihawk. Particularly your fighting style was something that stood out to him, and he was interested to understand your potential more throughly.

Mihawk’s stoicism and general lack of public presence fit your needs well. Due to Mihawk’s perceptive nature, I’d wager he had suspicions that something happened between you and the World Government because of your obvious aversion to them. Though, lots of people don’t like the World Government, especially pirates so I don’t see him bringing it up unless he was too curious.

Assuming you keep the slave branding covered, Mihawk would only ever see it if you willingly present it to him. I don’t really think that the dynamic between you two will change once he knows. He would probably be more accommodating for you at Muggy Kingdom and understands your character better than he did previously. He himself has his own issues with the World Government and for his partner to be a victim of the conditions that they set up definitely increases his loathing of the world government.

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Bartholomew Kuma: (small disclaimer I’m not too familiar with Kuma’s character either..) Kuma was probably hesitant to become involved with you due to his own enslavement to the World Government both previously and in terms of being a pacifista cyborg as well as being a revolutionary member. Though through small, private interactions over the course of numerous years the two of you had developed a bond.

Once Kuma put his trust in you and knew that while you were a Warlord and pirate; you were also a rare, good person, he was willing to risk confiding in you. He didn’t tell you everything, just a little bit about himself so you were aware of his mixed life. It prompted you to reveal your own checkered past and sorta showed him how similar people become after being affected by the World Government.

You had told him about your previous status as a slave. I feel like Kuma would be disheartened to hear about another’s enslavement, but he would also be able to empathize with you more than most anyone else in the world (as well as he can for a cyborg..) At most I feel like he can only offer you words and wouldn’t be able to take any action for you. Though his tender empathy, even at a distance, is comforting to you.

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Donxuiquote Doflamingo: (literally the worst reaction you could ever hope for. I’m sorry but to me I feel like telling him this is the equivalent to saying that you have a D middle initial in your name. He WILL tweak I promise)

Your relationship with Doflamingo is akin to a give and take rather than an actual companionship. Though there might be what he thinks is love present on his side, it only ever harms you and even others at times. His love is more reflective of a child roughly playing with his favorite toy no matter how tattered it gets. You’re his favorite yes, but for how long? When will he notice the cracks in your paint coating? Or the chipped pieces of your frame?

He was attracted to your abilities and wanted to form an alliance. This alliance did benefit your crew, and granted you more political influence in the world. (Though, I feel like Doflamingo would try to make it physical between the two of you.)

Doflamingo figuring out that you were a former slave wasn’t intended by you. You had wanted to keep that a secret from him as long as you could. You didn’t know how he would react, but you didn’t think it would be good. And it wasn’t good, when he saw the burn seared into your back. The whole world stopped for a moment, nothing heard except your shaky breaths. I feel like this would go either two ways.

Doflamingo would be disgusted. He would feel cheated. How dare you be branded by something other than him, is what he would ask himself. He used to own slaves. He technically still does with his citizens of Dressrosa. He knows their lack of worth, their use to him and his mind would clash that version of inferiority with you instantly. To him, you were less than before but now you’re just a fake pretending to be human and pretending to be stronger than you really are. I feel like his reaction would be violent towards you and he would call off the progression of your alliance immediately.

The other way I see it going (and it’s kinda sick in my mind) is that Doflamingo would feel a new type of ownership over you. He used to authorize people to get that branding on your back. He’d feel like you were reminiscent of his past and his former birth right. I feel like he might try to coax you into becoming a slave for him under the pretense of sympathy and understanding. This would be him playing the long game, trying to break you down enough mentally for you to be dependent on him and he would be able to use you however he wanted. He would also use this information against you too, threatening to reveal it to the public or the government officials. Even worse, the celestial dragons so they could come and take you back.

Disgusting bird this one is

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Hancock Boa: (lowkey I feel like she’s incapable of falling for someone other than Luffy presently but we can ignore that) Boa would only ever try to pursuit a relationship if you had treated her the same way Luffy treated her. If you had shown her a lack of lust and instead genuine affection or kindness, she would be down so bad.

One big milestone in the development of your relationship with Boa was her revealing her own personal enslavement. She told you in desperation of a connection of trust and to try to prove that she wasn’t worthy of you. She was utterly shocked when you turned around and bared your own identical marking to her.

It would cause the two of you to have an intimate bond beyond anything sexual. You validated her and her sisters’ worth and existence. You also showed her that the mark didn’t have to be something to fear and that she could rely on you. I think she would fall in love with you like how she did with Luffy and would defy the World Government not just for herself and her empire anymore, but for you as well.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Jimbei: I feel like Jimbei would pursue someone with a clear moral scale and have ideals that align with him. (Though he’d probably prefer fishmen so like if you’re human he might not be looking at you like that..) You were an honorable pirate and someone that Jimbei was able to communicate with beyond Warlord meetings. The Sun Pirates would most likely notice the chances of an alliance forming between them and your crew given the praises Jimbei has given you.

It was on an island of neutral ground for the two of you, enjoying the isolation and conversing with one another when it happened. You told Jimbei of your previous enslavement and showed him your branding. It wasn’t really prompted, maybe you wished for Jimbei to talk of the important history of the Sun Pirates and Fisher Tiger. The slavery of fishmen was woven between the threads of the creation of the Sun Pirates. It was a safe space, Jimbei makes you feel safe, so once Jimbei was done talking, you opened up.

Jimbei would feel sympathy for your mark and your story. But he’s also someone who would be quick to acknowledge your strength to overcome it and persevere to the status of Warlord of your own pirate crew. Jimbei ran a hand over the mark softly before thinking of something. He offered to give you the Sun Pirates’ marking over it.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Trafalgar Law: Law wouldn’t be looking for a relationship until possibly after he is able to complete his goal of avenging Corazon by defeating Doflamingo. Plus you were a warlord with your own crew, so the trust he gave you was scarce if he gave you any at all.

Though, if he did align with your pirate crew and you helped him in his goal he’d have a considerable amount of trust and loyalty towards you for the duration of the alliance. Through this, the two of you gradually became a little closer to each other, divulging in stories of the past and history in the small free time you had. Though you weren’t together and neither of you would mention the kindles of what could perhaps be something more between the two of you.

One late night, you let it slip that you were a former slave. Law paused momentarily before acting unaffected. A silence fell over you two for a couple moments before he mentioned that you were free now. To which you responded with a smile. It wasn’t brought up again, and your alliance ended after the events of Dressrosa.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Gecko Moria: (guys I don’t like him) Hm. I feel like he would approach you first. Especially in his youth because he was more of a confident pirate before he faced off with Kaido. He had taken a liking to your appearance and your abilities were well suited for tasks in his opinion. I feel like he would propose an alliance with an ultimate goal of obtaining your power for his motives.

I thinks relationship with him would be another one based on mutual contentment, you scratch his big back, he scratches yours. Though, over time I think he would become loyal to you and care for you of his own will, not for the sake of the alliance.

He found out about your enslavement through one of his nosy underlings, maybe Perona. It would reason that you and her were at least acquaintances. I don’t think this would change much for Moria, though he might try to express sympathy for you. Perhaps he might bring it up in hopes you talk about your past to him so he can know more about you and what you’ve endured. He is caring to those who he considers family, and he would be willing to consider you that.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Crocodile: Crocodile was most likely approached by you. Though being the business man that he is, the only form of entanglement he would engage in would be through a mutual alliance of some sort.

Time may change the context of your alliance with him, and your relationship could grow into something that loosely resembles a carrying couple. Yet while Crocodile has his own secrets you aren’t privy to, he doesn’t enjoy you hiding ones from him, especially if it affects business.

You told him you would tell him a secret if he told you what happened to his hand. It was the amount of whiskey you had earlier in the evening talking, but Crocodile always became rather amused with your drunken ramblings. He made you go first.

He was rather surprised when you told him that you used to be a slave. You had covered your past so well. You were always dressed luxuriously, you surrounded yourself and your crew with powerful people, and you had this air of unassailable confidence that he always wanted to control. It just didn’t fit you, being a slave. When he asked about the marking, you replied that you got surgery to remove it and replace the skin graft of the area it was covering. He could tell you hated that part of your past, and hated the World Government and Celestial Dragons even more. You told him you would wring his neck if he publicized it. Puffing his cigar in your face, he mused before taking a deep sigh and told you about the story of his hand.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Kinda a long one, I really had to think abt this one but it was fun to write

Mwah 😽

[heeseungiez]

love letter | hyung line (0)

— a teaser

your whole life, you’ve only known one thing: relaying love letters. but what happens when one of those letters is addressed to you?

— pairings! heeseung x reader; jay x reader; jake x reader; sunghoon x reader

— featuring! enhypen members, haewon from nmixx, yuna from itzy and possibly other idols

— genre! romcom, high school au, found family, fluff with a tiny bit of angst (?)

— author’s note! i’ve really been loving family by choice so far and the whole love letters plot inspired this fic, sooo 🤭

— tags! open

check out my masterlist !!

“Here,” says a girl you recognise from your year. Jang Wonyoung holds up a carefully wrapped letter with cute drawings on the outside. It also smells very sweet and fruity, like lemon and peaches.

“To whom?” you ask automatically, grabbing the letter without studying it further. To you, it’s just another one on top of many, many more. 

“Park Sunghoon,” she replies, a giggle leaving her lips at the mere mention of the boy. You fight the urge to roll your eyes. It’s not that you don’t understand— okay, you don’t understand, actually. Sunghoon never shows any interest in any girls whatsoever, and yet they keep trying to approach him or give him love letters through you, and honestly, you’re tired.

“Fine. But I can’t guarantee he will read it nor respond to it nor that he won’t simply throw it away,” you say in a monotone because it’s an automatic response that leaves your lips every time you receive a letter. You might as well be considered a customer service worker — an office worker, really — with the way you deal with them. 

“I know. But thanks anyway.” Wonyoung smiles at you because realistically, she’s nice. From what you’ve heard about her, she’s great. So you’re a bit put off by the fact she’d show any interest in Park Sunghoon, of all people.

Sighing, you put the letter in a paper bag that has a sticker of a penguin on skates on it and Park Sunghoon’s name written right underneath. The bag has been with you for years by now. You made it back in fourth grade, probably, so it’s a miracle it still holds on. Especially because it’s already overflowing with letters from this morning.

Next to it, you glance at the other three bags. One with a sticker of a golden retriever and Sim Jaeyun in glittery letters, one with a black cat holding a knife and Park Jongseong written in cursive on it, and the last being a basketball sticker with the name LEE HEESEUNG in capital letters. 

This is what you get for befriending your neighbours, you guess. But seven-year-old you wanted to have older brothers, and seven-year-old you did not know that once you grow up, something like love and crushes would exist in your world. Until you did grow up, and you learned the hard way what it meant to be the so-called little sister of four decently looking boys. 

None of which have ever shown interest in anyone, ever, as far as you can tell. Or they simply haven’t told you anything about their love lives which, honestly, you prefer. It’s enough that you have to relay love letters to them, having to hear about them actually dating someone would be far worse. But somehow you doubt they’ve dated anyone — unless they’re much better at keeping secrets than you thought. Because the whole school would be taken by storm had anyone found out. Even if it was just the old janitor who found either one of them hiding in the broom closet with a girl, the whole school would know by the next day if not within the next hour. 

To put it simply, they’re popular.

Park Sunghoon, the figure skater whose entire life has been spent mainly on ice. People at school call him the ice prince for the obvious reasons, and the less obvious ones, where he just regards everyone as if they’re beneath him unless they’re his friends or, well… you.

Sim Jaeyun or Jake, the football prodigy and team captain who moved here from Australia and therefore has an Australian accent and is bilingual which, for some reason, girls love. He’s also the nicest person anyone could ever meet, so that might also be a factor. A golden retriever in human form, people say. The only reason you like him is because he’s been bribing you with snacks since middle school, though (said jokingly… maybe). 

Park Jongseong or Jay who, on the other hand, moved here from the United States and is known for his love of music and bands and guitars and the fact he can play the instrument. He’s in a band with some other guys from school, but you’re not all that familiar with them since Jay mostly keeps them away from you, for whatever stupid reason he’s made up about protecting you and whatnot.

And lastly, the oldest of the four, Lee Heeseung who is the basketball team captain and a huge nerd which girls also love? You’re half-convinced that if he were partially blind and had to wear glasses, the whole school would fall apart with the amount of people trying to catch a single glance of him. (Yes, he wears fake glasses sometimes, so maybe you’re speaking from experience.) He’s the guy you’d go to if you need help with school but he literally does not have any time in between his so-called game time, which is punished by death if interrupted, studying, and basketball practice. The only way to receive help with studying from Lee Heeseung is to either (1) study exactly what he is studying or (2) be you. 

Someone shoves another letter right in front of your face.

“Who?” you ask without looking up. But the letter is waved in front of your face with such violence that you roll your eyes, sigh, and look up. You’re met with the sight of one of your best friends, Kim Sunoo, whose cheeks must be hurting from how big his grin is.

“It’s not for them,” he says giddily, dropping the letter on your desk.

You study it for a second, noticing one glaringly obvious thing.

To: Y/N.

It’s addressed to you.

“Who gave this to you?” Your eyes widen as you turn to Sunoo with question marks in your eyes. But the boy shrugs, clueless.

“I have no idea. It wasn’t exactly given to me, you know. There was someone who just bumped into me without saying sorry or turning around, and they dropped this. So, obviously, I had to check what they dropped and well… it turned out to be a letter addressed to you,” Sunoo recalls the story, dramatically motioning with his hands to emphasise the whole scene.

You grin, staring at the letter.

“For me?” you ask yourself, your eyes fixated on the name written in neat handwriting.

“Open it,” Sunoo encourages you.

“Open what?” A new voice joins the conversation, and your smile grows even brighter at the sight of Yang Jungwon, your other friend, and class president.

“Look!” you say, grabbing the letter to wave it in front of his face. “I got a letter. Can you believe it? Me. Not the guys, but me.”

“Are you sure it’s real?” Jungwon asks sceptically, his eyes narrowed. “What if someone’s making fun of you?”

“Why are you so pessimistic?” Sunoo frowns, looking at Jungwon. “I think someone likes Y/N. It was about time, too. Her life needs to stop revolving about those four.” It’s not that Sunoo has anything against Heeseung, Jay, Jake or Sunghoon personally, but he’s not fond of how much time you spend doing things that are seemingly just for them. Like constantly dealing with their love letters. It seems that your entire existence at school is as the girl that talks to them.

“I’m not disagreeing, but still. It’s a bit weird that the letter came out of nowhere.” Jungwon shrugs, ending his point there. He connects his lips together in a thin line, and you know that he won’t argue any further.

“Should we maybe open it with Yuna and Haewon, too?” you ask, your eyes never leaving the letter. “We need more opinions.”

“At lunch?”

“At lunch.”

“Fine. But I’d still be careful.” Jungwon sighs, shaking his head. “If the person can’t give the letter directly to you, they’re not really worth it.” It’s funny how Jungwon just managed to indirectly attack every single girl that has ever made you relay a love letter without thinking much about it.

“You sound like Jay,” you point out anyway, making a face. Sunoo hums in agreement. 

“That’s not a bad thing.” Jungwon nudges your shoulder with a soft laugh.

[ghouldtime]

Neighbor! König Part 2

Part One

Part Three

After you expressed interest in his miniature collection, he actually actively OFFICIALLY invited you over one evening (and inside!)

It may not sound like much to most to be invited into someone's house but for him, it's the ultimate trust. His house is his private space, his sanctuary, where he goes to be without other people

He doesn't ever invite anyone inside unless necessary or they've truly gained his trust and being invited INTO his house, and actually into a shared space of one of the hobbies that matter the most to him?? Yeah, that's how he says he likes you

He's been working on his models and dioramas for so so long he's incredibly proud and can't help but to want to actually show them off to someone who wants to see

Usually most people don't care :( or think it's weird

But you've embraced it! You're so excited and he's over the moon, he's having the best day ever, if you do research and bring him gifts or show him some new ideas

He has exquisite attention to detail and INSISTS on everything being exactly the way he envisions it. And you notice! You actually notice. Which means you care about his hobbies, the work he puts in, and therefore him

It might be a bit early to say the L word but he's feeling certain ways

He may be a big dude but that doesn't mean he lacks fine motor skills. He's laying those tiny pieces of moss onto the cobble stones like a PRO

Miniatures allow him control over the environment, even if it's on a smaller scale, and offer a way to keep his hands and mind busy so he often throws himself into it

It also helps him relive happier memories. He's afraid of forgetting them and when he's stressing, it's his happy place because he can look at them and simply remember the things in life that matter

He'll ask you about a story you like or a favorite show or book or movie. That's his next miniature planned (in secret. Can't ruin the surprise, he needs to have it all perfect. He will either read the book, watch the movie, will study EVERY detail)

He will start to invite you over when he's having a painting night or is working on them. You don't have to follow his rules or do what he wants! He's just happy you're there and appreciating it

He will always have your favorite snacks and drinks in stock too. Need to make it fun and can't have you going hungry

If you want, he'll put on background noise! He's happy to make it immersive and to light a candle or put something in a diffuser to really set the scene you're going for. But he's perfectly happy to hangout with you as is

You'll finally get to hear him laugh and hear his really, really bad jokes. He has a dry sense of humor and most of what he says isn't even close to funny, he's awkward like that

But if you laugh? That's it, he's sold.

Time flies so fast when you're over, you don't even realize it's 3am

You don't need to go home! I know it's right across the street but he has a guest room and it saves you the trip in the morning. You have a whole nother round of characters to paint :)

Okay maybe it was an excuse so you could see the curtains he'd made and the pillows and he decorated the guest room with! Like actually tried decorating. They're made with love, that's what counts right?

Did he spray the pillows with his cologne before you came over? Maybe, but he won't ever admit to it

You can't complain. Not when he insists it's no trouble at all, you should stay over, and he does everything he can to make you comfortable.

And you're certainly not complaining when you wake up to breakfast in bed

He's so happy to finally have someone to share his life with, even if it's nothing official. He might not say it because words are hard, but he'll always show it in every way that he can 💚

If you look closely at the replica he made of his childhood home, you'll notice two figures in the kitchen who just so happen to look like you and him

Proud believer of König being just a guy! A guy with hobbies! A guy with a calm domestic life! Just because he's a private military contractor doesn't mean he's a constantly violent dude or a guy who lacks an immense amount of respect for boundaries. Sure, he gets really into his job when he does it, but that's his realm! That's his zone. That's why he's confident and having fun, he knows he's good

Outside of work, he's just a guy with a troubled childhood making the best of life and trying to find his own sense of belonging, happiness, and peace

Justice for König, he's not an insane perv or some freakytron or some stalker :(

[bisexualbaker]

What to post about on Dreamwidth

There's a question that may be on a lot of minds right now, that some people may be afraid to ask. Or you might not even think to ask it until after you're in deep enough that you'll feel silly for doing so! So let's get it out of the way ASAP.

"But what do I even post on Dreamwidth? Don't all posts there need to be super long and thoughtful?"

Not even a little bit! As with any social media site, posting is the blood that keeps social interactions going. You can get into comments, yes, but those happen best with posts! But with the (I'm sorry to say) sub-par image hosting interface on Dreamwidth (that will hopefully be fixed someday, but probably is at least several years out, I'm even sorrier to say), people who are used to an image-heavy social media site might be a bit daunted by Dreamwidth's text-heavy interface. So here's some ideas of things you can post:

Shitposts. It is entirely fine, okay, and even wonderful to make shitposts on Dreamwidth! Since Dreamwidth isn't a content aggregation site and doesn't have built-in reblogging, you probably shouldn't expect them to go very far (unless a member of metaquotes sees them and wants to share), but they're still welcome 👍

GIPs, or, Gratuitous Icon Posts! Free users get a total of 15 icons to use like reaction images and gifs, and sometimes when you upload one, you just want to share it with everyone right away! That's when you make a Gratuitous Icon Post. You can literally just make a post using that icon, and then put GIP in the text field, and boom! You're done.

Steal some prompts from sunshine_challenge, snowflake_challenge, or thefridayfive. While you can also do any of these challenges in real time, there's nothing stopping you from doing them whenever you want, and The Friday Five has a huge number of back-posts to dig through. Just go back a few pages on the main community page, pick a day with questions you like the look of, and post those (with your answers) to your journal!

Do you have a pet? Or more than one? Post about what they're doing right this second. Someone's bound to be interested in that!

To-do lists. Not only can it be helpful to have these actually written out, some of your followers may chime in to root for you to do them!

Media reviews in three sentences or less. Of course you can make them longer if you want, but if you're just looking to get a quick post out, this one might be pretty fun.

Something you're looking forward to! It doesn't have to be a big thing, even something like, "I can't wait for my next afternoon nap!" or "I just bought a new book and I'm really looking forward to reading it!" or "I wanna go home so I can pet my dog so bad!" Any of those would be a fine post.

Three (or more) Things Make a List: If you've got at least three things you've been meaning to post about, but don't have a lot to say about any of them, jumble them all together in the same post! Pretty sure this tradition dates back farther than Dreamwidth, though damned if I could say where it started.

It may not seem like these ideas have a lot in common, but one thing they're all good for is starting a conversation with your followers. And that's at least half the fun of Dreamwidth, IMO.

There's more ideas out there, but these should at least get you started. And if you keep it up, you'll have the hang of Dreamwidth in no time 😉

[senipsenipsenip]

The Pines family sat at the table, quietly eating their breakfast, when Mabel slammed her hands on the table and shouted “KERMIT THE FROG”.

Dipper leapt forward to right his orange juice glass, gathering nearby napkins to sop up the puddle. “What?”

“Kermit the frog! He plays the banjo!”

“Yyyyes?”

Ford raised his hand. “Who’s Kermit the Frog?”

Stan snapped his head up from his plate. “Who’s Kermit the Frog? The Muppets, Pointdexter, you were around for The Muppet Show. They had a movie and everything.”

Ford frowned. “Muppets.”

“Yeah, they’re a riot! There’s this bear whose got some great puns and this pig who really know how to throw a punch. You’d love it, they’ve even got a scientist!”

Ford raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize you were such a fan of children’s television.”

“Children?!”

Dipper stirred his cereal. “I’m just impressed you remember all that. Yesterday you forgot you were married.”

“That’s because The Muppets are forever!” Mabel exclaimed.

“Wait, Stanley you were married?”

“Yep. Twice. Actually, unless I’m forgetting a divorce, I might still be married.”

“You didn’t,” Mabel chirped. “I’d have it on my Romance Chart if you did. You’ve missed a lot of anniversaries.”

“So has he!” Stan argued. “I’m not the only bad husband here!”

Ford spluttered. “Husband?”

Dipper frowned. “I think we’re getting a little too far away from why Mabel screamed Kermit the Frog and knocked my orange juice over.”

Mabel nodded. “Right, so, I was thinking of Mr. McGucket -

“Stanley you have a husband?“

“I was thinking of Mr. McGucket,” Mabel interrupted. “And how he could maybe help around the Shack. And he plays banjo! He could play banjo and people could put money in his lil banjo case like a real musician.”

At the mention of money, Stan leaned forward.

“But like, no one knows banjo music,” Mabel continued. “So I was like, maybe pop hits banjo? But then BOOM! Kermit the Frog! People love that frog. He could play the rainbow song. He’d be a hit!”

“Interesting,” Stan muttered. “Preying on people’s nostalgia to milk them for cash. I love it!”

Ford hummed. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea, Mabel. Activities like playing musical instruments have been proven to help patients with Alzheimers and dementia. Not that Fiddleford’s condition has the same root cause, but it may prove beneficial to memory recovery.”

“Eugh, don’t ruin this for me.”

“If playing an instrument helps with memory loss, maybe Grunkle Stan should learn an instrument,” Dipper suggested.

“Ooo!” Mabel squealed. “What about guitar? Or the piano? OH!” She clutched Stan’s arm with a fervor. “The triangle!”

Ford grimaced. “Maybe not that one.”

“Sorry, kid. I’m not exactly a music guy,” Stan shrugged out of Mabel’s grasp. “Let’s leave that to the professionals.”

Mabel frowned, but let the topic go.

Ford stood from the table. “Well, I happen to be visiting Fiddleford this afternoon. I can broach the topic and see what he thinks.”

Fiddleford, as it turns out, loved the idea. To the surprise of everyone, Fiddleford admitted that he had always wanted to play in a jugband when he was younger, but could never get over his stage fright enough to audition for the local band. Then he went off to college and then…everything else.

“Maybe I zapped away that scared bit enough to play!” he had cackled, knocking at the side of his head with his knuckles.

It was settled. “Fiddlin’ Fridays at the Mystery Shack with Fiddleford McGucket”. Dipper tried to point out the title didn’t make sense since it was a banjo, not a fiddle. Stan argued that “customers are suckers for alliteration”. The set up was just Fiddleford dragging an old rocking chair onto the porch and opening up his banjo case. Mabel had made a large glittery banner, but it was quickly absconded by Fiddleford’s raccoon.

“Tell your wife to give me back my banner!” Mabel had yelled, chasing the raccoon into the bushes.

“Ex-wife,” Fiddleford sighed sadly. “Apparently I was too emotionally available.”

Ford pulled at his hair. “Did everyone get married without telling me?”

“Excuse me?” A voice piped up. Fiddleford and Ford turned to see a little boy standing at the bottom of the porch. He was dressed in hiking clothes that were obviously new. In the distance, a young woman was unstrapping a baby from its seat in an SUV. Obviously city folk coming to the “wilderness” for the first time.

“Are you a real hillbilly?” The boy asked. Suddenly the door slammed open, Mr. Mystery striding through, eyepatch in place.

“Sure is!” Stan grinned. “Our very own genuine hillbilly just waiting to play you a tune! All you gotta do is put some of your mom’s money in his case there.”

The little boy’s eyes widened, turning around to race towards his mother.

“Stanley,” Ford admonished. “Fiddleford isn’t some show monkey to throw money at.”

“During work hours he is.” Stan turned to Fiddleford. “So, did Mabel teach you that song she was so excited about?”

Fiddleford sat frozen, watching the little boy yank at his mothers pants to try and get her attention, the baby beginning to fuss.

“Well…” Fiddleford cleared his throat. “Some good news and bad news fellas.”

Ford furrowed his brows. “What is it?”

“Good news is, my mind ain’t all broken.” Fiddleford hugged his banjo and turned to look up at Ford. “Bad news is I knows it ‘cause I still got stage fright.”

Stan scoffed. “Stage fright? C’mon it’s one kid and a couple o’ city slickers who would probably think you playing three wrong notes and spitting is ‘authentic’.”

“Stanley, be supportive.”

“I am! Look I’ve been at this job forever. All you gotta do is smile and if something goes wrong, you blame a ghost or something. They eat that up.”

Fiddleford shook his head. “But this is music. If’n I mess up music, ‘specially somethin’ they know. Music is real special to people, I can’t spoil it.”

Ford knelt down next to Fiddleford’s chair. “You don’t have to play that song Fiddleford. You don’t have to play at all.”

Fiddleford looked anxiously between Ford and the family. It seemed the little boy had finally gotten his mother’s attention and was excitedly pointing toward the porch.

“I…” Fiddleford shook his head. “I can’t let the little ‘uns down. ‘Specially not those ones.” As he said this, he gestured with his chin towards the other end of the porch where Dipper and Mabel sat bickering in lawn chairs. Mabel had returned from her raccoon chase covered in twigs and holding a surprisingly docile raccoon. Dipper was leaning away from the pair while trying to convince Mabel to stop feeding it gummy worms before it developed a taste for human food and tried breaking into the Shack.

Ford's gaze drifted to the twins. "Alright," he relented. "But you still don't have to play Mabel's song."

Fiddleford bowed his head.

"Yet!" Ford offered. "Not yet. She'll understand I'm sure."

Fiddleford frowned, looking unconvinced.

"Of course not yet!" Stan interjected. "You can't go playing the grand finale right out of the gate! You gotta warm 'em up first, keep 'em wanting more." Stan slapped his hand on Fiddleford's back. "If you give 'em what they want right away, they won't come back! Hold that one off until tomorrow or...uh...next week. Tease it or something."

Stan had started rubbing the back of his neck with his other hand as he spoke, a tell Ford was quick to recognize. It was the same one he did when he would "begrudgingly" let Mabel choose the movie for movie night or let Dipper rope him into another game of Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons. Covering the most vulnerable part of his body while he let his emotions go soft.

Fiddleford seemed to perk up at Stan's words.

"Well," Fiddleford offered. "I do know some proper jugband music. Only, it don't have the same ring to it without a jug."

"We've got a jug!" Mabel cheered from the other side of the porch. It seemed the raccoon argument had reached enough of a truce that the twins were once again paying attention to the concert. "I used to keep pond water in it, it's in the kitchen!" She hopped off of her chair, lugging the racoon along with her like it was a rather expensive lap cat.

Dipper followed her. "Why did you have a jug of pond water?"

"Because, dummy, if I met a frog prince he would need something in the shack to remind him of home."

"Aren't you supposed to turn him into a person though?"

Whatever Mabel's retort was to be was cut off by the door swinging shut.

"There ya go," Stan grumbled. "You're getting your jug. Just in time too." He gestured toward the SUV. The mother was walking toward the Shack, one hand holding the baby, the other gripping tightly to the little boy's hand. The little boy gripped a few dollars in his fist, eyes alight with excitement.

Fiddleford looked frantic. "I can't sing and play the jug at the same time!" He gripped at his hat, pulling it down over his ears.

Ford sighed. "Then don't play the jug."

"It won't be the same!" Fiddleford shook his head. "A jugband without a jug that's...that's like a body with no heartbeat!"

The door swung open and Mabel emerged with an old ceramic jug.

"Here it is!" she exclaimed. "And it only sort of smells like pond scum."

"I don't think that will be necessary," Ford smiled gently. "It seems Fiddleford can't play both simultaneously."

Mabel frowned. "But it's a jugband. It's in the name!"

"How about we wait another day," Ford offered, patting Fiddleford awkwardly on the back. "Maybe someone in town will join you."

"Oh for Pete's sake, give it to me." Stan snatched the jug out Mabel's hand, sniffing at the top and giving a grimace.

Fiddleford stopped pulling at his hat, peeking out from under the brim. "You'll play?"

Stan grunted. "I'm not missing out on good money just because you have a case of the heebie jeebies. Besides, how hard can it be? It's like blowing on the top of a beer...er...I mean soda bottle."

Dipper crossed his arms. "Grunkle Stan, we know what beer is."

"Not from me you don't."

Mabel squealed. "It's happening! Grunkle Stan is learning an instrument!"

"It's not an instrument, Pumpkin. It's dishware."

"It's a scrapbookortunity!"

Mabel dashed into the house once more, leaving Dipper to grin at their Grunkle Stan.

The family was only a few yards away now. Fiddleford looked between Stan, Ford, and Dipper, and straightened up in his seat.

"Alright. Alright!" He clapped his hands together. "Stanley, you get down here with me, otherwise your feet are gonna get mighty sore from standing." He yanked at Stanley's hand until he sat beside the rocking chair with a grumble.

"Now when I tap my foot," Fiddleford instructed. "You blow on the jug. One short note at a time." Fiddleford tapped his foot in demonstration. "You got that?"

Stanley rolled his eyes. "Gee, I don't know. Seems pretty complicated for the guy without a PhD."

Mabel burst through the door, camera clutched in her hands. "Got it!"

"Excuse me?"

The little boy stood on the porch, approaching the banjo case with far more trepidation than before. Eyes darting between the assembly, he dropped a few dollars in the case.

"Is this enough to play a song?"

Fiddleford didn't bother looking at the money. He turned his gaze to Stanley, who shrugged and raised the jug to his lips.

Fiddleford grinned. "You know ‘Boodle Am Shake’?"

The little boy shook his head.

"Well you're about to!" And with that he was off.

By Fiddleford's standards, it wasn't a horribly complicated tune. Ford had heard him pluck out more complex riffs while waiting for the coffee pot in their dorm room to brew. But Fiddleford was smiling. His shoulders had dropped from around his ears, and he was nodding at the little boy to tap his feet along with him. Ford hid his smile behind his hands as he watched Stanley, eyes focused on Fiddleford's bare foot with as much attention as one would give to diffusing a bomb. Next to him, Mabel was snapping pictures of the pair. Dipper stood on his other side, wearing the small smile he tended to get when feeling introspective. Ford laid his hand on Dipper's shoulder, and Dipper leaned into the touch.

The mother was smiling at her little boy, her baby having finally stopped fussing. Maybe it wasn't the grand attraction Mabel had planned, but Ford thought it was worth far more than those few dollars anyway. Nothing could be worth more than his family standing around him, his closest friend singing again.

I know this song, it don't mean a doggone thing. Just do that good old Charleston swing. When you sing...

[burins]

kroger shoppers and butch4butch: failures of categorization, failures of desire

(originally published in 2023’s yaoi zine 2: the analysis issue and I realized I never crossposted. you Should check out the full pdf. it slaps.)

I. Survey Fatigue

The year after graduating college, I spent about six months filling out online surveys. In between sending out job applications, I trawled r/beermoney and r/workonline for survey clearinghouse websites, where I could (ostensibly) earn money by giving various nebulous corporations a large amount of information about my preferences on everything from TV to deodorant.

Unfortunately for the me of 2016, survey clearinghouses are not actually a great way to make very much money. Most surveys with low barriers to entry don’t pay very well, unless you happen to stumble on a well-funded academic researcher. Even in a more naive era in which there was still an expectation that consumers should be paid for their data, the ecosystem of survey-based consumer demographics collection is deeply exploitative, with most surveys on public clearinghouses that aggregate many different companies together paying well below minimum wage for the amount of time they take to fill out. (We’re talking, like, $1 for 20 minutes.) Which makes sense, as their ideal candidate is middle-aged, upper middle-class or higher, owns a home and at least one car, has multiple kids, is considering upgrading every category of possession imaginable, and is taking this survey in her free time because she feels deeply passionate about shaping the products of the future. (Many surveys are aimed at women, because, you know. Women be shopping.)

What survey clearinghouses are, instead, is a fantastic way to spend a lot of time thinking about how others might categorize your identity. Marketing research focuses on particular demographic categories, and survey clearinghouse sites overwhelmingly use screeners to make sure that only people who fit that category take the survey. If you’re a marketer interested in the grocery habits of northeastern women with multiple kids, you don’t want some single guy in California’s data. But if you’re a single guy in California, or (just as an example) a nonbinary recent college grad in the south, trying to make some extra cash, and you know you won’t get paid for the time you spent taking the screener, it’s in your interest to try to figure out exactly what the marketers want from you, and adapt your profile accordingly. And this is the internet, so every survey clearinghouse has its own subreddit full of advice for newbies.

(Bear with me; I promise we will get to the yaoi.)

Of course, the posts assure you, you don’t want to outright lie. If you say you’re a retired white midwesterner with two grandkids on one survey, and on another you tell them you live in Seattle in an apartment making tech money, eventually the survey clearinghouse is going to figure it out, and they will ban you. But, the posts continue, it is in your interest to stretch the truth. After all, aren’t the survey companies exploiting us? Shouldn’t we get to, just a little bit, exploit them back?

So I put down the total household income of everyone I was living with, even though we paid bills separately; my kid siblings, who lived multiple hours away, suddenly became residents of this same household, as did my parents’ newly acquired dog; and I became interested in every possible purchasing category imaginable. Sure, I was planning to purchase a vacuum cleaner in the next six months. Yes, I considered myself a power beverage drinker. Yes, that one hookah session did mean that I smoked tobacco regularly, and also I drank a lot, and I was planning to buy a car soon, and a toaster oven, and I made business decisions at my place of employment (my bedroom), and also, also, also, I was a woman.

Back in 2016, very few marketing surveys allowed you to select any category except male or female on the gender question, which was usually the first question asked. I’m not sure if this has changed, but even when surveys did offer nonbinary as an option, I usually selected female.

As of 2021, 1.2 million adults in the US identify as nonbinary. This is a big number; it is also vanishingly small from a marketing perspective, especially when you begin further population segmentation, and especially because 68% of those 1.2 million adults report not having enough money to make ends meet. The majority of us aren’t exactly splashing out on vacation homes. Which means that very few surveys target us, which means, as a nonbinary person trying to make ends meet, I said “oh yes I’m a woman! please let me into your survey” all the time.

I could make an argument that this is an inherently transgender thing to do, that my choice to create a survey identity who crossed as many categories as I could feasibly claim was an act of transcendent self-creation and boundary-blurring. My drag persona, Kroger shopper [oldname] Shipyrds, created for a world that did not have a category for me. If I was writing this essay for Vox or something, maybe I would make this argument, and the essay could end here, on a vaguely triumphant note about the ways trans people manage to exist under capitalism.

But I don’t find the closet liberatory. Mostly, it felt kind of depressing, and also pretty futile, because– much like actually being a woman– I wasn’t very good at it. To make surveys into a successful career– well, first, I’m not sure it’s actually possible, unless you get hired by one of these firms to do blind shopping or focus groups, and even that’s pretty precarious. And second, you have to do it all the time, and you have to install a whole host of scripts and add-ons written by other members of the community to help you grab surveys quicker, to auto-input your pre-loaded information, to tell you which firms are reputable and which ones will trap you in endless screeners before kicking you out without pay after you’ve already given them the info they want. There was a kind of arms race happening between the marketers and the survey takers, because of course the marketers don’t want people who are doing this full time taking their surveys, because we’re not a normal representation of American society, and also because we lie. And I wasn’t particularly good at lying, and I didn’t want to put in the unpaid time to install all of these add-ons and tweak them to my exact specifications, and so as soon as I found other work that paid better, I laid Kroger shopper [oldname] Shipyrds to rest.

II. Lesbian Male Homosexual Sex

Now on to the yaoi. A few months ago, a quote floated across my dash, from Gayle Rubin’s “Of Catamites and Kings: Reflections on Butch, Gender, and Boundaries,” an article in the 2006 collection The Transgender Studies Reader.

“Although [butch-butch eroticism] is not uncommon, lesbian culture contains few models for it. Many butches who lust after other butches have looked to gay male literature and behavior as sources of imagery and language. The erotic dynamics of butch-butch sex sometimes resemble those of gay men…Many butch-butch couples think of themselves as women doing male homosexual sex with one another.”

As you may imagine, I found this delightful. And I think it is also applicable to the eternal question of why lesbians read yaoi. There’s been a tremendous amount of writing and handwringing on this elsewhere, both on social media and academically. Are lesbians who read yaoi fetishizing gay men? Are we betraying our lesbian identities by not reading yuri instead? (As we all know you can only read one kind of content.) Lesbians who read Kirk/Spock slash fiction popped up in 1980s-era writing during the pornography wars; Akiko Mizoguchi has been writing on lesbians who read yaoi (in the specific, not the generic) since 2003.

Lesbians who read yaoi is a thorny question from the outside, but from a butch perspective it seems very simple. A number of the arguments imply that lesbians read yaoi because we want to be men, which for a lot of (I would even go so far as to say most) lesbians is so untrue as to be offensive. The other side of the argument is equally bad: Joanna Russ’s 1985 Kirk/Spock essay has a lot of loving descriptions of the inherent tender and nurturing nature of K/S slash fic, which for anyone who has ever read pon farr fic is. Kind of laughable. The fic is nurturing, she argues, because K/S fans are writing Kirk and Spock as women, and thus the porn is actually fine to read, because it’s two women having beautiful life-affirming sex, in a way where everyone’s boundaries are respected and no one ever gets hurt. (As we all know lesbians never fuck nasty.)

The argument about the morality of pornography aside– that’s another essay– I don’t think either of these arguments are actually true, or at least, they’re not true for me, which after all is the only perspective I can give without doing some survey design of my own. I read yaoi because I enjoy it, because of the tropes and the angst and the stupid bullshit plot machinations, and yes, also because I’m not a woman, and I’m not a man, but I am a dyke and also a twink and when I have sex it’s gay and lesbian at the same time, and so sometimes I want to read (and write!) about gay male sex. (One of the joys of being trans is that you get to feel like the meme about the School of Athens just by moving through the world.)

III. Yaoi and Categorization

These are two different essays, sort of, but they are also the same essay, because ultimately both the entire field of market research and the question of lesbian yaoi readers are failures both of categorization and of desire.

Marketing research, much like gender identity, is an attempt to fit the vastness of human experience into a series of small boxes that can be easily quantified. This is by necessity: if your job requires you to analyze data, your data must be manipulable, comparable across categories, vaguely replicable. But you are also asking people questions about what they want. How much do they want a bottle of iced tea over a can of Coke? Does adding a leaf to the label change the intensity of that feeling? How do you put numbers on desire? How do you put labels on it, so that it can be compared to other types of wanting?

Desire in the world of marketing research is a deeply beige, wan emotion, limited to the constraints of the capitalist imagination. But it is the only emotion in that world, and marketers want nothing more than to make it stronger. They want you to feel the same kind of overwhelming lust when you see an ad for chicken wings that you feel when you see someone you want to fuck. They want your desire to be very strong, and they want it to be about consumption and possession, and they want you to feel it all the time. And also, they’d like you to answer some questions about it, please, and in exchange they’ll enter you into a drawing for a $25 Amazon gift card.

This desire is impossible. There is nothing less sexy than a survey; even surveys about things like alcohol or makeup place their product designs on white backgrounds, devoid of all of the surrounding drivers of want– the hot butch at the bar drinking the green-bottled beer, the person wearing the maybe it’s Maybelline lipstick. We live in a society! Desire doesn’t exist in a vacuum!

And for that reason, the more ungovernable and uncategorizable my desire, the better it feels. There is no place on the survey for butch dykes having male homosexual sex; there is a place in the research for it, but always as a sort of curiosity, a quandary that requires explanation, because this type of desire exists outside of the researcher’s imagination.

And increasingly, I am unsure that I want a place in either locale. There is an argument to be made that by allowing ourselves to be studied, we normalize and cement our place in the world. To some degree, this is true. It is hard to accept something you do not believe exists. But also, I don’t believe that the answer to the unfulfilling and exploitative hunger of the marketing survey is to spend our energy advocating for more categories so I can be more accurately sold toothpaste. I feel more and more resistant to the idea (ironic though it may seem several thousand words into this essay) that I should categorize my desire at all. In the end, the best way to articulate my desire– to myself and to others– is to live it. And also, to go read some yaoi.

--

1 Some of these posts also advised fudging your race, as survey slots for more common (read: white) demographic categories tended to fill up faster, or at least the posters seemed to think they did. This was a line I was not willing to cross, but the prevalence and comfort with which some of these posters talked about racefaking for pretty minimal amounts of money could be an essay of its own.

2  The entirety of Russ’s essay is pretty interesting, not just for the Gender of it all, but also because towards the end she almost gets there: “Until recently I assumed, along with many other feminists, that ‘art’ is better than ‘pornography’ just as ‘erotica’ is one thing and ‘pornography’ another; and just as ‘erotica’ surpasses ‘pornography,’ so ‘art’ surpasses ‘erotica.’ I think we ought to be very suspicious of these distinctions insofar as they are put forward as moral distinctions.” 

--

Sources:

Bauer, C. K. (2013). Naughty Girls and Gay Male Romance/Porn: Slash Fiction, Boys’ Love Manga, and Other Works by Female "Cross-Voyeurs" in the US Academic Discourses. Anchor Academic Publishing.

Meerwijk, E. L., & Sevelius, J. M. (2017). Transgender population size in the United States: A meta-regression of population-based probability samples. American Journal of Public Health, 107(2), e1–e8. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303578

Mizoguchi, A. (2003). Male-male romance by and for women in Japan: A history and the subgenres of “yaoi” fictions. U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal, 25, 49–75.

Rubin, G. (2006). Of catamites and kings: Reflections on butch, gender, and boundaries. In S. Stryker & S. Whittle (Eds.), The Transgender Studies Reader (Vol. 1, pp. 471–481). Routledge.

Russ, J. (1985). Pornography by women for women, with love. Magic Mommas, Trembling Sisters, Puritans & Perverts, 79-100. Crossing Press.

Wilson, B. D. M., & Meyer, I. H. (2021). Nonbinary LGBTQ Adults in the United States. Williams Institute.

[tsuutarr]

So I may or may not be a little (aka a lot) charmed by all of your characters because, my dear, they are absolutely AMAZING and super charismatic!

and then I found myself wondering how they would react if their darlings got a little depressed about how miserable their social life has become... I mean, how do you manage to keep your mental health up with a total of ONE PERSON in your life?!

I was thinking about this because I'm Brazilian, and we are social creatures ya'know, we NEED other people to keep living and believe me, the pandemic situation DID NOT HELP IN THAT ASPECT OF US. Besides, we are touchy people, we greet each other with kisses on the cheek, long and deep hugs whenever we feel like it and I don't really think the oc's would appreciate our affection being distributed like this 😞 unless is with them, which is totally possible because if we are touchy with strangers, with the close ones we are SUPER lovey dovey.

If you could ease my curiosity about this aspect, I would be very, very happy 👉👈 and I don't mean it's just this specific scenario, just being depressed in general, begging for any kind of normal human interaction hahaha.

Anyway, sorry for this LONG text, this has been on my mind since I started reading your works (and they are AMAZING, really, I'm in love with your writing style!). As I said before, I'm Brazilian and English is not my first language, so I'm sorry for any mistakes 🤗.

Wowow thank you so much for your kind words!! I am so happy you like my yandere OCs + my writing style!! Also, this is a very fun request/scenario, tysm for requesting it :3c Your English is great, please don't apologize!

Here's the answer to your request down below!!

So, Jiu's case is really interesting because he has the intellect, power, AND money to ensure that he's the closest person to you even if he DOESN'T lock you up. He's basically puppeteering your life from the background while giving you a sense of free will (e.g., you got into your specific college because of HIM, you got your specific job because of HIM, and so on). Getting him to isolate you from society would only really happen if you rejected him/began to distance yourself from him.

If you got too lonely because you could only interact with him, Jiu would cosplay and roleplay any person/character you wanted to in order to give some illusion of diverse human interaction. If you became depressed, he'd get you a therapist and anything else you might need, but... make no mistake, that therapist (while licensed properly) is NOT on your side.

On occasion, Jiu would allow you to interact with his paid workers while he's watching. Like, he'll hire a "friend" for you (who only visits at 11 AM on Fridays) and let you talk to the nanny and stuff, but that'd be it. Now, he'll be controlling your life from the frontlines rather than the backdrop and there's really nothing you can do about it, oops.

For Finley... he's actually a very clueless yandere + extremely pathetic. His emotions are very volatile so he's easy to upset/please. When he isolates you from society, it's because he thinks it's for the greater good. People are so corrupt, can't you see? He's only doing it to protect you. If you got depressed due to only being able to interact with him, he'd just cling even harder to you. After all, you're lonely because he hasn't been spending enough time with you, right (wrong)? For him, he'd understand that you seem sad, but he wouldn't understand why. He's just protecting you! Though, he may get you some pets -- he's VERY partial to animals and likes them quite a bit more than he likes humans.

Oh man, so Tynan has mind magic, so his solution is pretty messed up. He'll either hypnotize you to be okay with your situation OR give you dreams where you interact with people. His dream magic is scary because it's genuinely really hard to tell dreams from reality, so before long, you'll be tricked into thinking you spent time with the people you love when really, you were sleeping on Tynan's lap the whole time.

As for the abandoned water god... he does care about you, but not enough to let you interact with other people, even if you're feeling depressed. After you basically helped awaken him after he was forgotten for centuries, he's super obsessed with you. He doesn't need anyone else as long as he has you, so he thinks that you don't need anyone else since you have him. He'll take you to go see a bunch of sea animals, though! But those sea animals are the only other living beings you'll see. Not to mention that he's practically cursed with immortality, sooo... yeah, you're not escaping him.

Finally, for the farmer... he lives pretty isolated on his big farm anyway, so if you're his neighbor, you're already kind of isolated from everyone else. The farmer isolates you by making you dependent on him so you'll stay by his side willingly rather than locking you up. For the most part, he'll actually let some people (who are not romantically interested in you) visit you -- in fact, he actually doesn't mind it if your family visits because they all adore him (and it's so so so cute to see them tease you about how you must be dating him). But woo boy, you are very very very rarely going to be able to leave the farm. Issues crop up one way or another: blocked road, punctured tire, empty gas tank, etc... so, really, you can't leave. Unless, well, he escorts you. But it might just be better to stay on the farm since it's much more convenient, you know?

[hollowed-theory-hall]

hello 🤗

As your point about hinny, is Ginny actually so -called 'safe girl' for Harry? Like he knows her and don't need to know smbd else, they have some shared experiences (Chamber of Secrets and fighting Voldemort in general), she's cute and knows how to defend herself, so Harry can't worry, etc

I've always wondered how Ginny even agrees to this kind of relationship where Harry doesn't tell her anything, bc of their interaction in canon I don't see any reason to see them in a more or less healthy relationship after the war, especially if Harry becomes an Auror. maybe Ginny is like Molly in this way, clearly more than she can think for herself, and so is Hermione - they both listen to her as an authoritative woman and accepted her advices

Hello 👋

I think Ginny doesn't see their relationship the way it is. She idolized Harry as someone he very clearly isn't:

“But you’ve been too busy saving the Wizarding world,” said Ginny, half laughing. “Well . . . I can’t say I’m surprised. I knew this would happen in the end. I knew you wouldn’t be happy unless you were hunting Voldemort. Maybe that’s why I like you so much.”

(HBP)

I mean, the things she loves about him are just not true about him at all. She is in love with a person who doesn't exist. And honestly, I don't know if love is the right word. I'd even call it an obsession:

“I never really gave up on you,” she [Ginny] said. “Not really. I always hoped. . . . Hermione told me to get on with life, maybe go out with some other people, relax a bit around you, because I never used to be able to talk if you were in the room, remember? And she thought you might take a bit more notice if I was a bit more — myself.”

(HBP)

She is so fixated on being with Harry that she changes her own behavior around him so he would like her better. I also mentioned here how I think her interest in Quidditch is relatively new. That she started playing for Harry to like her better. (I mean, she only started showing interest in the sport during book 5, there were no hints of it before that).

Ron describes how upset she after Harry broke up with her, none of which she was willing to show Harry:

“You ditched her. What are you doing now, messing her around,” “I’m not messing her around,” said Harry, as Hermione caught up with them. “Ron—” But Ron held up a hand to silence her. “She was really cut up when you ended it—” “So was I. You know why I stopped it, and it wasn’t because I wanted to.”

(DH)

But that 'so was I', was he? Was he really 'cut up' over it? He didn't think about her until he saw her again, and Aunt Muriel was the one who had to mention Ginny's dress had a very low cut, Harry didn't notice:

“Yes, my tiara sets off the whole thing nicely,” said Auntie Muriel in a rather carrying whisper. “But I must say, Ginevra’s dress is far too low cut.” Ginny glanced around, grinning, winked at Harry, then quickly faced the front again.

(DH)

That aforementioned faked "toughness" is also one of the only things Harry actively mentions liking about Ginny:

He chanced a glance at her. She was not tearful; that was one of the many wonderful things about Ginny, she was rarely weepy. He had sometimes thought that having six brothers must have toughened her up

(DH)

Now, I actually think this behavior is very different from what we see from Molly. While I'm not the biggest Molly fan, I do have to defend her here. Because she may be a housewife, but she's wearing the pants in her and Arthur's relationship. Molly and Arthur have a very different relationship than Ginny and Harry. With them, I believe they know each other well and love each other for who they are. And yes, they argue, but the undercurrent is a love that's always there. Molly wouldn't just accept anything Arthur decided to dish (not that he would) at her and we clearly see she gets mad at him over various things, from getting muggle stitches to enchanting a car to having a fistfight at a bookstore. She doesn't just agree with everything he says/does the way Ginny does.

Hermione, too, is not someone I see willing to deal with Ron keeping secrets from her. I mean, she sent birds to attack him when he made out with Lavender when they weren't together yet, I don't see her as the kind of wife that'll be chill with not being told the important things. I mean, it's not that you have to tell your partner everything, but the expectation is that of trust and understanding, something that Harry and Ginny don't seem to have.

With Harry and Ginny, Harry sees Ginny as a 'safe girl' on whom Harry can have a crush. For Ginny, Harry is her childhood hero crush she's been obsessed with for years. She changed her personality to date him, she dated other guys to get his attention, and once she got him she did everything, accepted everything from him with no argument because she didn't want to lose him and was insecure in their relationship.

To me, this doesn't seem healthy at all, but that's what it seems like.

How jealous Ginny is, not even letting Harry go with Cho to see Ravenclaw's statue in book 7. How annoyed she got when Harry for a second mentioned Fleur is pretty in passing. Again indicates how insecure Ginny is in this relationship, she doesn't trust Harry to stay with her and she is willing to turn her entire life around if it means being with Harry Potter whom she thinks she loves.

This is how Ginny's character reads to me, which is one of the reasons I really don't like her. I don't see her as incredibly brave or badass, I feel she is wearing a facade of the badass girl she thinks Harry wants while beneath she's an insecure, emotional mess who is desperately trying to keep from crying cause she thinks Harry would hate her if she cried.

And I don't think Harry knows this is what the relationship is. I don't think he realized Ginny was trying so hard to fit the 'safe girl' image he projected on her so he wouldn't leave her. I think he misses all her effort and thinks it's just who she is — which is exactly what Ginny is trying to accomplish.

But Ginny doesn't fully realize this is what she's doing. I think, in her mind, she is trying to be a girl "worthy" of the Harry Potter image she has in her head. She doesn't see him as who he is, but as some Chosen One savior of the wizarding world Harry never wanted to be. So she puts all his actions in this context: "It's fine cause he's saving us," or "he's the hero so it's fine," it's not about Harry as a person to her. And she's trying so hard to be who she thinks the girlfriend of the Boy-Who-Lived should be.

So to your question of why Ginny deals with it? Well, she convinced herself she has to be with Harry (or, at least, the image she has of him). She wrapped up herself so much in that fixation that she was willing to deal with anything from him if it meant being with him. Except for him looking at another girl for even a second.

I mean, if she's willing to change her entire personality and date guys she doesn't like to get Harry and be someone she thinks is "worthy" of him, what's dealing with a few secrets to help save the world compared to that?

(It could've been really funny if Harry did end up with Luna who Ginny didn't consider a threat. But this is just me with my "if I had to ship Harry with a girl it'll always be Luna" agenda)

[ghostgirl-22]

What little things do you think artrick love about each other.. obviously idk how youd make it in canon but i thought it would be interesting concept to play with

Like you know when people say things like "i love when you do that little nose wiggle when you chew or that youre afraid of snails" ect

I was thinking about it when i saw those art pictures like "i love when your hairs wet and it makes your golden blonde hair look brown"

well for me i love this question!! <3

Patrick loves:

everything about Arts laugh, how wide his grin gets, the way his eyes go small, shaped like upside down half moons and his cheeks color. The way he laughs loudly, from deep within. How he never holds it back or tries to cover his mouth. Loves it all even more when he gets to be the cause of it

that Art smokes like a girl. He spent so much time watching old Hollywood films with his grandma growing up that now he actually holds his cigarettes like Elizabeth Taylor or all the other women on the silver screen. Patrick is never gonna admit it or anything but he finds it all adorably charming.

Art’s golden curls when he gets out of the shower, and they look honey brown.

The stupid way he pulls his socks up before he puts on his adidas slides.

That he can’t grow more than a smattering of facial hair to save his life.

That he doesn’t even have to shave his legs to maintain his aerodynamic whatever, the baby fine blonde hair grows back so slowly and is hardly noticeable when it’s there.

That a little taste of champagne makes his eyes shiny and his laugh more bubbly.

That conspiratorial smile he gets when he’s able to manipulate their way out of something… or into something. So easy for him because everyone thinks he’s so innocent.

Taking art’s food.

Art loves:

Patrick in the summertime. Almost always at least half naked. Bathed in bright sunlight for hours and hours. where Art can see clearly the striking bits of green in his eyes. All the freckles on his cheeks, sprinkled across his nose and forehead and all over his body. Thick dark hair, sweat damp or wet from the pool. Sometimes Art just stares. Patrick thinks he’s listening but Art just feels dizzy like he’s looking into pure sunshine.

That Patrick is afraid of spiders. He doesn’t ever admit he’s afraid… he acts too cool to yell or scream or anything like that (though Art suspects if it got too close he might not be able to help himself). He always brings Art over to where the spider is and he points it out. Then he backs away whenever Art nabs it with a tissue, or scoots it onto a paper to bring it outside. “I just don’t understand why anything needs to have 8 legs.”

How Patrick falls in love so all at once. It never lasts but he’s never just halfway into anything.

how open Patrick is. Loves it so much he’s envious of it. Anything that’s on his mind he just blurts it out. Even if it’s inappropriate (even if it hurts).

that Patrick is incapable of personal space. Like he can’t talk unless he’s within kissing touching distance.

That far away melancholy look he gets on his face sometimes like something is slipping away. It sometimes happens when he’s gazing at Art, or looking through him. It never lasts long, especially when he catches Art staring back. almost like Art is never meant to see it. Sometimes Art wonders what could make a boy made out of sunshine look so sad. But he never asks because he knows Patrick would never tell him the truth.

when Patrick takes his food.

They’ll never admit it but they both love:

whispered conversations, when they’re close in each other’s personal space

staying up too late talking about the transformers movie they just saw and comparing it to the cartoon. It’s an important and urgent discussion they completely forget about the next morning.

Sharing food, cigarettes, clothing… a bed.

Touching. Thighs lined up when they’re sitting close. Shoulders when they’re standing close. Grabbing each other for random massages all through practice while they giggle about it and their teammates tell them to just kiss already.

Pretending to just kiss already.

The one time they really just kissed already. Late summer when they were 15 and Patrick’s big brother let them try wine coolers just to see how they’d react. And they had so many they got really drunk and hid in his room all night so his parents wouldn’t find out. Curled up under the sheets, giggling while thunder and lightning and heavy rain sounded outside. Neither of them sure who started it….The kissing, so soft and breathless. Hands everywhere. So hungover the next morning they both pretended it never happened. But they both think about it. And they both wanna do it again. Art by accident. Patrick on purpose.

Anyway this is canon of course (actually Luca is a close personal friend and he whispered it in my ear for real actually🙂‍↕️). idk what do yall think? Add to my list please. What little things do they secretly love about each other?

[unhingedpolycule]

Haiii ! Love what you do and had two questions :

Do you think any of them would cry at the others burial (if they even want that ? Cremation ?)

And do you think one of them would wear glasses once they age a bit more ?

Thank you 🩵

Haiiiii! First of all, thank you for your ask! It made me think and it was a really cool concept to work with! You can find the (long) answer under the cut!

If the body is recovered from the warzone where they died, they would have a small service I think. Not because the other would particularly want or need it, but because the team would more or less insist and it is simply the social convention. It doesn’t really bother them either. That being said… they would not cry. Nikto would probably get pretty gruff, outwardly pretending that their relationship was not as deep as it actually was, so he isn’t too sad. Mostly because people keep giving him condolences. He does not like it, handling Sebastian‘s death is hard enough on its own. Krueger would just get… like very silent in my mind. Not directly pretending that it doesn’t bother him, but he would let his mask slip a bit. Instead of being detached on purpose, he just sits and reminiscence about Nikto and what he is missing right now. His voice, having someone to concentrate on and to care for as to make his life less eventless. He was Nikto’s caretaker and partner for years and he was used to being joint at the hip, always having an interesting and stimulating person around.

Both feel the urge to be alone. Krueger would go missing soon after, probably searching out Blaustein without telling him what is going on. Of course, Blaustein understands that something bad must have happened and he is smart enough to count two and two together. Krueger would find a new PMC, maybe he would even stay with Coalition (Blaustein’s faction) for a bit. But he is a wanderer at heart, so it wouldnt last longer than a year. Nikto was the only thing tying him to a specific faction, so he starts moving again, with regular visits to Hans though. As for Nikto… he would be pursued by Nikodim, who thinks that he is helping. Their relationship might very well break under that pressure, leaving Nikto much worse off, just because his stability and his support system is gone. He eventually rebuilds routine on his own, but before that, he would probably burn himself out in an attempt not to grief too much.

To make it short: Krueger would let himself feel what he feels, accepting it for what it is and seek the support that he might need. Nikto would very much do the opposite and repress in order to continue being functional, even if this ruins a lot of things for him. Both would be incredibly affected. I don’t know if they would actually cry. If they do, it comes over them in the middle of the night without any warning. They want to turn around to hug the other and they find themselves alone. For Krueger, it’s a few tears. Nikto is angry ugly crying, clutching the pillow and staring at nothing.

Krueger keeps Nikto’s last pill bottle in his pack, using it for his own drugs. Nikto keeps Krueger’s net on his bedpost. Both store the other’s gear. Nikto in his room, Krueger with Blaustein, since Hans has a more steady lifestyle.

BUUUUUUUT since Krueger is an unkillable cockroach (derogatory) and Nikto is very capable and has a second pair of eyes attached to a man which would go to length to safe him… they are fine. Very fine. VERY FINE AND HAPPY. (I can’t do mcd unless it’s a “growing old” setting. I am weak.)

As for the glasses: very easy. Nikto is used to taking medication and having to subsidise for things his body is not able to do anymore (mostly because of his mental illness, but I also imagine him to have issues with mild erectile dysfunction/maintaining an erection if he is not actively having sex right in that moment.) so he would wear some cheap old man glasses. He has like three pairs, all various stages of scratched/disrepair.

Krueger on the other hand would not like it. At all. He has lived his life being able to do everything without aid, running into an active warzone without proper protection and coming out mostly unscathed. It would take some time until he could accept glasses properly. Not because of pride or of others seeing him like this, but because he has to admit that he is no longer fully “self-sufficient”. Especially because he has above average eyesight! Nikto would tease him a bit until he notices that Sebastian does not wear his glasses. They might have a gruff, short talk about it after Nikto sees Krueger holding his phone very far away from himself, squinting in annoyance while trying to read his messages. Krueger wears the damn thing after that. At home. Sometimes.

[flimflamfranky]

okay, there's a LOT happening here and i need to go over it before i fucking explode

first things first, we've got these beasts or gods which seem like parallels to the ancient weapons, with the sea, sky and land (from right to left). i've got two theories about this: these are just representations of the ancient weapons as monsters or the gods that the ancient weapons are based on OR we already know one ancient weapons is actually a person. what if they were all original living beings and some got turned into monsters? especially with pluton, i'm reminded of franky's bad end from sbs 101.

references to the enel's maxim traveling to the moon. seems like someone tried that before and failed because of the ancient weapons?

this might be a bit of a stretch, but this profile looks like an elephant. specifically zunesha

another stretch, but this profile looks like imu

here, it looks like we've got people harvesting 'suns' to power a city, as well as some people with halos. this is probably the slaves and forbidden sun the text mentions, but the halo people are interesting, since we haven't seen that before.

here, we've got a group of a bunch people fighting one of the monsters. there's nika, emet, giants, minks, mermaids, dwarves, and lunarians. there are also the people on the boats which might represent different kingdoms? one looks like they have a top-knot which could be wano. there are also the people riding a whale, which seems to imply a tribe of people linked to the island whale that we haven't seen yet. and then there's the people fighting with the monster. this all seems linked to the war that happened in the void century, referenced by the middle text box.

and finally, the text box itself. i highlighted a few bits that i found most interesting, so i'll go through those:

so "within the earth" there was a "forbidden sun". this either is or is a precursor to the mother flame that vegapunk discovered/invented to create his own sun/endless energy (ch 1114). seems like maybe people in the past tried that and got punished by the sun god for it. regardless, the idea of a forbidden sun is fascinating.

then, the "earth god [...] shrouded the world in death and darkness" leading to the second world aka the void century. now, im not sure if these gods are tied to the monsters shown in mural or the ancient weapons. my guess would be they're tied to the ancient weapons with the earth god and sea god, but the forest god instead of a sky god complicates things- wait. i was going to mention that the forest god was mentioned in skypiea, along with the sun, earth and rain (sea?) god (ch 287). we also see one of their gods in kashigami, the giant snake. and one of the meanings of kashi (according to google) is oak. so it stands to reason that kashigami is the forest god. a forest god from a forest IN THE SKY. boom, we can tie it to the ancient weapon uranus, problem solved.

also, speaking of the rain god, it's the only one from skypiea not mentioned here (unless it is just a different version of the sea god since skypedia doesn't have a sea and ya know, the water cycle and all that), but there is some rain over the whale people that seems significant.

anyway, moving on to "they will never meet", which is repeated in the second world too. while i believe this references the sun god (not) meeting the other gods during these times, it also reminds me of roger mentioning that they "were just too early' (ch 968) with discovering the one piece.

then in the second world, we've got the "void" and "the fires of war", aka the void century and the great war that occurred during it.

also, i didn't highlight it, but the "forest god tamed demons" bit is also interesting. for demons, the three things i think of is the mythical devil fruits of the five elders, the giant shadowy beings from the florian triangle, or the maybeeee the horned ancient giants? my bet is on the florian triangle beings since they kinda looks like shadows cast from skypiea

then, there are "those of the half-moon [and] the moon". now, we known that one of these are the people from the sky island, from enel's cover story (ch 470 and 472). then, there are the lunarians, which given their name and wings, also come from the/a moon. now, which group is the moon or the half-moon, i don't know, but it's interesting that there are two separate moon groups.

and then, finally, we have "the sun god dances and laughs, guiding the world to its end". now, this is probably the most important bit from the whole thing. we know from saul that the third world here is the present, so this is, like, direct foreshadowing. this could be metaphorical, that luffy will end the current "world" aka the world government and usher in a new world, "a new morning". but it could be literal. i don't remember if i came up with this or if i heard it somewhere else, but i have this theory that luffy might destroy mary geoise and destroy the red line, which this line might support.

and finally, we have "and they will surely meet", echoing the last lines of the the previous two stanzas. now, in those two, "they" seem to be the gods, but that's not so in this one. of course, this leaves a lot of things that it could be but either way, luffy will meet someone who will be important the end game of this whole thing. my completely based on nothing, just pure vibes guess? that maybe, the one piece is alive.

and of course, i am very excited that franky is the one kinda front and center here, literally, so i can only hope that maybe him (and robin) will get a lot more focus in the upcoming arcs. a guy can dream.

[starberry-cupcake]

It took me longer to sit down to do the recap than to read the bit. Note: please don't tell me anything that might be a spoiler or a reference to things that will happen in the future of the book! I'd rather not know anything as I read, I'll be happy to engage in conversation of the details after I'm done! Also, please be kind if I make a mistake, English isn't my first language and these books sometimes are difficult 🙏 Thank you for your patience and continued interest ♥

previously, in nona del 9:

this happened

this is the general tag of the recaps, for anyone wondering

DAY FIVE ("the saddest girl in the whole entire world" girl, same "paul gets born" happy birthday paul??? I guess???)

CHAPTER 20 (first house, we better run)

nona wakes up yet again, this time after a tantrum

she's throwing up and palmolive helps her out

they're in the BOE meeting room with the wake portrait again

palmolive had to do some necromancer operation shenanigans to remove the bullet from nona's head

and sriracha girlie decided to exit the chat

BOE freaked out about the operation and put a shackle on camolive and locked them and nona together

nona is embarrassed about the tantrum but palmolive is like "fuck them, actually"

palmolive is mad about them leaving the gang in the dark in so many ways and thinks they had it coming for doing that

I agree, I mean, I get where BOE is coming from with the hesitancy to trust people who were on the other side of this

but it's not like you have a chance to win against nona, pyrrha and camolive, if it gets to that

and there's so much you don't know to even think you can win

so, maybe this could have been planned better, is all I'm saying

in any case, nona finally tells palmolive about gideon dream girl

and palmolive says that if camilla and him didn't love her so much they'd throttle her and give her magazines to charity

nona thinks that's bs because she's "the most deserving person on the planet"

this ego thing she has going on sometimes takes me by surprise, I forget she thinks like this

I guess it's a kid way of thinking, but still

nona also decides to continue with the reveals and tells palmolive the Secret that I believe is the same she told sriracha girlie a while back

and it's that she's dying

1) how? 2) who, in that clown car of a body, is dying exactly? 3) did it have to be now??????

palmolive is looking like spock up there, actually

(would palmolive be a spock fanboy? because I think very yes, but we don't always agree on our palmolive headcanons)

palmolive has to roll up his sleeves and do some necro magic again

"Cytherea the First must have enjoyed those games she played with me"

I could have told you, my guy, but you were being a weenie, like gideon said

I feel bad about it, though, poor guy

*patting palmolive in the head in my mind*

so, nona apparently is starving, but energetically

because her soul is trying to leave the clown car of a body she's in

harrow's body, I think we've established at this point

it makes sense to me, it's not her body, allegedly

and maybe also nona's soul is extra weird, because this is ice cube barbie or some other weird thing that is too powerful for harrow's poor little clown car body

like trapping a genie in a glass dropper

that's kind of palmolive's train of thought too, actually, except he uses terms like "melange" and "gestalt theory" instead of "some other weird thing" and "clown car body"

what I remember of gestalt theory from uni is the concept that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts

I don't know if he means, in this case, that maybe he thinks her a combination of souls and that, if that was the case, it'd give her bigger powers than harrow or gideon would have had on their own

differently from lyctorhood, in which their combination is more on the advantage of the necromancer, who keeps steering the wheel

unless you get og!gideon'd and die, leaving the car to pyrrha

but anyway, palmolive doesn't know about ice cube barbie, so he doesn't consider her in his train of thought

(that's why you need me in the polycule *drops cv*)

I'M TAKING TOO MUCH TIME WITH ONE PARAGRAPH OF PALMOLIVE TALK, WE NEED TO MOVE ON

palmolive tells nona that he can't let her body die because he has to give it back to harrow

nona asks further details of her potential identities

palmolive tells her that, if she's one of two people, he's not harrow

or not solely harrow

this is very funny to me personally because, as I mentioned back in this recap of chapter 2, when I didn't know anything from these books except for the covers and the names of gideon and harrow, I thought nona was their child in the future

so this idea that nona was born from a combination is really hilarious to me

disrespectful of me, laughing at this time

palmolive describes yandere twin as a very obviously dead person with fashion hair, so he roasted her for me

(we'll talk about the chad of it all in a minute)

he tells nona that dream girl gideon might be her, but nona doesn't want to be a redhead and a zombie

palmolive goes "then what are we all?"

not in those words, but that's the sentiment

he also says sriracha girlie "is a very young woman who has been living on her nerves for so long that I imagine she doesn't have anything else. She'll regret what she did at some point"

ouch, man

I think this isn't the last we've seen of sriracha girlie and she'll come to ruin the party at some point

well, not party, that's a sensitive subject

can't blame her, though, she's been harmed by these people and got her family killed, I can't judge this child

palmolive explains that the shackle they have is explosive and that we suffer and coronabeer have been planning things somewhere without them

kinda wild they ended up trusting coronabeer more than camilla, but I guess it isn't a matter of cv but of how they acted when they were brought in and how coronabeer became one of them

"I hate being locked up" "So did Gideon, I gather"

palmolive, if I told you how this whole thing started with gideon wanting to not be locked up anymore

well, it started with dr reverend emperor john becoming a streamer, but that's another story

"I haven't been able to save many people in my life, I'm afraid, but I'm intent on saving you"

camilla and palmolive switch places and in comes we suffer, without a mask

nona says she'd think her pretty if she wasn't so upset

does nona think everyone is pretty or is everyone pretty here?

is there a difference?

we suffer says that BOE was very impressed with nona going apeshit

she also doesn't want to tell them who angel teacher actually is

she does confirm that angel teacher is a member of BOE and that it was an awful idea to have both the gang and her in the same area

we suffer is also kinda upset at camilla for not telling her that she can do necromancy (which, technically, she can't)

and mentions that the whole thing that went down has made the BOE factions more undecided on what the hell to do with them

we suffer mentions someone volunteered to go face the house people because it wouldn't be a death sentence for her

immediately, I think this must be coronabeer twin

camilla doesn't think this is a good idea whatsoever and we suffer says she needs camilla to translate the stuff that will be said in the meeting

and that coronabeer claims that she's expendable whereas camolive is not

which yeah, to me personally, that's true, but I'm not the standard opinion here

apparently they tried to bomb yandere twin out of existence but we all know that doesn't work on a lyctor

unless you're palmolive, who is an expert on exploding and lyctors

we suffer also thinks it's time for BOE to attack because wake always had them on the defense and it hasn't worked so far

camilla says coronabeer is giving in and that we suffer has been, played because she can't lie to yandere twin

at this point, we suffer is just gonna have to sit there and listen, though, whatever happens

we have an idiom here, "estamos en el horno", which literally means "we're in the oven" and it's used to describe moments in which you're in a very rough situation that is inescapable

kind of like "we're fucked", but more metaphoric

that's what's happening over here

I'm teaching you guys very local idioms but I need you to see what I see

coronabeer reaches the houses spot and this happens

wild to hear someone say "my sister is a lyctor", since most lyctors we knew were a william years old and had no surviving family

that I know of

also, cohort dude at the door will have an awful day because I think coronabeer is the one person who has the most Let Me Speak To The Manager attitude in this whole book series

all she's been doing this time is speak to managers, actually

yandere twin shows up and hugs coronabeer and now I'm realizing she's using chad's body

which is so stupid of me, because nona mentioned yandere twin had brown hair in the video and I was like 'wasn't she blonde????'

but sometimes I don't understand things and you guys are like 'that's not what happened' and I feel dumb, so I was like 'ok, maybe all this time I was wrong about the twins being blondes'

but no, she's using chad like linguini from ratatouille

so that she can set foot in the planet because of the blue light and all that stuff

chad and yandere twin

(or yandere twin channeling chad idk)

roasts coronabeer for her jewelry and the state of her hair

yandere twin says she didn't know coronabeer would be there and that "he" (I assume this is dr reverend emperor john) will think she went there on purpose

so coronabeer unveils her very sick girlfriend judith

yandere twin is like

coronabeer goes "didn't harrow tell you?" and yandere twin is all defensive "when did you talk to harrow?"

this situationship yandere twin has with harrow is very complex

yandere twin doesn't want to help judith

she says "Judith Deuteros, who, when we played Marry, Kill, Reanimate, you used to say reanimate because nobody would be able to tell the difference?"

(I need to make a poll with those options in a recap at some point)

coronabeer being all helga pataki with judith throughout her life is great

she was so doomed

I need more of that, I live for the coronabeer/judith ship

I was trying to explain why I like their dynamic so much and while I was writing it I REALIZED THAT THEY REMIND ME OF

YUZUKI AND MAKOTO FROM SKIP AND LOAFER

pretty, popular, extroverted girl who doesn't want to be reduced to her looks and gets infatuated with the strict, formal, overthinking student council girl, you get me??????

I'm gonna root for them forever

yandere twin wants to crush my hopes and dreams, though, and kill judith, because she's already been putting down necromancers

she's also very upset because the third doesn't care about her becoming a lyctor but are grieving coronabeer instead

a lot of problems would have been solved if these girls' family wasn't such shit

coronabeer asks about gideon and yandere twin says "so you remember her name"

yes, yandere twin, thank god we've moved on from that problem

our current issue is a clown car body of a girl

it seems that chad can get thoughts through to her, or so she says

chad's comments are about coronabeer's accessories, though

also, at this point, when realizing that it was chad's body, I also realized that's who palmolive called "handsome"

palmolive and chad, in another life, you could have been like coronabeer and judith, with an unlikely bond

apparently, yandere twin doesn't want to be seen as "the bad guy"

yandere twin alerts those listening that she knows coronabeer was wired and uses the link to establish her demands: the sixth oversight body (which is not the oversight of losing gideon's body), camilla and harrow "as intact as you have her at this moment"

meanwhile, camilla thinks coronabeer is trying to tell them something through the overheard conversation

yandere twin insists on how judith never paid coronabeer any mind and coronabeer tells her she's a dick

when they get in the facilities, though, there's pyrrha

remember pyrrha? here she was all along

yandere twin says she's taking her (she calls her "him" because I think she still thinks this is og!gideon and not pyrrha) back to dr reverend emperor john

"if Poppa can look up from his mid-dismyriad crisis long enough to pay attention"

SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE SAVING HIS ASS

"You might be the Saint of Duty but I've been on call as Teacher's whipping girl for the last six months"

SHOULD👏HAVE👏THOUGHT👏OF👏THAT👏BEFORE👏SAVING👏HIS👏ASS👏

pyrrha also wants to kill judith, which is bad for me

leave that wet mouse alone

coronabeer asks if pyrrha told yandere twin about harrow and camilla

(I assume she means nona)

yandere twin says she has

is pyrrha triple crossing people? quadruple crossing?

acting like she's og!gideon in front of dr reverend emperor john was crossing 1, then she's acted like she's part of the gang as crossing 2, acting like she's actually on yandere twin's side is 3 and maybe being infiltrated here to pass on info or something would be 4

that's quadruple crossing

no wonder she was a cop

CHAPTER 21 (broken third skull, the girls are fighting???)

nona is happy that pyrrha's whereabouts have been secured

the rest, to her, is confetti

camilla tells we suffer that, all things considered, it all went better than she deserved

we suffer is having a mental breakdown because coronabeer has stolen judith and ran to her sister and they lost the bug they had on her

camilla advises her not to make nona angry and to scan for other bugs on the frequency

because camilla is wonderful and amazing and thinks of everything

camilla mentions nona, during her tantrum, attacked the guards with a chair with a two-handed grasp she never taught her

which is points for gideon in the leaderboard

but idk how ice cube barbie fought, it could also be her, for all I know

the sword was old and mysterious

it's not harrow because harrow had a toxic relationship with the sword

nona stares at camilla and "looked up into the eyes that used to belong to Palamedes, long before she knew either of them" and her nose bleeds

not sure who that's a point for

camilla and palmolive desperately want to talk to each other, which is so exasperating, poor babies

we suffer comes in all happy because camilla was right (did anyone doubt that?????) and there's a bug in the area

camilla assures her it must be on judith

I wonder where and how it was placed there

she also says nona was right about pyrrha giving them codes

and that pyrrha will do anything to get at the shuttle

palmolive and camilla switch again and nona has to update palmolive on everything that went on

nona thinks yandere twin wearing chad's body is coronabeer's boyfriend and is happy to know he's not

idk if she's interested in everyone romantically at the same time or she's not and that's how she expresses her feelings

palmolive introduces himself to we suffer and asks whether they'll give them the sixth if they retrieve gideon's body ("the key to the Locked Tomb")

I assume the bit about the key to the tomb was told to him via pyrrha, who's the only person with a memory present and aware at that time of the whole wake-augustine-mercygirl-emperor conversation

we suffer says she'll give him anything she can for the key to the tomb (including the sixth)

wild how the destiny of the universe was kind of hanging by a thread in baby blender's and kid jesus' playground in the ninth for a while there

palmolive thinks yandere twin is at a disadvantage with the limited abilities she has in the planet as well as with pyrrha, who he still completely trusts

palmolive doesn't know why yandere twin brought gideon along, he suspects it was to bait out harrow, but both him and we suffer need that bod

we suffer, because of the tomb

palmolive, because he thinks it will help nona survive, if that's her actual body, or the body of a part of her soul combo

he is more cautious than we suffer though, because she went from "we're en el horno" to "we've got this, team" real fast

and palmolive is like

palmolive is, though, very optimistic about his and camilla's chances of making this happen

or he's just risking it all for the sixth

when they switch, nona tells camilla that palmolive revealed it all to we suffer and camilla says "I don't know why I bother"

which is a mood

we suffer tells camilla that the whole sixth thing is complicated because BOE has factions that aren't always aligned and that wake could move them at will but she can't

I'm guessing they didn't know wake was having a close encounter with two sides of the same lyctor

camilla said she'd try to do it and we suffer goes "Palamedes Sextus thought you could"

if camilla is harmed here istg

I'm gonna eat these pages

I'm gonna rip them with my teeth and eat them

we suffer also requests that, if they leave planet, they take a package with them

unclear what it is

hope it's not a living being

or a kid, unless it's kevin

meanwhile, in the new audio coming from judith's intimates, coronabeer is talking to pyrrha and is upset that they're putting gideon in pretty dresses and parading her around like a doll

me too, actually, I mentioned it in the last recap

coronabeer is also disappointed that yandere twin didn't come for her specifically and it was only a mission to her

she missed you, though, back in the emperor's bolthole

between the lyctor orgies, the arm stuff, the nudes in the walls and the soup

yandere twin has apparently told pyrrha to not let coronabeer help judith

she starts doing a ward but also has time to both insult coronabeer's non existent necro abilities and act disgusted by the prospect of touching judith intimately

she also goes "What did Harrowhark use to always call you? Tortoise? Blorgus?"

is she trying to say "ortus"?

girl, I'm the one with the funny nicknames when the names are complicated, but ortus is definitely not

coronabeer wants to hear the whole story of the brain tampering that resulted in that

meanwhile, camilla seems to have de-coded pyrrha's message in there somewhere

and what she thinks is that nona is the key to something they want

which might be the body, but also who knows

camilla promptly asks for supplies because I think we're gonna try a heist!!!

a heist in which nona might pretend to be harrow?????

but A HEIST!!!!

love it for them

JOHN 9:22

"His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue."

WELL, THEN

pov person who was called harrow but might not be entirely harrow talks about their regenerative powers

they seem to be walking in the ruins of the place where dr reverend emperor john used to reside

so like, post apocalyptic earth?????

are they astral projecting????

apparently, going theatrical and calling himself a necromancer did the trick to reach big audiences

maybe if one of the lyctors had been a marketing specialist, this would have taken half the time

"It even scared A— He was all, Matter doesn't play by these rules! You are doing bone parthenogenesis! I told him his mum did bone parthenogenesis. A— told me he'd kill me one day"

GOD, I WISH HE HAD

they're still going around the fact that, since he can't recuperate the soul, he can't really bring people back to life

he was happy, though, that some people showed up and were pushy enough to be shot so that he could witness people dying live

I'm glad it worked out for you, asshole

he also gets kind of hooked on witnessing violent death because of how it makes him feel

so, he just started killing people remotely

pyrrha shook him and stopped him and was like "what in the fuck are you doing?" and he gave a ukelele apology

"Guys as careful as you shouldn't have accidents"

when the cop is talking reason, you know how twisted things are

they brought in all the corpses for the "skeleton army" he was no longer joking about

pov girlie asks if he know what caused his accident and he said "guys as careful as me don't have accidents"

I don't want to kill him anymore

that'd be too kind to this man

that'd be too merciful, he doesn't deserve that

AND THAT'S IT FOR NOW!!! Sorry this was a long one again! These are taking so little time to read and so long to recap >_< I end up finishing them at ass o'clock and sleepy, but I wanted to get it out!! See you in the next one! Please be kind ♥