#actually no second worst EO

[helladventurers]

And Abyssal Princess reached 😤👏 now begins the long arduous process of grinding and unlocking the missing pieces of gear I need to beat her

Don't be surprised if I don't post about the playthrough for a while, I'm likely resubbing to FFXIV soon and buying Elden Ring for my birthday, so it'll likely take me a while to beat her and true jourmungandr's ass 🤣

[virgils-muse]

I wanna promote my fic/au because I crave attention and validation. Anyways, reblogs are very much appreciated!

What is the au in question?: A Chonny’s Charming Chaos Compendium alternate universe where HMSW take the place of different Hellenic (Greek) gods called The Primordial Forces AU. I made this because I love CCCC and I’m also a Hellenic Polytheist who’s obsessed with Greco-Roman classic literature.

What’s the au about?: As I said previously, HMSW take the place of different Hellenic deities. Heart is Selene, the deity who pulls the moon with her chariot across the night sky. Mind is Helios, the deity who pulls the sun with her chariot across the day sky. Soul is Eos, the deity who opens the gates of dawn each morning. Whole is Chaos, essentially the personification of the fabric of the universe and the entropy that existed prior to the creation of anything. Of course, CCCC’s usual turmoil arises between the siblings, and when tensions reach their worst, Selene causes a solar eclipse (the equivalent of Heart shooting at Mind in this au). Eos, in an attempt to avenge the wrongs that his sibling have committed against eachother, goes to extreme lengths.

How many fics will you write for this au?: As of right now, I am planning on have three fics. The first one (and currently the only one that is up) recounts Selene’s perspective in a typical narrative format. The second one recounts Helios’s perspective in a play format. The third one will recount Eos’s perspective in an epic poem format. I may make more fics but as of right now that is the plan.

Why should I read these fics?: Although of course these fics do not accurately portray Hellenic Mythology, as that is obviously not the point of them, I can say that they’ve been crafted with great effort to reference actual mythology and beliefs of that time period. For example, in the opening of the first chapter of “The Selene Acoustic,” I used the format of actual Homeric prayer. I also reference the actual cult followings (or lack thereof) of these deities as well. And I don’t just use Percy Jackson or Madeleine Miller’s retellings as my source. I’ve read The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer, The Aeneid (which yes, I know it’s Roman not Greek) by Virgil, Theogony by Hesiod, Metamorphoses (yes again I know that’s Roman) by Ovid, The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles, The Oresteia by Aeschylus, Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides, as well as several essays and articles pertaining to these subjects. And I’m not saying this to brag or say “look at me I’m so smart”. I’m saying this because I want you to know that I’ve made this fic with such care and attention to detail. I do my research into these deities mythology, their worship, their epithets, their role in domestic life, their festivals, everything!

Anyways, here’s the link to “The Selene Acoustic” third chapter came out today, you should def read it if any of this stuff interests you.

[writtenonreceipts]

Am I slightly evil? Yes. But that’s besides the point. I would love a what if Aelin was actually pregnant in Empire of Storms. DRAMA! ANGST! OH NO MAEVE! 🫣 do ur worst. Literally.

Thanks for sending this in!! <3 It's been a while since I read the book, lol. My reread came to a screeching halt a little while ago. SO! Some points will not occur as they did in the book because i have no memory. Anyways...canon au/divergence. Partial EOS/KOA rewrite. 

find my other works here

READ ME--Warnings: torture, brief allusion to sexual assault, pain, violence, discussion of miscarriage and death. ANGST. you've been warned. Maybe happy ending???

~6.4k words

.*.*.*.*.

Until the Bitter End of Eternity

First, there was darkness. Thick and heavy and enough to make the entire world disappear.  It was a darkness that slipped not just across her eyes but into her mind.  Even when she tried, she couldn’t remember what day break looked like.  She couldn’t remember the way the sun scraped over the Staghorns or gleamed across the sea. She couldn’t remember the shade of green that soothed her soul.

Second, there was pain. Hot as it burned on skin and bore through flesh and into bone.  And she knew her pain.  Her life was a continuous cycle of torture, of broken bones and skin.  She had endured it all over and over.  But this…this was a fresh hell.

Third, there was terror. Sharp in the way it drilled one thought repeatedly over and over into her head.  Dry in the way that it leeched everything else from her.

Aelin had no choice but to feel each of these things. She had no choice but to let each thought and each feeling and each idea encompass her. Because it meant that she was alive. And to be alive was to be one step closer to returning to her mate (her mate, was that even possible?) and to be alive meant that the little flutter deep in her belly was real.

Perhaps she should regret not telling him. Instead, she'd told Lysandra. Begged Lysandra for help, for support, for confirmation. And her friend had assured her it would be fine. Assured her she was strong enough. Assured her that she would support Aelin if a certain choice needed to be made.

She should regret not having one more moment with Rowan, one last taste of hope that they could be together. A family.

"Well, well," a lilting voice permeated the darkness. And even when Aelin opened her eyes, even when she tried to seek out the light, there was nothing. "Niece, I thought you were stronger than this. But your fear.  My, my. How did you ever gain a following? You're so close to falling apart, aren't you?"

Aelin dragged in a breath, the tang of iron and mold coating her tongue and burrowing in her lungs.  A chill ran across her limbs, licking up any remnant of sweat.  It took far too long to remember the coffin. She was trapped.  Entombed.  Locked away to be be saved for death.  Maybe she’d pushed it too far back in her mind.  Maybe she’d tried to give herself some sort of protection.

But it came racing back now in the desire to reach out and throttle that cruel little voice that echoed through the silence.

"No witty words? Fireheart?"

Bile rose in Aelin’s throat as the moniker crossed Maeve's lips. The cruel fae queen was trying to rile her up, trying to make Aelin betray herself.  She swallowed the acid down.

Breathe, she thought. Just breathe.

"Don't worry,” Maeve continued, "I'll be gentle. For now."

And that cruel fae queen began the torture she’d always promised.

...

The coffin was cold. Impenetrable. And Aelin was acutely aware of the empty recesses to her magic.

It made her feel lost, distant, utterly remote from everything and anything. As a child and into her young adult years, she'd repressed her magic so much that she'd convinced herself she'd never had it.  She’d convinced herself that it was a mere fantasy made up by a poor little girl struggling with reality. But after learning what it was and how to control it, she'd truly understood what it meant to be that wildfire she was so often called.

For a wildfire was more than just a force to be reckoned with.

And now, encased in iron and darkness, her skin burned in desperation. She needed to burn. She needed to feel again.

She didn't know how long she remained in that coffin. It could have been hours; it could have been days. It could have been millennia.

And the one thing that should have been a comfort, that small flutter of life in her womb, was only another cruel thing to use against her.  Because just by existing, that life was the cruelest torture the gods had given her.

Aelin managed to brush her hand over her belly. Given the limited space of the coffin, it was a bit awkward, but it comforted her. It gave her just a little bit of hope, even for just the bare moment she gave herself.  She had to be careful.  She couldn’t let Maeve know.  She couldn’t let her guards know.

As soon as they did, they would use it against her.  And she couldn't bear what that would entail.

After what felt like years locked away with her own mind, there was finally the sound of rattling chains and grating stone.  And then a strike of light fell across her face making her flinch. It had been so long since she'd been touched by light. So long since she'd felt it so freely on her skin. She didn't like it. She didn't trust it.

The coffin opened with a heavy groan and cool air rushed over Aelin, brushing her limbs, her face.

It tasted like salt and wood and death.

She didn't have time to adjust to it when large, calloused hands took hold and yanked her from the coffin. Aelin couldn’t keep her feet as she was set on the ground. She tried. She tried to hold onto that pride that had once so securely owned her. She tried to find that fire that once burned within her. She tried. But it wasn't enough.

Her feet slid on cold marble and her body fell against the outside of the iron coffin. She didn't have time to relax against it though. The cruel hands were back, digging into the flesh of her arms and forcing her to her feet.

Aelin bit back a moan of pain at being forced to move, to walk. She hadn’t been able to stretch within the coffin and her body had grown so used to not moving that even this motion nearly sent her to her knees.

But the male beside her wouldn't let her fall. He was quiet with his harsh eyes and beautiful face turned forward. The only acknowledgment she had that he was aware of her was the way his fingers clung to her skin.

She looked there, his tanned skin a contrast to her own. She could already see the bruises that would come from this. She could already taste the blood that would coat her tongue when Maeve would inevitably have him beat her.

Once she might have tried to tease him. Endovier hadn't broken her, Arobynn hadn’t either.  Would she really allow Maeve the dishonor? The little flutter of life in her belly was all the answer she needed.

No. Aelin wouldn't be broken not for the possibility of hope and the image of a boy with his father's pine green eyes.  Or maybe a girl with long silver hair that would dance among the forest with flowers in her hands.

What little strength she had went to shielding her stomach and protecting the innocent life. There was no guarantee that this would work for long, no promise that she’d carry to term, not with what she'd already been through and would continue to suffer.

It would take a miracle.  And Aelin was sure she’d used all hers up.

Maeve would drag her within an inch of her life. And this little soul would face it too. Bile rose in Aelin’s throat as she thought about that.

The male beside her yanked Aelin to a stop just before the great doors that would lead to Maeve's throne room.

"The queen desires an audience," the male said, his curling blonde hair falling into his eyes. Aelin thought she recognized him as one of Rowan's Cadre.

She met his gaze and lifted her chin, ready to accept her fate.

...

The blood on her lips never stayed dry for long.

Even in her dreams, when she managed to sleep, Aelin was covered in red. It dibbled between her teeth, stained her gums, tainted her lips. Iron and salt were her only companion.

Her dreams never varied.

They were filled with images of forests wide and free. They sang of vast skies and warm burning suns. They hummed with magic that kissed her skin. But most importantly there was Rowan.

Rowan with his commanding presence. Rowan with his cold eyes and hard demeanor. Rowan who was her salvation and hope. Rowan who she could never quite keep close enough. No matter how she tried to chase after, to reach him, it was never enough. He would remain just out of her grasp and Aelin would be alone until her mind spiraled to the edge of an abyss of black.

Alone.

And then she would wake. And Maeve would beat and abuse her again. Again. Again.

Each time she would tell Aelin to give up, to release her magic, to allow Maeve access to her mind. Maeve sought to destroy her and Aelins will was chipped away.

Everyday Aelin would hold on though. She would think about that life within her, that perfect innocent life that she would hold onto. That life that would be a perfect mix of her and Rowan. That life that would live to know peace and hope.

So when the whips came out and the chains rattled on the stone floor, Aelin let her mind return to the darkest shadows of her subconscious that had given birth to Celaena. And as Cairn whispered threats into her ear and his hand were rough and cruel upon her skin, Aelin remembered where she had been and how far she had come.

Even as leather bit into her back and ruined the tattoos that marked her life—Aelin’s mind stayed locked.

Even when she would let out the inevitable scream—Aelin’s heart stayed strong.

Even when her nails tore and tears streamed—Aelin’s will stayed firm.

And when her body was torn and bruised and she returned to the coffin that wouldn't let her die, Aelin found herself staring at that male who led her to her daily torture.  He was harsh and cruel and vile.  The only thing she could think was that she would delight to see his blood on her hands.  

When he didn’t whip her, Cairn would take a knife to her skin and carve into her flesh.  Often it was useless strikes and cuts.  Other times there were words.  Aelin would watch the blood drip down her skin and pool on the marble of the throne room.  It was strange seeing such things etched into her skin.  Strange to have them burned into her eyes.  Stranger still to feel the way the blood oozed in tracks along her arms.  Her legs.  Her back.

It was wicked and cruel and the male delighted in it.

Every time he drew blood his lips were at her ear. Do you like that, little princess? When her breath would stutter in her lungs he would draw a finger along her jaw. Let me hear you beg, bitch.

Maeve would always heal her though.  She took away the marks at the end of a week.  What fun was it when the subject of your ire was too cut up to feel anything?

Still. Aelin didn’t beg.  She didn’t plead. She only stared forward at the male across the hall who brought her here on his queen’s order.

Fenrys never did speak to her. Only blink. Only blink and offer the barest hints of pressure as his fingers left her skin and delivered her to her prison once again.

...

She remembered the first time she wanted to die.

It was when she was in Arobynn's care. He had shown her how to slit a man's throat from a myriad of positions.  This being when she was trapped beneath him. His hands would wander and he’d carefully arrange her just the way he wanted.

He taught her the best way to hold the knife. The best angle to cut. He called her his good girl and praised the chaos she would cause.  And then he threw her to the wolves.

As she stared into Maeve’s eyes one day she imagined she could see Arobynn there. The cold delight, the deadly precision, the lack of empathy and care.

Aelin was in a mask of iron. A headpiece that covered her face so only her eyes could see slits of light and color. There was a mouthpiece she was forced to clamp down on with spikes that tore her tongue and the soft flesh of her cheeks and gums. Iron and faebane forged together that caused tears and blood to roll down her face.

Aelin didn't know how long she'd been held. She didn't know how long she'd been directing her magic to protect her baby. From what she could tell there'd been no growth. She was sick often enough that maybe, maybe, maybe it was okay. But she could have lost it and would never know what had finally done it. Only that she hadn't been strong enough.

She was strung up in chains and the iron mask deep in the recesses of Maeve’s palace.  Had been for long enough that she stank of piss and vomit.  She hadn’t been able to help either occurrence.  

As her mind wandered from consciousness to dreams, she fought to focus on something other than the darkness, the pain, the terror.  She tried to find something to hold onto.  When she tried to think of the babe—it nearly sent her into hysterics.  After all, she likely killed the child by submitting to this torture.  She wasn’t strong enough to hold off the true pain and agony.  She couldn’t protect herself so how, how could she protect that innocent life?

She came to herself as the door of her cell eased open.  Aelin snapped to attention, ignoring the pain that tore through her body.

In the dull light from behind the door she could make out the shape of a male.  Aelin pulled away even as the brackets around her wrists dug into the worn and tender flesh. 

It had to be Cairn.  She knew it did.  He’d told her many times over that one of these days he’d come to her.  He’d break her.  He’d see her on her back as he—

“Aelin.”

A soft voice.  Far kinder than what she’d expected.

Aelin blinked through tears and the fog surrounding her mind.  Through the slits of the mask she could make out the face of Fenrys Moonbeam.

“We don’t have time,” he murmured.  

His hands went to the chains at her wrists, making quick work of the locks.  As the chains fell away, Aelin collapsed forward.  Fenrys caught her easily, his strong arms supporting her as he took care of the chains at her ankles.

“I can’t get the mask,” he said, “not strong enough.  Aelin.  Look at me.”

A shudder of pain rippled through her.  Her tongue cut on one of the spikes in her mouth and blood trickled down her throat.  She gagged.

“Aelin,” Fenrys said again. “You have to run.  I can get you to the woods but from there you’re on your own.  Do you hear me?  There is only so long she will be distracted.”

His words slowly pieced together in her mind.  Run.  Escape.  Freedom.

A hand dropped to her abdomen.  She couldn’t help it.  She wouldn’t apologize for it.  And maybe, maybe there was something there.

“Run.” she managed to spit through the iron gag in her mouth the rutted mask around her.

Fenrys wasted no time in leading her through the dungeons.

He supported most of her weight even when she came to herself.  They were practically flying down different pathways and channels.  Soon, the dank stench of excrement and blood dissipated and was replaced by something sweeter, fresher.

“Almost there,” Fenrys murmured into her ear.

Aelin barely managed a hum in response.  She was too busy trying to find one more ounce of strength somewhere in her bones.

A light appeared at the end of the corridor they were moving down.  So small, Aelin almost missed it.  But the faster Fenrys moved the closer the light came.  It was real.  So real that in a few hundred yards they came to a grate that led out into freedom.

Fenrys ushed Aelin through the bars but didn’t follow.  His fae eyes gleamed in the shadows and she could feel a preternatural power roll off of him.

“Run straight to the trees,” Fenrys told her. “Don’t stop.  You cannot stop.  You cannot give up.  Not yet.  He’ll find you; do you understand?  He will find you.”

Rowan. She thought.  She could only blink her response before Fenrys was shoving her out into the daylight.

It was so different from what she remembered.  It wasn’t silent or still.  Rather, there was a wind rustling in the trees, a bird in the distance.  She could feel cold moss beneath her toes and a dampness in the air of a coming rain.

It was clean and pure and—

Run.

Her knees buckled at the first step.  Her legs forgot that they knew this motion.  She tried again with another step.  Another.  Another.  Step upon step upon step that would take her directly into the trees.

Her bare feet dug into the detritus of the forest floor.  Leave and sticks and dirt kicked up beneath her frantic scrambles.  It didn’t help that her vision was so limited with the mask.  She could hardly see one step in front of her, let alone two.

It was taking her too long to move.  She knew it.  She could feel a shift in the air. 

What had Fenrys done to provide a distraction?  Had anyone else helped him?  She had no idea what would have been enough to drag Maeve away from the castle, away from Aelin when she was so close to breaking.

Somewhere behind her, she heard a scream.  A roar, really.  Something loud and violent that send a shudder through the forest.

Cairn.  It had to be.  She, his little play thing, was gone.  He would come find her, she knew he would.

Aelin pushed herself forward.  A tree nearly tossed her off balance but she kept moving. Quicker now. One step in front of the other as her knees picked up.  There were far too many brambles and roots to keep her trajectory straight, but she didn’t stop.

She couldn’t stop.  Not with one hand cradling her stomach that she swore was rounded just a bit.  She hadn’t completely lost her mind, had she?

She couldn’t stop as her senses filled with clean air and fresh upturned earth.  All around her, the forest was coming alive with fluttering wings and scampering paws.  This was where she belonged, wasn’t it?  Wild and free.

She ran.  

She ran until her body was begging for relief.  Until she could feel the wounds along her body burst and new blood rolled down her frame.  Maeve hadn’t healed her for this week yet.

The blood would make it easier for Cairn to track.  It would be easier for him to hunt her down and finish what he’d started.

Each of her nerve endings lit up as though they were on fire.  All across her body, she felt as though she were disintegrating back into that pathetic ball of utter shame.  She couldn’t even run properly let alone get herself to freedom without help.  She was—

There was a shift in the air.

It was sudden and stark on her skin.  She felt as though she’d stepped into a wall of ice as a chill wrapped around her, curling into every curve and angle of her body.  She knew that feeling.  She had felt it on many occasions before.  Back when she’d been a flickering flame on the verge of burnout and he’d been there to ground her.  

Aelin gasped for air desperate for a taste of the world around her.

Rowan. Pine and snow and sweet sweet relief. Rowan. Rowan. Rowan. Aelin stumbled in her frantic run. She could smell him. He was so close she could feel him and his strength and as desperation rolled through her, Aelin found her magic slowly unfurling. It quivered within her as it slowly rolled forth.

Rowan.

Rowan

Rowan.

She kept running. Running until she heard something in the trees around her. Running until she could smell magic in the air. Running until she burst into a clearing, stumbling to her knees. All the strength she’d put forth was eaten up.  Her body so tired, her mind so numb.  She didn’t know if she could go any further.  But she could feel him, so immersive and familiar.

Aelin.

Her name whispered through the trees, light and cool.

Aelin,

Her name rang with desperation as it shuddered among the surrounding trees.

“Aelin!”

Her name was fierce and strong coming from the one person she'd thought about most in the last few months.  Aelin managed to look up as Rowan fell to the ground in front of her.  Even on his knees, he was massive.  His broad frame blocked out anything from view as his magic pulsed between them.

“Aelin,” he whispered.  Strong arms came around her as though they could offer security or protection.

Aelin shuddered in Rowan’s grasp as she tried to pull away.

“Off. Off. Take it off.” She demanded. Her fingers scrabbled at the metal mask over her face. Blood dribbled from the corners of her mouth and pain landed through her, but she didn't care.  All she cared about was getting that damned mask off.

“It’s alright, Fireheart,” Rowan murmured.  “Look at me.  Look at me, love.”

In her frantic scrambling she’d twisted in his grasp and was now facing him.  His green eyes found hers and for the first time in so many months, Aelin could breathe.

“Rowan,” she gasped.  The metal mouthpiece scraped against her tender skin. All she cared about was Rowan before her.

His hands were gentle as they ran along the seam of the mask and Aelin’s neck.  He kept talking to her in a mix of the old language and common tongue.  She didn’t know what he was saying—couldn’t focus on anything but his hands—but it was the soothing lilt of his voice that kept her grounded.

She didn't know how long it took but soon the metal fell free and she could feel cool air on her face and tears tracked down her face.

A sob escaped her as she slumped against Rowan. His arms tightened around her as he murmured sweet assurances in her ear.

The relief didn’t last long.

Not as a new figure emerged from the trees.  Aelin didn’t have to see his face to know who it was.  She could smell her own blood on the long blade in his grasp.

Aelin dug her fingers into Rowan’s arm, the hard muscle unyielding as he slowly shifted her away from Cairn.

“Two little lambs,” Cairn crooned, “all ready for the slaughter.”

…

Rowan Whitethorn was a warrior.  Three hundred years of life on this earth had turned him from a simple boy in his father’s land to a fae that yearned for the hunt.

He was not afraid of it.  Nor was he averse to it.  He respected the way of war and the blood that would be shed.

At least until this very moment.

Aelin shuddered in his grasp as she flinched away from the sight of Cairn.  Aelin who was strong and capable and the most powerful creature he’d known shuddered.  Rowan felt his body tense as he stood, gently leaving Aelin kneeling on the ground.

This male had touched her, had hurt her.  And he was going to regret it.

“Cairn,” Rowan growled.  

Magic thrummed in his bones and sang through his blood until it was all around him.  He could feel power rising up from the deepest wells of his being, the very places he swore he would never touch.  

Cain on cocked his head to the side as a predatory smile stretched across his mouth. “I think I’ll enjoy killing you, Whitethorn.  And when my hands are covered in your blood I’ll take your little bitch and fu—”

Rowan attacked.

He drew the sword strapped to his back and a smaller knife strapped to his side and burned.  His ice magic felt hot at it wrapped around him, urging him on.  In a scant few steps, he was lunging for Cairn.

The other male hadn’t been expecting this.  He fell back one step but it was all Rowan needed.  He went for the exposed belly, swiping with his dagger.  Cairn barely dodged and retaliated by drawing a knee up. Rowan threw him back with an icy snap of wind.  The force of it threw Ciarn against a tree.  

A resounding crack echoed through the forest as Rowan stalked forward.

Cairn struggled against the magic that held him.  Surprise was written clear on his face.  The fool either hadn’t remembered what Rowan was capable of or thought his pathetic alliance with Maeve would somehow save him.

Rowan would relish in the scent of blood that day.

…

Aelin didn't know how long it took or how it actually happened, but soon she was gathered in Rowans arms and he was running with her through the forest.  

She could still smell the stench of fire and burning flesh on the air.  She could still see the way Rowan moved towards Cairn with his weapons raised.  She could still hear the last of Cairn’s screams on the wind.

Rowan had held nothing back in his attack.  He’d taken his time to carve into Cairn’s flesh, to draw out as much pain and misery as he could.  

Aelin could only watch.  Watch and thank the gods for what Rowan was capable of.

Now, they eventually came to where Aelin’s growing army was camped, but she could hardly notice or care about the numbers that were gathering. All she could do was fall against Rowans chest and let him watch over her.

Even when Lysandra and Elide came to help bath and dress and treat the wounds that marred her skin. It was hard to do while stool as sentinel growling when anyone moved too close or too quick.

But Aelin couldn't bring herself to really notice or care. Not when Elide’s gentle fingers wove her damp hair into a braid and Lysandra rubbed oils and lotion into Aelin’s raw skin.

She couldn't hold back the flinch when Lysandra brushed her belly as she pulled a tunic over Aelin’s head.  Lysandra froze remembering that night on the ship when Aelin told her she was with child.

"Aelin," Lysandra whispered.  She hovered close, eyes darting to where Rowan glowered.

"What?" He demanded. "Is something wrong? Do we need Yrene?"

Aelin squeezed her eyes shut.  Maybe it was better if Yrene came to tell her that her worst fears had been realized.  But she couldn't bring herself to say the words. Even as Rowan's magic enveloped her, Aelin couldn't look at him.

"Sleep," she rasped.  "I just want to sleep."

Maybe she'd be able to disappear into the darkness that had been her only companion. Maybe she'd be able to forget for one moment—

In an instant both Lysandra and Elide were gone and she was back in Rowan's arms. His nose was buried in her neck, arms tight around her.

"You're safe, Fireheart, " he told her. "I promise. You can rest now. Put down your magic, love. It's been flaring for too long now."

Aelin buried her fingers in his tunic until she found his bare flesh and she could feel him beneath her. Was she still flaring her magic? She'd grown so accustomed to holding that shield up around herself that it was second nature even in her exhausted state.

“Rowan,” she whispered, his name a balm against her lips. “I’m sorry.”

He held her tighter against his chest. “For what?”

But she was already asleep.

…

There were hands digging into her skin.  Determined hands that picked and prodded as they tore her apart.  They ripped at the thin nightgown she wore even as she tried to pull and tug away.  But no matter what she did, there was no escape.  

One hand went to her throat, fingers tightening until she was struggling for breath.  The other hand flexed across her stomach, the touch rough and cold.

“I’ll make you scream,” a voice said.  It didn’t take long for her to place that cold, cruel voice. “And then you’ll kneel before me and beg for mercy.”

Aelin’s own scream finally pulled her from the nightmare.  She thrashed wildly, desperate to get away from Cairn’s horrific torture.

“Aelin, Aelin.”  Another voice, different.  A new set of hands came over her, these careful in the way they held her. “Fireheart, you’re safe.”

A snarl tore from her lips, she couldn’t help it.  All she could hear was Cairn’s laugh and feel the way his knife cut her skin.  She needed to get away.  She could focus on nothing other than the how small this tent space and how best she could escape it.

“She needs to calm down, Prince,” a soft voice said from her left, “for her own safety.”

Aelin whirled toward the voice just as a pair of hands went to her waist, firm as they tried to hold her still.  They were too close to her belly that Aelin couldn’t help the defensive flare that rose within her.  Her instincts took over as she grabbed one of the hands and twisted it away.  A flicker of fire raced from her fingers to singe her captor.

They grunted but held on tighter.  Ice met her fire and in a low hiss, the small flames burned out.

Blinking rapidly, Aelin looked up to meet the pine green eyes of Rowan.

“Rowan,” she whispered.  Her flames disappeared as she took him in.

Yes.  This was right.  He had come for her.  He had held her.  He had decimated Cairn as though it were his right.

“Aelin.” Rowan stared at her unblinking.  There was caution in his eyes as he regarded her, as though he were expecting her to lash out and burn him again.

The planes of his face were hard as stone as she took him in.  He was ragged with bags under his eyes and stubble on his chin.  But it was still Rowan.  Her Rowan.

“You found me,” she croaked, her voice broken from the screams.  You found us. 

She released him, nearly pushing him away as everything came back to her.  

Oh to fade back into that darkness that was always so welcoming and good to her.  That darkness that she could sink into and let take over.  If she could disappear, she could forget.  She could forget the pain and the fear.  She could forget the whips and the whispers.  She could forget that she had certainly destroyed the one bit of happiness that was left for her in this world.

Rowan didn’t move as he watched her.  But she did note the way his eyes did finally dip from her face down to her stomach.

No. No. No.

Aelin shrunk away from him.  She couldn’t bear to look at him, couldn’t bear to tell him—

She remembered the other body in the tent with them.  Aelin turned to see Yrene standing near the closed tent flaps.  She had her hair pulled back with a scrap of cloth, her warm brown skin was flushed and the hazel of her eyes was dimmed from the last time Aelin had seen her.

Of course the healer was here.  Why wouldn’t she be if Aelin was so broken and torn apart?  And if Aelin had killed—

“Aelin,” Yrene said softly.  She held out a hand in supplication. “Aelin, it’s alright.  You’re still healing.  I did the best I could for now.”

Bile rose in Aelin’s throat at the words.  Still healing. The best she could.  Her fingers wound into the front of her tunic.  The walls she’d been trying to keep up were frail and weak.  She knew she was hemorrhaging emotions and information directly for Rowan to pick up on but she was so tired.

“Tell me,” Aelin managed to say.  She couldn’t finish the thought but when Yrene’s features softened, she knew she’d been understood.

At her back, Aelin could feel Rowan.  He didn’t touch her, not yet, but he was there.  His strong presence buoyed Aelin up as she waited for Yrene’s answer.

The healer nodded once before managing a smile. “Five months, your majesty.  You’re malnourished and need to gain weight, but—as far as I can tell right now—the baby is fine.  Small but fine.”

Aelin could only stare as Yrene took her leave and left the tent.

Small but fine.  Small but fine.  Small but—

“Rowan.”  Aelin reached a hand back until she found him.  He took her hand in his and pulled her back against his chest, his other arm tentatively wrapping around her. “I thought…I thought I lost it.  I thought I wasn’t, that I didn’t—”

Her words were cut off as a sob rose in her throat.  When her legs gave out from the exertion of the past five minutes, Rowan was there to catch her.  He held her against him as they both sank to the ground, wrapped up in each other as Aelin cried.

Rowan only held her.  His face was once against buried in her neck; his lips soft against her skin as he whispered something in the Old Language.  She had longed for a moment like this for so long that she didn’t dare move.  Instead, she held on to Rowan as her cries continued and eventually her body stopped shaking.

It was then that Rowan lifted her into his arms and carried her back to the small cot she’d been sleeping in earlier.  He laid her down gently before curling around her.  One of his large hands hovered near her stomach but he didn’t dare touch her.

“You knew,” he said, his voice was rough and worn. “You knew before Maeve took you.”

Aelin closed her eyes to the sight of Rowan’s own mournful gaze.  He’d been crying same as her.

With a long breath, she took her hand in his and rested it on that too small swell.  As soon as he touched her, Rowan’s body went stiff then slack, then a shudder nearly broke him apart.  His hold on her tightened just barely before stopping.  Aelin could feel the trembles taking him as he waited.  She pressed his hand more firmly against her, holding him there even when he tried to pull away.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she bowed her head forward until she rested against his chin. “I’m so sorry, Rowan.”

“I could have lost you,” he said, breath fanning over her hair.

“I didn’t think it was real,” she said.  “I told myself it couldn’t be.  And then I was in that coffin and I knew.  I knew what I had done.  And it would be my fault if—if—”

She felt another wave of tears come over her and she stopped talking.  Rowan gently cradled her chin in his hand, tilting her face up.  She kept her eyes closed, unable to look at him.

“And when C-c, when he started to hurt me,” she continued, forcing the words through trembling lips, “I put all my energy into trying to keep it real, to keep the—the baby safe.  But every day I thought that would be it, that would be the time I failed.  I’d already failed you, so why not that life?”

Rowan’s hand flexed against her stomach and his lips grazed her forehead, her eyes, her lips.

“You’d never fail me,” he assured her.

Was he not hearing her or was she not speaking clear enough? “I didn’t tell you.”

“You said it yourself; you didn’t think you were,” he said. “And when was the time?  Everything happened so fast.”

His voice trailed off and Aelin finally opened her eyes.  He was watching her with an unreadable expression.  Aelin felt her heart tug.  She had imagined him so many times in her captivity.  He’d often been a dim voice in the back of her mind, but he’d been there nonetheless.  Sometimes it had been him and only him that got her through a day.

“Rowan.”  She kept her hand firmly over his where it rested on her belly. “I’m scared.  When I close my eyes, I swear I’m back there.  And when I sleep?  I already nearly burned you.  How can I do this?  How can I do anything of this?  Not just a child, but a war?  How can I be strong enough when I’ve fallen apart so many times already?”

"You're not alone, Fireheart," he said. His voice was so soft Alein almost thought she'd imagined it. She watched that hard, carefully crafted expression of his soften. "Not anymore. But if this is too much, if you don't want— "

Aelin squeezed his hand knowing what he was suggesting. He broke off and only watched her.

"I choose this," she said. "And I choose you, Rowan Whitethorn. "

He nodded once at her words before leaning in to kiss her. 

His lips were soft against hers. Soft and gentle as he explored her again. And Aelin, desperate for that feeling and taste of home, kissed him back. Rowan rested his hands on her hips as she rolled on top of him.  

From there, she quickly took control, her mouth moving urgently against his until she was pulling his lower lip, sucking gently but needful. Her hands were roving his body tugging at Rowans tunic, the buttons of his pants. She needed him. Needed every bit of him that she could get.

And when they came together with careful kisses and whispered promises Aelin found for the first time, she was able to banish that terrible darkness away.

They still had so far to go and so much to learn—but they would get there together. 

 .*.*.*.*.*.

tags

@morganofthewildfire // @aelinchocolatelover // @sexy-dumpster-fire // @bamchickawowow //  @ireallyshouldsleeprn //  @courtofjurdan //  @sassys-world  //  @sleeping-and-books  //  @superspiritfestival // @chieflemming // @julemmaes // @lysandra-ghost-leopard //   @firestarsandseneschals //  @rapunzel1523  //  @booksofthemoon  // @fangirlprincess09  // @highladysith  // @tillyrubes10  // @bri-loves-sunflowers // @rowaelinismyotp // @sheharahu // @1islessthan3books // @fromthelibraryofemilyj // @vanzetanze // @foughtconquered  // @acciowests // @cassianscool // @thegreyj // @acourtofsjmtrash // @story-scribbler  // @jesstargaryenqueen  // @amoretheiwa // @jorjy-jo // @danibutterr @live-the-fangirl-life // @foreverfallingforthestars //  @pastasiren // @whimsicallyreading // @infernoqueen19  // @mis-lil-red  // @lemonade-coolattas  // @scribbled-semantics // @realbookloverproblems // @ghostlyrose2 // @rainbowcheetah512 // @bri-loves-sunflowers // @captain-swan-is-endgame // @mystic-bibliophile // @cretaceous-therapod // @swankii-art-teacher //  @thisloveseternal // @gracie-rosee // @bananaanna23 // @goddess-aelin // @liars-lmao // @emily-gsh // @rowaelinrambling // @bookcide // @sideralwriting // @nerdperson524 // @thegloweringcastle //

[spotsupstuff]

I wanna learn more about Blessing / Boreas. What’s up with all the bat flies with him? What’s his city like?

-rubs my hands together like a fly- uuuuuu boy, time to shake my blatantly favorite child Hell yeah huhuhuhuhuuu

the batflies enter the scene a good while after the Mass Ascension- they are his coping mechanism after Zephyr collapses and goes dark!

from the comic where they talk about Euros' n Sparrows' relationship, one can probably guess how close these two are. Boreas might be the big scary dog of the whole Eo family that punches things in the face rather than take any miniscule amount of shit, but when it comes to Zephyr he is very open and sweet. she's the only person who can actually influence his opinions and ideas greatly, because he loves and trusts her enough to allow her to do so. so when she collapses, he takes it the worst out of everyone. in a very quiet way. his pain if for him to keep, nobody else can know he's hurting

bear witness to Ňuňu

this lil shit was basically Boreas' therapy dog. just.. very very feckin teeny

child...

she is as smart as your typical bat, but the thing was that when she accidentally made her way into his chamber, he didn't have much will in himself to send the animal to eeby deeby so she got to flutter about. and as animals do, girlie used the empathy trap card to figure out this person who doesn't seem to be posing any danger is Sad. so she landed on his head, crawled up to look into his eyes and chirped

n that was the straw that broke the camel's back and Boreas had his first grief-inflicted breakdown ever. Ňuňu stayed during it and even after it, so emotionally-empty-feeling Boreas decided to take her in. hardly can replace Zephyr, but at least he isn't alone

Ňuňu later brought friends and Bee decided that he will look after them then. even after Ňuňu passes away, he still houses and raises them. the younglings like sleeping on his antennas so he has to watch himself to not move them too much sometimes. Euros has a folder full of photos like that

to his city- the name kush is:

originally from me looking for latin words for Rage. ended up going with Desaevio, because Bee is indeed positioned in a fitting place for the word

and the storm connection plus the last two are the main reasons why the Ancients called the city as such. after project Abet Zephyr ended in such a failure, they had to vent some stuff out. and we are going to claim that it is anger because that isn't as pitiful as shame or embarrassment

(the fact that almost every translator i put it into gives me "i'm sorry" works wonderfully, too. because what else will ultimately Boreas do, but quietly mutter to himself a mantra of apologies when he'll be lying in his chamber 30 seconds from his death, drowning in his regrets and mistakes?)

Desaevio was capable of comfortably supporting over 5 million people (no other Iterator city ever reaches that far- the max is ambitious Gen 3 cities that only ever reached around an estimate of 2.7 million) but at times housed over 6-7 million. despite lying close to the geographical location of Bergen in real life, Desaevio is very far from reaching such nice vibes (the old towns Boreas' structure overshadows come close, though). it is way closer to New York, but more dystopian. if u look up dystopian city on google images u get to see pretty closely what it looked like. combine it with Coruscant from star wars for bonus authencity with the layering

made up of skyscrapers, with endless layered bridges for means of transport (most commonly expres trains), with what little decoration of the buildings chipped away by time without anybody caring enough to restore the beauty- the grey, gloomy expanse of Desaevio is as majestic to witness as it is absolutely harrowing

with it being a layered city and one with Boreas' consciousness/structure, some wonder when does one truly leaves the borders of the city and enters the giant's actual insides. it's hard to tell, with old models of Iterators not being all that enclosed and isolated like Five Pebbles is. there is no karma gate to tell you when exactly the walls turn from homes for people to homes for wires, tubes and alien-like organic life of a colossal Hivemind

despite the whole "Iterators are above the cloud level" thing, i like to imagine that it rains in Desaevio either way. at least- some levels are just straight up Wet like after rain. but it'd be those normal rains like we have, not the annihilating ones that the old towns need to bear with down below. or maybe it's just the upper layers' waste water seeping through the ceilings

most of light of the lower levels comes from streetlights, neon signs and Boreas' own systems once deep enough

cameras and such security systems litter all the streets and every public room- and the private homes are still accessable by overseers- and All of that feeds directly into Boreas' memory cache

this omnipresence is why Boreas later suffers with the fuckin

nobody is as unhappy with Boreas' omnipresence as Boreas himself. no wonder he's always ticked off, imagine being a witness to All of New York's road rage 24/7

[letstalkwhump]

Let's Talk Whump! No. 18

Welcome to Let’s Talk Whump, a series of interviews that spotlight the amazing people in our whump community! I’m Malice and I’ll be your host today. 

Today I’m talking whump with the amazing @crash-bump-bring-the-whump! 

Great to have you here, @crash-bump-bring-the-whump! Before we begin, do you mind sharing a little bit about yourself?

Hi! I’m Ruin, I’m a graphic designer and I love horror, drawing, and playing video games!

Alrighty, let’s get started! What does whump mean to you? 

Whump is the juicy bits of a story! It’s the conflict, the agony, the struggle! The good stuff that we’re all here for.

How did you find the whump community?

I found it because I was poking around for more hurt/comfort things to read! @friendlylocalwhumper and @sweetwhumpandhellacomf were actually the first blogs I followed! Lux and the Hunter, and Valerie and Eos were what inspired me to make my own blog. 

Do you feel like your view on whump has  changed since you joined?

Ohhh man all that’s super changed is that I’ve found more tropes that I like! I knew fevers and environmental and self-sacrifice whump were favs, like who doesn’t love a good sickfic or someone taking a bullet for their loved one, but I also really really discovered my love of gore and lab whump, which are just amazing. 

Everyone’s favourite topic: whump tropes! Which are your favourites?

Oh man, so many right now! I love a good drowning, and bouts of hypothermia are fantastic. Those tend to go hand-in-hand though so I usually feel blessed when I find stuff with those. I also love a good fever, “Stay with me”, kidnapping, and self-sacrifice though I’m not as big a fan of death, so this usually also includes intensive caretaking and probably a lot of worry from the other characters which is also amazing.

And your favourite piece you've written?

Oh this is hard, I have a few favorites! 

If I can cheat a little bit and name two, the first is MO-1620, which is my current fav OC Mariano’s prison psych transcript! It was super experimental for me, and I had a blast getting to explore his feelings about his imprisonment and how he sees himself versus the reality of his actions and behavior and circumstances. And the second is my first BTHB 2023 fill, for Possession ! I’d gotten House of Leaves for Christmas one year and the formatting just really grabbed me, so I wanted to try playing with that! Plus I love a good human AU, and my OC Will was too perfect for this prompt.

I love the style and formatting of MO-1620! That’s such a unique idea! Do you have a writing routine?

I usually write during the night! I usually have some flavored water, probably a little snack, and I definitely write best if I can just get a big chunk out at once. I try to write regularly while not putting pressure on myself, so it winds up being every few days at least, unless I’m just super grabbed by something and it won’t let go of my brain.

Is there an easy thing for you to write or anything you struggle with?

Oh I love writing horror. If I can incorporate horror into something, or explore what I think is scary about a situation, then it flows SUPER well. Or if I’m getting to do something with a lot of dialogue. Or lately, smut, because consensual NSFW writing has really been going well too.

I also tend to struggle with delving more into environmental, in-depth descriptions. Or diving hardcore into tactics with my military whump stuff because I…am not a clever man sometimes.  Also patiently staying on a linear timeline is the worst. I can never do it. Which sucks, because it puts me in a situation like now, where I KNOW how a bunch of characters WILL be and I want to write about it publicly NOW but first I have to REINTRODUCE them AND get them through the initial “I want to kill you here and now” conflict. 

Is there anything you're working on at the moment?

I’m working on so much right now! I do written roleplays, my drafts are 15 posts deep, and that’s not even counting my random google docs. Uh I’m working on introducing Mariano’s war buddies again, a bunch of smut, I have a grim reaper fighting a losing battle against a demon, a prompt game request for a friend, a response piece for my co writer, more therapy vignettes for said war buddies, and– you get the picture!

Sounds like you’re pretty swamped! Do you have any advice you’d like to share?

Write what makes you excited! If you don’t want to read what you’re writing, change it! Make it self indulgent! Make more OCs that are specifically catered to you and what you love and want to see! That’s more fun to read anyway, honestly, I love seeing passion!

Shout out to your favourite writing/whump blogs, bffs or people who've inspired you. We're hyping everyone up here!!!

YEAH HERE WE GO! I’ll shout out my co writer @brinkofdiscovery, my bestie @friendlylocalwhumper, my accomplices @comfy-whumpee , @that-one-thespian, and @painful-pooch, uh god there are so many more people. So many people are so sweet! @actress4him, and @inscrutable-shadow, and like everyone in the various servers I’m in, I can’t name everyone or this post would get so obscenely long so quickly… 

Anything you'd like to add?

Thank you for this!! It’s super fun to see this happening, and I like getting to see everyone talking about stuff.

Thanks so much for joining us today!

And to all you folks at home, have a whumpder-ful day!

[kitkatt0430]

Talk Shop Tuesday: How did your Eobard vs Eobard series first come about?

Eobard vs Eobard (AKA the Herobard series ^_^ ) came in part from curiosity about what the future Eobard was trying to get back to in S1 was like now that he'd altered the timeline so much. Would Eobard's own life even have played out the same way he remembered or would it be different? And if it was different, could the Eobard of this timeline even be considered the same person as the Eobard of the OG timeline?

It also came in part because Eobard has a habit of getting in his own way over the course of the series and wouldn't it be funny if it was even more literal? Eobard isn't getting what he wants because a literal second Eobard is busy getting it all first - his own worst enemy is himself and he doesn't even realize it.

From there I looked back over the DC wikis to refresh my memory on the various comics Eobard backstories to decide how I wanted the new timeline Eobard's life to diverge from old timeline Eobard's. And I quickly decided that of course new Eobard was going to love his brother a lot - in fact part of his identity he built while recovering from his parents abuse would revolve around being a good big brother. Comics Eobard erased Robern from existence, something that EoWells will have done in his timeline, so it was important that new Eobard not only didn't erase Robern but was incredibly close with him.

Gideon was also someone I wanted new Eobard to have with him. EoWells has a Gideon so I wanted to keep that parallel. I wanted this Gideon to have a different origin point, so instead of coming from the Flash Museum via theft she became an AI companion Eobard's parents gave him in an attempt to fix his social development - it both helped with defining the kind of abuse Eobard primarily suffered from his parents - neglect and verbal abuse - but also meant that Gideon had been Eobard's closest companion from a very young age. About nine or ten, not too long before Robern was born, probably given by Eobard's parents as an attempt to 'fix' him before the baby arrived.

With Eo and Gideon - and I think that was about where I started calling him Eo because that became Gideon's nickname for him - established as having been together for so long, it made sense that she was more of a sibling to him than a friend. And Eobard was probably a little bit co-dependent with her and vice versa - Gideon was wary of risking Eobard's life to become a speedster, but at the same time she definitely wanted that because speedsters live longer than regular humans and she wants to keep him as long as she can - so he has a tendency to put his relationship with her first, though Robern is a close second as adults.

Meloni came about because Eobard and Robern needed an adult in their lives after their parents died. I wanted Eobard to still be young enough to need a legal guardian when that happened so it would make sense why he didn't get custody of Robern himself. But also old enough that he was believably college aged (early) and thus wasn't around enough to really see how his parents were treating Robern so the realization Robern wasn't actually the much loved child his parents pretended he was would hit harder after they died.

I picked Meloni to name the character based off the comics character, but while she's got a lot in common with that comics character... she's really much more of an OC with the same name. She looks a lot like Iris due to being a direct descendant of Iris and Eddie's - it took a while to decide on her having a much more direct relation to Eobard and Robern too since Eddie & Iris' descendants would be distant enough relatives that she wouldn't really have a legal claim if she weren't also more closely related to them too. By then, despite being descended of two branches of the same family, Meloni's parents would have been distantly related enough that it wouldn't be a problem of incest/inbreeding for them to have married. This worked since I had already decided pretty early that Eobard & Robern would not be Eddie's descendants, but Malcolm Thawne's (either a brother or a cousin at this point) - with Eddie saving the life of one of Malcolm's kids being the real reason why Eddie's survival is necessary to Eobard's existence and why Edward became a family name for the Keystone branch of the family.

Once I had these four characters built up in my head, I finally started writing the first fic of the series. Eobard and Gideon in the past (to them, present for the main action of the series) about to learn about the Reverse Flash - not included in the new Timeline's Flash Museum - the hard way. That was also when I decided that of course new Eobard would have a very different code name and color scheme, but that the color scheme would be a reaction to not wanting to have anything in common with someone who'd hurt the Flash.

Even when he doesn't realize he's doing it, this Eobard is constantly rejecting the path that would lead to the Reverse Flash existing in the new timeline.

[jimmycarterghostland]

Why I hated Vengeful by VE Schwab

1 It ruined Victor's character by making him into someone who murdered innocent people. This sequel made him just like Eli, and I absolutely hated that. The appeal of Victor was that he was truly gray. Not evil, but not all that good, either. Unfortunately, VE Schwab ruined him in the second novel. That's the biggest reason why I hated Vengeful.

2 Victor didn't even get to kill Eli. Sydney did it. That huge interpersonal conflict was ended by someone who had less of a reason to kill Eli. It should've been Victor who killed him.

3 Marcella was frustrating. All she did was whine about how bad she had it. And the high heels thing with her was repetitive. Not to mention she seemed like a self-hating, misogynistic woman. She wasn't even an interesting villain.

4 June was an unnecessary character. And her unexplained attachment to Sydney was creepy and out of place.

5 Mitch wasn't utilized enough.

6 Victor was mean to Dom as he died. Victor was never unnecessarily cruel. He never would've insulted an ally like that, especially after that ally saved his life. Why would he insult a man who just rescued him? This book turned Victor into an unlikable character.

7 The whole book read like a badly written fanfiction. No, I don't want to know about Marcella's sex life.

8 Marcella and June were unnecessary characters. They made Vengeful more bloated than it already was. Too many characters who didn't deserve the spotlight.

9 I didn't have anyone to root for in this novel. It was so bad that I actually ended up looking forward to Eli's chapters. And I hated the guy in Vicious! Eli is a cruel murderer, but he's supposed to be. Victor ended up being a disappointment, and I couldn't cheer him on anymore. Such a shame.

10 There were too many cop-outs. Like the mad scientist guy making that anti-power serum, which wasn't foreshadowed at all. How convenient that this scientist made a serum, and used it to get rid of Eli's powers near the end of the book. The serum should've been foreshadowed more.

11 The book was a mess, simply put. The characters were unlikable. Victor became unlikable, murdering innocent EOs like Eli did in the previous book. Too many unnecessary new characters. Too many cringe coincidences, like Victor bumping into June at the strip club.

12 Expectations were subverted in a bad way. What's up with fiction nowadays ruining their characters and plots by subverting expectations in a horrible way near the end of the stories? Vengeful was Game of Thrones season 8 level bad. That show and this book ruined their once likable characters. I can't stand it.

13 The character arcs in Vengeful were awful. Victor became just like Eli. And it wasn't even Victor who killed him. Victor killing Eli would've been predictable, but it was thematically the best way for Eli to die. Their conflict was too deep for Victor to not kill him. It had to be Victor. But nope, what we got was Sydney shooting Eli in an effort by Schwab to subvert expectations. It was horrible. Victor had more of a reason to kill Eli. He hated him more. For Sydney to kill him was another disservice to the fans. Victor killing him would've been way more satisfying. Plus, Eli killed him in book one. How fitting would it have been for Victor to kill Eli in book two? Eli was Victor's "Frankenstein's monster". Victor needed to put him down. After all, Victor made him into what he was. An EO and then a murderous monster. Sydney killing him had zero thematic value. Not to mention it wasn't satisfying, because it wasn't Eli's worst enemy who took him out.

14 The time jumps were even more confusing and jarring than the ones in the first book, which were actually easy to follow. Especially because of the smaller cast.

I can't remember everything, because I only read the book once, a few years ago. But these points are the main reasons why I couldn't stand this book, with Victor being an actual villain as the top reason why I despise this novel.

Vengeful isn't a good book. It has a high rating, but just because a novel is popular, that doesn't mean it's a great one.

[minacidi9s]

i know i shouldnt write it here because its not st/byler related but im so sad rn and the byler community is like a family to me :(

i just stopped talking with my ex gf for the second time and i feel so bad.

we had the WORST [online] relationship ever in 2021, we were both so toxic and we basically traumatized eo but we were still in love. the problem was that i had severe anxiety, especially when i talked to her

so i asked to stop talking after 9 MONTHS of fights. we fought every single day for 9 months straight (we had like 3/4 months of normal relationship) and i couldnt take it anymore so i asked her to stop talking and we did.

after 1 year she reached to me again with the intention of being just friends for now so we talked for a few days but i couldnt do it because i still like her very much. we talked very clearly about our feelings, we changed in one year but there was still something off, this might be my overthinking but i sometimes felt like she just wanted attention from me, while some other times she actually loved me and others she didnt care about me at all

but finally after so many time we agreed on meeting for the first time in her town BUT my anxiety came back. i didnt want to live with this anxiety like i did before so i told her we shouldve stopped talking again. i feel like shit because i even told her we could have met :( i feel so selfish and im so scared she hates me. i will miss her and love her forever :(

sorry for venting 🫶🏻

[ofpantheons]

bellamy quist, better known as agent wraith  has been with cerberus corp as an eo since 2019 and is LEVEL III. cerberus corp should consider the fact that their last mission status was touch and go but agent wraith pulled through in the end when giving out the next one.

001.  GENERAL

name  Bellamy Addison Quist nicknames  Bell age  30 date of birth  July 7th 1993 zodiac  Cancer place of birth  Midwood, Brooklyn current residence  Above her bookstore near Park Slope, Brooklyn  gender  Cis woman pronouns  She/her sexuality Lesbian languages English, some basic Spanish occupation Agent/bookstore owner

faceclaim  Victoria Pedretti height  5ft 7 tattoos  None piercings  Single lobes that she had done as a child distinguishing features  Crooked smile, wide eyes, a large scar on her right arm from a compound fracture she sustained during her NDE

positive traits Gentle, trustworthy, compassionate, negative traits  Skittish, gullible, tempestuous  labels / tropes  Reluctant warrior, wide-eyed idealist, cute bookworm likes The smell of old books, new books, books, bookstores, have I mentioned she really loves books? plants, cosy spaces, a warm crackling fire, animals,  dislikes  Loud noises, heights, the sight of her own blood, dares fears  Someone dying because of her, needles, hobbies  Reading, knitting, going for long walks,  habits  Picking at her eyebrow when she’s nervous, tapping the tips of her fingers together while she’s thinking

002.  EXTRA ORDINARY

near death experience…  Looking at her now, no one would guess that a young Bellamy was the more adventurous and outgoing twin. Despite being younger by a good 8 minutes, she was definitely the leader of the two of them. Wherever she went, her brother would follow, which is how this sad tale starts. Just another day of exploring, turned into the worst day of Bellamy's life. She remembers it vividly and regularly relives it in her dreams.

The two of them had been sent to stay with their grandparents for the month and there was only so much to do. Having made friends with some of the kids in the neighbourhood, Bellamy soon learned about the O'Connell house - an abandoned and assumed haunted house at the end of the street. Spurred on by the idea of being seen as brave and just generally awesome by the other kids, Bellamy strong-armed her twin into exploring the house with her. He'd kept trying to voice his concerns but Bellamy had waved them off and dared him to come with her, which of course meant he had to do it. Those were the rules.

Going through the house was mostly uneventful, save for a few run ins with spider webs and the accompanying groans and creaking that any old house would do if two ten year olds are trying to sneak around without being discovered. It was only when they'd gotten to the attic that things went horribly wrong. The floorboards had rotted through and one literal false step and everything came crashing down around them. Both siblings went straight through the floor and the didn't stop until they hit the ground floor with a sickening impact. Bellamy awoke in hospital with her arm in a sling, and her father sitting across from her looking like he'd aged 20 years overnight. When she asked about her twin, her father broke down crying and he didn't even need to say the words for Bellamy to know that he hadn't made it.

power… Intangibility - the power to phase through physical matter. Bellamy can shift her particles to move around different particles.

While she woke up feeling different after her NDE, Bellamy didn't actually learn about her powers into her brothers funeral. While sitting and watching the service, Bellamy's only thoughts were that she didn't want to be there. One second later and she had fallen through the ground and had landed in her synagogue's basement. Her trauma response kicked in from basically reliving her NDE again and she could feel parts of herself phase in and out as she hyperventilated. Closing her eyes, she wrapped her arms around herself and remained there until her parents eventually found her. Her father was terrified and so very confused, but he was mostly just glad to see she was okay. Her mother on the other hand looked at her as if she was a monster.

Bellamy only had a basic grasp of her power before becoming an agent so is only now starting to learn how to use them offensively. But so far she's learned that there is nothing she can't phase through and that she can also use her powers to disrupt electrical circuits and shortcircuit/potentially destroy electrical equipment. This also applies to knocking out people by phasing through them although Bellamy hates using this aspect of her power. She's also learned how to phase at least one other person with her but it drains her considerably.

drawbacks / vulnerabilities… The main drawback of Bellamy's power is that she has to hold her breath the entire time while she's phasing as air molecules are also being displaced when she phases. Her tendency to disrupt electrical circuits when she phases through them also means she's gone through so many phones and laptops that it's not even funny. She has better control of her powers now but still has problems controlling them when she's feeling extreme emotion.

cerberus corp…  Being an Agent for Cerberus Corp was never on the agenda. Bellamy just wanted a quiet life working at her father's bookstore. It had been in the family for three generations and she wanted to be the next Quist to take it over eventually. Only eventually happened too quickly. Her father became ill and within a week the bookstore was hers. She didn't know the first thing about running a business and it had turned out things weren't looking great when it came to their profit margins. Faced with potentially having to sell, Bellamy looked for other avenues to make money and came across Cerberus Corp. Not even sure that she would pass the interview, she auditioned and the founders must've seen something in her because she passed and was suddenly a level iii agent for them. She's been there for four years now and still hasn't moved out of level iii (mostly because she panics easily and isn't the best fighter) but she makes enough money that she can sustain the bookstore and that's enough for her. It also means she has enough time to continue working at the bookstore so she doesn't even want to move through the ranks.

codename… Bellamy's codename was assigned to her. The PR team went through a number of options before eventually settling on Wraith as a name that fit her powers but also offered a certain degree of ominousness when it came to people hearing her name. They'd hoped it might help her image a little bit to have her called something suitably scary sounding, but Bellamy as a person quickly undoes any impression her codename might've made.

003.  HEADCANONS

Bellamy's mother walked out on her and her father when she was 12 years old because she couldn't handle the loss of one child while the other became an EO

I like to imagine that wherever Bellamy's mother is, she's now also an EO

Bellamy's bookstore is called 'Bound to Please Books'

She visits her brother's grave every year on their birthday to leave a stone on top of his grave and tell him everything that's happened in the year

She still has a polaroid photo that she keeps next to her bed, of her and her twin that was taken on their last birthday before he died

Bellamy would love a tattoo or to get more piercings but her fear of needles and her inability to be in control of her powers during extreme emotion means that there is no way a needle is meeting her skin.

004.  CONNECTIONS

Roommates - (also on the main) Bellamy has a fairly large living space above the bookstore and not wanting to be alone she decided to rent out a couple of the rooms. One roommate taken by remi @loftycries

Grumpy cloud to Bellamy's ray of sunshine - think Slytherin/Hufflepuff friendship. Bellamy is an unrelenting positive force and I would love to have someone who is the complete opposite of that as a friend for her. They shouldn't work as friends but they do. taken by imara @iridescences

Work Friends - Just general people that Bellamy is friends with at work

Surrogate Brother - Someone that reminds Bellamy of her brother and it's a bittersweet feeling

Benevolent mentor - a mentor/trainer who is nice and patient with Bellamy because honestly she's not the best agent but she's trying! - taken by cass @godenvy

Bad cop mentor - the complete opposite of the above. Someone who gives her a much needed kick up the ass to get her to improve taken by kyungseok @fatalled

Partner/s - Someone Bellamy's powers match well with and she works with frequently. She's a level iii and needs a lot of supervision so probably this person will be a level i or a level ii that's been there awhile

Bookclub - Bellamy runs a book club and is always trying to recruit more people

Crush - Someone in level i or ii who Bellamy is starstruck over. She doesn't think they know who she is so she is pleasantly surprised if they acknowledge

[rahleeyah]

I don't know if I'm overly optimistic. But I still see good things on the horizon for EO. Like I don't see this woman's presence as a negative. I'm hopeful that she's there to give us information.

I want Elliot and Olivia to eventually talk. Hell like just be in each others space. But I want to know more about Elliot. What happened after the shooting? What was his mental state? When did he leave NYC. Why Italy? How did he convince Kathy to go? What kind of work was he doing? What changed in his relationship with Kathy after moving away from NYC and Liv?

I'm very curious about the true status of their marriage. Kathy said that she didn't believe him when he said that he hadn't talked to Liv in 10 years. Elliot says they were happy. Later we get the contents of the letter. All of these are like contradictions. And I know that was because of Warren not wanting to work with Ilene so the shows didn't come together. But all we have now are theories and guesses. My theory is the letter wasn't written maliciously or in jealousy. I believe Elliot when he said he felt the letter was a a way to start. I think the contents of the letter was how he felt and Kathy dictated to help him put his feelings on paper. (Now why would she do that for him? That's my missing piece?) To add on I believe he truly feels that "alternate universe" line and he put it in later so he wouldn't hurt Kathy's feelings. But once again, I'm guessing.

So HOPEFULLY please, please, please this woman showing up will finally give us more insight so we can see what Elliot is bringing to the table when he and Liv finally talk. Fingers and toes crossed because I need this!! lol

I am also hopeful - y'all know I am an eternal optimist - but good lord nonnie I am tired. we have been burned so many times with eo since Chris came back, and it was starting to feel like getting rid of the walrus really was gonna make all the difference, bc svu has been so much better without him stinking up the place, but now oc appears to have swung downward, and I am. I won't say I'm having a hard time keeping the faith, bc I do keep the faith, I always have and I always will, and even if eo never happens I will still be rabidly in love with them and I will still be telling their stories, but I suppose I'll say I have come to expect the worst, bc they keep giving us the worst. there's only so many times somebody can shit in my hand before I'll start reaching for gloves every time they bend over, you know?

BUT. I am with you in the first half! I also have all these questions! and I also think that introducing this lady could be SUCH a good way to answer them. it could be so, so interesting to learn more about what Italy was really like for Elliot. I said this ages ago, but I've always wondered about "we were happy"; were they, really? or was that Elliot's grief speaking, the immediate devastation of Kathy's death momentarily erasing every negative thing about her and their relationship? someone dying suddenly, traumatically like that is easy to beatify.

as for the second - I don't believe the contents of the letter are actually Elliot's sentiments. I believe they're maybe what he told Kathy to keep the peace, but I can't, for one second, believe that what we were to each other was never real is actually a sentiment Elliot carries. good god, if it is, there is no eo, is there? if Elliot genuinely believes that what they had in 1.0 wasn't real there is no eo. it is too dismissive of Olivia and what they went through together, and it is so callous, and so cruel, for him to want to say that to liv. I also don't think Kathy was being malicious, though. I do think she thought that drawing a line under that relationship, placing it in the past and saying it wasn't as profound as it felt at the time, doing that ten years later, could be a gentle way to allow them both to proceed as friends, and no more. but those are not the words of a man who believes that in a parallel universe it will always be you and i. those two things we got in the way of each other being who and where we needed to be and it will always be you and I cannot, imo, coexist.

[stokan]

Every 2022 Film Nominated for an Oscar Ranked

40. Tell It Like a Woman - It’s true, this “movie” actual exists. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and they haven’t stopped bleeding since. That this collection of sub-student-film level shorts is an absolute embarrassment for everyone involved is besides the point. What I really want you to know about this “movie” is that the Diane Warren song that is the entire reason for this project to exist plays in one of the shorts, then it plays again over the closing credits, then it plays a SECOND time over the closing credits, but then it ends and the credits are still going. And no new songs starts! So you’re just sitting there in the most uncomfortable interminable silence ever because I guess they couldn’t afford a second song (?) and at Academy screenings it’s considered incredibly rude to leave before the credits are done. But thank god you didn’t because then after the credits there is a MUSIC VIDEO FOR THE SONG! And that music video is longer and looks like it cost more than basically all of the shorts you just watched. And part of the music video is Diane Warren directing the music video you're currently watching?? And as a legitimate smile formed on my face while all of this was unfolding, it’s only then that I truly understood Stockholm Syndrome.

39. Blonde - Feels truly wild that this wasn’t the worst movie I saw this year. It’s hard to say if I hated this more than Andrew Dominick hates Marilyn Monroe, but regardless, I can’t imagine ever having a more unpleasant time at the movies than I did watching this three-hour-long Ana de Armas hostage video. Please don’t watch Blonde.

38. Bardo - More like BardNO. If you’re going to make a movie about you feel like you suck as an artist and are unworthy as a person, what you don't want is the end result to make the audience definitely agree with you. But other than the truly gorgeous cinematography, making Inarritu’s self-loathing an ACTUAL loathing is the only other thing this film successfully achieves. Well, that and single-handedly killing the idea of Netflix giving unlimited money to directors to make their passion projects unimpeded. Never thought I would say this, but after watching Bardo - please studios, give directors more notes.

37. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - “Yeah, but your scientists were so occupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should” - Dr. Ian Malcom, a character who would later appear in Jurassic Park: Dominion.

While watching this movie I kept trying to figure out what on earth the character of RiRi had to do with anything, only to get home and learn that her sole purpose in the movie was to set up a future TV series. At this point buying a ticket for an MCU movie is exactly like Ralphie in A Christmas Story sending off for Annie’s Secret Circle Decoder Ring, only you already know in advance the answer will always just ultimately be “don’t forget to drink your Ovaltine”.

36. EO - I’m sure when they were making this movie they thought “well, if nothing else, at least we’re definitely making the best artsy existential European donkey movie this year.” Nope! 

No human in this movie behaves like an actual human being, every major choice is contrived simply to keep the plot moving forward, and the donkey is the best actor in the cast. Nice try though.

35. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish - When adults don't take animation seriously as an art form and write it off as essentially kids entertainment, this is the exact movie they’re thinking of - brightly colored, turbo-charged drivel, with broad characters, broader jokes, and nothing interesting to say. Not to yuck anyone’s yum, as I’m sure if I was 8 years old I would want all things Puss and Boots mainlined directly into my veins, but as a non-8-year-old, this was very much Not For Me. 

(Also, as a 40 year old man, if you’d like to almost certainly get put on some kind of list then I would really recommend going by yourself, in a heavy coat and sweatpants, to a 9:30pm Friday night screening of a Puss in Boots film.)

34. Navalny - Important story, one truly great scene, and a film that I know a lot of people seem to like, but as a piece of movie making, for me, well...are the kids still saying “mid”? If so, I’m gonna say the thing that I’m sure ALL the kids are saying - a sentence that you can hear as you walk down the halls of any school in America - "Navalny is mid”.

33. The Sea Beast - Less than a month after having seen it, here’s the grand total of what I remember about this movie: there was a sea beast.

32. The Whale - If you want to know why there are many different art forms used to tell stories a great example is that this script works beautifully as a play, and terribly as a movie. Theater and film are different mediums, and what works on stage often seems overwrought and overwritten on film. And as we learn more and more with each passing year, most movies don’t make good plays either. So just let plays be plays and movies be movies. And let whatever exactly Sadie Sink and Samatha Morton are doing in The Whale never be either ever again.

31. Mrs Harris Goes to Paris - A beautiful looking trifle that tastes lovely and sweet but has absolutely no nutritional value because it’s mostly just air. A movie that feels like it should have premiered on British Airways’ in-flight entertainment network, if that can somehow be read as a semi-compliment.

30. Empire of Light - There’s a truly moving and interesting movie in here about the power of film and communal experience. The problem is that there are three other movies in here as well. Still, if you got Colman and you got Deakins, you got something. Just not any more than that though.

28. A House Made of Splinters - This year’s Oscar Doc Mad Libs entry. There’s always at least one nominee where the log line is: verite footage of a woman/group of women operating (an uplifting and important social service) in (country that’s currently in the news for being at war). in this case it’s (orphanage) and (Ukraine). Important story, truly heroic work, and further proof that if you point a camera at kids for long enough you’re always gonna wind up with some profound truths. But I watch a version of this exact movie every single year.

27. Argentina 1985 - Would seem difficult to take something as emotionally compelling as the true-life story of people being disappeared by a South American military dictatorship and make a movie about it that feels as conventional as an extra long Law and Oder episode, but here we are. That’s not to say it isn’t well made, important, and watchable - people love Law and Order! - just that it’s so by the numbers it feels more like a math equation than a film. If you’ve ever seen a movie before, you know where this one is going.

26. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery - Everything listed before this movie I would not really recommend, and everything after it, at least on some level, I would. And this is the exact mid-point. A perfectly decent movie that I feel absolutely nothing about. See it, or don’t - I can’t imagine a world where I would possibly care one way or the other. it’s simply the blindfolded lady who holds up the scale.

25. The Quiet Girl - It’s hard to totally put my finger on why this movie feels like one that in a few years I’ll almost certainly forget ever having seen, when at the same time there are very stylistically and tonally similar movies much higher on my list, but if I had to try and sum it up, I’d say it’s this: the girl is too quiet.

24. To Leslie - Honestly, is Andrea Riseborough getting nominated for this movie that much different than Laura Dern getting nominated for Rambling Rose or Jessica Lange WINNING for Blue Sky? I have no idea, I’ve never seen those movies. But an actress getting nominated for a micro-budget film no one saw from a tiny distributor isn’t some sort of new scandal, it used to be an annual tradition. Hell, To Leslie is exactly the sort of pleasant feel-good elevated-middle-brow indie that the Oscars were practically built on in the 90s. Although Mark Maron is the least believable Texan in movie history, and the budget definitely shows, and the style is non-existent, as half of Hollywood has at this point tweeted - it’s a small movie with a big heart. And I didn’t even get paid to say that!

23. Living - Why did we need essentially a shot-for-shot remake of Ikiru only set in England instead of Japan? Seriously, who is this for? It feels almost radically, defiantly, inessential. But the performances, especially Bill Nighy, are pretty great. And hey, Ikiru is a classic for a reason. So, whatever. Ultimately it was worth seeing, but this is last time I will ever write about Living again for the rest of my life.

22. Causeway - “Brian Tyree Henry, Oscar Nominee” has nice ring to it. And Jennifer Lawrence - also good at acting. Out of the little run I’m on here of nice but slight character study dramas, this feels like the best of the bunch. That may not be saying a ton, but it’s something, which also feels like a solid summary of this film.

21. All The Beauty And The Bloodshed - Scalding hot take: Nan Golden seems like a bit of a tough hang. Take that’s not hot at all: the Sackler family are evil pieces of shit. And sure, getting you emotionally riled up about their awfulness is sort of a layup, but by combining it with Nan Golden’s incredible life story, tough hang though she may be, this movie 360 windmill dunks it.

20. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio - Not a del Toro person, never going to be a del Toro person, just not my vibe, and truly baffled as to why he spent his time making the millionth adaptation of a story no one was asking to see remade, but damn if the result isn’t impressive. It may not be my thing, and it’s honestly  unclear who it’s audience exactly is supposed to be, but the level of care and craft on display is undeniably worthy of praise. Indifferent towards the player, but respect the hell out of the game.

19. Fire of Love - It’s almost impossible to watch this movie and not think the whole time about how you’re watching two Wes Anderson characters. Which is fitting because the style of this movie is more notable than the substance. But what stye it is. And although I said it’s somewhat lacking in substance, it does get at one very important and universal truth: don’t go chasing volcanoes.

18. Turning Red - As a massive Pixar fanboy it’s been a while since they’ve had a script that rose to the standards of their glory days, but I think this finally does the trick. The movie is visually a little too frantic and busy for my taste, but I’m also not its target audience, so that’s fine. It has something real and original to say to a demographic that I have aged out of and that’s more than valid. Teen and tween audiences need real art too, and not just pandering dreck. So while maybe this movie wasn’t one of my personal favorites of the year, it feels good to be able to roll up my sleeves and show my #TeamPixar tattoo with pride once again.

17. RRR - There’s a warning before this film that no actual animals were harmed because all the animals are CGI, which is hilarious because there’s no way anyone could possibly think anything in this movie was real, including the human beings. It’s definitely the first massive budget blockbuster action spectacular that also feels like they used non-union actors. Which is fitting because it’s as much video game as it is a movie. I absolutely admire the hell out of the craft, the ambition, originality, and fight choreography on display, but bottom line is that a movie where a guy punches a tiger in the face with a fist that’s on fire is just fundamentally never going to be My Thing. The musical numbers, especially Naatu Naatu, are truly electric though, and if you’re a 16-year-old boy bump this ranking up infinity places.

16. The Batman - This is why we can’t have nice things. You make a superhero movie that feels like it was done by an actual human rather than a committee, with great interesting acting choices, a real visual style, and a distinct dark aesthetic that feels like it enhances the specific story being told rather than the demands of some larger universe, and it makes money, but it leaves no cultural footprint. This coming and going without seeming to leave a mark shows that it’s not the Batman movie we deserved, but it was for sure the one I needed, and it deserved better.

15. Elvis - It’s important to preface this by saying that as a theater kid I’m a Baz Lurhman fan. R&J? Seminal movie of my adolescence and a huge reason I still love Shakespeare today. Moulin Rouge? Own it on a worn-out special edition DVD. The Great Gatsby? Underrated! Australia? Sure! So your milage may understandably vary, and I get that. I totally see all the flaws. But damn if Baz making a movie ABOUT music doesn’t just bypass all my critical facilities and go straight to my pleasure center. Is this movie what cocaine is like? Anyway, it’s not GOOD, but also, for me, it’s great. And if Austin Butler winds up winning the Oscar I’m gonna feel pretty proud of walking out of the theater after seeing Elvis back in the summer and calling my shot

14. All Quiet on the Western Front - I do firmly believe the famous Truffaut quote that there’s no such thing as an anti-war movie. But this is the exception to that rule. Like West Side Story last year, it pulls off the miraculous task of remaking a movie that didn’t need remaking while yet also justifying its own existence. And while it now feels like we’ve officially reached the end point of war movie verisimilitude, what an exclamation point to cap off the journey. It’s truly insane WWI ever happened, and if only we could go back in time and show them this film, it never would have. It’s that powerful.

13. Avatar: The Way of Water - There’s nothing I’m more out on in movies than when one CGI thing is fighting another CGI thing. Yet when the whole movie is CGI things fighting CGI things? Apparently I’m all the way in.

Look the story is dumb, and the dialogue is stilted, and the mythology this world is trying to build feels pretty cringe, but by god is this movie gorgeous to look at and an absolute technical marvel. And the final third of this movie is some of the best action filmmaking I’ve seen in a very long time. James Cameron, incredible stager of action sequences, who knew? Strap on some 3D glasses, see this on an IMAX screen on a Friday night in a crowded theater, and try not to be entertained, I dare you.

12. All That Breathes - I do this insane project of watching every single Oscar nominee every year because without fail it exposes me to one or two or three movies I fall in love with that I wouldn’t have ever seen otherwise. Well that, and also because there’s something wrong with my brain. But most often these wonderful finds are documentaries, for example: Attica, Time, Minding the Gap, and my beloved Honeyland. Much like Honeyland, my find this year, All That Breathes, is about something simple - in this case its two brothers running a Mumbai bird hospital instead of Honeyland’s Macedonian beekeeper - but like with that film, as it slowly reveals itself, it turns out to really be about Everything All At Once. Family, geopolitics, the climate crisis, religion, interconnectedness - truly all that breathes. Great film, and can’t wait to see what subtly beautiful Senegalese goat herder documentary I fall in love with in 2023.

11. Top Gun: Maverick - The platonic ideal of a summer blockbuster. This is not my kind of movie at all, and yet I even I was won over. Resistance is impossible. Picking nits is pointless. Because sure it’s as by the numbers as they come yet, wow is that counting fun. It almost single handedly justifies the concept of just turning your brain off and having a good escapist time at the movies. But most importantly for me, it just makes me feel good about never wavering in one of my deepest held beliefs: Jennifer Connelly is the most attractive human being who has ever lived. 

10. Women Talking - Here’s to truth in advertising. No one who can read titles can say they didn’t know EXACTLY what they walking into with this film. But what great talking it is. And what great women! Although ::poking his head the slightest bit humanly possible out from behind the world’s largest bush:: the one truly transcendent performance in the film for me was Ben Wishaw. But everyone was great really. And fitting that the only great play adaptation of the year wasn’t a play adaptation at all. It was just a true ensemble working together to tell an important story in urgent and poetic language in a purposely claustrophobic setting. It’s a real shame then that this film seems to be evaporating from the collective consciousness before it ever even made its way in, because it’s actually the one thing we should all be doing more of: watching women talking.

9. TAR - As a card carrying elitist film snob it pains me as much to rank TAR this low as it does for you to see it here. And there was a point, maybe about two hours into the movie, where it seemed like it was ending, and I thought to myself “what a masterpiece!”. But the problem is it didn’t end there. It kept going. And the last part of this film, the part that some people online think is supposed to be a dream or whatever, just absolutely does not work for me. And wow oh wow does it feel like the absolute last scene isn’t just beamed in from a totally different movie but from a totally different planet. It’s the exact opposite of sticking the landing. That being said, Todd Field is an actual genius, the dialogue is in a league of its own, and it’s fitting Cate Blanchett is probably not going to win the Oscar because an Oscar feel almost beneath her performance. But still…that last 20 minutes. So please don’t tar me, but #9 it is.

8. Triangle of Sadness - I think all the time about Connor Oberst performing his anti-Bush song “When the President Talks to God” years ago on The Tonight Show. This dense, well-written song with no chorus and no hooks that got what can best be described as polite applause. And I remember thinking, good song, but what is the point of it? It will reach absolutely no one who doesn’t already hate Bush. You know what will? Green Day writing a song literally called “American Idiot” about how the president is, well, an American idiot, but it has a sing-along chorus that kicks ass. And I think about that when people criticize Triangle of Sadness for being too obvious, because you know what - it absolutely kicks ass. 

On paper, sure, people quoting Lenin and Reagan back at each other while rich people throw up on each other on a luxury cruise is embarrassingly on the nose, but in practice, watching it play out on screen in a movie theater full of people, I was laughing so hard I could barely feel my face, let alone my nose. And all the chatter about how this movie makes obvious points about how rich people are bad feels like it comes from people who wrote the movie off half-way thru, because it totally misses the third act, which is the complicated, thorny, and dark heart of the film. (Justice for Dolly de Leon!)

Look, maybe this wasn’t your cup of tea, but anecdotally, talking to people from all areas of my life, especially people younger than me, this is BY FAR the movie from this year that people bring up to me the most. And they always say how its themes were thought-provoking and important and worth watching. And to me that’s proof of my belief that what may on paper come off as obvious, is in fact the year’s catchiest chorus.

7. Babylon - Is it the best movie of the year? No. Would I personally give it my hypothetical Oscar vote? Definitely not. Should it win best picture? Don’t be absurd. But would I give up all my worldly possessions to a join a new religion where we move out to the woods and chant the name Babylon up to the heavens 12 hours a day? Absolutely! 

Babylon is like if one of Stephon’s clubs was a movie - this film has everything: an alligator attack, a guy eating a live mouse, a Jean Smart monologue about existentialism, Margot Robbie projectile vomiting on someone’s face, footage from the 1982 film Tron. It’s as though someone told Damien Chazelle this was going to be the final movie ever made and he somehow, miraculously, aced the assignment. It’s definitely one of the most movie movies ever to movie. It feels weird to not be typing about this movie strictly in all caps. And if you think this movie is majorly flawed, well, sure, probably, but you’re missing the point. MOVIES!!!!

My head knows I cant rank this any higher than #7, but in my heart? Well, what’s a ranking higher than #1? #-100? In my heart this was the -100th best movie of the year.

6. Close - A stunningly beautiful and heartbreaking movie from what feels like a major new voice in Lukas Dhont. A movie that pulls off the magic trick of somehow making you feel deeply sympathetic towards those trapped in the prison of masculinity, rather than angry about the toxicity of it. And speaking of magical - in the year of great child actor performances the two in this movie are the best of them all. Just an absolute gem of a movie. Go see Close.

5. Aftersun - If TAR botched its ending, then Aftersun is the gymnastics judges crossing out their 10s and writing in 11s of sticking your landing. Because, spoiler alert, but the final scene of this movie is maybe the best use of a pre-existing popular song in film history. That sounds like hyperbole, but I was literally shaking with emotion during “Under Pressure”. It’s my new go-to need-a-good-cry YouTube clip. And a quiet film about a childhood experience where nothing much happens and it’s all subtext until finally one incredible scene of intense emotion is so totally my shit that it feels like I excreted it from my own colon. Was it maybe a little TOO quiet in parts? Perhaps. And the framing device didn’t TOTALLY work. But still, Charlotte Wells being able to compete with this film in the best the First Feature category at awards shows feels unfair. It’s so confident and expertly crafted that I feel like she’s a future My Favorite Director just waiting to happen.

4. Everything Everywhere All At Once - Sure you can make the argument it’s a hat on an infinite number of hats, but HOLY SHIT LOOK AT ALL THOSE FUCKING HATS!!!! The inventiveness, originality, and utter chaos on display in a movie that’s about to win Best Picture is truly mind-blowing. It’s like a Jackson Pollock of ideas. When they say they don’t make em like that anymore, this is the exact opposite of what they’re talking about.

3. The Banshees of Inisherin - Barry Keoghan might be my favorite actor working today, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson are the new dysfunctional Hepburn and Tracy, and Kerry Condon should win all the Oscars. But for me this movie is all about the script. That fecking script. Laugh out loud funny, endlessly quotable, and utterly heartbreaking. I mean, Martin McDonagh - good at writing things, who knew? Plays shouldn’t be movies, but maybe more movies should be by writers of plays.

2. Marcel the Shell With Shoes On - I want to have a genetic mutation causing me to have more thumbs just so I can give this more than two thumbs up. This movie is a miracle. How did a super twee one-joke YouTube short become the most moving and heartfelt mediation on family and connection and existentialism I’ve seen in a long time? It still doesn’t seem possible and yet I’ve seen it with my own tear-stained eyes. I can’t compare it to any movie I’ve ever seen before and I can’t imagine anything quite like it will ever come along again. And most miraculous of all, if it moves even a slight inch in any other direction it becomes cloying, or sappy, or obvious, or any multitude of other sins, yet it’s in such total control of its tone it’s like watching Lydia Tar conduct a tone orchestra. And finally, if the scene where Marcel finally finds his family didn’t totally turn you into a sobbing mess than you yourself might be a shell, or at least have one for a heart. I cried, I laughed uproariously, and I fell in love with an animated shell with shoes on - what more could you possibly want out of a film?

1. The Fabelmans - Is this the movie that I feel most passionate about from 2022? No. Read what I had to say about most of the past 10 entries for proof. I’m honestly surprised to see this here, and I’m the one making the list. But here’s the thing: my favorite film of 2017 was Lady Bird. Of 2018 was Eighth Grade. Of 2019 was Little Women. I’m nothing if not consistent in my total love of and weakness for a coming of age story. We all have our things. And one this well shot, and scored, and written, and acted, and DIRECTED - I dunno what to tell you. This was the movie that best combined quality of filmmaking with emotional connection for me personally. It had the most scenes I loved, the most performances I enjoyed, the most shots I marveled at. It seems like it wasn’t for everyone, and as the years pass I have a feeling this ranking might change, but for right now, thinking back on the year in film, I have a hot take to end things on: Steven Spielberg knows how to fucking make a great movie.

SHORTS

My Year of Dicks (animated)

Ice Merchants (animated)

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse (animated)

Haulout (doc)

An Ostrich Told Me The World Is Fake And I Think I Believe It (animated)

The Elephant Whisperers (doc)

How Do You Measure A Year? (doc)

The Red Suitcase (live action)

The Flying Sailor (animated)

Le Pupille (live action)

An Irish Goodbye (live action)

The Martha Mitchell Effect (doc)

Ivalu (live action)

Stranger at the Gate (doc)

Night Ride (live action)

[lolabangtan]

Reading Stay as a sensitive person is an experience, because after you calm down from your initial reaction of a chapter, your perspective changes... It's like "Is my feeling towards this character right, or am I also just being sensitive?" :')

The hardest part about being sensitive is that your feelings are 100% justified, but your thought process can be WAY off the charts (making one even more emotional) 😭 Stay!JK being upset after realizing his gf is alone w/ her ex bf at night in her room? Absolutely understandable. Him refusing to talk to her & rolling on his assumptions because of pride and/or fear? Not.

And w/ the MC... I was mad at Ari, Tae & Jimin right along w/ her at first. Because I understood her thought process towards them, y'know? How awful to be depressed and finally take off the mask she was wearing for so long & just be her true self (even if more pessimistic at 1st) just to be treated like a charity case who desperately needs to be happy-go-lucky again or else she'll be pitied. It's like, why can't they just accept her for who she is now? But Ch 15 made me wonder.... Is that how those three really see her? Or is that how she thinks they see her? Granted, I do think a talk was long in the works about how some of their actions make her feel. But couldn't some of her anger also be a projection of her own feelings?

I should probably reread the chapter everything fell apart again, cause it's to the point where I wonder if what the trio did was actually wrong lol. Because even if it was their idea to get JK & MC together, didn't all the magic between them happen based on their terms? From the friendship that formed after the fake dating, talking out their initial miscommunication that led them to disliking eo to begin w/ on the roof, and them falling for eo. Can anyone really say that was due to the friends? No. That was all them. Shoot, I think the two being good friends would've been enough for everybody, but that wouldve never happened w/o them being roomates, so lol.

TLDR, I hope you're aware of how brilliant your writing is! Stay will go down as one of my favorite stories on tumblr. 🌻 Excited to see how this all ends!

The FACT that this ask made me tear up???

Listen, I'm not saying you all have to love the trio, you are obviously entitled to dislike them. What baffles me is that the most common reasoning behind this hatred is that they behaved like criminals? Like, yeah, the bet was ugly. They already explained how they ended up there since there was a process. They just didn't show up betting on those two banging and decided to use it as a way to actually get them together.

But, you know, people make mistakes xd your friends make mistakes! Sometimes they say something without realising it'll hurt you, and sometimes their feelings of anger and sadness get the best of them! they're human, just like you!! Let's also ignore the fact that some of you have picked Ari as the worst of all when the three of them are equally guilty as her friends

I'm a sensitive person myself. I take things to heart and find it hard to forget about them. I get upset easily when someone raises their tone even a bit when talking to me.

What did I do? I learned to be logical about it. I can't really change the way I initially react, but I am the master of my actions. I can allow myself to stop for a second and wonder 'okay, this is how I feel, but does it make sense?' Most of the time you'll see that, well, it does not.

The MC learned this through the story, now it's Jungkook's turn.

Obviously, I wanted you all to be mad at the trio at the beginning, that was the point! Because you were reading the story from her point of view. That's the fun of character development.

They had two friends who hated each other to the guts, a dynamic that affected them every day as a group, as you could see in the first chapters. And they decided to do something about it. Their mistake? Letting the 'plan' get out of hand.

How awful to be depressed and finally take off the mask she was wearing for so long & just be her true self <...> just to be treated like a charity case who desperately needs to be happy-go-lucky again or else she'll be pitied. It's like, why can't they just accept her for who she is now? But Ch 15 made me wonder... Is that how those three really see her? Or is that how she thinks they see her? Granted, I do think a talk was long in the works about how some of their actions make her feel. But couldn't some of her anger also be a projection of her own feelings?

You're so right about this, anon!! As you can see, the more Y/N feels comfortable about her new self, the less angry she's at her friends. The less reactive she is to their acts or words. Truly, even if it was totally understandable, she was projecting her own issues onto the way 'others' saw her. "Of course they're treating me like a charity case since I AM pitiable." "Of course they want me to be back at my feet since I AM no longer as interesting or happy or valid as I used to be."

And this can be applied to jungkook's insecurities too. How else would he have jumped to those conclusions about Y/N and Jin if he wasn't sure himself that he was not enough for her? I'm sad for him because feelings are scary, and there truly is nothing worse than having low self-esteem while in a loving relationship. you're your worst enemy, and it's like you're watching yourself ruin all your chances at happiness through a peephole. it's impossible to control yourself at the moment, but your brain snaps later yelling at you for all the shit you've done.

Right now it depends on him and his ability to mature if this is a 'right person, wrong time' fic or a happy ending one lmao

MC and Jungkook are missing on the beautiful bond they've built ever since they fixed things up. How, as you said, it was all their doing. That was them: the deep conversations, the kind gestures, the effort to get to understand each other. Jesus, if that's not an act of love, I don't know love then.

[mediaphotobooth]

1 Suggestion For Do-It-Yourself Photobooths!

Maybe you're planning your wedding or party and are really excited at the idea of having a photobooth set up for your guests. BUT, either the costs of hiring pros to do it is a bit out of your budget, OR you're simply the type that likes to do things yourself! (like us!) If that's the case, you might be toying with the idea of putting together your own photobooth setup.

There are tons of different ways that you can actually set things up for your DIY photobooth and achieve the same results, so we'll leave those decisions up to you. But just to help you out a little, we thought we'd give you one, simple suggestion that is a result of much experience from many photobooths at events:

Don't skimp on your equipment and materials!

Whatever event you're planning, it's probably not repeatable (especially a wedding!), so you don't want to have something go wrong and simply be stuck. Below is a list of equipment and materials for you to think about and use as a sort of checklist. Hopefully it helps you get the most out of your DIY photobooth!

Photo Paper- This is one of the easily overlooked ways to make sure that your guests' photobooth experience is as good as can be. People will often invest in a nice camera, lighting equipment, and printer, only to waste all that good quality by printing on the cheapest, "best deal" paper they can get their hands on. Low quality paper can make prints from a great shot + printer look pretty terrible. Grainy, washed out colors, poor contrast, off coloring. Don't make this mistake! Make sure you pick up paper that has good reviews, especially when paired up with the printer that you use. We've had great experience with the Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl and Premium Pearl series. (be sure to download the printer profiles for your printer & paper combo for the best results!)

Backdrop- This is one of the other areas where many DIY photobooths could be improved. A little attention to detail goes a long way: ironing out wrinkles, making sure there are no distracting elements, making sure the backdrop is stretched out properly, etc. This is all made easier if you pick up a couple good stands and use them properly.

Camera- Generally speaking, the best camera is the one that you have. But, there are some basic features that you'll want to make sure it has to make your DIY photobooth experience as smooth as can be! It should have the ability to sync to off camera lighting (see below), whether by hotshoe or sync chord. It also ought to have some sort of option for remote triggering. Really any basic digital SLR on the market today will serve you well in both regards, so do your research. We highly recommend the Canon EOS Rebel T2i (if you'd like to also do some video) or the Canon EOS Rebel XS for an entry-level (but still feature packed!) model.

Photo Printer- This element of your DIY photobooth is important but you have plenty of options. Not all photo printers are made the same, so make sure you read reviews, specifically how the printer handles photo prints (as opposed to normal prints). The variables you'll have to look into are price, quality, speed (of print outs), and size & weight (that's right, of the printer!). There's no such thing as a perfect printer, so take into account the needs of your event and purchase accordingly! We recommend the Canon Pixma Pro9000 Mark II. The quality that you get from them is just amazing! The downside? The printer is beefy. (been working out lately?) If something smaller, lighter, but still high quality fits your bill, check out the Canon Pixma MP560.

Printer Ink- Two things here: quality & quantity. Let's get the easy one out of the way. Make sure you have enough ink! The worst thing that could happen is that everything is working out fine and then you run out of photo cyan! Stock up! Second, while it's tempting to save a few bucks here and there, for a photobooth for an event, we highly recommend you stick to the ink made by the manufacturer of your printer (rather than 3rd party or photobooth shell reconditioned ink cartridges). You'll save yourself from headaches due to clogging, streaking, & fading later on! If you have (or get) the Pixma Pro9000, a great option to take advantage of is Amazon's "Subscribe & Save" feature on select inks. You get an automatic 15% off for signing up to receive regular shipments of the ink, but you can also cancel the subscription immediately after your first shipment if you choose! For example, here is the ink that we use. Great deal! (unfortunately, the MP560 ink isn't eligible for Subscribe & Save)

Studio Lighting - This one is key to your images having that "professional" look. While you can capture plenty of great memories with straight-on, on-camera flash, you can get SO MUCH more 3D quality if you learn to light properly. This article explains how the lighting is one of the key advantages of the open-air photobooth design. We recommend you head over to Strobist.com and read up a little on learning how to use your lights!

Tripod - This is a simple one. Make sure you have a tripod! Any model really will do, but make sure that it's rated to handle the weight of whatever equipment you put on top of it. Get one with strong, sturdy legs so that if it's tripped over during your event, you don't lose the investment you made in your camera. And really, it doesn't make sense to put $700 of camera equipment on top of a $20 tripod! We prefer to stick to Manfrotto tripods, but we've had pretty good results with other models too.

Memory- Another simple one! As with ink, make sure that you have sufficient memory to capture all those great memories! Also, don't go for the cheapest option you can find! Make sure to read other users' experiences to see if there are reports of the card corrupting and (gasp!) losing all of the data on the card! We stick with Sandisk Ultras cards and have had no problems with them at all. If you're planning to shoot tethered, you don't have to worry about this item obviously.

LCD Screen- This one is a little bit more incidental to the actual capturing of images for the photobooth. At the same time, it's one of the "extras" that REALLY have the potential to make your guests experience that much more fun! Rather than having to chimp the shots on a tiny 3? screen, connect your camera to an external LCD TV/monitor so they can see their craziness blown up immediately! A 27" LCD will more than suffice.

[tsarisfanfiction]

Another cheeky request

9/4 -Don't let go, with Scott

Maybe in space with John being the rescuer?

Split Second

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rated: Teen Genre: Angst/Family Characters: John, Scott

It was one of them or neither of them. Angstember prompt 4: Don't Let Go

Nothing cheeky about that request! I like requests :D This is actually my second attempt at writing this one, because the first one was more whump/h/c than angst. Might still finish off and post the first attempt at some point because I like the premise, but for now we're staying on the angst train (with a side dish of whump, admittedly), so you guys get this.

Angstember 2021 Prompts - I only plan on writing prompts if I get a request for them, so request away :D Doesn’t have to be TAG - characters from any fandom can be requested (although I can only guarantee I’ll work with ones I know)

John was trapped, wreckage collapsed all around him. By itself, that wasn’t necessarily a problem, just an inconvenience, but there was another factor involved. A factor that changed everything.

He wasn’t alone.

John was used to solo missions, dipping in and out of Thunderbird Five to local ships and stations in distress with his exosuit. It was unusual to have company – usually Alan – and even rarer that his company was his big brother.

Scott had been up on Thunderbird Five when the call had come in, an unusual circumstance in and of itself, and if he was honest John had been enjoying the rare company of just his big brother. Of course, said big brother refused to sit back and do space monitor duty while a little brother darted out solo, so they’d gone together.

There was no way there were any survivors now. The freighter had, somehow, imploded, John had been in the worst spot possible by sheer misfortune, and Scott was no luckier.

Except Scott wasn’t stuck. Scott had the opposite problem, with a mangled jetpack that had taken the brunt of the damage for him, but not enough to prevent a smashed arm and a vacuum determined to fling him out into the far reaches of the void. From what John could tell, his brother’s suit had held, but there was a hairline crack across his oxygen supply. His own HUD was warning of damage, too. As it stood, neither of them had enough air left to wait for Thunderbird Three to launch and find them, even if they assumed EOS had alerted Alan the moment of the implosion.

The only free limb John had was fully extended, hand clutched like a vice around his brother’s and keeping him from being sucked away.

The problem was that they each only had one good arm. Scott’s broken arm was out of reach, too injured even for Scott to fight against the vacuum dragging it away. John only needed one arm to dig himself out and patch up wherever the breach in his suit was.

Except that one arm was the only thing tethering Scott in place. In order to free himself, to save himself, he’d have to let go.

The realisation occurred to them at the same time. John saw it in the widening of his big brother’s eyes, large and blue and a little afraid, for all that Scott would never admit it. A beat and sky blue hardened to sapphire in a way that was painfully familiar. Scott, big brother, Commander, had made a decision.

John’s anguished heart cried out.

“No!” he exploded, desperation lacing through the single syllable. “Don’t let go. Don’t you dare let go, Scott.” They’d find a way out of this. Together. They had to.

The fingers entwined with his slackened. Tracy Stubbornness ran through them all, but like so many things, Scott had inherited the lion’s share. Still, hard sapphire melted into something softer. No regret, because of course Scott didn’t have any room for that when there was a brother’s life on the line, but the same love that coursed through every action he made.

The love that would lead him to sacrifice himself, if it meant he could save a brother.

Scott’s lips moved, but there was blood rushing through John’s ears, drowning out everything else. Whatever Scott had to say was lost to the void of space, but he was smiling, the stupid, stupid idiot.

John tightened his grip on his brother’s fingers, white-knuckled below the neoprene gloves of his suit, but Gordon had learnt his slippery nature from somewhere. Strong fingers, safe fingers, seemed to vanish, ghosting out of his hold no matter how hard he tried to stop them, and then he was alone.

“Scott!” The scream that tore itself from his throat was raw, flooded with emotion – grief, fear, fury.

He couldn’t see his brother anywhere, the tall, strong figure that was always there gone in the blink of an eye, stolen by a venting ship and the unforgiving vacuum of space.

But John was a Tracy, through and through, and he had that same old Tracy Stubbornness. Self-sacrifice might have been the answer, but it was still the wrong answer, and John refused to let things end that way.

Refused to let Scott go the same way as Dad, lost forever without even a body to bury.

First, he needed to get himself out of the wreckage. With one hand stuck and the other gripping onto his brother’s hand, it had been impossible. Now, he had a hand free, and while the knowledge of why his hand was free made the nausea swell, John had always clung to logic.

Logic dictated that he use his free hand to dig the rest of him out.

The red lights blared across the HUD, reminding him that his suit was torn and would vent faster the moment there was no more pressure keeping it pinned. Patching that would take valuable time, time that was fleeing like sand from a broken hourglass. Could John risk it, explode on his way on empty lungs and not breathing until he’d caught up with Scott?

His gut said he had to.

Logic told him no.

His brain told him the longer he thought about it, the more time he wasted.

John’s family relied on their gut. Seat of the pants decisions was a requirement for International Rescue, when a split second made the difference between life and death. John himself could make logic-based decisions in a snap second, but a snap second still wasn’t a split second, and he didn’t have time.

He exhaled. Tensed.

Heaved.

The vacuum claimed him the moment he was free, hurtling him through the void of space faster than he could calculate. Far faster than he could control.

Immediately he could feel his oxygen depleting, suit venting atmosphere rapidly enough to kill him in seconds.

Time was not on John’s side.

Physics was.

The suction had hurtled Scott away. The same suction had control of John. A little extra momentum, a kick in the right direction…

His exosuit was battered and damaged, but just like John, it wasn’t dead yet. One final spurt, a splutter of a thrust, and the uncontrollable rocket that was John Tracy sped up.

Vision blurred, darkened, and that could be the lack of air or just space at high velocity. He didn’t have the mental processing available to decipher which it was. He had nothing, except Scott, somewhere in hopefully this direction. Had to be in this direction, because there were no second chances.

Was barely a first chance.

He didn’t see what he slammed into, but it was something and running on nothing but autopilot he clung on. His lungs were burning, he needed to breathe, needed to cut the exosuit’s acceleration, needed to patch the breached neoprene.

Needed to cling on tightly to the object in his arms, and pray that it was Scott.

[whumpwriterforlife]

Could I please request shaking and shivering with Cor? Your writing is so good!

Yes you can! Here you go, shaking and shivering with young Cor!

Shaking and Shivering

Fandom: Final Fantasy XV

Characters: Cor Leonis, Regis Lucis Caelum, Clarus Amicitia, Weskham Armaugh & Cid Sophiar

Whumpee: Cor Leonis

Word count: 3790

Warnings: Sickfic

Can be found on ao3 here

-----

“Wakey, wakey, Sunshine,” Clarus’ voice broke through the sleepy haze surrounding him and then there was a foot nudging him.

Cor grumbled and buried himself deeper into his sleeping bag. His head felt stuffy, his body aching in a way that made him want to do nothing but close his eyes and drift off again.

It was a luxury Clarus didn’t grant him.

Suddenly the world tilted, eliciting a startled yelp from Cor as he scrambled to hold onto the sleeping bag as Clarus dragged him out of the tent by the foot-end of the sleeping bag.

“Hey! You’re buying me a new one if this one gets torn!” He ended up sounding more whiny than anything as he swore at the Shield. Clarus dumped him in front of the fire unceremoniously and laughed as Cor tried — and failed — to smack him. Cor pouted.

“Ah, just in time for breakfast,” Weskham said from somewhere to his left, and Cor turned his head to see him walk over with a bowl of something in his hands. “Here, have some.”

Cor quietly accepted the bowl and peered down at its contents. It was oatmeal with nuts and fruit toppings. Normally he would have been ecstatic about it — it was definitely better than the weird sludge-like ratios they sometimes had — but he didn’t feel hungry this time. He poked some of the fruits with a spoon. Knowing Weskham, or any other of those damn motherhens, they wouldn’t let him get away with skipping the meal. With a resigned sigh, Cor shuffled his way out of the sleeping bag. He instantly missed the warmth of it as he settled down on one of the chairs surrounding the fire.

Regis gave him a curious look from across the fire but said nothing as he dug into the oatmeal. Cor pulled his legs to his chest, ignoring the dirty look Weskham sent his way at that, and slowly started working his way through the oatmeal. At least it was warm if nothing else.

“You’re looking awfully pale this morning. Are you feeling alright, Cor?” Weskham asked as he sat down in the chair next to him.

“I’m fine,” Cor replied and rolled his eyes. It was just a bad day, a minor cold at worst. There was no reason to worry the others with it when he could handle it.

“Are you sure?” Regis asked. “You do look off today.”

Weskham seemed to take this as an invitation to reach over to touch Cor’s forehead. Cor slapped his hand away and sunk deeper into the chair with an unhappy grumble. “Leave me alone. I’m fine.”

Clarus’ eyes narrowed. “Cor...”

Regis put his hand on Clarus’ arm and shook his head. “Let’s finish eating. We have a long day ahead of us.”

“Fine,” Clarus said and shrugged off Regis’ hand before going to get himself breakfast.

Cor stayed silent as they finished eating, barely even greeting Cid as the man appeared from who knows where. He scooted his chair slightly closer to the fire as a shiver raked through his body. It was late Fall, the beginning of the Winter really, and he blamed it on that. He still didn’t have a thick jacket, partly because it was a hindrance in a fight but also because of the cost. Hopefully they would get to the warmer parts of Lucis soon so he wouldn’t have to worry about getting one.

“What’s the plan for today?” Cor asked when the last of the bowls had been put away. They were all still sitting around the fire, watching as the sun rose higher in the sky.

“Well, while you were still sleeping and wasting daytime, Clarus and me went over to a local tipster and got ourselves a few hunts. Nothing too bad but enough to pay for Regalia’s repairs,” Cid told him and sent a glare in Regis’ direction at the last part. Cor snickered. It was the second time Regis had wrecked the Regalia since they had left Insomnia.

“Oh give it a break, Cid, that was hardly my fault,” Regis huffed and got up from his chair.

“You hit a parked car,” Clarus pointed out as he watched Regis disappear into the tent. “The only other car on the lot.”

“It shouldn’t have been parked there!” Regis protested.

“Whatever you say,” Clarus shook his head with a smirk.

Cid looked at the two of them for a moment before rolling his eyes. “The first job is to take care of a pack of saberclaw. According to the map, it takes thirty minutes to drive there and another thirty to hike to their last known location. From there, we’ll head towards Malmalam Thicket for our second hunt.”

“What’s the second hunt?” Cor asked, half dreading the answer. He had hoped the day would be easy, one he could spend sitting in a car, but of course that couldn’t be the case. At least, if he had done the math correctly, he would be able to get a few hours of sleep on the drive to Malmalam Thicket.

“Seadevils,” Clarus told him with an unsettling grin. He was just as much a daredevil as Cor was, even if he was better at hiding it. “Should be fun.”

Cor suppressed a groan. Neither hunt would be exactly easy and there would be no room for slip ups. He got up from his chair. “Right.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Weskham clapped his hands together and nodded. “We should all pack up so we can be on the road as soon as possible.”

Cor grabbed his sleeping bag from the ground and vanished it into the armiger without even bothering to roll it up. He got a few weird looks for it but ignored them as he went to grab his things from the tent.

“I’ll just go wait by the car.”

“No you don’t,” Clarus said and grabbed him by the back of his jacket before he could leave the haven. “It’s your turn to take down the tent.”

Cor yanked his jacket out of Clarus’ grip and glared at the man. Clarus glared right back at him.

This was going to be an awful day.

----

Cor felt like death warmed over. His feet felt leaden as he tried to keep up with everyone else as they hiked towards the Maidenwater Bridge and the second hunt of the day. He buried his face into the crook of his elbow to suppress a cough. Fortunately he was far enough behind the group that they didn’t notice. His condition had only worsened throughout the day. He was cold, frozen to the bone. He was wearing two long-sleeves and the thickest jacket he had — which admittedly wasn’t all that thick — but he was still shivering. His head felt stuffy and he was having a hard time focusing on anything. None of this was exactly good when hunting.

Cor was still committed to making it through the day. What kind of ‘guard would he be if he couldn’t do his job because of a little cold? There were so many people that doubted him, that were just waiting for him to fail and fall, many of them his fellow Crownsguards. He wasn’t going to give them that satisfaction which meant he would just have to power through the rest of the day, one way or another.

“Eos to Cor!” Cor’s head jerked up and he saw Clarus looking at him over his shoulder. The Shield gave him a pointed look. “Keep up, we’re almost there.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Cor rolled his eyes but took off in a jog to catch up to the guys.

He hoped the Seadevils wouldn’t put up too much of a fight. He had heard of them and knew roughly how they acted when engaged but he had never actually fought them. At least the Saberclaw pack hadn’t given them much trouble. No curatives had been used and no one had gotten injured. Well, no one if they didn’t count Regis tripping over a tree root when they had been on their way back to the Regalia. That had been hilarious.

They soon arrived at the bridge. It didn’t take long for them to see the Seadevils. There were five of them just chilling on the shoreline on the other side of the river. Cor pressed his lips into a thin line. They were larger than he had expected. Still manageable but more annoying.

“Well those look vicious,” Regis remarked dryly.

“Those jaws look like they’d have no trouble snapping any of us in half,” Weskham nodded as he scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I suggest we all exercise caution when approaching these creatures. Regis, my research indicates they’re weak to ice elemancy.”

“Excellent,” Regis grinned and Cor glanced at him just in time to see his hands flash light blue. Clarus patted him on the shoulder with a laugh and summoned his broadsword. They were both way too excited about this hunt. Cor would have most likely been right there with them, all ready to fight, if he hadn’t been feeling like shit.

“Let’s get this over with before sundown, don't wanna be stuck out here when the daemons come out,” Cid told them, sounding as grouchy as ever as he started crossing the bridge. Clarus grabbed Regis and was quick to follow him.

Cor sighed, pulling out his katana from the armiger as he walked after the trio. He only made it a couple of steps before there was a hand on his shoulder. He turned his head to see Weskham looking at him with worry. “Yeah?”

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Weskham asked him. “You’re all pale and don’t quite seem to be your usual energetic self today. If you need to-”

“I’m fine, Wesk,” Cor told him, more forceful than he needed as he pulled away from the man. He needed to see this through and could rest when they were back at camp. “The others are going, I don’t want to fall behind.”

Weskham pressed his lips together, clearly less than happy with Cor, but said nothing. Cor took that as his cue to pick up the pace to catch up to everyone else.

Regis and Clarus had already thrown themselves into the fight like the adrenaline junkies that they were and Cid wasn’t far behind them with his trusty spear. Cor jogged down to the shore, ignoring how lightheaded and out of breath it made him feel as he attacked the Seadevil closest to him.

He let his training and instincts take over from there, striking and slashing wherever he could as he avoided ending up a snack. The teeth on those things were large and sharp. If that wasn’t enough, they also shot water out of their mouths with pressure that would easily knock any one of them over. Cor hissed as he twisted out of the way when one Seadevil lunged at him, its jaws snapping shut with a downright terrifying snap. He staggered, barely managing to keep his balance. Adrenaline was a huge help, possibly the only thing keeping him upright at this point, but he was lacking his usual finesse.

It became even more evident when he was forced to evade yet another attack. He staggered, the sleeve of his jacket getting torn in the process as he yanked it out of the beast’s maw. A hand on the shoulder stabilized him, and he craned his neck to see Cid behind him.

“You need to be more careful, kid,” Cid told him. Then he was off, back into the fight.

Cor shook his head and muttered a curse under his breath. He was starting to feel a hint of frustration at how badly he was performing.

“Cor!”

Cor spun on his heels at Clarus’ shout but a heavy weight collided with him before he could see the situation. He gasped, his foot catching on a rock as he tried and failed to recover his balance. His katana disappeared in a flash of blue, a startled yelp escaping his lips as he fell into the freezing cold water.

He gasped for breath. The icy water soaked through his clothes in an instant. He couldn’t breathe. Cold. It was so cold. His whole body felt stiff, and he tried to push himself onto his elbows to get out of the water but they gave out from beneath him. He was shivering worse now.

“Regis get him out of here!”

There was sloshing as someone ran into the water and cursed at the coldness of it. A moment later there were hands propping Cor into a sitting position. Regis said something, his eyes tight with concern as he looked at him but Cor was too busy catching his breath to register the words. Regis threw his sword and his grip around Cor tightened. The world lurched in and out of focus and Cor’s stomach churned dangerously. Then they hit the ground by the bridge, away from the fight.

Cor screwed his eyes shut, a strained noise slipping from his lips as he shivered violently. “Regis-”

Regis pulled him into a better position and started tugging off his jacket. “We need to get you out of these wet clothes.”

“But- but the h-hunt,” Cor pointed out. He was still struggling to catch his breath, his teeth chattering together.

“The others can take care of it, we need to make sure you won’t get hypothermic.” Regis stated sternly and threw Cor’s jacket aside. Cor frowned softly, almost tempted to whine as he looked at the rock pile where his jacket landed. It was his best jacket and Regis had just thrown it away like it was nothing. Cor was about to turn and tell him to fetch it but he was overtaken by a coughing fit. He whimpered.

“Cor, look at me.”

Cor’s gaze flicked over to Regis, only to flinch when he reached over to touch his forehead. He tried to move away but his stiff muscles refused to obey him.

“Shit, you’re burning up,” Regis cursed as he pulled his hand away. “Have you been sick this whole day? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“It’s nothing,” Cor shook his head, regretting it when he was hit by a dizzy spell.

“It’s clearly not ‘nothing’!” Regis retorted. He ran a hand through his hair and muttered something unflattering under his breath. “Astrals, that explains a lot. We just thought you were mad at Clarus for what happened in the morning.”

Cor made a confused noise.

Regis sighed. “We’ll talk about this later. We still need to get you out of those wet clothes and away from here.”

The good thing about the armiger was that it made carrying items easy and was always accessible. Regis helped Cor out of his wet clothes quickly and into a pair of warm sweats and a coat he happened to have lying around — floating around? — in the armiger. Cor had tried to tell him he could do it on his own but the way he was shaking told Regis otherwise.

“How’s the kid?”

Cor looked up to see the rest of the guys walking over to them, having taken care of the Seadevils.

“The ‘kid’ is right here.” He glared at them but the effect was ruined when another shiver shook his frame.

“He’s running a fever,” Regis said. “Been sick the whole day most likely if not longer.”

“Could you guys stop talking like I wasn’t here?”

“You what?” Clarus asked, brow furrowed as he looked at Cor. “Is that true?”

Cor shrugged. It was no use hiding the truth anymore. “Yeah, but it’s-”

“And you didn’t think to tell us? Do you realize how stupid that was!” Clarus exclaimed as he cut him off. Cor clenched his jaw and dropped his gaze to the ground as the Shield continued, “Your job is to keep Regis safe and then you just neglected to tell us-”

“Clarus,” Regis admonished him.

“That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you!” Cor snapped, getting to his feet even as he swayed dangerously. Regis was quick to take him by the arm and stabilize him. Cor didn’t brush him off. “If I had told you, you would have left me behind and been one man short! I did my job, I wasn’t going to let a minor cold take this from me!”

At the end of his tirade, he felt all the energy drain out of him and faltered. Regis wrapped both of his arms around him to keep him from falling.

Clarus opened his mouth to say something but Regis silenced him with a sharp look.

No one said anything for a moment but eventually Cid broke the silence. He shook his head as he glanced at each member of the group. “The sun won’t be up for much longer. We need to find a haven.”

“No, we’re going back to the car,” Regis said as he pulled one of Cor’s arms over his shoulders and wrapped his other arm around his waist. His tone left no room for arguments. “We’re finding a motel for the night.”

“We’ll need to move fast then.” Weskham walked over to where most of Cor’s wet clothes had been discarded and picked them up. “The roads are perilous at night.”

“Right, we should get going then,” Clarus sighed. He crossed the gap between him and Cor, sliding the kid’s hand over his shoulders to support him from the other side.

Cor had a childish urge to push Clarus away after the outburst but he had very little energy left. He shivered, taking a shuddering breath as they started walking. His feet were stiff and sore, as was his whole body, and Regis and Clarus ended up having to support most of his weight. They kept up a steady stream of chatter and made Cor participate so he didn’t fall asleep. At a few points during their trek to the car, they had to stop when Cor got overcome with violent coughing fits that left him unsteady and gasping for air. It was clear that his impromptu river bath had only made his condition worse.

They eventually got to the Regalia, where he was safely tucked to the back seat with Weskham, Regis, and their best-equipped first-aid kit. They denied Cor the warm blanket in it which elicited a barely suppressed whine out of him.

“You have a high fever,” Weskham kindly informed him, as if Cor hadn’t been aware of that before the stupid thermometer had beeped with 39,4 °C. “We need to get your temperature down, not up.”

“I’m cold,” Cor complained as he wrapped his arms around himself.

“You just feel cold,” Weskham replied as he dug through the first-aid kit for something.

“Same difference.”

Regis snorted and patted Cor on the shoulder. Cor pouted. At least one of them was having fun.

A moment later Weskham pushed a water bottle into Cor’s hand and offered him two pills. “These should help lower your fever. Take them and drink as much of the water as you can.”

Cor took the pills as ordered and managed to down nearly half of the water before giving it back to Weskham. He then pointedly ignored everyone in the car, except for Regis and his comfy shoulder that was acting as his makeshift pillow, as he closed his eyes. It didn’t take long for the steady rumble of the car to lull him to sleep.

He stirred an indeterminate amount of time later when a car door slammed shut. His nose scrunched up and he made a soft, disgruntled noise at being woken up. Someone chuckled above him, and it was then that he realized he was not in the car anymore. It took a moment longer for him to pick up on the fact that someone was carrying him. If he had had any more energy, he would have been mortified, but as it was, he could barely crack his eyes open to see it was Regis.

Regis looked down at him, a playful smile on his lips. “Go back to sleep, Cor. We just arrived at the motel.”

Cor blinked at him blearily as his brain registered the words. He licked his lips and frowned. “I can walk.”

“Of course you can,” Regis stated matter-of-factly but didn’t even pretend to put him down. “And I can carry you.”

“Just let him do it, kid,” Cid said. Cor craned his neck to see the man walking a few steps behind them. “Reggie can and will outstubborn you this time.”

Cor huffed. Regis carried him into their motel room and lowered him on one of the beds. He closed his eyes and flopped down on his back, only for his head to snap up a moment later when he felt hands tugging on his boots.

“What are you doing?” “Taking off your shoes,” Clarus said, rolling his eyes.

“I can-” Cor started and went to sit up.

Cid pushed him back down. “Wesk wants you to take it easy, so take it easy.”

“I can take off my own shoes!” Cor grumbled but didn’t try to get up again.

“Let us take care of you for once,” Regis said as he sat down next to Cor. Clarus muttered something about how it would have been nice to have some help with the boots but Regis ignored him. “You’re our brother, we want to help.”

Cor turned his head to look at Regis. He wondered if the fever was making him hear things. “But-”

“But nothing,” Regis cut him off. “You worried us today, Cor. You could have been badly injured. We know you’re as stubborn as can be, but we need you to tell us if you’re sick or injured in any way. Out here we’re on our own and need to take care of each other.”

“I’m sorry,” Cor sighed.

Regis smiled. “It’s okay. Try to get some rest. We’ll wake you up when we have food.”

Cor hummed, eyes falling shut once again. Regis helped him get under the covers and Cor offered no complaints this time. When he felt Regis start to rise, he reached out to grab his arm.

“Regis? About the brothers thing.”

“What is it?”

Cor smirked. “Cid’s old enough to be my grandad…”

There was a crashing sound somewhere in the room, followed by swearing. “How old does that brat think I am?”

“Probably sixty or something,” Clarus muttered in amusement.

“Listen here, Amicitia, I could-”

“Cid! Clarus-” Regis began but the words turned into incoherent mush as Cor drifted off. Hopefully the motel would be still standing when he woke up.

[storiesofsvu]

Law & Order OC & SVU thoughts from tonight!

I literally have zero memory of what happened last week on OC.

THIS IS SO AWKWARD OMG THE SECOND HAND EMBARASSMENT IN THIS MOMENT JFC. (Plus we all know she’s not actually drunk, she’s playing him, right??)

“All men are pigs” yeah bestie you got that right!

“Im your son” ???? EXCUSE ME??

Ayanna is SO hot jesus

WHY DOES IT SEEM LIKE STABLER’S IN CHARGE?? IF I WAS BELL I WOULD BE *SO* MAD AT HIM

GOD SHES SO BADASS AND I LOVE HER.

Ayanna in that vest all bad ass holy HELL🥵🥵 PETITION TO GET HER IN HER DRESS BLUES AT SOME POINT CAUSE I MIGHT DIE

Okay… fucking CALLED the wife getting taken out. But like… they went katt level agnst with the husband having to hear her get shot over the phone JESUS

SVU TIME! Thank god!!

*insert spongebob “i’m ready” meme here*

Okay so noah’s asking paternal questions, does he know he’s adopted yet.

Oh god we’re still trying to incorporate covid. Why couldnt we just pull what grey’s did.

Okay that’s the best way to intro Nick. (But that is some bad acting from m…that reaction?)

THANK FUCK for this beard wow. Hello amaro…

Also…. Amaro & amanda keep in touch? Love that.

Lowkey hate that this dude is someone from Liv’s past, and has already been on an ep of svu as a diff character, but i guess i’ll deal with it.

I feel like i havent watched SVU in AGES…. Too much HOC….

God the title card is fucking pathetic with just the four of them…

CAAAAASSSSEEEEYYYYY

(I dont remember that scene happening? Am i crazy?) also pls let her actually get a flashback with dialogue?

MEEELLLIINNDDDAAAAA

ALSO Nick using her first name?? Her lil teasing of “doctor”?!!??!!!

“Youre detectives go places” “i wish they wouldnt”

OKAY THEN WHY DID WE HAVE TO GET RID OF KAT???!!🤬

God this is fucking hearbreaking already….

“Stabler… Burton… something’s goin’ on” AMANDA CALLING IT LIKE IT IS!!! (Also DAMN she look good)

CRAGEN!! YES!!

Amaro sweet talkin his way into everything as usual. Fucking perf.

This suspect is a fucking creep

When are we gonna see Pheobe again? (Should i start to write for Pheobe??🤔)

K so i dont remember this whole grooming storyline, did they cover it in the older eps

OMFG THEY FUCKING BANGED??!! LIV IS NAKED UNDER THOSE SHEETS!!

THE EOS MUST BE FUCKING LIVID

I LITERALLY HOLLARED AT THE SIGHT OF THIS JFC…. WE HAVENT HAD A “SEX SCENE” SINCE CASSIDY.

“He needs a lawyer” “and i know exactly who to call”

MY HEART JUMPED AND WENT “IS IT BARBA OR RITA OMG!!” Fuck… i forgot langan was in this ep….as if liv would call trevor??? Like he hasnt been on since noah was a baby….rita & raf have been on WAY more often & more recently…

Honestly not surprised about that twist…..

This dark brown blazer is the fucking worst…..

Okay but does anyone still OWN a cassette tape player??

There’s only 10 mins left how are we going to resolve this!???

Liv literally say that she has to recuse herself, but is still super involved with the case.

Protective Amaro!!! I am here for it (now punch Stabler pls)

Jfc. Liv…. Nick was just trying to talk some fucking sense into you… chill…

Okay… im glad she apologized to Nick…