#and also he’s so painfully in love with brandon

[stefisdoingthings]

truly going feral over gungrave y’all trigun fans HAVE to watch it

[vivacissimx]

I know you have analysed them a lot but what is your fav part of rhaelya? And what's a fic idea you would like to write about them?

oh Rhaegar & Lyanna are the reason I joined fandom for the first time, so you know my love for them is special 😅 as for my favorite part: I have probably talked about this before but I'm very touched by the concept of 'human connection in a hurricane.' It's about how chaos causes panic & panic can overwhelm us but it's true purpose is clarity. In the mire of asoiaf political intrigues and betrothals, Rhaelya represents that clarity. In general, I find Rhaelya to be more similar than not (for all the icefire chatting). What do you do when you love your father but he's the reason you can't go home? If the people who love you can't help you or save you, does that turn you cruel or empathetic towards the world? When do/don't we trust?

There is also the obvious which is that Rhaegar & Lyanna fall in together because the other is what they admire. It may seem like a random & sudden pairing but really there's a mirroring from the beginning. Rhaegar sings a song to an audience which doesn't understand—Lyanna cries for a reason her family doesn't get either. Their coming together is about hiding the Knight of the Laughing Tree's identity and in that moment they see each other. Lyanna jousts for Howland—Rhaegar does it for Lyanna. Ostensibly the latter are chivalrous acts (defending the weak/honoring the maiden) but because they're not performed within the usual paradigm as expected these actions are a) reviled and b) reveal what truly motivates the two: Compassion. Justice.

I am also partial to the complication of returns/how leaving a place that is no longer safe is a love story/the moments that beg you to run headlong into them and you, human as can be, make that choice. All of these are part of Rhaelya's story. It's true that Lyanna left her family who she loved. People will say ah she was young, she was stupid, she was blinded by Rhaegar's charisma; but again, this is a moment about clarity. About certainty. Justice is about what happens in the future. Lyanna ran to the future & left behind only those whose love mattered less than their ability to possess her.

Rhaegar I have recently longposted about so it's clear how I formulate him. On the Lyanna part I've definitely said this but basically once the war kicked off there was no way for him to transport Lyanna anywhere without further endangering her and/or him family with Elia—you need to understand that Rhaegar loved his children to understand him at all. That he loved his mother, his father, had seen them broken down & turn apathetic or even cruel towards the world. You need to understand that Lyanna represented a shining light of hope against this backdrop for him. I am also one of the people who believe that Rhaegar & Lyanna's sexual relationship only started after Brandon/Rickard were executed so clearly this is a complex but also painfully simple story about the human heart for me. I love people at their most human. Affirming people's dignity during suffering or crisis is an ethical duty I feel I have towards others. And GRRM did exactly that for Rhaegar and Lyanna, so how can I not love them? I'd ship Rhaelya if I was born in a small Bavarian village in 1753, etc etc.

As for the fic I'd love to write, there are two:

1—

Rhaegar riding through the Riverlands on his way to the Ghost of High Heart. He's with Myles Mooton, Arthur Dayne, Richard Lonmouth, Oswell Whent. They stop at the Inn at the Crossroads. Everyone's laughing and drinking, Myles is flirting with the one pretty barmaid while Rhaegar is ContemplatingTM—Bess is her name. Bess boasts about all the ladies and lordlings who stopped at their inn recently & gives a description of what sounds like Brandon and Lyanna Stark. They enjoy riding out on their lil horses. But, Bess says, the Northern lord didn't like the look of our little lordling so they didn't stay long & haven't been bacj. The girl was kind though! She gave a few coins for the boy after slipping away from her wroth brother. Suddenly, Rhaegar's tuned in and the little lordling is trotted out...

A toddler with black hair and blue eyes. Soon after, the plans change.

2—

Their first meeting including Rhaegar nerding out a bit over meeting a crannogman after Howland uses lite magic to try and help them escape. Benjen & Howland trying to take responsibility for being the KOTLT and failing. Lyanna not just a winter maiden but a stubborn Northern bitch hardened by winter (it's the iron underneath baby!!). Sussing each other out during a long silent stare down. Maybe somebody even cracks a Joke? That kind of thing.

OK long answer 💀 sorry but I can't help myself!

[stratossphere]

Been thinking about ville with an absolute sweetheart of a gf for a good while now…i just LOVE the grumpy X sunshine dynamic sm😭

(Ik hes also a sweetheart when he wants to be but hes also so mopey sometimes💀)

sweetheart | v.v

you manage to drag ville along on errands, and he takes it really well.

warnings: general grouchiness, fluff

word count: 3.3k

a/n: i loved this req! my fav trope ever 🥹

tags: @asskickedbygirl @lieutenant-cinnamon-roll @kissofdawn666 @brandons-wife @valos-venus-doom @ghoulishguns @4377666

— —

Sometimes, you wondered if Ville Valo had been born on the wrong side of the bed. You loved your boyfriend to death, and there was not another person in this world that you would rather be around, but you had never met such a grouchy human being in your entire life.

You'd managed to drag him along for what was mostly a day of errands and just shopping in general, and the man was miserable. Sure, he'd held your hand the entire time, and hadn't refused to do anything that you wanted to do (which you appreciated), but that didn't mean he couldn't complain the whole time.

"I don't understand how this is fun for you. This fucking sucks." He grumbled as you held up another shirt to his chest to gauge whether or not you wanted him to try it on, pouting down at you as you hummed indecisively between the two shirts in your hand. He refused to give any opinions on what he liked and/or disliked, so you were on your own for picking. You'd decided to go into a clothes store despite knowing you were setting yourself up for a shitstorm of whining, because Ville's shirts all had more holes than they didn't, and it was going about how you had expected it to go.

"Lighten up, honey. You're going to have women falling at your feet if you wear the clothes I'm picking out." You said reassuringly, deciding on a shirt and then throwing it over your arm where you had a couple more picked out. He rolled his eyes.

"I don't want women falling at my feet. I want to take a nap." He looked morosely at the pile of shirts you had amassed, and you could already tell that getting him into a dressing room was going to be like pulling teeth. You only reached up to cup the back of his head so that he leaned down before you kissed his cheek, getting in three before he pulled back.

"Well, at least these'll be comfortable to nap in." That was your consolation, because it's not like he was really going to listen to anything else you could've said, anyway. "If I come in with you, will you please try these on?"

"Ugh. Fine." Sometimes, he kind of reminded you of an angsty teenager. You only smiled and took his hand back where you'd slipped yours out to sort through shirts, leading him towards the dressing rooms so that you could force him to give you a mini fashion show that you knew he would hate.

Once you had coerced him into a dressing room and had the door shut, Ville immediately dropped down on the bench, looking like he'd just been through a torture chamber. You hung your shirt collection on a hook so that you could hand them to him one by one, crossing your arms when he didn't move from where he was sitting.

"Ville. You have to try on the shirts." You reminded him of your agreement, not falling for his miserable look because it wasn't going to make you change your mind either way. He groaned.

"But this is so boring. Why do I have to try them on if you know my size already?" He insisted, essentially throwing a fit as he shot a glare at the shirt already in your hand. You just laughed, because he was almost painfully dramatic, before running a hand over his hair.

"Because I want to see how handsome you look." You cooed, handing over the first shirt and then motioning for him to get up so that you could sit and watch him change. "And hey. I'm having fun."

"Yeah. That's because you like torturing me." Like you said, dramatic. You were still laughing, and it only got worse as you listened to him huff the whole time he was pulling his extremely-ratty shirt over his head.

"If this is what you consider torture, I'm worried about how you function in real life." You teased, appreciating the sight of him shirtless paired with the extremely-low waist of his jeans as he finished getting his shirt off. It was easier to deal with his attitude when you had such a beautiful sight in front of you.

You went through each shirt slowly, mostly because it took about a minute of him fighting you on it, but eventually he'd tried on every single one. And, low and behold, every single one looked good on him. Who would've ever been able to guess.

"Mm. You are so handsome." You hummed as he peeled off the last shirt that he had been forced to try on, wrapping an arm around his waist just over his belt while you grinned up at him. "Give me a kiss."

"I'm glad you find this so funny." He muttered as he gave you your requested kiss, getting caught when your arm wrapped around his neck so that he couldn't get away when you pressed multiple kisses to his lips.

"I don't find it funny. I'm having a good time because I love you." You rephrased, rubbing your thumb over his cheek before you let him go. "Even though you're being whiney."

"Am not." The implication apparently offended him despite the fact that whining was all he'd been doing relentlessly all day, but he took your hand when you offered it to him regardless.

"Whatever you say, baby. I promise we're almost done."

Well, that was until you were walking down the street, bags in Ville's hand after he refused to let you carry anything, and you realized that you were on the same street as Kari Valo's sex shop.

"Oh! Let's go say hi to your dad!" You said excitedly. You'd just been at Ville's parents' house three days ago for dinner, but you never passed up an opportunity to at least pop into the store to say hi when you had the chance. Ville let out the world's loudest groan right there in the middle of the street, holding you back by his grip on your hand.

"We just saw him. The man is going to talk your ear off." He pointed out not untruthfully, and you knew that if he had a watch, he would've been checking it. Ville was on old person time when it came to how long he allowed himself (and you, by association) to be out and about. You scoffed.

"He's your dad. You'll survive." You yanked him right along then, ignoring his grumbles of complaint as you crossed the street with a perfected skill. You liked to remind yourself of the hours upon hours you'd spent watching him make the same sound repeatedly in a studio into the late hours of the night when everyone else had gone home when he started getting impatient. Once whatever activity you forced him into beat that, then he could complain all he wanted.

Kari was stocking when you stepped into the shop, but when he turned around and saw you walking in with his macabre son dragging along behind you, he was immediately on his feet.

"Oh! My dear! I didn't know you two were around!" He said ecstatically, pulling you into a hug as soon as you were close enough. Once you had been squeezed into breathlessness, he pulled back and eyed up his older son. "I see you brought the moper with you."

"I'm not deaf." Ville said dryly as he was also pulled into a bone-crushing hug, his unimpressed glare making its way back to you over his father's shoulder. Kari tutted.

"Why must you torture my poor daughter-in-law with your attitude?" He asked, clapping his son on the shoulder before he was motioning for the both of you to come further into the store. "What are you two up to today?"

"I got the crust-punk wannabe some new clothes considering his were literally falling apart at the seams." You revealed, ignoring Ville's disgruntled look at being called a crust-punk wannabe in favor of taking the bags from his hands. "You're not going to believe it, but some of these aren't even black."

"I was forced. I've been in shopping malls all fucking day." Ville added on, shaking his head at the thought as he leaned against the check-out counter to watch as you pulled out his new shirts to show Kari. Kari only snorted.

"That's a good thing. Maybe she'll finally be able to reform you into a suitable dresser." He teased. Well, half of the shirts you'd bought him had a band logo on them, because there's no way you would've been able to convince him to wear all nice shirts, but the idea was there.

"Yeah. Can't you tell?" You pointed to where the collar of Ville's t-shirt had started to rip away from the rest of the shirt material, leaving a long, thin hole between the two parts. Of course, he absolutely refused to throw it away, so the hole only continued to get bigger considering he wore the shirt around three times a week.

"I think you look like a homeless person when you wear stuff like that." Kari said disapprovingly, waving off the holes in Ville's clothes as he shook his head. Ville rolled his eyes, clearly building a retort, but you just laughed.

"Hey. He's still devilishly handsome." You defended your boyfriend, your grin widening because 'devilishly handsome' pulled a small chuckle out of Ville as you wrapped an absentminded arm around his waist and hooked one of your fingers in his belt loop.

You continued to talk to Kari for quite a while (although you loved Ville's dad, Ville was right in saying that he really knew how to talk your ear off) until he eventually shooed you out of the store so that he could be with customers and so that you two could 'go spend some time outside'. Which, much to Ville's relief, meant that you could finally go home.

"Well? Did you survive your horrible day?" You asked with dramatically-feigned sympathy, swinging both of your arms back and forth where you were holding his hand between the two of you as you walked. Ville shot you a look, squeezing your hand softly.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm having fun." And he sounded genuine, too. You let out a sigh, half of exasperation and half of disbelief, as you looked back at him. How in the world could someone even try to enjoy themselves when they did as much complaining as he did?

"You are so ridiculous. People probably think I'm torturing you." Or maybe that you were being tortured, considering how intimidating Ville's frowning could be. It didn't much affect you anymore unless he was really mad, but other people didn't have to deal with him whining in dressing rooms, so you had the upper hand. "If you're having such a good time, does that mean we can do more stuff?"

"No." See? Exactly what you thought. He yanked you by your hand until you were close enough for him to wrap his arm around your waist, holding you close so that you had no choice but to be stuck in his grasp. "You've been banned for the day."

"You know, I would get a lot more done if you weren't such a downer all the time." You huffed, leaning against his shoulder despite your words and grinning despite your best intentions as his thumb rubbed over your hip. He rolled his eyes, scoffing it off.

"You still love me even though I am." He said, sounding sure of himself as he led you along quickly like he was afraid that if you were able to read any shop names, you would've diverted off the path to home. You chuckled.

"Yeah. Sure." Your voice was barely a mumble, but of course he still heard you, and then he was squeezing your hip a lot tighter as he looked over at you with an eyebrow raised and a challenging look on his face.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Would you like to explain to me how I'm wrong?" He was, as always, completely straight-faced as he spoke, but you could see the amusement playing in his eyes, and you couldn't bite back your grin because you knew you were lying out of your ass by insinuating that you didn't love him despite his grouchy tendencies. You let out an overdramatic groan, squirming in his grasp.

"Fine! No!" You complained, laughing through your attempted groan as you tried and failed to get out of his grip and instead just ended up almost stumbling on the sidewalk. "I still love you even though you complain about everything and never let me do anything fun."

"Hey. I'm fun, and I let you do me all the time." He refuted, a hint of a grin cracking on his lips when you reached your slightly-cold fingers up to shove them into the crook of his neck.

"You keep telling yourself that, baby."

—

When you finally made it back to your shared apartment, Ville acted as if he had survived the gauntlet and had made it to safety in the way he immediately dropped facedown onto the couch. You snickered as you shut the door behind you, coming after him slower and leaning over the back of the couch to rub a hand up his back.

"My poor baby. Are you gonna survive?" You cooed, smiling when he hummed softly at the feeling of your nails scratching his back. When you didn't get a response in return, you decided you were going to have to force one out of him. So, while he was off his game and not looking at you, you rolled over the back of the couch and landed square on top of him. "Hey! I asked you a question!"

"Jesus fuck!" He groaned at the feeling of your sudden weight crushing him down into the couch, your laughing almost overpowering the sound as you struggled to pin him down so that he couldn't wrestle out from underneath you. "Get off!"

"Make me!" You cried, struggling against him as he tried to flip you over so that he had the upper hand. You used your knee to hold him down as you startled to tickle him, working your fingers under his shirt to tickle his sides where you knew he was the most sensitive. He let out a sound that was between a laugh and a gasp at the feeling, his face making an appearance out of the couch as he babbled for you to cease your assault.

"Alright! I'll say sorry or something! Stop fucking tickling me!" He cried out his surrender when he finally got a hand out against your chest to push you away, his voice barely audible over your breathless laughter. You sat straddling his hip where he was still lying down sideways, grabbing his wrist with both hands and holding his arm just in case he attempted to try anything on you while you still had the upper hand.

"Alright. Let's hear it, then." You goaded, motioning for him to continue. When his face screwed up in confusion, you raised your eyebrows. "I wanna hear your sorry or I'm going to keep tickling, so it better be good."

"Sorry you're a psycho." Of course, Ville could never just simply admit his faults and beg for forgiveness like any good boyfriend should, and all you could do was tsk in amused (but not surprised) discontent before you stuck your fingers under his shirt to tickle him again.

"What was that, honey? It's a little hard to hear you when I've got your ass pinned." You sang, catching just a glimpse of his fiery, eyeliner-accentuated glare as he struggled between laughing and trying to get out from underneath you. He failed the latter at the hands of the former, however, and all he did was continue to subject himself to your torture before he finally tapped out against your leg.

"Okay! Okay! I'll say it for real." He groaned, his voice breathless as he finally got ahold of your wrist before ripping your hand out from under his tattered shirt. You just beamed down at him, allowing him to keep his hold on your wrist because it was the closest thing you were going to get to him actually holding your hand.

"Make it good or I'll tickle you until you cry." You threatened sweetly, lifting his hand where it was still gripped tightly around your wrist to press a kiss to the top of it. He scoffed out a laugh at that, turning as best he could with your weight still on his hip so that he could look at you before he sighed.

"I'm sorry I'm a dick and that I make you deal with me all the time." He caved, not able to keep a grin from spreading to his lips when you caught him trying to worm a hand underneath you so that he could shove you off. When you gave him an expectant look, his grin widened. "...and I also love you dearly and will do whatever you want."

"Aww, that was such a terrible apology. Thank you." You teased, finally lifting off of him just enough to let him roll onto his back so that he wasn't pinned before you laid right back down on top of him and gave him a soft kiss. "Are you really going to do whatever I want?"

"No. I'm going to do what's good for you." He then shifted you so that you were trapped between his body and the couch, his arms wrapping tightly around you and completely caging you in where there was zero room for you to move. You sighed, accepting your fate and sliding one arm out to rest over his side just underneath his shirt.

"Yeah? And what's good for me?" You asked, feigning interest as you used his shoulder to muffle your laughing whilst trying to hold up your unimpressed front. Your stomach was starting to hurt from so much laughing, and it's not like he was doing anything to go easy on you. He let out a hum, nuzzling his nose against your cheek as your nails scratched gently at his back.

"A nap." Who could've possibly guessed that he was going to say that. Suspicious that a nap was best for you considering he'd been whining about wanting to take one all day. You leaned into him as he kissed softly at your cheek, knowing there was no way you were getting out of a nap now but intending on fighting him on it just for your own entertainment.

"I'm not tired. You want to take a nap." You rephrased, rubbing your foot against his and then snickering when he tried to shove said foot away from him. His apology for being a dick had clearly just been an easy out from being tickled, because here he was right back at it again.

"Shh. Just go to sleep." He muttered, clearly not listening to what you were saying as he yawned and stretched out further with his arms still around you and his legs half over yours. There wasn't a lot of room for the both of you on the couch, but he was clearly taking up every inch he could get. "I love you."

"I love you too." You hummed, rolling your eyes at his clingy behavior before just getting comfortable underneath his weight and reasoning that a nap really didn't sound too terrible anyway. "When you get up, I'm gonna make you do a movie night with me."

"Mhm. Whatever you want, my love."

[crescentmoon-flower]

Rewatching winx season 4 for nostalgia and realizing how wierd some things are

Ep. 5

And even though they said they don't want attention, they're flying?

Homeless man cameo at perfect irony point

...I just noticed this but why do they always stand on their toes when in fairy form?

I feel sorry for roxy, imagine being told that not only are you a different species than you thought, but also the balance of the entire world is riding on you.

What are duman's transformation limits?

This whole break in and set a trap is actually clever, if only the trap was better

Cute kiko

Why did they all kneel if only Ogron cast the spell?

Ok that interaction between riven and Brandon was cute.

They kind of already do, except nabu though, he looks like a monk

Well at least helia's got his priorities straight

Also nice world building, gardenia is expensive to live in

Riven defying physics with a newspaper, also smart for looking at newspaper adds

Sassy brandon

You know what, not a bad idea to try mechanics

MR. OIL THE MECHANIC

Also I love how nabu didn't change and still looks like a monk and the mechanic isn't questioning it

Oh my god this is painfully awkward

Did Riven break the hood of that car?

Ok that has got to be illegal or at least questionable, did they file tax before giving blooms parents their investment back?

Eh, I'm not going to question these details

Oh my god musa PRINTED the pictures of Stella half awake

Also this is a very fair concern to have when dealing with animals, they didn't mention some of the darker things that could happen to a pet after adoption but it is always a valid thing to keep in mind

Wow, mitzi is annoying

At least they came to the correct conclusion, but aren't they going to question how the wizards managed to cast the spell?

Property damage nullifies the closed sign Stella put up

I don't think what's good or bad for business is relevant when propert damage or bodily harm are bigger concerns

Did duman have to get close to cat the spell? It's seems redundant and frankly an unnecessary risk

... did.. did anagan get rid of the Sound waves with sound waves????

What even were either of those spells bloom? They did like nothing

ALIENS!!!!! I mean he's technically not wrong though

Ok creative Stella good job

Riven raising good points

Ditching jobs, to shame

Aw naw! Oh my god gantlos sounds adorable

What was gantlos's idea?

Thank you timmy, thievery is bad boys

HOLY SHIT

Ok Riven, and probably all the boys, shouldn't be driving

Oh my god this interaction is so awkward and honestly I feel for mitzi here, she literally knows nothing and suddenly they're at her door

Flirting

aisha and nabu are adorable

Oh no, mitzi and her obsesion

Both stella and Brandon are in the wrong here

"A girl never let's her Prince charming go" Ironic

I mean an actual valid reason for being fired

....I feel awful for only now noticing timmy wasn't there, but also why wasn't he?

Ep.6

Half packed apartment, realistic

I don't know how to feel about watching Stella eat for several unnecessary seconds

Huh didn't expect musa to be the most invested in the book

Also I wish we had more world building for believix, I have so many questions

Noooooo, helia's hair cut

SASSY BRANDON

Ok Riven is my spirit animal

Stalker nightmare

Note, if someone is doing something you don't like and makes you uncomfortable you have every right to tell them to stop, no matter their feelings

Tecna has good points

Aisha your great, never change

Oh my god are they seriously painting with several colours on top of each other wet?? This is a disaster

Uhhhng, this second hand embarrassment is horrible

Thank you tecna for stating the obvious

That's creepy, just knock girls

Roxy you are acting suspicious

What was Stella hanging from?

Well their tone changed drastically

Also roxy, crazy people are dangerous

What is this silent conversation between bloom and roxy

Well that could've gone far worse

You lost one group of loonies and found another

Oh my god roxy needs therapy after this

Also irony for artu to bite duman

I love Cute villains

Bouncy light, makes sense

Aisha? Love you

Creepy duman love it

Holy shit ogron is strong

I love ogro

Get the poor girl some therapy

Roxy your awesome, insult them more

I do actually love believix, it looks really pretty and has a nice concept

Roxy looks pissed

Ah, cliff hanger

[koravelliumavast]

I posted 4,761 times in 2022

That's 4,731 more posts than 2021!

2,053 posts created (43%)

2,708 posts reblogged (57%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@dustbringermoash

@lordofscars

@isdalinarhot

@stardustravens

@jewishdainix

I tagged 3,814 of my posts in 2022

Only 20% of my posts had no tags

#cosmere - 727 posts

#brandon sanderson - 619 posts

#stormlight archive - 479 posts

#books - 241 posts

#mistborn - 221 posts

#kaladin stormblessed - 186 posts

#adolin kholin - 155 posts

#tlm spoilers - 149 posts

#kelsier - 129 posts

#the lost metal spoilers - 116 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#chem lab practical. this is one of the exams but i’m confident that i may know what i’m doing but i also don’t know what it’s about exactly

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Screw the whitespine uncaged THIS is one of the best parts of words of radiance

See the full post

688 notes - Posted April 29, 2022

#4

When people bash tua because every seasons the same and why is it another apocalypse and blah blah blah just admit you’re boring and don’t like fun and the irony that no matter what they do to fix the timeline and shit, they’re still going to have an apocalyptic world ending event caused by one of them.

747 notes - Posted July 16, 2022

#3

I love that almost instantly after the Percy Jackson book was announced that people were like Percy could just say I saved you like a shit ton of times, you offered me immortality easy but COLLEGE LETTERS is where you draw the line and make me go on a quest?

754 notes - Posted October 19, 2022

#2

Probably The best Stormlight Archives review I’ve seen because it’s complaining about everything that I liked about the series but it’s also hilariously true:

“This book is mind-bogglingly bad. I'm always looking for fantasy books and I knew this was very popular so, after a few years I've decided to try it. I can stomach the childish depiction of characters but I cannot bring myself to accept the utter idiocy of the setting. The opening is painfully bad: an all powerful assassin kills a king and his guard by having superpowers taken straight out of videogames. Then we are introduced with the hero, who, of course, rejects the greatest conceivable honour in the world out of pure spite. He is then spared his life out of sheer plot armour, and the reader is left wondering why he hasn't been killed for constant rebellion. His mates are all killed, but he survives because, oh, he's sooo special. Slaves are paid a living wage so that there is a way for the hero to earn money because it's needed by the story. When the hero screws up, his senior officers are killed immediately but he's instead given a chance to survive, and, not very surprisingly, he does. Then there is a war in the Shattered Plains: for six years the warriors, instead of fighting, go looking for overgrown shrimps to steal the enormous emeralds that grow inside of them. I kid you not, this is the primary purpose of the war: not beating the enemy but killing the shrimps while they're pupating (to turn into what, an enormous blowfly?) before the enemy slays it. The entire strategy works like this: the entire army is sitting idly, wearing fashionable scarves and drinking wine. A horn sounds in the distance announcing that a shrimp has been found. The warriors scramble to arrive first, before the enemy but, more importantly, before the other commanders. The moronicity of the portable bridges defies belief. The idiocy never seem to finish: soldiers with organic armour, illiterate kings with learned wives, even the regular storms that make magic. The hero, of course, discover magic that has been hidden in plain sight for countless years. In a specific kingdom, people live with feet constantly in two inches of water. In another, people eat horns and shells. For some reason, on a different planet, people know of Japanese katas. I could go on for hours: avoid this book.”

875 notes - Posted May 23, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

You know what isn’t talked about enough? The fact that Adolin is terrifying. Because in fanfics Adolin isn’t super scary but Adolin made his enemies summon fearspren when he was outnumbered 4-1. In Sadeas’ pov after the duel it says that Adolin TERRIFIED Sadeas.

976 notes - Posted October 1, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[throwsomecheeseonit]

20 years of clean- Chapter 16 (part 1)

After getting some rest, I jumped in the shower cleaning everything off of me from the night before. Not just dirt but yesterday's anxieties, fears and pain. Today is a new day and I wanted to start it fresh. The hot water poured over me and I stood there in complete peace with myself, how I felt and what I was going to do about it. I threw on a robe and headed out to the kitchen. Brandon wasn't awake yet or at least that's what his closed bedroom door indicated. I poured myself a cup of joe and decided to cook us breakfast. There was still a ton of pre-made meals, but a homemade meal comes from the heart, and this is how I show affection. Food is my love language or acts of kindness for the ones I love. Did I love him, ashamed to admit it, I did. Would this work? I don't know. For now, we will keep the love revelation to myself at fear of scaring him. It just wasn't the right time to divulge that.

I jumped at the front door jiggling. Brandon walked in shirtless and sweaty. "Sorry. went for a run," apologizing for making me jump. "It smells good in here," motioning to the stove. "I thought I would make some breakfast. Do you like French toast?," tip toeing around the elephant in the room. " French toast is my favorite. I'm just gonna jump in the shower. Be right back." He turned on his heel and hell if I didn't watch him walk away. The muscles in his back flexed every time he took a step. I fan myself off with the spatula, it just got 10x hotter in this apartment it seemed like. I turned the knob on the oven to the off position and took my coffee out to the balcony. The crisp autumn air cool blanketed me and I could feel it penetrating my thin robe. When I heard some rustling around in the apartment, I went back in to find Brandon loading a plate with French Toast. "These smell really good." He smiled at me, and I smiled back. "Thank you. Have as much as you like. Can I get you something to drink?" "I'm just gonna get some Orange juice. Thanks though." This conversation was painfully polite. I couldn't help but notice that he hadn't made any attempt to touch me or give me a kiss. He always finds an excuse to touch me when I'm close but not this morning. The conversation from last night was the culprit no doubt.

We sat at the kitchen island about 3 feet apart. "How did you sleep?" he asked me. "Slept fine," taking a sip of my coffee. "And you." "Not very well, " his eyes staring at his plate. "I'm sorry to hear that." There was silence until we finished our food. This was my chance, my move to show him how I felt, and I hesitated but stood up and approached him. I turned his chair around, so he was facing me and got comfortable between his legs. I planted a soft kiss on his lips, barely any pressure applied. "About last night. I'm so-," before he could finish, I cut him off. "You don't need to apologize. You were right. But I think you need to understand that I've wanted this to happen. I've wanted you for so long that I don't want to do anything to jeopardize it," unconsciously rubbing his arm. He crossed his arms behind my back and pulled me in closer to him. "I understand." The blues of his eyes were a mixture of gray and navy. The color of storm clouds. The most beautiful eyes I've ever seen, staring back at me with such sincerity it made me want to cry. "This is new for you. For me, it's been a dream of mine since we were teenagers in school." I started to blush because saying those words out loud was embarrassing. His embrace got even tighter around my hips, if that was possible. "Please be patient with me," I looked down at his chest because looking him in the eyes became impossible. Vulnerability was and has always been difficult for me. He just nodded his head giving me his full attention. "This is how I'm showing my affection. Making you breakfast. Finally, telling you how I feel. I also want to show you." His pupils dilated and he loosen his grip from my waist. My fingers traveled to the belt of my robe where I intended to untie it. Brandons eyes got wider, and he shifted upright in his chair obviously not expecting a strip tease. "Last night made me think long and hard about what you said and if you're done taking it slow, so am I." Opening my robe, my naked form staring him right in the face, and letting the fabric fall to the floor. I looked up at him thru hooded eyes, completely terrified but horny as hell. He looked me up and down taking in what I wanted him to have and swallowing predominately when he was done surveying. "Are you sure," he made a final attempt at being a gentleman before we devoured each other. "I'm very sure," nodding my head. He gave me a devilish grin and then placed his hand on my neck pulling me in towards his mouth. He wasn't working up to anything his mouth slammed into mine with the pressure of a category 5 hurricane. His tongue crashed into mine colliding in the most languid seductive way. My body pressing into his fully clothed form, trying to inch closer and closer until we melted into each other. He stood up, not letting me or my mouth go. HIs hand gripped my ass and willed me to jump up and wrap my legs around his waist, carrying me to the bedroom and laying me softly on the bed. "Fuck, you're beautiful," he purred when he finally let me go. In one swift motion he pulled his shirt over his head and took his lounge shorts off. Greek Gods have nothing on this man. His muscles looked carved by an artist so symmetrical, perfect. He was tan and there was a small smattering of chest hair that starting in the middle of his chest trailing down to his groin. I gripped the sheets in anticipation of his bodies return to mine. I bit my bottom lip as he crawled back on top of me. This reality was even better than the sex dream I had about him. HIs lips made contact with mine once again while he cupped my breast. Softly kneading and the feeling sent shivers all thru my body. He rolled the nub of my nipple in between his fingers until it hardened under his finger tips. I moaned into his kiss and arched my back wanting more. "God you feel better than I imagined," he whispered between breaths. HIs hand traveled between my thighs to my clit where he softly motioned in circles. "I think I'm going to cum already." "Shhh, don't cum yet. We just got started baby."

[hockeyboysimagines]

The second time you fall in Love

Chapter 2

Warnings: mentions of low self esteem, bad relationships, grooming, language. I think that’s it.

Wow! I’m so happy you guys liked the first chapter. Here is the second! Please let me know what you think-💕

“I wanna hear about this hot chick Seggy met on the plane.” Roope said with a smile, as he chucked a ball of tape at Esa.

Tyler rolled his eyes.

He had made one comment about Ava and the guys had made it a state occasion. He’d thought about her the rest of the day, while he unpacked and greeted his dogs, who had been brought down a week or so prior and had been watched by his trusty dog sitter, and before he went to bed. He hadn’t been able to find a single social media page under her name, and there was so many schools in Dallas he wasn’t even sure where to start.

He laid in bed that night, replaying the plane ride over and over again. She’s been friendly and receptive to his flirting, but it was painfully obvious to see her guard was up from a mile away. It was girls like Ava who, in his experience, usually suffered at the hands of some douche who didn’t know the proper way to treat a lady, and therefore ruined it for everyone else.

Tyler considered himself to be something of a gentleman, and he was sure if you asked any of the girls he’d been involved with they would have good things to say about him.

At least he thought so.

“Will you guys lay off? I barely know the girl. We just talked.”

“Well if she’s as hot as you say she is, maybe you should try to get to know her.”

“I’m due time boys, due time.”

“Your awfully sure of yourself huh?” Big Rig asked from his seat. He was smiling, but he was also challenging.

Something Tyler would never turn down. He had a reputation for being smooth, almost too smooth for his own good sometimes, but Ava wasn’t falling for it.

She was different.

And he didn’t wanna charm her. He just really wanted to know her. Even after talking for three straight hours, and then another three during the flight she was basically a mystery.

A mystery he was determined to solve.

*********

Ava had gone into work early to organize her classroom. After 3 hours she had basically everything done, and was packing up to head home.

“Hi friend!”

Marcy, the other 7th grade teacher, and one of her closest friends in Dallas, bounced into her room and sat on a spinning chair in front of her world map.

“How was your flight?”

“Oh it was fine. I’m tired but I wanted to get this done before school starts next week.”

“Yeah same. Did you get the itinerary for the first half of the year? Field trips and stuff.”

“I did but I haven’t read it yet.”

They chatted for a while before they packed up and walked out together, promising to get together before school started. Ava headed home, greeting Molly and changing into comfortable clothing. They were heading out for a while.

It was beautiful out, warm and sunny, typical end of summer in Dallas, and the streets were bustling as they made their way downtown.

Ava absently thought for a moment about Tyler, before Brandon reared his ugly head and Tyler’s face faded away.

She wondered sometimes if Brandon would hinder the rest of her life, in all aspects, and if his stupid face would forever challenge her day to day.

A first love, no matter how unsuccessful or painful, or hard it was, was something that usually stuck with you for a while.

She had been so desperate for him to feel what she did, she had accepted all his bad behaviors with open arms, turning a blind eye to the red flags that were waving frantically in her face.

He had been different in the beginning, sweet and thoughtful, and just charming enough to hook her and reel her in, where she stayed tangled in this web she couldn’t seem to get out of.

She sometimes felt like if she had put him in his place, or even tried things could have been different, but she realized now years later that he wouldn’t have cared one way or another.

While he was the first real love of her life, she was nothing more than a play thing to him. Her parents had warned her, forbid the relationship, and begged her to give him up. Her friends had done everything in their power to expose the things he was doing when she wasn’t around, but it had all been in vain: she didn’t want to hear any of it. And every facet of her “Relationship “ with Brandon was why she would not, could not get involved with another smooth talking, good looking, guy like Tyler Seguin. She knew the rumors, and while stuff like that wasn’t always true, the stories were enough to send her running away with her tail between her legs.

She shook her head and pushed Brandon back down where he belonged, bringing her mind back to the present. But, with a tiny smile, she realized that for the first time, Brandon wasn’t the only person swimming in the back of her brain.

Tyler was there too, very faint, almost not at all, but he was there. She had, had six wonderful hours with him and in those hours she forgot Brandon existed really. She knew he was there, but Tyler made her feel like a normal person during that time. Not someone who spent all her time, thinking she wasn’t good enough. Maybe one day she could be okay.

But today was not that day.

*********

The sun was shining, the weather was great, and Tyler was a happy guy. He had all three of the boys out for a walk, and they were sniffing around enjoying the smells of summer.

He was still thinking about Ava, for the first time in a long time, he didn’t notice girls staring at him, or crop tops or short shorts. He had to figure out a way to see her again. He felt a little like a stalker, but if it meant he would get to see her again he would do whatever it took.

He was startled slightly when he heard Gerry bark, and the other three perk up, tails wagging.

He looked up and smiled.

A beautiful black lab was prancing towards them, eyes bright and friendly, tail wagging frantically. She had a purple collar on, and a broken leash hanging off of it. She had warm brown eyes, and a thick silky coat. Tyler bent down as she approached.

“Hi there.” She sniffed at his extended hand, and then at the boys.

“Molly!”

That voice.

He knew that voice.

He whipped his head up, and was pleased to find the voice belonged to exactly who he thought it did.

Ava was jogging towards him, and stopped dead when she saw him bent down in front of her dog. Tyler straightened up and gulped.

Ava had been covered by leggings and a long sleeve shirt, leaving a lot to Tyler’s imagination. But that was no longer true. The first thing he noticed was a pair of long legs, one being covered from the top of her thigh to ankle in a beautiful, intricate black and grey tattoo. He felt the heat rise in his chest as he examined the rest of her. She was definitely hot, as if he didn’t know that already. She smiled slowly.

“I don’t believe this.” She said, shaking her head. She walked forward, and clipped a different leash to Molly’s collar, who sat wagging her tail as she looked between them.

“Molly….this is your roommate?”

She laughed and nodded “She is. I see you have some roommates of your own.” She paid attention to each of the boys, and Tyler watched with practical heart eyes as they melted under her touch.

Something about girls and labs.

“So does this mean you’ll give me your number now?” He said with a mischievous look. She pursed her lips, and looked up thinking for a moment before he added “Or at least come with us for the rest of our walk.”

She looked apprehensive at first but nodded slowly “Okay. To the walk that is. I haven’t decided about my number yet.”

“Guess I’ll take what I can get.” They began walking, and slowly but surely a Tyler got her out of her shell. They talked about dogs, her job, and the upcoming season. But the time they made it to the dog park, which is where they’d both been heading, Tyler had the animalistic unbearable urge to grab her and kiss her, but he felt like that would be counter productive, so he kept his hands and his lips to himself.

“Nice work by the way.” He said nodding at her leg. She glanced down and then her eyes moved to his arm.

“You too. Do you go around here?”

“No I have a guy I go to in Boston. You?”

“I get all my work done in Toronto. I’ve been working on this for three summers now.”

“It’s pretty sweet. I’m sure your students love it. I wish my teachers had tattoos when I was in school. I might’ve paid more attention. She rolled her eyes, but a faint blush pooled in her cheeks.

“So listen.” He began, scratching his neck “Im having some people over to celebrate the start of the season. You should come.”

That was a lie. He had no plans on having a party, but if it got him more time with her, he would throw ten of them.

Ava felt panic rose in her chest, like hot water coming to a boil and tried to keep her cool. No no NO her brained screamed at her.

The last party she’d been to had been her ultimate undoing and she’d stayed away from social settings since then, not wanting to relive that night. But on the other hand, Tyler was looking at her so hopeful it actually felt wrong to say no.

“Uhm. I don’t- I don’t know, that’s not really…my scene.”

“Come on. Don’t be lame. It’ll be fun.” He gave her a gentle push and tossed the ball, watching the dogs chase after it.

“Those dogs are beautiful.” A voice interrupted. They turned to find an older lady, smiling at them as she watched the dogs play “But you definitely have your hands full.”

“Oh they-We are-“

“You all look so nice together! Very cute little family.” She gushed, turning away to her own dog. Ava felt a deep blush pool in her cheeks, and turned to find Tyler grinning.

“Your enjoying this aren’t you?”

“A little. She’s not wrong you know. It does look nice together. The dogs that is.” He added smiling cheekily.

She sighed and bit her lip. He was still looking hopefully “So? Party….what do you think?”

“Tyler I-“

“If your not a party person.” He said quickly, cutting her off “We could always do something else.”

“Something else?” She said skeptically “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Hang out, go for a drive, you could bring Molly over to play.” He said nudging his chin forward. Molly and Cash were rolling around together like old friends, while Gerry and Marshall played tug of war with a stick.

The idea of a party was enough to get her heart going but the thought of hanging out with him? Alone? That would be a full blown panic attack. Normally she would have politely refused, made an excuse, or just blatantly ignored the question in the nicest way possible but before she could change her mind she said

“Sure.”

Tyler looked confused for a minute, before a beautiful, heart wrenching smile spread across his face. It was the kind of smile that she was sure helped him get his way more often than not. But it was also real, and genuine, and she hadn’t seen a smile like that in a very long. Least of all not directed at her.

“Wait really? Okay cool…uh scratch that party thing. Why don’t you bring Molly over Friday? Like a date…..a dog date that is.” He added when Ava’s head whipped towards him. She was forced then, as she hadn’t thought it through, into giving him her number. He had this look of triumph on his face as she slowly handed him the phone back, which he tried to hide.

They said they’re goodbyes and Ava immediately regretted making plans with him before he was even out of sight. What was she thinking? Was she on drugs? Did she want to be?

Dark angry thoughts swirled around her head, turning into a raging storm before she could grab an umbrella. She felt so dumb. There was no logical reason that an NHL player, Tyler Seguin no less wanted anything to do with her other than 1. He felt sorry for her 2. He just wanted to add another person to his list of conquests. She was filled with dread as she walked home, mind so consumed with thoughts of Brandon and her past she felt like she was going to suffocate or throw up.

Over the next two days, she picked up her phone at least ten times to cancel, but never went through with it. She figured in the end that she could get through one hangout, and he would realize she wasn’t going to sleep with him and how incredibly boring she was and he’d be done with her.

She laid in bed Thursday, eyes closed but she wasn’t asleep. Molly was asleep by her feet, but her mind was a million miles away.

When she had met Brandon, the allure of him mostly came from the fact that he should have been so unattainable for her. He was 21, a bad boy, and generally someone who should have been kept far away from impressionable young girls.

But then he smiled at her.

Her heart had stopped, her brain had melted, and she had turned into a puddle of goo, and that is how the story began.

It had been as you would expect. He showered her with attention, enough to get her hooked. Then he started slowly pushing his luck. She was an inexperienced, 18 year old virgin who had just graduated high school. She didn’t know anything about boys, or sex, or how to have a relationship. And he capitalized on that.

He insisted he never felt this way about any other girl and that she was different. Looking back on things, she was too blinded by first love to realize that he was slowly turning her world inside out. By the time they were 6 months in, he had her brain so twisted she didn’t know which way was up. She thought it was completely natural that she heard from him once every four or five days, or that he would never ever leave his phone lying around for her to see, or that when she did see him she never questioned why he smelled like perfume.

It was embarrassing now to say the least. At 18, she was walking around thinking her life was great and she would live happily ever after while everyone else was looking at her like a schmuck. It scared her to know that someone like him could have so much control over her with a three stupid words he had never meant.

She shuddered and rolled over. She would spend time with Tyler tomorrow, but that would be where it ended. School was starting the following week, and his season would start soon after that and he would forget she even existed by then.

She hoped anyways.

Brandon had never really had to pursue her, she’d made things all too easy so for Tyler to be this interested in getting to know her was something she wasn’t sure how to deal with. Did he want to be friends? She could do friends. As long as things stayed platonic she would be fine.

Right?

**********

Tyler was bouncing off the walls. Ava would be coming over with Molly in a little less than an hour, and he was pumped. As stand-offish as she was to him, there was something about her that he just had to figure out.

Like who had scarred her for life.

It was painfully obvious, and while Tyler could sympathize he could never truly understand. He had never been in love, and he had never been shattered and those were two things he could tell she had been. Whatever had happened to Ava had left very deep, very painful scars across her very soul. It made him sad. Sad to know that someone who had such an impact on him in such a short time, had been treated so badly by someone before him.

He wasn’t a fighter, but he really wanted to punch this guy in the face. He’d spent a lot of time in his life trying not to be “That guy.” Sure he had his fair share of hookups, but he made sure they always knew that’s what it was. As long as he was honest and respectful on his end that’s what was important. What would be the point in leading some poor girl on, or dragging her along for nothing? It wasn’t going to benefit anyone.

He was startled when he heard a knock on his door and checked the time. She was early, a good sign he hope, like she couldn’t wait to come over, even though subconsciously he knew that wasn’t he case.

She was smiling when he opened the door, but it wasn’t a real smile. It was a guarded, scared, trying to be polite smile. Molly however had a real smile on her face, and pranced right past him to greet the boys, before they headed off into the house.

“Glad to see she makes friends easy.” Ava said watching as she disappeared around the corner. Tyler stepped aside and opened the door wider so she could step in. She was nervous, and he could tell. She turned down a drink, and followed him around as he gave her a tour. She pointedly looked away when he showed her his bedroom, and followed him out to the yard where the dogs were playing. She smiled a little as she watched Molly chase the boys around, barking and jumping like she was having the time of her life.

“She doesn’t get to play with other dogs much. She’s having so much fun.”

“What no dog friends?”

“No friends period. I mean I have friends.” She corrected when he made a face “Just no friends that I’m that close with.”

“Why’s that?” He patted the chair next to him, and she sat, legs turned so she was as far away as she could get.

She shrugged “I just-I just have a hard time trusting is all.” She mumbled, eyes trained on her legs.

“I see. So what’s his name?”

She whipped her head around, mouth open “What?”

“Come on. The guy who did you in? What’s his name?” When she didn’t answer he spoke again “You don’t have to tell me, but there’s always some asshole who makes a girl close herself off from the world. Let me guess…Brad?”

She stared at her for a few moments before she let out a breath “Brandon.”

“Close enough. And what did Brandon do?”

“It’s a long story. And a painful one.”

“Well…we have all night. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. But it might help.”

He was right. She spent so much time thinking about it, but never talking about it. After a while it really starts to take a toll on your psyche. Talking helped, but it hurt.

“Long story short. He took advantage and ruined my life.”

Tyler nodded and rested a tattooed arm on the side of his chair “I’m sorry that happened to you, but not all of us are like that.”

“I know. But I don’t want to put myself through finding out anymore. Once was enough.”

“That makes me really sad.”

She frowned “Why?”

“Because you could be missing out on meeting the love of your life or something. And that sucks.”

He was looking at her so genuinely it made her breath catch in her throat “What if there is no love of my life? What if this is it. Just me and Molly forever.”

“You don’t believe in love?”

“Do you?” She countered “I don’t see any signs anywhere that you’ve ever had a serious girlfriend or a girlfriend period.”

“You would be correct about that. But I just haven’t met the right person is all. I know she’s out there, I just haven’t found her yet.”

“Well that’s a sweet sentiment, but I stopped looking a long time ago.”

He pursed his lips “What if it finds you? I mean isn’t that what they say?”

“I think ‘They’ are people who have found tremendous success in life and never had a real heartbreak. It’s easy to say it finds you, but it’s another thing to have it happen.”

“That’s true. But what if it does happen? Don’t you think that maybe, it could be worth it to give it a chance.”

She could feel his eyes burning into her for a few moments before she turned, staring at him.

“Maybe.”

[lewstherintelescope]

finished the sp3 reading and

uh

um

wow

wha

ftvgybhunjiuhygtfrtgyhujiuhygtfrdftgyhujikhu

??!???!!?!?

spoilers below, in case you haven’t read it yet

so first off, it’s not only canon that boobs are hot, it’s also now canon that they’re “fun” and mathematically pleasing, so someone better be making a Coppermind page to collect our rapidly growing knowledge /s

more seriously.... !!/1?!?!?!?/1/!??!?!?/1?!?!

VIRTUOSITY??? SPLINTERED HERSELF??? cftvgybn is she maybe the origin of the Iriali tale of One? wait crap the timeline doesn’t work there does it

also we know literally all but one shard now

the hell

and even that final one we might have a decent idea about

this is insane

also, DESIGN IS OFF ROSHAR

(and has big boobs now apparently)

(and is also generally the best, I love Cryptics so much)

(give me Pattern and Design just going crazy being themselves)

AND HOID IS A COAT RACK

and froZEN IN TIME????????????????????

and these worlds are insane, you can tell Brandon has really been holding himself back trying to stick to Earth-ish for non-Stormlight books lmao

Painter’s world is just... vibes and he’s painfully relatable

I’m so interested to see them taking each others’ place

it’s a simple idea but I like the spin he put on it

and their skills feel like they’ll complement

personalities too

Painter tries to give off this “it’s a very big deal and I’m a very big deal” thing despite others in the world not treating them very well, and slacks off and does the bare minimum needed

and Yumi is the other way around, gets a ton of respect she doesn’t want, and goes above and beyond for it

so having them swap places will drive some super fun developments I think

I’m also curious why this Painter is the one that got picked by the spirit out of the hundreds there

and really in general what’s going on with the spirits

I can immediately see why this is Brandon’s favorite of the secret projects

then again we don’t have 4 yet so maybe 4 will drive me even more bonkers

god there’s so much I probably forgot

but this is INSANE

I love this story so much already and I am so mad we have to wait UNTIL JULY NEXT YEAR to read more

:((((

[cellsshapedlikestars]

If you are accepting prompts--how about Sansa and Jon being on opposite sides of a political contest? Prime Minister Rhaegar Targaryen is forced to call a referendum for Northern independence, as demanded by the Northern Nationalists party. He is campaigning in the North for a United Westeros, taking his second wife Lyanna Stark and their son Jon along, toshow how hollow all talk if Northern independence is. However, this means that Jon keeps running into his Stark cousins, particularly Sansa Stark, who accompanies her parents to every debate and campaign rally...

I've been sitting on this for a while (and yes, I do see all the anon prompts, I promise!) and I've sort of been writing this on and off since I got it. The thing is, I have no point of reference for these politics, I'm assuming you wanted something like the Scottish independence movement, which I have almost no knowledge of as I am a dumb American who can barely handle American politics without spiraling into anxiety and depression. So, I've sort of talked around the specifics and hopefully I haven't gotten anything too crazy wrong.

Also, you mention his Stark cousins, but... well, I cannot do modern incest. I can handle them being cousins in olden times where it was acceptable & common (I can't even handle the sibling incest aspect in any time period), but I was writing this modern and that's a hard nope for me. I know it's a fairly predominant part of this fandom and if it's your thing, absolutely have at it! There is no kink shaming in this house. It's just not for me and I couldn't write it, sorry!

Also, as usual, this turned out longer than I intended since these are supposed to be drabbles mostly. But 'drabbles' for me always end up like 2k words

.

Jon sits in the window seat of the jet, headphones on and turned up. Somewhere behind him, he knows his parents are sitting, likely talking strategy. He knows dad wants him to join in, but Jon's in no mood to talk politics. It's what got him in this situation to begin with.

That stupid reporter. Jon's stupid response.

Jon! How do you feel about Northern Independence?

I say let them.

It's what he believes, honestly – if the North wants independence, why not? The rest of the SK treats them like shit anyway, why not let them break off, like Dorne did? It's not a naming issue – they're still called the Seven Kingdoms despite losing Dorne decades ago, so what if they're technically only six now? Jon knows it's about more than that – it's economics and politics and... well, pride. The SK can't lose another piece of their kingdom – nevermind that piece has been conquered and beaten down multiple times over hundreds of years. Northern Independence isn't a new concept – it's just been met with military resistance every time and stamped out. But they aren't in the middle ages anymore.

For a moment he turns his head to look behind him – to see mom with her head bowed in conversation with dad and something ugly twists in Jon's stomach.

He knows dad only married mom because she got pregnant – because his political career was just taking off and a mistress and bastard would have ruined him. And mom, she'd been so young, she's convinced herself he married her for love. Jon swears that mom used to be different. She used to argue with Rhaegar all the time about politics, he even remembers her bringing up Northern Independence when Jon was just a kid. But over the years she's had to play the perfect wife for him and somewhere along the way it just... stuck. Mom isn't his mom anymore. No, mom is what Rhaegar's political advisors want her to be.

So even though Jon had wanted to protest this trip, there's also a part of him desperately clinging to the hope that when they get North, mom will snap out of it. When she's home, maybe she'll be his mom again.

Especially since the leader of the opposition is an old friend of hers.

Ned Stark.

Dad doesn't react to much, he's a politician to his core, so seeing him get riled anytime Ned Stark is on TV is notable. In fact, there's a rebellious part of Jon that already likes Ned Stark simply for the fact that dad hates him so much. There's more to like than just that, Jon knows – Ned Stark seems like one of those politicians that's doing the job because they want to make a difference. They're rare, nowadays, but Jon's been surrounded by politicians his whole life and he can spot the do-gooders from a mile away.

He thinks it's partly why dad hates it – Ned Stark doesn't use the same underhanded tactics Rhaegar's used to, and from everything Jon's heard, there's nothing to use against Ned. The only skeleton dad's advisors had ever found tucked away in Ned Stark's closet had been that his wife, Catelyn, had originally dated his older brother Brandon, who died in a car accident. They'd begun dating and married shortly after - a minor scandal that hadn't gained any traction, considering they've been married for over twenty years with five children.

Dad was hoping to get somewhere with the youngest daughter, Arya, who always seemed more wild than the rest of her siblings (except maybe the youngest, Rickon). The problem is that she's never done anything really wrong and the North loves her. The oldest son Robb is as perfect a son as any politician could hope for and Jon sometimes wonders if dad would rather have Robb than Jon.

The other two sons are still fairly young and going after them would only make dad look like the bad guy. Then there's Sansa.

Jon remembers her from growing up – not that he'd ever met her, but they're both kids of prominent politicians and he's seen her in photos since she was old enough to walk. A proper lady, he remembers even the southern press naming her. Perfect, just like her older brother.

A hand on his shoulder jolts him out of his thoughts and he turns to see mom, who motions at him to take off his headphones.

“We're landing in a half hour and your father would like to go over your role,” she tells him with a perfect, bland smile. (She hasn't been his mother for a very long time.)

“I know my role,” he says and he can't help the bitter tone to his voice. “Stay quite, don't talk to the press. Pretty easy to remember.”

“And yet you still managed to nearly undermine my entire campaign with one flippant remark,” dad's voice calls over from his seat, low and smooth, though Jon absolutely hears the annoyance underneath it.

“Oh, he's just a child,” mom says, trying to play the peacekeeper like she always does.

“He's twenty, he's hardly a child,” dad starts, but Jon doesn't listen to the rest. He pulls his headphones back over his ears and looks back out the window and tries to pretend he's anywhere else.

…

By the time they reach Winterfell Castle, Jon is in a bad mood.

Not that he hadn't been before, but he's not allowed his headphones in the limo and so he'd had to listen to dad talk nonstop about his two favorite topics: Jon's failure as a son and how much he hates Ned Stark. And the way mom doesn't even try to defend Ned Stark like she used to infuriates Jon even more.

Jon hates his tuxedo and he hates that they barely had any time between landing and having to get ready for this dinner and he hates that he's going to have to smile and shake hands with a bunch of people who hate him on principle, simply for who his father is. For what his father represents.

When he does step out of the limo, he ignores every photographer and reporter that shouts his name, eager to get any sort of scandal out of him.

He doesn't blame them for this, he's given them enough over the years – not just his apparent support of Northern Independence, but everything else he's done to gain his notoriety. His reputation as a heartbreaker and a playboy that's mostly over-exaggerated, that time he punched a teacher (though to be fair, Thorne deserved it)... Teenage rebellion, they'd written it off as, but he's no longer a teenager and he knows he should grow up and stop doing things to piss off his father at some point.

(His favorite one had been sleeping with that investigative journalist when he was seventeen. She'd been older than him by a good few years and he'd known she was using him to write an article, but he was using her just as much to infuriate his father. His only true regret is that Ygritte's article hadn't done any real lasting damage to Rhaegar's reputation.)

Inside, there aren't any reporters but there are politicians everywhere and that's worse. He does the bare minimum to not cause an issue – he shakes hands and says hello, though he refuses to smile while doing it. They already hate him for being Rhaegar Targaryen's son. They already hate him for being Northern-traitor Lyanna Snow's son.

He keeps an eye on mom to see how she's doing and his heart twists painfully in his chest when he sees her. She has a bright smile on her face and anyone who didn't know her would think she's fine, but Jon can see how pale she is under her makeup. This is the first time she's been back in the North since she married dad and he has a sudden, sharp pang of hatred for Rhaegar – for getting her pregnant, for marrying her, for never letting her go back. For turning her into this.

He can tell the moment Ned Stark enters the room because mom freezes. And sure enough, there he is – beautiful wife at his side, the three adult children with him. Robb, Sansa, Arya. Jon's eyes scan over them – Robb with his perfect hair and smile, an easy way about him that's always come through even on camera. Sansa standing poised and almost too beautiful to believe – Jon's only ever seen her on film and somehow she's even more unreal in person. Arya, who by all accounts hates politics as much as Jon does, stands firmly by her family and Jon gets the sense she only hates the system, not her dad. Not like Jon.

As Jon scans the room, he can see other families here that he recognizes – the Greyjoys, including Robb Stark's best friend Theon. The Manderlys, the Karstarks, the Ryswells, the Boltons, the Mormonts. More families than Jon cares to remember.

There's a sense of someone behind him and he turns just enough to see that dad has come up to stand next to him. For a moment, dad just stands there before turning his head ever so slightly and bringing his mouth close to Jon's ear and he says so low Jon can barely even hear it - “if you do anything to embarrass me tonight, there will be consequences. If you do anything that makes it seem like you support this pathetic independence movement, there will be consequences. Do you understand me?”

Jon feels blind rage that winds so hot in his chest it makes him shake and his vision narrow. He has to close his eyes and take a deep breath before he can answer, and he grits out, “of course.” Dad nods and moves away, putting on his best politician smile as he goes to greet Howland Reed.

Mom shoots him a concerned look, but Jon ignores her. He can feel it building in him – that rebelliousness the press likes to talk about so much. He wants to hurt Rhaegar. For everything – for his mother, for all the people dad's stepped on and hurt. He wants to embarrass him, consequences be damned.

Just as he's thinking this, his eyes catch on copper hair and bright blue eyes.

Sansa Stark.

Darling of the press. Perfect Northern princess.

It takes root in his mind, against his better judgment. What would make Rhaegar more furious than an affair between his son and the daughter of Ned Stark?

Jon can't imagine Sansa would be amenable to the suggestion, not like Ygritte had been – there is no mutually beneficial agreement here. She would never agree to do something that might embarrass her father (and once again, Jon is reminded of the, pun intended, stark difference between his relationship with his father and the Stark children's relationship with Ned. Jon has never even met them in person and he knows this).

So he can't approach her with any sort of offer or plan. No, he'd have to pretend it was real.

He's going to have to seduce Sansa Stark.

[ladycatofwinterfell]

Love letter

Summary: When Catelyn Tully two days before her wedding finds a letter in her home she is forced to confront things she rather would have let stay unsaid and in the past. She believes things would have been a lot easier for everyone that way.

Her steps echoed through the empty stairwell, much louder than usual. Still they drowned in the furious beating of her heart. Many times Catelyn had walked up those stairs. And she had felt many different emotions while doing so. But never had she felt such rage. Never had she wanted to tear him to pieces.

She didn’t even bother knocking, just threw the door open and walked inside. She hadn’t checked if he was home beforehand, but she quickly found him in the kitchen, making coffee.

“Hey, what are you–“

“How dare you?” she shouted, effectively interrupting him. “How dare you do this?”

Ned just looked at her like he didn’t understand what she was talking about. As if he didn’t know exactly what she was talking about, as if he wasn’t aware of what he had done.

She still clutched the folded letter in one hand. She had not let it go since she found it on the kitchen table half an hour earlier. It had been there when she came home from work. She had thought it was something Brandon had left for her, but when she read the words it had very quickly became clear that it was not he who had given her the letter. It was Ned.

“What have I done?” Ned asked gingerly.

“This!”

She held up the hand with which she held the letter with, but still received no logical response from Ned.

“What’s that?”

Before she could stop the impulse she threw it at him.

“You know fully well what that is, you gave it to me” she hissed.

She was getting married. And he wasn’t the one she was marrying. Maybe he could have been. If he had said something years ago instead of saying it in a letter two days before the wedding. He was a coward. And he had torn up feelings Catelyn had thought that she had buried.

Ned crouched down and picked up the paper, slowly unfolding it as he stood upright again.

“How could you wait so long with saying this? I’m two days away from walking down the aisle to marry your brother, and now you tell me that you love me in a fucking letter?”

Once that would have made her ecstatic. Once nothing would have made her happier than hearing that Ned loved her too. Because she had loved him. But at the moment all his confession did was mess things up. How would she be able to look Brandon in the eye and say “I do” knowing that Ned loved her?

“I haven’t written this” he said after having read through the letter. “I know that it has my name on it, but I have never seen this before, I swear.”

He was a poor liar. She wanted to know what was going on in his head, wanted to know what made him think that she was stupid enough to believe that. Those words could only be his. She knew him, and he knew her. The letter was too intimate to be someone else.

“Then tell me who wrote it” she demanded.

“I don’t know, but it wasn’t me.”

“Please, Ned, you’re not fooling anyone.”

“I understand what this looks like, but you have to believe me. I don’t know what this is, I don’t know who wrote it.”

Despite everything his face was honest. He might as well have thrown gasoline on a fire. Not only had he decided to wreck her wedding, he was lying about it. He really was a coward.

“Why can’t you stand for it? Why can’t you stand for that you love me?” she yelled. “Just tell the goddamn truth, because I’m tired of this!”

Ned threw his hands up into the air.

“Fine, I love you!” he said. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Tears had started to burn in her eyes. She had wanted to hear it, but at the same time she had feared it. That just set in stone that it was all ruined. But it also meant that the thing she had been feeling all along was true. For years they had danced around it, none of them wanting to commit, but both of them painfully aware of what was there.

The letter had not said that he wanted her to not marry Brandon. He had just told her what he felt. And that he didn’t expect anything from her in return. If she chose to ignore it nothing would change, he had promised. And he wouldn’t do anything she didn’t want him to do.

“I love you, but I didn’t write that letter. I don’t know who did, I don’t know who confessed in my name. Though it must be someone who knows us both very well because every word in it was true.”

The tears spilled over despite her effort to hold them back. They ran down her cheeks, hot and real.

“Every word in it was true” he said. Every sweet word. Every beautiful sentence. Yet he insisted he hadn’t written it.

“If you have come this far can’t you just admit to writing that letter?”

“I can’t because that wouldn’t be the truth. You told me to tell the truth.”

“Fuck you. Fuck you for ruining everything.”

That seemed to set something off in him, because his eyes hardened. Some part of her believed she shouldn’t have been so hard on him, but she couldn’t say sorry. He had turned everything upside down. He had flipped the table just as she had finished putting all her plates out.

“I’m going to forgive that because I know you’re in a lot of stress right now, but just know that what you said was unfair and unreasonable. You can’t barge into my home and demand answers, only to get mad at me when I give them to you.”

“You forced me to demand answers!”

“How many times do I have to tell you that I didn’t write that letter?”

“It can’t be anyone else!”

Ned stopped. He just looked at her, and Catelyn saw how the steam went out of him. He leaned back against the kitchen counter, running a hand through his hair.

“I think Brandon did” he sighed.

She couldn’t stand straight anymore. Sobbing so hard that her shoulders shook she sat on one of the chairs at Ned’s kitchen table.

If Brandon had done it, he had done it knowing that she wouldn’t have been able to marry him. He had done it knowing that what they had would most likely come to an end.

“Why would he do that?” she sniffed.

“Because he’s not stupid, Cat. He sees.”

Had Brandon thought she would ignore Ned, so that they could continue like normal? He had promised that would happen if she did. No, she couldn’t believe that. She must have known that she would go to Ned, because he knew her. He knew her, and apparently he knew her heart. He knew where it rested. But she loved Brandon. She did. She had imagined her future with him. Ned had only been a distant fantasy, something she had entertained her thoughts with before she got together with Brandon.

“I need to leave.”

She pushed herself up, found that it was hard to look at Ned. Everything had gone so well. She had been fine, happy, even. She had looked forward to marrying Brandon. And suddenly nothing felt good anymore. Suddenly she had lost the grip of her life.

“Talk to Brandon” Ned said softly.

She tried to take a deep breath and failed. There was a stone on her chest, a weight that threatened to crush her. And she had no one to make the stone go away.

“I will.”

Without another word she left him there. She had never closed the door behind her, she discovered when she came out to the hallway. All the neighbors in the house had probably heard he shout at him. She couldn’t bring herself to care, that didn’t matter. They could think whatever they liked.

Brandon still wasn’t home from work when she came home. She looked at the clock on the wall, he should have been home twenty minutes earlier. And if Ned’s words had not ser things in stone his absence definitely did.

She had no choice but to call him.

“Cat” Brandon said when he answered.

She was quiet, couldn’t get a word out of her. But he seemed to understand as he was quiet too. It was silent for a long time, all Catelyn could hear was the ticking from the clock. Tick tock. Tick tock.

“Do you not want to marry me?” she asked after an eternity.

“I want you to be happy” was his response.

“I was happy about marrying you.”

“I know, and I was happy about marrying you.”

She didn’t understand. Everything was spinning around in her head at a speed that made it impossible for her to make sense of it.

“So why did you do that?”

Tears were starting to well up in her eyes once more, that time she didn’t try to stop them. Her fiancé was leaving her, she was allowed to cry.

“Because I knew I couldn’t marry you with good conscious if I knew that you loved Ned, and he loved you. That wouldn’t be right for anyone. So I wanted to see. And now I have.”

“I love you” Catelyn said firmly through her tears.

It was true. She did love Brandon. She loved him a lot. But she also knew that Brandon was right. She loved Ned.

“I know you do. But you love Ned as well, and you love him in a way that you can’t love me.”

“Brandon–“

“Hush, you don’t need to say a thing. I’m not angry with you, and I’m not angry with him. If you could change things I knew both of you would, but no one can. So I think this should be the end of us two together.”

“Come home, please” she said, her voice weak and desperate. “We can talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. Had you not gone to Ned, then maybe there would have been a chance of managing to save this. But you love him. And he loves you. You can’t deny that.”

Catelyn loved Ned. And Ned loved Catelyn. That was the way of things. But she couldn’t see a future that included them together because how could she be with him after what had happened with his brother?

“Is this goodbye?”

“We will see each other many more times, but this is goodbye to this part of our lives.”

She tried to choke out a goodbye, found herself unable to do so and gave up.

“Take care, Cat” Brandon said softly.

And then the call was over. She laid her head down, rested it on her arms. She was tired, her body was heavy and it hurt. All of her hurt. She wanted to sleep and never wake up. Because she knew that when she woke up she would have to tell everyone that the anticipated wedding had been called off. Though she probably wouldn’t mention that it was due to that she had fallen in love with the groom’s brother.

<><><><><><><><>

This was actually inspired by a real life story I heard a while ago about a man who wrote a letter for an old flame that was getting married. It was not like this one, the woman did end up marrying her fiancé just as planned. Though it turned out that to a degree she still had feelings for the man she had been together with years ago, and just like he had thought about her, she had thought about him. They talked for a bit, but soon understood that they couldn’t take the chance of trying again. And she did love her fiancé and wanted to marry him, so she wasn’t upset. Neither was the man, he understood that and went on to find happiness elsewhere. When they happened to meet during a funeral after that they looked at each other and thought of what could have been, but ultimately nothing happened between them and they lived happily apart from one another. Their love was true and beautiful, but not meant to be.

I don’t know what happened to Ned and Cat after this. I don’t know if they got together and ended up married with kids, or if they decided that their love was true and beautiful, but not meant to be. Maybe Cat married Brandon, after all, and shared looks and shy smiles with Ned during family dinners until they were all old. Maybe she left the Stark brothers behind, maybe she remained friends with both of them. All I know is that there were no hard feelings involved on any part, so feel free to imagine whatever scenario you like best.

Anywayyyyyy, now I’m done talking, sorry about that, I just have a lot of thoughts going on. But I hope the fic itself was enjoyable.

[sansacherie]

First Kiss

I.

The Third Month of The Year 298

“You look lovely, Rhaenys.” Aegon smiles at her as Rhaenys enters the Hall of Lamps, accompanied by her three bridesmaids and their escort of guards.

“Only lovely?” Rhaenys wrinkles her nose. “You disappoint me terribly, Aegon. You should not describe a bride as anything less than exquisite. At least, that is what my bridesmaids tell me.”

Arianne winks at her while Sansa and Daenerys giggle. In the Faith, it is often the custom for a bride such as Rhaenys to choose three bridesmaids to honour three of the seven gods- the Maiden who bring bless the marriage with lasting love, the Mother with children, and the Crone with wisdom to survive the years together. Rhaenys had agonized over who to pick among her ladies, not wanting to cause hurt, but thankfully her mother had guided her into selecting Arianne, Daenerys, and Sansa. No one can fault her for choosing family, or soon to be family in Sansa’s case, Elia reasoned.

“Your sister is playing with you, Your Grace.” Arianne drawled. He does. Aegon laughs and offers Rhaenys his arms, before lowering his voice. “You look beautiful as always, Nee-Nee. I suppose I’m just used to it.” Rhaenys smiles sadly at this resurrection of his babyhood nickname for her.

Rhaenys does feel beautiful, however. Of course, although she is not vain enough to deem herself the Maiden’s rival, she also does not find any value in lying to herself when she sees her reflection.

But this is different. The dressmakers have done well, truly. Rhaenys’ gown is a glory, a creation of red silk with long flowing sleeves that felt inviting as sin when she was helped into it earlier. Her bodice glimmers with golden thread. Resting on her black curls is a golden diadem with red rubies and an inscription in Rhoynese at the bottom.

On her wedding cloak, is a dragon whose open mouth reveals no crackling flames but instead a large golden sun that overwhelms the creature in size. The other dress that Rhaenys will change into for today is also just as beautiful, with Sansa gasping in delight upon seeing it. Although it is not demanded, it is not unusual for a bride to wear a gown favouring her new husband’s colours at their reception as if their vows were not enough to demonstrate that she was now his. But Rhaenys has no wish to offend her river lord or make him feel uncertain, so her gown is silver satin and sleeves consisting of myrish lace. Adorning the outfit is a belt made of deep red velvet with blue sapphires.

Aegon signals that they are ready, and from inside the sept proper music begins to play. Arianne lifts up Rhaenys’ cloak from the ground, while Sansa and Daenerys pick up the hems of the gown; the former looking painfully excited while Dany almost looks as nervous as Rhaenys feels.

Arianne nods at her and proudly smiles at Rhaenys in the way that Aegon did, and Rhaenys wills herself to breathe.

As a princess born, her entire life was the realm’s, shaped and nurtured with it in mind. It was the offering demanded for her birth and rank being predetermined by the Seven. It was a truth familiar to Rhaenys as a favoured story might be for a child who delights still in its thousand telling.

However, unlike that small child, Rhaenys could never be allowed to want other stories. Rhaenys is not friendless in this either, she remembers.

Her life belonged to the seven kingdoms, and so it appeared, did her first kiss.

Their kiss does not make Rhaenys forget to stand, or forget the crowd that had gathered in the royal sept to witness Lord Edmure Tully take her for his lady wife.

The number of guests is not as many as the wedding of Aegon to Lady- Queen Cassandra Baratheon, but Rhaenys’ wedding is still the first of a blood princess since that of her paternal grandmother forty years ago. Their noses bump, and his beard tickles Rhaenys chin. Nobody dares laugh to break the spell of the solemnity of the occasion, but Edmure reddens all the same.

When they turn to face the cheering crowd, Rhaenys cannot squeeze his hand- there will be a hundred times during the wedding there will be time for contact, but she gives him a bright smile, to put him at ease. “My lord, I must confess. You’ve rather exceeded the expectations of a maiden’s first kiss.”

Edmure’s eyes widen, then his generous mouth curves into a boyish grin. There is a kindness in it, and Rhaenys’ heart twists suddenly. Did her father smile at her mother on their wedding day? Despite the betrayals that he rained down on her, did he at least do that?

There is no way of knowing. Rhaenys cannot ask her father this, or a thousand other questions since she was old enough to understand how the crown prince almost brought them all to ruin. She does not want to dig up the past for her mother, who now basked in the warm present; with her adoring husband. Elia Martell paid Rhaegar Targaryen little attention in death, just as he paid her little respect and dignity in life.

II.

The Third Month of The Year

Two weeks pass before they enjoy their first misunderstanding.

“Have I done something to upset you?” Edmure asks her, in Rhaenys’ bedchamber.  They have been given adjoining rooms here in the castle.  They will not leave the Red Keep until the end of the month.  Rhaenys is glad of it.  She is not afraid to leave, but she is not necessarily anxious to either.

Rhaenys shakes her head, her sketchbook lying forgotten in her lap.  “Of course not, my lord.”

Edmure frowns.  “In public, whenever I try to kiss you, or take your hand- it’s almost as if I am some stranger and not your husband.  You look uncomfortable.”

Rhaenys feels a flush of shame. She’d not meant to sail down this river.  However, she smiles at him.  “Give me your trust in this, Edmure.”  Edmure’s eyes widen.  Until now Rhaenys has called him Lord Edmure or my lord, while he has alternated between Princess Rhaenys or my lady, or my princess, for Rhaenys will be a princess long after she is Lady of Riverrun.  “If you were a stranger kissing the king’s sister, you would know it.”

“That still does not answer my question.”  It is almost an accusation.

That still does not answer my question.”

Rhaenys sighs.  She must be truthful with him. “It is not because of you, I promise.  It is because of me, and well- Lord Tywin.”

“Lord Tywin?” Edmure echoes her, like the sound of the ocean in one of the seashells that could be found along the beach of Dragonstone.  Then he looks a little ill.  “You mean to tell me that you love Tywin Lannister?” Edmure splutters.

Rhaenys cannot help but laugh; the notion is so ridiculous.   Love is wasted on a man like that.

“No, my lord.”  Rhaenys says gently. “It is because I cannot forget who I am, and who Tywin is.  Or Mace Tyrell. You know the line of succession to the Crown, I trust.  I am my brother’s heir, after any children he might have.  My sons will inherit first over any sons that Viserys might give his Cersei.  May the Seven permit that we have a future where Aegon lives long and has many children.  I want that for him.  But you and I are not foolish to think that Tywin is equally satisfied.

So, I have always been- careful. Careful with my behaviour, with how I am perceived.  I told you that you were my first kiss. I- I had no wish to give Tywin palace gossip that he could use to his advantage.”

Edmure crinkles his forehead.  “Surely nobody would think badly of a child for having kissing games.  Cat and Lysa-,”

Rhaenys now tosses her sketchbook aside. “Forgive me my lord, but your sisters’ experience cannot be compared to mine.  Their mother is not Dornish.”

Edmure looks lost.  “What has that got to do with this?”

“Everything.”  Rhaenys hisses, standing up now.

“People will take innocent kisses and think it proof of a Dornish woman’s wanton ways, as if there isn’t plenty in the Reach or Westerlands who were no maidens when they were married! Or men who have a dozen mistresses!  I know the rumours of Ashara Dayne, my mother’s lost friend.  Everyone assumes that Ashara slept with Brandon Stark, but she never did! She was younger than me when she died, and yet people simply assume that she gave him anything more than a smile.  And Dany-,” Rhaenys wipes away her tears.  “We were only children at the time. I don’t think Dany was any older than five.       We were calling each other stupid things as children do, and my mother had entered the room when Dany called me a Dornish slut.  To this day, I still don’t know where the hell she got that from.   And the look on my mother’s face-,” Rhaenys stares at the floor.  “My darling grandfather called her that, a few times.”

“So, because of this, I have always been careful. My mother has taught me so.  Since I was a maiden flowered, being alone is not something I am used to.  There has always been either my family or my ladies or my guards.  I will not let myself be vulnerable to any rumours that would paint me unsuitable to be a queen; rumours that the lion and rose will try to use for their own ends.”   Rhaenys is surprised by the vehemence in her voice.

She takes a deep breath, before continuing. “Secondly, it is just my nature. I appreciate that you are my husband, but I have never been comfortable with physical affection in public, specifically hugs and kisses.  I endure it for proprietary’s sake.  If truth be told, I am not entirely fond of being embraced.”

Edmure’s forehead creases.  “Even your own kin?”

“No, that’s different.”  Rhaenys corrects him.  “My family is close to me.  My ladies are close to me, so I obviously did not mind when we slept in the same bed, our legs tangled together like branches or held their hands as we danced or played games.   And you and I will become close too, I hope.”  She adds, shyly.

Edmure nods.  “Thank you Rhaenys, for telling me this. I will keep that in mind.”  Rhaenys’ smiles at the use of her name.

He grins.  “Speaking of kisses has made me want to kiss you still, however.   So – may I kiss you?” He asks tentatively. His voice makes Rhaenys remember their wedding night, and how he asked her the same thing in the dark.  Their first coupling was well- it was nice, she supposes.  She does not have anything to score it by.  Still afterwards, she had slipped a hand between her legs, for there was nothing in scripture that forbade such things.  

But a kiss is different.  She nods, and Edmure gingerly brushes a curl from her face. “I hope we have a girl with hair like yours.”

His kiss is long and sweet; as sweet as the smell of rain after a month’s drought.

III.

The Sixth Month of The Year 298

“Rhaenys?”

Edmure’s worried face is illuminated in the candlelight, as he sits down on the bed beside her.  Rhaenys is clutching her knees, her eyes downcast.

They have not yet reached Riverrun, thanks to the river lords who insisted on guesting them for a few days.   Stars have risen in the sky for the third time here at Stone Hedge.   No doubt the Brackens insisted on the third night to beat the Blackwood’s two.  “By the time you do reach Riverrun, you’ll need a new wardrobe.”  Desmera Redwyne had predicted, giggling.

There had been no giggling when Desmera had gone to fetch Edmure after Rhaenys had bolted up in bed, tears streaming down her face.

“Desmera need not have woken you.”  Rhaenys mumbled.

“I’m not sorry she did.”  Edmure counters.   “My lady, you are trembling.”

Rhaenys fiddled with the end of her braid.  “It was a bad dream, that’s all.”

For a heartbeat, silence rested between them.  Then, Edmure spoke.  “When I was a boy, my sister Catelyn once told me that you always feel better after talking about a bad dream.”

Well, what has she got to lose then?  He will not leave her.  “It’s a dream I’ve had before.”  She confesses softly.  “I’ve had it on and off since I was twelve or thirteen.  In it, I’m trying to get away.  But I can never far enough.  They-They never change how they kill me.  With a knife.”

Edmure sucks in his breath.  “Rhaenys-,”

Rhaenys bites her lip.   “And the strange thing is, I’m never the age that I am.  In it, I wasn’t eight-and-ten.  Instead, I’m a little girl.  I might be four, I think.”   Tears well in her eyes.  “Tell me, what chance does a girl of four have against a man who wants to kill her?”

“Very little, I would judge.” Edmure softly replies.  “I’m sorry.  Maybe I shouldn’t have pressed you to tell me.”

“No.” Rhaenys corrects him.  “Don’t be sorry.  I-I do feel a little better now, as you predicted.”  It is not a lie.   She has never spoken about the dream to anyone else, before.  

It feels freeing.

She turns and wraps her arms around Edmure, kissing him.  This kiss feels different somehow.  It is not as though she hasn’t been vulnerable with Lord Edmure before.  She gave her maidenhood to him.  She will feel a little vulnerable in Riverrun she thinks, until she can gain the respect of Edmure’s household.

But this kiss – it is a comfort.  Of course, Rhaenys has been comforted before.  But the solace of a mother or brother is different from that of a husband.  This- the feeling of his lips against hers- is like being told a secret.  But it’s not a secret designed to hurt.  It’s not one where the longer it is kept hidden from the open, the worse the fallout is.  

Instead, it is like being given something small, fragile.  That is a precious thing, Rhaenys concludes.  It is a precious thing to be given such trust.

IV.

The Eighth Month of the Year 298

“I’ve had a thought,”  Edmure says, as Rhaenys massages his aching shoulders; courtesy of his sparring session.

Rhaenys had enjoyed watching that, very much.

“Oh?”  Rhaenys smirks.  Removing her hands from his shoulders, she cocks her head at him.  “Is that unusual for you, my lord?”

To her husband’s credit, he only grins at her.  Other men like Stannis Baratheon or Tywin Lannister were not so kind to such silly little japes.  

“I was thinking that perhaps we could write to some of our vassals’ families and ask for some girls.  For you, I mean.  I know you’ve brought some from Kingslanding.  But the Riverlands can’t be their home forever, while you- I think it would be good for you.  Not that I don’t think you’re not doing well in your duties so far.”  He adds quickly.

Rhaenys smiles warmly.  “That is a wonderful idea.  We should ask Maester Vyman for his counsel on who to choose.  Three seems a good number, I feel. In time, perhaps we can ask for some wards.  Companions for any younger sons or daughters we may have."

Edmure answers her with a kiss to the neck.   Rhaenys gasps. He has never kissed her there before.   Always on the lips or cheek.

She loves it.

“I hope we have a girl with hair like yours, my lady.”

Somehow, she knows that it will not be a wasteful thing to hope in this marriage.

[princess-of-riviaa]

Can’t Help Falling In Love

Part 2 to I Won’t Say I’m In Love

Pairing: Henry Cavill x Reader

Summary: Henry makes you confront your feelings about him.

Warning(s): voyeurism(ish), dirty talk, body worship(ish), fingering, squirting

Word Count: 1,955

The Tudors premieres ten months after that blissful day you helped Henry practice a steamy scene. You watch it religiously, purely because you want to support your best friend (and not because you’re so addicted to those realistic love scenes). You’re drawn in to the show and quickly find yourself thinking about the characters in your everyday life. Henry is an arrogant ass who only gets away with everything because of his position as king; Charles Brandon is just as bad, getting away with treating women terribly because he’s so attractive. Your blood boils every time they’re on screen, but you can’t seem to pull your eyes away from them. You’re as hopeless as the women they prey on.

You hadn’t been expecting an explicit love scene with Charles in the pilot episode, and when it came on screen, you were grateful you’d decided to watch the show alone. You were instantly wet. Hearing Charles groan and talk dirty to the lucky woman getting pounded by him made you clench your legs together. You found yourself burning with both want for him and jealousy for the girl.

There aren’t any sex scenes with Charles in the next two episodes, so when Henry calls you and asks you to watch the next week’s episode with him on Friday, you agree, thinking nothing of it. It’s only when you’re halfway through the fourth episode that you recognize the scene unfolding in front of you: it’s the scene you’d practiced with Henry. Suddenly you’re very aware of the way his thigh rests against yours on the couch, how he has one hand resting on his leg and the other stretched out on the couch behind you. There’s no way you can get up and excuse yourself now without it looking suspicious, though you know there’s also no way you can make it through this scene without getting wet. You focus on staying calm as the scene continues on Henry’s TV.

The way Charles Brandon looks at Margaret sends heat straight to my core. He’d practiced that look on me. You know it’s rehearsed, but that doesn’t mean it affects you any less. The tension between Charles and Margaret resembles the tension between you and Henry now. You’re painfully aware of how his body heat radiates off of him, only adding to the fire inside of you. Margaret excuses her ladies in waiting, leaving her alone with Charles. There’s a look on both of their faces, like they know exactly what’s about to happen, and even though you know exactly how this scene plays out, you can’t stop yourself from gasping slightly when Charles first kisses Margaret. You want it to be you, being kissed like that.

You recall how his mouth had felt on yours that day you’d practiced with him. Too late, you realize how terrible of an idea tugging on that memory was. You squeeze your legs together as the memory makes your heart race.

It quickly grows worse. Charles kisses Margaret again and she lets him. There’s something about how he keeps his eyes open, only half-closed, that you find arousing. Normally it would be a turn-off, but the way Henry does it… you find yourself holding your breath.

A bolt of thunder makes you gasp again and suddenly Charles has Margaret pressed against the wall of the ship, his hands snaking up her dress. The sounds he makes as he kisses her draws even more memories to the surface of your mind: Henry grabs your hand and moves it lower. Your fingers ghost over the muscles of his stomach before resting over his jeans. Warmth radiates from his bulging erection, burning through his jeans. His mouth finds yours again as you palm him over his jeans and you swallow every delicious moan you pull out of him.

A moan rips you out of your daydream. That sound hadn’t come from the show; it had come from you. Fuck. Your face burns, but before you can think to say anything, Henry’s hand comes to rest on your thigh. His hand is warm like always and his touch makes your skin tingle deliciously.

“You like it, don’t you?” he asks, his voice breaking the heated tension in the room. “Like watching me kiss her? Do you wish it was you I was kissing instead?”

You can’t answer him. You know it will give you away, and you don’t want to freak Henry out with how badly you want him. But he softly grabs your chin and forces you to look at him. Even with the lights off, the tv provides a bright glow that shows you just how dilated his pupils are. He’s just as turned on as you right now.

“I had to know,” he admits, “whether you were pretending that day or not. I couldn’t tell if you’d done it all because you thought I needed it and were trying to help me out, or if you actually want me like that. I needed to see your reaction to this scene, needed to know if it would affect you how I hoped it would. And it did.”

“Henry…” Your voice is small, quiet, barely audible above the show. “I-I don’t want this to ruin our friendship.”

He gives you a doubtful look. “You really think we can go back to being just friends after all of this? When it’s clear that we both want more than that?”

You don’t know what to say.

“How can I leave you alone now, knowing that you’re soaking wet?” he asks, the hand he’d had on your thigh slowly moving towards your core. “I want to touch you, want to memorize the spots on your body that, when I touch them just right, make you come undone. I want to make you feel pleasure so intense that you can’t think. I can make you feel good, baby girl. Let me.”

Something about hearing him call you baby girl sets something off in you and before you know what you’re doing, his mouth is against yours. He kisses you roughly, deeply, passionately, and you sigh into his mouth. His hands are on your waist, pulling you even closer to him as his tongue pushes past the barrier of your lips and collides with your own.

“Stand up,” he says suddenly, pulling away from you.

Your mind is foggy, your heart beating so fast that you’re dizzy, but you manage to listen and move to stand in front of him. He unbuttons your shorts slowly, his blue eyes checking your face for any signs of hesitancy. But not an inch of you doesn’t ache for this. He finally moves his attention back to your shorts. As he tugs down the zipper, he leaves a ghost of a kiss just below your belly button. You can’t help but bite your lip and lean into him. He chuckles at your desperation as he tugs your shorts down, taking your underwear with them. You’re suddenly embarrassed now that your most intimate parts are right in front of him. But the way he looks at you… all your embarrassment fades and you’re left feeling like the sexiest woman in the world. He reaches for your shirt next and you lift your arms, letting him undress you completely. Your nipples harden as the cool air whips around them. Henry drags his hands up your sides and cups your breasts, which feel even smaller inside his large hands. He begins to knead them and you’re suddenly more breathless than you were before. You whimper as he pinches your nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. Your arousal begins to drip down your legs.

“Sit in front of me,” he orders.

You don’t know what he has planned but you do it anyways. He spreads his legs so you can sit between them. With one hand between your knees, spreading your legs even further apart, he brings his other hand to your hip and draws you tighter against him until your back is resting against his chest. You can feel the solidness of him against your back, can feel his body heat wrap around you and the unsteady rhythm of his heartbeat. The smell of cedarwood and eucalyptus--a smell that you’ve come to think of as pure Henry--envelopes you as you relax against him. As you find comfort in his arms, you also find yourself growing more aroused. He slowly creeps his hands towards your core. The closer he gets, the more your legs fall open, eager for him to touch you and take everything he wants.

“Fuck,” he breathes into your ear when he runs two fingers between your folds, making your breathe hitch and a shiver snake up your spine. “You’re so wet. Is it all for me?”

You nod, unable to think of words as he begins to rub your clit in agonizingly slowly circles. You release a moan with every breath. No one’s ever made you feel this intense or desperate before. You clutch tightly onto Henry’s thighs, desperate for something to hold onto.

“You have no idea what watching you fall apart does to me,” he says, but a second later you feel his erection press into your ass. You love knowing you’re having an affect on him.

Henry circles your entrance with two wet fingers before pushing them inside of you. His fingers are thick enough that the intrusion stings, but the pain quickly turns into overwhelming pleasure as he begins to finger you. His free hand comes up to your throat, gently squeezing. You let yourself get lost in your pleasure. Your hips buck up against his hand, desperately meeting every curl of his fingers.

“That’s it, cum for me,” he breathes. “I want you to fall apart. Let yourself go.”

And you do. Your legs shake as you fall over the edge and land in a lake of ecstasy. Everything disappears. All you know is Henry--touching you, pleasing you, loving you. You struggle to open your eyes after. Henry doesn’t stop fingering you even after you’ve finished coming.

“Henry--” you gasp out.

“I’m gonna make you feel good,” he promises, tightening his grip on your throat until you can’t speak. “I want you to squirt all over my hands.”

I’ve never done that before, you want to tell him, but his hand on your throat keeps you from speaking.

He keeps up the quick pace and before you know it you feel yourself nearing the edge again. You struggle to breathe as your body mindlessly chases down another orgasm. It feels different this time, though. You tense as you start to feel the desperate need to pee.

Henry moves his hand from your neck to your stomach, gently rubbing your tense muscles until they relax. “It’s okay, baby. Relax against me. Let me make you feel good.”

You trust him enough to listen. Your body falls back against him as the wave of pleasure continues to near. Your breath gets caught in your lungs as you feel your mind stop in its tracks, unable to think.

“That’s it, baby girl,” Henry says.

Your body tenses as you orgasm. But instead of just your legs shaking this time, it’s your entire body. It’s overwhelming, terrifyingly so, because you know that you’re going to spend the rest of your life chasing this feeling.

You’re both quiet as you come back to reality. You force the fog to clear from your mind. “Henry?”

He kisses your neck. It’s such a sweet, simple touch that it makes you blush. Or maybe you’re just coming down from your high still.

“I think you’re right,” you admit. “We can’t go back to just being friends now.”

***

Tag Squad:

@agniavateira​ @hnryycvll​ @littlefreya​ @celestial-vomit​ @lestersglitterglue​ @watermeloncavill​ @honeychicana​ @penwieldingdreamer​ @mary-ann84​ @elixasays​ @buckysgoldenheart​ @noz4a2​ @trippedmetaldetector​ @omgkatinka​ @lunedelorient​ @aphrodites-punch​ @yespolkadotkitty​ @sweetybuzz25​ @iloveyouyen​ @deathonyourtongue​ @utterlyhopeful​ @wondersofdreaming​ @tsukuyomi011​ @the-soot-sprite @desperate-and-broken​ @jayismz @emelinelovesjc @palaiasaurus64​ @wolvesandhoundshowltogether​ @henrythickcavill​ @secretlyactivated​ @madbaddic7ed​ @persephonehemingway​ @geralt-of-baevia​ @stargazingfangirl18​ @thedarkplume​ @spookypeachx​ @pensieveforyourthoughts​ @aletheladyinred​ @littlemissthistle @designerwriterchic​ @becs-bunker​

Let me know if you want to be added/removed from my taglist!

[klysanderelias]

listening to ttrpg actual play podcasts is so wild because it's like 'wow this is so fucking good holy shit' and then you find out about the absolutely abysmal drawbacks to every single one TAZ - the mcelroys created a story with truly moving characters and a great long-running narrative that wrapped up beautifully and still moves me to tears but they refused to learn how to play or improve on their skills so every project after balance got progressively worse because they doubled down on making the show but not listening to criticism or god forbid, asking professionals for help (there's like three other podcasts off the top of my head who hired diversity consultants) and that's without even talking about the shitshow that was graduation

Skyjacks - oh my god it's so good and I love the interplay between the characters and for being a comedy podcast they really hit some emotional and powerful moments with goddamn good drama and acting but jesus christ some of the non-canonical bits they do are painfully unfunny to the point where I skip every interview/dear uhuru reflexively because I'm sick of listening to them run an already unfunny bit into the ground for ten fucking minutes (the worst being casey tony's midroll bits that went for like three weeks and made me hate him as a person)

Critical Role - actually I don't have much good to say about this one, there's a lot of good moments but the game moves so painfully slowly most of the time (especially combats) and mercer (at least through season one and the beginning of season 2) never seemed to understand how to dm effectively because it feels like he's always AGAINST his players instead of facilitating them, and there were a lot of times where I was like 'hey my man you don't need to be doing this, you're just gearchecking them for no good narrative reason and bogging down the play EVEN MORE' oh yeah and orion acaba for like the four episodes he was in, fuck that guy

Dimension 20 - super funny, lots of good moments and memorable characters, and brandon's acting is A+ but it also kind of suffers from having glacial combats and bizarre slowdowns. Also this is probably unfair criticism but I always felt like a lot of the characters just kind of passively experienced the world instead of actively engaging with it. Oh and this applies to a lot of these but a lot of the combat was over-the-top grotesque and really uncomfortable (I have no problem with gore but quite a few problems with describing a sentient creature having a goblin climb up its asshole)

F@TT - I have actually almost nothing bad to say about friends at the table EXCEPT things tend to go really bad really fast; not like clownshoes 'you trip and fall and shit yourself and die' level of failure but 'oh boy well, you failed a single roll and now the entire scape of the world has shifted into full-on disaster' (and I get that pbta [and blades in the dark] games have that as a built-in mechanic but I think they revel in it a little too much for my taste). Also I dropped off on partizan because 'the party doesn't like each other and would split apart as soon as humanly possible to fuck off out of the story' is triggering for me, even though I assume they do a good job of resolving that (AND i really appreciated grand magnificent in twilight mirage so I'm not sure why partizan was my breaking point)

anyway I'm just complaining to complain but since I'm powering through 12 hours of podcast a night, I've got lots of things rattling around in my head as I burn through years of backlog in weeks

[tweedfrog]

I just read your asks about Brandon Stark and you really made me rethink his whole character. I use to believe the fanon Robert Baratheon of the North stuff but your ask and a couple other posts have made me really rethink that and it has made me rethink my version of young Eddard Stark too. Maybe Brandon Stark wasn't the huge fuckboi I thought he was, and just maybe Eddard was a bit of a fuckboi in his youth and not a pure angel like fanon loves to say he was.

Thanks! I’m glad I could change your mind about Brandon Stark because he is one of my canon OCs and I never liked the Robert Baratheon of the North takes. I think its an oversimplification of a person who was a bit of a hot-head who made some stupid decisions but who also loved his sister and family a lot and ended up dying trying to protect them.

Theres a world of a difference between someone like Brandon who helped his shy younger brother ask a girl for a dance, and who stormed the capital to demand his kidnapped sister back, and someone like Robert Baratheon who outright admits that he doesnt love his brothers and that Ned was the brother he chose - keep in mind that these are the same two brothers who nearly died of starvation during a seige to help Robert win a war

Regarding Ned I dont think he was much of a fuckboy mainly because from the stories about Harrenhal he seems too painfully shy but I also dont think he’s the saint the fandom makes him out to be. In canon Ned had 1 fight with Robert after the murder of Rhaenys and Aegon and then went back to being best mates with him, he was perfectly fine holding Theon hostage despite “not wanting to drag frightened children from their beds”, and when Catelyn asked him who Jon Snow’s mother was he frightened her so badly she described it as the one time she was afraid of him. I think like most characters in asoiaf he was morally grey although in general he was a good man. 

[bighengreads]

Discovering fantasy, in adulthood

For my 25th birthday, a friend bought me a book. We’d spent a lot of times recommending books to one another, but those recommendations never got followed through for one major reason - he basically only read fantasy novels, and I hadn’t touched one since I was 13.

Fantasy novels were something that only existed in my childhood, in the form of Diana Wynne Jones escapades and sprawling series like Harry Potter, Pendragon, and Eragon series. Becoming a very emotional teenager meant that I stopped looking for adventure in fantastical worlds, and looked for books that could relate and expand on the vast swirling cesspit of hormonal emotions I was experiencing. I took to stories solidly grounded in reality and characters with a rich, tumultuous inner world with bare and stark foregrounds (sometimes, the smallest semblance of plot). Books, where when someone asked me what it was about, I would struggle to explain it. 

To be honest, this fixation on emotional catharsis meant that my relationship with books became tiring. My early 20′s were years of picking up books that I could put down with little to no resistance. 

With this mindset, when I picked up the first book of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy, The Final Empire, I expected an easy read that would not leave much of an impression. I ended up finishing the first volume in a week, and the entire trilogy in a month and a half, which was pretty astounding for someone who was averaging 6 books a year. 

It was immediately obvious what a behemoth of a task world-building in fantasy is. The author has the huge task of introducing not only plot and character, but the intrinsic laws of the universe that they occupy. 

It was an uncomfortable initially, where every new creature and environment felt reminiscent of a dungeons and dragon or lord of the rings scene (my only reference point for fantasy based storytelling). But when I let those pre-conceptions go, what I was left with was a growing attachment to these relatable characters (mystical powers or not), and a stronger and stronger immersion into these fantastical, and yet sociologically comprehensive societies. 

What struck me was how cinematic the experience was. Perhaps this is more an attribute to Sanderson’s dynamic writing, or more relating to action-heavy novels, but I could see every scene come to life in my mind. Fight scenes that extended to 15 pages played out like a high-budget film, with the added joy of a clever and exciting battle strategy dialogue playing along like the narrative of a director’s cut.

This experience opened my eyes to a whole new world. For one of the first times since I was a teenager, I had to keep turning the pages to find out what happened next. I was excited by what I was reading, and sometimes had to stop to catch my breath. 

With all the richness of this wonderful new world, there were some teething problems for me as well. The Mistborn world is jammed packed with themes, ranging from political strategy, to theological philosophy, to chemical alchemy, and the characters are the ones that carry these concepts to reality. But with some of the main characters, I found that their motivations and supposed relationships were more “told” than “seen”. 

(Spoilers ahead)

One example of this is the mechanisms used to remind us of the main protagonist, Vin’s traumatic past and her inability to let go of her survival instincts. It’s a rhetoric drilled into us at every major decision point, almost as though the author is saying “hey! Remember this plot point? It’s important for later so don’t forget!”. Vin’s character suffers from another standpoint, with her romantic relationship with Elend, which is a major driving force in the entire series, had the effectiveness a soggy slice of bread floating in a duck pond - every profession of love felt wholly unearned and painfully cringy. 

Another big issue I had was the pacing throughout the series. It was especially apparent in the last instalment, Hero of the Ages. Here we are at the convergence of all the plot and folklore the first two books spent beautifully crafting, and what did they decide to do with all the build up? They sent us on a wild goose chase (literally) of boredom, convoluted side-plots, and a building irritation at the fact that they were using up precious real estate that should have been used to answer all the questions that the series had us asking. 

The Mistborn series had the huge challenge of taking this sprawling world and delivering a satisfying ending. It did that, and it delivered it beautifully (even though I still don’t understand why they jammed all of it in the last quarter of the book instead of spreading it out). 

(Spoilers end)

After all that, I have to say that reading the Mistborn series was one of the literary highlights of my adult life. It allowed me to recapture the thrill of staying up to finish a book even when you have work/school the next day, and I was really blown away by the sheer love and craft that went into constructing this world. It also opened up my eyes to tasting more of what the world of fantasy has to offer., 

[transracialqueer]

Huxley’s adoption story is part of a much larger narrative about race, disability and abuse

by Lydia X. Z. Brown

As an autistic adult who is also a transracial, transnational adoptee from China, I am fucking infuriated and disgusted, but entirely unsurprised.

By now, you’ve probably heard about the YouTube influencers who made international news for abandoning their autistic child after adopting him from China almost three years ago.

Huxley, originally adopted by the Stauffers, is one of thousands of children, many children of colour in the Global South who are adopted each year by predominantly white families in the Global North. Since his adoption – which was documented for YouTube in meticulous detail, including the fact that Huxley was disabled, the Stauffers have filmed numerous videos of him for their YouTube channel that they monetised and gained major corporate sponsors for producing. They filmed and posted videos that showed Huxley having meltdowns, which are terrifying, vulnerable moments. They are extremely emotionally, cognitively and physically draining for autistic people. They filmed and posted videos that showed Huxley with duct tape on his hands because his mother wanted to stop him from sucking his thumb. All of this is painfully familiar for autistic people, who routinely see nonautistic parents of autistic children exploiting and monetising their children for internet fame with no regard for their children’s autonomy, dignity, or privacy.

The Stauffers, who also talked about wanting to adopt another child from Uganda or Ethiopia, horrifically decided that because Huxley turned out to have more disabilities than they realised when adopting him and was doing things that they found scary (never specified as to what precisely), they needed to find somewhere else for him to live.

Describing this process as “rehoming” Huxley to a “new forever family” – descriptions most often found in discussions of rescued dogs – only reinforces the kind of ableist dehumanisation that autistic and other disabled people commonly face. I love dogs and cats. But I also know as a person of colour that white supremacy has long deployed animalistic comparisons as a means of dehumanising black, Native, Latinx and Asian people, while also implicitly or explicitly devaluing our lives as less important than that of non-human animals. (One need only to look toward the white liberals who are far more outraged about a white woman choking her dog than that she brazenly threatened a black man with death). Yet despite the Stauffers’ claim that they made a careful, reasoned choice, they were, in reality, participating in a less overtly awful part of a vast, unregulated and shadowy world of human trafficking poorly disguised as attempts to find new loving homes for adopted children – often disabled adoptees of colour – who are ultimately treated as expendable and disposable.

And yet, at the same time, many of us in disabled community are actually minorly relieved that the Stauffers abandoned their child and sent him to a different family because at least they didn’t murder him. Before you ask whether I’m hyperbolising or sensationalising, let me point you to the list of names maintained on the Disability Memorial website – a list of disabled people who were murdered by family members or caregivers that we read at yearly vigils. A list of disabled people whose lives were deemed tragic rather than their murders, whose murderers were lauded and praised as heroes, martyrs, angels, or saints, for taking on the great burden of dealing with us only to understandably snap from all of that stress. A list of disabled people murdered in calculated, cruel, horrific ways, as well as by deliberate neglect and years-long abuse. A list that has grown so long since the first vigils held in 2012 that this year, vigil organisers stopped reading the whole thing, because it would have taken hours just to say the names. The bar we have for these parents is so goddamn low now.

When I was still a baby, I became one of 787 children adopted that year from China by families in the United States. Like thousands of other transracial and transnational adoptees – children adopted by families of different races and nations than their own – I grew up with a fractured relationship to my own heritage and culture of origin, unable to access the same type of multigenerational and ancestral wisdom and knowledge as people raised by families and in communities who share their culture and history. And like many other disabled, queer and trans people, I also grew up in a family where I was the only one of my kind. Transracial adoptees, disabled people, queer people and trans people often share a particularly pernicious experience of isolation and alienation, a permanent outsider status or liminal existence, where we never fully belong anywhere. We are unmoored, marked indelibly by trauma made ordinary, our lives and experiences constantly subject to exploitation by those with more power and resources – even to the point of erasing our very existence.

Huxley’s story – no matter how much the Stauffers cried in their video describing what happened – also lays bare what many of us adoptees already know. The adoption industry – in both domestic and transnational adoption – is fueled by global white supremacy in the guise of white saviourism and it’s grotesquely ableist and capitalist. Dominant narratives about transracial and transnational adoption portray children of colour in the Global South as helpless and malleable infants who need to be rescued or saved by white people in the Global North, who will give us “a better life” because our own communities and cultures are presumed backward, uncivilised, uneducated and wrong. This logic is not only colonising and often orientalist but also profoundly ableist on a civilisational scale, by positing that white-dominant and Global North societies are superior to those of negatively racialised people in the Global South.

Transracial and transnational adoption often functions as little more than a less obviously awful form of human trafficking designed to serve colonial interests – and indeed, even domestic adoptions have a long history of eugenicist and racist aims through the use of residential schools and spurious labels of mental defectiveness, promiscuity and criminality to declare black, Indigenous and other people of colour as unfit to parent. That history continues today as state authorities frequently work to deprive black and Indigenous disabled parents of their children while simultaneously prohibiting many black, Indigenous and disabled parents from ever adopting children.

My heart breaks for Huxley, because I could have been him. And we know that untold numbers of other disabled adoptees remain at risk not only for another abandonment, but for further abuse, exploitation, or even murder – after all, that’s what happened to Zha-Nae, Sherin, Sabrina, Kentae, Nicholas, Jeffrey, Brandon, Grace, Mirudula, Elsie, La’Marion, Courtney, Madoc Hyeonsu, Terrilynn, Shane, Mollie, Noah and undoubtedly many more we will never know. There is no easy policy solution to the problems endemic in the child “welfare” system, let alone the underlying conditions of deliberate impoverishment, deprivation and dehumanisation of negatively racialised and disabled people that feed these systems. But those who are impacted are desperate for hope that Huxley might have some chance to live through this new trauma – that perhaps one day he will find community and belonging.

(Link in the notes)