#and I know I could’ve just done one of the excerpts from the book but I like both

[jackklinemybeloved]

[…]

Percy’s warning to fellow half-bloods in the audience, across different mediums.

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (2005) The Lighting Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical (2017) Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series Teaser (2023)

[theperrylleluniverse]

The Case of The Missing Secretary: Part 1

So in The Case of the Substitue Face, our favorite trio is up in San Francisco pursuing a case (they’re staying in a hotel with three adjoining rooms and it doesn’t seem like they close the doors between them…).

About halfway through the case, Della goes mysteriously missing and of course the boys go nuts trying to find her.

I wanted to share some of my favorite excerpts and talk about them but this’ll probably get long so I’ll continue under the cut:

Let’s start with when they first start worrying that something might be wrong. Perry called the hotel earlier and found out that Della had left without leaving a message. At that time she’d only just left so there wasn’t anything too strange about it. But now it’s several hours later and she’s still gone:

They’re obviously concerned but they’re about to go confront a known criminal who they think is tied into the case so they decide to continue on their investigation.

A couple things to point out here. I think it’s interesting that Paul is assigning Della much more autonomy in this situation than Perry. Perry is immediately concerned because Della did something without telling him and coordinating with his plans which he knows she wouldn’t usually do. This shows that he understands her and the way she works but it’s also very much a self-centered reaction. Like Della couldn’t possibly do something without notifying him first. As Paul suggests, she might just be out running an errand or getting her hair done or something innocuous that she definitely doesn’t need to get permission from her boss in order to do.

I also like that Paul is the first one to suggest that she might be off investigating a clue. Book!Della is just as much of an amateur PI as show!Della and Paul know it!

After a very tense exchange with the criminal suspect, Paul and Perry return to the hotel. Della still isn’t back and now they’re starting to get really worried:

Perry of course immediately starts throwing out orders and getting irritable about it (this is definitely book!perry’s way of showing concern). I think Paul at this point isn’t as worried as Perry is - I think he still thinks it’s reasonable that she might just be out doing something independently. Perry’s worry however seems to ping Paul’s instincts and he realizes that if Perry is worried then there is a chance something bad did go down so he kicks into action. Meanwhile Perry gets a call from his client who is at the hotel and wants to come see him.

First of all, I think it’s such a sweet little detail that Perry goes into Della’s room after he hangs up with his client 🥺 its almost like he’s wishing she’ll just be there and safe somehow.

Then we see Paul in action! He’s sending a whole team out to find Della! Literally covering the city “with a fine tooth comb” and putting “as many extra men as they needed” on it! I love that he says he’ll have a complete report in half an hour and the basics of whether she’s in a hospital or not in 5. He’s using all his many resources to find her ❤️

Also “if anything’s happened to her, half an hour’s too long” really made me 🥺🥺🥺 Perry just loves her so much!!!

Okay 🥺❤️🥺❤️ as we all know, Perry’s passion and drive in life is his work. When he’s on a case, it’s the most important thing to him.

Besides Della that is ❤️

At the thought that she might have been hurt, everything else immediately becomes secondary and unimportant. I never thought I’d see Perry speaking so flippantly about his investigation, as though it was meaningless in the face of the possibility that he could’ve been helping Della instead. It’s so sweet 😭

I also like that we can see Paul’s practicality here. He’s clearly also worried but while Perry is kind of panicking, Paul is falling back on his investigative skills and running through possible avenues of how to find her.

More of Paul puzzling it out and walking through all the possibilities. I also relate to Perry being like “well it was raining when she left so WHAT IF SOMEONE SKIDDED AND HIT HER” like I am also someone who immediately jumps to the worst case scenario lol

Then Perry’s client - Belle Newberry - comes up and literally the first thing Perry asks her is if she’s seen Della. Then when she says no, he pulls out the torn piece of dress they’ve found as a clue and asks if she recognizes it. By the way, this woman literally just got released from jail!! It’s another show of how in this moment, the case is like completely on the back burner for Perry; typically he’d be grilling his client now and figuring out what he can do to build her defense but instead his foremost goal is to get information that might help them find Della.

Belle recognizes the torn dress - it belonged to the girlfriend of the criminal suspect Perry and Paul confronted earlier!!!! This man is a known murderer!!!

Perry is immediately on it. Della might have gone to confront the girlfriend and ended up in a dangerous situation with a known criminal - Perry is going to go break some skulls.

I love that Paul asks Perry “what do we do?” even as he’s already reaching for the phone. He knows what Perry’s going to say before he says it!

“Get me half a dozen tough babies who can dish it out and take it” is going to live in my head rent free for the rest of forever 😂😂😂😂 I literally can’t stop thinking about it 😂

Also Paul can just get some special deputy sheriffs to roll up on a moment’s notice??? He’s so high-powered ❤️❤️❤️

Then Perry (who we have literally never seen use or hold a gun) going to pull out his revolver and strapping up 🫠 hes going to fuck these guys up PERSONALLY if they hurt Della!!!! I’m very anti-guns and violence but….unfortunately…the protectiveness is kind of sexy….

Book!Perry is so insane 😂 “he’s very apt to start something” “and I’m very apt to finish it” PERRY!!!

Poor Paul trying to find and save his girlfriend while also trying to keep his feral boyfriend from getting into trouble in the process 😂

🥺🥺🥺🥺 Perry literally admitting he can’t think about the case because he’s too worried about Della 🥺🥺🥺

Including this because I lost my shit at Perry being like “if this asshole has touched one hair on Della’s head I’m going to CITIZENS ARREST his ass!!!!!” He’s absolutely unhinged 😂😂

Stay tuned for part two where the boys go busting in to save their lovely lady 🫣👀

Part Two here

[verydeadaten]

Jaune's Sixth Sense: Pyrrha Addition

The highly unanticipated sequel to this post!

________________________________

Jaune and Pyrrha were hanging out in Jaune’s old room in Ansel. They were on break, and Jaune wanted to show his girlfriend the village where he was raised. Pyrrha was sitting on the surprisingly comfortable bed, looking at the wall covered with posters of rock bands and superheroes. Jaune was at his small bookshelf, picking something up. He walked towards the bed, and spoke.

“Pyrrha, you know how you asked me about my favorite fairytale a while ago?”

She looked at him. “I can recall that, yes”

Jaune handed her something. A book. “Well, this is it.”

The book in her hands was heavy, and red. There was an illustration on the cover, what seemed to be a knight in a field. The back had a very scary looking wolf on it. The cover had the book’s title in big, shiny letters. The Great Hunt. Pyrrha looked up at her lover, surprised.

“Jaune, this isn’t a fairytale. This is an epic poem.”

“Yeah, I know, but-”

Pyrrha was laughing now. “I had to read an excerpt from it in combat school, then write an essay about it!”

Jaune was laughing too. “Really? How’d you do?”

“I think I did okay. I don’t remember the exact grade. You probably could’ve done better.”

“Jeez, Pyrrha. My writing isn’t that good.”

Pyrrha had a serious look in her eyes. “Beloved, I got an eighty-six on the last essay Oobleck gave us.”

“Pyrrha…”

“You got one-hundred and ten. You got a perfect score with extra credit on an assignment that nearly everyone else failed. Even Weiss didn’t get a perfect score. Your writing is leagues better than mine will ever be. Now…”

She slammed her hands on the book on her lap. “Tell me about this!”

Jaune exhaled. “Alright. So, I think my mom read it to me as a bedtime story when I was three.”

Pyrrha stifled a laugh. “Really?! I’m pretty sure most parents would read their toddlers childrens books. Not millenia old poems about warriors fighting monsters.”

Jaune snorted. “My parents are not most parents.”

Pyrrha chuckled. “I can tell. Alright, continue.” 

“When I was five, I started reading it by myself. I only had the first part, so I just read it over and over. My Dad bought me the rest of it, and I read that over and over. I actually would bring all three parts to school in my backpack. It was so heavy, my back started to hurt. So to stop me from getting permanent back issues, on my 9th birthday, my parents gave me this.” He picked up the book from Pyrrha’s lap. He looked at the cover, seemingly hypnotized by the shiny drawing.

“This is a collectors edition version of the whole poem. That’s why it’s so big, it’s all three parts of the story.” 

“It looks amazing, Jaune.”

“I don’t know how many times I’ve read this whole poem. I’ve read it front to back, back to front. I’ve gone online and read analyses about it. I translated a part of it to Octavian (latin) once as a project. At one point, I even started writing essays about it in my spare time.”

Pyrrha was extremely surprised. “Really?”

“Yeah. I had to do an essay about it in middle school. I started and finished it in two days. I had to revise it twice because I kept going over the word limit.”

“Brothers, Jaune.”

“Yeah…”

They fell into a comfortable silence. Jaune felt a bit embarrassed. He liked writing, sue him. At least she didn’t see the typewriter he had under his bed. Or his journals. His many, many, journals.

Nobody could know about those.

Pyrrha then broke the silence. “Can I read it?”

“Of course. Let me clean up, this room is a mess.”

“Thank you beloved.” She gave him a chaste kiss, then opened the book.

As Pyrrha began reading, Jaune looked around the room for things to clean. Dirty clothes (how did he forget to put those away before he left?), music magazines, comic books, and… his bible. 

Well, his grandma’s bible to be precise. It was white, covered with a thick layer of dust. He hasn’t read any religious text in a while. His mind swirled with memories. Memories of reading with his grandparents. Memories of church, of sermons. Memories of prayer, and chanting. But his thoughts were interrupted by a sound most horrible.

RIP

His mind went blank. His vision, going dark.

Pyrrha was horrified. How could she do this? Ripping one of her beloved’s most prized possessions, after he most graciously gave it to her to read. What was wrong with her? She had to apologize. But before she could even mutter the words “I’m sorry,” she heard something fall to the ground. 

THUMP

She looked up to see Jaune standing before his bookcase, completely still. There was a white book near his feet. 

“Jaune? Jaune, are you okay?”

No response.

“Beloved?”

Jaune turned around, and started walking towards the bed. 

“Jaune, I didn’t mean to tear your book. I’m so sorry.”

Jaune got his knees on his bed. He took the book out of her hands, and put it on the nightstand to the right of his bed.

“Jaune, are you okay? I’m sor-MMMMMPH?! MMMmmm, mmmmhhh~.”

All thoughts had left Pyrrha’s head, as she was pulled in for a searing kiss!  Jaune had her pinned, holding her hands above her head. He wasn’t usually this forward in his affection. Jaune was a shy lover, always nervous, always asking. Today, however, he wasn’t asking, he just took. And Pyrrha didn’t mind that one bit.

Hours later…

Jaune woke up sweaty. His head was pounding. What happened? All he could remember was giving Pyrrha The Great Hunt, then cleaning up his room, then… nothing. It was dark out now. How long has he been out? He looked down on himself, and noticed something. He was naked. Completely naked. He gave a shriek of surprise, and then something to the right of him moved.

“Beloved… Just five more minutes…”

It was Pyrrha, also naked, completely passed out. She was a mess. Her hair was out of its usual ponytail. She was sweaty, and breathing heavily. And she was covered in… fluids…

What the hell happened?

[alexanderflowerbird]

DAY 17 A good weekend, but not a great weekend for writing lol I was SO busy. I did get a lot done though, I spent some wonderful time with my sister and my niece, I managed to organize my storage unit [I did all the work of going through what I wanted to keep vs what I wanted to throw away only to discover they don't have dumpsters on the property so... that's a problem to tackle another day], I went to the library and picked up some new books, I spent time with many people I love and I got some really cool new pens in the mail. I figured out some more characters for Blood Sun Territory, and I think I have the skeleton of the story all ironed out and ready to go. Back on the horse this coming week! I'm only 8k away from the month goal of 30K, but I'm hoping to over shoot it simply because I'm having a good time writing. But I have an excerpt for you, even if this weekend I've been away from my computer doing in the world things. It's a short little excerpt, just Dolcezza and Malachi talking about an interesting plant and the challenges of the territory and it's ever changing ecosystem. I know how their gonna travel, and more excitingly, I've figured out the little ways in which they begin to fall in love. Teeheheheheheee love making my barbies kiss. Taglist: @theskeletonprior @thelittlestspider @badscientist @tragedycoded If you'd like to be part of my taglist, please interact with this post

Malachi has never seen anything like it. Of course it is possible that he simply isn’t worldly enough, that this sort of enormous blooming cactus could be found outside of the territory existing as it is for a thousand years, sacred and well known to some, foreign and strange to others like him. He grew up in the sterility of the suburbs and grew into something of a city boy, so maybe it’s not this place that’s manifested this odd, entrancing flora, but nature itself and its unending creativity. He starts moving towards it and Dolcezza looks up in time to deter him. 

“Don’t you go over there.” He warns, stooping to pick up a rock that barely fits in his fist. “We all learn the land together, some things get learned the hard way. I’ll spare you that. Pretty, ain’t it?” He says, also looking out on the bulbous, many bodied cactus, its enormous spines reaching out from between hundreds of blue and purple flowers. Dolcezza throws the rock hard and when it hits the cactus, there is a meaty thud followed by the woosh of wings, the flowers dispersing in a burst, fluttering in a swarm. Malachi gasps. They aren’t flowers at all, but insects, their wings perfect emulations of petaled flowers. The cactus’ spines react too, and about a dozen of them fire off from the cactus, launching a few feet before impaling the earth. The swarm divides into masses, fluttering towards the launched spines, but when they seem to find nothing of interest pinned by those deadly barbs, they gather upon the cactus again, settling gently, renewing its beauty from deadly and hostile to elegantly floral. 

“Those butterflies like blood, they hang round the cactus cuz once it shoots somethin’ they can drink up the blood spilt and feed on the kill. They are gorgeous, but most shit out here that might draw ya in with its prettiness is more trouble than it’s worth.” 

“How’d you find that out?” 

“Like I told ya. The hard way. Some horticulturalist fella hired me years back, wanted to study out here and see if any of the new plants had medicinal potential or what have you. Got one of them spikes right through his gut trying to collect the butterflies for study. We both thought they were flowers, at the time.” 

“Did he die?” Malachi asks, reflexively pressing his hand over his stomach in a sympathetic jolt of discomfort. He could’ve taken one of those spikes to the gut too, if Dolcezza hadn’t stopped him. 

“Nah, he had a rough time of it though. Doctor in town has seen more than a war medic by now; before the blood sun most she’d get up to is curing colds, delivering babies- now she’s got much more to do than that any given day.” 

[bohemian-nights]

It will forever irk me how some people blame Laena for Daemon’s “unhappiness” in Pentos. Let’s be for real here, it was COMPLETELY his fault why they were still in Pentos. I doubt Laena would have denied Daemon the idea of returning to Westeros; she was the one who wanted to go back to driftmark in the first place. Any unhappiness Daemon had was his own fault and no one but him can be blamed (maybe viserys too but that’s another thing). Everyone who is like “poor baby, he was just longing for Rhaenyra…” blah, blah, blah - just makes me sooo heated!! Laena was right there, they need to stop acting as if she was just this means to an end. I know she’s a fictional character but it still angers me to see how minimalized she is by the fandom (especially when they race-bent her and changed the important relationships in her life - that’s one of the reasons why I say that the book is the only canon canon universe, not the show). The racism this fandom has is so crystal clear, but then everyone is all “stop making it about race”, like that’s exactly what you are doing 😭 why can’t I be upset about it?? I doubt anyone would act the way they do if Laena was white and it hurts to even admit that!

No one should sympathize with daemon in ep6, he was being a shitty person and incredibly selfish, in my opinion. (I know you love him and I’m sorry to bash him, but I know you also see his faults unlike a lot of other Daemon stans, so I hope you can understand me on this). Laena was more patient and forgiving than she should have been, I would’ve liked her to call him out instead of whatever bullshit the writers decided on. Laena was not a shy or docile person, she was brave and fierce, that’s literally canon, and the writers shouldn’t have excluded that.

And don’t even get me started on how icky this deleted script makes me feel: https://www.tumblr.com/darksvster/744315340102762496/excerpts-from-the-house-of-the-dragon . “I loved him well.” But then when Rhaenyra asks Daemon if he loved Laena, THE NIGHT OF HER FUNERAL, he says “we were happy enough.” Shut the fuck up, Daemon! 🙄

I don’t personally think Laena and Daemon’s entire marriage (in the show) was an unhappy one, but it was in such poor taste that they made their scenes the way they did in show ‘canon.’ Laena did not deserve to be shown as unhappy, certainly not right before she died. I’ll never stop saying that she deserved better because she really really did. And that’s another reason why I’m writing my fix-it fanfic for her. I just want her to be happy in the end 🫠

Thank you for reading this incredibly messy rant. I hope you don’t hate me for this lmao.

That’s nothing, but cope cause these walking napkins once again forgot about chokegate.

By their own logic Daemon must have been on the verge of jumping off a cliff with Rhaenyra cause no matter how miserable he was with Laena he never laid a hand on her or abandoned her when she was giving birth to their children🙃

He’s literally always 0.2 seconds from sending Missy Anne to join Gollum. If he truly was longing for her like that he wouldn’t even think of laying a hand on her.

Lol, jokes aside, no way he was completely miserable with Laena and she definitely didn’t make him miserable. If anything she calmed his psycho ass down. The man wasn’t miserable because of her(he was just missing the walking corpse he called a brother). That was the most stable time in his life. Which isn’t saying much, but it is what is even if they don’t want to admit that.

You know what he would’ve done if he was actually miserable, wanted Missy Anne, or wanted out of his marriage? He would’ve broken out the good old divorce rock🪨

We are talking about a man who does what he wants with no impunity. He has no qualms about killing family or abusing/murdering his wives.

He could’ve easily killed Laena(especially while she was in labor), but he didn’t do that. He wanted to be with Laena(which is why he married her even though Miss Maegor was begging him to choose her back in episode 5). For all intents and purposes he was content with the means to an end.

Yeah they are all fictional, but these are people are blending real life with fiction cause it’s clear that the main reason why they keep saying this crap is because Laena was made Blackish. These Karen’s refuse to relate to Black(ish) woman on any level so they now are hyping up their titanic ship because Missy Anne is white and blonde.

Real talk, I don’t even think most of them actually care about Missy Anne as a character. She’s just a mascot cause they want to ride Daemon’s dick(no judgements cause Miss Maegor is lame, and Daemon is hot, but they need to be honest about it. I’d never ship something where my fave is being beaten upside her head by her man).

Now Daemon and Laena’s marriage was far far far from perfect in the show. He was not the best husband to her. She definitely deserved better than what he gave her, but they really are trying it when he keeps going Ike Turner on their self insert.

Yes, Laena dies and she’s a minor character, but she does have an impact on the story and on Daemon’s arc. They won’t admit that though because they actively trying to limit her impact.

(See how they keep trying to associate her girls with Daemon as Miss Maegor’s daughters cause the queen of flops gave birth to a lizard instead of a daughter “who looks like” Daemon to replace the half-breeds).

And even though they took away her fire in the show and made her into some poor helpless unloved woman(aka a stereotype), she still made an impact because if she was truly a bump in the road they would’ve stopped talking about her as soon as she offed herself.

The bar is in hell yes, but they need to recognize where they stand.

Honestly this whole discourse is once again pathetic and riddled with Casper the unfriendly ghost sociopaths being butthurt that their ship is pathetic.

They have to use headcanons to prop it up cause the books make it clear Laena was Daemon’s most beloved wife and Valyrian Karen was abandoned for Nettles(let’s not get into that cause she sends the methheads into a rage) while the show has him beating their self insert black and blue.

No one is trying to make this about race, but when you have people calling fictional characters the n-word, comparing them to monkeys, saying it’s okay to cut a Black character because there are too many Black people on the show, saying that it’s a shame Daemon doesn’t have any daughters he can relate to cause the ones he has aren’t white, and saying that it’s a determintal character trait to have Daemon sleep with Black women, well how else are we supposed to view it?

This doesn’t even cover half the demented crap they’ve said and we aren’t even getting into how they start gang stalking you, and trying to gaslight you into believing their lies, when you call them out on the bullshit.

Someone who isn’t racist would say those things. You can dislike a character or characters, but when you base your hate on racism, well congratulations! You’re a racist!

It’s so frustrating dealing with this fandom because any time you point out the obvious misogynoir you become the bad guy, the hater, the bitch, whatever. People only like you when you don’t rock the boat(aka don’t say anything about this because you’re bringing down the vibes), but how are you supposed to turn the other cheek when you see that?

The moment Laena became Black she became worthless to this fandom and the showrunners, to the point where they are only comfortable with her fitting into a stereotype.

Well now we are both ranting so I think we are even 🤣 I do love Daemon, but I love to drag him when he does wrong(I love my girls more than him so he’s in the doghouse. Book!Daemon would be ashamed of show!Daemon). Thank God fanfiction exists(and the books). Can’t wait to read yours. I’ll be updating mines this weekend)🙌🏽

[melis-writes]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=392x-baFg4s

Hi! I wanted to bring up this video about why Michael changed since it was recommended to me by YouTube and I watched it out of curiosity (even though I already know the answer), and I was disappointed by the credit it gives Apollonia’s death. I don’t care for how the YouTuber claims that the Sicily sequence shows us how much Michael “loves” Apollonia- all it shows is him playing the role that he must in that society in order to marry her (and therefore be allowed to relieve himself in a socially acceptable way due to desperation, as we know 🤢). None of it seemed like a natural display of chemistry or frankly even behavior (I’m aware of what he says in Part III about loving her, but the thing about storytelling is that you’re supposed to show, not tell). The two of them kinda just seemed to be going through the motions throughout the whole thing tbh. We know what he wants (which should’ve been made clearer in the film), and we can figure out what she wants based on how she only smiles at Michael once she touches the golden necklace he gives her. I’m aware we get that one scene of them bonding (which only proves what she also wanted was freedom) but besides that, it honestly proves nothing- if anything, I bet if they met under normal circumstances, Michael would’ve been like a big brother figure to Apollonia and taught her some American things, and at most they would’ve been friends (since I’d even argue that romantically, she is not his type, and honestly how do we know Apollonia even likes men at all and wasn’t giving into comphet? Lmao). To call what they had “love” and then credit her death for his change is stupid and cringe imo.

Anyway, moving on to the YouTuber’s next point, I’d say Michael seems different when he returns to Kay due to all the trauma that keeps occurring in his life and how he keeps bottling it up inside, not because he’s mourning a teen he only knew for a few weeks. Trauma has been proven to wear on people over time who feel like they’re losing their support system and aren’t expressing their emotions in a healthy way. He also is closed off to Kay because he’s ashamed of what he’s done- it reminds me of that scene from The Lion King in which Simba is hesitant to tell Nala what he’s been through out of fear that she’ll turn away from him. Again, all this could’ve been explained better through dialogue and framing.

Finally, I disagree with the YouTuber’s speculation that Michael would’ve stayed in Sicily with Apollonia for a few years if Sonny didn’t die. We know Michael was bored out of his mind there so I don’t think he’d stay there just for her. Besides, I don’t think that their relationship would even last that long lmao. I don’t get why people give this random teen he wanted to sleep with so much credit for his development 💀💀💀. At first I sort of believed in the ship due how the shippers are so good at gaslighting, but then I finally started using my brain lol. Again, I also blame the movie itself for how it inaccurately adapted this whole arc from the book.

Speaking of the book, I’ve only read excerpts of it, but I recall Michael saying to Vito that he sought revenge not only for Sonny and Apollonia, but also because it’s the right thing to do. I think it just boils back to Michael taking things personally and having that sense of justice that never seemed to fully leave him. For all we know, he was angry due to being betrayed (like you’ve pointed out in one of your posts) and felt bad that an innocent life that he knew was taken due his own carelessness. Anyway, I know that this is long but I wanted to share my thoughts on this video since I enjoy discussing this franchise! Hope you have a great day!

“I don’t get why people give this random teen he wanted to sleep with so much credit for his development.”

THIS. This right here. 👆🏻 At this point, it’s almost annoying as to how obsessed people are with the whole Michael and Apollonia thing. It literally mentions in the book that Michael couldn’t even go near Apollonia if he wanted to, that marriage was the custom to do anything with a woman and Michael even wondered why people continued to believe/do these things when he compared it to the culture in the USA. It was extreme for Michael but as you said, he was bored. It literally mentions he. Was. Bored.

Michael was wandering the countryside every day with his bodyguards trying to see the country and entertain himself, but he was utterly bored. Everyday he waited for word from his father to come back lmao he didn’t want to be in Sicily. In all that time, he was also thinking about what he did and he thought of Kay everyday, assuming she also must have put two and two together and ended up hating him, but that didn’t stop Michael from continuing to wonder about her. In the book it also mentions Michael felt bad for leaving Kay behind with a word. He wondered what she was doing a lot.

There’s a lot of scenes in the book where Michael and Kay have sex. A lot. 😂 So it made sense to see in the book that Michael was not just bored, but horny. He only wanted to “possess” Apollonia, keep her to himself and Michael didn’t care for her personality or her shyness. He was solely fixated on her looks and wanted to please her and her family (mind you, Apollonia’s father was so happy his daughter’s beauty got them a rich, powerful groom) and so all Michael mentions is Apollonia’s physical aspect. During breakfast, Michael gets jealous enough to want to hurt Apollonia’s brother because he made her laugh. That’s not love, that’s an intense lust and toxic desire. 🥴

And when Michael married Apollonia, all he continued to talk about was her looks, despite Apollonia being nervous about the wedding night and wanting her mother to stay the night too. And then it goes on to mention that for a week or two straight, Michael kept Apollonia with him in the house and the word “sex slave” was mentioned in the sense that Michael basically did nothing but have sex with her all the time.

There is literally no love between these two and everyone knows it. There’s ships, and then there’s this weird, obsessive gaslighting, major misogynistic Kay slander thing going on where everyone wants Michael and this 17 year old to be soulmates so bad that apparently Apollonia turned him into such a cruel, cold man. Okay, please… 😂😂😂 I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one that finds this actually fucking ridiculous. It’s delusional.

The book mentions Michael loved two things: His father and Kay. That’s it. Watching the Sicily sequence on film is so annoying because you can see Francis deliberately tried to make it a love story gone wrong (coupled with gaslighting shippers now on the internet) even though that wasn’t Mario Puzo’s intention.

Michael’s entire relationship with Apollonia is predatory and because of him, she died. He ruined Apollonia’s life and Apollonia and her family are shitty in their own sense because they wanted Michael for his power and money. That’s literally all there is to it.

A lot of people also forget Michael didn’t go see Kay until a year after he returned to the US. He was working in the family business with Vito and it’s very obvious at that point that Michael will succeed his father as Don.

Michael and Apollonia were never in love with each other. I for once would like to hear someone point out how Apollonia loves Michael. (Spoiler alert: she doesn’t.) Everyone looooooves talking about how Michael loves Apollonia, but never if Apollonia loves Michael. How does that work? Lmao. And if Kay constantly has to be mentioned and slandered, then I think it’s already obvious… 🥴

Thank you for sharing this analysis with me!! 😂❤️ I loved it! You’re absolutely right and I agree with you. Of course, everyone can interpret Michael’s changes differently but I mean… Once I read the book and saw that no, Apollonia had no effect on Michael’s change, I’m like… 👁️👄👁️ it was Sonny’s death that changed Michael and I will die on this hill.

[estellamiraiauthor]

So, can someone help me figure out what I did wrong here? (Or not… I think it’ll make me feel better just to vent even if no one interacts but feel free to comment if you see something I could’ve done differently.)

So I’ve been reaching out to a couple of artists lately about commissions. Most have been great, and I’ve got one commission underway already and am considering a couple of others. But this one artist like… rejected me as a client and I don’t know why.

As a bit of background, this artist was one who had done Phantom-related stuff before, and the VERY first question I asked was whether they would be okay with drawing characters from MY retelling. Personally, I don’t see all the different retellings and reimaginings as “competition” because I think people who are interested in one version are MORE likely, not less likely, to seek out others… but I knew it COULD be an issue and asked, and they said it was fine. So at that point, when they had a super easy out, they were apparently interested in potentially taking my commission.

So I provided my character info files, which admittedly have more information than anyone needs for any one artwork, because they’re master files that I use for ALL commissions. They include some visual references including past commissions, some written physical descriptions, and stuff that may not be important like age and place of birth and personality, which is there for reference, and if an individual artist doesn’t care about it they don’t need to read it.

I also provided a file with a description of the specific scene I wanted. I gave a short description of what I wanted drawn, and maybe a 1.5 page excerpt from my actual book. Again, this is for reference… it seemed to me that having what happened immediately before and after the specific moment I wanted drawn might help with the emotional aspects like facial expressions and body language? But again, it was there for reference; i figured too much information was better than not enough, and it was a page and a half, not an entire chapter or anything. It also had a very rough sketch of the pose and props I had in mind… I’m not good at drawing, but I’ve provided similar sketches to artists before and been told they were more helpful than nothing?

I told the artist to tell me if they needed anything more, and the response felt a little cold, but I know you can’t always tell how a person really feels about something via text, with no intonation or facial expression. They basically said: 1. There is more than one scene here, which do you want? (It was only one SCENE, in a writing sense, but I guess they probably meant more than one pose), 2. Give me a pose reference, tell me what they LOOK like not just what they’re saying, 3. Tell me exactly what they’re wearing.

So I went back to the file and highlighted the specific part (about a paragraph) I wanted drawn and added a more specific note that the rest of the scene was provided for context and reference. I deleted an image I’d provided as an example of the kind of “vibe” I wanted but that was NOT the exact same physical pose. I told the artist that my sketch had been intended as a pose reference, but that I would try to find a photograph or existing art instead. I was trying very hard to find something but had not found it yet. As for clothing, I’m actually not super picky and would be 100% fine with the artist just making something up based on the previous art and references in my character files but since they asked me to choose, i was planning on finding some clothing references. I hadn’t gotten to it yet because i was stuck on the pose.

In other words, the file wasn’t ready yet. I hadn’t found all of the additional resources they had asked for, so I HADNT CONTACTED THE ARTIST ASKING THEM TO CHECK THE FILE AGAIN. It’s a Google Doc so they absolutely COULD go back and see the changes in real time, but I assumed they either wouldn’t check the file at all or would assume it was still in progress until I told them I’d updated it.

But then I got a DM this morning that said they would have to charge me FOUR TIMES their typical price for two characters because it was “full illustration” rather than a portrait. Now, I was expecting it to maybe be a LITTLE more because I’d asked for a couple of props. And it was a request for a specific scene, not just two characters looking straight at the “camera”. But four times the price on their commission sheet felt a little like they were trying to discourage me from actually commissioning them.

Now, I used to do freelance editing. I know all about the asshole surcharge…. But I don’t think anything I’d done up to that point was assholey? Maybe I included too much written information and not enough visual information but I was actively working on fixing that, and I wasn’t finished looking for everything they’d requested, which I explained. I asked if the higher price covered things like creating a pose based on the written description or if they still wanted me to keep looking for a visual reference, and how long it would take to complete if I agreed to the price…

And they responded with “I don’t know if it’s a language or cultural thing about communication” and I… JUST DONT KNOW? Like, I told them I was located in Japan so they’d know what I meant when I said “tonight” or “tomorrow,” but… English is my first language. I lived in the US until I was 19. Did they mean THEMSELVES? That THEY had a language issue? Did they mean that quoting me four times the listed price was supposed to mean “hell no” and that I should’ve understood that? Or did they just assume that because I live in Japan there would be a “language issue”??? I just don’t know.

Because again, former freelancer here, and there are other ways to reject a client you just don’t like. “I’m sorry, but this just doesn’t look like a good match for my skills.” “Actually, I just got offered another major job that’s going to keep me occupied for the next few months.” Etc?

So at that point I basically said “You really seem like you don’t want to do this so I’m going to pass at this point.” And they replied with “As a client I’m going to pass” (which kind of makes me think maybe it WAS a language issue on their part??? It was just such a weird way to say it, and like I HAD JUST SAID NO. I had already ended the potential working relationship, they didn’t need to pass too?)

It just… feels like they took one look at my characters and specific scene request and from that point just really didn’t want to do it, and it’s really hard not to take that personally. I actually kind of HOPE I committed some horrible faux pas that I’m just not seeing but I HAVE NO IDEA.

[daystar-daydreamer]

The Destruction of Pompeii, AD 79 by Lauren Tarshis

Category: Early chapter book

Genre: Historical action-adventure

Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌑 4/5 stars

Recommended for: 6-9

The beast beneath the mountain is restless... No one in the bustling city of Pompeii worries when the ground trembles beneath their feet. The beast under the mountain Vesuvius, high above the city, wakes up angry sometimes -- and always goes back to sleep. But Marcus is afraid. He knows something is terribly wrong -- and his father, who trusts science more than mythical beasts, agrees. When Vesuvius explodes into a cloud of fiery ash and rocks fall from the sky like rain, will they have time to escape -- and survive the epic destruction of Pompeii?

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

This book is waaay below my usual reading level, but it was a “gift” of sorts. I’m at a library right now. A little girl snuck up behind me as I outlined a series about Ignatius (Before he became a Fragokinetic) going up against various Greco-Roman monsters, and announced her presence by plopping this down on my keyboard. I finished this in half an hour, and figured I could write a review just as quickly. 

Firstly, I really, really like Marcus and his father. It only took the author less than a hundred pages to establish that they’re just plain good, right to the core. Have you ever heard of a trope called What You Are in the Dark? It’s when a character has the chance to do something selfish or to neglect doing the right thing, and if they do, no one will ever know. These two chose to do the right thing every single time. Not only did they do the right thing, they did it even though even though going back to Pompeii was possibly the most dangerous thing they could’ve done short of hiking up to the top of the mountain and jumping into a sulfur pit!

Furthermore, Marcus is brave, loyal, and just so sweet! He’s nice to animals (Except when he chucked that snake, but it was for a good cause), he helps an old lady up even after she yells at him, and he gives her an apple. That doesn’t sound like a big deal, but here’s an excerpt from the book:

But just the thought of the juicy apple made his stomach flip with joy. Festus fed his slaves nothing but watery gruel and old cheese.

He’s also quite bitter about the hand he’s been dealt, which is more than understandable. In fact, I think it makes him a better character than if he’d been all sunshine and rainbows: He’s unhappy, but he’s still sweet and helpful, and I always appreciate that sort of thing. Characters who manage to be nice even when it seems they’ve hit rock bottom are underrated. 

The prose is lackluster compared to the sort of books I’m used to, but that’s probably because it’s for younger readers. Admittedly, I skimmed a lot, especially the backstory and exposition bits. I always skim those, but in a book this short, it’s a lot more noteworthy than it is in 300+ page novels like Song of the Abyss and A Pocketful of Murder (The two biggest offenders when it comes to infodumps... At least according to my notoriously unreliable memory). 

Another more major complaint is that I really wish we could’ve gotten more from Marcus and his father. They get like, what, two hugs throughout the entire book? That’s just not enough! And the scene in the temple was also a missed opportunity. Marcus’s father could’ve urged him to save himself, and Marcus, in turn, refuses to leave without him. We do get a little bit of that, but the exchange as long as it is satisfying to read: Not at all. The conversation should’ve gone on longer, and maybe ended off with an emotional sucker-punch. 

All in all, though, I enjoyed his a lot more than I thought I would, and it was mostly thanks to Marcus and his father. 

... *proofreads review before I post* Well, I think, from now on, I’m gonna start taking notes on the books that take more than an hour to read, and maybe that’ll have me putting out more reviews like this. Holy crap this is long!

Now I’m gonna go track down the kid who gave me the book; she’ll probably want it back.

[chdarling]

So one of your most favorite readers (who put me on to your amazing books) just took home the first place ribbon at their first horse show today. As a way of congratulating them, I was wondering if the readers could get a special sneak peek or something! Idk how any of this works I just want to do something nice for them haha.

(Btw I don’t read any fan fic but couldn’t put yours down once I got into it. Truly unlocking parts of my HP love that I didn’t even know were there, so bless you.)

Hi, this is so sweet!! Congrats to your friend!!! I am extremely impressed by people with horse skills. My claim to horse fame is that I fell off a pony once. So.

ahem.

ok in celebration of brilliant horse show victory, let's do a TLE4 scene with some quality blackevans because this scene is a personal fave and it's going to be years before I actually get to share it lmao.

TLE4 Spoilers ahead...

Excerpt from The Last Enemy: Old Magic

“I can’t believe how many people actually showed up,” said James, peering out the window at the throngs of wedding guests milling around the gardens below. “I would’ve thought with everything going on…”

“People are desperate for distraction,” said Sirius. “And what’s more distracting than a society wedding?” He fidgeted with his cravat and muttered a curse under his breath. “I swore I’d never wear one of these again.”

“Aw, but you look so dashing.”

Sirius was spared a response as Marlene McKinnon barged through the door.

“Blimey, Marlene!” spluttered Peter from across the room. “Any one of us could’ve been naked!”

“You’re not.”

“Yeah, but we might’ve been.”

“I’ll thank my lucky stars then,” said Marlene dryly. “Black? I need you.”

Sirius followed her out into the hall. “What’s up?”

“Is James doing okay?”

“Sure.”

“No increased breathing pattern or signs of rising panic?”

“He’s sweating a tad more profusely than usual, but all in all I’d say he’s fine.”

Marlene nodded, satisfied. “Good. I need you to go deal with Lily.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“She’s panicking. Not my forte.”

Mrs. Potter had sequestered Lily in a guest room on the other side of Potter House, far from where she might unluckily stumble across her husband-to-be. It was a large house, which allowed Sirius’s mind plenty of time to spin through all the scenarios about which Lily might be panicking as he trekked to the designated bridal suite.

After traversing more corridors than he found reasonable for one house, he reached the room at last and knocked upon the door.

No response.

“Hello?” Sirius cracked open the door. “Is it bad luck for the best man to see the bride before the wedding?”

There was a pause, and then a slightly strained voice replied, “Pretty sure that’s just the groom.”

“Good, ‘cause I’m coming in.”

He pushed through. Lily was standing by the window, likely peering down at the many guests below, just as James had done moments earlier. Sirius opened his mouth to make a joke about this, but he stopped short as he took in her appearance. She was dressed in white wedding robes — which was of course no surprise — but she looked nothing like the brides of the many society weddings he’d been forced to attend during his youth. Her robes were light and fluttery but not fussily so; there was no dramatic bustle or high collar or long, fretful train. Just simple white lace that seemed designed for one purpose: to showcase how lovely she already was.

Lily turned from the window to look at him. Her brilliant red hair fell in loose curls down her shoulders, free from the ornate coifs that were in fashion among Narcissa and her contemporaries. He noticed that Lily had opted not to wear one of the goblin-wrought tiaras Mrs. Potter had no doubt offered up. Instead, a simple flower crown graced her red locks, pale petals in a delicate dance across the curls. She looked, in a word, ethereal.

Sirius had always known that Lily Evans was attractive, in an objective sort of way. He understood, on a scientific level, why James went so gaga whenever she was around, but never before had he been so struck by her beauty.

“Wow,” he said at last. “You look…”

“Nauseous?”

“I was going go with ‘stunning.’”

Lily smoothed a hand self-consciously over her hair. He could tell she was trying hard not to twirl it around her thumb, a nervous habit she’d had for as long as he’d known her. He was reminded of James, always mussing up his hair. He couldn’t help but smile. They really were a perfect pair.

She eyed him suspiciously. “Have you come to make sure I’m not going to run away?”

“Marlene said you were panicking.”

“I am not panicking,” scoffed Lily. “I am reacting in a completely rational manner to the fact that there are nearly two hundred people out there that I don’t even know, just waiting to watch me trip down the aisle.”

“You’re not going to trip.”

“Have you met me?”

Sirius hesitated. “You’re probably not going to trip.”

Lily buried her face in her hands. “Oh, my god. I would’ve been happy with a small wedding, you know? A tiny wedding. Hell, I wanted to elope. But I’m doing this whole spectacle because I know how happy it’s making Mrs. Potter. I get it — she didn’t think she’d get to see her son married, so now she wants the whole shebang, and I’m glad it’s making everyone so happy, I am, but oh my god, Sirius, I’m going to throw up.”

A pause.

“Okay, maybe I am panicking a little.”

“You think? Breathe, Evans.”

“It’s just…what am I doing here? I love James, of course I do, but I feel so out of place. I mean — all these rich pure-bloods wandering about. I don’t know any of these people, and thanks to Petunia, I hardly have any family at my own wedding.”

“What are you talking about?” said Sirius. “‘Course you do. We’re your family. You, me, James, Remus, Peter — even Marlene, Merlin help us. We’re family. Hell, it’s the only family I’ve got. So forget Petunia, forget every one of those pure-blood knobs down there. Just take a deep breath, go marry that messy-haired idiot you’ve been in love with since first year—”

“Have not.”

“—and then we can get down to the crucially important business of partying with your proper family. By which I mean getting drunk with me and the lads, just like old times. Deal?”

Lily laughed, apparently in spite of herself. She nodded, dabbing at her eyes with a bit of lace. A deep, wavering breath. “Okay. Deal.” An exhale. “Thank you, Padfoot.”

“My pleasure, Penny Prefect.” He leaned down and kissed her softly on the forehead. “You’ve got this.”

[wisteriabookss]

An Extensive Analysis of Eris

The recent excerpt from ACOSF has got this fandom spinning on it’s head because it includes a feral-smiling Eris waltzing with Nesta. As a result, people have now delved deeper into his character and whether or not he deserves a redemption arc (or an arc of any kind). 

So naturally, he has been compared to Rhys, because Rhys also appeared to us in the beginning as a cruel, cunning person, who was eventually revealed to have a bigger heart, and a valid excuse (at least amongst the IC) for his behavior.

I made this post to mainly catalogue all that Eris has done, analyze his actions, see if he indeed can be compared to Rhys, and to determine whether or not he should have a redemption arc. 

What We Know So Far

Our first mention of Eris is in ACOMAF, when Rhysand is explaining to Feyre what happened to Mor. I could put the quotes here, but just to save some time I’m gonna make a long story short.

Mor’s father, Keir, declared that she was to be sold in marriage to Eris. Eris is known for being cruel, and Mor begged Rhys to stop it. Rhys brought her to the Illyrian camp for a few days, and she decided to sleep with Cassian in order to ruin her “pure” image. Because she slept with Cassian, Eris refused to marry her. Said, “she’d been sullied by a bastard-born lesser faerie, and he’d now sooner fuck a sow.” Her family, although it’s not said explicitly, basically beat her, and then dumped her body on the Autumn court border with a note nailed to her body that said she was Eris’s problem now. Eris left her for dead in the middle of their woods.

Now, we’re going to look at what he exactly said during this event, given to us from Mor’s POV in ACOFAS:

“Don’t touch her.” Those steps stopped. It was not a warning to protect her. Defend her.

“No one touches her,” he said. Eris. “The moment we do, she’s our responsibility.” 

Cold, unfeeling words. “But—but they nailed a—” 

“No one touches her.”

A pale, beautiful face appeared above her, blocking out the jewel-like leaves above. Unmoved. Impassive. “I take it you do not wish to live here, Morrigan.”

He must have read it in her eyes. A small smile curved his lips. “I thought so.”

Eris took a step away. Someone behind him blurted, “We can’t just leave her to—” 

“We can, and we will,” Eris said simply, his pace unfaltering as he strode away. 

“She chose to sully herself; her family chose to deal with her like garbage. I have already told them my decision in this matter.” A long pause, crueler than the rest. “And I am not in the habit of fucking Illyrian leftovers.”

Now that we have Mor’s side of the story, we’re going to look at what Eris has said about that fateful day during a discussion with the IC in ACOWAR:

Mor snarled, rattling the glasses. “You never gave any evidence to the contrary. Certainly not when you left me in those woods.”

“There were forces at work that you have never considered,” Eris said coldly. “And I am not going to waste my breath explaining them to you. Believe what you want about me.”

. . . .

A frown at Mor as he drained his wine and set down the goblet. “I’m surprised you still can’t control yourself around him. You had every emotion written right on that pretty face of yours.”

“Watch it,” Azriel warned.

Eris looked between them, smiling faintly. Secretly. As if he knew something that Azriel didn’t. “I wouldn’t have touched you,” he said to Mor, who blanched again. “But when you fucked that other bastard—” A snarl ripped from Rhys’s throat at that. And my own. “I knew why you did it.” Again that secret smile that had Mor shrinking. Shrinking. “So I gave you your freedom, ending the betrothal in no uncertain terms.”

“And what happened next,” Azriel growled.

A shadow crossed Eris’s face. “There are few things I regret. That is one of them. But … perhaps one day, now that we are allies, I shall tell you why. What it cost me.”

A main takeaway from this is that there seems to be much more to story of what happened between Eris and Mor.

Does that mean him leaving her in the woods is excusable? No. Absolutely not. He didn’t try to take the nail out of her (which would’ve been the bare minimum), he didn’t alert Rhys that she was there, he didn’t do anything to help her. He started to make the situation even more traumatic by saying vile things to her. Whatever reason he gives for not helping her will be just that: a reason. But not an excuse. Those are two very different things.

Eris say’s that leaving her there is one of the few things he regrets. There’s something in that. I’m not saying under any circumstance that he should be forgiven because he feels guilty, thats stupid as hell, but it is showing that he’s not some apathetic, other-worldy evil person. There’s some semblance of a conscious in him. 

He also say’s that one day he’ll tell them why he did it and what it cost him. By what it cost him, I’m guessing he’s talking about the cost of ending his betrothal to Mor, because I can’t think of what he lost by leaving her there. 

I don’t think there’s been any mention of someone getting revenge on Eris because A.) Rhys told Feyre that, “Azriel found her a day later. It was all I could do to keep him from going to either court and slaughtering them all.” and B) her family was obviously going to do nothing cause they’re the ones who hurt her.

I’m not going to try and theorize what cost Eris had to pay. It obviously is something (or someone) important to him.

But to me, one of the biggest things we got from this discussion is that it seems Eris knows Mor is gay. That secret smile of his that had Mor shrinking, the way he says he knows why she slept with Cassian, and that he gave Mor her freedom by ending the betrothal without giving a reason . . . he knows.

He knew she was gay, so he ended their engagement, no questions asked. And then Mor was dumped in his woods, and he did nothing to help. 

Morally grey, indeed.

(P.S. To the person that posted something along the lines of, “I can’t wait to see Mor’s face when she see’s Eris dancing with Nesta,” . . . get help)

Another excerpt I wanna look at also happens during the recent discussion we’ve just seen, but it has to do with Feyre and Lucien.

“You hunted me down like an animal,” I cut in. “I think we’ll choose to believe the worst.”

Eris’s pale face flushed. “I was given an order. And sent to do it with two of my … brothers.”

That little hesitation before he says ‘brothers’. . . sus. That’s all imma say. (maybe there’s more than one illegitimate son in that family . . .)

“And what of the brother you hunted down alongside me? The one whose lover you helped to execute before his eyes?”

Eris laid a hand flat on the table. “You know nothing about what happened that day. Nothing.”

Silence.

“Indulge me,” was all I said.

Eris stared me down. I stared right back.

“How do you think he made it to the Spring border,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t there— when they did it. Ask him. I refused. It was the first and only time I have denied my father anything. He punished me. And by the time I got free … They were going to kill him, too. I made sure they didn’t. Made sure Tamlin got word—anonymously—to get the hell over to his own border.”

Where two of Eris’s brothers had been killed. By Lucien and Tamlin.

Eris picked at a stray thread on his jacket. “Not all of us were so lucky in our friends and family as you, Rhysand.”

We see another semblance of conscious here when Eris refuses to take part in the slaughtering of Jesminda. To even be in the same room as it. He then made sure that Lucien wasn’t going to die by making sure Tamlin was at his border. 

I’m not putting these quotes here to say, “Look, he cares about stuff , so let’s excuse everything he’s done.” No. There is no excusing any of his actions. Just like we can’t excuse Rhysand’s behavior in the first two books, or Cassian’s, or Nesta’s, or even Feyre’s, etc. But what we can do is see the reasons for their actions, and try and understand why they acted the way they did. They have their reasons, and Eris has his. (P.S. I’m not trying to compare what they’ve done, I’m just noting that they all had reasons to do what they’ve done, and they all deserve to be heard out.)

Comparison To Rhys

As I said earlier, Eris has drawn a lot of comparisons to Rhys. I agree with most of them.

This fandom has catalogued all of Rhys’s questionable actions like . . .

*TRIGGER WARNING: words like sexually assaulted*

Rhys sexually assaulting Feyre three times in the first book by drugging her, and then compelling her to give him lap dances in front of the folks Under The Mountain. He then displayed Feyre again in a sexual manner in the second book in front of The Court of Nightmares as, and I quote, “The High Lords Whore.” 

In both situations he could’ve done things so much differently. In the first book, he could’ve just, oh I don’t know, kept her in her cell? Or maybe brought her upstairs as a normal person?

And in the second one she literally could have been ANYTHING else. Everyone thinks she’s his prisoner, so why didn’t they go with that? Why couldn’t he have just dressed her in some raggedy-ass clothing, messed up her hair, and then tell her to act super stoic or frightened? Really Rhys, she just had to be your whore? (I know it was consensual but that doesn’t make her persona okay. He could’ve picked literally anything else)

Did he have his reasons for doing this? Yes. Does his reasons excuse what he did? No. You don’t have to make everyone else around you act a part just because you do.

So while we may not excuse Rhys’s actions, we can understand his reasons even if we don’t agree with them. Same with Eris. We know Eris has his reasons, and I doubt we’ll all agree with them, but he still has them.

Let’s also not forget that Rhysand made a deal with Eris and Keir that he would support Eris’s claim to the Autumn Court throne when Eris decides to kill his father for it. He also allowed Keir and his court to come into Velaris, and even though they’ll be turned away by every vendor, he still allowed them in. While he had his reasons for doing this (the Darkling army for ACOWAR) he still did it. It still hurt Mor.

Redemption Arc 

My biggest hesitation in thinking Eris will get a redemption arc is wondering where it would fit in the books for him to have one. We don’t know how if his waltz with Nesta is just a one-time thing or if it’s a result of a friendship between the two. The second book is supposed to be centered around Elain, Azriel, and Lucien, so that could also be a spot where he get’s an arc, maybe through a relationship with Lucian or Azriel. 

Either way, I’m not gonna bring down the hammer and say that he shouldn’t get a redemption arc. Tbh, the term ‘redemption arc’ kinda annoys me because it shouldn’t be about redeeming what was done in the past, but more about learning from past mistakes and taking the initiative to grow into a better person. That’s what I want for Eris. He’s not going to magically be revealed to be this super sweet fun-loving guy like Rhys. I don’t want him to be revealed like that either. 

I just want to see more of his character, see why he is the way he is, and, like i’ve said a million times in this post, know his reasons for acting the way he does. 

One last thing before I go. I’m not interested in seeing any relationship blossom between Eris and the IC, or Nesta, and I think it’s unlikely anyways. There’s a possibility for them to have an understanding, sure, but no friendship. I know there are some people who automatically adore Eris because they hate Mor and that’s just stupid. Mor isn’t my fav either, but I won’t cheer Eris on just because he hurt her. 

That’s all I’ve got. If you’ve made it this far, I appreciate you. Really.

[shattersstar]

evergreen

and if the devil was to ever see you, he’d kiss your eyes and repent (part four)

pairing: adrian tepes x reader

excerpt: You were grinning, running through all the most beautiful, fullest, dreamiest of adjectives to capture the face of your love. You tilted your head to the left, and he followed, the two of you grinning at each other with soft, soundless laughs. You closed your eyes for a moment, inhaling and blinking at him with a new found clarity, the words flowing effortlessly.

warning(s): brief injury mention, fluff, this is so,,hopelessly romantic, heart shape lockets making a reappearance

a/n: sorry ive only been writing for adrian my brain has been in alucard lockdown and it wont end (although this might be my favourite thing ive ever written so i’m..less sorry)

—

It was quiet, the distant din of the forest brushed over the two of you. It was a reminder of the life surrounding the desolate place you called home. Your eyes were closed as you focused on the sound, the breathing of trees and humming of streams. You supposed Adrian heard it all so clearly, the animals and plants alike all alive in the surrounding forest. You strained to hear the crunch of fallen leaves by foxes or snap of fallen branches by deers.

It was autumn and the world was alive with harvest. Animals prepared for winter, plants returned to the soil and tree lines morphed into flame. It was one of the last warm days, the sun high in the cloudy sky, shining onto the picnic you two had set up. You were laying down, letting the sun soak over your while Adrian sat cross legged behind you. Your head was in his lap, the book you were reading was resting on his thigh above your head, opened onto the page you were on. Adrian had brought a book as well, but discarded it after a few minutes of reading. It was out of date, he explained, the science was false and he decided to draw over the useless words instead.

You assumed there was some value in its history, but didn’t question it as he silently sketched. Adrian was always such an artist, often drawing you, or other’s he cared for. He could sketch Sypha and Trevor from memory, yet often butchered some detail of the latter for his own amusement you supposed. He drew his parents often too, but was quick to erase such images, as if even seeing their face was still too painful.

He had begun painting more recently. You liked sitting and working on something while he painted, catching occasionally glimpses at his work. Adrian was never shy about what he created, often showing you without prompting, and never dismissing your request to see his art. He had agreed he was good at it, the technical precision was there, but the heart was not. You were quick to disagree with such sentiment, and yes you could see it within the landscapes and dull memories he created on paper or canvas, but the love was there in the faces of those he cared for.

Each line he added to you, each bit of shading and highlight showcased you in a way that held more adoration than any words could supply. You liked seeing yourself from Adrian’s eyes, seeing your beauty as he perceived it. It was more flattering than anything anyone before him had said to you, not like Adrian would want to hear such things.

You weren’t sure how you knew he was watching, sketching you as you laid in his lap, but you knew he did. You even remained still, forgoing reading to be his muse for the last moments of fall. You didn’t mind getting to lay in the lap of the one you loved, a soft blanket underneath while the sun started to arch towards the west. You could’ve fallen asleep there, nature washing over you and Adrian watching over you. It was a place of peace, a moment you’d engrain into your mind and have a memento—a piece of art to show for it.

You only opened your eyes when Adrian let out an uncharacteristically loud sigh, he didn’t need to breathe, he only did so on his own volition. You peered up at him, sun dancing in his dark lashes. “What is plaguing you so beloved?” You hummed, tilting your head back more as you spoke.

"My chest, it aches.” He admitted with a soft voice. You sat up as his words registered in your ears, worry lacing your features as you moved to sit on your knees, beckoning him closer.

“Still? Why?” He turned his head to the side as your hand smoothed down his slender neck, brushing his collar aside and revealing the tip of the scar that cut diagonal through his torso. You kept your fingers off the injury, but untied the front of his shirt to reveal more of it.

“I am unsure, it just does some days.”

“This has happened before?”

“A few times, yes.” He sighed again, you felt it under your palm that rested next to the pink, raised skin.

“I wished you told me.”

“I did not wish to worry you.”

“And yet I am worried.” Adrian turned towards your other hand, resting on his shoulder and dipped his head down to kiss your wrist. It was a gesture of apology and you accepted it was you let your hand cup his face, lips pressing a kiss to your palm. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I don’t think so.” You frowned, shifting your knees against the blanket. “And somehow I’m not surprised you aren’t pleased with that answer.”

“How can I be pleased when you, my dear, are living in pain?”

“Don’t be pleased then, be appeased.” Adrian shrugged, still speaking into your palm. You let your fingertips graze the edge of his scar before dropping both hands from him.

“If I must.” He chuckled at that, low and warm as your hands found his knees. You gave them a squeeze, almost to check if he still existed before turning, and placing yourself into his lap. You were careful not to lean into his chest, but Adrian eased you against it, his forearm wrapping around your stomach while his other hand brushed your book from his leg. “Now show me what you were drawing.”

“Of course beloved.” He hummed from behind you, picking up his green covered book and letting you flip through the drawings now masking the words. And you were right, many—most were of you.

A few trees, a tired outline of the castle, faces you didn’t know, but still somehow, every few pages was you, lounging in his lap, or from some other memory he stored away. They made you smile, less worried as warmth overtook you.

“Do you ever draw yourself?” You asked once you reached the last sketch, lingering on it.

“No, the image of myself in my mind changes far too often.”

“Oh?” You were surprised by Adrian’s answer, you expected something darker you supposed.

“I see myself one way, and then...I do not. I cannot draw what constantly changes.”

“Why does it change?”

“You.”

One syllable was more breathtaking than a single drawing he had ever done of you.

“Oh.” You found yourself on repeat, closing the book and letting out a slow breath.

“And I supposed other’s I’ve met, but mostly you.” It’s always you, he does not say despite how well it sits in his mouth.

You knew you had impacted Adrian, only a fool would say they didn’t, but to know that the way he constructed himself in his brain, how he felt when he thought of it, how he saw himself in his dreams, how he saw himself with you were all changed by you and how you loved him felt like a deeper proclamation than i love you.

“I still wish you would though, what am I supposed to put in this locket?” Your voice held an air of teasing, but a current of seriousness laced it as well.

“I could try, if you could like.”

You were silent for a moment, you didn’t want him to settle on a version of himself to etch into existence. Not when he was ever changing in his mind's eyes. “What if—“ You twisted carefully to look at him, noses brushing as you did. “What if you drew yourself from how I saw you?” You asked, wanting his art to convey his beauty as it did yours.

Adrian pondered it for a moment, before tilting his head and surprising your lips with his. “Yes.” He whispered against your mouth before finding his book yet again.

You slipped from his lap to give him space and studied him for a long moment. He didn’t shift under your gaze, or look away, but instead studied your back. You were grinning, running through all the most beautiful, fullest, dreamiest of adjectives to capture the face of your love. You tilted your head to the left, and he followed, the two of you grinning at each other with soft, soundless laughs. You closed your eyes for a moment, inhaling and blinking at him with a new found clarity, the words flowing effortlessly.

Serious mouth, something that hides smiles and fangs. Lips that slope into something heartbreaking—a smile like no other.

He grinned at that, eyes dropping to the page as he began drawing.

Soft eyes, set deep, but still shining. Sharp like daggers and holding handfuls of sunrays in them. Not cold with sadness, but heavy with it.

“Heavy with love too.” He hummed, earning a kiss on his forehead before you settled back to describing him.

Nose…

You paused your words, letting Adrian catch up to your lovely description, while you pondered on it too. You knew this was much for him, so much love filling his ears, outward and heedy. Yet it didn’t feel like enough, like it captured how much his appearances enraptured you, but as his heart did too. You wanted him to see your love through your eyes.

It was a daunting task, and yet you carried on. You reached out, brushing over his nose with your index finger, as if the words lived in your fingertips and could only be released by touch. You furrowed your brows, lips parting before you took Adrian’s hand, the one holding the book. He kept his gaze on you as you brought his slender fingers to his nose, tracing it as you did. You loved all Adrian’s features, but his nose especially, and no words could describe the beautiful feature that pulled his whole face together.

My favourite thing.

He let his attention fall back to the drawing, a bloodless blush could’ve warmed his face with the kind descriptions you imparted onto him. He knew you loved him, you proclaimed it enough, but the sweet words that overtook this dimming autumn day were even more dizzying than he expected. And you weren’t done yet, unrelenting in your words and adoration for him.

Sharp contours—jaw, cheekbones—with an underlying kindness, youthful softness to the angular curves.

Beautiful forehead, my favourite place to kiss. And press myself to.

Brows low, very precise—too serious most of the time.

Hairline like the ocean, framing the sand and sometimes sweeping over it.

You twirled the forever loose curl that hung forward, always draping against his smooth skin. He wanted to lean into your touch, but his attention was on the page.

Hair long, softer than any silk. Golden—not like honey, but wheat fields blowing in the breeze. And thick, with lazy waves throughout it.

You stayed quiet after that, hoping it was enough. You were all warm throughout now, despite how the evening had fallen over you two. You wanted to climb back into Adrian’s lap, but instead you moved to sit cross legged, toying with a loose thread on his pants, twisting the string from the seam by his knee around your finger until his shoulders dropped and the pen stopped moving.

You let your hands rest in your lap, and you watched him study it for a long moment. You wanted to ask if it was okay—some version of him he could agree with, yet he brought the pen back, scrawling something in his tight, professional handwriting and tearing the page from the book with precision.

The drawing took up one corner, the words printed in the background barely noticeable to the bust drawn over them. He folded the piece of paper, once, then twice. A tiny square sitting in his palm, before Adrian finally met your gaze. He reached out, cool fingertips grazing over your neck as he brought your heart shaped locket to sit in his other palm. He used his thumb to open it, placing the piece of paper inside and closing it again.

He kissed the smooth metal before letting it fall back against your sternum, smiling with a haziness that made you feel drunk of love as well. You took his hand in yours, Adrian quick to intertwine fingers before you could settle your palm to his. He urged you closer, uncrossing his legs and letting you take up space between them. “Do you feel better?” You hummed, the pain that had overcome him before not leaving your mind.

It wasn’t like you to forget so easily.

“Hm, better? Yes.” He nodded, pressing a kiss to the side of your nose.

“Are you just saying that?”

“No, of course not.”

“I find that hard to believe, you often dwell in pain my dear. Especially alone.”

“I know,” He sighed yet again, bringing his free hand to your chin and drawing your attention to him. “If you’d like, I believe I have found a way that you can help, make me feel better.”

“Yes, what is it?”

He smiled—heartbreakingly. “Marry me?”

For a quiet beat, you paused, the words reaching your ears, settling in your short term memory before they processed into something that rang forever in your head. You and Adrian had talked about marriage, he had settled on the notion it was a frivolous display and he had everything he needed with you. And you agreed. He was everything you needed.

And now, he needed to be your husband.

You tucked some of his hair behind his ear, leaning in with a low voice, “My love, don’t you know?” You asked, blinking up with a slanted grin, “I’ve been married to you from the moment we met.” He breathed out a chuckle, reedy and low.

“Then,” His palms cupped your cheeks, forehead pressing into yours. “Let me marry you.”

“Yes,” You breathed into him, “Yes you can marry me.”

-

It was the first day of winter when you finally opened your locket. You unfolded his drawing carefully, the likeness you wanted to convey hung in every inked line. Your fiancé existed in both your hearts now.

Your fingers brushed over the words, creased from the folding, but still clear.

It’s always you, my betrothed.

[oldmanatom]

A Locked Tomb Fanmix But It’s All Classic Country

this exists entirely because one night the thought “but what if i made a Locked Tomb fanmix with only classic country songs” popped into my head, unprompted, and i thought it was too hilarious to not do.

the art on the cover is done by @starfleetofficial​​, who this mix is also dedicated to. thank you for recommending me these books, continuously “yes, and”ing my semi-coherent TLT messages sent at 5 in the morning, and being so supportive about this idea. (also check out her version, A HtN fanmix but it’s all Fiona Apple!) the cover design is referencing the famous Marty Robbins album, Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs.

my one listening note: this will probably be more enjoyable if it’s approached with an open mind and an expectation that it’s taking itself about as seriously as the official fanmixes do.

see below the cut for a song list and some lyric excerpts.

this mix has implicit spoilers for both Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth.

Gideon the Ninth mix: youtube / spotify / full res cover Harrow the Ninth mix: youtube / spotify / full res cover full mix: youtube / spotify / full res cover

Gideon the Ninth:

1. Johnny Paycheck, “Take This Job And Shove It”

You better not try to stand in my way 'Cause I'm walkin' out the door Take this job and shove it I ain't working here no more

2. Dolly Parton, “When Someone Wants To Leave”

It's a sad situation I must say When someone wants to leave as bad as you want them to stay

3. Loretta Lynn, “I’m A Gettin’ Ready To Go”

I'm gonna praise my savior's name everyday that I'm livin' Glory hallelujah I'm not ashamed to let my salvation show This old world's just my dressin' room and I'm a gettin' ready to go

4. Waylon Jennings, “I Ain’t Living Long Like This”

I tried to run but I don't think I can You make one move and you're a dead man friend Ain't living long like this Can't live at all like this, can I baby?

5. Loretta Lynn, “This Haunted House”

This haunted house I'm livin' in is killing me And the ghost of your love won't set me free Each morning finds me crying and alone In this haunted house we used to call our home

6. Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty, “After The Fire Is Gone”

We know it's wrong for us to meet But the fire's gone out at home And there's nothin' cold as ashes After the fire is gone

7. Loretta Lynn, “How Long Will It Take”

(How long will it take?) How long will it take to make you want me How much longer has this old heart gotta break (How long will it take?) How long will it take to make you need me I keep a waitin' and a wonderin' how long will it take

8. Stonewall Jackson, “Don’t Be Angry”

Maybe someday you're gonna hurt me I've been hurt in love before Only God can know And time alone will tell

9. Dick Curless, “A Tombstone Every Mile”

It's a stretch of road up north in Maine That's never ever ever seen a smile If they'd buried all them truckers lost in them woods There'd be a tombstone every mile

10. Johnny Paycheck, “(It Won’t Be Long) And I’ll Be Hating You”

Lately life with you has been unbearable All my faith in you has gone and I know it won't return I did everything to make you happy I could do Now you've gotten me hatin' things I used to love to do And it won't be long and I'll be hatin' you

11. Norma Jean, “Let’s Go All The Way”

All the way means happiness living side by side Halfway means a heartbreak if one of us should lie Just give me a clue that you love me too Hold me in your arms and say “Oh, let’s go all the way”

12. Loretta Lynn, “Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven”

Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die Lord, I wanna go to heaven but I don't wanna die Though I long for the day when I'll have new birth Still I love the livin' here on earth Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die

13. Homer & Jethro, “She Made Toothpicks Of The Timber Of My Heart”

She was seasoned, I was green Yes my darling lumber queen Wound me ‘round her finger like a clinging vine

14. Patsy Cline, “The Heart You Break May Be Your Own”

You'll look around and when you've found That you are all alone Then you'll get wise and realize The heart you break may be your own

15. Buck Owens, “I’ve Got A Tiger By The Tail”

Well every night you drag me where the bright lights are found There ain't no way to slow you down I’m as 'bout as helpless as a leaf in a gale And it looks like I've got a tiger by the tail

16. Charley Pride, “All I Have To Offer You (Is Me)”

Before you take another step, there's something you should know About the years ahead and how they'll be You'll be living in a world where roses hardly ever grow 'Cause all I have to offer you is me

17. Faron Young, “Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young”

I wanna leave a lot of happy women A-thinkin’ pretty thoughts of me I wanna live fast, love hard, die young And leave a beautiful memory

18. Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner, “The Last Thing On My Mind”

I've got reason a plenty for goin'      This I know, this I know The weeds have been steadily growin'      Please don't go, please don't go

Are you going away with no word of farewell Will there be not a trace left behind I could've loved you better, didn't mean to be unkind You know that was the last thing on my mind

19. Marty Robbins, “The Master’s Call”

I felt the end was near, that death would be the price When a mighty bolt of lightning showed the face of Jesus Christ And I cried “oh Lord forgive me, don't let it happen now I want to live for you alone, oh God these words I vow”

Bridge: Lefty Frizzell, “Long Black Veil”

She walks these hills in a long black veil She visits my grave when the night winds wail Nobody knows, nobody sees Nobody knows but me

Harrow the Ninth:

1. Hank Williams, “I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive”

Every thing's against me and it's got me down If I jumped in the river I would probably drown No matter how I struggle and strive I'll never get out of this world alive

2. Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris, “Those Memories Of You”

In dreams of you, my body trembles I wake up and call your name But you're not there, and I'm so lonesome Without your love, I'd go insane

3. Hank Snow, “I Don’t Hurt Anymore”

I don't hurt anymore, all my teardrops are dried No more walking the floor with that burning inside Just to think it could be time has opened the door And at last I am free I don't hurt anymore

4. Patsy Cline, “Stop The World And Let Me Off”

Oh, stop the world and let me off I'm tired of goin' round ‘n' round I played the game of love and lost So stop the world and let me off

5. Charley Pride, “Lie To Me”

Oh, lie to me, say you love me Tell me I mean the world to you It would mean so much, I'd be so happy And it's the least you can do

6. Hank Snow, “Ninety Miles An Hour (Down A Dead End Street)”

Warnin' signs are flashin' by us but we pay no heed Instead of slowin' down the pace we keep picking up the speed Disaster's gettin' closer every time we meet Doin' ninety miles an hour down a dead end street

7. Patsy Cline and the Anita Kerr Singers, “I Can’t Forget”

Where are you, darlin'? Are you with someone new I can't forget you I'll always be loving you

8. Lynn Anderson, “If I Kiss You (Will You Go Away)”

You're so much hurt I wish you wouldn't stay If I kiss you will you go away?

9. Connie Smith, “Once A Day”

Once a day all day long And once a night from dusk till dawn The only time I wish you weren't gone Is once a day, every day, all day long

10. Charley Pride, “Just Between You And Me”

But just between you and me I've got my doubts about it 'Cause just between you and me You're too much to forget

11. Buck Owens, “Hello Trouble”

A comin' up my sidewalk Just as plain as day A well a here come trouble that I never thought I'd see When you went away

12. Loretta Lynn, “Fist City”

You'll bite off more than you can chew If you get too cute or witty You better move your feet if you don't wanna eat A meal that's called Fist City

13. The Davis Sisters, “I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know”

You think you know the smile on his lips The thrill at the touch of his fingertips But I've forgotten more Than you'll ever know about him

14. Kitty Wells, “Pick Me Up On Your Way Down” (Charlie Walker’s version is on the Spotify playlist)

When you learn these things are true I'll be waiting here for you As you tumble to the ground Pick me up on your way down

15. Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty, “You’re The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly”

And that's the reason that my good looks and my figure is gone      And that's the reason I ain't got no hair to comb And you're the reason our kids are ugly, little darling

16. Loretta Lynn, “Who Says God Is Dead”

If I were you I'd kneel and pray 'Cause we're not promised one more day Remember blood was shed Who says God is dead?

17. Patsy Cline and The Jordanaires, “Imagine That”

Can you believe I'd swallow my pride (Well yes, yes, I guess you can) 'Cause you know you've always had my foolish heart Right in the palm of your hand, oh

18. Jody Miller and Johnny Paycheck, “Let’s All Go Down To The River”

Jesus is the man at the river And he's washing people's sins away He can save your soul if you give him control Oh be ready for that judgement day

19. Bobby Bare, “Dropkick Me, Jesus”

Make me, oh, make me, Lord, more than I am Make me a piece in Your master game plan Free from the earthly temptation below I've got the will, Lord, if You got the toe

20. Lynn Anderson, “Heaven’s Just A Sin Away”

Devil's got me now Oh, gone and got me now I can't fight him anyhow I think he's gonna win

Heaven’s just a sin away Oh, just a sin away Heaven help me when I say I think I’m givin’ in

21. Loretta Lynn, “Out Of My Head And Back In My Bed”

I'm gonna search everywhere that you might be When I find you I'm a bringin’ you home with me I want you out of my head And back in my bed Before the morning comes

22. Johnny Cash, “Big River”

Now, won't you batter down by Baton Rouge, River Queen, roll it on Take that woman on down to New Orleans, New Orleans Go on, I've had enough, dump my blues down in the gulf She loves you, Big River, more than me

Now I taught the weeping willow how to cry, cry, cry And I showed the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky And the tears that I cried for that woman are gonna flood you, Big River And I'm gonna sit right here until I die

[phoenixtakaramono]

Does Bing gē Have Descendants in ‘The Untold Tale?’

This topic has come up a few times since The Untold Tale takes place in the PIDW universe (post-Bingge vs Bingmei extra), I figured I might as well compile and archive my official answer here for me to refer my AO3 readers to in the future for convenience’s sake. I hope everyone doesn’t mind. :) I’m always happy to answer questions!

TL;DR

Q: Will we see Bing gē having fathered children with his harem of 600 or so wives in TUT?

A: For TUT, the answer is a definite “no.” There were a lot of factors which’d contributed to my decision. I’ll try to explain my reasoning down below.

Context

In PIDW, it is canon that Luo Binghe has a bountiful number of descendants with his harem of 600-or-so wives. It is a detail that has been mentioned even in ch1 of SVSSS and in ep1 of the donghua.

(SVSSS Excerpt - ch1)

(SVSSS donghua - ep1)

I like to plan things ahead of time. So from very early on, I knew this would be something I would have to decide on whether or not to address when I’d finally decided to expand TUT from just a prologue into a full-blown story. And after contemplating it, I decided against adding children into the story. It is because 1) it would make the situation more complicated, and 2) it would take TUT in a different direction that wouldn’t be fun for me to write.

I’m a very decisive writer, meaning when I make my mind up about something, chances are I won’t change my mind. This is because I would have already planned it into my plot outline, which means changing a decision would require me to change other details in the other chapters I have planned for that story. (I’m typically not a spontaneous writer; I try not to write spontaneously because when you’re a writer who rotates through multiple WIPs with different characters across different genres or writing styles, you inevitably have writer’s block because you probably won’t remember all the ideas or the direction you had whenever you return back to a different WIP. To reduce this shortcoming, it helps me personally to have a plot outline. This way I can return to any WIP, read my notes and then transcribe them into legible paragraphs, find a way to transition between the story beats I have to hit for that chapter, and then eventually post the final draft to AO3 when I feel it’s ready.)

Having made a decision, I knew I had to set it up in TUT and give a “reasonable explanation in-story.” Hence, in ch2, we see:

(Excerpt I - ch2)

Basically the set-up is TUT takes place post-Bingge vs Bingmei, but between “the third or fourth book” of the hypothetical PIDW webnovel series aka before Airplane wrote the fanservicey chapters where the luckier of LBH’s wives give birth to children during the harem drama plots and the children are probably rarely, if ever, mentioned again in the story as a lot of stallion novels tend to do.

(Excerpt II - ch2)

(Excerpt III - ch2)

Contrarian Tendencies

You know the saying: Monkey see, monkey do? In my case, it’s monkey see, monkey do not do.

A little fun fact about me as a writer: if I have already seen a fanfic where someone has already written a concept or idea into their story, chances are I will just avoid it entirely in my own stories. I don’t know why this aversion exists, but I’m assuming it’s because of my counterculture hipster inclinations and an intrinsic fear of plagiarism which has been beaten into all of our skulls since adolescence. There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by other people’s works. Technically everything’s been done before in writing so, as a writer, a good rule of thumb is to always try to give it your own unique spin on things. So for me, my brain somehow interpreted this a step further. This is a reason why I try to avoid reading stories from whichever fandom my WIP is from during the writing process of updating a fic, because this is how I get influenced. Once I see an idea or interpretation from another fanfiction, it influences me to not want to write it into my own. This is a very strong unconscious impulse for me. I guess this is just the neurons in my brain’s thinking that this way, it won’t be something my readers will have read before and the story idea will come across as different or fresh, and mine. In a way this is also how I show respect for fanfiction writers in the same fandom—by being inspired to not be inspired, ha. I like to think every story in the world serves a niche audience, so seeing a diverse range of originality and interpretations in a fandom is a good thing. This is also how I feel when I am able to identify certain popular tropes or depictions or patterns in a fandom; 99% of the time, it makes me feel a compulsion to “go against the grain” or write the opposite. For example, you have no idea how long it took me to come around the idea of incorporating the fanon “A-Yuan” into TUT. However cute it is, the moment it dominated the fandom (well, “dominated” is an exaggeration; it’s more like I’ve seen enough, especially in the Original LBH/ SY | SQQ tag), my gut reaction was to nope out of using it. But after seeing a lot of comments in my inbox with readers affectionately calling SY “A-Yuan,” I’d contemplated it for a long time and it wasn’t until ch4 that I decisively decided that yes, I can have Bing gē calling SY “A-Yuan” in TUT—but it has to be at the right moment for maximum dramatic and emotional impact. (See this thread that started it all. And this is the small sneak peek I wrote where LBH will call SY that for the first time.) <- This is the rare 1% where I actually conformed to what’s popular.

In this case, when I finally decided to expand the prologue into a full-blown story, coincidentally I had just recently read a good Binggeyuan (Bingyuan) fanfic which featured a kidnapped Shen Yuan interacting with Bing gē’s harem and LBH’s children/descendants. I’d liked their portrayal and even thought the children were cute. <- However, with me having reading this, the problem came up: I felt the familiar stubbornness in me rearing its head. So knowing myself, if I had included children, it is very likely the direction that I would have gone down for TUT would have been the opposite. To further complicate matters, you have to keep in mind the kind of writer I am. I tend to like grounding stories with a semblance of realism, no matter if the genre is pseudohistorical fantasy, romance, sci-fi, etc. And this writer has seen and read quite a few harem and palace intrigue Chinese dramas/ premises.

For further context, in those types of “historical” C-dramas^, in that sort of environment which fosters scheming, competition, jealousy, etc, it is almost expected to see heirs aka children aka descendants harmed along with the women. Innocent parties are often victims in these sorts of cutthroat premises, to underscore the underlying message the show or novel wishes to present. (See Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace. See Yanxi Palace. See The Legend of Haolan. See Nirvana in Fire. See The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage. Etc.) And me being me, this would be the direction I would take. Remember, while TUT is meant to emulate a legitimate danmei C-novel reading experience in a fantasy world, I do drop pseudohistorical and cultural Easter eggs into the story. So trust me when I say you would not like the direction TUT would have gone down in, had I made LBH have children with his harem. I mean, theoretically yes, we could’ve seen endearing children characters from me, but you would have also seen me addressing a lot of the baggage that comes with (see Comment III Excerpt down below).

The situation with dissolving Bing gē’s harem is already complicated enough. As his romance with Shen Yuan develops, I didn’t want to have an additional headache thinking about how to address the issue of LBH having children already. Divorces in a pseudohistorical context is already a heavy topic—even more so when it’s divorces with children in the mix. Naturally I will still have SY and LBH eventually discuss the matter of legitimate heirs since LBH will essentially become the Sacred Ruler of all Three Realms and it’s a traditional precedent for an emperor to bed his empress, noble consort, and imperial concubines until he has his heirs (plural, because the rate of mortality was high in ancient China). In TUT’s case, at that point in the story SY will remind LBH that he’s essentially an immortal sovereign so there isn’t any need for an heir unless he wishes to retire. Furthermore, he will inform LBH that he could set a new precedent since he’s already different from the other emperors from history (with him being of half-Heavenly Demon and half-human cultivator lineage); as long as LBH is fully aware of all perspectives of the situation, he doesn’t necessarily need to conform to all traditions if this is something he really feels strongly about. But this future conversation(s) is likely the extent of it.

But wait, you say, what about a certain someone who’s going to be transmigrated as an imperial crown prince? Isn’t he going to be in that sort of vicious upbringing? <- Yes. But that’s an entirely seperate matter. In a way, since I’ve decided Bing gē will not have had any children or descendants in TUT, with Airplane, this now presents an opportunity for me to show the consequences of being one of the many children of an emperor with a harem of women vying for one man’s attention—and the power struggle that’d ensue in this kind of environment. It’s an interesting What-If parallel, if you think about it.

AO3 Comments

Although these are just small excerpts from replies I’ve written before, it’s nice and orderly to just compile them here for everyone since these will be buried underneath all the comments as TUT updates:

(Comment I- ch3)

(Comment II- ch4)

(Comment III- ch4)

Because of seeing comments that have asked me for my thoughts on whether or not I will include LBH’s children, I’ve had so much fun seeing theories thrown around: from LBH’s blood parasites being able to control conception, to someone’s headcanon about LBH being a hybrid and all that entails scientifically (think: mules). I will say in TUT, it’s more the former since in PIDW he’s supposed to have descendants; we’re pretending Bing gē doesn’t have any yet (and now definitely won’t, especially after having heard SY’s “prophecy”) because he subconsciously does not want children due to certain fears, trauma, etc. And his Heavenly Demon’s “blood parasites” (blood manipulation) is a convenient story device to explain why no wife has gotten pregnant yet.

I hope this explanation makes sense! Mainly I just wanted to have this archived on tumblr so that I have this post to refer to moving forward.

On a side note: especially since ch4 had been posted, quite a few people have actually mentioned they’ve read my replies to other comments and/or I have seen different people having hopped onto other readers’ comment threads (for example, imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw a reader you lovely person, you helpfully jumping in to respond to another reader’s questions about TUT, and their answers were actually aligned with what I would’ve answered!), so it’s always such a thrill whenever I see this level of engagement happening. I can’t explain why, but seeing this happening is just so cute to me. It really makes this writer feel so warm and fuzzy inside!

[suzukiblu]

excerpt from current writing (aka Avamorphs):

On the news, the EGS tower is half-collapsed and smoking, and Katara stares at it in disbelief and doesn’t know what to think. It was probably full of Controllers, if it really was where the Kandrona is, but it was also full of hosts, and if the Kandrona’s been destroyed . . . 

“What happened?” Aang says, sounding horrified. 

< Good question, > Sokka says, scratching behind his ear. It’s just the three of them, because Suki’s at gymnastics and Toph’s dealing with her parents and Lu Ten is in his meadow and Jet’s . . . Katara’s not sure where Jet is, actually. Maybe with his friends? She knows he hasn’t seen them lately. 

They’re at Gran-Gran’s house, sitting in her living room, and they were just watching the news to see if anything suspicious was happening. This . . . this is a lot more than “suspicious”. 

“Do you think they did it themselves?” Katara asks after quickly checking that Gran-Gran hasn’t come back from the barn. 

< Why would they? > Sokka asks. 

“I don’t know, just . . . who else could’ve done it?” Katara says. “Who else would've?” 

< Literally any one of us, probably, given the opportunity, > Sokka says. 

“We can’t sacrifice that many hosts,” Aang says tightly, his hands curling into fists against his thighs. 

< Looks like somebody did. > 

“We don’t know that,” Katara says. 

< It had to be somebody who knew the Kandrona was there, > Sokka says. < No way this was an accident. > 

“We already agreed we weren’t going to attack it!” Aang says. 

“We know, Aang,” Katara says. “I don’t understand.” 

< Well . . . not to be incredibly suspicious, but where’s Lu Ten? > Sokka asks. 

“In his meadow,” Aang says. “He said he was going to read some more of the science books we brought him.” 

< Okay, then it was Jet. > 

“What?!” Katara demands. “How on earth do you figure that?!” 

< Because it was definitely one of those two, > Sokka says matter-of-factly. < What, you think Ozai Three did it? > 

[yamoksauceforsale]

Please tell me more abt all your aa fics I kinda forgot that you've also played the lawyer game (also miles to go is a brilliant title sdjfkljsdflksjdfl)

I am a CLOWN for the gay lawyers so please feel free to message me about them whenever especially on my main @ghoullian (happy disbarment day also ahah 🥲) More summaries/status/excerpts under the cut!

Since most of the fics on that WIP list were AA I’m gonna sort by whether they’re miles, franziska, or klav gav flavored

Miles flavored

1. On the Dichotomy of Colors in Neo Olde Tokyo and its Applications to Japanifornia, An Essay by Miles A. Edgeworth, Grade 4

Status: COMPLETE, Read here

A oneshot kid!fic set after the classroom trial but before DL-6. Miles confesses by way of steel samurai.

2. Cry for Absolution:

Status: This one is essentially done but I’m debating whether to publish it bc it’s personal. 

The miles goes to catholic school au i wrote about here! I added in some slight lang/edgeworth elements.

3. Miles to Go:

Status: Outlined, some chapters written. This is my only AA multi chapter fic. I haven’t worked on it in a bit bc i’ve been playing the games more (started outlining/writing mid game 3, and am now on the game 5 DLC), but I have a bunch of roadtrip stops planned!

Motivated by my desire to have more Miles & Trucy bonding moments, and to torture this poor stuffy man with a chaotic roadtrip. Miles is overworking himself so Phoenix & Trucy convince him to go on vacation with them. Most of his vacations (when he takes them) are spa days with Franziska, so he doesn’t realize until they’re pulling up to the bus terminal that Phoenix has booked a roadtrip across CA.

The parts I have written currently are: a narumitsu having to share a bed in a shitty motel that ran out of rooms chapter; trucy & miles making s’mores. I know I also want to write: supernatural themed roadside attraction chapter with Miles and Maya arguing about whether ghosts are real (possibly at the Mystery Spot or Winchester Mystery House); the opening of Larry’s art gallery as Laurice Deauxnim; supportive!Miles walking with Phoenix across the Golden Gate Bridge (Phoenix is scared shitless bc of Bridge to the Turnabout, but Trucy really wants to go); epilogue is Miles’ choice of vacation— the opening of steel samurai land at Gatewater Land

Excerpt from the s’mores scene:

Trucy looked up at him curiously. “Have you really never made a smore before Mr. Edgeworth?”

Miles shifted uncomfortably. “‘No, I... I haven’t ever been camping before either really.”Trucy’s mouth dropped open, “NEVER?” she said, awed that someone could miss out on something so fundamental to all her childhood vacations with her father.

“No. I mean,” Miles sighed, “My adopted father wasn’t much for camping.”

“Why?” said Trucy, chomping on another marshmallow straight from the bag.

“Well, for one, he dressed like... erm, me. Not me right now, of course,” he said, shifting awkwardly in the baggy matching pink Yellowstone T-shirt Trucy had picked out for them earlier.

“Who knows! maybe if he’d have been less of a stick in the mud, you could’ve had matching t-shirts with him too!” said Trucy, full of naive hopefulness. 

Miles knew she couldn’t possibly know the story behind von Karma’s atrocities and speak so lightly of it. Still, he found himself stifling a snicker at the thought of Manfried von Karma being caught in cargo shorts, sneakers, and a souvenir t shirt.

“Somehow I don’t think that would fly,” said Miles, in the understatement of the century.

“Eh, too bad for him I guess. 2 for 1 deals are just for us cool kids I guess,” she said, elbowing Miles on an affectionate joke.

Miles smiled, “Weren’t you just calling me elderly not 10 minutes ago? And now I’m a cool kid?”

“Objection!” yelled Trucy. “That was Auntie Maya!”

“Touché,” said Miles. “Your father was the one getting the most kick out of it though I think.”

“I think he just likes to see you so... flustered? Not that he wants to see you mad, but... you’re so much more fun when you’re not all geared up to use your pink suit like armor and be an ice man. It just makes us all happy to know you’re here having fun and wanting to spend time with us.”

Miles was glad for the darkness and the heat of the fire to cover up any possible embarrassment or other... frivolous emotions that might be flushing his cheeks from those remarks. He found himself oddly struck speechless.

Clearly noticing the awkward pause in the conversation, Trucy tried to redirect to safer subjects. “Anyway, I’m sorry your dad was a bummer. I love hearing everyone’s cool camping stories.”

4. Miles’ feather of truth nightmare:

Status: this is an outline for a scene I’ll probably stick into another fic at some point!

Egyptian mythology inspired. Miles has a nightmare where his heart is being weighed against the feather of truth, he looks up to find the judge to plead his case, but the judge’s stand has been replaced with a throne. Mvk sits on it, cackling madly before eating his heart

5. Miles Edgeworth & chess through the years:

Status: just an outline currently.

Canon compliant AU with chess as a metaphor to track Miles’ character arc and recovery from his abuse at the hands of MVK. Basically him going from the dehumanizing WIN WIN WIN attitude to love & using chess to bond with loved ones. I wanna have him as a kid learn to play from Gregory as a way to bond, but then suddenly change to being coached to be the best under von karma (who hides a piece in his sleeve to get a win). Picks up in aa1 with him playing against phoenix (phoenix wins by pure luck, not strategy or underhanded tactics), him commissioning That Gay Ass Chess Set in his office, faking his death. Two scenes at the end of him playing against Kay (who cheats and briefly reminds him of MVK, but then laughing bc he knows MVK would HATE that comparison), and then married narumitsu laughing when Pess and Trucy accidentally knock over the chess board

Franziska flavored

1. Franziska’s having a bREAkdOwn! bReaKdOwn! (hospital franmaya):

Status: Scenes partially written, excerpt below.

Franziska and her father share many things: a name, a legacy of success, a destiny of greatness, and matching bullet holes to remind them of their greatest failures. What happens when Franziska wants to see more of herself not in her father, but in Maya Fey?

Excerpt:

“Maya Fey, your family was disgraced by my own father. How can you even look at me?” “You’re not the sins of your father, Franziska. And... to be honest... I relate to you.”

Of all the things she’d said that night, that finally caught Franziska’s attention. She turned her head up in a wide eyed perplexed gaze.

Maya rubbed her head self consciously, looking away from Franziska. “I mean... not to the prosecuting parts, or to putting people behind bars but... I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel like destiny had laid out some grand path for me to follow, and I decided that, no thanks, that road isn’t for me, I’m just going to go tear up the map and make a pit stop at every burger joint in a hundred mile radius instead.”

She laughed, and Franziska let out a furious scowl. “How can you just JOKE about this, Maya Fey? About your future? About your family? About destiny?” Maya sighed. “Look, Fran, I get where you’re coming from. But we deserve more than that. The chance to set our own destinies. Maybe we’re the beginning of our own new family legacies.”

Klav Gav flavored

1. klav gav haircut fic:

Status: Scenes partially written, not outlined

Premise is Klavier visits Kristoph in his cell post aa4 and tries to get closure. Klav cuts off his braid, finds more of a sense of self, and klapollo hurt/comfort at the end

Excerpt:

“You are nothing without me Klavier. You never will be.” Klavier laughed coldly. “You think I don’t know that Kris? You’ve stained every part of my life. Every moment of joy and suffering somehow comes back to you. I can’t even look in the mirror without starting at myself, convinced that it’s the ghost of you and not myself looking back at me.”

“I should’ve thought the great rock star would fancy himself a narcissus. How touching this is not the case. Why, it almost seems you miss me.”

Klavier laughed ruefully. “Miss you?! Of course I miss you. I miss you teaching me how to braid my hair. I miss the person who held my hand at mother’s funeral and didn’t let me cry myself to sleep alone that night. I miss when I didn’t know what atroquinine was and I miss who I was when I could just blindly look past the way you’d just been grooming me this whole time to be a pawn in some sick revenge fantasy against phoenix wright. But I know that none of those memories—none of what i miss—were actually you. Or at least, not the you that you’ve chosen to become.”

Klavier paused and let out a long sigh. When he spoke next, his voice was small and strung out. “I’m tired Kris. I don’t want to see you in me anymore.”

That’s it for now! I genuinely am debating making an ace attorney side blog so I can talk about these more, but idk if there’s much engagement in the AA fandom compared to star trek. Anyway, thank you sm for your ask!!! <3 I’m down to ramble on more about these anytime!!

[edna-skiffens]

Calm in the Storm - 3.1K

Calm in the Storm / Harrison Osterfield

Summary: You’re terrified of storms and your friendly neighbor, Harrison, comes over to help you stay calm.

Word Count: 3.1K

Warnings: fluff, sarcasm and cuteness, storms is guess

A/N: This is an excerpt from a fic I’m working on but may never finish. Ha. (But if it ever does get finished then act surprised when it reappears, possibly slightly different.) LMK if you like it and would be interested in a slow burn, college AU fic. :)

Another crack of thunder roared in the skies, sending a shiver down my spine and a scream from my lips. Call me a wimp if you want. I hate storms. Capital ‘H’ Hate them.

What makes this situation even worse is it being late at night and the meteorologist saying that it won’t let up for hours. The wind is howling, the eerie sound of the flood warning is going off and they tell us of trees down on numerous roads. Apparently half the county is out of power, but thankfully we still hav-

With a flicker of light I’m plunged into darkness, wishing I could’ve knocked on wood sooner.

I think I might have screamed again. I’m not even sure. I just know that I really don’t appreciate Mother Nature tonight.

There’s a rapid knock at my door which evokes the third scream from my lungs this evening; I’m going to lose my voice.

I creep my way to the door, careful to not give away my presence in case it’s a serial killer. They are the only ones out in this weather, right? I mean, that’s what the movies make you believe.

I shouldn’t answer. I’ll just wait here until they go away and they’ll never know someone was in here. But what if it’s someone lost in the storm? I can’t leave them out there. But that’s probably what the serial killer wants me to think.

The knocking starts again, causing me to jump and cover my mouth so my squeal won’t give away my position.

“Y/N, open up. It’s Harrison.”

Harrison? Why doesn’t he go to his own apartment upstairs? At least it’s not a serial killer. God, I hope.

I open the door to see a soaked and slightly irritated Harrison, flashlight in hand. “What took you so long? I knocked twice.” He huffed as he brushed past me and inside the dark apartment. “God, don’t you own any candles. You know the power is out?” I’m starting to regret letting him in as he blabbers on, but I answer anyway.

“Yes, I obviously know the power is out. I haven’t had time to gather any candles.” I answer while fiddling with the flashlight on my phone to find any element of light I could use. “And I was scared,” I admitted in a much softer tone and volume, “I had to make sure you weren’t a serial killer.”

His laugh makes me jump much like the thunder had. “Are you serious? You thought I was a serial killer?”

“Well not you, you. But it could have been a serial killer at my door. It’s storming something horrible outside, that’s how it always happens!” I try to rationalize my thinking.

“God, Y/N. You do realize you don’t live in a Lifetime movie.” He laughs with a much lighter tone. I just roll my eyes, realizing that any other response will result in an endless cycle of teasing at this rate.

“Why are you here any way?”

“Well, I heard your screaming from my apartment and wanted to make sure you were okay.” My heart swoons for a moment, until he continues his thought. “I mean, I had to come protect you from all the serial killers out in this storm..” I whack him with my arm as he cackles, resembling something of a demented monkey.

“Very funny. I don’t like storms, okay?”

“But why?”

“I don’t know? Why are you so funny looking?”

Great comeback. One for the books.

He only rolled his eyes, sensing that I wasn’t in the mood. And we both knew that I was lying because he was far from funny looking.

“Well don’t be scared. You’re safe with me.” He smiled at me in the dim light and we stared for a moment before he continued. “Okay, okay. Let me see what I can do to help.” He said while hanging up his raincoat and walking away, flashlight in hand.

I found all the candles I owned and the two battery powered lamps. I gathered them together in my living room when Harrison joined me.

“I called the power company. They said the better parts of three whole counties are out of power and the storm isn’t even over yet.”

I let out something between a groan and a whine, not caring how much of a child I was acting like. “What does that mean?”

“It means it could be awhile before we get power back, maybe even all night.” He gave me a soft smile before continuing “We best buckle down.”

Every time a particularly loud clap of thunder roared I couldn’t help but jump. I felt so tense. It was growing increasingly annoying and I think Harrison even picked up on it because he stopped teasing me about my fear of storms.

“Let’s do something to distract you.”

“What?”

“Clearly, you’re terrified. Why? I don’t understand. But still, you are so let’s do something.”

“Well what would you suggest? We don’t have power, we don’t have a great source of light, we-“

“Have a bundle of pessimism from the lovely lady on the right.” He mocked in an overdone voice.

I rolled my eyes, trying to reign in my sass before apologizing. “What would you suggest?” I could tell he didn’t actually have a plan by the way that his eyes scanned my apartment, but they suddenly stopped signaling a thought.

“Go and gather all of your blankets and sheets and quilts for me.”

“Harrison.”

“Just do it.”

I decided to just listen to him and collect his requests, letting the focus of the tasks distract me from the storm. When I re-entered the living room he had chairs and barstools from my kitchen placed in a sporadic pattern. Seeing my puzzled face, he turned to me with a smile.

“We’re making a blanket fort!”

“Oh my gosh.” I deadpanned. 

“What? What could you possibly have against a blanket fort?”

“Nothing. I used to make them all the time when I was little.”

“So what’s so bad?”

“I made them when I was little.”

“Well what’s wrong with being young every now and then?”

“I mean, I don’t know.” I replied after a moment of thought.

“Exactly. Now put those down and help me move the candles. If we burn this place down it’ll be a much bigger mess tomorrow.” He laughs and I find myself laughing too.

“Speaking of mess, you’re helping me clean this up in the morning.” Without realizing it, I think I just insinuated that he was staying the night. Or did I? He could leave then simply come back in the morning. Stop overthinking everything, Y/N. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, I guess.

“Aye, Aye, Captain.”

We spent some time working on the fort, the storm never dying down, but my fear of it moved to the back of my mind with a new focus on creating a masterpiece.

Per Harrison’s suggestion, we hung the larger sheets from my ceiling fan. He had to stand on my stools to reach them while I provided light and was ready incase he fell.

“How am I supposed to catch you if you fall? I feel like we would both get hurt in that situation.”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’d never hurt you.” He looked down with a wink. “Plus. I’m not going to fall.”

“Oh really? You’re that confident huh?”

“No. Well.. yes, but I mean I’m done.” He turns around narrowly on the stool and smiles widely.

He hopped down and surveyed the area before we agreed on connecting the sheets to the taller bar stools and two, currently useless, floor lamps. The kitchen chairs were then used to bring the sheets up just high enough for us to comfortably sit up in. 

“Hey, can you grab something to anchor these sheets? They keep slipping off the chairs.”

“Yeah. One second.” Grabbing a flashlight as a guide I searched for things I thought would be useful before returning to Harrison. “Okay I brought some books that could be weights for the sheets. More ponytail holders to tie them together because we are running low. And some fairy lights from my bookshelf.” I smiled proudly, “I forgot they were battery powered.”

“Great.” I handed him the books and he stopped to observe them in the dim lighting. “Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, The Complete Works of Shakespeare?” 

“Yes?” He looked up at me with a tilted gaze before shaking his head with a smile.

“Nothing.”

“No. What.”

“You’re always holed up in your apartment reading or studying. Which is fine. But it’s okay to have some adventures outside of these pages, you know.”

“What’s the point in that when I could be working towards my future?”

“To have fun.”

“I have fun. I have my own fun.”

“I have no doubts about that, sweetheart. I’m just saying you don’t know what you’re missing. If you’d let yourself loose every once in a while you’d discover there is a lot more than your type of fun.”

“I don’t like to waste my time. But, the power is out and reading in the dark gives me a headache and it’s scary outside so.. Here we are.”

“Here we are.”

We got to work finishing the fort. I grabbed soft blankets and pillows for cushion support on the floor. Harrison draped the fairy lights across the top for ambiance. We brought the two battery powered lanterns I had into the corners for light, too wise to bring a candle inside all of this fabric. We made ourselves comfortable with snacks and battery powered flashlights, leaning back against the pillows, taking in our work of art.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’d say this is a pretty great creation.”

“Oh? Are you a blanket fort aficionado?”

“Maybe I am and I kept that from you. Would that hurt your feelings?”

I took a second to pretend I was pondering the thought, “No.”

His laugh brought a smile to my face involuntarily. Before I knew it I was laughing with him. As the contagious laughter died down another crack of thunder shook the building, erasing my smile immediately.

Harrison must’ve noticed. He simply raised his flashlight against the blanket roof and started making figures with his hands, coming up with elaborate stories for each character. I wanted to act mature and roll my eyes at another childish gesture, but he had my giggling and I couldn’t help notice his smile as well. 

When his story time ended I gave him an applause that led into a moment of silence before another loud crack of thunder. It seemed to be getting worse outside. I rolled onto my stomach, hiding my face in the pillow, trying to escape somewhere calm..

Suddenly, there was a noise repeatedly slamming against the front of my apartment. I jumped again with wide eyes, into a type of plank position as if I was ready to army crawl away from whatever was out there making this noise. “What. Is that?”

“Relax.” Harrison placed a hand on my back attempting to soothe me, “I’m pretty sure it’s your porch swing slamming against the building. The wind must be picking up. Here, I’ll take care of it.”

He crawled over me to exit the fort before I heard my front door open and shut. A moment later I hear him enter again, muttering a few curses under his breath.

“Thank you. What did you do?”

“I unhooked one of the chains so its resting slanted on the ground.”

“Oh. Well that seemed to work. Thank you.” I smiled sheepishly, taking in his wet clothes. The wind could be heard whistling outside and my mind was back on the storm. If he got that drenched from under the awning it must really be coming down out there. Another roll of thunder shook the apartment, tensing my body. “So if you have any ideas for how to stop the thunder I’m all ears.”

“I think you need another distraction, neighbor.”

“Okay, well we’ve made the fort and watched your shadow puppet show. Now what?”

He sat thoughtfully for a moment, trying to come up with something in the days of television and internet. “Is your computer charged?”

“It should be. I keep it plugged in. We don’t have internet though.”

“That’s fine. Go grab your laptop and your favorite DVD.” I grabbed my phone, turned on the flashlight and left to collect the few items in mind. 

“I noticed you got kind of wet outside so I thought you might want to borrow this sweatshirt to stay warm.”

“Oh thanks.” I handed him the oversized sweatshirt from our school and opened my laptop, smiling because it was at 100% battery. “What’d you pick?” glancing back at him I noticed he was mid-change and his abs were literally shining from the rainwater and lamplight. Oh my. Attempting to focus back on his question, I didn’t say any words, only smiling as I showed him the cover of the DVD case to Beauty and the Beast, animated version. “Really?”

“It’s only the best movie ever.”

“Oh is it now?”

“Well that or Tangled. Hard to choose.”

“Who knew that Miss Y/L/N was a Disney fanatic?”

“Who isn’t?”

“Well, okay. I said you could pick.” I let out a tiny shrill of excitement while placing the DVD in the player and got situated on my stomach. Harrison followed suit, though I’m not sure if he was as excited. 

Throughout the movie I held in my desire to sing along, but I couldn’t hold back my adoration and wonder throughout the movie. It doesn’t matter how many times I see the same movie, it never gets old.

“I see why you like this” He spoke up during the scene where Beast showed Belle his library. I loved this part.

“How so?”

“You’re like Belle in many ways. You’re such a bookworm.”

“Oh.”

“I mean, other ways too. I don’t know. I just see it.”

I smiled to myself taking in the compliment; at least I took it as a compliment. “Thank you.”

Somewhere towards the end of the movie I felt myself grow drowsy and made myself more comfortable. I didn’t expect myself to fall asleep, but I must have because when I woke up sometime later Harrison was still wide awake and watching Tangled.

“Well this is a sight to see.” I spoke through the grogginess of sleep, clearly surprising him.

I glanced at the screen to see it was the scene where Repunzel and Flynn Ryder entered the festival in the village; my favorite.

“I like this movie.”

“I like Flynn Ryder.”

“It reminds me of us.” Harrison seemed to be continuing his statement. I looked away from the two dancing on screen to give him a drowsy, yet puzzling look.

“How so?”

“She’s been in her tower her whole life. He helps her break out and takes her on these wild adventures. She’s a little nervous, though she knows deep down it’s what she wants to do. She finally experiences the world. And they have fun.” And fall in love. “You don’t see the parallels?”

“Uhm, now that you mention it, I guess I do.”

We watched the rest of the movie in mostly silence until it ended with my laptop warning of low battery. Harrison closed it and pushed it away as I tried to keep my eyes open.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For tonight. For distracting me. For the fun. For the porch swing. For everything.”

He simply smiled while settling in, himself. “Of course.”

This time I knew I was drifting into sleep, but I welcomed it.

When I woke up my eyes stayed closed. I felt someone’s fingers gently brushing the side of my face, moving my hair behind my ear. I faked sleep a few moments longer, enjoying Harrison’s touch before I let my eyes slowly flutter open and feeling his hand pull away.

“Good morning.” He greeted me.

“Morning.”

“It seems as though the storm has stopped. I think we are going to live.” He smiled. “Just some light rain to deal with today.”

I smiled back at him, the effects of sleep fading from me slowly. “Thank you.”

“You already thanked me last night.”

“I know, but I felt like doing it again.”

“Well, you’re welcome again.”

We sat in silence for a few moments and I tried to fight off the sweet thoughts of sleep that were luring me back in. Suddenly the news could be heard on the television, the lights shined above our heads and little noises could be heard everywhere.

“Looks like the power is back.” He enthused.

“Looks like it. I guess we should get to cleaning this up.” 

Harrison made no effort to move but let out a chuckle instead.

“What?”

“It's okay to lay here for a bit.”

“I know. But I need to charge my phone and-”

“And the world can wait.”

“Yeah but I didn’t get anything done last night so I should really-”

“I am sure it’ll get done.”

“But-”

“But nothing. It’s okay to take a minute for yourself. The world isn’t burning down outside. Well.. actually I haven’t looked since last night. Maybe we should check.”

“Haz!”

“I’m kidding! My point is it’s okay to relax or to have fun. Enjoy others’ company.”

I gave him a small smile and settled back into our makeshift bed on the ground. The television, lights and rumblings faded away along with the thoughts of any responsibility.

“You don’t have to be so responsible all the time.”

“I just want to be productive with my time.”

To that he responded with a light chuckle. When I gave him a puzzled look he answered, “You know, you are scared of thunderstorms, you love Disney movies, I finally convinced you to build a blanket fort with me, but you still try to act so mature. I see you, Y/N. You don’t have to keep up the act. I told you, you’ll always be safe with me.”

We laid there for a little while longer until we decided to finally clean up the place. He left soon after and the guilt of wasted time rushed in. I decided to charge my phone and laptop while throwing out all the now-spoiled food. I heard my phone alert me with a text message, shortly after it turned on.

Harrison:

Look what I found. Just for you.

My heart fluttered at the sweet sentiment and the thoughtful picture. Maybe some storms aren’t so bad after all.

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A/N: Let me know what you think! :) And follow if you liked it.. I’m new but have a lot more planned.