#and an old beautiful ship of space parents from a certain numbered show i also dare not name

[clumsycapitolunicorn]

.

[glittering-snowfall]

I know I’ve vented about this before, here and on my other blog, but...

It frustrates me that the loudest negative talking points about F2 have devolved into personal insults about characters, the filmmakers, and the cast... or using books that always existed in a nebulous canon space to ‘prove’ that characters are OOC.

Look. I dislike the ending of F2. I think there were poor writing decisions in F2. (I also think there were good writing decisions.) I feel there are serious pacing issues that often undercut the good aspects of the film. I also think that, at certain points, characters’ behavior feels OOC or the resolutions to scenes feel so rushed they don’t land with the impact they should.

I don’t like the destiny elements. I don’t like the Fifth Spirit elements and I feel they compromise Elsa’s agency (and before someone says, “But they don’t determine Elsa’s actions!”, let me reiterate that they still influence Elsa’s actions and influence her life from before she is even born. This isn’t like the world influencing people. This is design - and even if you feel that the regular influences of the world that ordinary people go through are God’s design, God doesn’t take as clear and direct a hand as the spirits and magical forces do with Elsa in F2.

I actually agree with a lot of the central points the “BringElsaHome” people have, but... not for the reasons that they sometimes tout.

Like... Elsa feels slightly OOC to me in F2 because she’s so focused on her own goals even when it’s clear that Anna is panicking and hurting - and that feels legitimately off for me. Yes, Elsa frequently pushes Anna away in the first film for Anna’s own good, but we get so many scenes of Elsa being aware that she is hurting Anna emotionally and hating that. In F2, something like the ice boat scene happens and then it never comes up again. We don’t get a moment for Elsa to pause and reflect on what she’s done, we just jump to the Dark Sea scene. In fact, the more I think about it, the ice boat scene is a GOOD scene - it’s compelling and morally grey and opens up interesting conflicts and, it’s born of Elsa’s noble desire to protect those she loves), but the aftermath is what kills it because it’s so disjointed and rushed and so it feels... off...

Again, I’m not saying this to be critical of Elsa. I love Elsa. I’m being critical of the way Elsa is written at points in F2 and, more than that, how the pacing does a disservice to otherwise good scenes. I know some anti-Elsa people took my ice boat post from ages ago to say that Elsa “never apologizes” in general, but that’s just factually incorrect and I advise them to look back at all the times in the franchise when Elsa has. 

It’s strange because the “BringElsaHome” folks, I know, dislike that scene as well. And so do some anti-Elsa folks. (It’s strange how they both agree because those groups hate each other, mostly due to shipping differences - but they agree to a degree and then veer into different directions, both of which I’m not fond of.)

The “BringElsaHome” folks feel the moment sucks and is OOC (which I agree with) but then some of the more aggressive folks go into wild directions with what they consider OOC about Elsa in F2 generally. Like, going to books of dubious canonicity doesn’t further your point when I’ve just spent the last few paragraphs talking about why Elsa feels OOC between movies based on the actual texts of both films. I did that to show, you CAN argue a case about Elsa feeling off in F2 and it can make sense - but the conversation so often gets derailed by the strangest choices people choose to argue. Like, talking about how ‘classy’ Elsa is? That’s incredibly superficial and has some racist implications when combined with certain people’s negativity towards the Northuldra.

And the anti-Elsa people... well, they took hold of my old post to claim Elsa “never apologizes” which wasn’t the point of that post at all and feels rooted in biases against Elsa. It doesn’t look at the small discrepancies between characterization and pacing, it just generalizes Elsa as a “bad sister.” Even though there are nuances to the scene and, on it’s own it’s a rather good scene, it’s just a victim of choppy editing and pacing when it comes to addressing its aftermath.

At the same time, I do agree with the frustrations that Anna fans have... and some of the frustrations that Elsa fans have. let me try to explain my position.

You see, I feel that Anna’s personal journey in Frozen 2 is far better written than Elsa’s personal journey. It feels more grounded. it feels more human. I can relate to it more. The Next Right Thing is so real it hurts me to hear it. And because it feels better written, I can sympathize with Elsa fans who feel Elsa got the short shrift in F2. Someone on twitter talked about F2 being more focused on Elsa’s magic than Elsa as a person and... I agree with that. At the same time, I don’t agree with people who say the filmmakers “hate” Elsa or suggest Kristen Bell was somehow pulling strings behind the scenes. That’s not how it works, guys, and even if she made some suggestions, the writers and director are the final arbiters. The writers and director call the shots. 

While I agree with the arguments that Elsa suffered from poor writing (and poor editing) at points of F2, it’s not because the filmmakers “hate” her. I think they love her very much and wanted to make a relatable story for her. That’s why Elsa’s journey in F2 works as a metaphor for self-acceptance. 

But I do think the means they used to facilitate the metaphor are flawed. The magical destiny elements overwhelm the human elements and so it becomes... only metaphor... whereas in the first film, we had Elsa’s powers as metaphor, yes, but grounded alongside her interactions with her family and others. It becomes too abstract and it’s hard for me to relate to. (Keep in mind, I’m NOT policing anyone. As I said, it’s a powerful metaphor - and if that metaphor works as-is for you, I’m happy for you. I just needed to see more of Elsa bonding with other people - like the found family she built in the first film, like the Northuldra who could serve as a beautiful extension of that family and who I feel need more screentime. I feel it’s poor writing (or at least, flawed writing) but not born from a place of malice. More, I’d argue it comes from a good-intentioned miscalculation what made Elsa so resonant to a certain subset of fans. But that’s not hate.

I agree with Anna fans who are frustrated too. It’s interesting. Certain Elsa fans feel Elsa was pushed aside while Anna fans feel frustrated about Anna too. I sympathize with Anna fans because Elsa does always get way more focus in the marketing. Elsa gets way more attention from fans and the media and so forth. That hurts. And, even as I feel Anna got the far richer storyline in F2, Elsa still got the big showstopping numbers that everyone focused on. That can hurt.

And I also sympathize with Anna fans (of various ships) stung by the fact that F2 puts Anna through... a whole lot of pain. Where Elsa gets a journey of exultation, Anna gets to struggle as her certainties fray apart. And, for me, that hurts. Maybe it’s just because, as I said, The Next Right Thing feels too real for me.

And that sympathy of mine means I agree with different people of different ships too, to a degree. I agree with KA  and EA shippers who talk about how Anna went through so much but the filmmakers cut the moment of her getting her parent’s validation. I agree that Anna is more level-headed than Elsa throughout much of F2 and it hurts seeing her try to hold her family together. I DO NOT agree when people bring up codependency to condemn the snow sisters bond; I’m sensitive to that.

I don’t know. I agree with a lot of critiques about F2, but I also love aspects of F2 and think it’s beautiful in spite of its flaws. But I still critique it a lot. I just wish people focused their critiques on more coherent things than... on the things they do. 

[spookyfbi]

Untitled, Unfinished Commission Dave fic

This premise wouldn’t leave me alone but I have NO idea where to go with it so I offer this up to the void with no strings attached if anyone wants to take it and run with it, because I’d sure love to read more! Hit me up if you want to chat about it, or don’t, up to you. If you want to change anything here, feel free. Honestly I just had to get this idea out of my head and onto digital paper and now I have, whatever happens next is just gravy!

———

1963

Dave looked around his bedroom as he lay on his bed. It wouldn’t be his bedroom for very much longer, soon he’d be shipping out. Dave wasn’t really sure how he felt about joining the army, but he supposed it was about time he did something, so it might as well be this. He wasn’t a coward, he wasn’t a… well, he wasn’t a coward. He was willing to die for his country if that’s what it took. It was the right thing to do… wasn’t it?

Dave’s thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his door. He grinned when he saw who it was and, quick as a flash, he jumped up and raced to hug his sister.

“Liz!” he exclaimed, then he leaned back from the hug and looked her up and down. “Wow, you sure look fancy!” She looked about as elegant as Audrey Hepburn. “How’s New York treating you?’

“New York is amazing!” Liz gushed. “It really makes Dallas feel like a drag.”

“I’ll bet.” Dave sat down on his bed, while Liz took a seat on his old toy chest.

“I just got a lecturing from Uncle Brian.” Liz rolled her eyes and Dave pursed his lips sympathetically. “You’re never gonna find a husband if you keep being so high and mighty about this career of yours.” She repeated their uncle’s words mockingly. “Like I’d want to marry a man who’s intimidated by my success. I’d rather be a spinster! The right guy should be proud of me for my accomplishments.”

“Well, I’m sure proud of you!” Dave told her. “My sister living the high life in New York City!”

Liz beamed. “Thanks, Dave! I knew there were enlightened men in the world.”

“It’s really good to see you, Liz. It’s good to be reminded that Uncle Brian’s opinions aren’t the only ones out there.”

The mood in the room shifted and after a moment, Liz said: “He told me you enlisted in the army.” There was no pride in her voice, the way there was whenever Uncle Brian talked about his decision, and it made Dave feel even less certain about it. 

Dave nodded, but he found himself unable to look her in the eyes. She looked at him and said nothing and after a while Dave found the silence deafening so he filled it with what little he had of an explanation. “You heard about the President? Uncle Brian said it’s gonna make America look weak. He said the Commies might invade and the army will need every man they can get.”

Liz shook her head. “You’re so young…”

“I’m eighteen!” Dave shot back. “I’m an adult!”

Liz got up and sat beside him. “I just meant that you’ve still got your whole life ahead of you. I don’t want to see you dying a young man in some war. I want you to fall in love and get married and have kids and live a long life.”

Dave raised an eyebrow at her. “The same life Uncle Brian wants for you?”

“Or find a career that you love, or travel the world, or… whatever makes you happy, Dave. And the army isn’t it, is it?”

Dave looked at Liz, knowing she could tell how unhappy he was with this decision. He collapsed back onto the bed with a sigh. Liz lay down next to him and he was suddenly reminded of their first night at Uncle Brian’s house after their parents had died, when he’d crawled into her bed because he was scared and she’d told him not to worry because she’d always look out for him. “I can’t stay here.” He said softly, and for all his talk of heroism and the right thing, deep down he knew that was the real reason he’d enlisted.

Liz hummed in agreement, then she nudged him with her elbow. “Why don’t you come stay with me!”

“What?”

“Yeah!” Liz sat up, her eyes sparking with excitement. “I could probably pull a few strings and get you a position with my company. They’re always looking for new recruits. You’d probably have to start at the bottom but it’d be better than the army.”

“I don’t know…” Dave said cautiously. “If I back out now after enlisting, Uncle Brian’s for sure gonna think I’m a coward. Or worse… And I’m not a coward!”

“Who cares what Uncle Brian thinks? You never have to see him again if you don’t want to. Why do you think I haven’t been here in 5 years?”

Dave considered for a moment. Then he sat up. “What exactly does your company do anyhow?”

Liz turned to face him. “Okay, this is gonna sound real batty. The company I work for is called The Commission.”

———

Somewhere outside of Time and Space, 11 years later

…Dave? Dave!

…Medic!

…Stay with me, Dave! Stay with me!

Dave bolted upright. Klaus’ cries ringing in his ears, the sharp pain in his chest, the blood… He was panting and sweaty and confused. The memories felt distant. Where was he?

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty!”

Dave looked at Liz, sitting in a chair next to the… hospital bed? “I was shot.” Dave touched his chest where he was sure he’d felt searing pain only moments ago. There was no wound.

“Yeah, and I had to call in a shitload of favours to get you all patched up.”

Dave lay back down on the hospital bed. So he had been shot, but the Commission had saved him. Liz had saved him. She looked pissed. He took her hand in his own. “You’re the best.” He gave her the most charming smile he could muster. “I love you.”

Liz withdrew her hand and rolled her eyes. “What the hell happened, Dave? You were in Vietnam for 10 months! Did you get your mark?”

“Yeah, I got my mark!” Dave replied indignantly. Of course he got his mark, he always did. Like a good soldier.

“So what happened?”

Dave closed his eyes and sighed. “I don’t want to work for the Commission anymore, Liz. You know I never wanted this, I only joined so I could avoid the army. But how is this any different?”

Liz looked at him for a moment, her expression softening. “It’s not that simple. You weren’t shot by an enemy soldier. It was the Commission.”

“What?!”

“You should’ve told me, Dave. I could’ve talked to my bosses and we could’ve worked something out. The way you handled it, it just looks like you abandoned your mission.”

Dave sighed. “I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t plan this.” Liz didn’t respond, just looked at him expectantly. “I met someone. He’s another agent, at least I think so. We didn’t talk about it, I don’t know why. But he had a briefcase. I think maybe it was his first mission or something. He looked so scared and confused so I stayed for a bit to help him adjust to the time period. I swear that’s all I meant to do at first… Every day I kept telling myself I’d go back to HQ tomorrow, but…” Dave felt one of the corners of his mouth pinch into a smile. “I really liked spending time with him.” He looked at Liz and shrugged wistfully. “I fell in love with him. And before I knew it we were making plans to get an apartment together in San Francisco once our 12 months in Vietnam were up and Liz, I’ve never wanted anything in my life more than I want to live in that apartment with him, or anywhere with him.” Suddenly Dave remembered. The blood, the pain in his chest, the panicked cry. Medic! Dave! Stay with me! He scrunched his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh god… He probably still thinks I’m dead.” He looked back at Liz frantically as he started to sit back up. “I have to find him, I have to let him know him I’m alive!”

Liz put a hand to his chest. “Slow down, Romeo. Look, I don’t think you realise how serious this situation is. They wanted you dead, they still do. You need to lay low until this thing blows over. Do a few more missions, show them you’re willing to toe the line, and then when you’re back in their good graces we can talk about you leaving to go find this Sweetheart of yours, okay?”

Dave sighed reluctantly. He wouldn’t even know where to begin looking for Klaus anyway. “Fine, but then you’ll get me some time with the Infinite Switchboard and help me find him, right?”

“I’ll do what I can.” Liz said with a tiny smile. “I gotta meet this guy who finally lit a fire under your ass.” Dave grinned and then Liz handed him a canister. “Your first mission, and it’s a doozy. There’s six on that list. I think they’re a family though, so shouldn’t be too hard. Hopefully they’ll all be in the same place.”

Dave felt sick as he unscrewed the lid. “There’d better not be kids on this list.”

“If there are, you’ll do as you’re told.” Liz said firmly.

Dave ignored her and looked at the order he withdrew from the canister. His blood turned to ice when he read the order.

TERMINATE LUTHER HARGREEVES DIEGO HARGREEVES ALLISON HARGREEVES KLAUS HARGREEVES NUMBER FIVE VANYA HARGREEVES

Terminate. Klaus Hargreeves. Klaus must be in the same trouble Dave was for going off mission, only he didn’t have a sister in the Commission to bail him out. Dave didn’t know who the other names on the list were. Klaus didn’t talk much about his family, and Dave knew what it was like to be on less than stellar terms with a family member so he hadn’t asked. He looked desperately at Liz. “Klaus Hargreeves.” he said, showing her the order. “That’s him.”

Liz glanced at the order and then closed her eyes, letting her head fall into her hand and massaging her temple with a sigh. Dave searched her face for any indication that she had a way to fix the situation. Finally, she looked at him and spoke with an eerie calmness. “Dave, if you don’t kill everyone on that list, the Commission will kill you, and I won’t be able to save you this time.”

“Liz, I can’t!”

“Yes you can.”

“I won’t.”

Liz looked at Dave for a moment, and he couldn’t read her expression. She took the order from him and cupped his cheek. “Okay. I’ll fix this, don’t worry.” 

Liz stood up and started to leave and for the first time in his life, Dave was afraid of his sister. He knew she was ruthless. He also knew she would do anything to protect him. And that was exactly the problem, because apparently it was either Klaus or Dave. Dave knew who he would choose. And he also knew who Liz would choose. Dave leapt out of the hospital bed and put himself in her path. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to fix it.” She said, and it would sound so innocent if Dave didn’t know her better.

Dave’s mind raced. If she really had a way to fix this without Klaus being harmed she’d tell him. He knew exactly what she was going to do and he could only think of one thing he could say to get her to back down. “No, I’ll fix it.” He said, taking the order back from her. He walked around her back towards the bed and faced away from her because he wasn’t sure if he was a good enough liar to pull this off if she saw his face. “I got carried away. It was exciting, being with someone, but I’m not gonna die for this guy. I’ll get back into the Commission’s good graces, don’t worry.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” He still didn’t turn around, but Liz came to him, and he knew it would be suspicious if he avoided her now so he looked at her.

“Alright.” She agreed. “But if you bail on this mission I will finish it for you. I’ll always look out for you, Dave.”

Dave nodded, remembering a time long ago when the though had made him fee safe and loved.

———

2019, the next day

Dave looked around the alley that the briefcase had landed him in. He wasn’t sure why he’d expected to land in 1968, but this place was much more modern. He started walking aimlessly trying to get his bearings, then he stopped at a phone booth. He took out the phone book from the shelf underneath and opened it to H. “Hargreeves, Hargreeves, Hargreeves…” he muttered as he searched.

Hargreeme, Olga Hargreeves, Reginald Hargreeves, Vanya Hargref, Kenny

No ‘Hargreeves, Klaus’ or even ‘Hargreeves, K’. Damn. Dave looked at the Commission order again. Vanya Hargreeves was the last name on the order, and it seemed the only one of these listed in the phone book. If they really were a family, perhaps this Vanya Hargreeves would know where he could find Klaus. Having nothing else to go on, Dave tore out the page and folded it up. Now, he just needed a map.

———

[twilightofthe]

For the Star Wars questions- 16 & 19. :)

Thank you!!! (y’all this got ridiculously long for two damn questions lol)

Send me a number and i’ll tell u my fave/least fave:

16. Book/Comic (Aight, so I’m actually not a huge comic reader in general, most of my comic knowledge comes from other fans on here posting about them, so this is gonna be mainly book-focused)

FAVE:  Welllllll, since I’m literally incapable of narrowing down my favorite anythings, I’m gonna do faves for both canon and EU novels.  

Canon-wise, it’s a tie beween A New Dawn and Ahsoka.  I know I don’t post about them as much on here, but I truly have a super soft spot for Kanera and Kanan and Hera’s characters, they’re just so GOOD and I love themmmmm aaaaaaaaa.  You get super good insights to how Kanan was running wild and traumatized and trying to repress everything and how Hera was a little naïve but still tough as nails and she had a dream and she was going to make it happen or so help her, ugh I just love how the story showed how they’re strongest as a team working together and I just love character dynamics where the two are so obviously married and kinda snark at each other sometimes but they have each other’s backs through everything and know each other like the back of their hands and uggghhhh this is just such a healthy good ship and such a good book.  The Ahsoka novel is just fantastic all on its own because it shows Ahsoka as a young adult, kinda floundering and lost in this new world, full of guilt over what happened with Anakin and the Order, trying to do what she can to help people and just enduring because she’s a survivor, she was raised (by two argumentative, adoptive parents who love her very much SO SAYETH THE BOOK) to be a survivor and handle herself, but that doesn’t mean she’s not lonely as all hell.  And oof I just fucking adore Kaeden Larte and her relationship with Ahsoka (who absolutely comes back and marries her once the war is over oh yes) and her relationship with Miara and ugh just all of it is A+++++.  E.K. Johnston is just an amazing author in general and her other book, Queen’s Shadow is one of my two canon runner ups because I am in love with her Sabé and her Padmé.  Other canon runner up is A Certain Point Of View, if only for the “Time of Death” chapter.  Don’t get me wrong, the rest of it is also fantastic, but oh god it kills me DEAD OBI WAN DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER AND I CRY I REALLY CRY

EU-wise (oh god, I haven’t even gotten to least-faves yet), it has to be the Revenge of the Sith novelization.  Without a question.  Y’all it’s SO FUCKIN’ good, and in my personal opinion should be considerrred canonnnnnn (look I think the reason they gave for excluding it is that there’s no mention of Ahsoka or Rex or Mandalore or any of the stuff that happened literally the day before which is valid, but I counterpoint that Anakin is a mess with A Lot Going On At The Moment, he could have just forgot?  He forgets most of his morals, all of his common sense, and three of his limbs by the end of the story, Snips could have just slipped his mind! xD).  Anyway, besides the fact that it’s like 99% written in Obikin-colored glasses which really just makes me happy as a person because I love it being acknowledged just how important they are to each other, it really offers a deeper insight INSIDE the chaos going on in Anakin’s head, the mess, just why he falls so quickly and so awfully.  I love it gives the Padmé plot that got cut on screen some validity.  The beautiful beginning and the goddam introductions to Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi are just A++++++++++++++ and oof other people can more accurately describe just how good this book is, but I love it a Big Lot ok?

LEAST FAVE:  Okey doke, here we go....  So firstly for canon, I’m not the biggest fan of how Claudia Grey writes Leia’s character.  She’s a wonderful storyteller and I love her worldbuilding, but just the way she characterizes Leia herself never felt... right, ya know?  Idk, I can’t really explain it, but it makes it difficult for me to enjoy her Leia novelsWarning right now that this is a VERY unpopular opinion and my opinion alone, please do not yell at me!  So as skilled and admired an author Timothy Zahn is, I don’t like the Thrawn books.  I’m sorry, I don’t.  To me, Thrawn is just.... ok so he’s like BBC!Sherlock but in space.  The plot makes a big deal about how “oooh cool and intelligent and Literally Better Than Everyone Else” Thrawn is, but the only way they really show his “cleverness” is by either him solving problems by pulling together information that literally no one but the writer knows and then acting like it was oh so obvious and in front of everyone OR, the story dumbs down other characters to make him look smart.  And maybe it was because the one Thrawn book goes after Anakin/Vader in particular to do the latter is what kinda ticked me off on Thrawn books in general, but y’all, it really ticked me off, because Anakin is like the lowest hanging fruit for an author to pick to make their character look good in comparison, and therefore it is done All The Time (LOOKING AT YOU, CLONE WARS), which I think is lazy and an insult to Anakin’s character.  Look, I am fully aware Anakin Skywalker is a dolt to the highest degree sometimes, but he is ALSO A GENIUS.  He is SMART.  IT IS CANON THAT HE IS SMART.  So when the Thrawn book has Thrawn constantly one-upping Anakin The Useless Doofus (and Padmé a bit!!!) and then doing it again once he meets him as Vader, that just makes me hmmmm.

The canon comics are actually gonna be featured on the list here a bit because if y’all don’t already know my hatred for That One Particular Vader Comic (not the rest of the series run as I have not read it and from what I hear, it’s excellent and I’d probs like it a lot) doing the implication in a dream sequence where it says that Palpatine used the Dark Side to impregnate Shmi and create Anakin, well I HATE IT.  Look, I know the plot was literally about Sidious trying to mess with Vader’s head and that dream shouldn’t be trusted, but it fooled all the fans too and now like 60% of Star Wars fans actually believe Sidious fathered Anakin and I am so damn tired of hearing about that.  Yeah, now that Reylo is canon, that comic’s authors are trying to do damage control by saying that no, Sidious isn’t Anakin’s father and Rey and Ben are not second cousins, but they’re still being mysterious about it and “oh well it COULD be this--” so now there’s just more fans who are digging into that theory just because they don’t like Reylo and I don’t really care for the ship either but I really HATE the entire “Born of the Dark” concept for reasons I can explain more separately, so I’m pissy at that particular comic for spawning it.  I know it’s petty but I do.

EU-wise, well, this is gonna be unpopular too, cuz I haven’t read most of the EU stuff, and from what I’ve heard of it, there doesn’t seem to be much that I WOULD like.  The movie novelizations all seem good, but everything else???  “Obi Wan prequels but guess what, he had a shitty childhood too!” uh, no thanks, the rest of his life sucks enough, I want to see him happy.  “Mandalorian worldbuilding, but they’re all a bunch of stoic, overpowered badasses who are Good At Everything And Better Than Literally Everyone and the plot bashes the Jedi left right and center!” ehhhhhhhh pass.  “What happened after Return of the Jedi, except the Skywalkers still don’t get a happy ending because the galaxy goes to war again, Han and Leia’s son turns evil, Luke Suffers, and Palpatine comes back again!” nah, that sounds too depressing-- oh wAIT :) :) :)(at least the EU actually lets Han and Leia grow old and happy together okay okay that’s enough sequel salt for one day)

19. Outfit

FAVE:  Everything Padmé Amidala wears in the movies.  No I will not narrow it down.  I am in love with her whole wardrobe and I want it. 

 I also love the standard Jedi tunics and tabards and cloak (c’mon, the cloak completes the picture!)  It’s just such a signature and unique look that’s supposed to combine medieval European knight tunics and samurai warrior clothing and just the #aesthetic is oof, just wonderful.

Also Sabine Wren’s armor and its various paint jobs.  It’s just so uniquely her and bright and beautiful and badass in all its stages and yes good I like it.

Also Lando Calrissian’s cloaks!  Swooshy and colorful and good!  I love cloaks!  

LEAST FAVE:  Gonna go with my petty, silly ones first, and those are all of Padmé Amidala’s outfits that are only seen in the The Clone Wars TV show (so not the ones that were based off of movie costumes).  Eh, actually three of them were nice, her orange outfit she visits Mina in, her white casual housedress, and her black slinky Clovis dress.  All of her other series-only outfits made me highkey pissy because they were either A.) Wrong for the situation she was in, B.) Defied the laws of physics and should not have held the shape they did/stayed on her body, or C.) just plain UGLY (the highest crime of all), and for the animators to have the audACITY to put any of those things in the mere vicinity of the most stylish woman in the galaxy is an insult to Padmé, an insult to ME, and an insult to Star Wars as a whole (yes, I am mostly joking, but come on!).  No, I will not give the designers the excuse of clothing being difficult and expensive and time consuming to animate because I have SEEN the fancy, PRETTY outfits of the other ladies of Padmé’s status on the show.  Everything Satine Kryze wore was intricately beautiful as all hell and I loved it.  Riyo Chuchi’s two outfits were lovely and fashionable.  Heck, I’m pretty sure I liked Mina Bonteri’s outfit too.  There were tons of people on that show with stylish clothing!  How hard would it have been for the animators to remember Padmé doesn’t wear exposed midriffs on official government business?  That dresses with no sides or back cannot be sleeveless or they will not stay up?  Not give her hairstyles that looked like either a goddam tuning fork or like Jimmy Neutron’s mother?  That beige jumpsuits are BORING and adding a mauve vest is NOT enough to make it exciting!!!! xD xD xD 

Aight, now in more seriousness, I also hated both of Ahsoka’s outfits in the original TCW show.  Enough people have spoken on why sending a fourteen year old into an active warzone in a tube top and miniskirt is a BAD IDEA, but like it just makes me extra mad when you remember her older and more experienced at Not Getting Pulverized Masters were both in full concealing robes and chest and shoulder and shin armor, so you can’t even pass it off as Jedi not getting hurt as easily.  Her updated outfit was only slightly an improvement because her Masters STILL got at least fully covering robes and arm bracers, while Ahsoka still had her entire back exposed, leg holes exposing valuable arteries and stuff, and a goddam boob window that basically signals “shoot me here”.  Look, I know the animators goofed, and I know how they have learned from it because from Rebels on, they never show her as improperly covered for battle, in the new TCW season both outfits are cute and practical too, but seeing her running around in her red outfits actively impeded and took me out of my watching experience because I was cringing over her having a lack of protection, that it made her that much more vulnerable to injury.

Finally just gotta give a standard raised finger to the Slave Leia Bikini.  Carrie Fisher hated it so I do too.

[moveslikebuckywrites]

Beautiful Distraction

Summary:  The heat and humidity in Lemoyne is frustrating.  So is laundry.  So are emotions.  The burgeoning feelings you have for the widow from Colter are making chores difficult.

Ship:  Sadie Adler x F!Reader

Word Count:  1.5k

Rating: G, nothing super crazy here just a short fluff piece that popped in my head today.

Notes:  My first attempt at a wlw fic and my first attempt at a Red Dead Redemption fic, hope y’all like it!

Also on AO3 here

If there was one thing in this world you hated, it was the humidity of the swamp.  If there was one thing you hated more than that, it was laundry.  It was your turn on washing duty, the least favorite of the long list of chores that were not your favorite.  The washboard scratched up your fingers and staying on your knees made your back hurt.  But fair was fair, and it was your turn in rotation.

You’d been with the gang a few months, it wasn’t your first choice.  Troubles you’d rather not revisit meant this was the safest place for you.  Safety in numbers and all that.  

If you’d had it your way, you’d be doing some of the harder work.  Feeding the horses or chopping the firewood.  You had tended to fields, fed the pigs, gotten dirty for most of your life. If there’s one thing ol’ Grimshaw hated it was dirty.

Then Sadie had shown up, back in Colter, all sadness and heartbreak.  You’d felt for her then, tried to be a friend along with the other girls.  Figured she’d be gone when you got to Valentine, but she stuck around.  Y’all got on like a house on fire; two farm girls in a world of gangsters.  For her, it was revenge.  For you, it was survival.  Tough world out there for a girl with no one to provide.  

You understood the need for the gang to lay low, but of all places, why Lemoyne?  You thought you’d left this place far behind, after what the raiders had done to your parents’ farm.  But here you were again.  In the swamp and the stickiness, the humidity making your heavy skirt cling to you as you did the washing.  Sweat rolling down your neck but finding no breeze for relief; only adding to the general discomfort of the current times.

This morning Sadie had threatened to murder Pearson over the crap chores she had to do.  Arthur had taken her into town with him so she could have some space and, frankly, that made the day kind of boring.  You spent most of your time together, doing the chores the other ladies didn’t want to. It was easier to pass the time with a kindred spirit.  Something about Sadie just made you happier, when she wasn’t in camp you’d find yourself back on edge again.

You related to her in ways you couldn’t relate to anyone else in camp.  Y’all understoodeach other.  Understood what it was like to lose people, what it was like to work for a living.  You liked her.  Maybe a little toomuch.

For years you’d been aware of your inclinations towards women over men.  At first, you’d thought it was from a place of jealousy.  This girl’s hair was so pretty and looked so soft; or this girl had the prettiest green eyes you’d ever seen and yours were no match for their depth. One woman’s breasts were nicer, or maybe her voice was softer.  They were always compared to yourself, without you realizing you weren’t actually jealous at all.  Attempts to date men were lackluster at best.  You just couldn’t see what the big draw was.  Men were coarse and mean, you could count the number of decent ones you’d met on one hand.

Things changed during your twenties.  Some drunks in a saloon had offered you and a friend 30 bucks to make out.  Flat broke and desperate for food, you did.  That’s when you realized that lust and attraction were supposed to have sparks, that those things you’d called jealousy were admiration.  You wanted to be the one running your fingers through that pretty and soft hair or staring into those deep green eyes of an old friend or hearing a soft gentle voice whispering in your ear.

Sadie was just something else.  The honey blonde hair, the quick and easy laugh, that low country drawl hardened by years of hard work.  You’d never met a woman like her, and you were pretty sure you never would again. But these things were still frowned upon, and with her being a widow you were sure she could never feel the same. These had been the thoughts swirling amid your frustrations.  The culmination of the heat, the sweat, this place, Grimshaw’s griping, and your unrequited feelings had brewed up the perfect storm.

When you saw Sadie come sauntering back into camp, you felt an even deeper pang of frustration.  And saunter was the word for it, she’d gotten some new duds in Rhodes and you couldn’t help but stare.  She had her pistol belts swung down low on her hips, her cloud of blonde hair pulled back messily with her wide hat brim covering her eyes.  She looked like a hero from the Saint Denis picture shows and you completely lost focus on the washing.  You sat there staring, not moving, not daring to.

Now you were certain you’d never meet anyone like her again. The pure audacity she had to have to do that, in this camp full of outlaws.  To step up and say Nah, screw you guys and your ‘woman’s work’, I’m gonna be one of you or damn you all to hell; without actually saying a word at all.  And now she was walking towards you, and you couldn’t even speak. It was like being caught in the crosshairs.

She flicked the brim of her hat up and turned one corner of her mouth into a mischievous grin as she approached you, “Whatcha think, Y/N?  Pretty spiffy huh?”  She spun around posing, waiting for your opinion.

“You…you look amazing, Sadie,” you stammered out.  She was beautiful; absolutely stunning in fully being herself for the first time since you met her in Colter.

“As long as I look like someone oughta take me seriously,” she laughed as she sat on the ground next to you, propping herself up with her arms behind her back.  Her shoulder was uncomfortably close to yours, making any concentration impossible. “I swear, Y/N, these fellas don’t know nothin’.  Think if you’re a woman all you’re good for is cookin’ and cleanin’.  Grimshaw don’t help none.”

“Everybody’s gotta do their part, I guess,” you say, unable to look away from Sadie’s face.  The setting sun was illuminating the loose hair falling from her messy ponytail, giving her an almost angelic glow.  She was so fierce, like a wildfire.  In quiet moments like these, the bravado faded.  You could see her. The softness in her eyes, holding back the hurt she still felt at the loss of her husband.  The small smile in the corners of her lips, hinting at happy memories being recalled.  The faint flush on her cheeks, highlighting the smattering of freckles from her time outside in the sun.  She could tell you so much without saying a word, without even knowing she was telling you at all.

Her eyes always drew you in, bright and hazel, warm like the sun.  They practically glittered when she was happy, and you loved seeing that.  Like you were seeing it just then.

“You alive in there, Y/N?  You’re awfully quiet, and you been starin’ at me for a while.”

Shit.  Busted. You were so caught up you hadn’t noticed she’d been looking right back at you.  It was strange for you to be at a loss for words, and yet here you were.

“Sorry, Sadie, I guess I was just caught up,” you smile at her apologetically, she just laughs.

“So, tell me honestly, cuz your opinion is the one I care about most here,” she says as she leans in closer to whisper, “Do I actually look cool, or do I look like I’m tryin’ too hard?”

“You’re beautiful, Sadie,” you say almost breathlessly before you can stop yourself.  She’s only inches from your face, your mind is in a haze unable to think clearly.

“Ya really think so, Y/N?” she says softly, leaning in even closer.

“Y-Yes…” you stammer, “I’ve always thought so.”  You can feel the heat rise to your cheeks. This is a new situation, a completely different Sadie than the one that left camp this morning.

“Glad to hear it,” she said as she stared deep into your eyes.  You felt vulnerable, almost naked.  Like she could read your innermost thoughts.

Before you could register what was happening, you felt her hand on your chin as she captured your lips in a surprisingly soft kiss. You were frozen, too shocked to react. You still couldn’t quite believe it had happened as she pulled away, smirking.

“I’ll see ya around, Y/N,” she said as she stood to leave. She tipped her hat and walked away towards the tent she shared with Karen, spurs jingling with each step. All you could do was stare.

“I don’t mean to pry,” a voice from behind you said. You turned to see Charles working on a wood carving near the fire; you hadn’t known anyone else was nearby.  “If I were you,” he said, “I would go after her.”

That snapped you out of it.  Washing abandoned, you set off in search of Sadie.

[fairlywonderful]

GOT7 Fan-fic. Rec.

 So, since I’ve read like 80% of fics in the Got7 fandom, I though I’d do a fic rec, to help you (potential reader) and so that I finally can have a list of my favorite fics. These are not all the fics I’ve read, just the first ones that came to my mind. Also most of it consist of JJP, but I will add more pairings as I go! This list is not yet complete, I’m working on completing it, it just takes a lot of time to search for these fics. None of these fics are mine, all credits go to the amazing authors! The only things that are mine, are the little reviews after each fic! Good read! :)

M = Mature / Explicit W = Trigger Warning ♡ = fave

                                           !still under editing!

Jaebum / Jinyoung

* M - Anteroom by minhyukie

Summary: How do you act around your ex with your child in the other room? It’s been almost a year and a half, and Jinyoung has yet to figure it out.

Review: soooo goood!! It’s extremely angsty but its so worth it! The growth of the character is portrayed really well, the side characters are awesome and such an important part of everything, I loved it so much! Also kid!yugyeom is always a plus! ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

*M - Jaebum’s Color Theory by pepijr

Summary: Jinyoung is a film studies professor trying to get promoted and Jaebum does his best to help.

Review: Alright, in this one Jaebum is the cutest but dumbest human being. Like he’s really dense but it’s so on point and it’s so lovable it’s unreal. Everything is perfect about this one.♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡ 

*M - Meet The Parents by pepijr

Summary: Jinyoung loves Jaebum, and Jaebum loves him back, but a single note makes him question everything.

Review: It’s a continuation of Jaebum’s Color Theory, thank god the author has decided to bless us with more of this universe! It’s still ongoing but it’s just as good as the first one if not better! ♡♡♡♡♡♡

*M - The Park Family Recipe by pepijr

Summary: Jaebum and Jinyoung meet after six years with a lot more baggage than they remember.

Review: Another single dad!Jinyoung au (well kinda, Hyunjin is his little brother but he takes care of him). Jinyoung has a lot of problems but orphan!Jaebum is ready to fight for the family he choose. 

*M - bdsm quiz by okjb

Summary: jjp take a bdsm quiz and come to some interesting self-discoveries

Review: this one is pure smut lol

*M - Nora’s Dairies by pepijr

Summary: In which Nora makes sure that Jinyoung and Jaebum meet in every life.

Review: ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

*M - Take All Of Me by fishcake

Summary: It has bothered Jaebum since the day he could comprehend it.

Review: We need more omega!Jaebum in our life. ♡♡

* M - bloom by subsequence

Summary: Jaebum may have learned to accept his role as future king, but accepting this new role — the thought makes him sick to his stomach.If he could have, Jaebum would have chosen any other way to present as an omega.(Or: Omegaverse Arranged Marriage AU featuring Princes!JJP and a cast of loudmouth extras.)

Review: So good???? Like this one is right up my ally, I just fucking love everything about this one. Seriously, do yourself a favor and read it. ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* M - Playboy by comingbacktoyou

Summary: Jaebum's intentions are obvious. Jinyoung doesn't get the hint.

Review: HOLY HOLY OH MY. Jaebum is a producer who's desperate for dick, Jinyoung is a new artist acting all prude bUT JUST WAIT FOR IT. Cute Markson in the bg. ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* M - The Tiger and the Duke by foxxing

Summary: Im Jaebum is the richest man in the country under forty, content to mess around and skirt the headlines as a cutthroat businessman and casual playboy. Park Jinyoung is a graduated English Literature major, content with (in Jackson's words) his boring life working at a restaurant and writing poetry. When their worlds collide over a spilled cup of coffee, Jinyoung learns there's a lot more to life than the secrets of his past and the safety of library books.

Review: This one is literally a JJP classic. Long af but sooo worth the read. The characters really just grow on you, even if they are dumb af sometimes :( also GREAT SMUT

* M - Wilder by Sugarbowl

Summary: Newly graduated, Jinyoung is determined to try new things. New parties, new boys, and when Mark asks for a favor, even volunteering as a counselor at summer camp. But new experiences can get complicated, and he quickly finds himself a little out of his depth.

Review: Another classic. I live for the sex scene in at the end. Jaebum is confused and doesn't know how to stand up for himself and Jinyoung is jealous af but also kind of insecure. But they make a great pair together :'). ALSO great smut (!), awesome Markson and cute af Yugbam plus a bunch of great Kpop cross overs (!!).

* M - Charade by Sugarbowl

Summary: Jaebum and Jinyoung walk parallel paths in many ways, but Jaebum isn't interested in their intersection. Jaebum struggles to support his young son on his own, while everything seems to come easy for wealthy, charming Jinyoung. But when they're forced to partner for a project, Jaebum finds himself a bit more willing, and much more in need.

Review: Another great fic by Sugarbowl. It's still ongoing but this fic is so beautiful. Both Jaebum's and Jinyoung's feelings are portrayed extremely well and the way they come together is beautiful. Plus kid!Yugyeom is adorable. ♡♡

* M - Citation by KingJackson

Summary: When the one book he needs for an important term paper has to remain in the campus library, Jinyoung catches the eye of Jaebum, a library assistant.

Review: Another classic. Jinyoung is dumb af in this fic, I literally was on the verge of screaming while reading this. But luckily Jaebum is soft af, so everything works out in the end :DD Great smut is always a plus! ♡

* M - Flux by foxxing

Summary: Jinyoung doesn't love him back.

an AU where jaebum and jinyoung have been best friends for their entire lives, and where jaebum has always been irrevocably in love with him but somehow, jinyoung just doesn't seem to get it.

Review: Another fic that makes me scream. LIKE SERIOUSlY WTF. My heart ached so much during this fic :( But as always everything works out but man, this was an emotional ride for me. ♡

* M - Compas Calling by Sugarbowl

Summary: Prince Jinyoung is destined for a lifetime of luxury, until he's shoved in a trunk and accidentally abducted. Im Jaebum clawed his way out of poverty to captain a pirate ship and... not much else, actually. Jinyoung could be his first real treasure, if Jaebum could just figure out how holding someone for ransom actually works.

Review: BEST FUCKING FIC OF THE CENTURY DO YOU HEAR ME I'VE RE-READ THIS ONE SO MANY TIMES IT'S THE BEST OMG ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* M - A certain Romance by foxxing

Summary: By day, he's a top-rated babysitter. By weekends he's an x-rated escort. These things are generally kept separate, until the day his weekend regular gets his phone number by recommendation and calls for an emergency babysitter. The problem is that Jaebum doesn't know that Junior the escort is also Jinyoung the babysitter.

In which Jaebum and Jinyoung know each other in the biblical sense but maybe want to get to know each other, too.

Review: okay this fic is like really hot and kid!yugyeom is back at it with being adorable :')♡♡

* Unless by gotchick

Summary: jaebum had always been mark's best friend, while jinyoung was mark's kid brother. (high school au)

Review: Really cute au, the progress of growing up is portrayed well and realistically. (Spoiler! Honestly I live for the scene where JB throws a pillow on Jinyoung's surprise boner to save him :'DD )

* M - Wildcat by foxxing

Summary: No one really talks about it, but it's a well known secret that Jaebum’s real vice is racing cars. Dangerous and incredibly illegal, street racing is the one thing Jaebum is good at (besides being the nation’s first pain in the ass) and has never been caught for. How he does it, nobody knows: Jaebum's been caught for drugs, for stealing, for fighting, but it seems like the one thing the police can never pin him down for is the one thing he loves the most.

He represents everything that Jinyoung can't stand, and Jinyoung hates him.

Review: this is some A+++++ smut right here. ♡

* W - the grandfather paradox by symmetrophobic

Summary: Jaebum locks himself in a cyclic normalcy of work, home, life, and the two people he now loves most in the world- his husband Jinyoung and six-year-old son Yugyeom. So when a mysterious teenager shows up in his life and messes all that up, to say that he's just a little displeased by the change would be an understatement. But Jaebum soon discovers there's more to this quiet, truthful boy than meets the eye, and knows that he has just about four days to find out why.

Review: Amazing fic, but my heart hurts so bad :(((((((((

* M - Prove it by Got7hearts

Summary: For as long as he can remember Jaebum has always been there, protecting him and taking care of him like the big brother he never had so what happens when Jaebum is pronounced an alpha and Jinyoung an omega and the air between the two suddenly shifts.

Review: Great A/B/O fic and hot af smut!

* Of duchebags and pretty boys by schoetheisrealaf

Summary:  "Dear Dog Biscuit, Since you seem unable to understand the sign that clearly indicates that this parking space is to be exclusively used by the staff of this facility, I’ll kindly explain it to you again: Until you’re an employee of the state who works his ass off for society only to get shit wages and the worst working hours you CAN’T USE THIS PARKING LOT, SO FUCK OFF! Apart from that, have a nice day. PS.: I hope you don’t have sex for a year. :)"

OR

You steal my parking spot all the time and I was just heading out to leave a strongly worded note under your windshield wiper but oh no you're hot AU Starring Jinyoung the kindergarten teacher and Jaebum the (arrogant yet dorky) business man

Review: I JUST LOVE THIS FIC IT'S SO CUTE OK?!?♡♡♡♡♡♡

* M - lagoon by gotchick

Summary: in elegant terms, jaebum is jinyoung's sponsor. in inelegant terms, he's jinyoung's sugar daddy.

* M - Walls of Glass by hakka is_shadow, katamari

Summary: The city's social structure is firm and unyielding--Alphas at the top, Betas in the middle, and Omegas as pliant, broken servants to the Alphas. When Im Jaebum, the heir of an old Alpha family suddenly finds his social position flipped, he's thrown into a world of intrigue, deceit, and as the very unwilling servant to an even more unwilling Park Jinyoung.

Review: OK SO THIS IS LIKE ONE OF THE BEST WRITTEN FIC IN THIS FANDOM. LIKE THE UNIVERSE IS SO WELL MADE AND THE PROGRESS OF JJP RELATIONSHIP MAKES MY HEART SWELL UP WITH LOVE ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* Come Soflty (to Me)  by Sugarbowl

Summary: Jinyoung is new in town, and Jaebum is trouble. 50's AU

* M - Spoor by maledict

Summary: It wasn’t odd, to present so late, but that wasn’t the problem.

Review: I don't like to read canon fics, but this one was a great one.

* an apple a day by moonlikeyou

Summary: Doctor Park Jinyoung, star of Seoul Medical Centre's paediatric department, is used to being treated by nothing less than starry-eyed adoration and respect. So, its no surprise that when Im Jaebum, a surgeon with maddeningly pretty twin moles, kicks him out of "his" operating room, Jinyoung gets a little mad.

Okay, maybe more than a little mad. But it's all Im Jaebum's fault anyway.

Review: DOCTOR!AU. CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* M - Taint Me by Got7hearts

Summary: Jinyoung is seventeen when he falls in love with Jaebum, who is eight years older than him.

Review: Jaebum with piercing. That's it. ♡♡

*M - This Christmas (I'll give you my heart) by schoetheisrealaf

Summary: Jaebum and Jinyoung have a fight at the supermarket in the morning. Jaebum and Jinyoung find out they're arranged to be married in the evening. Jaebum and Jinyoung fall in love, but only in time.

OR

Shouting match over the last Christmas goose at the grocery store AU

Review: This is super cute. Best while listening to Confession. :'3

* M - Smoke and Mirrors by hakkais_shadow

Summary: This was not the birthday present that Im Jaebum was expecting...

Review: Mafia au and hot af smut... ♡♡

* M - I Don't Fucking Care (At All) by wonwoozi

Summary: “Your boyfriend’s hot when he plays.” Jackson mumbles to him as he slips an arm behind Jinyoung, hand finding purchase on the edge of the wooden bartop, his fingers gripping the ribbed edge.

“He’s not my boyfriend.” Jinyoung replies instinctively and gives Jackson a routine jab to the ribs. “And that’s my line, by the way.” He adds as his eyes trail over to Mark, sat behind the drumkit with his face trained into a concentrated smirk, smashing every beat perfectly, hair positively dripping with sweat.

“Not my boyfriend either.”

* M - keep me warm by subsequence

Summary: The problem is that Jaebum...isn't a cat. At least, not entirely. God, sometimes Jinyoung wishes it were that easy, wishes he could just leave out a bowl of food and water and maybe get his laptop keyboard used as a napping spot when he was supposed to be working and have a simple owner-pet relationship.Instead, Jinyoung has a romantic entanglement bordering on codependency and the worst case of blue balls he’s ever had.And Mark had said that getting a cat hybrid would be good for his blood pressure. What a joke.

Review: Another amazing work from subsequence. Every time I read the part where Jaebum swats at Jinyoung’s dick, I just can't stop laughing. :’DD♡♡♡♡

*M - Human Nature by cutiepiemarkeu

Summary: Jaebum accidentally summons an incubus and his boyfriend Jinyoung walks in on the two of them almost getting their freak on. Arguments ensue and JJProject are stuck with an incubus they can’t get rid of - but how do they deal with his attractiveness and the overwhelming urge to have sex with him?

Review: This is a 3-some featuring Mark. But the smut is so good, honestly. Really worth the read. ♡♡♡♡♡

Mark / Jackson

* The Prince Who Never Laughed by seitsemannen

Summary: Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, lived a beautiful and kind prince named Mark, who after his mother's loss never laughed again. That was until he met the brightly smiling apprentice of a glassblower, Jackson Wang.

Review: Such a great and quality fic! Honestly, this was such a good read I can only recommend it! ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* Twist by KingJackson

Summary: Mark knows Jinyoung. Jinyoung knows Jackson. Jackson hooks up with Jinyoung who also hooks up with Mark. Mark goes to hook up with Jinyoung and ends up also sleeping with Jackson. Jackson sometimes hooks up with Jaebum, but that isn’t important right now.

And they say romance is dead.

Review: All right so this fic is one hell of a mess, but a mess sent straight from heaven! The main pairing is Markson and Markjin (it's complicated) but there's end game Markson and JJP, plus Jackson is an angel sent from heaven in this one! Don't let the pairing discourage from reading this gem! ♡

* Private Show by Got7hearts

Summary: Mark likes to put on a show and Jackson loves to watch until he's been caught.

Review: A+ smut.

* M - lapis lazuli by gotchick

Summary: in which mark is a businessman and jackson is a fencer.

Review: great fic with rich kinda arrogant but kinda insecure mark plus lots of smut!

* M - Playhouse by seitsemannen

Summary: All sorts of rumours surround the handsome Wang heir and the good-looking servants of his household, but no one seemed to know for sure, as no matter the price, the members were not willing to give the secrets of their Master up.

Mark doesn't care for celebrities or rumours, except the one that says the Wang household pays several times more than the usual servant's salary, so when there's a job opening at the House, he goes for it. In the days and weeks spent at the House, Mark gets to know the members and finds out what of the ludicrous rumours were true and what weren’t. What he did not know to expect, however, is how good friends he would become with the other members of the House, and what’s worse, that he would fall in love with Jackson Wang.

Review: THE BEST. Multiple pairing but mostly Markson. Still ongoing but sooooo worth the read. also, long af. ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* never felt clean, your timing was perfect by jflawless

Summary: i. jackson is five years old when he’s convinced he’s discovered the secret to love. it’s not much of a secret, he thinks, watching his parents exchange blatant “i love you”s only to quietly prove it later in subtle actions.

you like someone. you’re nice to them. they like you too. it’s the simplest thing he’ll ever do, he thinks, falling in love. a lot easier than tying his shoes or adding double digits or reading without his mom there to pronounce the really long words.

Jaebum / Jackson

* Just Smile Again by riots

Summary: Jackson's been lowkey nursing this crush for years, but he never meant for Jaebum to ever find out. Mark and Jinyoung have other ideas. Also, they're terrible friends.

* Face by jibootyjimin

Summary: @defsoul has started following @jiaerwang

--

(or an Instagram au in which famous Chinese rapper Jackson Wang acts like a complete fanboy over idol singer Im Jaebum)

Review: ♡♡

*Secret Little Rendezvous by seikou

Summary: "It's all fun and games until your favorite idol notices you."

(or: Im Jaebum is an Idol and Jackson Wang is a Fanboy.)

Review: ♡♡

* Fluffy Tales by wildandsexy

Summary: Jackson Wang’s Definitive List of Things Im Jaebum, Roommate, Cat Hybrid and Grump Extraordinaire Does and Does Not Like:

DOES LIKE: • Hoodies • The one table on the library’s second floor by the big window (direct sunlight all morning) (it’s basically heaven on Earth) • Nap time (usually at 11am) (and 12pm) (and 1pm) (and 2pm) (and 3pm)…

DOES NOT LIKE: • Waking up • Being awake in general • Not being asleep • Jackson Wang

Jackson Wang's new roommate doesn't even hate him. He 'nothings' him. And that's just something that Jackson can't live with.

Review: SO GOOD SO CUTE JAEBOM IS ADORABLE BUT GRUMPY AND JACKSON IS TRYING HIS BEST ♡♡♡♡♡♡

[queenofcarrots]

Spoils to the Victor

Day Seven of Reylo Monster Week (@reylomonsters) is free choice, and I choose Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley.

Content warning for descriptions of violence and major character death.

Tagging @kylo-of-sorrows, who asked for Kylo to have his beauty and grace taken from him, and this story may just do that trick.

Thanks to @lovethemfiercely, who is my beta for all my Reylo Monster Week stories.

Also on AO3

My entire life has been one long wait.

I waited on Jakku for my parents to come back to me.

Growing up, I would lie in my hammock and think of my parents, then I would sleep and dream of my friend.

There was a very brief moment when I finally got something, not exactly what I’d been waiting for, but something of my own. But now I'm waiting again, waiting for Ben to return. He left an hour ago, climbing the pathways up the narrow cliff edges to the temple where his uncle hides, mourning him, perhaps waiting for him. The darkness is complete, the moon has set and clouds obscure the stars, so he carried his lightsaber, red as blood, to light the way. And I sit here, in the doorway of the Millennium Falcon, waiting to see his light, to take him, finally, home.

Or not.

He was always there, from my very earliest memories. He soothed me as a baby, as a young child and, when my parents left me, he was always… just there. In my head, a steady presence, like the drone of the distant ships at the Niima Outpost. At night, in sleep, he would visit me and we would talk. I would tell him about my endless days, my hunger, my anger, and he would listen. He told me he would come find me, someday, that we could be together. I held onto that promise like a warm blanket when the desert nights get cold.

He was my only constant. Until that evening six years ago.

I still felt like a child, but my breasts were budding and sore and the matrons at the Outpost would say things like she’s starting to become a woman when they thought I couldn't hear. It was evening, and I was having a meal after a long, hard day out on the scavenger field. He was there, as always, the familiar buzz in the back of my head that told me he was asleep, and then the buzz was a scream that throbbed in my head, and then very suddenly it was quiet. Deathly quiet. I was on the floor, my meager uneaten food scattered around me, and I was utterly alone for the first time in my life.

I couldn’t function without him. I was empty. I somehow managed to get myself into my hammock, and I stayed there for a week; not eating, barely sleeping, just existing in my lonely emptiness.

But then, he was back. The buzz returned, as though with a spark, like touching a live wire in the wreckage in a starship. He was different, though, as was the connection. While it had been continuous and certain, it was now intermittent, unstable, no longer a constant; sometimes, for days at a time, I couldn’t feel him at all. Those days were torture but I learned to deal with it, with the emptiness. Ben was different, too, after that. We still spoke, and he sounded like himself, more or less, but he felt backwards, maybe, or inside out. As though he’d been cut into pieces and put together wrong.

Which is exactly what had happened. He finally explained it to me, just three weeks ago (has it only been three weeks?), after the first time we made love under the orange moon on Kashyyyk. I was despondent after Finn’s death, and Ben consoled me. Then he did more, and we felt good, both of us, felt really good for the first time in our lives.

I’m getting ahead of myself. What Ben told me is that, that evening six years before, his uncle, his Master, Luke Skywalker, had come to him while he slept. His uncle feared Ben’s darkness, his strength in the Force, and instead of talking to him, counseling him, the man murdered him. Using his lightsaber he cut Ben into pieces: head, torso, arms, legs. Then he gathered them together, dumped them in an unmanned pod, and set them adrift in space, in an attempt to hide his crime.

Ben was found by one who had been with him from childhood, much as he had been with me. But instead of offering friendship, partnership, love, this one wanted to use Ben’s power to further his own. And to do this, he needed Ben alive. So he took Ben’s body, his dismembered body, and spliced him back together using the same technology that the Emperor had used on Darth Vader decades earlier. He then returned Ben to life using the most corrupted Dark Side of the Force.

Ben wasn’t the same after his week away, but he wouldn’t explain why, and I didn’t understand; I swear I didn’t know. If I’d have known, would I have made different choices? Could things have ended in any other way? I don’t suppose I’ll ever know.

Four weeks ago, after days of silence, he told me it was time. He’d finally broken free from his Master, he said, and we could be together. I was ecstatic, of course; I’d been waiting for so very long. He offered to come to me on Jakku but I had already left; I told him to come to me on D'Qar and couldn't understand his hesitance. We agreed instead to meet on Kashyyyk, on the western edge of the Black Forest, which he said he knew from childhood. He said we could escape into the forest and live there, and then after we could go wherever we wished. We could be together.

I was already with the Resistance by then. As I mentioned, I’d already left Jakku with Finn and BB-8. I'd met Han Solo and General Leia, heard of the plan to find Luke Skywalker, the great savior of the Resistance, and watched from the Resistance headquarters on D’Qar as they destroyed the Starkiller. I had also barely escaped being captured by Kylo Ren on Takodana, a terrifying experience, and Finn told me later how that same man, that monster, had murdered Han Solo in cold blood. I swore that I hated him, he who would cause so much fear and pain. The morning after that last dream with Ben we received word that the Supreme Leader was dead, that Kylo Ren was missing, and that a struggle for power had commenced between General Hux and some of the old guard who came to the First Order from the Empire. This was good news; it would buy the Resistance time. Perhaps the First Order would even destroy itself.

I took the Falcon. I planned to go alone, but Finn found me at the last minute and insisted on coming along. I assured him that I would be safe, that Ben would take care of me; I’d known him my entire life, after all. But Finn… oh, my dear Finn. I had no idea, I swear I had no idea.

We landed on Kashyyyk as the sun was setting and the orange moon was rising. There were no other ships visible, but as we opened the door, lowering the gangway, someone stepped out of the treeline. Both Finn and I recognized him immediately, wrapped in black, the silver mask covering his face fixed in both of our brains. It was Kylo Ren. But I could feel him, and he was my Ben. And that was when I knew, and it all made sense.

I tried to tell Finn, but he was sure it was a trap, and he wanted to protect me, and he just wouldn’t listen. He ran down the gangway with blaster in hand, but Kylo pulled away the blaster, pulled out his saber and cut Finn down within a few seconds.

Finn was gone by the time I reached him.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. The realization that Ben, my sweet Ben, was Kylo Ren, monster, murderer… But he listens to me, he came for me, he would never leave me. He’d also killed my best friend in cold blood, right in front of me. It was more than I could take. He had to carry me into the forest, to a small cabin in the treetops, where he tucked me into a warm little bed and fed me with hot soup made with the meat of the arrawtha-dyr.

He kept me there for three days, and for three days he refused to remove his mask in my presence. We talked, and I cried, and we felt each other through the bond and held each other close, and I forgave him.

At the end of the third day he unmasked himself for me. He told me not to be afraid, and I wasn’t. His gloves came off first, revealing large hands, yellow with blackened fingernails. Their backs were criss-crossed with small white scars, but they were beautiful. Next his mask, his helmet. His hair was black, lustrous and flowing; his teeth shone a pearly whiteness; but oh, his eyes, which must once have been lovely, were watery, and seemed almost of the same color as the dun-white sockets in which they were set. His complexion was grey and shriveled, and his lips, rather than being pink and full, were straight and black. I kissed those lips, and they kissed me back, and it was good because it was Ben and Ben was alive .

There was a scar rent across his face, and as he removed the rest of his clothing I could see that the scar continued down across his chest, meeting with a number of other scars. The scars marred yellow skin that scarcely covered the muscles and arteries beneath. Some of the scars were recent, including one that must have been from Chewie’s bowcaster. But there were others, the murderous cuts that had bisected his body; across his neck, from his left shoulder down to his right hip, another straight across his hips, both wrists, the tops of both thighs. His uncle had not gone easy on him, and my stomach churned to think of it.

But he was there, and he was alive . So I kissed his scars, all of them. His uncle had managed not to cut him between his legs, a small blessing but appreciated, so eventually I kissed him there too, I took him in my mouth and made him feel good, and then he did the same for me, and then I took him into my body and it felt like yes, this is right, this is how we are meant to be.

We spent over three weeks in that cabin in the treetops, making love and talking and exploring each other’s minds. And then, two days ago, Ben said it was time. He wanted to face Luke, to make him pay for what he’d done. I’d seen the map, the complete map showing where he was hiding, and Ben could see it in my head.

We set the course for this planet, which the old Jedi called Ahch-To , and we landed earlier this evening. And now I wait.

Ben shut me out, before he started the long hike up the mountain; he said he wanted to protect me in case he is killed again. He doesn’t want me to feel it. But I can’t feel him, now, it makes me powerless and I hate it. I don’t like not knowing what’s happening, up there in the temple, and I won’t know until he comes back down, or Luke comes down, or, perhaps, both of them together, or neither of them. Perhaps I’ll spend the rest of my life sitting here in the doorway, in the dark, waiting for my life to finally arrive.

[ghostmartyr]

Fic: While We Live, Let Us Live

Fandom: Attack on Titan Title: While We Live, Let Us Live Author: Immi Rating: PG-13 Summary: Amnesia’s a small price to pay for being alive. Historia remembers, Ymir doesn’t, and love bowls them over just the same. Notes: It’s not... not canon compliant? Yet? This is a Good End post-finale fic where Ymir has survived Galliard’s inheritance of the Jaw Titan. Cue a return to Paradis and shippiness.

There was a certain creep factor in meeting people who knew more about you than you knew about yourself. Ymir had mostly gotten used to it, with Reiner, but Reiner was the kind of wet blanket who liked to pretend he never knew her, and just happened across some stray Eldian amnesiac alongside the road and thought throwing his influence around to get her a private hospital bed was the sort of thing anyone would do every day, for all sorts of reasons that had nothing to do with guilt.

If she had any memories at all, she was pretty sure she could have had a blast winding him up. It was a little harder to do when she didn’t have a clue what had gone wrong in her life to land her in his care.

She had more than a clue nowadays. She had a whole classified military file on all the ways she was supposed to be dead.

Nothing in it really explained why the so-called heroes of the latest Eldian war knew her by name and looked about ready to pop into tears at the sight of her.

Reiner said they were friends.

Pock told her to stop looking at him like he had the answers just because he had a bit of her old life playing back in his head. He’d said a few more unflattering things when she pointed out that he did have the answers, he was just a recalcitrant ass about it thanks to his hate-on for Reiner.

What was even the point of insulting her parents’ breeding habits. For all any of the people she met knew, she could have spawned out of midair and ended up with the same crappy life that led her into theirs.

That was a thing that was actually in the file she wasn’t supposed to have. She was technically older than all these people, which made it really obvious how little respect anyone she associated with had for their elders. It also came with the perk of the majority of the life she couldn’t remember not meaning a damn thing to anything with a pulse.

It was those few years after she’d gone to town on Pock’s brother that caused the issues, these days.

The day of also came with a few challenges, but it wasn’t like Pock ever wanted to be in the same room as her anyway.

Minus that one time where he thought he’d be returning the favor she’d paid his brother.

Most of what she heard in Marley about her previous life was gory and angsty enough that she got by just fine not remembering a whit of it. As far as she could tell, that was all everyone else wanted. She was the only person she knew who didn’t wake up screaming five times a week over one thing or another.

She was counting her new old friends in that list.

The ones who did care about her not remembering them.

Thanks to her having a life after gobbling down Pock’s brother.

A life that she hadn’t totally ruined, from the sound of things, and by how distraught some of the creepers were when they first tackled her to the ship deck. The bald kid could barely get a word out.

Then he had, and so came the picture of how she totally had ruined her life.

She’d gone from a hospital ward to the frontlines of a battlefield trying to keep Reiner from ending up in a very different hospital ward in the blink of an eye, so she couldn’t really be shocked that she’d followed a similar path of personal destruction once upon a time.

Though it came across like it’d cost her a lot more than just her memories.

Or it’d cost someone they liked more a lot more than just Ymir’s memories.

She must have heard the name a million times that first damn hour back in their company.

Historia.

Past the hugging and the sobbing, that was all anyone could say to her. Even Reiner was hung up on it. His version came with a lot more horror and a shipload of new guilt, but the impression Ymir got was still that her life basically revolved around this girl, and that was really important so she should care.

Oh yeah, and the girl was the queen of the place they were headed. In case the emotional heft she didn’t feel hadn’t gotten the Importance across.

Between Reiner and the gloomy Titan who needed a haircut (and the bald kid, and the girl who had joined him in tackling her halfway into the ocean), she pulled out enough of the story to get the gist.

She was not going to enjoy meeting Historia.

Somehow, in a life she didn’t remember, this one girl had done such a number on her that she’d almost killed herself for her a dozen odd times, including an incident where she took on a shrieking mass of hungry titans and got a few limb torn off, and really, everything she heard was mostly good for convincing her that more tears and even less comfort with her lack of memories awaited.

And Reiner and his crew were on such thin ice that she’d have to be more of a dick than she thought she wanted to be to diss the queen outright.

All in all, the hospital room hadn’t been so bad.

What might have been more creepy than hanging out with a bunch of people who know more about yourself than you ever will...

Was meeting Historia Reiss.

“Might,” was pretty damn generous.

The first disturbing thing was that she was pretty.

Start-wars-over-it pretty. Not that any place she could remember being needed much of a reason to begin with.

She moved with the same grace all the Paradis folks had. Like the gear they wore was just for show, and they could rise up into the air at a thought. She’d seen that flight in action. She wouldn’t mind giving it a shot. Reiner said she had the training for it.

This girl, though. Blonde hair gleaming in the sunlight, longer than most of her soldiers wore it; face way too tense for those flowing steps; and a soft voice that carried commands into every ear. She had to be half the size of everyone on the ship. She was even shorter than that prized fighter of theirs.

Ymir was not interested in staring at the girl she’d given up everything for. She didn’t have much everything left, and what she did have was all hers, not whatever she’d been before’s.

She stared.

She didn’t have her memories. She wasn’t naive enough to think that was open to change. Pock had them, and in return she still had a beating heart. No refunds. Life was stingy like that.

That beating heart of hers went into overdrive anyway.

It was just one look.

It lasted a lifetime, since her eyes somehow forgot how to blink, but it was still only one look. One look for her chest to ache with want, and pain, and something so glorious that there wasn’t enough room inside of her to hold it.

That was before Historia looked back.

That was before Ymir took a single step forward and was paralyzed by a beauty that outshone the world.

Someone had to have warned her. No one would be cruel enough to let her believe it was a real reunion between her and her loved one. Every word people had bounced at Ymir had love laced between. These people, the ones she knew once, were a family, and there was no way they wouldn’t look out for this girl.

She had to have known, when she first looked Ymir in the eye.

This wasn’t the girl she knew.

This wasn’t the girl she loved.

Just some ancient war token that no one knew what to do with.

She smiled anyway.

The steps Ymir couldn’t take vanished under her quick feet, and she had to know, she had to, but she was smiling, and beautiful, and there was no one else in her eyes. The world shrunk to hold the two of them, a blistering haze of joy outstripping every pain Ymir had never felt.

“You don’t remember me,” Historia Reiss said, gentle warmth exuded with every word, brightness and victory trailing a moment behind, “but my name’s Historia.”

She held out her hand.

Before their fingers even grazed, Ymir knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she’d be willing to die for this girl all over again.

The terror of it wasn’t enough to change that.

People were not meant to be this nice.

Ymir knew that what few years she had of life to look back on weren’t the greatest indicator of human behavior, but as near as she could tell, there was no excuse in the world for Historia to beam like the sun every time they happened to make eye contact. Blinding, unnecessary, and enough to make her feel like she was waking up after some extended hibernation.

Anything Ymir needed was taken care of without a word. Want a warm bed? Regular meals? Done. Want to steer clear of all the political crap every single person who knew her name had gotten embroiled in? Super. Want to wander around outside without being watched for once? Hey, it was time for the guards to have stealth practice anyway.

It wouldn’t have been quite so weird if Historia actually talked to her. Whatever people skills the Paradis queen had, they stalled out at smiles and staring when they were together.

Ymir wanted to say she was better, and she was, because she just stuck with the staring, but the whole thing was getting on her nerves.

"What’s the problem, Ugly? She’s happy you’re back.”

Ymir flicked a pebble at Connie’s head, lounging on a boulder by the field where his mother was staying. The tiny guy’s only remaining family was a titan, free to live a life tied to the ground and starving.

Like a normal person, that made him miserable. One of her other new old friends, Sasha, came with him sometimes to visit the neglected parent, but he mostly went by himself. Until Ymir started inviting herself along. They were both surprised by that.

He kicked her when she first met the last titan, hidden away in some unused farm space, and said she could see the family resemblance. Because this relationship actually made sense, and didn’t strangle her heart or kill all her higher brain function.

“She knows I don’t remember her, right? She’s doing this for some stranger who couldn’t care less about her or all her damage.”

Connie shrugged, watching his mother. Despite logic laughing at him for thinking gestures like that mattered, his mother was looking back. She never saw anything else when he was around.

Was everyone on this damn island broken?

“For someone who doesn’t care, you sure spend a lot of time whining about it,” he said, popping the lid on his canteen. “You’re as bad as you used to be with her, you just mope instead of jumping off buildings.”

Ymir rolled her eyes, a flush of indignant heat finding her. “I don’t know a thing about her except that she’s too damn nice. What kind of starting point is that?”

Connie tossed the pebble she’d flicked over back at her. “If it bugs you so much, why don’t you just talk to her? Like one of those normal people you’re always saying you are.”

“Yeah, since normal people have the Queen waiting at their beck and call. She just hangs out waiting for them to need her so she can bend over backwards to make their lives better.” She plucked Connie’s canteen out of his hands and took a sip. “We’re supposed to be devils. Where did you even find someone like her?”

Connie gave her the look everyone around her liked handing out when they were thinking how much simpler their lives would be if she could remember hers. “In whatever hole you pushed her out of.”

Ymir decided to wait on telling Connie she was taking his advice. Then when it all went terribly she could just laugh at him instead of having to put up with his encouraging her. Like she really needed someone’s hand to hold over a simple conversation.

A simple conversation that several diplomatic meetings got rearranged over.

If people didn’t keep telling her how much she’d meant to their reigning monarch, a three-second examination of any choice Historia had made since Ymir showed up on her island would have cleared it up just fine.

Ymir sat on the desk in the room she’d chosen for this little talk. Her first thought was to play it down and use her room. Then she thought about how she reacted to the girl when they weren’t in private and kicked an aide out of his office.

When Historia walked in, guards positioned safely out of sight, she congratulated herself on her choice, because she had common sense even if she didn’t have her memories, and she would not survive having this girl in her personal space.

She was beautiful. Even before the smile she saved for Ymir came out.

With it, Ymir had never heard of common sense, never knew it, and would need a full reintroduction for it to have a prayer of influencing her life. If there was any justice in the world, it and Historia would switch places.

“You wanted to talk to me?”

Every second of every day for the rest of my life.

It was disgusting how fast she could go from zero to sap with Historia in the room. Everyone expecting it almost made her want to look at her old memories so that she’d have some idea of how some girl she could lift over her head with one arm had her so completely whipped.

Ymir focused on keeping her slouch against the desk casual. “Yeah, I did.”

How did someone with such an honest face get into politics? Oh right, nepotism. Historia had enough practice to hide the jolt of hope that flashed across her face, but Ymir, since the staring still wasn’t a thing she had control over, still caught it.

“About anything in particular?” Historia asked. She was even worse at keeping the longing out of her voice.

One of the major players in finding world peace, and she couldn’t go a minute without melting in front of the girl she liked. That should have evened the playing field, but all it did was bring out a skipping heartbeat Ymir didn’t need.

“You rearranged your whole day for a talk with some nobody and you don’t know what it’s about? With strategic planning like that, I can see why everyone wants you in charge,” Ymir said.

She liked that look in the Queen’s eyes. That spark of challenge that she was too sweet and sugary to let out. Almost as much as her body liked the shroud of dark sincerity that whisked it away.

“You’re not nobody,” Historia said. Looking straight into Ymir’s soul, and somehow believing that with an earnest intensity that empires fell against.

Ymir looked away. Parchment crumpled under her balled hands, and Historia too another couple of steps forward. She didn’t have to look to know that. It was like her whole body was wired to know where she was, and want her closer.

“What are you getting out of this?” she muttered.

She knew what she was. Someone to look at her like that. Someone who moved mountains for her and made her heart glow and never asked for a damn thing in return.

But that was just it. The way everyone else saw it, she was an incomplete version of someone they all cared for. They were all sad there wasn’t more to her, even if they tried to hide it. They sucked at hiding things. They wanted their friend back. Even Connie, and he was the one who was willing to be friends with the new her anyway. The person she lived knowing herself to be wasn’t enough for any of them, and they thought lying about that was less painful than coming out and saying it.

Except for Historia.

The person everyone kept telling her cared most.

The person standing right in front of her, the pain all of this should have been putting her through nowhere in sight, because she was that nice, or that practiced at stashing it under warm smiles and kindness that belonged to someone else.

“You,” Historia said. “I get you.”

Why that was what did it would have to stay a mystery.

What it set off wasn’t.

Ymir ripped herself from the desk and grabbed Historia by the neck of her dress, temper clenching her fists and heart bleeding all over the blatant stupidity that made it sing.

Heat raced through her, stinging her eyes. “That person isn’t even here anymore.”

Letting go might have been the smart choice. She didn’t. She leaned in close, looking for the moment when all the awe-inspiring, glorious love remembered who was standing in front of it, and turned to pain.

She’d never once seen this girl in the agony that life demanded from her. It was there, and raw, and overpowering, because it had to be, but all she got was smiles and joy, and remembering fewer years than everyone else didn’t mean she was born yesterday.

She glowered down at Historia, waiting, waiting, and completely unable and unwilling to stop her mouth from running.

“Stop acting like you’re okay with all of this. Like me being alive is enough for you. You’re pretending that it’s all fine, because I made it through and that’s all you wanted, but that’s crap, and we both know it. You don’t want me alive, you want me.” Ymir breathed in heavily, holding back the bitter laughter. “Only guess what, that version's not here anymore! She up and ditched you! Your girlfriend left, and all that came back was some empty husk!”

She threw her hand down from gripping Historia’s dress. The little queen’s expression had gone blank, and part of her relished in destroying all of the good feelings that being together brought to life in her. She shook her head, and bared her teeth in a grin she’d never felt less.

“What the fuck is wrong with you that you’re not pissed about that?”

Historia’s head slammed into her jaw.

Ymir saw stars.

Her head snapped back, feet sliding out from under her, back crashing into the desk. The rest of her should have followed, but a rough hand grabbed her by the front of her shirt before she could fall, and the next thing Ymir was aware of was the floor.

The floor, and Historia on top of her, chest heaving, and none of the ruinous pain in sight. Just a firestorm of rage.

All directed at her.

“Fine,” she said, spitting the word out venomously. “Fine. You left. You left and got yourself killed, and I don’t know if you’re ever going to remember me, or who you were, and if you had just stayed, none of this would be happening.” Her hands shook around Ymir’s collar. Ymir wanted to blame them on her inability to breathe. “But you didn’t. You ran off being stupid and noble, and all you had to say about it was one letter telling me all about how you were going to die.”

Her voice cracked. “And now you’re here. You’re here and alive, and if you hadn’t sold off all your memories, maybe you’d understand why that’s enough.

“I don’t need you to be mine. I don’t need you to remember who I am. I don’t even need you to like me!”

The shouting hit a snag, Historia’s grip on Ymir’s shirt having yanked them thoroughly into the same air. Her eyes glittered with several years worth of tears, and damn it all, Ymir thought they were pretty enough before they started shining like the frigging night sky. One human being had no business being this attractive.

Teardrops landed on her cheek. Rolling down her face instead of Historia’s.

Ymir didn’t know what to make of the ones joining in from her eyes.

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” Historia said. Her voice warbled, but the same steel Ymir caught in every one of her speeches was out in force. Though it had never really felt like this. Hard and intimate, with every word belonging to Ymir’s ears only. “You’re here and not dead, and I’m happy. Being with you--being near you, hearing your voice, watching you smile or roll your eyes or pull some idiotic stunt... I thought all of that was gone forever. I thought you were only a memory, and all I’ve done for the past four years is wonder when I’d lose that, too, and how a world without you could ever make sense.”

She blinked rapidly, scattering more tears and glaring at Ymir like this whole mess was her fault.

Maybe for the first time, Ymir appreciated how much it definitely was.

“I love you,” Historia declared.

“You don’t get to say that doesn’t matter just because you don’t remember loving me back.”

She let go. With vigor. Ymir’s skull thudded against the floor, and the Queen of Paradis stood up from straddling her and stomped out the room. The slamming door barely registered.

Ymir lay there. Her fingers absently wound around a thread Historia’s hands had wrung free from her shirt. If any other part of her was needed, it was gonna have to wait in line.

She’d walked away from that girl once.

Of her own free will.

What the fuck.

Ymir decided not to tell Connie any of it.

He retaliated by not commenting on her bruised face.

She sat on her rock, watching him watch his mom, stewing in every horrible decision the last idiot running her body had made, along with the several she could take credit for.

“I wrote her a letter?”

Connie’s head snapped her way, and he was nowhere as good as Historia at disguising the hope in his eyes. “You remember?”

“Not so much. A little birdie brought it up.” Loudly.

Connie wilted, but not as much as Sasha would have. And without the crippling depression Reiner had reacted with. He had more feelings tied up in that letter than Historia did. Unfortunately, now that people were letting him be a good boy, he thought it wasn’t his place to tell her what’d been in it.

Her more well-adjusted buddy looked similarly uncomfortable.

“So,” she said, “you know what it was about?”

“I don’t know what was on it,” he admitted slowly. “But I think it was a private thing. For both of you."

Ymir shifted uncomfortably on top of the boulder, glancing up at the sky. “What, confessing my love before I kicked it?”

“Maybe?”

“Great, I’m sure that wasn’t emotionally scarring at all.”

Connie didn’t say anything. He’d been one of the people present when Pock and Historia first crossed paths. Before the end of the war. Ymir didn’t know everything about that, but she’d heard the stories.

The idea of someone she didn’t know being that broken up over her had bothered her at the time.

Now she had a memory of what Historia crying looked like, and a new reason to be bothered.

She left the field without Connie.

Historia’s guards didn’t even have the decency to look suspicious when she knocked on her bedroom door in the middle of the night. These weren’t people any version of her had met. They just had a natural expectation that she’d want to talk to their supreme leader at random, inconvenient times, and were perfectly okay with that.

They probably had orders to be perfectly okay with that.

Ymir probably wasn’t intended to find that sort of hot. She tried not to. It was aggravating, not compelling. Some other her was the one who’d tripped herself down a hill falling for Historia. Her approach still had some dignity to it.

She didn’t completely dissolve into mush when Historia opened the door in a sleepy stupor. She thought she might, but the edge Historia’s eyes took on before losing out to the relief she carried around like a banner was the type of attractive that commanded attention.

“Hi,” Ymir said. “Invite me in?”

Historia waited a few seconds. Enough to fully remind both of them how their last visit went, and enough for Ymir to wonder if there was some protocol she was meant to follow after getting in a shouting match with royalty. Which might have been the point. But the moment passed, and Historia stepped aside with an eyeroll that had too much softness in it to be effective.

Ymir had never been in Historia’s bedroom before.

She wasn’t going to think about that. She took in the scenery instead.

Windows covered an entire wall, thick curtains drawn carelessly over them so a crack of moonlight splayed over the floor. Oversized furniture was shoved into corners, and the wealth everything was covered in only made the total lack of personal touches stand out more.

Except for the floor, which was covered with the disemboweled remains of a bed. The amount of fluff stripped from the actual bed was enough to get lost in. Impossibly cushy and warm, and stacked high enough to be a tripping hazard. Fit for a queen, even if the one in question wasn’t interested in using any of it. Ymir wondered if any of the maids ever tried to complain, or if Historia put it all back each morning before anyone saw.

Historia stepped over the pile without a thought, plopping back on her bed and sitting against the headboard. Her eyes were half shut, but Ymir could feel them on her. Taking in every tense muscle and scar. Trailing up and down with something a little past affection and deep into trouble. Ymir crossed her arms and started investigating the chandelier hooked to the ceiling.

“You stare at all your guests this way,” she asked blithely, delighting in Historia’s embarrassed jump, “or am I just special?”

She turned back in time to catch the splash of red blossoming in Historia’s cheeks, feeling pleased enough with herself to ignore what she’d think of her face if she had a mirror around. Along with the dangerous corner of her mind looking for Historia to say the magic words one more time.

Historia rubbed at her face, a bit more awake, and a bit less patient. “You wanted something?”

Ymir smirked. “Would you let me stay if I said no?”

“Probably.” Historia closed her eyes fully, resting her head on her fist. Still slumped against the headboard, the covers she hadn’t tossed on the floor were pooled by her feet. Probably where she kicked them aside when she heard the knock on her door. Sloppy, human behavior. Nothing like the goddess all of her staff called her.

It was cute.

It made Ymir’s chest feel like it was going to burst, but still. Cute.

“You said I wrote you a letter.”

And there was that ruined. Historia’s eyes snapped back open, meeting hers. Ymir couldn’t say she cared for that at the moment, so she went back to pretending to care about the wall hangings generations of fake kings had slept under until the real deal showed up. It made the words come easier, and if this was going to be uncomfortable and awkward, there was no reason to draw it out.

“Do you have it around?”

Silence got into her ears. Her heart kept trying to block it out, and didn’t do such a bad job, but the easy, relaxed stillness of the overstuffed bedroom had frosted over.

Bedsprings squeaked.

Feet dropped to the floor.

A drawer slid open.

Ymir waited, anticipating anything from a punch to delicate questions about whether or not this was really a thing she was interested in exposing herself to.

She didn’t get either. A quick tap of parchment landed on her head. The silence stuck with it, but she turned around and pulled the offending item from Historia’s fingers. It was so worn it was almost soft. Keeping with the tactile comfort, Ymir dropped to Historia’s bed and crossed her legs on top of her blankets.

A moment later, the mattress dipped behind her, warmth returning to the night.

Back to back with the person the damn thing was addressed to, Ymir wondered how much of this was a mistake. It wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t magically make her the one who wrote the words down.

But she’d known what she was getting into, fixing that arrangement with Reiner. She knew she’d be forgetting everything, even the person she was writing to, and she’d gone for it anyway. In her last days, she’d gone ahead and decided that this mattered.

Some part of her besides her heart had felt worth preserving and handing over to this girl. She’d wanted it to survive even if nothing else did. The last piece of thought from someone who’d understood being wildly in love, and being loved back.

It was hard not to be curious.

She started reading.

“I don’t know how much people have told you,” Historia said, voice following along with the only written record of the life Ymir had given up. “My name was Krista when we first met.”

But one day, a man showed up and gave me a name.

“My father gave it to me to keep me from dying.”

All I had to do was take it, and then I was given a fine bed and fed meals.

“I thought it was the chance to be someone else. Someone better than who I was. The illegitimate child that everyone hated. Someone the world would be better off without.”

Those adults who, until then, acted like I was invisible all got on their knees and revered me.

“Krista was what I came up with. Someone everyone would love, who could make people feel better instead of worse. Who could be a hero instead of a disappointment.”

All I had to do to make everyone delighted and happy was play the role I had been given.

“You were the only one who saw Historia through her.”

I thought if that’s what would save them...

“You told me to live my life with pride, under my own name.”

I opened my eyes again, and spread before me was freedom.

“After you left, I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t know if I could. ...But I wanted to.”

From there, I began to walk, and I lived the way I wanted.

“Not for you or anyone else. For myself.”

I have no regrets.

Or so I’d like to say.

Ymir rubbed her thumb over the final message she’d left. The letters were streaky. Someone had spent a long time crying over them to blur the ink that much.

“Then you came back.”

She looked over at the nightstand drawer Historia had pulled the letter from. Against her back, Historia had relaxed enough to rest the back of her head on Ymir’s shoulder. Her breathing was calm and regular.

Ymir looked down at the letter. All the words her hands had written down. Her memoir of a thing no one else alive knew about. Because letting bad memories stay dead was for chumps, and people who liked sleeping through the night once in a while.

She glanced over her shoulder. At Historia.

Who, going by the state of the letter in Ymir’s hands, had the most depressing nighttime ritual in existence.

Because for some reason, she’d agreed with the person who wrote it. That it mattered. That chasing the same dream meant something, even if they never got there.

The air Ymir dragged into her lungs rattled.

“We’re alike,” she said.

Historia nodded. The brief loss of the weight on her shoulder made Ymir want to spin around and hold her and never let go. She didn’t.

“You ever think that you should have fallen in love with someone else?”

The insecurity rang more honest than either of them needed, but it wasn’t like she could take it back. She felt Historia’s sigh even though she couldn’t hear it, and braced for the obvious answer.

“...No.”

She managed not to jerk around in shock. Vulnerability came easier when she didn’t have to look at the person causing it. Not that her body language or tone were doing her any favors, but that last step was one too many. She laughed shakily.

“Not much of an imagination, huh?”

Historia shrugged. “Once you were in my heart... that was it,” she said, quietly. Her hand slipped over Ymir’s. “I didn’t even know I was in love. Or what it was at all. There was just you. You’re obnoxious and reckless and a complete idiot, but... you’re the one I’d do anything to be with.”

The hush held them for a moment before she spoke again.

“That’s never changing. I never want it to.”

Ymir closed her eyes. Historia’s fingers laced through hers, thumb circling the back of her hand in soothing circles. “Even if I never remember how it started?”

“As long as you’re here to see how it finishes.”

Knocking their heads together came gently this time. Historia’s barely moved. Her hand was starting to still. “If you mean all those nevers,” Ymir said, “it won’t.”

Historia hummed wordlessly. “That’s okay too.”

Ymir had nothing to say to that.

She squeezed Historia’s hand.

Historia, halfway back to sleep, squeezed back.

[khaotungthanawat]

Happy Fanfiction Writers Appreciation Day! - A Thorki Edition

In the spirit of celebration and appreciation, I just wanted to do a little list of some (not all, otherwise we’d be here for a month, and in no particular order) of my favorite Thorki fics -- old, new and in progress. 

Catalyst by @fourletterwordsstartingwithl

The Seidrmaster and the Stormbringer.

Loki and Thor were brought up in two very different worlds; one in the halls of Asgard and her golden city and the second from within the largest frozen forest in all the nine realms. A chance encounter after becoming lost in the great forest becomes the catalyst for change and they suddenly find themselves mere pieces in a chess game, far greater than they ever thought possible.

Thirst and the Water Quest by @darklittlestories

Loki is the Agent of Asgard, Awesomeness, and Asskicking.

His motivations are Absolutely, Totally Pure AF™. Definitely he lives to serve the goodness. But if the affection in Thor's ridiculously beautiful eyes gives him slightly inappropriate feels, that's mere coincidence. And so the sexiest super spy embarks on a quest for the All-Mother and lives for the reward.

if this is hell (then let me stay) by @thorduna

“Where you going?” the driver asks as they pull off and start driving down the dark road.

“I don’t know. Wherever.”

Thor picks Loki up from the side of the road, saving him from the vicious cold. Loki is prepared to pay a lot for it - but not this much.

The Witch’s Room by @amethyst--witch

Thor isn't too fond of New York, even after living there for a few weeks. Still, certain things make it manageable– Steve and Bucky, for one, college friends who happened to have a spare room in their apartment, his new job (even if it is a little stressful), and in particular, his new roommate: Loki, a sardonic college kid with an emphasis on privacy (Thor doesn't really mind– well, not at first, anyway).

Side Projects by @laydee-liesmith​ (currently on temporary hiatus)

Now, Loki tries to ignore the team of workers who have taken over his back-yard as they embark on a much-needed reno project. But, the one with the long blonde hair and the booming voice has taken a special liking to him. He flirts, he winks; he goes out of his way to tease Loki. Loki finds himself spending more time talking to "Thor" than he would like. He also finds himself blushing around Thor more than he would like. One day, Thor stumbles across Loki doing something he really shouldn't be... and suddenly Thor has decided to make Loki his after-work "project."

Stranger in a Strange Land by @pohjanneito

He was a big bear of a man. His shoulders alone seemed to take the space of two grown men where he was seated on his high stool, leaning against the counter. His long, blond hair was half-hidden under a black fur-felt Stetson, his face covered in thick, bushy bristles.

Loki drew his hand back, and as if sensing his curious gaze, the man turned his head to glance over his shoulder. His blue eyes met Loki's from beneath the rim of his hat, and Loki felt his stomach jolt at the contact.

You’re All I Want, so Bring Me The Dawn by @thisdorkyblogthing

Loki grew up being told that the bond between an omega and an alpha was unbreakable.

Well, that's a lie. A big fat lie.

Lullaby by @radiatorfromspace

Thor is babysitting his younger brother Loki tonight. They have the house to themselves, parents won't be back until 1AM, and Thor looks at Loki the way he should be looking at girls.

At girls his own age.

Friends and Neighbors by @rynfinity

She has a faint accent Odin can’t quite place, except to be certain she’s not from around here. Finnish, maybe. “My oldest is twelve, and my middle son is ten.” Her son’s tiny hands come up to grab at her bracelets. "They like their teachers, but I miss having them around. And I could use their help with the baby.”

“They don’t go to school here, then,” he asks.

“No,” Farbauti says. She gently works her jewelry out of Loki’s shell pink, chubby hands. “They live with their father.”

Only the broken hearts (make you beautiful) by grimmie_me

Thor is a doctor who treats Loki when he's found unconscious on the street after being brutalized by a client. Later Thor can't help but look for Loki in the streets and when he finds him, he becomes a client, though everybody, including Loki, is quite surprised that a man like him doesn't want a better whore to have fun with. Some time later Thor takes Loki away from his occupation and tries his best to give him a normal life, which is hard for a person who's not used to it and doesn't find himself worthy.

mouth full of white lies by @thorkidumpster

"No," Loki insists. "No. I'm not meeting him again. He's got two kids, for fuck's sake! He fucked me into the bed, then called them right as I was leaving to say goodnight!"

"Sounds like..." Sigyn mutters off-hand, flipping through her texts with a pink-painted nail. "That he's looking to be a daddy of three.

crash into me by @raven-brings-light

Thor moves back into his childhood home to take care of Odin in his final months. Putting up with the old man's moods and taking care of his failing body is stressful enough - and then Thor meets Loki.

Loki is the son of Odin's neighbor and he pushes himself into Thor's life with all the dogged determination of youth and the subtlety of an avalanche.

He's the prettiest thing Thor has ever seen. He's also 16.

Thor is fucked.

the ashtray by @curds-writes

There’s a boy in the garden that Thor doesn’t recognise.

facing the vast by needleyecandy

England has just declared war on Napoleon, Naval captains are winning their laurels on a daily basis, and Thor's ship is ordered to the South Seas to seek out a lost scientific vessel. It is an assignment for an old man, but the Admiralty will hear no reason. All hope of glory lost, he takes to sea in a foul temper.

Loki is an artist employed by the naturalist who accompanies HMS Hope on the expedition of rescue and research. He is to make quick and accurate sketches of those plants that catch his employer's eye. For the first time in his life, the rest of his time is his own.

Back home, their paths never would have crossed, but life at sea is different, and their shared journey brings many kinds of discovery.

fimbulwinter by @illwynd

Fimbulwinter, the winter without end, has begun. The people of the village have somehow endured. But then one day, Thor, born at the end of the last summer, meets a stranger in the woods.

Number One Contender for My Heart by @guardianinthesky

Loki has never been into sports, but one day Amora drags him to a pro wrestling event, promising him lots of hot, sweaty guys. He finds himself less than impressed until a particular wrestler named Thor shows up.

cocky boys by @incredifishface

"Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power" (Oscar Wilde)

In which Thor and Loki are the top stars in a studio of online porn, famously hate each other, but by popular vote they get paired to perform together in the Christmas Eve Live Event, and are not happy about it.

Eeee, sorry! This list got long. THERE ARE A LOT OF FICS THAT I LOVE OKAY. And honestly, this list just barely scratches the surface. Anyway. 

Thank you to the amazing fanfiction writers that put their blood, sweat and tears (sometimes literally) into creating amazing works for us to read and savor and cry about. You’re fucking amazing, and I hope you really know just how loved and appreciated you are!

Happy Fanfiction Writers Appreciation Day!

[benevolenterrancy]

i dont actually follow overwatch but sometimes i think about symmetra having a hard time befriending people her own age because of her autism (like me) and she ends up great at connecting with kids

Ohmy gosh, yarra, that’s such a friggin cute idea??

Ican see one of things she’s really likes about children is howstraight forward they are. Especially in the very competitive,corporate circles she tends to move in, interactions are very highstakes, tightly controlled, and nuanced. Satya has studied thecommunication for a long time – she probably spent more timememorizing facial expressions and tonal shifts than she ever didreading, which came easily to her. She’d get in trouble by theprofessors at the Academy for reading comics, thinking she wasslacking, but the assigned classwork was too easy for her and she wasactually using the stylized expressions in the comics to help herlearn. So much is left unsaid during “grown up” conversations andshe’s constantly on edge for that, so even when she’s not in abusiness sort of meeting she can find herself getting exhausted veryeasily. Making friends can be hard for a number of reasons, butdefinitely a prominent one is the fact that she feels like she cannever let her guard down, can never fully trust them not to besecretly mocking or challenging her without her knowing. Even justbeing able to tell that someone wantsto be her friend is baffling – more than once she has walked awayfrom an interaction feeling mournful because she’d thought thatperson was quite enjoyable but sure that they weren’t interested inpursuing a friendship or relationship, while the other person is alsofeeling disappointed because apparently this charming intelligentwoman wasn’t interested in them after all. Miscommunications are abitch, and it’s a bitch Satya lives with all the time.

Childrenare so easy incomparison.  Satya never spent a lot of time with children growing up– she was taken from her family at a young age, and though she didsee younger children in the Academy as she climbed through the ranks,she had little to do with them since they were in different classesand dorms than her and her more advanced classes. So the first timeshe was really forced to interact with a child she was very nervous –how are you supposed to take care of a child?? what if it cries?? dothey talk the same, what if it wants to “play” with her?? she hadno idea.

Soshe was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to understand thissmall human.  They were so emotive,and so honest aboutwhat they were thinking.  Satya found it unspeakably refreshing andenjoyable. (And she grows rather offended when people act like theirchild is inscrutable and bizarre, like an incomprehensible alienrather than a human with their own agency and thoughts – all youhave to do is listen.)

Andthe children really adore her as well!  Satya treats them differentlythan a lot of adults – she treats them very seriously and honestly,she’s keen to share what she knows and is always happy to learn more– “I will correct my mistakes” is one of my favourite quotes ofhers, she is willing to acknowledge when she’s wrong about somethingand improve. So often I see adults that refuse to admit they’re wrongand that the child who corrected them is right, like it’s somehow ahit on their pride for a ~kid~ to know something better than them,and it’s a really gross way to teach kids who are still excited aboutlearning, it should beencouraged and Satya definitely does that. If the child knows moreabout a certain subject than her, you can bet your ass she will beinterested and accepting of this new information.  And if the childwants to learn things from her?  She can engage them in the “butwhy” game for agesand honestly quite enjoy herself.  She’ll also sit and listen withabsolutely sincerity when the children are talking about whateverthey’re interested in… even if she doesn’t get it at all.  She socompletely understands being so passionately and wholly in love withsomething and not being able to talk about it (even in Vishkar,people get glassy eyed and annoyed if she starts trying to talk tooexcitedly about the complex mechanics and theories of hard-lightmanipulation) that she will happily sit and let their words wash overher as they tell her about a game, a show, a friend, a toy, a schoolsubject. (Children, she has discovered, tend to be remarkablywell-versed in subjects like dinosaurs, space, locomotion, andhorses. Fascinating. She had never known so much about constructionvehicles before meeting children.)

She might not always understand when someone is subtly trying tosignal that they’d like to get drinks with her, but she absolutelyunderstands when a child walks up, takes her hand, and tells her thatthey want to draw with her.

She’ll draw intricate pictures of castles and pirate ships and towersand cities, with the sort of effortlessness that comes from years andyears of training, and then give them to the children she’s with andlet them populate the buildings with princesses and heroes anddragons and monsters and heroes and omnics and familes all drawn incrayon over her sharp, neatly inked lines.

Plus,how would a child not be amazed by a lady who can create toys with awave of her hand?? And she loves seeing children exercising theircreative abilities – if they can draw her a “blueprint” (she’llexplain how professionals draw pictures of what things should looklike before they’re made) and describe it to her, she’ll make it forthem. And if it doesn’t work, if it’s not strong enough to supportitself, or won’t move properly, she shows them why it doesn’t workand lets the child try again.  Adults so often underestimate the joychildren get by being confronted by puzzles and challenges when theyaren’t being graded but Satya understands.

I can imagine one Vishkar dinner.  I sort of feel like Vishkar (thebastards) are always leery about bringing Satya to social functionsbecause they never quite know what sort of impression she’ll make andVishkar is not the sort of business that likes things to behave withanything less than strict regularity.  But Satya is their prodigyand the head architect of many projects, and it would seemunprofessional of them for her not to be present.  As it happens,Satya isn’t overly fond of these functions either because of thestrain that level of noise and bustle put on her as well as thestress from so much socializing, but Vishkar doesn’t give a damnabout that, so she learns to cope.

So this one dinner is meant to be a big one hosted by Vishkar duringone of the holidays for all sorts of clients and potential clients. It was encouraged to bring family – wives, husbands, and children –because they’re trying to emphasize a sense of warmth and love andcommunity – a sort of yeah we’re totally the good guys, big oldwholesome family values sort of corporation, let us bring this intoyour city with our beautiful designs.  All bullshit, but prettybullshit.  A beautiful lie.

Anyways, most of the children are mingling in a specific room, “outof the grown-ups’ way” and Satya ends up wandering that way whenshe feels like she’s about to drown in a sea of mixing, conflictingvoices and the increasingly sharp clatter of crystal and silverware. There she finds the children, some interacting with each other, butmostly bored out of their minds, stuffed in tight, fancy clothes anddeprived of all forms of entertainment. Their parents brought themfor the “look” of things, but they know its all business and hasnothing to do with them, they could be in a hotel roomwatching tv right now.  Satya gravitates into their room, feeling theformer tension gradually slide off and the need to stim fade until itwas only a background longing rather than a crushing need that mustbe suppressed before her supervisors and superiors see her.

At the end of the evening, a considerable time after her superiorsbegan to realize it had been a while since they’d seen her around thecocktails, she was found with the children, the room in disarray. All the children are shrieking, laughing – playing.  All ofthem have little blue hard-light toys.  Satya is there in the middleof it all, finally looking at peace, showing a small group ofparticularly building-oriented children how to use a projected wireframe to create three-dimensional designs. (Which is everything shewants from an evening – childhood curiosity and ingenuity, herspecial interest, and the ability to subtly stim with hard-lightwithout being caught out.)

The Vishkar executives are mortified.  To see one of their topagents acting in such a way is unspeakable. Never have theybeen so embarrassed.

And yet – and yet – Vishkar receives several rather heftyoffers of work in the following days.  It seems a number of importantexecutives were impressed by how happy the children were at the endof a long business evening, and were even more impressed by theintricacy of the toys they brought home.  If this level of craftcan be achieved on the fly, we look forward to seeing more work doneby you in the future, Vishkar is told.  Satya isn’t punished, andshe remembers it as being one of the most enjoyable evenings she hadhad in a very long time.

(She’s still in contact with one of the little girls who had been sointrigued by the wireframe – Satya might recommend her as acandidate for the Academy if her interest holds, and it seems verylikely it will.)

Yeah, I dunno, I’m having a lot of feelings about this now. Imagineonce she joins Overwatch and after a mission they end up with a bunchof distressed, traumatized children while they try to relocateparents. Everyone’s scrambling, trying to figure out how to calm themdown, look for Ana because, hey, she’s a mom, how do you child????Only to find a moment later that Symmetra of all people hasgotten right into the centre of the children’s cluster and they’reall… surprising… calmer. (Everyone on the team is Baffled becausethey’ve know Symmetra mostly as a very rigid, professional, and coldsort of person, and yet her she seems to be all gentleness andsweetness – they start to realize maybe there’s more to the Vishkarretainer than meets the eye.)  Or heck, even just let her meetTörbjorn’s mob of kids! Give Satya kids!!

and while we’re on the subject, let her meet this child again,give me that angst I need it

[pikapegasus]

Starmora-Little Star Lady (Starmora child), second baby one the way-“You’re so beautiful when you’re just waking up.”

“You’re so beautiful when you’re just waking up.”

time for some starmora fam cuddles ✨ and as someone who personally grew up in a co-sleeping family (i’m sure you can imagine how thrilled my parents were once my sister and i moved into our own room, ha!) i wanted to borrow that experience for starmora aaayyyyy

read my previous starmora baby/fam fics!!

send me a ship + a number!!! :))))

Being a parent is pretty great, in Peter’s opinion. HavingGroot aboard the Milano and the Quadrant as a baby-of-sorts had only reallygiven him a taste of the feelings that would eventually swallow him whole whenMer had been born.

There are downsides, of course. For one, though the Quadranthas more space, there’s not exactly space for a family—at least, not one with small children.

And every time Gamora grumbles about being ready for theirunborn kid to just be born already, to spare her the fatigue and the sickness,Peter just tries to mentally prepare himself to share a bed with not one, nottwo, but three other people, becausespace (pun unintended, ha) islimited, and though there’s already a designated Mer room, it doesn’t pertainto sleeping.

Now he wakes up to all kinds of things. Before, Gamora’stendency to move around in her sleep often led to interesting positions whenthey woke up, and now, Peter’s woken to both green and white feet in his face, often on separate occasions, butsometimes at the same time. Or Merjust decides to hell with the pillow space they provide her in between them,instead opting to sleep on top of him the entire night.

Yeah. Okay. Whatever.

For whatever strange reason, the universe decides to sparehim this morning, as he wakes not toa body part (or entire body) in hisface, but to some space. He opens his eyes slowly.

Both Gamora and Mer are still asleep, Mer tucked into hermother’s chest like it’s the comfiest part of the bed—which, from personalexperience, Peter would probably haveto agree with. He smiles at the sight, breathing out a sigh.

Though it’s a peaceful awakening, the covers are, per usual,in disarray, favoring Gamora’s side of the bed. He tugs them back towardhimself gently, evening things out.

The movement jostles Mer lightly, just enough to stir her.She turns over, now facing him as he holds his breath, hoping she doesn’t wake.Though she’s still little, Mer’s made it clear that once she’s up, she’s up,and there’s no going back.

(He and Gamora often resolved this issue by sleepily sendingMer to Groot’s room, figuring she could go keep him company, since he seemed tobe one of the only other early morning risers on board.)

Luckily, Mer remains asleep as she cuddles up to him. Hewraps an arm around her small form.

Gamora wakes then, laying a hand over his on Mer’s back. Sheeyes him tiredly, offering him a small smile.

“Good morning,” he murmurs, carefully leaning over Mer topeck her lips. “You’re so beautiful when you’re just waking up.”

“Maybe I should sleep more often, then.”

“I’d miss you too much.” He moves his hand from Mer toGamora’s belly, rubbing gently. “How’s Tiny Dancer doing?”

“Not dancing,” Gamora says. “Yet.”

Baby #2 has a bit of a reputation for kicking, at least morethan Mer seemed to ever do. Though it’s a fun way to freak some of the othersout (especially Rocket), it tires Gamora out pretty quickly.

She yawns.

“Hey, if you wanna go back to sleep, I can take care of theMer-bear morning show for a bit,” he says, glancing down at the still sleepingMer. Looks can be deceiving, though, and he’s half-expecting her to jump up,completely awake and ready to start the day, at any moment now. “You shouldprobably get some more rest before the baby starts kicking up a storm.”

“I’m not sure I can argue with that offer,” Gamora admits,pulling the covers up more closely to her chin. “It’s very tempting.”

He grins. “Goodnight, babe.”

After she closes her eyes and relaxes into the pillow, Mer,predictably, wakes up, turning onto her back. She looks between both of herparents before settling her eyes on Peter, probably because he appears to bethe only one awake.

“And good morning to you, my little Star-Lady,” he murmurs,pressing a kiss to her head. “We gotta be quiet because Mommy’s still sleeping,okay?”

“Okay, Daddy,” she whispers (well, as good as any other three-year-oldcan whisper). “G’mornin’.”

He glances at Gamora for a moment, admiring her ability toresume sleeping just like that. He really needs to ask her to teach him howto do that.

“Hey, wanna help me out with something?” he whispers to Mer.

“What?” she whispers back.

“Let’s make some food for Mommy to eat when she wakes up,”he whispers conspiratorially, sitting up. He carefully pulls Mer up with him,setting her in his lap. “It’ll be a surprise. Can you help me?”

She nods enthusiastically, reaching her arms up to looparound his neck. He lifts her as he slides out of the bed, holding her with onearm while pushing the covers from his side closer to Gamora with the other, nowthat she has the whole bed (and their blankets) for herself.

Mer rests her head against his shoulder as he quietly walksaway from the bed and out of the room, waving at Gamora’s sleeping form (ahabit learned from a certain, overfriendly tree) as they leave.

“Can we make food for the baby, too?” Mer asks once Petercloses the door as quietly as he can.

He looks at her thoughtfully for a moment. “Well, when Mommyeats it, the baby…also eats…it…I guess.”

Thus begins their usual game of twenty (or more) questions, Mer cornering Petermore easily than he’s ready to admit, and he can’t help but wonder what reignof terror the little fighter training for combat in Gamora’s belly will bringto the table when they’re born.

(He thinks briefly of Nebula and Gamora, who are sisters,each scary in her own way, but flat-out terrifyingwhen working together, and suddenly he’s fearful of what two products of Gamoraand himself can do together, oh, god.)

send me a ship + a number!!!

((or just....come talk to me about spider-man: homecoming....bc i saw it today and AAAHHHHHH))

[hollywoodx4]

Sticking With the Schuylers (22)

Hi, thank you for reading :)

1  2  3  4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   I   13  14   15   16   17   18A  18B   18C  I   19   20   21 

The room smells like paint; a light and slightly pungent odor that lingers in the air, stronger in some places than others but present throughout the entire vicinity. The walls are cold stone and the floors chilled tile, but to Eliza they’re the only cool pieces to the place. There is warmth, radiating from primary colors and imperfect handwriting, chalk-dust on fingers and pattering feet on tile.

               Tiny voices resonate throughout the room, whose acoustics are perfect for projecting them even through the crowded floors space of child-sized furnishings and tiny bodies jumping around the floor. There’s an older woman in the room as well, hair just beginning to grey, who sits at the large and worn-down desk at the front. She shuffles a stack of papers idly, glancing up every so often to take notice of what is going on around her. She catches Elizabeth’s eye.

               She smiles in return before her attention is back on the task at hand; currently, she has the twenty, five year-old students around her in a circle. Her voice bellows above its usual tone as she weaves a tale for them, something from her own mind. She gauges their reactions as she spins around them, the flow of the story changing along with what they like and dislike. And there’s voices-grand voices and tiny voices, accents and hushed tones, until Eliza herself is wrapped into the fantasy world she’s created.

               “Miss Schuyler is the princess!” One of her little girls squeals as she hops on two feet, along with the tide of the story. They’re currently trying to get the princess out of the swamp and into the forest, where there’s a waiting mama bird and an old willow tree. Each of her twenty students looks on with wide, enraptured eyes. Tiny hands are cupped in front of their bodies-to hold their baby birds-each personalized to their own imagination.

               Eliza laughs, then, shaking her head.

               “We’re all the princess.”

               “No, just you-you’re the best princess of all.”

               She beams, letting the praise of her young students wash over her. They fill her with an unprecedented amount of joy; even when her lead teacher hadn’t been so accepting of a tabloid queen being placed in her classroom to student teach. Even on the days where the parents look at her differently, picking their children up from school with that same look in their eyes, the ‘I know who you are…’ No, not even the days where all twenty of her students are acting up can distract her from her happiness.

               Elizabeth Schuyler was made for teaching.

               And she repeats this, over and over, to anybody who is willing to ask. Early on it had been John who, after making her vanilla soy latte, shook his head and laughed at her with a raised hand.

               “Do you even have to work?”

               “No,” She snatches her drink from the counter and spins around, speaking to him over her retreating shoulder. “That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t.”

               This year was her first year student teaching-not her first year in a classroom, however. She’d spent most of her high school years volunteering after school with middle schoolers from the inner city. She’d also been a tutor, and a safe-walk for the youngest students who couldn’t travel home through the city alone after school. And none of it had ever felt too taxing, or too much for her time. The volunteering had been fun-she played games with the middle schoolers, helped them with their homework…Eliza had built relationships with them in her four years in the program. These were children who began to look up to her-who trusted her, and looked forward to her time.

               When she entered college, Eliza had decided to switch over to tutoring more often than not. There was a certain privilege that came along with working one-on-one with somebody, sitting in quiet library atmospheres and pushing them through their next academic goal. Usually it was the languages that she taught; how to write a sentence in Spanish, the proper inflection of voice in Italian. And her students were (usually) eager, chugging along the work with her until they both had something to be proud of. She loved making children feel that pride-that sense of pure accomplishment. There’s a swelling of her heart that is set off by it, one that she’s not sure she can live without.

               Which brought her to freshman year; to Columbia, sitting through countless lectures on child safety and proper techniques and a will to do the world better.  That first day, sitting in the front of her class with all eyes suddenly on her-the snickering, the cell-phone cameras clicking in muted tones…it had driven her nuts. And every day after that, the amount of her peers who looked at her and asked why she wanted to be a teacher when she could just ‘live for free’ for the rest of her life-it bothered her to no end.

               Eliza Schuyler is driven by a passion that comes from within her; the core need within herself to bring a light to lives that weren’t touched by it. It’s the only thing she has that’s her own-outside of her family and their traditions and their rules. It’s what’s set her apart. And so when she begged her father to let her study education-had given him a speech fueled with fiery eyes and a tearful, passionate smile-he hadn’t been able to say no. In fact, he admired her drive toward her goal.

               She’d been blessed ever since.

               Today is a good day. It is Wednesday-there’s more room for free-time on Wednesday, allotted in the schedule made by the classroom teacher. It’s one of the philosophies Eliza had loved from the start. Wednesdays are for two things; celebrating the fact that the week is half over, and preparing ourselves for the other half. They also have physical education as their elective on Wednesdays, so Eliza’s allotted the time to run around the gymnasium with the rambunctious six and seven year olds, learning field hockey and basketball and jump rope as much as their young minds can be taught. And then, there’s story time.

               This is the end of the day; the kids sit or lay sprawled over the carpet, Eliza grasping their full attention as they make up a story together. Last week, it had been a rocket ship, space-themed one full of aliens and made-up science terms. They’d just completed a unit on the solar system. This week, for some reason, the idea had come to one of her students to create a princess world. It may have been the general fact that a good number of her students were obsessed with anything princess, but no matter. Miss Schuyler is excellent at improv.

               After their bonding she sends them all on their way, on one side of the door while her classroom teacher is on their other. They hug, prolonged and urgent, before meeting their after school walk home. Wednesday is also a good day because she is not on duty. Typically she looks forward to the walk-homes, accompanied by another teacher as they trek their familiar route from home to home, chatting and getting to know the children. She used to volunteer most Wednesdays anyway, just to pass the time.

               Now, she can’t wait to get back to Alexander’s.

               It’s a ritual, and beautiful in the way that it came about so naturally. The first Wednesday, the second week of their relationship, he’d asked her if she’d be too busy to come and watch reruns of How I Met Your Mother with him. He’d never seen the show, and she’d gotten him hooked on it. The caveat of the Netflix binge, however, was that he refused to watch an episode without her. It took away from the experience, he’d said, to watch without her.

               She has this silent commentary-a laugh milliseconds before a joke, a smile upon seeing a couple interact that makes the show ten times more enjoyable. And Alexander, being completely honest with himself, would admit that the show itself isn’t his absolute favorite. But Eliza’s reactions would make the grade any day of the week, any show she’d pick.

               Every Wednesday, Eliza walks the same path to Alex’s after school lets out. There’s the corner store-the old, kindly man who likes to sit and chat with passersby. Then there’s the subway station, a flower shop with a little café attached to it….

               Eliza’s distracted as she walks down the familiar route. There’s a certain level of busting throughout the city that leaves her in a transcendental moment-eyes scanning, never wanting to leave the beauty of a normal New York day. There’s nothing spectacular different about the day; the same people, the same shops…but there’s a drumming in her heart that leads her along. It’s Wednesday-it’s their day.

               An eager excitement; yearning, calling-it wills her feet to move faster, her posture higher, her smile wider. Elizabeth Schuyler does not want to hide her face. She does not want to look away-even when a stranger leaves their volume on as they pass, sound effects of a camera obvious to her trained ears. She almost wishes she’d stopped for a photo. But the drumming beats on.

               The drumming beats on and soon it is rapid-frantic. She shakes her head as her breathing becomes staggered, choking and holding. A cool, venomous numbness courses from the tense muscles of her shoulders through her tendons. Each ligament holds its own proportion of the sinking weight but each dose is lethal. Suddenly, she’s immobile. Suddenly, she’s back to last year again. Suddenly.

               Her body reacts before her mind can process the picture of what she’s just seen. And then it happens all at once; flashes of the past meld into the present so fast that she has trouble distinguishing the difference. There is no line between reality and memory, only a frantic, blurred frenzy of vision that she can’t seem to piece into coherent thoughts. But there’s a moment-a vivid, horrifying moment-where those memories come together and inhabit themselves into her present.

               Those memories find themselves in a body; in a pair of boots distressed by their manufacturer; dark wash jeans only worn twice before deemed useless. Then, there’s the copper-colored jacket, with an inanimate ability to smother her in its authentic leather scent and warmth-turned-ember heat.

               Brown eyes engulf her in flames-angry, rippling. Ever-present. And there is so much to be read in those dark orbs, so much that she finds them to be crystal balls, all-telling about the future ahead. What would the path be like tonight, now that he’d come home? She’d wait in a semi-visible spot, eyes trained on the door, a casual cover activity in her hands.                The jingling of keys.

               The clicking of an open door.

               His eyes were always ashen. Coal-ridden. Ready to be stoked and brought to a furious life.

               It takes her longer to pull her phone from her bag than it does to make the decision. Her thumb barely hovers over the green call button this time. She’s certain, sure. Terrified.

               The other line only rings once before it’s picked up.

               Eliza can barely form a sentence, lips caught in a tremor as her eyes scan the area on constant state of observance. The line of reality is still blurred. Her vision is blurred. A buzzing resides throughout every fiber of her body. The voice on the phone calls her name. She shakes her head.

“Okay, so I might be going crazy but just keep talking to me while I walk and don’t freak out.” It comes out in a sort of jargon barely understood, but somewhere between her cut-off words and shaking voice he’s able to understand most of what she’s said.

“What’s…why?” Alexander. If her body could speak it would shout his name to the heavens, wrap it within herself for safe keeping. A portion of her tension rises. She can walk. Her limbs begin to move faster. Her eyes continue to search.

“I’ll tell you when I get there.”

“Tell me now, you’re making me nervous.”

“Okay, I’m by the crepe place on Columbus and I-I don’t know if it was real or if it was just-I think-I’m pretty sure I just saw James.”

“You mean-“

“Yeah.” A pause. Eliza’s not even sure what she’s agreeing to-her head is swimming, begging to find its place anywhere away from this transcendental nightmare.  “Are you there?”

“You’re on Columbus?”

“Yeah”

“Keep walking, I’m on my way. Stay on the phone with me and listen around you.”

“Alex, it’s okay. I should be fine. I’m probably just seeing things.”

“I’m on my way.” Alexander’s tone is so gruff, so certain, that it takes her a moment to collect herself. She can practically see him now-through the tone of his voice his body is tensed but his movements are chaotic, sporadic. There’s an inflection in the natural timbre of his voice that leads her to believe that he’s nervous, running. There’s not a moment where he’s not running. There’s a certain comfort in knowing that he’s running to her.

“Okay.”

“Where did you see him?”

“It probably wasn’t even him.”

“Eliza.”

“Coming out of a diner.”

“I swear to god Eliza if I see him.” He lets the sentence linger, piecing the rest of it together in his own mind while she does the same. Both completions are frantic, worrisome. Neither is tame. She breathes in the cold air, counting, when she sees him-he waves a frantic arm at her, weaving in and out of the crowd that separates them. And as he approaches there’s a moment-a collapse.

She finds herself crying into the shoulder of Alexander’s hoodie in disbelief. Her body shakes back and forth along with his-he’s clutching onto her; underneath her shoulders, on her waist, until his hands finally find space on the small of her back. Her own have trouble weaving themselves out of his grasp to return the embrace so instead she sighs into it, letting the weight leave her body as her eyes close in an involuntary reflex of relief.

Look at those eyes.

There’s an earthiness about the deep brown-soft and concerned when he finally pulls away to look her over. He’s a steadfast presence, one hand wrapped soft around her waist and unwilling to let go. Alexander is soft actions and pure intentions, guiding her down the street the way he came. He wills his mind to dodge the flurry of questions that rattle his mind and instead asks her about her day-her students, her time. She leans her head on his shoulder, an arm around his waist.

Eliza is warm. Eliza is happy. Eliza is safe.

Schuyler by Day: Eliza’s Arm-candy in NYC Daylight.

               Kudos to the fan photographer who snapped recent photographs of social media starlet and senator’s daughter Elizabeth Schuyler walking downtown with a new man on her arm-and in his arms, too. The couple was spotted walking along Columbus late Wednesday afternoon, Schuyler dressed in an impeccable powder-blue bow-front Chanel dress. Her arm candy? Jeans and a layered look, long-sleeved Columbia shirt being the forefront.

               What shocked us more? The new man’s new do, how different his look differs from ex James Reyonld’s? Or was it the thought of Reynolds himself, who was quoted just last week by a reliable source saying just how much he wanted Schuyler back? What do you think? Team #Jeliza, or Team #Mysteryman? Either way, we’re pretty sure the luckiest man is any man who gets a Schuyler.

                               The newspaper crinkles as it closes.

               He folds it, twice one way and twice the other, before tucking it in the back pocket of his dark jeans.

               He rises from the table, wooden legs creaking against old floors, leaving a twenty dollar bill before heading to the counter.

               “Americano to go. Quickly.” He slides another twenty across the counter, voice smooth and seductive behind shining eyes and a pearly white grin. The barista holds back a flustered giggle, blinking at him before asking for his name.

               It’s record time when his drink comes out, before five others that had been standing in line before him. They scoff as he passes them, swaggering steps, to the counter.

               “I have an Americano for James.”