#and especially the fact that this is what convinced ian that he wanted to work with her

[pearlcaddy]

POPPY LI & IAN GRIMM Mythic Quest 3.07

[descendant-of-truth]

Heads up, I'm gonna be discussing Sonic x Shadow Generations leaks below the cut, so if you don't want extra-early spoilers then just feel free to skip this one for now.

That being said: it's come to my attention that the Sonic Generations portion of the game is, in fact, being rewritten... but not reanimated. Meaning that it's just new dialogue on top of the pre-existing animations.

This is. quite possibly the worst route they could have taken. not to mention the weirdest??

I can see what the train of thought most likely was, to be fair. Shadow Generations is being written by Ian Flynn, while the original game was written by Ken Pontac and Warren Graff, and their versions of the characters are very different from Flynn's. Clearly, they wanted some sense of internal consistency between the writing of the re-release. That part is normal.

But then, I guess they just... didn't have the budget, or interest, or whatever it was they needed to reanimate everything from scratch. So they just added some lipsyncing when necessary and called it a day.

The problem is that doing it this way fundamentally kneecaps what you can actually do with a rewrite. The revised dialogue I saw in a video doesn't feel any less stilted or awkward, and the only thing it really changes is giving the characters slightly more reasonable priorities, or filling in gaps in their knowledge that were there before.

And those aren't bad things to do, but it's... kind of the ONLY thing they can do. It doesn't fix the game's story. It's barely putting a band-aid over it. All it does is read like an amateur fan project, especially with the addition of Modern Sonic responding to his friends after he saves them where he didn't before; I'm convinced I've seen videos of fans doing that exact thing in the past.

Yes, everyone knows that the few seconds of silence while he gestures felt unnatural, but so does trying to fit a relevant sentence over such a short animation. The official attempt isn't going much better, adding this really out-of-place and forced "alright!" when Sonic gives Knuckles a thumbs-up, and it doesn't flow naturally with the rest of what he was saying at all. It's there seemingly just to fill the space, so that there's no moment where Sonic is animating and not talking. It's bad.

Not to mention, I kind of assumed that the reason Modern Sonic was silent during those segments was because Classic Sonic was. You can play either Act of each stage in whatever order you want, so you could rescue the others as either Sonic. It would give people an unfair incentive to always play Act 2 second if it meant they would get more dialogue that way, and they would miss out on Classic's interactions as a result. Sure, neither of their interactions are anything to write home about, but... that's not really the point, here.

Trying to insert new personalities and character dynamics into animations that were meant for something different only works if you're doing a fanmade parody. Doing it in an official capacity feels... weirdly insulting to both the original writers and animators, honestly?

Like, no, that's not the script they spent hours animating for. That's not the tone they were trying to convey with those character movements. No, Sonic isn't face-palming in exasperation because Amy's too focused on "saving Sonic next time," he's doing that because she's joking about how scared she was that she'd never get to flirt with him again. Those are not comparable interactions.

I understand why they wanted to change the script, I really do, I don't even like the original version but for crying out loud, swapping out the dialogue does not make the game more interesting. There's a reason the story felt utterly bland and lifeless and an extremely large part of that was the animation and cinematography. The white space that most of the cutscenes took place in was literally just the side-scrolling hub world, they had maybe five square inches that each character could move around in and it was really, really boring.

A rewrite of Sonic Generations, especially with the goal of making it an equivalent experience to Shadow Generations, desperately needs more than this. Shadow's story is going all-out with the animations and camera angles and the severity of the situation and the deep-dive into Shadow's character and Sonic gets. this. a slap in the face to the original writers with no attempt to meaningfully improve upon their story.

It doesn't solve the problem of Sonic's story being jarringly lackluster in comparison to Shadow's. If anything, it's just going to stand out as being even weirder, because if this was all they were going to do, then... why did they even bother? What was the point? Does Tails recognizing the Chemical Plant from Sonic 2 mean anything when there's no new scenes that actually take place in it? Are we really making "Sonic References: the Game" into nothing more than a vehicle for Slightly More Accurate Sonic References and Nothing Else??

And what really gets me about this is that I would've gone nuts for an official Generations rewrite as a kid. My Sonic Generations Phase(TM) was both extremely long-lasting and filled to the brim with others' fan projects, because I couldn't get enough of this idea of Sonic and Tails meeting their past selves while trying to save the very fabric of reality. It's such an inherently cool and fun idea!

But what I was invested in as a kid was just that: an idea of a story. The reason I was obsessively reading and watching fanfic about it was because the actual game gave me nothing to work with. Now, it seems we're still getting nothing, just in a different flavor. Like, plain oats, but this time they're gluten free so that means they're totally what I wanted, right?

No. I didn't want a Sonic Generations fandub that happened to be paid for. I wanted a story. It should not be this difficult to give me one.

(To clarify, this is not a diss on Ian Flynn himself or his ability to write. I think he was given a task that was impossible to do well and I'm mad at whoever made this decision)

[wh0lemilk0vich]

i think a lot about mickey just being a Problem for ian. like at home if mickeys feeling a little attention starved and ian’s getting ready to go to the gym, i feel like mickey would be a fan of laying his fat ass out over the couch—belly up. probably in his rucked up, skin tight, fucking indecent little boxers to show off how much his pillowy thighs spread against the couch (especially how the extra sensitive chunks of fat on the tops of his thighs stay smooshed together, even stretched out as he is). and in a little cutoff tank that’s baggy, the stretched neckline lets the tops of his tits peak out and mickeys rubbing high on his belly (bunching the shirt into the crease between his top roll and tits) and letting his milky tummy roll down the waist of his boxers as it bounces to his rubbing. all while exaggeratedly whining about 1) how bloated and full he is, or 2) how he’s fucking starving, or if he really wants to get ian’s attention (rile him into fucking and feeding mickey while he calls him a greedy, bratty, fatass), 3) does 1&2 (in that order) while complaining that ian never feeds him or takes care of him. it’s a guaranteed way to get what he wants from ian—to be fed, fucked, and manhandled.

he’s whining and complaining (pleading) for ian to do something. and maybe, if he is already stuffed full and a little horny about it, he’ll make these weak, lazy thrusts against his own belly that begin in a gasp and end in a cry and maybe it becomes less performative to get attention and more about having this fucking need for his big strong man to fucking wrestle him around and hold him down against the creaking couch—berating mickey for not having an once of patience to wait until ian’s done working out to start acting like a fat, spoiled, bratty bitch, pretending that ian’s not waiting on his overgrown pillow princess every damn second (which is maybe why mickey is a fat spoiled brat).

just basically mickey getting whatever he needs and wants from ian, with just a little flaunting of his thick thighs, double thick belly, and insatiable appetite (for food and for dick).

It has every muscle in Ian's body on fire from how hard he's clenching because Mickey has been there the entire goddamn day, while he's been doing chores to keep the place running and presentable: groceries (including all of Mickey's obscene orders, even from Costco), cleaning, laundry, cooking. Slaving away like cinder-fuckin-ella before he allows himself to go to the gym and Mickey's just been laying there, stuffing his face, chugging beers, watching whatever the fuck.

It doesn't help that Ian thinks he's never looked sexier. He's been getting so soft, so heavy, so big. He's commandeered the loveseat they got for the living room. Cushion is already giving out a bit, molded to fat fucking ass from how often it's planted there. He's so pretty. Still boyish, his face mostly untouched, except for the modest padding under his chin, that doubles when he's looking down. That fucking tank has seen better days. The ribbed fabric overstretched, elastic properties long gone, and it hasn't reached his belly button in a month, shows off his obscenely perky c-cups. Ian's sure he only wears it to tease him. The same as his boxers. Ian doesn't know what fabric they're made out of but he swears it had to be developed by NASA. There's no way that much ass should fit in that little fabric. And it looked shrink-wrapped like he was smuggling a pair of honey baked hams, particularly around his massive thighs. Ian's convinced they're on track to be as big around as his waist, though maybe that was pushing it a little. Didn't change the fact that the fucker was soft and wide and fabric had a way of digging into him to make him look like over proofed dough.

Then he had to go and start being a fucking brat. Eating his breakfast, half of Ian's, ordering lunch, drinking his way through a six pack while emptying their pantry of snacks, makes himself a loaf of bread's worth of grilled cheeses, passes out rubbing his gut while Ian heads to work out, and what does he do when he wakes up to Ian's return? He has the fucking nerve to ask "where the fuck dinner is."

That fucking breaks him. Mickey wanted dinner, did he? Ian would fucking show him dinner. Ian stomps to kitchen, opens the pantry, grabs a family size bag of lard-fried, kettle cooked chips, and shoves them into Mickey's hands. "Better be empty by the time I get home, Mick, or we're going to have a problem." Then he heads off to his car to gather up the supplies he needs to feed and fuck Mickey stupid. Boy won't want to think about food for a week when Ian is through with him.

Meanwhile, Mick is laying on the couch, eating contentedly, daydreaming about the stuffing and pounding he's about to get and smiling like the cat that ate the canary.

[rogue205]

Unpopular Opinion Rant

I’m still in my Teen Wolf phase and re-watching the show. 

Holy. Hell. I can’t stand Scott. I hate how much of a hypocritical, seeing in straight black and white with no grey, thinks-he’s-got-the-moral-high-ground, self-serving, egotistical prick he really is. He constantly whines about being a werewolf but happily uses his new abilities to become better at lacrosse, increase his popularity, and basically betray Stiles’ friendship because he got better than him. Maybe it’s just me but I really don’t see anywhere in his attitude that warrants him being labeled a “True Alpha”.  I guess it’s all about “willpower and strength of character” but the show implies that one only achieves this level by being good and Scott is not as good and right as he thinks he is. 

Also what gets me a lot is the ending of both season one and season two. (3-6 don’t exist for me, especially the whole Jackson/Ethan thing. Seriously? Ethan? No. Why not Danny or anyone else?! I also hated the whole turning Jackson into a Kanima/Wolf hybrid. He is NOT a damn hybrid! Once he completed his transformation at the end of Season 2, he became a WEREWOLF!!!)

First, yes, I get that the writers wanted to depict Peter as a psychotic bad guy but maaaaaaaybe don’t have him go through a hugely traumatic event where he saw near his entire family burn to death, something he himself also barely survived. He also went feral because of broken pack bonds and the fact that his new Alpha just abandoned him to die. So all that, and the “morally superior good guys” decide the only way to stop him was to set him on fire. Again. Explain to me how that makes them better? Because they pretty much set a burn trauma survivor on fire again and didn’t care. 

Second, I hate Scott’s actions regarding Gerard Argent and the fact that he forced Derek to bite the bastard against his will. Sure, he had a plan but did he actually tell it to anybody? Hmmmm. It seems he does that a lot. Scott also didn’t seem to give a damn that Gerard had all but tortured Stiles, a person who was supposed to be his best friend but who cares about that as long as Scott gets what he wants and people do what he wants. That last part was never mentioned in the show anyway so I guess... 🤷‍♀️. 

I know Scott was also one of the few who wanted to save Jackson as opposed to killing him, but let us not forget Peter helped to save him too, even if it is unclear here whether he had an ulterior motive for it. (It’s really too bad that Colton Haynes left after this season because I am completely convinced that Jackson would have been revealed as Peter’s son given all the buildup thus far. But it’s very likely that the writers would have eventually reduced Jackson to a prop to hold up Scott as well eventually so maybe Colton actually did himself a favour.)

Back to Peter, I know many will disagree with me on this, but I like him. Peter is what one would call a “chaotic neutral” and Ian Bohen’s acting is just so incredible, he makes it very hard to hate this guy even when he’s being a snarky smartass. (Or is that he’s so good that he makes you hate the character like you’re supposed to? In that case, he failed with me). Yes, he killed his niece, but it’s also heavily implied that he wasn’t all there mentally during that part because of all the trauma, the psychological damage of being trapped in his body for six years, and the fact that Laura abandoned him, as mentioned before plus wasn’t Jennifer manipulating him? Do NOT even get me started on how unbelievable the whole “Peter willingly working with Kate” thing is. Seriously, if season one was any indication, he should’ve immediately tried to kill her again once he realized she was still alive. 

Another thing that irks me is Derek and the pack’s constant need to hold everything over Peter’s head when it was actually Derek who gave Kate everything she needed to wipe out his family. But Derek gets all the slack for that instead. I don’t hate Derek at all but come on! 

This leads me to my final point of the rant and that is the writers reducing the Hales to props to try and keep Scott credible as an Alpha and nothing more, even dismantling the Hale pack entirely at one point. Yes, Derek does it to save Cora but they officially wiped out a powerful, centuries old werewolf pack just like that. Only way I’ll get over this is if they eventually give the Hales a spin-off much like the Originals from the Vampire Diaries. I mean more young Peter? Hell yes!!!! Young Derek? Sure, I’m game! Actually showing Talia as a fleshed out character? 🙋‍♀️ Me!!! Also it may get me to like Laura as it would take her beyond this one-dimensional person that we know now. Who knows.

[oliryan]

Oli chuckled at Cal’s comment about the right player not existing. “Who knows maybe there’s a player out there that doesn’t give a toss about their reputation. Probably someone that’s taken a few bludgers to the head since I doubt they have the money to make anyone else consider taking the hit.” Oli doubted enough money alone would be convincing given how awful the brooms were. Even his dad, who talked a lot about money and deals, wouldn’t have sponsored something that would have hurt his reputation. Still wouldn’t despite sometimes seeming like he’d do anything to get his glory days back. In fact he’d been pissed when a company wanted him to be the face of their potion to help blokes suffering from erectile dysfunction. Oliver too because he had to hear his dad raging about how his still worked perfectly. For one horrifying moment he thought his dad was going to expose himself to prove it. Oliver did not need or want proof. Thank Merlin his mum wasn’t having it and put a stop to it. And thank Merlin his dad never considered it. Oliver would have also been mortified to have his dad selling potions. He’d have gotten so much shit about it.

Changing the subject had seemed harmless enough except he hadn’t anticipated they’d end up taking about Cene’s grand romance. He was pleased for his mate, really he was, he could just do with hearing about it a little less. Still it was interesting that Cal’s brother had taken the photo. Even if Oliver hoped he was never going to be in pictures like that. He chuckled as Cal talked, the same things he was using to describe his brother could be said of Cal. Being good at being in the right place at the right time with skills to back it up could apply to Cal on the pitch. “I can see the family resemblance. Guess it’s a good thing he didn’t take up quidditch, might be giving you a little too much competition,” he quipped. Oli didn’t often tease the other blokes but it was getting easier being that comfortable with them, even outside the locker room and off the pitch. “Well if he ever relocates to France let me know. Not sure how much of a step up that would be. Basically French Witch Weekly and those other magazines.” Hopefully the bloke didn’t get a job at Witch Weekly. Those photos were bad enough without knowing the photographer. Oli nodded about meeting Ian. He couldn’t always keep their names straight especially the two shortest. But if Mac was the one outside than he had a good idea who Ian was. Still Cal’s siblings were easier to keep up with than Cene’s. With Cene’s he mainly figured male equaled cousins. So there was that at least. Birds he just assumed sisters and was happy so many were married. Oli was surprised where the topic of Ian went. He was expecting to hear what Ian was doing not who he was hanging out with. He frowned, there was a vague flicker of recognition but Oli couldn’t place him. Finding out he was a huddle puff made Oliver think of Connor. Decide that vague flicker wasn’t because they’d had classes together but because of Connor. Which made him nervous. “ uh no. I didn’t really socialize back then. If he was a Hufflepuff Cene’s might know. Probably nothing to worry about, I mean cause he’s a hufflepiff,”he added maybe a little too quickly. Because what he’d really meant was he doubted Connor would hang around with someone who was someone to worry about. If Connor was even hanging around him. “I mean unless he’s given you reasons to worry.” Oliver was thankful for the drink in his hand so he could take a drink and shut his stupid mouth. Whatever Cal’s brother was up to with this bloke was none of his business. He felt awkward.

oliryan​:

Oli laughed at Cal’s answer. “Yes, I’ve heard that one too.” Or something along those lines. “Still I wouldn’t hold my breath for Freddie to sign with them and show us how it’s done.” Truthfully he’d always been impressed by the players who managed on school brooms. But Hogwarts quidditch was nothing like real quidditch. Not his experience of it anyway. The only time Oliver had been on a school broom had been first year and no amount of bribery from his father had gotten him out of flying class or the ability to use his own broom during it. Not even the fact that he had a spot on the quidditch team had gotten him out of it. Truthfully Oliver had been embarrassed to find out his dad had tried to get him out of it. Especially since he’d found out through Slughorn. It had been embarrassing and made it’s way around Slytherin making Oliver look like an entitled twit. Which had not helped anything. At least those days were over. He gave Cal a playful shrug as if he might have before he quickly set the record straight. “No. I told him that I wished him all the best in finding the right player but it was not me.” It was always something of a surprise when other broom companies tried to win him over. Oliver’s sponsorship with Nimbus had started almost before the ink was dry on his contract with Puddlemere. They’d been his dad’s sponsor and had watched his career from pee-wee till now. Back then they’d gifted his dad brooms for him which meant Oliver had always had the newest. Something he did’t always like as it made him stand out. Probably yet another thing that had made him look like a git too. But he was with Nimbus, like his dad had been. Certainly wouldn’t be changing for a broom that was a piece of garbage.

He felt slightly bad for changing to topic of conversation at that grimace. Oli raised his eyebrow when Cal said it had been his brother that had taken the photo. If he hadn’t known Cene he might wonder if it hadn’t been staged hearing that. Might still wonder about it given that he did’t know Josh well but he figured it probably wasn’t. “He had a stroke of luck with that one did’t he? It was everywhere.” Oliver would have liked it to be a little less everywhere because there for weeks he couldn’t go anywhere without seeing it. He nodded, having heard the sales pitch for Cal’s brother before. Still it wasn’t a bad thing he was trying to get his brother out of the paparazzi business. Annoying gnats most of them were. “I usually try to avoid photographers but if I hear anything I’ll let you know. Unless he speaks French, I think all the contacts my mum keeps in touch with are French.” Oli doubted Cal’s brother knew French, it wasn’t an uncommon language but he usually didn’t run into any non-native French speakers. Though even if he did he might not want to work in France.

Cal laughed when Oliver went along with his joking for a minute, shrugging as if he might have told that broom bloke to go toss his product into the rubbish. “Right, so you just left out the part that the right player for that broom probably doesn’t exist,” Cal quipped back with a wink. “Probably for the best.” It was hard to imagine any player on a team switching to that bloke’s broom. They probably couldn’t even afford to match any of the broom companies that were sponsoring Puddlemere. Cal was glad he’d never really had to deal with navigating that sort of thing. Sponsoring the Comet hadn’t felt like much of a choice so much as a given, a way of paying Al back for getting him here in the first place, but it helped that the brooms were great and he never felt any pressure from Al to switch to his newest model or even stick with Comet if he didn’t want to. Cal had been approached by Nimbus and Cleansweep a couple times over the years, but he hadn’t really entertained them. Even if Al didn’t pay him competitively, which he did, Cal felt like Al had paid him more than his sponsorship would ever be worth just by sending him to Hogwarts and putting the kids up in that flat. Never mind everything else he’d done for them. The fact the Comet was a great broom just made things even easier. Mac not taking photos in Knockturn would also make things easier. Hopefully one day he’d get there, sooner than later if Cal kept trying to find the right connection. He chuckled and nodded at Oliver’s comment about that photo of Cene and Josh. “Sure did. Right place at the right time, but he’s always been good at that. And of course he’s got the skills to back it up,” Cal couldn’t help adding, because it was a bit of luck that had Mac in the right place, but it was also his brother’s skills with the camera that got him the best photo of the pair. Mac wasn’t the only person who took a photo, but his was the one that got put up everywhere. He smiled and nodded his understanding when Oliver said he tried to avoid photographers. That was something they had in common, despite Cal’s brother being in that business. “’Preciate that mate,” he said, giving Oliver a friendly clap on the back. “No French, but he can point and shoot the camera,“ he added with a chuckle. “Actually, on the topic of my younger brothers,” he continued, “I’ve been meaning to ask, since you’re the same age as my brother Ian–not sure if you’ve met?” Cal was pretty sure they must have crossed paths at a Puddlemere event, but he wouldn’t fault Oliver for not remember all of Cal’s siblings, “Anyways, he’s been hanging around with some Hogwarts bloke from your year, a guy name Ethan? Think he was in Hufflepuff. You know anything about him?” 

[tenebraevesper]

Sonic the Hedgehog Analyzer, Issue #36: Chao Races and Badnik Bases (Part 4)

Welcome to the last Issue of The Chao Races and Badnik Bases Arc. We left off with Amy, Gemerl, Cream, Cheese and Belle fighting off Badniks and trying to save the Chao Clutch kept imprisoned, while Sonic and Shadow are given a choice by Starline to either save Tails and Rouge or everyone at the chateau from the avalanche.

So, we start off with Sonic mirroring my own reaction to Starline’s plan (gotta say, this panel is gorgeous). Starline admits that it is a bit cliche, forcing the heroes to choose between the masses and those they hold dear. I think that, while Starline does do well as an independent villain and while his threat might work on someone like Sonic... he obviously isn’t aware of how Shadow works.

Shadow is still pursing Starline, with Sonic trying to convince him to stop the avalanche, but Shadow refuses. Sonic is exasperated, but Tails tells him that he should go and they’ll be fine, with Sonic reluctantly leaving.

Tails asks Shadow to help them,... only for Shadow to step over them, focused on Starline, the latter being surprised that Shadow is going straight for him.

You know, I had been bitching a lot about how Shadow is written and voicing my grief over Team Dark not being a thing anymore. Regarding that, I had been accused of just being whiny that SEGA doesn’t write Shadow the way I want, which is... what? Just, what? I don’t understand where people pulled that conclusion. I mean, I’m already writing my own story, why would I need to demand that?

*shakes head in exasperation*

Listen... I saw and read how Shadow had been written before SEGA started enforcing their “guidelines”, especially in the comics. I also know that this is a soft reboot for his character, and I can accept that. As a matter of fact, I do accept that. I love whenever Shadow appears just to see into what kind of shenanigans he gets himself into. 

The reason I criticize some of the writing choices isn’t because I act like I know better, as if I know how he’s supposed to be written, but to try to find a better in-universe reasoning for his behavior rather than the out-of-universe “oh, he’s just a like Vegeta” explanation is being thrown around. I believe that Shadow can be written as a compelling character if put in the right circumstances and that the supposed “guidelines” SEGA have an effect on how he’s written, rather than placing all of the blame on the writers. I read how Ian Flynn and Evan Stanley write Shadow without the guidelines and it was genuinely good.

Now, SEGA does have the right to enforce how their characters should be written, and I respect that. Still, I have some trouble believing that, as shown in the panel above, Shadow would just leave Rouge and Tails just sitting there unless he made sure they could take care of themselves when in Sonic Heroes, the moment he awoke and Omega attacked him and Rouge, he first made sure that Rouge was fine before dealing with Omega. It just feels off and I want to know why.

It also appears that Rouge shares my sentiment, or at least knows Shadow well enough to be aware that he would go for the Final Boss, having managed to cut the ropes through earlier. She gives Omega the codeword, with Omega making enough noise to startle Starline, causing him to fall off.

Shadow looks over, seeing Starline escaping thanks to the Tricore. Before he can chase after him, Rouge stops him, reminding that, even if they both want to kick Starline’s ass for what he had done, there is still work to be done. Shadow responds that she shouldn’t tell him what to do, but Rouge reminds him that this is his choice and that he’ll be then one who’ll live with it.

We can see the conflict in Shadow’s eyes,... and I genuinely wish it was something Shadow had realized on his own. I know he tends to have tunnel-vision when it comes to completing missions, but it is painful to see having Rouge spell it out for him. Hell, maybe he and Sonic could’ve split off, allowing Shadow to free Tails and Rouge and the three confronting Starline. Even if Starline uses the Tricore to escape, Tails and Rouge can fly or let Shadow catch up with them while they warn the people at the chateau about the avalanche.

There were so many ways this moment could’ve gone about, but having a situation where Shadow has to choose between revenge and saving people makes me feel bitter about it. Unlike in Sonic Adventure 2, he isn’t being manipulated here and we know that he cares, yet he puts his pride above everything else.

Thankfully, Rouge has knocked some sense into him, picking Omega up and flying off with Tails to the chateau.

Meanwhile, Amy is still fighting the polar bear Badnik, while Gemerl and Cheese are holding their position. Cream and Belle are busy with the cage.

Gemerl is obviously pushing himself, with an E-1000 Robot resembling Gamma hitting him from the back. Belle is meanwhile working on the last lock, with Cream asking the Chao for help, all of which agree.

Nice!

Just as Gemerl and Amy get whacked by the Badniks, Belle finishes the last lock and Cream unleashes the Chao upon the Badniks. Honestly, it’s kinda badass to see them like this.

Cream quickly checks on Gemerl, who feels guilty for being unable to protect Cream, but the latter notes how they all do their best to protect each other. Gemerl quickly then goes to help Amy.

One good smash to the head, and the Badnik was done. However, the crisis is not over yet, as Rouge, Omega and Tails drop in, telling them everyone’s in danger.

We then cut to Sonic, who looks overwhelmed by the task at hand, namely stopping the avalanche from reaching the chateau, only for Shadow to show up. Looks like Rouge’s words really got to him.

Shadow tells Sonic that this is him repaying for what happened in Sunset City and the two quickly work together to cut down the trees to make a barrier, with Shadow even complimenting his idea.

At first, it looks like it would work, but anyone who knows about avalanches knows that this is a force that cannot be stopped. Shocked and desperate, the two quickly run down towards the chateau.

Meanwhile, Amy, Tails, Rouge, Belle, Cream, Omega, Gemerl, Cheese and the other Chao are stopped by Omochao, with Tails warning him about the avalanche. Omochao notes that they have a warning system, but before he can even end the sentence, Amy jumps in, telling him to get the people to safety or she’ll make a few new exists. 

Yeah, she had a bad day, don’t antagonize her further.

Omochao quickly agrees and tells everyone to evacuate, with Omega even helping out: “Run, pitiful tourist creatures. Or face certain destruction!”

Never change Omega, never change.

Then, Starline suddenly appears.

Okay, now I’m convinced that everyone took their stupid pills today (or at least, Shadow, Sonic and Starline did). What the hell are you doing here, you idiot?! There is an avalanche YOU had caused coming directly to the chateau! I get it, you want Tails, but is it really worth risking your life?!

*thinks back to Starline teaming up with Eggman, Zavok, Mimic, Rough and Tumble* Welp, at least he stays consistent with getting himself into danger.

Amy and Rouge fight him, with Starline activating the Tricore and going straight for Tails.

Starline grabs Tails’ twin-tails, so Tails response to it is to grab Belle’s tail. Cue Belle kicking Starline right into his face. He hears a strange noise, only to now remember the frigging avalanche as everyone else books it.

Do they hand out Darwin Awards in the Sonic Universe, because I would like to nominate a certain platypus.

So, while everyone else manages to make it out, Starline gets buried in the snow. Yeah, he deserved that.

Fortunately, everyone is safe, with Rouge looking around for Sonic and Shadow. Amy decides to help her, considering how she has a knack for finding hedgehogs and hears them from the underground. Sonic and Shadow then come flying out, both safe and sound.

Amy hugs Sonic in relief, who is glad to see everyone is fine. Shadow just walks away, calling the whole thing a waste of their time. Rouge informs him that Starline got hit, and I guess this does make Shadow feel a little better.

Sonic also notices Belle, surprised to see that she stuck around and hears from Tails and Cream that she helped him. He then apologizes for being tough on her. Well, I guess that is something. Tails then asks her if she can help him with something, with Belle agreeing.

Back at the workshop, we see Cream with the Chao on the outside...

...and Tails and Belle working on Omega inside, with Gemerl also being fixed. Tails suggests Omega and Gemerl could do a little sparring match (the results of which we’ll see later on), with Cream and Vanilla entering the workshop, and Cream proceeding to tell her mother everything that happened.

Meanwhile, Amy and Rouge are both sweating as they realize that they’re gonna get in trouble and Rouge immediately bails, leaving Amy to deal with Vanilla. Love it!

Back outside, Sonic is walking around with the Dark Chao, and we see that he’s actually talking to Shadow, who’s hiding behind a tree, apple in hand.

Sonic notes how things didn’t go as planned, but that it doesn’t matter and he was just glad Shadow was around to help. Shadow just tosses the apple to the Dark Chao, telling him not to overthink it, while Sonic just replies with a casual “yeah, sure”, knowing well that Shadow does care even if he doesn’t show it.

Honestly, these are moments I really love to see when it comes to Shadow’s character. He can stay the more aloof, rival character, but all he has to do is show from time to time that there is a softer side to him, that he actually cares rather than living up to the depiction of being an edgelord whose only emotion is anger and detachment (not even acknowledging Rouge and Omega as his friends). Hell, Evan Stanley even says that Shadow kind of adopted the Dark Chao, albeit more in the way of him checking up on the latter.

Unfortunately, as of writing this analysis, this is the last time we see Shadow. This is Issue #36 and the current confirmed number of Issues is #56, the current arc focusing on Surge the Tenrec (we’ll get to that one) and her making her own problems everyone else’s. He didn’t even show up in the Annual.

Here’s the thing - my greatest fear regarding Shadow is that due to the SEGA guidelines, he isn’t allowed to develop as a character. Sure, none of them are allowed to develop as characters (well, at least the game characters aren’t) unless SEGA approves of it, but Shadow had the most notes and restrictions tied to him. It is quite jarring, especially when we saw characters like Tails, Amy and Knuckles being re-railed. I don’t want him to just be an angry Vegeta!Clone (as it is implied that this is what SEGA wants), but a character who can stand on his own. He has a lot of potential and with some added depth, I’m sure we could get some amazing stories.

Honestly, I feel that if you had told me that Shadow would eventually dial back on his prideful attitude and arrogance, while retaining his aloof demeanor and strategic mindset, I would’ve absolutely loved the direction they took with writing him. I know he can be reckless and pursue his goals no matter what, even if he suffers the consequences, but I still think he’s smarter than this. Yes, even back in the Zombot Arc - I can accept Shadow losing due to his arrogance, but they still should’ve gone with Ian Flynn’s idea of him removing the Inihibitor Rings rather than continuing to fight the Zombots, as it would’ve made him look less like an idiot.

However, there is one more thing I have to say in the end.

No matter how much I criticize how Shadow’s character has been written in IDW (or blame the SEGA guidelines for how he was written), there is no way I would ever hate him as a character. The one thing I do is offer my opinion on the matter, but I nevertheless still care about him and I always get excited whenever he appears. Hell, my strongest negative reaction to how he was portrayed was in the Zombot Arc, so that should tell you a lot (and even then, it was just that one moment). I also apologize if my rants are too much to handle.

What I said for IDW!Shadow goes for any other media he appears in. For example, I absolutely adore Boom!Shadow and don’t mind him trying to destroy the world just because (admittedly, he did get humiliated by Eggman and then beaten up by Metal Sonic, so I guess that’s reason enough). I’m looking forward to Sonic Prime, just to see why the hell Sonic and Shadow are fighting now (because the teasers imply Sonic was the main offender) and I enjoy their rivalry.

Not to mention, I enjoy the fact that IDW!Shadow is still better written than King Shadow from the infamous “30 Years Later’’ story from Pre-SGW Archie. Seriously, that one wasn’t just character assassination, but character massacre.

As Shadow said, don’t overthink it. If he ever returns to the story, I will try to focus more on his in-universe behavior rather than on what is happening out-of-universe, because frankly, I’m completely done with those guidelines as the sheer mention of them brings nothing but misery. I might mention some stuff, but at this point, I have enough of it.

Also, if whoever reads this wants to discuss Shadow’s character with me, I’m game.

So, moving on, we check on Belle and Tails. Belle is happy that she can fix stuff again, while Tails notes how confused he is that Belle decoded the files only someone like Eggman could decode... or someone he created. Belle replies how Eggman didn’t create her and the conversation ends in awkward silence.

Yeah, at this point we know that her creator is Mr. Tinker.

We then check in on Starline, who survived the avalanche, complaining how the heroes didn’t follow his plans. Still, despite the hurt bill and ruined perm, he notes how he had won, having managed to grab some of Tails’ fur.

Yeah, I have a bad feeling about this.

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[ailendolin]

Whump Wednesday - 40 - Bill (2015)

Title: Grin and Bear It [AO3]

Characters: Ian/Gabriel, Bill

Prompt: Gabriel giving Ian's injured leg a massage to relieve the pain. - Prompt by the lovely @iris-in-the-rain

A/N: I'm afraid I didn't quite manage to work in the crying part of your prompt but hopelly awkward, blushing Ian makes up for it. I hope you had a wonderful day at WHP today, dear! 💙

Prompts are open, so if you want me to write a story for you as well just send me an ask with the fandom, characters and your prompt. I’m writing for Ghosts, Yonderland, Horrible Histories and Bill at the moment.

Six Idiots Whump Wednesday / Fluff Friday masterlist is here.

————

Grin and Bear It

It wasn’t the first time that Gabriel noticed something wasn’t quite right but it was the first time she decided to do something about it.

Ian, she had learned during the last few months of living with him under Anne and Bill’s roof, could be stubborn, especially when it came to taking care of himself. In fact, Gabriel would even go so far as to say he was the most stubborn man she had ever met. The moment anyone just so much as tried to help him with something, even if it was just offering to do the dishes or clear the table with him, he got this look in his eyes, almost like a rabbit that got caught in a snare and was looking up at the hunter in pure terror. For a split second, he would freeze and hold his breath. Then, just as quickly, he would catch himself, force a fake smile on his face and skilfully steer the conversation in a different direction that made one completely forget about the dishes or leftover dinner.

It was infuriating, to say the least. Even if Gabriel thought she knew why he kept doing it. From what she’d gathered about his life prior to the whole incident with the plot working for Croydon was all Ian had had. His job had been his life, and backbreaking and time-consuming as it was, it had completely isolated him from the world around him. With the Earl expecting him to function no matter what and no one to turn to Ian had had no choice but to do exactly that: function. He’d ignored whatever pain, exhaustion and illness he felt and suffered and had simply kept going, knowing his force of will was the only thing that stood between him and a life on the streets.

He wasn’t working for the Earl anymore, though – he was safe now and yet no amount of reasoning could convince him to slow down, not even a little. Sometimes, when she watched him scrub the dishes so vigorously the skin of his hands turned red, Gabriel wished Croydon was still alive just so she could wrap her fingers around his neck and make him suffer for all the damage he had done. For teaching Ian to make his pain invisible no matter how much he was hurting. For teaching him never to make a fuss or ask for help because those things were inconvenient and, at worst, expensive. For teaching him to grin and bear it because he was only a servant and that’s what servants were supposed to do.

Well, screw that, Gabriel thought. No one should be forced to suffer. And Ian was suffering – anyone could see that. He tried to hide it, of course he did, but while he might have fooled the children with his fake reassurances he certainly hadn’t fooled her, Bill or Anne. They had all seen the way he grimaced when he walked up and down the stairs and thought no one was looking; how he struggled more and more with walking long distances; how his leg trembled at the end of particularly long days and sometimes nearly gave out from under him.

Yet every time they tried to talk to him, he brushed off their concern with another smile that didn’t reach his eyes and said something along the lines of, “It’s just been a long day. I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

Dozens of tomorrows had come and gone and Ian was not fine. He never would be fine again, Gabriel feared. That limp of his was here to stay and she knew Bill, for one, blamed himself for it.

“It was my sword, Gabriel,” he’d whispered to her only a few weeks ago after they had watched Ian drag his tired body up to his room, barely hiding his grimace as he pushed himself to his feet. Bill had looked so terribly upset that Gabriel hadn’t thought twice about putting her arm around him and pulling him close.

“It was an accident, Bill,” she’d told him, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “You didn’t mean to hurt him.”

Bill had looked away with a shake of his head. “Doesn’t change what happened.”

He was right: it didn’t. Ian’s wound hadn’t healed right, and that was as much their fault as it was his since they hadn’t been able to convince him to get the rest he needed. They had tried – first by making him stay in bed and then, when he kept sneaking out, by easing his workload – but it hadn’t been enough in the end. His desperate and irrational need to get back to work and make himself useful had baffled Gabriel at the time, believing Ian to know that Bill and Anne were nothing like Croydon.

But then it had dawned on her that that might actually be the root of the problem, or at least part of it. Bill and Anne, as ridiculous as it sounded, were too nice. Their kindness was so different from the way Croydon had treated him that Ian simply couldn’t help but hold his breath around them. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for them to show their true faces and throw him out onto the streets as Croydon would have done the moment he messed up. To him, Anne and Bill were too good to be true.

“I still can’t believe they hired me right there on the spot,” Gabriel remembered him confiding to her just a few days after the disastrous play at the palace. “Especially with this wound.”

At the time, the wound in question had no longer been hastily wrapped in ripped off pieces of his cloak but in actual bandages. That hadn’t stopped the crude stitches Ian had done himself from bleeding through, though. The small spots of blood had worried Gabriel but she’d held her tongue, fearing she would be overstepping if she drew attention to them. They had barely known each other back then and she hadn’t wanted to destroy what little trust they had managed to build between them by that point. Now, with the gift of hindsight, she knew she should have stepped in, should have done more, should have done something – yet at the same time she couldn’t bear to even imagine losing his friendship over it.

Because that’s what they were now – friends. Being the first ones awake each morning and usually the last ones at night as well had given them plenty of time to talk privately and get to know each other. Thanks to those quiet moments Gabriel had learned that Ian didn’t enjoy cooking but loved to bake, that he’d taught himself to read with the help of Croydon’s library in what little free time he’d had and that he liked to knit to relax.

“Winter is never far away,” he’d told her with a small smile playing on his lips one mild spring evening as his fingers performed a rapid dance that Gabriel assumed would produce a sock eventually. “I’ll have to start early or I’ll never get enough done to keep six people warm and cosy.”

It hadn’t escaped her notice that he hadn’t included himself in that number. This time she hadn’t drawn attention to it because the solution to it had been rather simple: if Ian didn’t make any winter clothes for himself, she would make some for him. She could be quite handy with a pair of knitting needles too if she had to be.

Over the months, they’d fallen into an easy banter that Gabriel cherished almost as much as the moments when Ian let down his guard around her and actually said what was on his mind rather than turning every sentence over in his head a dozen times before he spoke. That didn’t mean living together was always easy, though.

When it came to being touched, Ian easily got startled. He flinched every time someone’s elbow so much as accidentally brushed against his, and Gabriel couldn’t blame him for it. It was obvious he hadn’t been physically close to anyone in a very long time, let alone emotionally. Not to mention that the only touch he’d known for years had come from Croydon and had been anything but kind. It wouldn’t make what Gabriel was about to try and do easy but she refused to let that to stop her.

Determined to help this time and not let him push her away, Gabriel stood up from the table, smoothed down her skirt and went up to Ian’s room. She took a deep breath before she gently knocked on his door, once and then again until she heard him softly call, “Enter.”

Poking her head around the door, she gave him a little wave. “Hey, it’s me. May I come in?”

Ian’s face, so tense one unguarded only a second ago, softened into genuine happiness. He beckoned her to enter. “Of course.”

Gabriel smiled and sat down on his bed before he could get up from his chair – the only one in the room – and offer it to her.

“I wouldn’t have minded getting up,” he murmured, almost a little petulantly.

Gabriel’s heart swelled with fondness as it so often did nowadays when she was around him. “I know but I think your poor leg’s been up and about enough for one day.”

His eyes dropped to his injured leg. It was trembling faintly, even now, stretched out in front of him and completely relaxed. Ian gripped it tightly with his hand, forcing it to stay still. “My leg’s fine.”

With a sigh, Gabriel clasped her hands in her lap. She’d known he would deny it but that didn’t mean she wasn’t disappointed when he proved her right. “We both know that’s not true.”

“Gabriel –“ Ian began and then faltered, not knowing how to continue. She took a little comfort in the fact that he didn’t seem to have the heart to keep the lie going, perhaps didn’t even want to, deep down.

“Look,” Gabriel said, softening her voice. “I know this is not easy for you but I can see you’re hurting, Ian, and it pains me to stand by and watch you suffer when I know I can help.”

The look of discomfort on his face changed first into one of surprise and then helpless resignation. He slumped in his chair, suddenly looking ten years older than he was and just as world-weary.

“I don’t think you can. My leg’s healed … it just hasn’t healed right,” he said in a whisper. It visibly took him a lot of effort to admit even that small, obvious fact, and Gabriel wished she could reach out to him and tell him how proud she was of him for talking about it at last. “I don’t know why it didn’t – I’ve done this a hundred times before and I was always fine.”

He doesn’t even realise how awful that sounds, Gabriel thought hollowly as she took in the quiet confusion marring his face. It broke her heart.

“Sometimes, our bodies just don’t work how we want them to,” she said gently. “That doesn’t mean you did something wrong.”

“I know,” Ian sighed. “It’s just – if I can’t do my job, what good am I? Why would Bill and Anne keep me around?”

Because they love you, Gabriel thought with a heavy heart. Because you’re family.

“Because you’re more than just your leg or your work,” was what she ended up saying, knowing he wasn’t ready for more.

As predicted, Ian scoffed. “Not many people would say that.”

“Good thing we’re different, then,” Gabriel said. She nodded down at his leg that had started to tremble again. “If you permit it, I can try something to ease your pain.”

“Try what exactly?” Ian asked warily.

“A massage,” Gabriel said. “My grandmother suffered from the lasting effects of a leg injury too so my grandfather would massage her leg every evening. She said it made it a lot easier to get through the day.”

Ian gave her a sceptical look. “I’ve never heard of this as a treatment for wounds. And really, I couldn’t ask you to do that for me – certainly not every evening!”

He looked so appalled by the mere thought that Gabriel couldn’t help but chuckle. “How about we try it first before you decide you want nothing to do with it?”

“But – wouldn’t you have – you know? I mean –“

Gabriel rolled her eyes and rose from the bed. Honestly, sometimes she really missed the easy camaraderie she’d shared with Lope and Juan. “Relax. You don’t have to take off your breeches if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Ian spluttered and she used that moment of surprise to cross the distance between them and kneel down in front of him. Up close, she could see the faint tremors running through his leg and, rather more interestingly, the colour swiftly rising to his cheeks. It was quite endearing.

“Gabriel –“ he started again.

She placed a hand on his knee, careful to keep her touch light and not intruding. “Do you trust me?”

The blush spread to the very tips of his ears and he swallowed hard, “I – I want to.”

Gabriel smiled – gently, to put him at ease. “Then let me do this for you. I would never hurt you, Ian. I hope you know that.”

She held his gaze and after a moment, he let out a shaky breath and nodded. “All right.”

It had been years since Gabriel had observed her grandfather doing this, and almost as long since she’d actually used the technique herself, but the moment she placed her hands on Ian’s leg the lessons on applying pressure – not too much, just enough to loosen the muscle – came back to her. Her fingers remembered what was foggy in her mind, and as they cautiously tracked a path up from his knee, she kept her eyes on Ian’s face, carefully cataloguing his reactions so she’d notice when the expected discomfort turned into unwanted pain rather than relief.

“Oh,” he breathed suddenly when she loosened a particularly nasty knot just below his wound. It broke the dam: he began to relax under her hands, so much so that his eyes eventually fell close. Gabriel continued to massage his muscles until they were no longer tense and knotted but instead warm and pliable beneath her fingers. It was only then that she eased up on the pressure – slowly at first so the change wouldn’t be too jarring. Finally, she simply let her hands rest on top of his knee.

It took Ian a moment to realise she had stopped her ministrations. He slowly opened his eyes. To Gabriel’s surprise, they were shining wetly in the candlelight.

“That was …” He broke off and shook his head. “I honestly don’t know what it was but it felt heavenly.”

Relieved, Gabriel smiled up at him. “Is the pain gone?”

“Nearly so,” Ian said, sounding stunned. He wriggled his leg a little. “Are you sure Master of Disguise is the only title you hold?”

With a laugh, Gabriel pushed herself to her feet. “We will continue this, then? Tomorrow evening, same time?”

Ian lowered his eyes. “If you’re sure it’s not too much trouble …”

“I wouldn’t have offered if it was,” Gabriel said. Somewhere in the city around them, a bell tolled, signalling that it was time for her to go. “I will bid you goodnight, then.”

“Wait,” Ian said, reaching for her hand. Warmth bloomed across Gabriel’s palm and she found her heart beating a little faster when she looked down at his flaming face. “I – I just wanted to thank you. For … for doing this. For being kind to me.”

Oh Ian, Gabriel thought. She clasped his hand in both of hers.

“You deserve all the kindness in the world, Ian,” she told him softly. “You always have.”

With that, she bent down to brush her lips over his knuckles in a feather-light kiss before she let him go. “Goodnight.”

He was so stunned by her gesture that the door had almost fallen shut behind her by the time he managed to whisper, “Goodnight, Gabriel.”

Smiling to herself, Gabriel closed the door and held her hand close to her chest. It still tingled from his touch.

[callivich]

Angsty Gallavich Prompts - Part 3: Odi et Amo Gallavich Fanzine Edition!

Part 1 // Part 2

This is a special set of (optional) prompts for the absolutely wonderful project that is - @odietamo-gallavichzine! That’s right, a Gallavich Fanzine! Please do check it out and get involved if you are able! ❤️

Interpret these however you like and feel free to use them as just a jumping off point, you don’t have to stick to the exact prompt!

Trigger warning - there is nothing especially explicit but there are references to some canon themes which some may find upsetting.

Set during s8/9, as Ian struggles with his mental health, he becomes unable to stop thinking about Mickey. He starts writing him letters, even though he has nowhere to send them.

Sometime after Ian gets out of prison, Mickey is attacked or falls ill in prison, but Ian since they’re not married or next of kin - he has no rights and is unable to see Mickey.

Frank does drunkenly blurt out something vague to Terry about catching Ian and Mickey together. Terry doesn’t believe him but he becomes suspicious when later Frank says he doesn’t remember anything.

Mickey doesn’t hit Ian, when Ian backs out of marriage. But he does disappear. Ian is determined to find him, but Chicago is a big city and Ian is getting more and more worried as they days go by.

S6. Mickey thinks Ian has completely forgotten him, he never visits or calls or writes. Nothing. Ian finds it too hard, but that doesn’t mean he’s given up on Mickey - he’s working on a way to get him out of jail and get the charges dropped. When he finally has good news, he finds that Mickey doesn’t want to see him or receive any sort of communication from him.

Ian doesn’t blow up a van, instead he becomes obsessed with finding Mickey. He heads to Mexico to try and track him down. But it’s not as easy as he thought and he’s not taking his medication, so his erratic behaviour is drawing unwanted attention. When Mickey hears rumours of ‘Gay Jesus’ looking for some guy, Mickey hopes he can track him down before he gets into serious trouble.

S5. Just as Ian leaves with Yevgeny, Mickey jumps in the passenger seat of the car. Ian drives off and refuses to stop, Mickey doesn’t know what to do but hopes that eventually Ian will pull over and he can somehow take over and drive them home.

S4. Mickey is getting weird and random and sometimes disturbing text messages from an unknown number. He soon figures out it’s Ian. While he’s happy that Ian is ok enough to text him, he still doesn’t know where he is and Ian refuses to say. Can he convince Ian to come home?

S11. Ian and Mickey get in a car accident and both of them get temporary amnesia. They struggle with not knowing who they are and also with getting to know one another again. Or maybe they remember everything up to when they were teenagers - maybe S1/s2, and have a hard time adjusting to the fact they are married and living on the Westside.

There is a series of crimes committed at their apartment complex. A neighbour accuses Mickey and he is arrested. Although he is innocent and the arrest is clearly bullshit, it’s not easy to get him released.

After 3x06, Mickey ends up in a coma and Terry is arrested. Ian is devastated and refuses to leave Mickey alone in the hospital.

A floor collapses while they are hanging out one day at one of the abandoned buildings, both are injured and trapped - will anyone find them?

Mickey doesn’t meet Byron, instead he meets a guy he actually likes. This was all meant to be a way to make Ian jealous and piss him off, and that does seem to be working. Problem is, Mickey is starting to actually like the guy. Maybe Ian isn’t the one for him?

[ianenjoyer]

an overly detailed analysis of every time Ian and Mickey talked about loving each other bc I love pain and angst apparently 

1. “You love me, and you’re gay.” -Ian, 3x09

So right off the bat this one was always the most shocking to me. Throughout the season, there were definitely hints that they were falling in love with each other/already in love but the fact that this is the first time we actually hear it hurts me so much. Especially because Ian was so sure. He wasn’t asking Mickey if he loves him or begging Mickey to love him. He just... knew that he did. This scene is so raw and painful and real because you just see two kids who are desperately in love with each other, but not allowed or able to show that in a healthy way, so they just end up lashing out at each other.

2. “You try sitting on your ass while the person you love--” -Ian, 3x11

Like I said: pain. So before, we heard that Ian knows Mickey loves him, but I always thought it was interesting that he focused on that instead of telling Mickey that he loves him. Because he does, and he definitely knew that. I think this speaks to Ian’s tendency to compartmentalize and only think of his emotions in terms of other people, which he does consistently throughout the show. So here we hear him admit it, but not to Mickey, and only because he’s drunk out of his mind. Ian is just one of those people that constantly keeps things bottled up inside and only deals with them when he reaches a breaking point, which he definitely did in this episode (and we see the fall out of this in 3x12).

2.5 (bc i forgot it the first time) “You love Mickey?” -Carl, 4x11

So I do think it’s really interesting that he says “I like how he smells” here instead of just saying yes. I mean I do think he likes how Mickey smells which is very adorable but he also definitely loved Mickey at this point and he was definitely aware of that. I think he didn’t say it for two reasons: one, he wasn’t ready to admit it out loud and two, he didn’t want Mickey to hear him say it. Before, being over-eager and too obvious about his feelings hadn’t been met with a good response from Mickey, so I think he was trying to avoid scaring him off, while also doing some pretty serious compartmentalization himself. This especially makes sense considering that they weren’t technically a couple here, and that Mickey had only just started admitting (through actions, not words) that what he and Ian had was about more than sex.

3. “You love him?” -Svetlana, 4x12

The dynamic between Mickey and Svet is a very interesting one, and I don’t know if anybody could ever fully pick it apart. But in this scene, you see an odd mutual understanding between them (which extends in season 5a). And what’s truly shocking is that Mickey says “maybe”, which is such a big step for him. Before, if somebody asked him that he would have completely avoided the question while probably blowing up at the person. But he says “maybe”, showing that, even if he doesn’t fully understand his feelings, he had definitely thought about it, and it doesn’t scare him like it used to. This is definitely because he came out and finally felt like he could really be with Ian without this sword hanging over his head (even though the circumstances of that weren’t great).

4. “I love you.” -Mickey, 5x06

God this one... breaks my heart. First of all, the fact that Mickey was the first one to say it would have been shocking in seasons 1-3, but it actually makes so much sense in season 5. Over and over again this season, Mickey’s shown that he loves Ian, but the fact that he can only say it when he thinks he’s losing Ian, and that it’s obvious he didn’t mean to say it, shows that he still hasn’t fully come to terms with his feelings, no matter how strong they are. 

5. “You used to love me--now you don’t even know who I am.” Ian, 5x12

This one is almost identical to #1, except with the added piece that Ian no longer thinks he deserves to be loved. This one is so fascinating to me, because it shows, once again, that Ian projects his emotions onto other people instead of dealing with his own feelings. He tells Mickey that he used to love him, even though there’s been no indication from Mickey that he no longer loves him. He says that Mickey doesn’t know who he is when, really, he’s the one that doesn’t know who he is. He put words into Mickey’s mouth, because that’s what he believed to be true, and I really don’t think that at this point anything could have convinced him otherwise. The lack of self-worth that comes with having a mental illness is so debilitating and all-consuming that no amount of reasoning from Mickey would have done much to convince him that he deserved what Mickey was offering to give him. 

6. “I love you.” -Mickey, 5x12

So while we have Ian telling Mickey that he used to love him, Mickey counters by just saying how he feels to his face. I think that seeing Ian go though what he went through, and almost losing him like three times made it so that Mickey could no longer deny his feelings. But like I said, Ian had it so cemented in his mind that he was doomed and fucked for life, that I don’t think anything could have gotten through to him at this point. And of course at this point Noel left the show, so we never got to see what could have happened between them if Mickey had stayed. (I 100% think they would have gotten back together sometime in late season 6 after Ian reached a stable place again but whatever).

7. “I love you.” -Ian, 7x11

Fuck. 7x10 and 7x11 are such bittersweet episodes because while it does make it so clear that Ian and Mickey are the loves of each others lives, it’s also when they thought they would never see each other again. What’s extra sad it that this is the first time we’ve ever heard Ian say this. And it’s a goodbye. The only time Ian can really face his emotions head on is when he’s forced to, and he was definitely forced to here. He loves Mickey. He knows Mickey loves him. But that didn’t really matter here, and it’s so tragic, but also really realistic. As for Mickey, he doesn’t even seem surprised--because he wasn’t. He wouldn’t have asked Ian to come if he didn’t know he loved him. This scene is extra heartbreaking because of that. This whole thing just serves as a reminder that sometimes love isn’t enough, and that sometimes there are forces bigger than any two people at play, which I think has always been a central idea to their story.

8. “I love you.” “I know, love you too.” Ian and Mickey, 10x03

Mutual ‘I love you!!!! It took like 10 years but it finally happened. They say it like they’ve said it a thousand time before, which makes me think that it’s definitely not the first time they’ve said it. There’s not really much to talk about here except that finally they’re allowed to love each other. Sure it’s not an ideal situation, but it is one where there are no forces actively working to keep them apart, which is so wonderful. When Ian and Mickey are allowed to just be, they work so well. Even though they’re saying goodbye here, it’s not a real one, not like the break up or the border. It’s temporary and they both know that so for once, them saying ‘i love you’ is a happy (or at least bittersweet) thing instead of the tragedy it was all of the other times.

9. “I love you…and I trust you.” -Ian, 10x08

Remember that quote where Fiona tells Jimmysteve that to her (and all the Gallaghers) trust is bigger than love? Yeah. Anyways his scene is tough because while I don’t think Ian was necessarily lying about genuinely wanting to marry Mickey and the legal stuff just being bonus, I do think he was downplaying the importance, both to himself and Mickey. And at the courthouse, once the bonus of spousal privilege wasn’t needed, he definitely started to realize the magnitude of the situation and what connotations marriage held for him. I mean marriage isn’t something you should just decide on a whim, no matter how much you love somebody and I think he realized that the second the impending threat was gone.

10. “Mickey, I love you!” -Ian 10x08

This is him making it as clear as possible to Mickey that it’s marriage that’s the problem, not him. He saw how heartbroken Mickey was when he didn’t sign the papers, and was basically doing damage control at this point. The problem was, Mickey couldn’t see through his initial heartbreak to really listen to what Ian was saying, or try to understand where he was coming from. I think that Mickey is an incredibly understanding person, but this was just one time too many for him.

11. “You’re just saying you don’t love me enough now.” -Mickey, 10x09

This is probably the first time we’ve ever seen Mickey question Ian’s feelings for him. I think that at the courthouse, he was just so blatantly reminded of the break up and the border that he wasn’t thinking rationally. He was so terrified at the prospect of Ian not choosing him, that he couldn’t listen to Ian’s (pretty reasonable) explanation for why he didn’t get married. However, I don’t think he really believed what he was saying, especially because of how petty he was being with Byron, and how obvious he made it that he would instantly go back to Ian if he proposed. But it still is really sad that he was reminded of that all over again after believing that he and Ian were gonna get married and that he was never going to have to worry about that again.

12. “How do you know you love me?” -Ian, 10x09

I’ve written a meta on this before but here I go again. He’s once again assuming that Mickey couldn’t possibly love him--that he couldn’t possibly want to be with him forever. Not because Mickey’s done anything to indicate that, but because that’s what he thinks Mickey should feel. He genuinely can’t believe that Mickey would want to be with somebody like him, especially because of what he saw with Monica and the way she destroyed relationship after relationship (both romantic and familial). I don’t think he sees himself as being all that different from Monica, so even though that’s definitely not something Mickey would ever care about, it weighs on him heavily (and probably always will). This whole thing just so directly parallels the break up, and it’s so sad to think that, after everything, Ian still doesn’t think he’s worthy of the kind of love Mickey has for him.

13. “I love you Mickey Milkovich. More than anything.” -Ian, 10x10

More than anything!! God, the proposal was a little underwhelming but this line!! It’s Ian choosing to get past all of his doubts because his love for Mickey is bigger to him than they could ever be. Like I said, I don’t think he’ll ever fully be over his insecurities, but he can definitely choose to let Mickey in and have hope that they can work through it together. And even though Mickey knew that Ian loved him and was basically just biding his time, it must have felt amazing for him to hear it put so clearly like this.

14. “Look I love you. I love you.” -Mickey, 10x12

First of all, the way he says it is so amazing. Second of all, there isn’t much to say about this except that it’s so indicative of his growth. Like he went from being closeted and terrified, to blurting out how he feels in a room full of people. That is such a beautiful thing and I get really emo whenever I think about it. 

15. “To love and to cherish you ‘til death do us part.” -Ian and Mickey, 10x12

I actually really love that they used traditional vows for their wedding. So much of their relationship was complicated and hard, so to have something very simplistic but meaningful as their vows was so perfect. And the way they say them... they’re being so sincere and so honest. They really mean what they’re saying. They love each other!! And they’re married!! Wow!! That’s all I have to say about this.

[collecting-stories]

Peace - pt. 04 - Rafe Cameron

Summary: The moments leading up to your wedding to Rafe.

A/N: I’m so sad to see this series end honestly, I’ve so loved writing this version of Rafe. Could probably write him like this forever😂 (I should note that I truly hate the Reagan’s but I do admire the love they had for each other and that’s why I reference them.)

One Thing Right Masterlist | Outer Banks Masterlist

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Rafe’s first apartment in Boston was a little generic. It was sleek though, modern, like someone had plucked it right out of a magazine and stuck it, piece for piece, into his living space. And it stayed that way for almost three years and then you left your coat hanging in the hall closet. It was banana yellow and looked like it belonged in a Paddington Bear book. But it was just one jacket and when he closed the closet door no one could tell the difference.  

But then a toothbrush popped up, green against his color coordinated grays. A pair of sneakers you wore to the gym sat in his bedroom, a pastel rainbow of colors highlighting the white of everything else. They were small though, little minute changes that he could hide away until slowly, maybe without him even realizing it, you were all over the apartment. A dog bed for Fivel, throw blankets that you somehow smuggled into his place and never took home, by New Years his apartment looked more lived in than it had in three years prior.  

It wasn’t just your things that made their way into Rafe’s apartment though. It was you. Somewhere between a one-night stand in college, a first date, and your second New Years eve together, you had made room for yourself in Rafe’s life. The somewhat generic party boy that had coasted through every other aspect of his life, relationships included, was suddenly thinking more than a week in advance.  

He was thinking about houses, about where you could live together. A place that was yours and his, that was a space you both chose, you both decorated, you both lived in together. He thought about actual schedules, yours and his, but he thought far in advance to. What it would be like to come home from work at night and spend time with you. Watching dumb TV shows and eating take out and trying to cook and buying groceries together. It was all on his mind, all the time.  

He’d taken up showing you houses now, brownstones in Beacon Hill that had enough bedrooms for kids, “I liked the one with the garden.” You said, passing Rafe his phone back.  

That was new, at least in the last year that you were together. Topper had been the first one to say something about it when he’d been up to visit for Rafe’s 27th birthday. Sitting there on the couch watching the game, talking about what bars they were going to hit up.

“I can check...” Rafe patted his pocket for his phone, “babe, do you have my phone?”

“Oh yeah, sorry. Mine died and I plugged it in the bathroom.” You had walked into the room like it was nothing and handed over Rafe’s phone and Topper just sat there in mild shock. There hadn’t been a time in their friendship that Topper could pinpoint Rafe ever letting anyone use his phone. Just looking at the lock screen ran the risk of incrimination.  

“He lets you use his phone?”

“As long as I don’t look at the messages his other girlfriends send him.” You joked, your sentence dissolving into laughter when Rafe tripped you and pulled you down into his lap.  

“I don’t want to sound like a broken record here but...you’re just totally different man.” Topper confessed later once the two of them went out bar hopping. A school day the next morning demanded that you stay in but you waved them off and told them to have fun. Topper had been friends with Rafe since high school and he had seen all the bad sides of him. The excessive drinking, the recreational drug use, “I’ve never even known you to be monogamous.”  

Rafe shrugged. It was probably true but there in the bar, where any other time, regardless of a girlfriend, he would’ve been more than happy to get some attention, he was just drinking, texting you sporadically. “I don’t know. I gave her a key to my place over Christmas.” He admitted, “I think I'm losing my mind.”

“That might not be a bad thing.”

“It definitely isn’t.”

Two months later, in March, when Rafe suggested, for the first time, that you should live together you had assumed he meant in one of your apartments. Yours was smaller than his so you figured it would be ruled out immediately. But you didn’t necessarily love his apartment building and the co-op that owned it could be a little strict for your taste. But Rafe didn’t mention either apartment. Or anything more on the matter until April when he asked what you thought about a brownstone while you were walking Fivel.  

“Kind of big for two people and a dog.” You joked, slowing down in front of one of the brownstones in Beacon Hill. They were beautiful, the epitome of Boston life, a dream you’d definitely let yourself have before.  

“What if we’re not two people and a dog forever?”  

Rafe had a way of asking questions that sent your head spinning with all the giddy hope and optimism you thought you’d packed away when you decided that traditional life and milestones weren’t for you. When you knew for sure that people who got married for 30, 40, 50 years were just flukes, it wasn’t something to aspire to because it was never going to happen to you. The cynicism had been easy for a long time but then, whenever you were with Rafe, you felt like it was melting away.  

He told you to look at brownstones, see if there were any for sale that the two of you thought could fit into your life. You looked on the cheaper side of things while Rafe was more realistic about his finances. And yours, you had told him around the same time as Ian’s wedding that your grandparents had set up a substantial trust for you that deposited to your account monthly. Enough that working was just because you wanted to.  

It was no surprise that it was Rafe who found a house. A beautiful brownstone right in Beacon Hill with a garden entry, nestled back from the street, between two other homes,  the courtyard in the front. It was gutted inside, closer to your proposed budget but it would require enough of an overhaul that you and Rafe would be putting a decent amount into renovations.  

“You said you liked the one with the garden.” And somehow it became the second real argument you had. Silly, because you both loved the place. But you seemed willing to resist, to hold out even though he knew you wanted it.  

You had sent pictures to your mom, saved images on Pinterest boards of all the house inspiration you could find, had bookmarked different tiles and wallpapers and furniture stores. And yet every time he mentioned it you said you weren’t sure.  

“We’re supposed to sign today to buy it.” Rafe complained as you stalled. He was pulling his coat on and his scarf, the temperature drop in Boston was a nightmare, especially for Rafe. He hated the winter, and the fall, and part of the spring.

“I’m just not positive.”

“What’s the matter with it this time?” He asked, a little more than exasperated honestly.  

You sighed, sitting down on the bar stool in Rafe’s kitchen. You knew what was the matter, the same thing that was the problem every time that you thought about the brownstone a little too long. “What if something happens?”  

“What do you mean?”  

“What if something happens between us? What if we start renovating and you hate all the stuff I like or what if we move in and you break up with me-“

“Can I ask why I’m doing all these things?” He asked, walking back over to where you were sitting, turning the seat of your stool so that he could cage you in a little. “What if you hate the stuff I like or you break up with me?”

“That’s ridiculous.” You dismissed.  

“Yeah and it’s ridiculous for you to think that stuff about me.” He replied, “look, I get it. I’ve never taken anything seriously before. All the shit my dad says about me is true but this,” He waved his hand between the two of you, “there’s nothing I want more than this. Okay?”

“Okay,” you nodded, “but I want pink cabinets in the kitchen or no deal.”  

Rafe smiled, shaking his head before. “Whatever you want.”

“That’s dangerous.” You teased, leaning forward in your chair and tilting your head up a little, silently asking him for a kiss which he happily reciprocated. “I love you, I just freak myself out sometimes.”

The brownstone took six months to finish, six months of meetings with a contractor, six months of walking through half finished abstractions and picking out tile and flooring and cabinets and paint. Six months of talking about color schemes and trying to convince Rafe that the pink velvet sofa was moving into the house.  

And somehow, during those six months, it wasn’t Rafe’s modern, spacious, sleek apartment that you co-habituated in but your apartment. Smaller, brighter, more homely. Rafe’s lease ended before yours and he wasn’t sure how you convinced him but he moved out of his apartment, sold furniture he didn’t care about, and moved into yours.  

-

The brownstone wasn’t the only thing that occupied Rafe’s mind during those six months. Between work and renovations Rafe had started spending an unhealthy amount of time looking at rings. There was a significant difference between what he knew you would like (which he had to base solely on what he knew about you because damn it if you never brought up a wedding at all) and what he would’ve liked to give you. He considered asking but he thought that might be in bad taste, who asks someone to help with their own proposal. So he did the next best thing he could think of.  

“This is so exciting.” Nina’s high pitched whisper was hardly a whisper at all, far too invested in this ‘no one could see them talking’ conspiracy. She claimed it was for your benefit, to keep the secret a little longer, but Rafe had a better idea that it was just so she could boast about having helped after the fact. “God, this one is beautiful.”  

“I thought she’d like it, it’s not very traditional and it’s something she’d feel comfortable wearing at work.” Rafe replied. He decided that was an important criteria. You didn’t wear a lot of jewellery solely because you worried about six year old hands grabbing at it or losing it throughout the day.  

“I like it, I think she’d really love it.” Nina replied honestly, “you should just go with your gut, you know what she likes.”

“I just second guess myself.”  

“Well don’t, you guys are…it’s nice, to see her with someone that makes her happy. She used to be so stressed all the time with Ian and he was always such a dick to her.” Nina commented. She let Rafe take his laptop back, the two of them sitting at a table in the Starbucks near your apartment.  

The ring was modest and, for lack of a better word, delicate. It had been the first one he’d seen that he’d felt confident about and hearing Nina confirm that you would love it reassured that anxious feeling in his gut. He didn’t know how to explain it in a way that made sense, that didn’t sound like some cliché sound bite, but this wasn’t something he ever thought about it. He had friends who thought about stuff like that, who made plans or thought further ahead than a week but he had never been one of them. Topper had been right, this wasn’t him. Or, not the version of him that he had been before.  

“You have plans to propose?” Nina asked, sipping her latte and watching Rafe so casually ordering the ring right there in Starbucks like it was a pair of shoes.  

“The house is done in two months so, I was thinking about waiting until then.” He shrugged.  

“You’re gonna ask her to marry you just, in your house?”  

“It’ll be first thing, kinda a ‘here’s our house, marry me’ thing. Why?” He asked. Rafe thought it was a pretty good idea. Take you to the house for one last walk through before you officially moved and ask you to marry right on the rooftop deck that you loved so much.  

“Just wondered,” Nina replied. “You were so worried about the ring, I expected you to be more unsure about everything.”  

“I knew the brownstone was the spot when we toured it with the realtor.” He replied, matter of fact. “Obviously don’t say anything.”  

“I won’t, I promise.”

-

Rafe could’ve asked you about a ring, a wedding, future kids, and you probably still wouldn’t have put two and two together. It wasn’t that you didn’t think about those things because you did. It was like flipping on a TV that was only playing a series of ex machina broadcasts. Even if you weren’t thinking about it immediately it crept in. When Anya had told you about her honeymoon you immediately wondered what your own might be like, if it would ever happen. When a new class of kids started and a name stuck out to you as one you liked you’d start to wonder about your own future children.  

You thought about the future to an overwhelming degree and you always had. But you didn’t think that Rafe did. Or, more accurately, you didn’t want to think about whether or not he did. What if dating was enough? What if the brownstone was enough? Your mom always spooked you with the same advice, “never move in with a guy before you’re engaged or you’ll never get married”.  

You only broached the subject once, laying on the couch after a day of parent-teacher conferences and watching the Bachelorette because it was ridiculous and you needed ridiculous television.  

“You could audition for this show.” You called as Rafe came out of the bedroom, changed out of his work clothes (slacks, button downs, you were truly blessed to see both sides of his wardrobe as often as you did).  

“For…” he looked at the screen as he pulled his Duke University shirt over his head, “for the bachelorette?”

“Yeah, I bet you’d be like, a fan favorite.”  

“I don’t know how you watch this, it’s all manufactured.”  

“It’s kinda nice though, I mean they all get right to the point.” You replied.  

“Saying ‘I wanna marry that person’ before they even know each other is dumb. Very rarely does that happen in real life.” Rafe said, walking into the kitchen.  

“Will you make me popcorn? Also, it’s not dumb…you’ve never met someone and been like ‘that’s the one’ right off the bat?” You called.  

Rafe grabbed the popcorn out of the cabinet, Fivel appearing at his feet at the sound of rattling. “Did you feed Five?” He asked, already opening the fridge to grab his food.  

“Only dry food before I walked him.” You called back, “you didn’t answer my question.”  

“Your question is a trap.” He replied.  

You sat up, leaning over the back of the couch so that you could see him in the kitchen. “It is not!”  

Rafe only hummed, ignoring you as you flopped back onto the couch to watch Chris Harrison announce that the guys were flying to Ireland for the next leg of the competition. Rafe looked back over at the TV before putting your popcorn in the microwave. Fivel ate and then headed into the living room, jumping up on the wing chair that you always kept a heating pad and blankets on. Somewhere in all the domesticity of his life Rafe had stopped thinking so much about the differences. He didn’t dwell too much on the kid he’d been in North Carolina and just let himself enjoy doing absolutely nothing with you on a Tuesday night, watch trash TV and talking about all the stuff you had to do in the upcoming weeks.  

He carried the bowl of popcorn into the living room with a beer and a diet coke, depositing everything on the coffee table. He turned the heating pad on for Fivel before sitting on the other end of the couch from you, your socked feet tucking under his thigh. “College,” Rafe said, glancing over at you.

“What?” You sat up a little bit, moving away from him only to move closer.  

“When I saw you in the stairwell at Duke. I was pretty sure.” He replied. Pretty sure was an understatement. If there was one thing that Rafe was positive about it was that he had known then and there, as you stood on the other side of the door in the cold, or maybe before that even, when you first walked into his line of view, that you were it. He would’ve chased that feeling forever if he’d never gotten a second chance at it.  

“I was so nervous that night...I thought like worse case, you were gonna try to take advantage of me,” you pointed out.  

“There goes my credibility.”  

“Well, in hindsight, we did sleep together. But you’re just…I don’t know. Especially in college. I don’t think I’ve ever met a person in my entire life who so embodies the phrase ‘I get what I want’ but you certainly did then.” You replied. He still did now but you didn’t want to give him too much of an ego boost.

“I’d say I can’t argue but you never did call me back.”  

“Yeah well you’ve got me now.” You teased.  

Rafe had told Nina he had it all figured out. In two months he would propose to you, in the house you bought together, and it would be romantic and thoughtful and planned. And all of it went out the window for a Tuesday night in a cramped apartment watching the Bachelorette and eating popcorn.  

“Marry me.”  

“What?” You looked away from the group date that was dissolving into chaos on the screen. You had to shift back a little to look at him because when you’d moved you’d leaned your whole body against his.  

“Marry me.” He repeated, that same confidence that had been seeped in every word that he spoke when he flirted with you in college was there now, as if he was just so incredibly sure of himself. “I was gonna wait another two months to ask but I’d rather not.”  

“Okay, yea, yes.” You nodded. You felt like a whirlwind was going in your mind, all the things you wanted to happen, the things you pretended not to think about, that you spent far too much time on, came rushing forward as you kissed him, unconcerned with the TV or anything other than your boyfriend in that moment.  

Rafe kissed you back, pulling you over his lap, hands on your hips. He was all for a quiet Tuesday but he certainly wouldn’t complain about having this instead. “Bedroom?”  

“Yes sir.” You replied, arms wrapped around his shoulders and smiling against his mouth. Your grip tightened when Rafe stood suddenly, your legs locking around his waist as he carried you into the bedroom.  

You had teased him the first time you toured your future home that he would have to buy a really good couch for the living room so he wouldn’t have to carry you up a flight of stairs. He’d only replied that he would have to put an elevator in.  

-

“You didn’t ask about a ring,” Rafe pointed out, laying in bed with you, hand holding yours over his chest.  

“What do you mean?”  

“People usually propose with a ring.”  

“Oh,” you scrunched your nose up and pressed your forehead against his shoulder, you hadn’t even thought about a ring. Anything that wasn’t solely Rafe had gone out of your head without much effort, your sole focus on him and the fact that he’d asked you to marry him. There was nothing else you could even imagine thinking of in that moment. “I totally forgot.”  

“I was going to propose at the house, when we moved in,” he commented, tightening his grip around your waist as if he could pull you any closer.  

“That would’ve been really nice.”  

“I know.” He had it all planned perfectly, “so I won’t have a ring for another month or so.”  

“You shouldn’t have mentioned it then! I might not’ve even realized it.” You teased.

“Oh, I’m sure you wouldn’t have.” Rafe replied, “you probably would’ve forgotten we were engaged. I could’ve re-proposed.” 

“You should’ve, you could’ve made it more romantic.” 

“What can I say,” he shrugged, “I’m impatient.”

“That’s okay,” you reasoned because honestly it was fine. This was good enough, “you just couldn’t resist me.”  

“Yeah that’s what it was.”  

“Hey!” You laughed, untangling yourself to sit up in bed, “hey, did you have a speech and everything? Was it gonna be like, really sappy?”  

“I did have a speech, yes.” Rafe replied. “It was pretty good too.” And it should’ve been, he had drafts saved on his phone of different possible speeches he could’ve given you.  

“Are you gonna not read it to me now?”  

“It’s on my phone.”  

“Easy fix.” Before he could grab you, you had gotten off the bed, running out to the living room. You made it to the other side of the door before you ducked back in, grabbing Rafe’s shirt off the ground. “Mrs. Murphy is home.”  

“Flash her, she’d love it.” Rafe joked, laughing when you threw up the middle finger at him as you left the room.  

Your window ‘neighbor’ was a retired older lady who liked to sit in her living room and pretend to watch TV. In actuality she had angled her TV just so that she would be able to watch all the windows on the building beside hers, your building, and she’d caught you in some fairly compromising positions since you had started dating Rafe. She was happy to peep and you were pretty sure Rafe purposely walked around the living room naked or next to naked just to give her a show but you most definitely were not.  

“Is it in your notes?” You asked, coming back into the room with Rafe’s phone in your hands, swiping through apps.  

“I’ll get it, give me my phone.” He offered, holding his hand out.  

“I wanna read it.”  

“I’ll read it to you.” Rafe replied.  

“Fine.” You climbed up on the bed, hand pressed against the arched ceiling above your head to keep your balance, Rafe’s shirt riding up. When you got close enough he wrapped a hand around the back of your thigh, pulling and causing you to fall into his lap, knees on either side of him. “I was this close to kneeing you,” you said, holding your thumb and forefinger almost together as indication.  

“But you didn’t.” Rafe took the phone from you, searching his notes to find the speech he’d drafted.  

-

Though you were sure Mrs. Murphy was sad to see you go you were practically bouncing at the prospect of the new house. A house. The word felt so foreign. And maybe because you’d packed up all those silly childhood dreams ages ago when you decided that you would never be the type of person to meet someone that felt so wholly part of you. Nina got the childhood sweetheart life you’d wanted for so long and when you finally cancelled those plans and put your focus on a life that revolved around you and Fivel things like houses felt silly.  

But there it was, something you’d only ever walked passed before. Three stories of space, four bedrooms, an office space, a kitchen that looked fit for the pages of a magazine. Rafe was sorting through books to put on the shelves in the living room space, and you were tackling the kitchen while Fivel napped on the back patio space.  

“We should have an engagement party here.” You called over the music you had turned on. “Honestly we could have the whole wedding here.”  

“I think we might need a little bit more space for a wedding.” Rafe replied, leaving the books in boxes momentarily to find you in the kitchen. You were on the floor, unpacking the pots and pans and loading them into the lower cabinets.  

“I saw this post that this woman and her partner had a small wedding and did a lot of diy stuff and then saved all their money for the honeymoon.” You replied. “If we time it right we could honeymoon in the summer.”  

“That’s fine with me.” Rafe shrugged, “you’ll be planning by yourself though, I’m going to Beijing in May, for the-“

“For that whatever thing your boss is having you do.” You cut him off, leaning back against his legs, “Lucky you. And don’t think for a second that I won’t harass you every day with emails and texts and facetime asking about what venue should we rent, where should we get pictures, what should we eat.”  

“Can’t wait,” Rafe laughed, “we’ll figure something out. Though I do like this small wedding you're talking about.”  

“That’s cause you hate everyone.” You replied.  

Rafe was a party person in the sense that he liked showing off and parties gave him the opportunity but he was not fond of too many people. Polite, friendly even, sure, but he wasn’t rushing to plan too many outings that didn’t immediately benefit him in some way. The only close friends he had were from childhood.  

“Fine then, we’ll have a big wedding.” He shrugged, stepping away from you and causing you to grab the floor before you fell on your back.  

“No,” you groaned, “I don’t like people either.”  

“I’ll only be gone a month; we’ll figure out the wedding details and all that shit.”  

“All that shit.” You repeated, getting up off the ground and walking over to him.  

“What?” He asked, skeptical as you smiled at him, wrapping your arms around his waist and tilting your head back slightly to get him to kiss you.  

“We’re living together.”

“We have been living together.” He pointed out, just barely kissing you, nose brushing yours.  

“Yeah, but this is our house.”  

-

The wedding was small, exactly the way you both wanted. Rafe’s sisters were there by Ward and Rose stayed in North Carolina. Your family came and a few friends, you skipped inviting anyone from work aside from Anya, who came alone. The small church in was in Western Massachusetts, in your hometown, decorated with wild flowers and greens.  

“Topper,” you whispered, waving your soon-to-be husband’s best friend, and best man, over to where you were, peeking out of the pastor’s office. You were almost completely ready, all you needed was your veil and you’d be ready to walk down the aisle. Rafe was already in the chapel, talking with your family as they waited for the pression to start.  

“Hey,” Topper came over, giving you a quick hug. He’d arrived yesterday and you hadn’t gotten the chance to seen him because you were staying at your sister’s. You had made Rafe swear that the two of you were going to spend your pre-wedding night separate. “Cold feet? Want me to stall so you can make a getaway?” He teased.

“No.” You laughed, “will you get Rafe for me though?”  

“Yeah.” He squeezed you in a hug one more time, kissing your forehead before pulling away, “you look beautiful by the way.”

“Thank you.”  

Topper disappeared back into the chapel, walking up the aisle to where Rafe was, whispering in his best friend’s ear that you wanted him. Rafe glanced down the aisle, as if he could see you through the doors. He clapped Topper on the shoulder and headed down the aisle into the vestibule where the pastor’s office was. A few stragglers were chatting as he passed them, coming to the door and knocking.  

You opened the door enough that he could just see you, your robe obscuring the dress you were wearing. “Hi.”

“Hey, you trying to cancel the wedding on me?” He teased.  

“No, god, don’t listen to Topper.” You laughed, “I just wanted to see you. I missed you.”

“I saw you yesterday.”

“Rafe!” You pouted, glaring at him.  

He placed his hand on the back of your neck, leaning in to kiss you, “hey, I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“I’ll see you soon.” Rafe promised, kissing you one last time before letting go, heading back into the chapel.  

Everything felt like a blur that fast forwarded to the vows, standing there at the top of the church, pastor in front of you and crowd of family and friends sitting, watching, as Rafe read off the index cards he’d written his vows on. He’d obsessed over them, from the moment you said yes until now, he’d gone over them and over them and back over them. What if he said the wrong thing, what if he sounded stupid or insincere? But you were looking at him like he’d hung the stars, like no one had ever looked at him before.  

He took a deep breath before beginning, “one time at your parents' house you tried to tell me about something Nancy Reagan said to her husband and I know I cut you off then but when we went home afterward, I read up on the President and his wife and I don’t know exactly what you intended to say but in a letter to Nancy, Reagan said ‘I more than love you, I’m not whole without you. You are life itself to me. When you are gone I’m waiting for you to return so I can start living again.’ When I saw you across the street, waiting outside the restaurant on our first date that was it for me. I knew in the stairwell of Duke that you were it and when you messaged me the first time after that I knew I was never letting this go…”

You listened to his vows, blinking furiously as you tried not to cry. It was a useless attempt, by the second sentence you could feel the tears, probably soaking through makeup that you’d have to redo before pictures.  

“You never told me you read that,” you laughed, trying your best not to cry, “damn it.”

Rafe smiled, that same smugness he always had when he did something he knew you would undeniably love. You pressed the folded piece of paper to your chest, taking a breath before steadily unfolding it and looking down at your handwriting scrawled in successive paragraphs, all collections of feelings.  

“Okay,” you breathed, looking up at the ceiling in an attempt to stop crying and then down again at the papers...

-

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[maxwell-grant]

any thoughts on james bond??

Not really a fan and I don’t think that’s gonna change. I don’t have much experience with the character to begin with, I watched the Daniel Craig movies which bored me to death. I watched Goldfinger, which I remembered as being fun the first time I viewed it as a kid, but I find it hard to stand as an adult because Sean Connery was an awful man and oh yeah, that’s also the movie where James Bond rapes someone (I get that it was supposed to be a slap-slap-kiss thing but that is very much not what it’s in the scene). And I read the original Casino Royale novel, which is a must-read largely for it’s importance in pop culture and has some interesting aspects to it but, again, nothing that really got me to seek out the character.

Look, I get why Bond has become this huge cultural institution and the spy of popular fiction ever since his debut, why the 60s was the era of “Bond, Beatles and Batman” and why he’s kinda become the new standard for non-superhero action protagonists. I am extremely fond of that particular style you see in media like The Incredibles and Team Fortress 2, and that style owes a lot of it to the Bond films, hell I just posted above a screencap of Venture Bros, my favorite cartoon series. I’m certainly not gonna knock on popular enjoyment of a morally dubious man of action in a slick suit who charms and shoots his way through problems, after writing my most popular posts on my unabashed worship of Vincenzo. 

The things I like the most about Bond’s character in Casino Royale and the Bond of the original novels are largely the ways in which he almost betrays the impossibly competent image he’s been set up with later. I like that he gets picked specifically just because he’s the Service’s best gambler and not because he's the best everythint, I like that he’s uncomfortable with killing and especially the targeted assassinations, I like that he has vices and struggles because of his job. His job kinda forces him to be by default an unfeeling asshole who exploits people, and I think that’s an interesting perspective to develop, even without the context of it being James Bond before “being James Bond is the coolest thing ever” was the driving thesis of the franchise.

Thing is, I never really found any reason to give a damn about anything in Bond, other than enjoyment of the stylistic trappings and absurdities which just get kinda old after a while. I don’t enjoy the titular character or the hordes of largely one-dimensional "Bond Girls”, I don’t think the villains are interesting despite their supposed reputation in pop culture, I don’t get that much enjoyment out of death traps and car chases and gun fights if I don’t have anything at all to care about in the situations. I don’t think characters inspired by Bond tend to be interesting and even Bond parodies have gotten largely old and stale (I do like Johnny English but that’s solely because Rowan Atkinson is my favorite comedian and I’ll watch him in anything, and even then I didn’t even remember there was a third film).

As a kid, the idea of being a secret agent in service of the government has never really been terribly appealing to me, and as an adult it appeals even less. I don’t entirely dislike government agent characters by default, I really like Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks and An Gi-Seok from Vincenzo and agents of fictional organizations like Hellboy’s BRPD and Carmen Sandiego’s ACME, but I can’t shake off the stink of imperialism off my perception of Bond in particular. Again, I know it’s fiction, I know I talk about morally dubious protagonists I love all the time, but it’s the fact that Bond is so closely tied to his role as a government-sponsored murderer, my disdain for real-life governments and secret services being depicted in fiction as a swell and cool thing and not at all what they actually are, and the fact that I do not find Bond at all convincing or interesting enough for me to overlook that and buy into the fantasy, all blends together to make me dislike him.  

And yeah, Ian Fleming had utterly wretched views on gender and race and that bleeds a lot into the stories. People knock on pulps for racism and sexism a lot, and it's not undeserved, but even then I’ve seldom read anything in them as appallingbas the kind of shit you get on the Bond novels, and it’s harder to separate those from the character when so much of it is framed as the thoughts and opinions and attitudes of the character to the world around him. I would still not like James Bond even if I could put aside all the racism and sexism, and I very much cannot, but the fact that they are there, atop everything else, atop the character being an actual rapist at worst and his most iconic actor being unabashedly proud of being a wife beater and somehow still remembered fondly as a pop culture badass, and you end up with the one time Alan Moore did a comically grotesque exaggeration of a character in LOEG and I thought “you know what, I acknowledge that this is overblown and stupid and immersion-breaking but fuck it, I can’t blame you for your thoughts on this particular character manifesting with such bile”.

I know there’s good stuff in James Bond novels and films, I know why the character is super iconic and popular, please don’t misconstrue anything I’m saying as me thinking James Bond fans are horrible or something, because I don’t want to get that across at all. But I personally do not like Bond, and I don’t think I have to force myself to when there’s so many other types of characters and even spies that I prefer so much more. I don’t think I’m ever really going to be a Bond fan (I do like Timothy Dalton as an actor though, and if Sam Neil ever got to play Bond like he auditioned for, I probably would have at least some affection for the character since I really like him). 

I do like Austin Powers also. A lot of the jokes have aged really poorly and apparently Mike Myers is kind of an ass on set, but I think the concept of the eternally outdated parody spy still works, the films still have pretty funny scenes, and most importantly, he spoofed the concept to death so hard that even Daniel Craig said “Mike Myers fucked us”. Austin sucked out and absorbed all the fun parts of James Bond and then made them so funny and ridiculous that the Bond franchise has never again been able to have too much fun with itself, and if I gave a shit about Bond I would probably dislike that, but I don’t so, you go Austin. 

[catgrassplantdad]

Hey fellow app user, please talk to me about some domestic headcanons! 16 and/or 23, and 30 if you want to share 🙃

Hey, Howl! 

16. Favorite non-sexual activity they like to do in their new place? I really love the idea of them getting into cooking. And not in some weird pretentious way, but just as something they can enjoy doing together. Because yeah, they are firmly attached at the hip. And it’s nice to enjoy something that they created just for themselves. They have absolutely no fucking idea what they’re doing at first, especially after that first shopping trip to whole foods where Ian is just taking advantage of the fact he has a whole foods to shop at, so he just buys whatever looks interesting. And then it’s dinner time and he’s got all this fucking food that he doesn’t know what to do with and Mickey is like “ugh fuck it, I’m hungry” and just. Goes for it. And like, it’s fine, it’s not the worst thing they’ve tasted. But Ian just kind of follows Mickey’s lead and really likes doing it. They always kind of enjoyed making dinner together, but now they make a whole thing of it and put music on and sing at each other and goof off. It signifies the end of the day when they can just be together and do something together after work without any pressure or anyone else around, and they get to create something and enjoy it. And they do eventually get marginally better at it (and Ian is a little less impulsive at the grocery store after that first time).

23. Do they have any morning rituals? I like to imagine that they really dig spending time on their little balcony off the dining room in the morning. Ian gets up and makes coffee if he can manage to extricate himself from Mickey’s hold, then he convinces Mickey to get out of bed by bribing him with coffee, and they hang out outside and wake up and enjoy each other’s company and the fresh air. Ian loves having a little outdoor space that’s just theirs and he wants to take advantage of it as much as possible, save for the excessively cold and shitty Chicago wintertime.

30. Any other random domestic headcanons? Since the finale had them shopping for rental furniture and they had a bad experience at the place, I’ve been thinking about Ian giving up on the idea of renting furniture and they end up buying stuff instead. But Mickey absolutely refuses to let Ian decorate their apartment in something as boring as fucking taupe, and he finds that he gets really into selecting interesting items to furnish their place with. But he’d never admit to anyone how much he actually enjoys the process of making their place look cool.

Thanks, I really enjoyed answering these!

[atamascolily]

Unicorn Chronicles, Book 4: “The Last Hunt,” by Bruce Coville

The Last Hunt is even longer than Dark Whispers--the hardcover edition runs to a whopping 605 pages (not including a multi-page character list), so it's a great example of Sequel Creep. Scholastic never gave it a paperback run, so Coville ended up buying back the rights and re-releasing it as smaller volumes (bringing the series to seven in all) to balance it back out a little. But still. It's a lot.

Coville says in the acknowledgements:

If I hadn't been painfully aware so many people were waiting for this story, I might have given up at any number of points along the way.So thanks, dear fans, it's been a long journey, and I literally could not have done it without you.

1) Awwww. 2) #relatable.

The Last Hunt is divided into sections based on time: 'Blood Moon Night," 'Day One of the Invasion,' and so on. The entire book spans about six days in all (five days + the Blood Moon), although there are lots of flashbacks and the last chapter opens with a time skip of several weeks. Suffice to say, this is one hell of a week. Each section is also captioned with a quote--sometimes from one of the Unicorn Chronicles, sometimes from Sun Tzu's The Art of War, which is unexpectedly plot-relevant.

We left off with Beloved and her army of Hunters invading Luster by ripping a hole in the Axis Mundi, the World Tree, with the intent to kill all the unicorns. The unicorns, led by the newly crowned Amalia Flickerfoot, must decide what to do next.

What follows: so many subplots, an inevitable quest, dragons, humans gonna humans, baleful polymorphs, dramatic battles, and a literal deus ex machina.

WHAT HAPPENS:

Lightfoot is right by the Axis Mundi when the gate opens, so he watches in horror as the Hunters come through. He tries to escape to warn the Queen, only to be pursued. To escape, he runs through the Gate to Earth, which for some reason burns people the second time around if they don't wait long enough (for reasons that make zero sense to me). Lightfoot finds himself in Beloved's keep in the Himalayas, and finds Cara's mother Martha asleep and pulls her out of the Rainbow Prison.

Fortunately, Martha was able to make contact with Ian and company long enough to learn how to pull them out, so she does. Lightfoot is afraid to go through the gate because he doesn't want to get crisped, so they wait until Beloved sends her troops after him, and then sneak in behind them. It turns out Fallon created the unicorns and is basically a deity.

Beloved has adopted a bunch of orphans -- girls abandoned by their families--whose purpose is to be unicorn bait. We meet one of them, Feng Quan, who is a total badass and a Sun Tzu stan, who is horrified when she witnesses a unicorn being slaughtered and jumps ship. Feng Quan runs into Belle, who has been haunted by the Whisperer (who knows Belle wants to be Queen) and convinces the skeptical warrior to take her to Amalia Flickerfoot.

Meanwhile the Geomancer M'Gama has been captured by the delvers, and Rocky and his reunited cove search for his teacher, the wizard Namza, who is turned to stone and having a lot of flashbacks. They eventually join up and work to stabilize Luster, which is devastated by increasingly severe earthquakes as  Beloved's gate is destroying the Axis Mundi and thus the entire world.

The queen sends Cara on another quest, this time to beg the dragon Grammaug for aid. (IDK while Amalia doesn't try to get all seven dragons, but okay, fine, whatever.) This time, it's only Cara and Medafil, because everyone else is busy. Cara encourages her grandmother to "think like a human" to outwit Beloved, which Feng Quan seconds when she arrives.

Grammaug turns out to be a dragon who turned into a human (it's complicated) and came to Luster because she was basically allergic to the world that all the other dragons went to when Bellemore opened THEIR gate. I thought that her story dragged on a little long, but it does eventually turn out to be relevant, since we are introduced to Transformational Magic, which can be moved around from person to person. Watch this space.

Hunters are looking for Cara, using special "blood trackers" that cannot be fooled, because Beloved wants her for unspecified reasons. Thomas the Tinker is also on his own quest to pick something up at the Queen's behest. The centaurs are having drama of their own as well. Ian tries to track Cara and gets captured by the delvers and taken to the king, who sends him to Beloved.

Grammaug agrees to help, but they are intercepted by the hunters on their journey back and Cara encounters Elihu, the mysterious "friend" Fallon has been searching for, who transforms her into a unicorn in order to lure the hunters off the scent.

Amalia and Feng Quan come up with a plan and send Grammaug to deliver a message, lying to the dragon about the details to mislead Beloved. Grimmwold summons the Queen's Players as part of the plan. Cara runs into Fallon, who reveals that Elihu created Luster, and was banished from the gods' realm because of it, and Fallon came down with him. Grammaug persuades Firethroat to join the battle; Firethroat is very pro eating humans, and agrees. The Whisperer uses Martha Hunter's anger about her mother to try and turn her against the unicorns.

Everyone converges on the Axis Mundi before the battle. We learn that a deity called Allura was responsible for sending the story of the Whisperer from the Chronicles and giving it to the centaurs and she made the Squijum. Like Fallon, she is searching for Elihu. Cara reveals her true identity, and reunites with her mother, who rejects the Whisperer.

Fallon summons the Whisperer and fights it to the death (Fallon's doesn't take). The group pieces together that the Dimblethum is Elihu--he returned to his true form when he betrayed Luster by helping Beloved with the Gate, only to revert back when he used his magic on Cara--and they must bring him back since he's the only one who can save Luster.

The Queen's Players stage a performance and Thomas produces a cockatrice who starts turning Hunters to stone. The dragons shoot flames, and the unicorns attack. Rajiv frees Ian in the chaos. Moonheart dies in the charge. Beloved is perplexed by the Whisperer's absence, and the centaurs and delvers arrive to join the fight. The Hunters flee back to Earth. The Axis Mundi splits in half and the dragons try to hold it together temporarily.

Cara attacks the delver king, who is trying to murder the Dimblethum, and the delver king falls into a conveniently opened hole in the ground and is swallowed up forever. Fallon uses transformational magic to swap places with Elihu so that Elihu can fix the tree. Elihu can't hold it alone, so Allura helps and both are swallowed up by the repaired tree. Graumag dies.

Beloved, believing Cara to be dead, takes Martha hostage and taunts Team Good. Cara reveals herself and Beloved begs for death. Cara tries to heal her and fails and Beloved dies.

Rajiv joins the Queen's Players. Cara is still a unicorn and no one can turn her back, but everyone's okay with it? The surviving Hunters are put to sleep and woken one by one and given the choice of staying in Luster or returning to earth; Feng Quan and Belle work with the maidens. The new Dimblethum and the Squijum visit the Axis Mundi every night to mourn their fellows and M'Gama and Namza are still in comas and we never learn their ultimate fate. Firethroat is in mourning and refuses to talk to anyone.

HOW I FEEL ABOUT IT:

"meh". So much happens and it's extremely epic, but I only care about half the characters, and the rest is just tedious. The whole deus ex machina thing could have been interesting, but wasn't--I could deal with ONE god running around but three was pushing it. The Dimblethum being Elihu was fine, but Fallon and Allura on top of that was too much. I would have preferred Grimmwold stepping in with a legend that allowed them to piece the answers together or something--not this.

It was hard to tease out what was relevant and what was a red herring (Felicity in the Rainbow prison, the Blind Man, etc). Lots of new characters, but I felt like the old characters were already underused - I wanted to see much more of Thomas and Grimmwold, for instance. Feng Quan, however, is absolutely awesome and I love her.  She and Belle are perfect together.

Cara ends up staying a unicorn was something I definitely did not see that one coming. Which makes Cara/Lightfoot the strongly implied endgame ship, which is just NOT WHAT I WAS EXPECTING WHEN I STARTED THIS SERIES, THAT'S ALL. They barely have any time together at all in this, even at the end, which makes me sad. Likewise, all that Lightfoot/Belle stuff never gets addressed.

IDK why Jaques keeps giving speeches about how he doesn't care if he and Cara are related by blood - they seem to be more for Cara's benefit than any character development/change.

Lightfoot's first glimpse of Earth (which he has never seen before) is incredibly poignant. So is his wandering around the deserted castle and struggling without hands. I wish he and Cara were able to discuss this, but NOPE, there is no time for discussion in this entire book, sigh.

The whole business about only going through the portal once in a given time period makes zero sense to me, especially given the established worldbuilding. It feels so contrived. Likewise, Belle and Martha are tempted by the Whisperer, which doesn't really go anywhere for either of them?

I don't know why Elihu smashes the amulet to transform Cara if there's this whole transformational magic thing going on. I still don't really get how that works.

I am also annoyed that Fallon deals with the Whisperer instead of the unicorns. So much for the unicorns "embracing their own darkness" and coming to terms with the fact that they screwed up in their ambition to be perfect.  What a wasted opportunity.

Also, it's book four, and we're only NOW finding out there's a prophecy that a scion of the hunters and the unicorns is the only one who can destroy Beloved?? Seems like we needed that earlier. We knew Beloved wanted Cara, we just didn't know WHY until the last possible minute. [Also, who told her that and why??] Without the Whisperer, Beloved is pretty helpless, which annoys me--I wanted her to be a villain in her own right.

Coville is very clear that Beloved tortures Ian, but like, only emotionally, because this is a kid's book, and that Elihu and Fallon are Definitely Not Gay For Each Other, which annoys me. (Coville is generally sympathetic towards queer folks; I really enjoyed his short story "Am I Blue?" which is about a literal fairy godparent and a working gaydar, so this was disappointing.)

The whole subplot with the Blind Man borrowing Ian's eyesight goes absolutely nowhere. I thought the Blind Man was going to play into the Luster drama somehow, but no, he's just some random magician who uses his deal with Ian to blind him at inopportune moments for reasons of his own that are never explained. WTF. This is one reason I hate Ian's subplot so much!!

Likewise, Martha seems cool, but her genuine beef with Ian, Beloved, and Ivy/Arabella get smoothed over and ignored because there's just zero time for anything in the midst of the chaos. Which is too bad!

The fact that the Squijum is the personal favorite creation/messenger of a god is just hilarious to me. Doesn't mean he isn't annoying af, though.

I WANTED ALL SEVEN DRAGONS AHHH.(though apparently there’s a secret eighth dragon no one talks about??WHAT???)

I think I'd be more okay with it if there was more time at the end to see the characters react and reflect--there's only one chapter, and it's not nearly enough. Is Lightfoot still Prince or is the Cara the heir now that she's a unicorn? How do THEY feel about that? That's another subplot from the previous books that just didn't go anywhere, and it bugs me.

(I was convinced Beloved was going to wake Martin Hunter from his sleep and have him lead the attack--like a reverse King Arthur--and I'm SO MAD THAT DIDN'T ACTUALLY HAPPEN...)

Also the fact that Cara has to mercy kill someone at the climax of not one but TWO BOOKS in this series... damn. I’d like to see some more reflection and thought about this after the fact.

Also, the whole thing with the delver-unicorn connection -- what kind of relationship are the two species going to have moving forward? RADIO SILENCE. What the hell did the other dragons think was happening during all this and why didn't they help/investigate? Are the Hunters going to stage a counterattack or disband now that they've lost their leader? Are the unicorns going to return to Earth or will it continue to be just the Guardian of Memory?? There are so many things that are just left hanging, and while MAYBE Coville will write another book to address these issues (it's happened before!) I am grumpy because I WANT TO KNOW, DAMN IT.

I had hoped on re-read I'd feel better about this, but I don't. I get to the end and I think "why?" which is not a great feeling to have. IDK what exactly I expected from this series--it definitely delivers in some ways, and in others, it totally falls short. I’m still impressed Coville managed to finish and it’s not entirely his fault that the results didn’t match up with my expectations, but it’s still sad that older!Me isn’t more excited about the end results.

*sigh* Maybe older!Me will buckle down and write a fix-it fic or two to make younger!Me happy. Currently, the only Unicorn Chronicles fic on A03 is a complicated crossover between LOTR and various other media featuring a human!Lightfoot, which I probably will never read, but it makes me happy to know it exists. FFN has more stories, but this was never a popular fandom, so the field is wide open for anything I want to do with it (more so than usual). Also, it seems I wasn't the only person of a certain age imagining self-insert fic in this universe, which is oddly reassuring.

[gallavictorious]

I really wish people would stop excusing their favorite character's actions with convoluted theories instead of just accepting that their faves aren't perfect. Ian should not be comparing Terry and Frank. Full stop. Especially not to Mickey's face, when Mickey is in the middle of trying to deal with the complicated feelings he has about the father that raped him by proxy and tried to actually murder him. It's ok to say "yeah you're right I don't know what you're going through but I'm here" and not make it into a shitty father competition.

And I really wish people would refrain from making groundless assumptions and recognize that trying to understand a character's motivation for doing something does not equal taking a stance on whether or not the action discussed is morally sound but alas, nonnie, we live in an imperfect world.

For those just turning in, this ask was received in response to my addition to this post.

Now, nonnie, if I understand you correctly, you disapprove of what I wrote because you see it as 1, an attempt to excuse Ian's behavior because 2, he's my favourite character and 3, therefore I can't stand to have him do something wrong. You also think that, no matter his motivations, Ian shouldn't be comparing Frank to Terry. Below, I'll quickly refutate points 2 and 3, as well as detail the difference between explanations and excuses and – hopefully – demonstrate why you can't with any sort of certainty claim that the offending post is an example of the latter. I will not really engage with the question of whether or not Ian was wrong for saying what he did, because (as we shall return to forthwith) that was not the issue originally discussed, it doesn't actually interest me, and as you do not offer any sort of reasoning for your moral judgment there really isn't anything for me to work with there anyway.

Strap in, kids; it's another long one.

Let's start with your claim that Ian is my favourite. I'm not actually going to spell it out there, but instead direct you to paragraphs 3-7 of this post. A little lazy, perhaps, but I'm sure you can appreciate why I have limited time to point out the same basic flaws twice in a fairly short period of time. (Should I pin a pic of me holding up a little sign reading ”Actually, Mickey is my favourite, even though I love Ian too” to the top of my blog? Would that be helpful?)

Moving on to point 3, I do agree with the general notion that it's fine to accept that the characters we love (no matter who that character is) are flawed and make mistakes! If you had taken the time to familiarize yourself with my thoughts on Ian and Mickey – or if you had, you know, just asked – instead of jumping to completely unsubstantiated conclusions based on a single post, you might even have realized that them being fucked up and making fucked up choices from time to time is one of the things I find most compelling about them. They are messy and complicated and human, and I love that. I neither think nor want either of them to perfect, because perfection is unrealistic is static is boring.

With that out of the way, let's get to excuses versus explanations. If one confuses the two, any attempt to discuss or explain a persons behavior will be construed as an attempt to excuse it, but to understand something and to condone it are actually two different things.

For instance, I can explain and understand why Mickey acted the way he did in 3x09, but still think kicking Ian in the face was wrong. I can explain and understand why Ian called Mickey a coward and a pussy in 4x11 but still think he was wrong for doing so. Do you see? Understanding – or trying to understand – why someone did something is not the same as saying that what they did was okay. Understanding the reasons for someone's actions might lessen the severity of our condemnation (for instance, stealing is generally considered wrong, but most of use would agree that stealing bread to feed your kid is less wrong than stealing bread because you're too stingy to pay for it) or might remove condemnation entirely (hitting someone because you are angry with them is wrong, hitting someone as part of consensual BDSM sex is fine), but understanding an action does not automatically lead to declaring said action morally correct. In short, ”why did X do Y” and ”was X right or wrong do to Y” are two different questions, and the fact that our answer to the second question often is at least partly dependent on our understanding of the first does not change that.

So explanations and excuses are not the same. And yet, sometimes the reasons for doing something (or failing to do something) are offered up as an excuse; as a reason why someone should not be held responsible for their actions, or why they were correct in performing/not performing them in the first place. That neatly leads us to the question of whether or not that's what's actually happening in the post you took exception to. And the answer to that is... you can't know. What boys-night and I discuss in the post is what Ian is actually doing (is he trying to compare trauma och convince Mickey he had it worse) and why he is doing it; that is, we are trying to understand and explain his behavior. Neither of us make any sort of statement on whether or not he was right or wrong for saying or doing what he did: that's just not the topic of conversation. Now, maybe I do think his motivations means that he's morally justified in what he said; maybe I don't. My point is that you can't know that just from what you've read in the post. You might draw some tentative conclusions, and they may be correct, but you don't know, and the reasonable and responsible way to go from there is to seek clarification by asking (polite) questions, not aggressively throwing around accusations about others grasping for straws in a despertae attempt to exonerate their favorites from wrongdoing.

(And just to remind you, even if I were making excuses for Ian, it wouldn't be because he's my favourite or becuase I can't bear to have him do wrong.)

You are perfectly free to disagree with any of the points made in the post, by the way, but you need to recognize that what we're disagreeing on then is motivation, not morality.

And, oh, of course it would have been okay to say "yeah you're right I don't know what you're going through but I'm here", but that's not what Ian did. Now, if you are happy to go ”ah, Ian fucked up, he's not perfect” and move on, that's fine. You do you, nonnie, and if analysis and discussion of character motivations isn't your jam then it isn't and I'm sure no one is going to force you to engage in it. (And if they try to, you can simply say ”I don't care” and walk away.) However, to be perfectly honest I am a bit perplexed that you should be so indignant over other fans trying to make sense of his actions. Do you still feel that way now that you – hopefully – understand that trying to explain a characters' behavior doesn't necessarily mean trying to excuse it? I mean, surely you are aware of the fact that people usually have reasons for acting the way they do, even if the way they act is shitty or misguided? (Note that I'm not saying that Ian's actions were shitty and misguided. That is not the discussion we're having.) I am rather curious, actually, as to what you think Ian's motivations were? Do you imagine he was deliberatedly diminishing Mickey's trauma? Why, if so? Do you perhaps think that he is obsessed with being The Most Victim and thus takes every opportunity to list all the ways Frank sucked? Or maybe that his mouth just moves without any thought or reason and the words just randomly happened?

To be fair, it seems that Ian's motivations is not something you consider relevant: you write that ”Ian should not be comparing Terry and Frank. Full stop.” And that's absolutely a moral stance you can take, albeit certainly not the only one. Maybe Ian shouldn't have said what he said Had you given any reasons for this verdict, I might even have agreed with you because I can think of several reasons why it might be better if Ian refrained from comparing Terry and Frank, no matter his motivations. (And I might not, because I can also think of several reasons why such a comparision might be justified, even though Terry is clearly the more evil of the two.) However, we shall never know, because you fail to back up your claim. I guess that's because you deem it self-evident? It is not, and until you provide any sort of reasoning for your grand proclamation, I won't engage with the question. Not going to shadow-box with you, nonnie, or do your work for you; if you want a discussion, make your case properly. Though maybe make it elsewhere – as previously noted, passing judgement on the characters is not my primary interest when discussing them. I am much more intrigued by trying to understand why characters do and say what they do and say.

Phew. Okay, that's me done, I think. I realize that you might not be very impressed with this answer, nonnie, but I hope it may to some degree reassure you that no sneaky attempt to excuse my favourite character's actions with convoluted theories was made by this humble blogger. Not this time, at least.

[pigtownchronicles]

Chapter 2.8 - The Friday Night Party

Thursday evening, after work, Barry was on the corner where Hugh had told him to wait. Depot was down the street, and he watched the nearly unmarked door keep a steady traffic going in, even this early. Barry was surprised that a club would ever be that busy on a weeknight, but he found himself thinking about the dance floor again, thinking about how he’d almost gotten lost there, but lost the feeling instead. That sense of doubt almost made him abandon his plan, but he held on. Hugh showed up a few minutes late, and they walked down to a bench outside a rather unkempt park, and chatted.

“Alright, so here’s what you asked for,” Hugh said, and passed him a little baggie with two pills in it. “Have you used those before?”

“No!” Barry said, a bit defensive. 

“I’m not in the shame business, calm down. Look, it’ll take a bit for them to kick in, and when they do, he’s going to be, well, useless. You have a plan on how to get him to the lab?”

“I was gonna get him to my car and drive him.”

“And when people notice?”

“I mean, it’s not perfect, but it’ll do, right?”

Hugh dug around in his pocket with a little smirk. “Alright, I had a chat with Ian, and he agreed to let me slip you a little something extra. If you play your cards right, you might not even need the roofies. Here.”

Barry looked at the vial Hugh pressed into his hand, and it was similar to the shimmering dust he’d sampled back at the house, which had given him those...visions of being a little club twink. “I don’t think he’ll be doing coke at the party, if you want me to try and give him this shit.”

“It’s not for him, it’s for you. It’s not that club drug you sampled before. Ian has all kinds of homebrew back in the lab. Most of it is just, well, waste product, I guess you could say. Little bits and pieces from his work that get pulled out with everything else. The buyer might not want them, or they might not fit in afterward, so he’s left with the stuff. Ephemera is what he calls it. Some of it works...like a vision. That was what the dust at the house did for you. Other stuff he makes gives you little boosts, or temporary shifts. I keep telling him to market the shit, call it Prestige or something, but he says he can’t guarantee supply, so whatever. His loss, your gain.”

“So what’s it do then?”

“It...makes you important. People want to listen to you more, they’re more willing to do what you say. You can’t make someone jump off a building, but I don’t think you’ll have a hard time convincing your friend to take a ride with you if you’re on it.”

“How long will it last?”

“That should get you through the whole evening, no problem.”

He paid Hugh for the drugs, and was assured that if he didn’t end up needing the roofies, he could return them for a refund later. All day Friday, it was impossible to focus. He couldn’t believe he was really considering this, that any of this was really possible. He’d considered taking a little bit of what Hugh had called prestige that morning, just so he could get a grip on it, and figure out if it would be helpful, but chickened out. Part of him sensed he was going to chicken out tonight too, that he wouldn’t make an opening, that he would, once again, sabotage himself like always.

Anticipating the party, most everyone at the office was taking an easy day, getting a little work done, but mostly chatting and planning out their weekends. Richard seemed to mingle with all of them so easily, and knew more about some of them than Hugh had ever bothered to learn, and he’d only been with the team for a week. It was effortless for him. But then, Hugh had always felt like he needed to guard himself, hide part of him away out of shame. He couldn’t really talk about his family, or what he got up to on weekends, because no straight person would look at him the same way afterward. No wonder they’d picked Richard over him. They all probably thought he was an asshole who didn’t want anything to do with them, when really, he was the one terrified of them all.

He almost bailed at that point, and skipped the party entirely. What drove him to push on was fear. It wasn’t really the promotion he wanted. It wasn’t even really the respect. It was the fact that, if he didn’t pursue this, if he didn’t follow through, he knew he’d be right back with Ian, agreeing to cash it all in. He’d spend the rest of his life as some stupid circuit bunny, without a thought in his head other than the pulse of the beat, and maybe he’d be happy. Maybe. But he’d never be satisfied with that. It was time to swallow that fear and seize something for once in his damn life. Maybe it was time for these straight fucks to be afraid of him, instead.

They went to the bar near the office, the same sports bar they always went to for events like this. It was just as despairing as every other straight bar Barry had ever gone to. He did his best to mingle and fit in, but it was clear he’d already been frozen out. Word had gotten around that he’d been turned down for the promotion, and it seemed like everyone was rather pleased about it. He suspected that the dislike from them he’d always thought might be paranoia was more likely real. Again, his resolve shook, he ended up in the bathroom, making a line of prestige on the counter, knowing that this would probably be his only shot.

After all, none of those people would let him just take Richard with him. They’d all probably think he was going to rape him or something. He snorted the line, expecting a sensation similar to the one he’d had at Ian’s office, a vision of...something, but instead, he just felt this warmth suffuse him. It wasn’t a rush, and it wasn’t a high. He just felt centered, and confident. In the mirror, he straightened his jacket, and realized he hadn’t had a jacket on a second ago. He was wearing a rather sharp suit now, and while he recognized his reflection well enough, his face was just a bit sharper. His jaw was a bit more defined, the pimple on his nose had disappeared, his stubble gone, hair filled with highlights. He looked damn good. Like Hugh had said, he looked important.

He stepped back out into the party, and it was like meeting a bunch of strangers, somehow. They all gravitated towards him, wanted to talk to him, wanted to be seen with him. The conversation came easy, and Barry found that the forced congeniality Richard had been treating him to was stripped away, replaced by a genuine curiosity. He ordered a round of pitchers that came on the house, and everyone drank at his urging, especially Richard, who never had an empty glass. Just like Hugh had said, he didn’t even need the roofies. The party ran longer than they usually did, and as he made his way around the room, multiple people confided in him that they thought he should have gotten the promotion, not Richard. He just didn’t have the same charisma. Barry was always gracious, but just that little bit of ego stroking made him eager to move onto the next step.

Richard was nearly falling over, and in no shape to drive. Barry, who hadn’t been drinking at all, offered to drive him home, and everyone thought that was a great idea, he was so kind and generous, a terrific human. He just smiled, nodded, and helped Richard out of the bar and into his car, and they drove off.

“Don’t you need my address?” Richard asked.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll get you there just fine.”

“You know, I...didn’t really like you at first, Barry. I kind of thought you were a stuck up asshole. But you’re a real good guy, you know that?”

“Thanks Richard, that’s nice of you to say,” he said.

“Are we heading into town? I live out by Butte Creek.”

“This is a shortcut, you can trust me.”

“Alright.”

A few minutes later, Barry pulled into the little driveway in front of the house where Ian ran his business, and drove around into the back yard. Ian and Hugh were waiting for him there, and helped Richard out of the car, and down into the basement. “I don’t...where are you taking me?” he mumbled, but couldn’t put up much of a resistance.

“Don’t worry Richard, the real party is about to get started,” Barry said, and followed them down into the lab.

***

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[terry-perry]

A Life Worth Sharing (Ian x Vampire!Reader)

A special request for my good friend @ladyfluff​

Hope you enjoy!​

Set in the Adam’s Family AU

She groaned as she felt herself being shaken awake. Her annoyance soon melted away, however, once her vision became less fuzzy and she caught sight of her boyfriend crouched down beside her and wearing that shy grin she loved so much. 

“Sorry to wake you,” Ian mumbled. “But didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye.”

Peering over at the clock on her nightstand, she saw that it was almost five in the morning. She groaned again; she didn’t like it when he left super late (or super early, to some). His sleep schedule was already off-balanced enough with his job and her brother having him as his personal errand boy.

“Can’t you stay a little longer?” She pleaded.

“I wish I could, but my flight leaves very soon. And I have some music people I have to meet with tomorrow night.”

“Okay, but you’ll be back in two weeks right?”

“Definitely,” Ian grinned before leaning forward to give her a good, long kiss goodbye.

This had been their routine for almost two years now. It was a struggle at first with the constant back and forth and then the added revelation of what she and her family were, but they were able to adjust for the most part. They cared for one another too much to let what they had go so easily. 

Even when they had only been on a handful of dates, it was almost unreal how intense their feelings were. Y/N knew this was definitely something she had never felt before. Like many others of her kind, she had her share of casual lovers throughout the centuries she lived -- only giving her heart to one or two souls. 

She made peace long ago with the idea that there might not have been a special someone for her. She had convinced herself that the love she shared with her family was enough to sustain her. She did her best to be happy for her brothers as she’d watch them interact with their loves they had found; laughing at the way Peter would banter with Rowan, be fascinated at how Adam and Eve were able to communicate with one another without words.

She was happy for them, yes. But envious as well. 

None of the others she’d been with made her feel what she did with Ian. Since the night they met, she would think back to the stories she heard long ago about their kind and their version of soulmates. They weren’t known to play around with their feelings. They may give in to carnal urges from time to time, but there’s very few they were willing to place their trust in. 

 And with Y/N and Ian’s relationship being a special case, she was willing to make it work no matter what way they chose to go about it all.

''Listen darling, all you've got to do right? You just take these, put them in some water right? Unless you want to dry them, dried flowers are amazing. You can use them for potpourri and stuff.''

Ian nodded as he continued to listen to what Peter had to say. What luck for him to be in Detroit on business. He was just who he wanted to speak to about what he planned on doing the next time he saw Y/N. Well, maybe that wasn’t entirely true. 

Peter wasn’t exactly his first choice. He could’ve tried talking to one of his human friends that were in serious relationships of their own, his mother or even Eve if he especially wanted an unfiltered, unbiased opinion on the matter. But she was still doing what she did in Tangier. Regardless, Ian knew that if had to choose between Y/N’s two brothers, Peter would be the one to do his best to not judge as he gave his two cents. 

At least then the risk of him being maimed would drop a good amount.

“She’ll really like these,” Peter continued, offering the small bundle of flowers. “They’re just like the ones we had outside our home, growing up. She used to love frolicking in the field and pick as many flowers as she could.”

Just then, Ian thought of his girlfriend. A mini version of her running around so carefree with her sweet smile intact. They had touched upon the subject of children in the past, and while it may have been a giant sacrifice to make when it came to dedicating his life to her, he knew it was worth it. He never even played with the idea of having children of his own until falling in love with Y/N.

“Can I ask you something?” 

As expected, Peter offered him a friendly smile to let him know he was all ears with what he had to say. A nice change from the scary expressions Adam had to offer when it came to stuff like this.

“Yes?”

“How did you know Rowan was the one you wanted to be with?”

He got a bit worried when Peter’s expression went on to be a little more puzzled, as though unsure where this was going. Thankfully, he decided to answer without another second to think about it.

“I guess it was the way we were able to stand together through hard times. As you know, we met each other during a time where a love like ours wasn’t exactly celebrated. Quite the opposite. We had to earn the bliss we have now. That’s how it is with love, I suppose.”

Ian nodded, letting his words sit with him. Love was definitely work. Twice the hard work when it came to unique situations like this one. But it was all about being with someone that makes you want to do it. Someone that doesn’t make it feel like work. 

And Ian did his best when it came to Y/N. The long distance, the different sleeping patterns and, of course, the morbid fact that he would eventually grow old and die. But he did all he could to make it work and be there for her. If he was meant to wither away, he would happily do so if it meant he gave his time to her. 

“I know what you’re up to,”

Ian wasn’t able to escape Adam like he intended to. As harsh as it sounded -- especially since he was someone he genuinely looked up to -- Ian didn’t want to get the third degree from him. Had he contemplated getting his blessing? Sure. But his fear took over, knowing his thoughts on the relationship already. 

So to now hear that Adam knew what he was planning on doing behind his back got him scared shitless. 

“What do you mean?” Ian sputtered, deciding to play dumb.

The vampire could only narrow his eyes in response. He wasn’t in the mood for games. Then again, when was he? Ian grew more fearful as Adam stared him down. He had no choice but to sigh and give in.

“How did you know?”

“Speaking as someone that’s been hiding their true nature for 500 years, I know a bad liar when I see one,”

Ian could get that. Especially, now that he thought about it some more, he wasn’t the best with hiding his intentions the last several weeks. Adam must have spotted the catalogs he saved that had a great selection he could choose. If that didn’t get him to question anything, the way Ian showed interest in Adam’s marriage was definitely a big hint. 

The two of them had a mostly business-like relationship with not a lot of personal information being transferred between themselves. That hardly changed when Ian started seeing Y/N; the two men not wanting this to change the arrangement they had, despite Adam being strongly against their coupling. So when he began to ask about the ways Adam made his marriage work, that was a definite red flag. Why would he be curious about his life and become suddenly bold enough to ask questions if he didn’t have some ulterior motive to his actions.

“Doesn’t help that you kept eyeballing my wedding photos,”

Ian cursed to himself. He was so stupid to think he could get away with how he kept checking out the old pictures Adam had of him and Eve. In his defense, they had been among the many photos Adam had of his heroes. Of those he knew once. He supposed it was because those particular ones were kept close and meant for his eyes only. 

Those moments where Ian would sneak a peek, wondering about the ways he could have something similar with Y/N, he could understand how anyone could’ve caught on to what he was up to.

“Adam, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But you need to know that I love her. She’s it for me. I’ve known that since I first saw her, and that feeling hasn’t changed. I hope you understand.”

“I do,” 

Well that was certainly something that caught him off guard. Adam wasn’t exactly someone that green lit what Ian had with Y/N. So to hear that he seemed to be okay with this next step...

“I may not be 100% okay with what you have with my sister, but I know how much you care about her. However, I can’t let you propose with just any ring.”

Ian wondered what he could mean by that until Adam pulled out something from the pocket of his robe. Revealing what he could describe as the shiniest and most beautiful diamond ring he has ever seen.

“This once belonged to one of the Bronte sisters, I can’t remember which. Either way, they were a couple of the few people Y/N admired and miss dearly. She’ll really appreciate it if you give this to her instead.”

Ian couldn’t help but smile. He may have not known who exactly were the people Adam was talking about, but he knew this was his way of getting his blessing in a way. It may not have been said out loud, but he knew Adam was aware of the feelings he had for Y/N. He wasn’t messing around when it came to her. 

“Thanks Adam,”

The day had finally arrived. Well, the night. Whatever. 

Ian didn’t have a complete plan, more of a hope that she’d say yes. It might have been why he decided to do it after witnessing her staring out the large window she possessed in her apartment when he welcomed himself in. This was it then, especially when Y/N turned to welcome him with a smile before going back to her other view.

“I don’t think I’ll ever tire of this sight,” she reflected, her eyes never leaving the lights the city of New York had to offer for the late night.  She was sitting down on the chaise lounge that was near the window. He stared at her for a brief moment before closing the door and making his way over to her

“I was thinking the same thing,” he murmured, never taking his eyes off her as he stepped forward.

 He wasn’t much for big gestures but she deserved it, this was the right time. He was sure.

“Y/N...”

She had no choice but to put her attention back to him. She wasn’t all too sure what was going on, but she had a feeling he had plenty to say as he took her hands in his. Needing her to feel the anxiousness he was feeling as he did his best to word all he wanted to tell her that moment.

“You’ve made me feel things that I didn’t know existed outside of movies and the songs we listen to. And I’ve realized that I don’t want to live without you. It doesn’t matter to me if we spend forever or just the rest of my life together. All I care about is that we spend our time protecting each other, taking care of each other and making the most of what we have together. Because you’re it for me baby. You’re the love of my life.”

Y/N reached up to cup his cheek with a warm smile and glassy eyes.

“And you’re mine,” she sighed. 

Ian closed his eyes and succumbed to her touch, turning his head a bit so that he could kiss the palm of her hand. He laced it up with his and brought it down with him as he got down on one knee. He took a deep breath and looked up at her with his own vision starting to blur somewhat with tears. But he could still see the way she placed her free hand over her mouth in an attempt to repress all the emotions that wanted to come out at once.

“Y/N,” he began with an unsteady voice. “Will you marry me?”

With all the enthusiasm she had, she nodded her head. 

“Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you!”

Once he was back on his feet, she jumped into his arms and held on tight. He hugged her back with a similar amount of desperate strength and added in a fierce kiss that gained a bit of saltiness from their tears. With some reluctance, he broke apart from her when he remembered something.

“Fuck. I forgot the ring.” He said, fishing for the small, velvet box in his pocket. He took it out and opened it up to present the ring to her before placing it on her finger.

She marveled at the sparkling beauty of the diamond, tracing the delicate band and cut.

They shared another loving embrace after, as if holding onto one another would keep them safe and sheltered for as long as they lived.