#and i also think the price is a pretty good indicator;; sometimes if its too cheap unless theres major flaws/problems it’s probs a bit sus

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

saw you talking about tea the other day and now i'm intrigued 👀 any flavors you're particularly fond of? asking for a friend also. please do ramble about it bc it's delightful :D

Jay! Hi! Fellow tea lover?

Hm… I love lots of teas, but really I prefer simple teas to anything super decadent or elaborate. I don’t ever add anything to my teas unless I’m sick (then I’ll add a bit of honey).

My go-to is just a simple green or peppermint tea, though I’m also a huge fan of spiced chai and earl grey. I adore jasmine tea - jasmine is probably my favourite, but it has to be a good jasmine, so I don’t have it all the time (again, it gets expensive). I always have some green or peppermint tea on hand though - a quality cup is always nice but I don’t as much mind if these are the cheaper kind.

I’m not a huge fruit tea person, though I did have a peach white tea once - that one was lovely cold - and of course a good lemon ginger is always nice. If I’m having bubble tea though, I always go for a mango or lychee green tea if they have it!

I have to say that I can’t remember what pu’erh tea was like - I know it was interesting and I liked it, but I’d need to try it again I think to recall it properly. I haven’t found a rooibos tea I’ve been particularly crazy about, but it’s nice too, just not what I’d gravitate towards.

If you want a sweet or dessert type tea, then any oolong is great, but I think I’m spoiled for that wuyi oolong now hahaha. I’ve had a vanilla black tea - it’s really good. I’d highly recommend that one. I also have this sweet apple-cinnamon tea with nuts. I don’t have it super often, as I’m not a fan of sugary teas but this one is a nice dessert on its own. It’s very nutty which makes it pretty unique.

When I’m sick, I’ve had a couple good teas. One I have for colds is a eucalyptus-mint. I recommend having this one only when you are very congested because boy is it strong. Tastes amazing though. Also my mom had several Korean friends when I was little, so I have fond memories of her making yujacha at their urging when I wasn’t feeling well as a young kid, and boricha for us to put in the fridge and drink cold. I love both.

I don’t usually have chamomile at home, but this is largely because on days when I’m really incredibly stressed (like, shaking with anxiety, actively spiralling, kind of stressed), I like to go for a walk in the evening and pick up a chamomile from a nearby café to take back with me. It’s an indulgence that way.

Other cool teas I have tried:

Butterfly pea flower tea: More of a novelty than anything but this tea is bright blue and changes to red when you add citric acid. It’s a natural pH indicator!

Lavender black tea: Incredibly good. This was another gift from my mom a few years back. Very nice in the evening.

Mushroom tea: These tend to be incredibly overpriced due to purported health benefits so I’ve only ever had samples but honestly? The ones I’ve had are very nice, a smooth, rich flavour. Not convinced they’re worth that price though.

Dandelion tea: People say this can be used as a coffee substitute. I’m not entirely sure I agree with that but it does have a dark roasted flavour that is similar to black coffee. It’s a little sweet though. I like this one a lot, but I only have this with food because if I don’t have anything in my stomach it makes me cramp a bit (as I found out the hard way) :/

Matcha green tea with roasted rice: Okay a friend of mine got me some of this as a gift when she went back to visit family for a bit and. Um. This tea is so incredibly good. We had some together and it was fantastic. I’ve been saving it and only having it at times I know I can really savour it because I want it to last. If you can find some good quality stuff I highly recommend it.

Aaaand sometimes, admittedly, I will enjoy an orange pekoe. It’s nice on occasion. I make it pretty strong hehe

I hope this was fun for you your friend! 😆

What are your favourite teas, Jay?

[lizzy-bonnet]

Austenian Dads

A recent post about mothers-in-law by @bethanydelleman had me thinking about the dads in Jane Austen. We get a lot of discourse about mothers and mother figures, who have big, important roles in the stores, but her depictions of fatherhood are interesting too. Here, in my opinion, are the dads and dad-like figures in her novels, ranked from best to worst.

(note: I've left out deceased and barely-there dads, but I will note that Mr. Dashwood's attempt to look out for his daughters, and the amount of grief occasioned by his death, indicate that he is a Top Dad.)

Mr. Musgrove - Notwithstanding "poor Richard", Mr. Musgrove has three reasonably well-adjusted adult children, seems to love his younger children, and goes to his daughter's bedside when she is injured. His children all make Sensible Matches, and he likes kids enough to permit the little Harvilles to be brought back to Uppercross to increase its noise. He folds my beloved Anne into his family and treats her affectionately whenever she is with them. By the standards of the day, he seems pretty solid. 8/10 Least Bad Dad.

Sir John Middleton - Like Mr. Musgrove, Sir John is a people person. His immediate and unreserved adoption of the Dashwoods in their hour of need tells us that he is an unambiguously good-hearted person, which usually leads to loving parenting. His kids are young so we don't see him interacting much with them, but his desire to give everyone a nice time bodes well. He doesn't notice when his teasing goes to far. 7/10 definitely tells the same dad joke over and over.

Mr. Bennet - As a reader I love him because he's pithy, but he's honestly not a great dad, and is not modeling a happy marriage for his daughters. He shows favouritism to Lizzy, lets Lydia run wild, is hurtful towards Mary and Kitty, and fails to save up any money to bribe worthless young men to marry his daughters. 5/10 for putting all his eggs in the "having a son" basket and then doing nothing when the handle on the basket breaks.

Lt. Price - Loud, embarrassing, shiftless. Ignores his daughters but seems to maybe do OK with his sons? 3.5/10, tops.

Sir Walter Elliot - This fucking guy, am I right? He's vain, he's self-obsessed, he's a spendthrift, and he's a dreadful parent. His eldest daughter is his favourite and he basically forgets Anne and Mary exist when they're not directly in front of him (and sometimes doesn't notice them even when they are). His favouritism has damaged Anne and Mary in different ways to Mr. Bennet's to his younger daughters, but the source is the same: he has one child who is like him and others that he doesn't click with, so he basically lets them shift for themselves. In the Elliot household I'm certain this means that sensitive Anne was left to grieve her mother without any comfort from her father. It's no wonder she was ready to marry the first loving man she saw. When he sees her looking well, he thinks it's down to her skin care regimen. 3/10 merely Gowland's.

Sir Thomas Bertram - Poor Fanny, her father figures are both the pits. Sir Thomas knows absolutely zero about what any of his kids are like and can't see how bad Aunt Norris's influence is on all of them. He swings wildly between neglectful and overbearing, and then tries to pressure Fanny into marrying Henry Crawford despite his attentions making her visibly miserable. He also knows perfectly well that Fanny is shy, and yet does not give her any warning that he's throwing a ball for her coming out, plus he sends her home to Portsmouth as a sort of weirdo punishment to make her see what she's missing by not marrying Henry. 2/10 points and he really only gets these for 1. offering to free Maria from her engagement and 2. getting a fire in Fanny's grate, even if he left it until WAY too late to do her much good.

General Tilney - the closest Austen gives us to a villainous parent. The General is dictatorial to his children, oppressive around the house and occasionally creepy towards Catherine. This is made apparent by the fact that the Abbey suddenly becomes much more fun when he goes off to London. He shows himself the ultimate Bad Dad by tossing his daughter's friend out of the house without explanation and hardly the resources to get herself home. 0/10 Gothic Tyrant Dad.

[wingedwartigers]

ok so update on trying to buy a 🗡️ sword 🗡️ online it looks like Medieval Collectibles dot com is the best place to look. If you see a Cheap sword you like on etsy or amazon or literally anywhere else, check back with MC first, because chances are! They're reselling it from them for an inflated price.

disclaimer: this is usually with the $100 and under weapons. MC does sell very high-priced swords and are not rock bottom for everything.

some can be deceiving! I almost bought this one off etsy for $40

while its clearly available on amazon for half the price, and you can get it in brown, too. The etsy seller just slapped a bit of fur on there and called it "handmade."

👇 this thing right here 👇 is probably Thee Most resold "sword" out there. Granted, there are some nicer replicas made, but most often you're going to receive plastic+stainless steel (pretty little cabuchon they hot-glued on there, innit?) Sometimes they will repaint the handle, too. I have seen green-handled ones, touched up with acrylic paint. Any more than $20 and you're overpaying for this item

1. this is not to be confused with very obviously handcrafted blades for $50+ made from real wood and steel

sometimes you can tell if things are handmade by the price. (But not always! Resellers will always inflate things!) These are from MetalAbyss on etsy, and yes, they're very high, but if you spent 200 hours of blood, sweat, and tears on one piece, I think you would not want to let go of it, either. These are all made by hand by a skilled craftsman and would stand up to a real battle. They also sell the renowned Ülfbert!

most of us dont have that kind of money on-hand, and I myself don't really trust myself with a sharpened blade. So let's explore other options

Alternatives include:

1. Polypropylene Training Swords

which are usually black in color and are used for training. I believe these are usually blunt and can stand up to actual whacking and banging. And they look pretty dang cool, too!

2. Foam LARP Swords

These vary in hardness from easily-bending-in-half to actually can be used in larp battle. (The site below has a good description of their hardness variations here) For these I recommend Epic Armoury, as they have the best paint job, variety, and overall quality I have seen listings of their swords in other places (like LARP Distribution) but as usual, buying directly from the seller is cheaper.

3. PLA LARP swords

these are sometimes have a more convincing look to them than the soft swords, but most are strictly for decoration--no beating people with them. This fine person can be commissioned to make custom 3D printed (and painted!) weapons. These are not cheap, however, as with most 3D printed things, and some cost as much as the real deal. Only kicker is that some larp events do not allow real weapons! So if you plan to carry them on you to cosplay, this might be a good option for u

4. Blunted Swords

these are actual weapons that have not been sharpened. These can be hard to find, as they are usually hidden in shops amongst sharpened swords with little indication as to what they are. One problem you can run into with these is accidentally purchasing a machine-made stainless steel blade, as they are usually "toys."

A good keyword to avoid this is "training sword." This is the best option for those who want to carry a Real Weapon to cosplay events and (usually) still be allowed in the gates.

Being the real deal, though, they are priced to match! Expect to spend at least $200 on a full sized sword, and some shops do not pay for delivery, which could be upwards of $60 if you do not shop within your country.

The item listed below is from RagnaroksEnd which is a team of craftsmen working to bring you good quality swords at midrange price. Be aware! As said before, these folks do sell Sharp swords alongside the blunt ones, so don't be afraid to contact the seller and clarify before ordering.

5. Things That Look Like Swords But Aren't

need I say more? You can get anything from scissors to letter openers to keychains and hairpins that look like deadly weapons. My personal favorite is the swordbrella, which you can find in multiple styles including katana and pirate sabre handles

6 Buying From Overseas Factories/Secondhand/Other Sources

Don't get me wrong! Some factories make wicked cool looking swords for hundreds cheaper than artisans. If you're looking for a budget cut. Just please be aware of profit resellers, as is custom when shopping online.

As mentioned in the first paragraph, please check Medieval Collectibles first to see if it's a duplicate, especially with the cheap ones! They have hundreds of models (some very pricy! They are not rock bottom on everything!)

anyways yeah just look out for fakers trying to sell someone else's work. If you find misinformation on this post, please let me know in the comments or via private message. Do not send me an ask, my anons are closed.

[ellewriteswrongs]

picking favorites (a @tsbandau drabble)

if y’all aren’t emotionally invested in @underdog-arts ‘s band au, idk what y’all are even doing /j

anyway, here’s a wholesome family drabble insp. by the band au and my (not-so) subtle obsession with remus and janus. also subbing to their patreon is the best $5 i’ve probably ever spent, no joke

“Honey, you can still pick up Ry, right?” Janus called down the hallway, carrying a basket of laundry on each hip before depositing them in the hallway to put away later. Remus was seated in their shared office catching up on emails as Janus began packing up leftover pasta into containers to take to their show scheduled that night. 

“I told you I got ‘em,” he agreed, banging the last clumps of his protein shake into his mouth with the heel of his hand. “I’m gonna’ jog to V’s and grab the van.”

Janus nodded to themself out of instinct before faltering, their brow furrowing. 

“Wait—Re, that’s like three miles,” they challenged, dumping the dirtied dishes into the sink. “Just take the fucking car.”

Remus’ snort laugh was audible from down the hallway. 

“They asked for the van!” Remus cackled. “And I, for one, do not disappoint. Apparently making my kid’s friends think they’re cool is worth a three-mile jog.”

Janus rolled their eyes, albeit fondly. This was, unfortunately, not news. 

Riley was having an…interesting phase. It wouldn’t be abnormal for kids their age if it weren’t for the fact that their parents were ridiculously competitive, and all of their parents’ friends were eager to get in on it. 

As soon as Remus attended career day in Riley’s first grade classroom, resulting in the entire class of six-year-olds marveling at the fact that their friend’s dad was a “rock star.”

Janus loved that conversation over dinner that night. 

They weren’t jealous. No, in fact, it was probably overdue for Riley to have a bit of a “Daddy’s kid” phase, considering how joined at the hip they were with Janus for multiple years now. But they wanted to win. 

Riley could make their own decisions about picking a favorite parent. As long as that decision was Janus. 

“You’ve gone so-oft,” they sing-songed, smirking as Remus appeared in the kitchen behind them, wrapping one hand around their hip and pressing a kiss to their temple. “Ry’s got you wrapped around their finger.”

Remus have a flash of his crooked grin. 

“Yeah, well…at least I know where they get that from.”

Janus rolled their eyes, trying to hide their reddening face. 

“Sap,” they grumbled fondly. “Hurry up and get on with your run before you’re late to pickup. And tell V I said hey.”

Remus gave an exasperated chuckle and affirmation, but pocketed his keys and wallet nonetheless. 

The jog to Virgil’s apartment wasn’t a particularly strenuous three miles, being downtown and all, and Remus was far from out of shape. Still, three miles was three miles—especially in the late afternoon sun. Needless to say, Virgil wasn’t thrilled to have a giant sweaty man on his doorstep, but he handed over the keys nonetheless. 

The van was old, still clinging to its axels from when Remus himself purchased it from an old neighbor and declared it the band’s “tour bus.” It was nice enough at the time, especially for the price he paid, but it certainly wasn’t still around for anything more than sentimental value. 

Mainly just Remus refusing to get rid of it. 

That, and the fact that, for whatever reason, Riley thought it was the coolest thing ever. 

The drive wasn’t long, only the sitting in traffic of other parents in minivans trying to get into the school parking lot. He…wasn’t a fan of that part of being a parent, that’s for sure. He could do without any other parents, thank you very much, but at least it was fun to see how obvious all of them were in their distaste of both him and Janus, compared to how much their kid absolutely adored them. 

A fact that was only proven when Remus eventually made it to the parking lot and exited his van, only to be met with ear-splitting squeal of “daddy!” and an armful of six-year-old. 

He can’t deny how, even after all these years, the title still makes him feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Like…he is a dad. That’s his kid! How fucking rad is that!

He happens to spot a few other parents, along with some of Riley’s friends that he recognizes, and he offers a quick wave with the hand that isn’t mussing up his kid’s hair. 

“You brought the van,” Riley points out with a toothy grin that Remus can’t help mirroring. He can’t help the knot in his throat when he spots the gap in their teeth from their first ever lost tooth—which only meant they were getting much too old and Remus would really appreciate it if they would slow the fuck down.

“I told you I would, didn’t I?” Riley nods, bouncing on Remus’ hip just a bit out of excitement. “I gotta’ warn you though, JJ’s getting pretty jealous.”

Riley laughs before sticking out their tongue and making a fart noise in Remus’s face. 

Remus is, for the thousandth time, bewildered at how Riley couldn’t possibly be more like Janus if they tried. And mostly smitten. He has the coolest kid on Earth, after all. 

“They can suck my butt!” Riley squeals and Jesus Christ, Remus is going to have a heart attack right there in the parking lot. He’s gonna’ have to grill Jan again to make sure those two aren’t secretly biologically related. 

“Hey, your words not mine, squirt,” he smirks, opening the van door and strapping them into the car seat. “And your early bedtime if you let JJ hear any of that.”

He finishes with a pinch on their nose before closing the van door and getting back in the driver’s seat. 

Riley, as soon as the radio turn on, starts protesting very aggressively to listen to “your songs, daddy! Play your songs!” 

Thankfully, he has a CD burned with some of their…cleaner songs for that exact purpose. 

Riley, for lack of a better word, was ‘singing’ along at a volume that Remus would’ve otherwise found hilarious and impressive if it wasn’t right in his ear. Still, there was a certain fondness that came with watching his kid’s excitement over his work—something that, as usual, was paired with thrashing within the confines of a car seat and headbanging their little heart out. 

Along the drive Remus made every attempt to stop the barrage of the screamo singer in the making, but all were ultimately unsuccessful. At least…until he pointed out one particular building out of a strip mall assortment. 

“Hey, you see that store right there? The one with the red sign?” He spoke up, catching Riley’s eager attention in an instant. They placed both hands on the van window to look out. 

“What is it?” They asked, squinting to try and read what was on the sign. 

“You know the snake on my leg?” Riley nodded, quieting down. “That’s where JJ took me to get it.”

They paused, seemingly putting some pieces together in their head.

“How come you only have one?” They asked, still kicking their legs against their seat. “JJ has lots, how come you don’t have lots too?”

Remus chuckled, continuing along the road as the light turned green. 

“‘Cause I don’t need another one. They’re very expensive, you know.”

“Is it ‘cause you’re a wimp?” 

Remus choked on his own spit. 

“N-no,” he choked out, laughing. “No I’m not, I just think it looks better this way.”

He didn’t bother looking into the backseat to see what Riley thought of that answer, but if the return to karaoke that followed was any indication, they were not impressed. Still, he’d probably take the teasing over the screaming, but kids are kids. 

Even as they pulled into their driveway, Remus had to strategically dodge Riley’s flailing limbs in order to un-fasten the seatbelts on their car seat and actually get them in the house. Apparently the music was not as vital to the ‘sing-along’ as he’d hoped it was when he turned the car off. 

“Alright, alright, calm those legs down before you knock my teeth out, will ya’?” Remus teased, placing Riley on his shoulders where they instantly took fistfuls of his hair to hold on. Riley toned down the velocity, but otherwise did not stop. “Careful, squirt, if you wanna’ kick so bad, I’m signing you up to play soccer.”

Riley stopped almost instantaneously, gripping Remus’ hair even tighter as they headed back inside the house, Riley’s tiny backpack slung around Remus’ forearm. 

“Nooo,” they wailed, half punctuated by laughter that echoed through the house. 

“What are we complaining about?” Janus spoke, leaning against the doorway across the room with a fond smile. 

“He said if I kick him in the teeth I have to play soccer,” Riley whined, attempting to climb down from Remus’ shoulders on their own. Janus snorted a laugh before swiftly crossing the room to collect their child and place them on their hip. 

“Wow, your daddy’s so mean,” Janus agreed, raising a challenging eyebrow as they stood in front of their husband. Remus pouted before bending down to steal a kiss.

“Gross,” Riley giggled, pressing a hand on each of their parents’ faces to separate them. 

“Gross?” Janus smirked. “Well in that case, maybe your dad was being a bit unfair.”

Riley turned to Remus to stick out their tongue at him. 

“I mean, soccer? That’s just ridiculous,” Janus continued, a mischievous glint in their eyes. “We’ll obviously have to sign you up for football instead. A punt like that has got to be put to good use.”

Riley immediately went back to their dramatized complaining, this time reaching desperately for Remus to get him to take them back from Janus—to which Remus just held up his hands in mock innocence.

“No can do, kid,” he smirked. “The punishment has to fit the crime, after all.”

Riley continued their attempts to wiggle out of Janus’ unyielding grip.

“Never!” They declared, trying a different approach of reaching over Janus’ shoulder to escape from behind. “I won’t! I won’t do it, I promise!”

Remus and Janus both knew they wouldn’t actively try to hurt either of them, but sometimes it was just more fun to assert rules when it came with shrieking laughter and climbing their parents like a jungle gym.

“Well, now you know where we stand,” Remus spoke in false authority, reaching for one of Riley’s tiny shoes and holding it up to address it as if it were in control of their legs. “I better not see you around these parts again, ya’ hear?” He added in an over-the-top western accent, gesturing to his face. 

Riley squealed with laughter as he held out his hand for a handshake and they shook it with their accused foot. 

“Alright, alright, you two,” Janus intervened with fond exasperation. “Snacks are on the counter, take it or leave it.”

Riley whipped their head around to peer into the kitchen, cheering when they spotted two plates on the kitchen counter, each with a toaster waffle piled high with blueberries. 

“Second…breakfast!” They cheered, drumroll-ing on their leg before whooping and slinking out of Janus’ grip and climbing up onto the kitchen barstools. Remus, giving a fond eye-roll at the enthusiasm, turned to drape his arms over Janus’ shoulders from behind, perching his chin on top of their head. 

“They get it from you, you know,” he mumbled, smirking at the scoff it earned him. 

“Shut up,” Janus grumbled, the smile evident in their voice. “That is all you.”

“Babe, sports are a threat in this house,” he teased. “You’re telling me that came from me?”

“Yeah, I’ll take that one,” they chided, turning around to face their husband. “As long as you’re aware that the energy, the volume—honey, that’s all you.”

Remus quirked his brow with a proud smirk. 

“Or maybe it’s the fact that they sleep for fourteen hours and we haven’t even had eight in the last six years,” he challenged knowingly. “You know, I happen to remember that back in the day…that bed was hardly even for sleeping.”

Janus snorted, their face reddening slightly.

“Is it bad to think of those as the ‘good old days’ already?”

Remus swept a piece of their hair out of their face. 

“Hell no, dude. We lived like kings back then,” he chuckled. “How ‘bout this—I’ll get Ro to take ‘em to the park or something this weekend and I’ll dick you down just like old times, ‘kay?”

Janus sputtered out a cackle, smacking Remus on the chest before covering his mouth with their hand.

“Fucking christ, they’re like two yards away,” they hissed, still laughing. “I am not going to be the one fielding questions about what getting dicked down means, oh my god.”

“You say that like they listen to anything when there’s food in front of them,” Remus countered, nodding in the direction of their kid as Janus rolled their eyes with a chuckle. 

“Now that, is from you,” they grinned, jabbing him in the side with their elbow. 

“Hey, it’s not my fault you’re serving up delicacies like toaster waffles,” Remus said, raising his hands in mock defense. 

Janus gave him a look before crossing their arms. 

“Yeah, well, you’re lucky I know you can’t go two hours without food. Go on, there’s one for you, even if it’s probably cold by now,” they teased as Remus excitedly kissed their forehead before practically running to the kitchen. He hopped up to sit on the counter, folding each toaster waffle like a blueberry-filled taco before funneling them into his mouth. 

Janus followed close behind—at a normal pace, thank you very much—and took the actual seat next to their kid, sipping at the cup of tea they had left on the counter before the two had returned home as they listened to Riley regaling their day at school.

———

Realistically, Remus probably should’ve seen it coming. He was a couple days past his previous record of days as Riley’s “favorite” and he knew he likely didn’t have much longer before Janus dethroned him again, but he certainly hadn’t expected the scene he walked in on that night. 

He had heard hushed laughter coming from one of their house’s bathrooms that evening, assuming at first that Janus was just handling Riley’s bath or something like that, but as he cleaned up the mess from their dinner and finished washing the rest of their dishes, he was surprised to find they were still in there. So obviously he had to investigate. 

He knocked on the door, rolling his eyes fondly as shushing and giggles came from within. 

“Everything good in there?” He teased, leaning against the door. “I gotta’ say, I’m a little hurt I didn’t get invited to whatever club this is that hangs out in the bathroom.”

More giggles followed by the oh-so familiar sound of Janus’ shushing. 

“I guess I’ll just have to find out for myself what all the fuss is about,” he sing-songed, slowly creaking open the door before letting out a snort laugh at the scene before him. 

Janus was seated on the edge of the bathtub, wash cloth in hand, as Riley sat on the sink counter, covered on all limbs with temporary tattoos. At least the pieces of tape that Janus had cut into circles and colored black to look like ear gauges were admittedly cute. 

“Oh, I see how it is,” he smirked from against the doorframe. 

“JJ said you’re a wimp,” Riley proudly announced. “I was right.”

Janus stuck their tongue out and made a spitting noise and…yeah, that was their kid alright. Not that Remus would have it any other way. 

[urban-homesteading]

Hey do you know what kind of tools I should buy if I want to move into a house? It won't have a yard yet, but fingers crossed for the future. Thank you!

Congratulations on the new house! Since you said that there's no yard yet, I'm going to focus only on tools I use inside my house and ignore gardening and lawn maintenance.

What tools should you have around your house?

So here's a pretty simple list that will cover most minor problems you will encounter.

Hammer

Cordless power drill

Screwdriver set (grab one with the ten basic sockets)

Drill set

Adjustable wrench

Level (bubble works, but I upgraded to laser and it makes life so much simpler)

Tape measurer

Utility knife

Flashlight

Extension cord

Step stool

Spare batteries

Toolbox (or even a cardboard box, just make sure you have somewhere to return your tools or they will escape to the four winds)

So how to acquire these tools while maintaining zero waste?

1) Start with your research

If you are completely unfamiliar with tool brands and the features available on tools, do a little research. Visit the websites for Sears, The Home Depot, Lowe's, Menards, True Value, Ace Hardware or any retailer that sells tools, and take a look at their new selections. Most websites organize tools in a straightforward way so you can easily find what you're looking for.

Head to a local store to get a firsthand look – many tools will be on display and out of the box so you can actually pick them up. You'll see the most-recent models, from low-end to top-of-the-line. Make notes on the prices and available features (especially relating to safety). This is your base from which to work when evaluating prices.

The next step is to look at online auction sites, such as eBay, to get an idea of prices for used tools. This gets a bit tricky because you'll need to really look at the age and condition of the tools as described by the seller. But again, make notes for a range of features and prices. Don't try to list everything you see – just make a list of price ranges for the tools, with notes on the variances in relation to brand. For example, for circular saws that range in price from $30 to $60, jot down what separates the bottom-priced tool from the top.

Head over to pawnshops as well. Pawnshops only buy items they know they can turn around and sell, so they won't have tools that don't work (everything they purchase is tested), and a pawnshop won't carry poor-quality brands. Also, the prices will accurately reflect the current value of tools in the marketplace. Make sure you visit operations that are members of the National Pawnbrokers Association, as these businesses abide by a code of ethics established by the association.

2) Name Does Matter (For the more expensive tools)

Now that you have an idea of what you'll expect to pay, it's time to consider how you'll evaluate and decide what to buy.

It used to be that if a name brand was good, it was good.  But I have found that the ‘good’ name brands have been sold so many times that most manufacturers are coasting on their reputation and they are the same quality as the ‘cheap’ tools.  Even worse, manufacturers will have different quality tools that are sold by different stores.  For example, a DeWalt power drill sold at a Home Depot will be better quality than a DeWalt Power Drill sold at Walmart because DeWalt will have two different manufacturing plants and they will send the lower quality ones to Walmart, since Walmart demands that DeWalt sell them to them at a cheaper cost or else they won’t buy from them at all.

My personal rule of thumb is buy cheap for the first one, then if you use it so long or so much that it needs replaced, buy expensive quality the second time.  This prevents you from spending hundreds on tools you’re only going to use a couple of times.

3) Where To Buy

You can start your shopping by revisiting some of the places you accessed when doing your research. Clearly you'll save money on shipping if you go to a local operation or an individual. Remember to test and examine tools closely no matter where you shop.

Pawnshops As mentioned earlier, pawnshops are a good bet for buying tools. You're going to find better-known brands that are probably on the higher end of the quality and price spectrum. Although, you're going to have little to no negotiating room on price compared to if you were buying from an individual.

Thrift Stores A thrift store may be a little less reliable for quality, and you'll probably find a lot less availability, especially at a thrift store that obtains its wares through donation. However, those that aren't donation-based aren't going to want to develop a bad reputation by selling inferior items.

Live Auctions Check local notices for potential auctions in your area. You may have a good chance of finding quality tools, but “auction fever” may set in, and you could wind up overpaying if you are bid up. These may be a good source for large equipment.

Garage Sales You could score the best deal at a garage sale, as the seller may be less likely to know the value of the tools being sold. Sellers will also be more open to price negotiation, and you can offer a bundle price for several items. Quality is going to be your biggest concern, so look these tools over really well.

Flea Markets These are similar to garage sales when it comes to negotiating, but the seller at a flea market will probably be more knowledgeable on price. Some flea market vendors have access to surplus or closeout suppliers, so you could see a potential mix of newer and older tools that haven't sold well at retail.

Classifieds Search online or newspaper classifieds under the equipment and tools categories. You may see a set or combination of tools listed as one price, which can be a good deal. As with garage sales, look these tools over carefully.

Online Websites offering tools are almost too numerous to mention, but eBay is certainly one that comes to mind. Check the seller ratings and reviews when shopping on auction sites. You'll also want to take a look at Amazon, which offers a lot of items, both new and used. Overstock.com, for example, has surplus items and may be a good source for refurbished items. You can often get limited warranties.

Retail Speaking of refurbished items, you may do well by looking at the clearance aisles at hardware stores and home centers. Sometimes they will heavily discount tools that have been returned. Check the reason for the return because it can be merely cosmetic.

4) Be an Inspector

On corded power tools, examine the electrical and basic mechanics of the tool. Aside from plugging it in and turning it on, thoroughly inspect the cord. Look for any visible defects, such as a crimp (what looks like a big dent), or if the cord is bent at a severe angle. A thick wad of electrical tape will be a big tip-off that something might not be right. Also take a look at where the cord meets the tool to see if it's heavily worn or loose. Closely examine the prongs of the plug. A slight bend on one of the prongs isn't a big deal, but if the metal looks heavily worn at the bend, it may be close to failure. And don't forget to check out the switch to see if it is loose or cracked.

Cordless tools present their own challenge. If you've ever looked at the price of replacement batteries, you know they can be quite pricey. Some are very expensive in relation to the cost of a new tool and can be as much as half or more of the cost of a new tool. Plus, it's hard to tell if the battery will hold its charge for any length of time. Sure, it may work fine in the short time you test it, but it's difficult to determine if it will hold a charge for longer than a few minutes. Only opt for cordless tools that you know are at most a couple of years old. Refurbished units are your best bet here.

With both corded and cordless power tools, be sure all the parts and guards are there. It's a bonus if the case and operating manual are included (although you may be able to find a copy of the manual on a tool manufacturer's website). You can easily find replacement accessories, such as saw blades, for many tools because the standards for accessory sizes are pretty consistent.

While you can't exactly take a small screwdriver and dismantle a power tool to look at its inner workings, you can search for a few telltale signs that all may not be well. Be prepared to use all five senses.

Take at look at the motor vent area of the tool (which looks like little slits in the housing). Ideally, you want this to be free of any sort of dirt, grime or buildup – a tall order for a used tool, but a good indication of how well it has been maintained. While inspecting this area, look for any burn marks or smoke trails (take a peek at the switch area as well). These would be clear indications that there's been an electrical problem. But just in case the evidence of a fire has been cleaned up, give the vent area the old sniff test for odor of smoke.

Keep the focus on this area and turn on the tool. You don't want to see smoke or sparks emitting from the housing. Notice how the tool feels in your hand while it's running. Look for intermittent operation or jerkiness. Yes, a power tool will vibrate in your hand, but you should be able to control it. If it feels like the tool could jump right out of your hand, there could be issues. Listen to the tool. Is it making erratic sounds or grating noises? Think back to other tools of the same type you're inspecting. Does the used tool sound significantly different?

You can look for specific things such as the movement of the blade in a circular saw or table saw. With the tool off and unplugged, move the blade around to see if there is a significant wobble to its motion. An old blade may be the culprit, but the arbor (the metal rod on which the blade is attached to the saw) may be bent. It would be difficult to replace and not worth purchasing the tool.

These tools will be a pretty good head start and will enable you to repair most minor work around your home.  

[acaiis]

The Existence of Capitalism in Skyword Sword and How it Makes No Sense Contextually

First off, before I begin, I would like to make it clear that this is not meant to be a a post to bring politics into Zelda; it is my analysis of the information we are given about Skyloft and subsequent questioning of a lot of different canonical aspects. This also won't contain any major spoilers for Skyward Sword, as this is viewed almost entirely from a world-building perspective. Continued beneath the cut (because this is a monstrous post)

The Canon Economy In game, the citizens of Skyloft rely on a monetary system of trade, i.e. using money to purchase goods. This in and of itself works fine for the game, but I'll get into later why it's not very well founded later on. We see that the Skyloftians have to pay for necessities such as food in game. Seeing as this isn't something that carries much weight story-wise, it's hard to find lots of information, but it can be asssumed that Skyloft operates on a typical "use money to purchase goods" system. Furthermore, the only large source of food we see in game (pumpkin island), appears to be owned privately. Patrons must pay to consume pumpkin soup. This indicates that other islands with the means for producing food may also be owned privately, though these theoretical islands do not exist canonically. Most of this will become relevant as this post goes on; for now it offers contextual knowledge. The Money Problem

Across the Zelda franchise, Rupees act as the main currency. It is not stated anywhere how or where Rupees are created, so there's a few potential routes.

1.) Rupees are mined from the earth.

In the very first installation of the franchise, rupees are referred to as Rubies by the game manual. Rubies being used to refer to them implies that they may share similar properties -- so from here we can assume that rupees are some sort of gemstone that are mined from the earth and made into money. If you're thinking, "but money is made out of paper, why would they use gemstones?", then I will direct you to the historical use of silver and gold as currency. 2.) Rupees are created magically.

In game, rupees can be obtained in an eclectic variety of methods. Killing monsters, cutting grass, and so on and so forth. This could imply that they are generated by some outside force at seemingly random. This particular theory is the weakest of the three.

3.) Rupees are formed via living organisms.

Hear me out. Seeing as a potential drop of enemies is rupees, the creation of rupees is not explicitly stated, and they're not so common that they're essentially worthless, one could assume that, similar to pearls, rupees are created by living organisms. This would explain why they are dropped sometimes by enemies, and even why you find them in the grass (outside of the minish) -- if a monster dies, the rupee(s) could be left behind in the grass and so forth. When taken in the context of Skyloft, the theoretical origin of rupees that makes the most sense at a first glance is the second one -- there are few monsters on Skyloft, which rules out no. 3, and seeing as they have very limited ground to work with, mining is out of the question. However, when we look at the option of magical origins, it starts to break down -- they can't exactly disperse any excess money, as they are extremely limited in who they can trade with, and if money just keeps showing up out of nowhere the economy will inevitably undergo inflation, which wouldn't be good for anyone. So, this leaves us with a limited supply of rupees on Skyloft, following either theory 1 or 3.

The problem here is that they live on a floating island, and frequently travel between multiple of these islands. If, say, one was to drop something off the edge, we know that it would be as good as lost canonically -- they cannot reach the surface, and therefore have no method of retrieving any objects lost in this manner.

In my initial ramble about this, the example I used was this: Young children clearly exist on Skyloft, and typically children enjoy playing with things and imitating their parents. I'm sure most people have had an experience in which a young child has either destroyed or lost money. If there's one toddler that has the idea to start chucking money over the edge, they could potentially even wreck the economy depending on the current finite amount of rupees available on Skyloft and the amount of which is being thrown off. Basically, the economy of Skyloft could be wrecked by a child.

They could potentially use something other than rupees as money, but options here are pretty much nonexistent -- what would they use? The amount of resources they'd have to use to produce money simply wouldn't make sense, seeing as they have limited resources -- which brings us to our next section.

Limited Resources

To add to the dubious monetary system of Skyloft, we have the very clearly limited resources. They live on floating islands. In the sky. With no access to the greater world below. They have very limited room for production. Even with the small canonical population of Skyloft (we're strongly going to assume that the npcs present in SkSw are not the extent of the sky's population, however, because otherwise they'd be competing with the lines of the european royalty), managing food would be a large and very important undertaking. In order to keep myself going a rant worthy of its own post, I won't be going too into depth on how they would make use of the land for survival. All that is needed to know is that food is very much limited and also, obviously, essential for survival.

When looking at an isolated community like this, food would likely be the most important part of life on Skyloft. If food isn't available, you die. Given that it is so important to have food in this situation, it would be a reasonable assumption to have a community in which everyone works to ensure the production of food. With these circumstances, the private ownership (for profit) of gardens is both unrealistic and extremely unethical. Farmers could charge a premium for food, making themselves extremely wealthy, and everyone else would be forced to pay these rates in order to survive.

Summary of Canonical Issues

Basically, we have this community in which resources are vastly limited, obtaining replacements for lost money is more-or-less out of the question, and the community would likely be all working together for the collective benefit of said community. In this context, having both money and capitalism make very little sense, and capitalism on its own is horribly unethical.

Potential Solutions

The full scope of world-building solutions to the "look at it wrong and it crumbles" situation of Skyloft gets into far more than the economy, and this post particularly was spawned from a conversation about Skyloftian food production. This will be pretty much a summary, but if I get around to making a separate post for the food and resources of Skyloft, I'll link it here and reblog this with a link as well. Anyways.

The conclusion I eventually came to falls into socialism. There's not really a central government on Skyloft, so production would be in the hands of the community at large. They would all be working for the benefit of one another and continued survival of their civilization, and seeing how essential food is, wages wouldn't really be a factor either -- you garden, or you die. This eliminates the need for money, as essential goods can be obtained via working for them and contributing to the community. Outside of essentials, any luxury items could be obtained through the trade of items or skill, which would make sense. Someone who is, for example, a woodcarver, could want silk from a weaver. Instead of paying in money, which wouldn't serve any purpose outside of luxury items, they could instead carve something for the weaver. This continues to promote the learning and use of specialized skillsets while avoiding the money conundrum. Plus, seeing as Skyloft would likely be tightly knit as a community, it fits far nicer than charging your neighbor ridiculous prices.

Also, as a bonus thought, Rupees would probably just be seen as gemstones on Skyloft. They could be used by craftsman or as decoration. I'm at a loss as to how to end this post, because I pretty much summed up the bulk of everything I could without going on wild tangents, so I leave you with this:

[prurientpuddlejumper]

Parental Advisory [18+]

K!nktober 2020 Kink Bingo!: Ass Worship

Summary: You bring Frederick Chilton to meet your parents over a weekend. Chilton is rude them. You do him in the ass at your parents’ house. 

This oneshot stands on its own, but it’s also a side-story from the A Punchable Face That I Want to Kiss universe, which has a gender-neutral reader. So this is either pegging or penis depending on how you’re interpreting the reader! (And since even I am not sure, it’s going for the Ass Worship square in @thatesqcrush​’s Kink Bingo instead of pegging or anal)

*There is no weird parent voyeurism or whatever, the walls are thick in this house OK? They’re just there for the awkward social interaction of bringing home a pompous douchebag XD 

5,059 words

“That went quite well,” said Dr. Chilton, voice smooth and velvety with confidence as you settled into the guest bedroom upstairs.

You grimaced, and quietly shut the door behind you. When you didn’t answer, he looked over to see a teeth-gritting expression plastered on your face. He raised an eyebrow. You tried to coax your face into a genuine smile, but only succeeded in stretching the corners of your mouth more tightly until you looked like some kind of face-eating killer-clown monster.

“Did it not go well?”

“Ummmm...” you stretched a long vowel and scratched the side of your neck to fill the pause as you made up your mind on exactly how to explain this to him.

His velvety confidence broke and he closed the distance between you in a quick stride, taking your shoulders and searching your eyes with worry etched into his brow.

“Tell me.”

“Frederick, you can’t just tell people it’s obvious they come from dirt because of the length of stitches in their hem!”

“That is not what I said—I observed the indications of working-class design popularized by the—”

“Frederick!”

“I was showing interest in their cultural heritage.”

“And you thought that was the way to do it?!”

He quieted. “They were not fond of me, then?”

“As first impressions go, it was pretty bad.”

“Shit.” He sank down onto the edge of the bed—a floral lavender comforter matching the rest of the room, tucked crisply around the sides as if it had never been slept in before, which it hadn’t. Frederick rested his elbows on his knees and let his forehead sink into his hands.

He was worried. He had only been dating you for a year, but you were different than his usual flings. For one thing, you had stayed with him for an entire year. You were affectionate and honest. You didn’t care about money. If he made a snipe about you being a hot mess, you would mock him right back for caring too much about appearances. It was, he eventually discerned, because you hadn’t come from a wealthy family, and never envied those who did. You were actually happy with who you were and scorned the idea of status symbols—like his car, his watches, his house, his Montblanc pens—whose only purpose was to display wealth. It annoyed him at first, but then he wondered, if you were not after him because he was a wealthy doctor, what did you see in him?

He was still figuring that out. If possible, he would like to spend a lifetime figuring it out—he even planned to ask you to move in with him—but he may have just ruined that.

***

Dr. Chilton’s poor impression began hours before he even met your parents. Since you were just going home to family, you wore a plain t-shirt and jeans. Despite your specific instruction to dress casually, he wore a suit. And so, the first thing your parents saw when they opened the front door was a pair so mismatched, it looked like an illicit student-professor affair.

He then handed them a very expensive bottle of wine as a gift—but, as was Frederick’s habit, it was too opulently out of your parents’ price range to be interpreted as anything other than boasting. Your father grumbled, “Thanks,” in a way that Frederick seemed blithely unaware meant “fuck you.”

After that, Chilton began observing things like bargain-bin Sherlock Holmes, and generally being Chilton. He mentioned that their entire house could fit inside his garage. After a few minutes of stilted conversation he said, in not a flattering way, that he could “see where you got it from now.”

You hadn’t expected the first meeting between your elitist doctor boyfriend and your down-home parents to go well, but you had hoped he might lean more toward the charming side of his charming asshole spectrum, just for today. He had a way of getting under everyone’s skin at first, including yours. But he was sweet, underneath his WASPy upbringing, and you were sure they would see that.

When Frederick excused himself to the bathroom, your father immediately let out the complaints he had been barely containing for the last hour. “So that’s not going to last much longer, is it?” he snorted, leaning forward in his La-Z-Boy recliner. “How do you stand it? Did you hear him correct me about searing steak? As if that dandy would know the first thing about grilling.”

“He’s right, you know,” you said. “Searing doesn’t lock in juices, it just adds flavor. I Googled it.”

“Now he’s corrupting my own child!” your dad shouted, throwing his hands in the air. “You gonna be a know-it-all now, too?”

“As if I wasn’t already,” you challenged, hand on your hip. Your dad wasn’t wrong, though, so you laughed it off and shook your head. “I know, I know. That’s just how he is. Once we got into a disagreement about how ‘pajamas’ is pronounced, and he wouldn’t let it go until... Well, I just started using the word sleepwear.”

“And he wears double-breasted suits,” your mother chimed in behind her hand.

“Oh? What about it?”

“They’re so sleazy!” she cried.

“They are?” If this was some sort of well-known fashion knowledge, your parents never passed it down to you. You always thought Frederick looked good in whatever he wore.

“I don’t know what you see in that pompous little twerp,” your dad sighed heavily, then grinned. “I bet I could pick him up with one hand and toss him out the window.”

“Dad!”

“Bet he screams like a girl,” your father roared with laughter, slapping his knee.

“Oh, he does,” you said with a cold, tight smile. “And if you lay a hand on him, you’ll be singing like a girl, you get me?”

The laughter stopped, and you found yourself in the most intense familial staredown since Thanksgiving 2008. Your father’s eyes silently growled, “You would threaten your own father?!” and yours narrowed and hissed, “I will if you threaten my boyfriend!”

Your mother broke the silence with a patient, pleading voice. “I get it. He’s rich, and he’s not bad looking. But you know you don’t have to marry for money. Your father and I have enough, and I thought you were doing well for yourself working with the FBI.”

“You really think I’d be with someone for money?” you said, mouth agape with bewilderment. Sometimes you wondered if these people knew you at all. “He’ll grow on you, trust me. Just… try to ignore the condescending shit that comes out of his mouth. It becomes endearing eventually.” Footsteps creaked on the second floor, announcing Frederick’s imminent return. You put on your sternest kindergarten-teacher face and pointed across the living room at your parents. “Both of you, behave!”

***

You stood beside him and tenderly ran your fingers through his thick brown hair—a gesture he adored, reserved for evenings at home and mornings before grooming so as not to ruin his perfect coif. He closed his eyes and leaned into the comforting sensation, grateful that you were, at least for the moment, not upset with him.

“I was trying to be friendly,” Frederick explained, his voice sounding as much like a whining child justifying why he had tracked dirt into the house as it did like a man.

Your gentle fingers clenched tightly in his hair and tugged down on the back of his head with enough force to make him look up at you, eyes opening wide with surprise. You narrowed yours.

“You weren’t trying to get them to like you, you were trying to prove that you were superior to them. It’s what you always do,” you growled.

He stared back at you for a few beats, trying to decide whether to be offended, chastised, or turned on. With your fingers curled roughly in his hair, controlling his head with a firm grip, he knew you were not truly angry. You were slipping into character, playing a game at ‘punishing’ him, which he could stop in a word if he wanted to. But the evening would be more fun if he gave you more to punish him over.

“I did no such thing,” he huffed. “If your parents confuse intelligence and culture with condescension, that is hardly my fault!”

Your lips crashed down on his with a snarl, shutting him up as your tongue invaded his mouth to stop his from wagging. The kiss was bruising at first, an act of dominance, but his loud, muffled moans into your mouth and his soft, yielding lips coaxed you to slow down and enjoy it. Your grip in his hair grew softer again, turned into gentle caresses, and your kiss grew deeper and more passionate. Fuck if you didn’t love it when he was bratty. When you finally broke away, his face was flushed and there were stars in your eyes. You slowly sucked the mingled saliva off your lower lip while you appraised him.

“You are a very rude boy, Frederick,” you said, a long, predatory smile slowly slanting over your lips. “Aren’t you?”

He swallowed, obediently staying seated but leaning forward with anticipation. “Yes.”

You threw a leg across his lap, straddling him, and pushed the center of his chest until he was lying flat on the bed. You followed him halfway down, caging him in with your arms and staring down at him with mock anger. His cock was already twitching under your thigh, and a wave of arousal washed over you, making it hard to keep up your performance. But you wanted to see him squirm.

“Rude boys need to learn their place.” You lowered your mouth to his, but stopped an inch before kissing him. He tried to tip his head to meet your lips, but you sat up, grinning with the feeling of power over him as he whimpered with disappointment. “Nope. You were a bad boy today, Frederick. You haven’t earned another kiss yet.”

“What can I do to make it up to you?” he asked, his voice already heavy with lust.

You thought about it, stroking your chin. “You always act like you’re so much better than everyone,” you observed, reaching between your legs to idly stroke his growing bulge through his pants. His hips jerked, pushing his cock into your palm. “What would your high-society friends think if they saw you with your ass in the air, begging for a lowly commoner to fuck you?”

His adam’s apple bobbed sharply. He liked the idea. He liked it a lot.

“I want you to strip for me,” you ordered in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. “Then I want you on all fours.”

Normally he wouldn’t have hesitated, so when you looked down and saw tension, not arousal, in his eyes, you were concerned.

“Will your parents hear us?” he asked, a blush creeping up the sides of his neck. “I was hoping to walk away with at least a neutral review from your family, and I assume being overheard in the throes of passion will not result in favorable points.”

You smirked devilishly. “Then you’d better be quiet.”

***

After a few minutes for each of you to shower and prepare, you had Frederick just as you’d asked. Naked and on his knees. “That’s my good little slut,” you praised, running your hand over his ass and giving it a light smack—not enough to make much noise, but the light contact was enough to make Frederick whimper softly with need. “Such a beautiful ass.”

“Touch me more,” he breathed.

“Good boy, telling me what you want, but you have to be more specific. Where do you want me to touch you?”

“Anywhere,” he whispered with such honesty it was heartbreaking. He really didn’t care, so long as you were touching him. It made you want to forget everything else, hold him as tight as you could, and never let him go… but this was punishment.

“I see,” you tutted. “First you’re rude and arrogant, and now you can’t make up your mind.” You let your hand trail off, and he whimpered louder the moment you broke contact. You stalked a circle around the bed, taking your time to just enjoy the sight. It was only a double size bed, so unlike the monstrosity Frederick owned, you could easily prowl around the entire thing as you appraised his form like he was displayed on a pedestal. “You really are handsome,” you purred, eyes gliding over his broad shoulders and muscular arms, bulging with thick veins bulging all the way down to the backs of his hands. He wasn’t especially tall and seemed so bookish in his suits, but those biceps could crack your head like a walnut, and you’d let him. But he glanced up and met your eyes with a pathetic, questioning look that told you he didn’t really believe you. You could tell him over and over again how perfect he was, but for someone with such a big ego, he was remarkably insecure. Then again, maybe the two went hand in hand.

You finished your circuit and finally stepped up to the edge of the bed behind him, welcomed by the sight of his shapely ass with his tight hole eagerly waiting for you, his weighty balls hanging below, cock already standing in rigid defiance of gravity.

“Now that’s a pretty picture,” you let out a throaty growl of appreciation, and couldn’t resist running your hands down the rounded curve of his ass cheeks. “I can’t wait to fuck this perfect ass,” you moaned.

He breathed deeply, shuddering as you climbed onto the bed behind him, the front of your thighs pressed against the back of his. “Thank you. Thank you,” he whispered as your hands roamed over his back and sides. You dipped one down his soft stomach, smoothing over the raised scar and fine hairs that grew coarser beneath his belly button until you found his cock. It was already rock hard. You took its velvety skin in your hand and gave a few lazy strokes just to hear him choking on his breath, to feel his body tense and go slack at the same time. You brought your fingers to your mouth and tasted his salty precum, closing your eyes as it sent blood surging between your thighs. You licked each finger with a loud wet noise, and hummed as you savored it to be sure he knew what you were doing. When his hips shifted, trying to grind against you, and he whimpered a lusty, “Please,” you knew it had worked.

“Do you want me to fuck you?” you asked, voice thick with arousal.

“Y-yes,” he stammered, shifting back to grind his hips against yours.

“Say it then, Doctor Chilton. I want you to tell me what you want me to do. Tell me what will make you feel good. I want to hear you beg for it, remember?”

“Please?” he whined more desperately. You didn’t give an inch.

“Please what?”

He groaned miserably, and didn’t answer. As strong as his need was, he hated being vulnerable enough to ask for what he wanted out loud, and it didn’t help that you had goaded him earlier about begging. Now he was going to deliberately be stubborn. But you were patient. Before the night was over, he would beg.

“You know,” you pondered aloud, spreading and kneading his thick cheeks, “if you have one thing to feel superior about, it’s this ass.” You gave it another light smack, and he jumped. “It’s so big, and I love—” you cut yourself off, ducking down and kissing the inside of his thigh. You kissed all the way down to his knee, and all the way up until you were moving his balls aside, gently toying with them in one hand so you could press your lips to the juncture of his leg and hip. His breathing was coming out harder, more erratic, but he was still managing to control his voice until you switched legs and gave a sharp nip to his thigh that made him yelp and clap a hand to his mouth. You teased and marked his thighs until they were shaking, then dragged your teeth up his buttocks and gave him a firm nip. Now you really got into it, moaning as you sucked on his flesh, leaving stinging red marks all over his pale ass cheeks. He groaned with pleasure, but stubbornly kept his hand over his mouth, denying you what you wanted—hearing him beg for more. It was a battle of wills he could only win for so long.

“Too bad,” you pouted, dragging your fingers slowly up the sensitive flesh between his balls and his ass. You licked a broad swathe along the same path, and his muffled whimpering and the writhing of his hips was like music, spurring you on. “I really want to finger that perfect ass of yours, but if you can’t tell me that’s what you want...” The tips of your fingers found his tight entrance and circled it slowly.

A long whine came from deep in the back of Frederick’s throat, and finally he panted out, “I… would like you to—please.”

“To what?” you asked, feigning innocence.

He snarled with frustration, squeezing his eyes closed as he answered, “F-fingers!”

“That’s not a very polite way of asking, but it will do for now.” You poured lube over his ass and worked it in until everything was nicely slippery and circled his entrance again, teasing circles that slowly spiraled toward the center, finally pressing a fingertip inside him.

“More… please…” he whimpered. You complied, building up slowly, sinking one finger into him, then once he was babbling frustrated demands for more, stretching him open with two. Pumping your fingers, you curled them down toward his stomach to stroke that tender bundle of nerves that made him cry out with pleasure, toes curling, when you found it.

“Quiet now,” you warned, pressing a chaste kiss to one of the hickeys you’d left, “You don’t want anyone to hear.” The strangled sounds he made into the mattress as he struggled to keep quiet were almost enough to send you right over the edge. Even though you were focusing entirely on his pleasure, it was a turn-on for you, too. “You feel so good, taking me like this,” you cooed, your voice only cracking a little. “So tight.” Wet noises filled the room, and the huffing of his breath came harder. You reached between his legs and barely touched his burning hot cock when his will broke.

“Please—please fuck me,” he panted, ragged and hoarse like he would die if you didn’t. “I want you to fuck me. Oh, god, oh, god. Please!”

“What a good boy, begging so pretty for me.” You slowly removed your slick fingers from his core, and he looked back at you, eyes pleading for you to fill him again. You raised your eyebrows at him expectantly, almost stern, on the cusp of complete victory and he knew it, but was too lost to care anymore. The urgent flames of his arousal burned every muscle in his body, and he would say everything he knew you wanted to hear if it meant he could come.

“Please, please fuck my ass. I am sorry for being rude. I was bad. I know I am rotten and do not deserve you, but please, I am begging you to fuck me.”

An aching pang twisted your heart and took you out of the moment and any desire to torment him. You bent low, pressing your body over the length of Frederick’s back, grasped him by the chin, and twisted his face to lock eyes with you. “You deserve me, Frederick,” you said, voice steady and serious. “You are not bad. You are wonderful, and I love you. I wasn’t trying to… I wanted you to feel humble, not undeserving. You deserve to be loved. Do you understand?”

He nodded, and leaned all his weight onto one arm so he could draw your head down closer and kiss you, fervent and warm. It was a little quick and desperate, all wet tongues and sliding lips, but with a loving softness to it that melted you. “Please,” he urged, “if you make me repeat positive affirmations now before you will fuck me, I swear—” He glowered petulantly, though it was a thin performance. It didn’t escape your notice that he cut his sentence short, as there was no actual threat to fill in the blank of what he swore. He would patiently endure any torture you threw at him, and you both knew it.

You chuckled at his adorable defiance, kissed him lightly on the nose, then ruthlessly pushed his shoulders down into the mattress. He fell with a satisfied moan of anticipation. “Look at this,” you pronounced, as if you’d just walked in on the scandalous scene. “The great Doctor Chilton with his ass in the air, begging to be taken by some nobody. How shocking, simply shocking,” you teased, elongating each syllable the way Frederick did when he was being particularly snobby.

“Please, please fuck me,” he pleaded, voice pitifully small and helpless, half-smothered against the mattress, playing his part as if his depravity were on display to his peers.

Your voice dropped a quarter octave and took on a hungry edge. “I could never turn down such a desperate request from such an esteemed gentleman.”

Frederick had been waiting a long time, and moaned loudly as you finally pushed inside of him, not bothering or not aware enough to control his volume. The pace you set was deep and steady, not punishingly hard, but not languid and easy, either. Sliding in and out of his tightness, you gripped his hips, and angled yours to hit the sweet spot inside him. You knew the moment you’d found it—suddenly, he could barely contain his whimpering and moaning, babbling nonsense as he began to fall apart.

“You were trying to prove you were better than everyone today, weren’t you?” you leaned over him and hissed in his ear as you thrust.

“Yes,” he admitted, his voice strained and panting, so close to his release. He was drooling onto the blanket.

“What have I told you about being humble?”

“To… try it?” he struggled to answer, voice jostling as you thrust into him harder, his hips rocking to push against your thrusts, deepening the penetration.

“That’s right. Because you’re not better than anyone else, are you?”

“…No,” the answer tore from his throat in a shameful gasp.

You sank your teeth into his shoulder, and he cried out with pain and pleasure. “You’re a dirty slut who likes to be dominated, aren’t you?”

“Y-yes.”

“And you’re perfect just as you are and don’t need to prove anything to anyone, aren’t you?”

“Ye—” he almost answered, but then his hips stuttered in their movement and stopped.

“I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he breathed. His hips began to move again as his confusion cleared, meeting yours as they crashed against his muscular ass.

“I think you’re perfect,” you smiled, feeling his muscles tense as his climax neared. “And you would never contradict me, would you?”

“Never.”

“Good.” You sat higher again to get a better angle on his prostate and took his dripping cock in your palm, stroking in time with your thrusts, overwhelming him with sensation. His whole body convulsed beneath you. He shoved a pillow into his mouth just in time to keep the entire house from hearing his lung-shattering wail, his back arching as he painted his seed over the pristine lavender blankets, coming so hard he nearly came on his own face. You slumped down over him, and he reached for your hand, his fingers laced with yours.

His back rose and fell with each panting breath as he slowly came down from the high, both of you exhausted and sweating and pleasantly sleepy. You rolled over into a more comfortable position to spoon him. The hairs on the back of his neck were soft and ticklish against your nose as you nuzzled him, pressing gentle kisses all along his neck and under his jaw, feeling his pulse surging hot beneath your lips. He groaned softly in the aftermath, melting in your arms. Longing to have more of you to hold onto, he flipped over so he was facing you, wrapping his powerful arms around you snugly, burying his face under your chin. His hair was a mess, partly stuck to his forehead with sweat with one giant cowlick on the side he had pressed against the mattress, and you couldn’t resist running your fingers through it to muss it up more. More happy noises came forth, and a few wet, sucking kisses clung to your throat.

“I love you,” he murmured, and the sound vibrated up your neck.

“Fuck, I love you so much,” you whispered back, wrapping a leg around him to pull him even closer, his spent erection pressing into you. You could feel the stickiness of his release smearing over your leg, but at this point, you were both going to need a shower anyway. “I love you.”

For several minutes you just lay there recovering, warm in each other’s embrace, softly whispering praises. Finally, he pulled back, an ocean of green eyes gazing back into yours with a question in them. He pondered it for a long while, and finally, instead of asking, declared, “Tomorrow, I shall correct my mistakes. I run an entire hospital of psychopaths; I can manage to make your parents like me.”

“Why are you so worried about what they think?”

“I do not care what they think. I worry about what they think and tell you. They… are important to you. If they disapprove, it may sway your feelings. Not right away, perhaps, but that familial bond will gnaw at you day by day, like a rat chewing through bone, until you share their negative opinion, and…” he shrugged, his eyes glassy, “…I will lose you.”

You caressed the side of his jaw and neck, thumb stroking his cheek, and peppered his face with kisses. Smoothing your palm down his shoulder, you pulled yourself close until your forehead knocked against his. “Nothing is going to change the way I feel about you, Frederick. Nothing. I love you. I don’t care what they think. It’s not like I’m just now discovering that you rub people the wrong way,” you chuckled. “That’s part of what makes me love you. You can be… officious. It takes time to get to know you. But I have never regretted a single minute of it. They’ll come around.”

His surrounding arms tightened around you possessively, quietly affirming that he understood.

Circling your hand idly over his back, still damp with sweat, you admitted something you hadn’t told him. “I was more nervous about what you would think of them,” you said, and he pulled back to pin you with a stare demanding an explanation. You squirmed under his gaze, cheeks heating up. “I didn’t want you realizing I’m complete born-and-bred trash.”

“I was already well aware of that, darling.”

A low growl stirred in your chest. “Still rude,” you snarled gleefully, rolling him onto his back, pinning his shoulders down, and biting his neck. He yelped and scrambled into a sitting position, taking you with him until you fell off his lap to the side.

“S-sorry!” you gasped, afraid you had bitten him too hard for him to balk so dramatically, when he was usually willing to play along with anything. A split second later, you realized it wasn’t pain on his face. His lips were curled as if he had stepped in something slimy. Or rather, rolled in it. Which he had.

“Eeuughh!” he shuddered.

“Since when are you so squeamish?” you asked with a sultry look to remind him of all the times he had licked himself off of your fingers.

“It was cold,” he shot back.

And kind of everywhere. He came a lot. And none of it had been intercepted by any orifices, so his full load was painted across the blanket like a Jackson Pollock.

You thanked your lucky stars that the guest bedroom had its own half bath stocked with washcloths, so you didn’t have to venture into the hall while sticky with sex. But after cleaning yourselves up and changing into sleepwear, you stared with dismay at the floral-patterned blanket you and Frederick had ruined.

“I do not accept responsibility for this,” Frederick said. “Having sex in your old bedroom was your idea—I cannot be held accountable for ruining your childhood memories.”

The speed at which Frederick shifted to weaseling out of blame overwhelmed your ability to keep a straight face—you smirked, snorted, and gave in completely to a belly-shaking laugh. He raised an eyebrow and glanced at you sideways.

“Frederick...” your shoulders bounced, “Does this look like a childhood bedroom? My parents moved after I graduated college.”

“Ah.” The tips of his ears turned red with embarrassment. You recalled how impersonal his own bedroom—and entire house—was, and your heart ached to think that he couldn’t even recognize that an ordinary childhood bedroom would be cluttered with forgotten toys and old posters. “That would explain the lack of baby pictures.”

“You can ask my parents to show you the photo albums,” you said offhandedly, and smiled at the way he perked up with genuine interest.

“I have been curious what species of gremlin you evolved from...” he smirked.

“My parents would love it if you let them show you the family albums. I will be mortified, but they’ll love you for it.”

“The key to their hearts, as it were?”

“You know, yeah. It might actually tip the scales. It might even make up for this,” you gestured at the blanket which the bodily fluid and lube stains were definitely never washing out of.

He sank down onto the edge of the bed and covered his face with his hands. “Fuck.”

• ● • ━━━━━─ ••●•• ─━━━━━ • ● •

Tags:

@beccabarba / @caked-crusader / @itsjustmyfantasyroom / @thatesqcrush / @dianilaws / @permanentlydizzy​ / @mrsrafaelbarba​ / @da-po / @madamsnape921

[jiskblr]

Blauprinz and his crew

My blood parents I never knew. Berliners, probably, but they left me in an anarchist-affiliated charity orphanage in Potsdam before I was six months old, so all I know for sure is that they named me Artur. I was adopted fairly late as these things go, about five, by the people who I consider my parents: Jurgen and Verena Carolingt. They could have had blood children, but chose to adopt, and frequently. When I was twelve I had five foster-sibs, but they slowed down after that; I only have two more sibs from the next decade, and they were adopted as the eldest four of us moved out. That's not counting Leo, who was their second fosterling; he was a real hellraiser and chafed at the academic's morality they tried to enforce, so he ran away to join a street gang. I got back in touch with him years later; for all that he left, he was as angry as me about - but that's getting ahead of myself.

My parents were academics, professors at Viadrina Universitat in Frankfurt-Oder, but in their more subtle way raised hell just as much as Leo. They grew up during the first partition, Da in East Germany and Ma in West Berlin, and they both hated the idea of hiding what they believed to cater to the powerful. They didn't budge in their convictions that everyone deserved a chance or that their conclusions deserved to be followed to their end. They believed in equality and metahuman rights, even when that was fairly unpopular, and they lived it. I'm a norm as were they, but my sibs are an even split of norms and orks plus one dwarf. They didn't adopt elves, who got snapped up more easily by more prejudiced parents, nor trolls, who posed logistical hurdles they didn't think they could deal with. (They felt bad about leaving out trolls, though, and donated generously to several charities for them. I do too, now, in their memory.) They budged just as little in their research, not even to stay quiet about it. When their research topics - applied sociology and economics of magic, for Da and Ma, respectively - developed from postulates to specific, inconvenient predictions and prescriptions for the practical world which got the corps to lean on their deans to quiet them down or kick them out, even so they stuck to their guns.

That pressure started to build around when I turned 18, and got worse as I went through my degree. When it all went to hell, I was a post-doc in applied modern theology - university-speak for 'shaman-ology' - and Zanne was a thesis candidate in high-energy experimental thaumics - studying when magic goes 'boom'. Gabi had given academia a serious try but it wasn't for her, so she'd become a net security wageslave in Potsdam - though honestly she'd be happier as a SINless decker. Fritz and Deb were undergrads at Viadrina, and Jost, Lotte, and Sascha were still young and at home. I don't understand what exactly was enraging the powers that be about their research; I think Mother had published something demonstrating that the publicly-known processes for producing refined orichalcite should produce a far lower market price, indicating that there was a covert cartel, and Father had models indicating that parts of the Eurowars didn't fit naturally with the known social dynamics pre-bellum, indicating deliberate provocation by some powerful force. True or not, either might have been the provocation. There had been escalating threats, but I wasn't living there, so I didn't hear about that; later, when I researched the background, I learned there’d been a fire started in the garage, broken windows, a chemical warfare agent left hissing in Dad's office after hours. But the first I heard of it was when I was back home, a week in late April, for Easter and Mother's birthday.

When some fucking Johnson carpet-firebombed the entire fucking house.

I don't know if they knew we'd be there. They had to know there were innocent children, there; Jost and Sascha weren't even ten yet. My parents died in the first few seconds, their corpses vaporized. Lotte was hugging Mother, so she was, too, and Fritz was just far enough away to leave dental records. Jost was less lucky; he roasted, but not quickly, and survived three hours before he died in agony. Deb lost a leg and an eye and as far as I know the pain's never stopped. Sascha was in the other room and got out, with severe scarring but none disabling. Zanne as well. Gabi wasn't there; the bosses wouldn't give her time off, and I'm not sure if that was a mercy or a curse. I was next to Father, and as far as the records know, I flash-fried like Lotte. But I'm a shaman of the Dragonslayer, and the fire washed over me. I tried to shield Dad with my body, but my totem isn't a protector; it preserved me, and much better than it would most of its shamans, but that didn't extend to him. I tried to help Jost when I realized he'd lived, but he told me to run and get revenge. I didn't realized Zanne or Sascha made it until much later; Zanne had hit her head and went unconscious quickly, and Sascha's response to pain always was to freeze up. But I kept it together enough to get to the basement, and there was ductwork Zanne had discovered years earlier and shown me, which connected it to three doors down. She'd also shown me the nearest part of the Berlin Underground - we snuck out through that ductwork - which had an ork gang she'd run with sometimes, so I thanked her memory about a hundred times that night. The gang leader by then, Ratbite, turned out to be one of the toughs she'd run with, and recognized me. I wasn't shy about using her memory to get a favor, and traded my shamanic skills - and some medical assistance - to get help going completely dark, wiping me from the databases so I could go truly SINless. He was pretty pissed when he found out she wasn't dead, but by then the favor was spent, and when she went dark as well she did him a couple favors and he mostly forgave me and accepted my excuse that I'd thought I was telling him the truth.

The official story was that the firebombs were thrown by a human-supremacist policlub, Nationale Aktion I believe, who objected to our outspokenly mixed-race family. This was bullshit, but plausible enough bullshit that the department heads and local politicians could easily pretend to believe it and be seen to Do Something in response, without that Something doing anything to harm corporate interests. Sascha I think believes that story, or prefers to act like he does. Deb, Gabi, and Zanne, though, didn't. And Zanne was good at causing explosions, but terrible at keeping her temper in check. She retaliated, with prejudice. Headline-making prejudice, which is how I and my temporary friend Ratbite learned she was alive. She had a big bounty for a couple years, but some anarchists gave her shelter before the corps reacted, and from there she became a runner as well. She didn't know I'd survived, though she did suspect, so I found her first, and joined the crew she ran with at the time. After that one came apart, the two of us have assembled all our future crews together. Well, mostly me, I'm the Face, but she still has better ties in anarchist and goblinoid circles; there's a lot of orks and trolls who won't trust a smoothskin, even one like me with an established rep.

Our vengeance is still a work in progress. The men who carried out the hit were deniable contractors, corp security from a minor place. They went down in an op our second year running, and the company got enough blowback from that job that it folded a year later. Finding out who gave the order is not quite done, but we've narrowed the field. I've got a solid network, and, well, my surviving siblings aren't any happier about it than me. Sascha pushed back when Zanne tried to contact him; I think he wants to put it behind him. Deb's a professor herself now, but she hasn't given up on justice, and Gabi-. She works for the corps, and counter to the ork stereotype is a very cold person in most ways; rationally, I know that gave me reasonable cause to doubt her. But after we finally made contact, we found her heart was cold, but a cold-burning hatred. A grudge aged like wine, but still so raw and deep that it feels unthinkable she could have made any other choice. Even the idea that she might have sided with her bosses over her family feels completely embarrassing to have considered. And Leo, like I said earlier, was almost as mad; he left home, but he still loved them for giving him a home to run from. (I hadn't realized, but he sent them gifts every Christmas, mostly hand-made, from the first year he'd left right through their deaths - he didn't learn about their deaths until he tried to deliver their gifts that year.) He's a complete ork stereotype, though, his anger is intense and searing. He'll let it go for months and then find something that reminds him again and smash up some corp's office, mostly at random. I try to give him more productive outlets when I can, but he refuses to go professional runner so he's probably going to end up landing in an early grave with his gang despite my best efforts. Not that we're really close, but I've lost too much family to let my crazy ex-brother join them.

[anggecity]

Non-Japanese tries to explain the lyrics of "Black Gold" by otetsu ft. Megurine Luka

Note: I am not a Japanese speaker, so I depend on translation engines, and comments are always welcome.

Black Gold is one of otetsu-P's iconic songs featuring Megurine Luka. It's also one of my fave J-pop songs to listen to, so I got curious on what the lyrics meant...

TL;DR I think the song talks about a breakup, in simplest words. But it is not one that ended because of infidelity.

So first off, I'm checking the PVs if they could have highlighted other elements of the song. The original PV by meola is more of a still, exhibiting the sheen of gold, contrasting on a dark background. Meanwhile, Project DIVA's game video features Luka in a railway station, with black-gold motifs.

Down to the lyrics, I looked up one at Vocaloid Lyrics by user @vaffisuco.

On Vaffisuco's, there are some notes, possibly adding more context to the intended message:

1. Not quite sure what the little 'dot' means between 犠牲 and 代償。Here I just assumed these two were connected to one another grammatically and in context. 2. Unsure if the その覚悟 part connects with the next sentence cluster, and can't tell if the intonation is necessarily going down to indicate the end of a sentence. I decided to translate these sentences as such as to avoid a very lengthy English explanation. 3. Here I assume that the singer is verifying her existence/her failed relationship. She grasps the 'love' and the Black gold ring in order to leave her 'mark'. May possibly be referring to the existence of her ex, but I decided to translate this portion in first person.

Those notes aside, comparing it to DeepL and Google Translate, the human and engine translations mostly have the same translation. For comparison on engine translations, I merged lines per phrase, usually into ones or two whole lines. There is also one line-by-line at DeepL, as the line breaks sort of bring a different context, though still similar.

Altogether, the translations at the first verses present a confusing group of lines.

I was asked to decide which way to go, and I lied. The person who told me to go right went left. (from DeepL, merged lines)

As someone who also speaks Tagalog, I might see that "going left" can translate to "pangangaliwa" or a connotation of adultery/cheating. However, I am not sure if this is applicable in Japanese too. So I thought that it implies more of a backsliding, or a reversal of what was once promised.

To be able to breathe / So that I can live / Having to put it into words (from DeepL, line-by-line)

To me this implies that there had been an end of a connection in good terms, that ironically not staying true (lying) to one's initial words would mean being true to the next.

It must have been hard for you to put it into words, but you were still smiling, covered in scars. (from DeepL, merged lines)

There is a slight difference on translated syntax to different engines, but it is pretty consistent with all three presented translations here. However, for the next line, both line-by-line DeepL and merged lines at Google Translate show the same to who is expressing laughter, but differ to who apparently got the injuries:

You're covered in scars/ I was smiling (from DeepL, line-by-line)

It would have been painful to put it into words. I was laughing with all the scratches. (from Google Translate, merged lines)

And so is for Vaffisuco's and merged lines at DeepL, saying it's the other party that did so:

As I became covered in wounds / You laughed. (Vaffisuco's Vocaloid Lyrics translation)

It must have been hard for you to put it into words, but you were still smiling, covered in scars. (from DeepL, merged lines)

I am not sure which among these translations fit the producer's intended message. Perhaps for one, it is open to interpretation. But I also think that the laugh can connote a "hiding the pain" (no reference intended), or it is more of a relief to one that broke the bond, that it had to be a relief for both.

The chorus translations are very similar. Vaffisuco's translation brings an imagery of, likely a lost possibility, a path that with this became a dead end.

Scared of the things that could separate us, / I averted my gaze and ran away / I stop in my tracks, my vision flickering / I am not prepared to be, or repay the victim* (Vaffisuco's Vocaloid Lyrics translation) *The words translated were "犠牲" (sacrifice) and "代償" (compensation). Per the note, the translator "assumed these two were connected to one another grammatically and in context."

Vaffisuco's translation strikes me that it was a shock for the person, as if they were caught off-guard. At least as how I see it, the persona talks about how difficult something was to let go, and consequently "repay" the compensation that for one, will mend things altogether. I reckon a line confirms it, that they still have a significant attachment despite the breaking away:

I'm so, so scared of being separated, / I just want to be by your side (Vaffisuco's Vocaloid Lyrics translation)

I'm afraid of being separated from you. I'm afraid.　 I wanted to be there. (from DeepL, merged lines)

Where Vaffisuco's (and another translation at LyricsTranslate) repeats with "or repay the victim", the engine translations seemed to show slight differences:

Stopping, hiding in plain sight The sacrifice, the price, I'm not prepared for [it] (from DeepL, line-by-line)

Stopping, sacrificing and compensating to appear and disappear (from Google Translate, merged lines)

The words may have resulted from completely different ways of extracting context from syntax, so here we are. But even so, the connotations share something in common. "To appear and disappear" presents itself in a way that there could be a sacrifice to begin with, to compensate in keeping, and the "stopping" in "[to] disappear". That's how I can interpret what I got from Google Translate. But for what DeepL showed, it could be reiterating the notion of not being able to accept for whatever had to be lost and "sacrificed".

The bridge builds up with lyrics that give a sense of "spiralling down". It likely, vaguely if anything, references fate being cruel.

So, what is the 'truth'? / Is it cold, hard metal? / Look, look at me walking! / Look, look at me walking! / So who was the one that made the decision? / Just where is our God? / Ah, how unfulfilling! (Vaffisuco's Vocaloid Lyrics translation)

What's the truth, what's cold metal? Look at me, I'm looking at you, I'm walking backwards, When did God decide? I don't know where God is, I can't fill it, I can't fill it. (from DeepL, merged lines) *Without the rest of the lines, "埋まらない　埋まらない" becomes "I can't bury it I can't bury it"

I'm not sure what the "cold metal" is about, but a quick Google search of "冷たい金属だとか" showed this (and another random translation):

Could it mean that that the brink of sincerity becomes no more than gold, but that of silver? Could it be referencing the conductivity of silver? Or maybe it just generally refers to metal left in a cool temperature, that literally feels hard and cold to touch?

And down to the last two choruses... the lines changed, going to the song's conclusion.

Separating from you, I go far, far away / To the people who went left / I'll leave your last act of kindness right here / So it won't lose it's brilliance (Vaffisuco's Vocaloid Lyrics translation)

To the one who went away, far away, to the left The last kindness you gave me, I'll leave it here so it doesn't fade away (from DeepL, merged lines)

Both DeepL and Google Translate shared very similar results. As for this, it bears acknowledgement on the other party, possibly memorializing the pleasant memories to be left behind.

What drives people apart / is that resolve for victims and their compensation I grasped the love dangling from my neck / and a black gold ring / So my footprints won't disappear (Vaffisuco's Vocaloid Lyrics translation) *Quoting the translator: "Here I assume that the singer is verifying her existence/her failed relationship. She grasps the 'love' and the Black gold ring in order to leave her 'mark'. May possibly be referring to the existence of her ex, but I decided to translate this portion in first person."

One of Vaffisuco's notes imply for the second last chorus that in times of trouble, people look for compensation and will do anything for it. It might try to say that at some point, vengeance is what pushes a person to act upon something; sometimes, this can be seen as closures, closing things. This is such that they believe that removing something from their live will make it easier, that it is a resolution on their part. (There definitely are more connotations that only human translators and native speakers can catch!)

To be separated from you The sacrifice, the price, the determination With [the] love around my neck and the black gold ring around my neck I'm trying to keep my footprints (from DeepL, line-by-line)

For the last chorus, I agree with Vaffisuco's note, seconding that the song is about a process of separation, when honesty is still honesty, and the difficulty of acceptance for one end (the persona). As for whose footprints are being kept, if it is decided that it was the persona's footprints, the persona wants to be remembered by one who left her. Otherwise, the persona wants to remember the other half, implied by the footprints.

As for the title "Black Gold", it can be interpreted in many ways. For English speakers, the phrase may be slang for "petroleum" as this resource in deposits had made certain countries rich by importation. But in jewelries, "black gold" refers to processed gold so its surface exhibits a black color.

Overall, the song shows itself as mysterious and poetic (especially that I am no Japanese speaker) with how the words are translated, and the implications I get by looking at how the syntax is processed for a language I am a native speaker of.

[nad-zeta]

Match up ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

hey love ! may i have a ikesen match up please? (*´꒳`*)/ i’m not the best at these, so i apologize if i rambled !

about me ;

( fem. isfj. gemini. hufflepuff. )

i’m generally pretty quiet & reserved, but depending on the person, i can be social ! i tend to look very serious, but i swear i’m just an awkward dork who cares a lots about the random things ?? i’m generally like that worried « mom » type friend in my group— idk how many times i’ve been told « okay/yes mom » ; i think i’ve just accepted it at this point. i like to think i’m pretty kind & hardworking. i try to be very polite & courteous around people– patience being my main thing when interacting with others. with people i’m close with, my humors ranges from horrrible puns to sarcastic comments.

for some of my interests/hobbies— i really enjoy writing, reading, drawing (from time to time), playing sports (i have a competitive side lol!), learning, and listening to music. i adore cats, rainy/stormy weather & those late night conversations with close friends for some reason?? i dislike hot weather & when people cry (bc honestly i’m so bad at helping & i feel bad). i honestly am the person to go to for someone to listen to you as i’m not that confident in giving advice askadftjdsk.

thank youu for taking the time to read this- i appreciate you spending time on these !! ＾＾

Hi hi, love!🌻❤ Thank you so much for the request and for waiting sooooooo long!🔥 I hope you enjoy it and I hope you have the best day!🌻❤ 

So I match you with............. Yukimura 

The first time you meet Yukimura was when he saved you from falling to your death while you were running away from the Oda forces. He pulled you by the waist back to safety, and soon both of you realised just how close you were. Yukimura still had his arms around your waist, and the two of you were nose to nose, it wasn’t until Shingen made some flirty comment that the two of you instantly jumped away from each other, both blushing profusely. When you were with Yuki, your guard had dropped momentarily, but it was now straight back up, and your shy reserved demeanour returned.

Soon you were surrounded by yet another group of men, and these lot really did look like a mixed bag, you had the cold ice price, the flirty hunk, the extravagant artist, the forest ranger and then someone whom you instantly recognised, a nerdy-looking scientist. Just as your eyes met his, you could see that he, too, had recognised you. He pulled you aside and told you what had happened and that you had been flung back into the past. You were shook. Never in a million years did you think this was possible yet here you were surrounded by some of the worlds greatest warlords, 500 years in the past. Just then, the ice prince glared at you, and after seeing your frightened expression, his softened a bit, and he asked you if you would like to come and stay with them. This, of course, caused the whole group to gasp in surprise.

You made your way back to Kasugayama Castle, riding with the feared God of war. Once you returned you were named princess of the Uesugi clan and Kenshin basically adopted you as his little sister. Even though you were a princess, and you didn’t have to lift a finger, you didn’t want to feel indebted or take advantage of the warlord's kindness. So you started helping out wherever you could. You worked incredibly hard for the castle and its people, and soon you were loved by all the warlords and maids. Everyone adored your kind, courteous, polite manner of speaking, and you would basically get on well with everyone. There was one person in particular that you got on very well with, and that was Kasugayama’s blushy boy himself, Yuki. You couldn’t put your finger on it, but when you were with him you felt at ease, and you were yourself

Yukimura would often make aloof and blunt comments toward you, which would spark, the two of you to playfully bicker for hours and hours. Like one time you were running in the halls to deliver an important message to Kenshin when you almost ran straight into Yuki. After you had delivered the letter, Yuki caught up to you on his way to his next meeting, “Careful where you run wild boar, you almost knocked me over.” “You calling me a boar is rich considering we both know, who is the most stubborn between the two of us is, and just so there is no confusion, that would be you, wild boarman.” This little light bickering and banter was an everyday occurrence with you two, as one of you always had some goofy, sarcastic remark or comeback to strike up conversation with the other.

Yuki had come to love your awkward, dorky personality, and the two of you would often talk about the most RANDOM topics. He also really liked your competitive side, as you would often give him a run for his money. The two of you are always making a competition out of everything. “Hey race you to the tea house, the loser has to pay!” Yuki would always smile his boyish smile at you, whenever you would challenge him to a contest. “Oh, it’s on dummy, hope you are ready to pay for tea and lunch, cause there is no way I’m going to lose.”

And of course, he lost…. “Next time I’ll definitely win,” he would always say with the biggest grin and a slight blush. But of course, racing each other wasn’t the only thing the two of you cuties did together, after Yukimura found out that you loved playing sport, he taught you some self-defence/fighting moves. This, of course, would spark a wrestling/fighting contest between the two of you, which always ended in laughs. As just before Yuki would proclaim your defeat, you would bring out your secret weapon, which was the knowledge that this blushy boy is incredibly ticklish. And so a match would start anew.

It was a good thing that you are a mom friend because Yuki had a bad habit of pushing himself too hard for too long. He wanted nothing more than to get stronger so he could return back to his home town one day with Shingen. Whenever you would see him start to look dreary and tired, you being the classic mom friend that you are, would take him by the hand and lead him to your favourite spot in the garden. You would then sit down and pull him to sit down beside you, and before he even knows what's going on, you will guide his head to rest on your lap. He will legit be as red as a beet, causing you to chuckle at the sight of even the tips of his ears staining red in embarrassment. You will simply smile down at him and start lecturing him about needing to look after his health and needing to take breaks more often. You can't help but flick his forehead midway through the scolding session, as he rolls his eye and says; “yes mom.” 

One day, while you were giving this boy yet another lecture about overworking himself, and pulling your fingers through his hair. Yukimura can't help but be lulled to sleep by the soothing feeling of your fingers gently massaging his scalp and at your gentle voice laced with love and concern for him.

The two of you sat like that for a while, you stared down at the handsome man's face, and your fingers drifted by their own accord from his hair, to caress the lines of his face. You thought Yukimura was fast asleep, “I really love you, you know that boar, man.”

You were startled when all of a sudden, he moved his hand to cover yours, as he twined his fingers with yours and he looked up into your beautiful eyes, “I l-love you to dummy.” He then placed his other hand at the back of your neck and pulled you down to meet in a kiss. Shingen who had been out on the balcony had seen the whole scene unfold and he was honestly so happy that his little vassal had finally found someone to take care of him. Plus the two of you had been dancing around each other for a while now especially, whenever anyone would mention that the two of you made a cute couple.

Cause Yukimura knows that you love music, he will often take you to a late-night festival, where the two of you will sit under the stars together and listen to some good music. When the festival is over, the two of you would leisurely walk home hand in hand just making the funniest jokes and worst puns. It is definitely not uncommon for the two of you to stay up late into the night just chatting and sipping on tea. 

Yuki's favourite weather like yours is rainy, stormy days, even more so, now that he has finally found a lover to spend those days with. Whenever there is a storm or a light drizzle outside the two of you would cuddle up together in the fluffiest blankie and read. Sometimes it would be a book about the most random of topics, other times Yukimura would insist your read to him a piece of your newest writing. Sometimes the two of you would just be snuggled together each doing their own thing, you would read, and he would catch up on his reports.

Because you are a princess, you are always expected to attend every war council so that you could stay well informed about the happenings of the castle. You always found these affairs to be quite boring so you would sit and doodle. Once Kenshin saw how beautiful your little doodles were, he made sure to get you the best drawing pencils and papers to keep you entertained during councils. He especially loves the drawing you made of his little bunnies. This always made Yuki a little jealous, but soon that melted away as you would make him a drawing of his wolf pup. A drawing which he would proudly displays in his room for all to see.

Yuki really loves that you are more of a listener than a talker when it comes to giving out advice. He is often burdened with so much stress and responsibility that all he wants to do is just, be heard. He knows he can't go to Sasuke or Shingen cause they never really listen, just start to shoot off the most random of advice. But not you, you’re always there to lend him a shoulder to lean on and listen, as he unpacks his problems. Gently holding his hand and giving it a few squeezes during his story to indicate that you are still listening and there for him. After he is done unpacking his problems, he actually quickly finds his own solution. Just simply having talked to you was enough for him to see the problem more clearly. Of course, don’t fret cause this boy will do the exact same for you. 

Whenever you are feeling down, he will pull you into his arms and let you vent out all your problems, quietly listening while kissing your temples to remind you that he is always there for you

The two of you honestly make the cutest couple, always joking and goofing around, whether it’s making horrible puns or flinging sarcastic comments at each other, it’s always a good time. When the two of you are together, there is always some or other competition or challenge underway. But don’t stress as the two of you also share plenty of quiet moment, where you can just simply relax and enjoy the presence and company of each other

Other potential matches……………. Mitsuhide

I hope you enjoyed this dear and I hope you have the best day! 🌻❤🔥

[my-lady-knight]

Going off @hethrewmyheartinthecut​ and @deadendtracks​ posts about Lizzie, I wanted to explore the topic of sex work in of itself in Peaky Blinders, and specifically Tommy and Lizzie’s relationship to Lizzie’s sex work, and how the show has Tommy be unhesitant to utilize women *as* sex workers when a job requires it and acknowledge sex work as a part of the world they live in, a part of both the dirty underworld and the poverty of Small Heath, while also having him look down on sex work itself outside of its immediate utility to him (as a client or as part of his plans).

It’s unclear in season 1 if Tommy hadn’t needed to mend things with the Lees by offering up John’s hand in marriage if Tommy wouldn’t have deliberately inserted himself into John’s plan to marry Lizzie by propositioning her and catching her out when she agrees to it, after she said “the past is the past” and that she didn’t want to lose John. But it’s also clear that the fact that she *was* a sex worker, even if she intended to stop (and someone who Tommy himself had slept with in that context) prejudiced Tommy, and Arthur and Polly, against her as prospective bride to John. That the fact that Lizzie agreed to sleep with Tommy one last time for money means she doesn’t “really” love John, because if a woman loved a man, she wouldn’t continue having sex for money, even if that’s how she’s been earning her livelihood all this time and presumably had no other options available, even though Lizzie’s decision is both practical and desperate - it’s practical because in what universe do you turn down eight pounds when you’re poor as dirt and it’s desperate because Lizzie isn’t thinking about the future per se where she’ll be married to John and financially secure, she’s thinking about here and now and she needs to eat now, and so she continues to see other customers, “to keep the wolf from the door”.

None of which the show presents as “understandable” or “the other side of things” - the viewer has to do the work to understand Lizzie’s actions because even as the show allows Lizzie to yell at Tommy afterward for what he did, the show nevertheless affirms that, after John found out the truth and was upset over it, that Tommy was right to do it, and that Lizzie wouldn’t have been a good match for John.

In season 2, he continues to see Lizzie and pay for her services until he offers her a job as his secretary and tells her she can stop all the other work too “this time, no exceptions” - deliberately calling back to the last time she was going to stop seeing clients but accepted his proposition, but also identifying himself as the “no exceptions”. A command he has Lizzie break the moment he needs her to distract Field Marshall Russ to carry out the assassination. Again, the show lets Lizzie be angry and bitter that Tommy is reverting her back into a sex worker when she didn’t want to, but, as you said, never implicates Tommy as having done the wrong thing for using Lizzie to kill the field marshal and putting her in harm’s way such that she was beaten and almost raped, and as @marsza​ and @hethrewmyheartinthecut have said, the show doesn’t give Lizzie the space to reckon with the aftermath of it all the way it did with Polly.

(With Grace at least, Tommy went back for her - he dared to upset his plan to woo Kimber and and get him to agree to do business with him to rescue Grace from his clutches. But then again, he was falling in love with her, and Tommy was never in love with Lizzie.)

Tommy’s aversion to sex work as a profession (apart from when he’s utilizing the service himself) is IMO largely in the context of respectability and moving up - Lizzie was an unsuitable wife for John both because she continued to see clients and because the fact that she was a sex worker to begin with would have made their marriage a laughingstock. (Tommy, Polly, and Arthur’s first reaction to John’s announcement is to snicker uncontrollably.) And when she becomes Tommy’s secretary, he orders her to stop his sex work because she won’t need to anymore, the implication that she’ll be earning enough money and she’ll be working a respectable job. And she does become a woman of (relative) class with a high position in the company come seasons 3 and 4, to the point that Tommy pulls a “not like the other girls” on her when she tells him that nice girls aren’t sex workers and he says “you were”. It’s also why in season 5 when Mosley threatens Tommy with Lizzie’s past and propositions her, Tommy tells her she may know him from “before you became who you are” - Lizzie has elevated in status alongside Tommy such that her past is as a sex worker really is that now - the past. The past has finally become the past. And it’s also part of why in that moment Tommy tells Lizzie he’ll kill Mosley if he lays a hand on her, because Mosley is threatening to make her past become the present again.

(That moment in season 5 when Tommy tells Lizzie he still pays for her in his head is IMO not so much an instance of his specific hangups with sex work and more him lashing out in general, since in that scene she’s threatened to leave and reminded him that she now has almost as much power as he does over the house, the finances, and the kids by virtue of being his wife, and so Tommy, feeling threatened, attempts to undercut her. (This scene also includes Tommy’s crack at Lizzie that she couldn’t spell in the letter she wrote to him, which still makes no goddamn sense - she was his *secretary*, for years, presumably she was a decent speller after all that time??? Maybe that was meant to be another indication of Tommy’s poor mental health, but idk it didn’t make sense to me.))

It’s also season 5 where IMO the show finally allows Lizzie to use her past as a sex worker as a fact, as a part of who she is and was, without being a source of shame, and in some ways as a source of power - specifically in episode 3 in which Lizzie tells Tommy she’s decided not to file for a divorce, that since he says he still pays for her in his head, she’ll treat their marriage as the transaction it is - she gets financial safety and security and privilege, as well as sex with Tommy, he gets (from her perspective) whatever it is he gets out of his marriage to Lizzie - power? control? familiarity? a mother for his kids? Regardless, if Lizzie is still Tommy’s sex worker, then he will have to pay a price (that he doesn’t fuck anyone in the house or soon after being with the kids and he lets her into his head sometime).  Everything is for sale. She is always for sale. By season 5, she may have become respectable, she may no longer fuck men for shillings, but she’s decided to once again make Tommy pay for the privilege of having her in his life. 

I’m not sure how to wrap this up, but suffice to say, the show doesn’t do right by Lizzie as a sex worker in seasons 1 and 2 and Tommy doesn’t do right by her in that context pretty much all the time - even when Tommy develops IMO a genuine fondness for Lizzie, he still uses her on an emotional level without reciprocating or minding the feelings she has for him. The show falls down in that it fails to write Lizzie as a sex worker outside of being specifically Tommy’s sex worker, and so every bit of her sex work in seasons 1 and 2 is processed through Tommy’s POV, which is in turns uncomplimentary or pragmatic without much care for the consequences to Lizzie. Again, season 5 is the only season where we see her relating to her sex work through her own lens and not Tommy’s. 

[thelastpilot]

Oh, Good Morning. -Adrino One-Shot 3k

Different way, different place, different time. Same story. 

While not inherently connected, the first version (of a different tone) was here

Oh, were you gonna finish that?

‘Hey’

That’s all it would take, but it seemed completely insurmountable for some reason. It was the act of taking a distant stranger and maybe putting a name to his face and his commute and his odd jackets and his seemingly unflappable belief that cold weather was for other people. It would be crossing the street and taking some random guy firmly from the safety of anonymity and making him someone when Adrien had already gone to great lengths to make him someone else, someone too far away to embarrass himself in front of.  

Just some guy at the bus stop, behind a pane of glass, a café patio and two lanes of a street, waiting to go to work. Just like every single day for the past five months.

Yeah see that was another hurdle, how long its been, because now certainly it had been way too long for Adrien to do anything now when he hadn’t done anything before. Wouldn’t it break the routine now? For ‘that guy in the café’ to actually cross the street and say something to him like a person?

Adrien set his cup down a little rougher than he needed to, sighing in an entirely self-produced frustration.

He sat up, stretching his back against the wooden back of his usual chair, made bulky by his thick coat left hanging from it till he felt brave enough to go back out into the cold again (after the bus passed, obviously. He never left beforehand, which frustrated him, again.) His table and chair and coffee weren’t all really his but there was that silent agreement that came from a usual routine that the world kind of respected. Sometimes someone else might be in his seat but for the most part Adrien got to spend a few minutes every morning warming his hands on an okay cup of coffee before he went to work, sitting in the same chair in the corner next to the window facing the street.

He used this place because it had been the closest to his apartment, and because it was warm on the inside and on his way to the metro. And because the prices were fine… and because of a bus stop. Well that last part hadn’t really been a thing at first, not that it was anything really but it was a factor against Adrien trying the new coffee shop that had opened just below his apartment.

He had argued to himself that he liked his usual place, with the warm seats and the familiar smell of over-roasted coffee and the quiet hum of a radio left on in the back. It was a standard place that sometimes kept him fed or at least kept him awake, and the owner already knew his order so it was easier to just stay, probably.

Adrien looked down, pulling at his sweater a little as he moodily glared at his coffee. It was no better or worse than it usually was, but in the moment he kind of resented it for not being outstanding. If it had been a fantastic cup of coffee, the best cup of coffee in the city then he’d have a little bit more of a justification for always sitting right there, right near the window, with his great morning cup of coffee. It would be a reasonable way to start the day, instead of glancing out at the street, waiting for another habitual commuter to make his bus on time.

Adrien looked to his right, peering through the window and watching the foot traffic, annoyed with himself again. He was annoyed because he actually needed to be at work early today, but he wasn’t going as early as he could because he was actively waiting for him, which is what made this stupid. Just some guy he saw every morning. Smiling at and waving to him is one thing, but actually being late because of a guy he’s never even talked to? Pathetic.

…

Still hadn’t left though, he noticed.

 Adrien glanced over the street, watching people in thick dark colored coats and scarves hurry to where they needed to be or cling to warm little shops like his. His café was more populated then usual this morning, some people just standing in the doorway for a minute to check their phones.

It wasn’t bitterly cold, it wasn’t snowing or anything, but the chill was still enough to make his okay cup of coffee a little more appealing. The streets were light and anyone around had a destination in mind, it was not the kind of morning for milling around.

It was a morning for commuters.

Adrien stopped, his eyes catching on someone as they turned the corner. He was looking down, but Adrien recognized the familiar backpack and leisurely walk right away, and he nearly smiled before he noticed the hoodie.

It was cold, but here he was again in a thin, dark grey hoodie like he always wore. It was one of his more usual items regardless of the weather, but he never adjusted. He didn’t even have a scarf, the only mark that maybe the cold was getting to him was that he had swapped his hat for a beanie, but Adrien was frowning anyways as the man made his way to the bus stop.

 Adrien’s morning, nameless companion found his seat at around the same time he always did, every morning. He would show up at the stop about 10-15 minutes early, lounging on the bench by himself most of the time since the street itself was pretty small and they were far off from the center of the city, and then wait patiently for his bus to arrive so he could go, presumably to work. This was an assumption, as was everything else about him, seeing as Adrien had never actually spoken to the man. The only connection they ever had, was at about this time every morning,

Where he glanced up and across the street.

 Adrien froze, a little caught out to have already been looking at him, like he had been waiting. But it was too late to glance away now, to play with his phone or drink his coffee to pretend he had otherwise been occupied. The man had already seen him.

The stranger smiled, his white teeth a stark contrast against his dark skin as he adjusted in his seat, moving his backpack to sit beside him as he usually did though he did not break eye contact. His dark rimmed glasses were low on his nose, and he pushed them up to maybe see him a little more clearly though there was a distance between them. Details were always lost, but Adrien could see that his hair was sort of a mess this morning, and he was entertained by the thought that maybe the switch to a deep red beanie was actually because his hair looked ridiculous, not because he was actually cold or anything.

He was a broad shouldered, tall man (fit too, as Adrien had learned when the weather was still warm), his outfits always changing but staying within the same range of simple t-shirts, jeans and ill-equipped jackets. He also always had his headphones on him, sometimes around his neck or sometimes already being listened to, playing some music genre that Adrien had to guess at, with no real clues or indications.

He always wondered anyways though, even if he could never know for sure if he was right or not.

Adrien lifted a hand to give him a small wave, smiling too as they greeted each other. The bus stop guy gave him a wave as well, settling in to wait now.

Adrien knew he only had a few more seconds to drag it out if he wanted to, knowing that once he glanced away they would return to their own spaces. So before he could, Adrien gestured down, raising an eyebrow (a small enough expression that he wasn’t sure if it would read across the street) and then he reached behind him, drawing the mans attention to Adrien’s own warm jacket.

It was small and quick as Adrien kept smiling, but it was easy to ask without words ‘What are you wearing? Aren’t you cold?’

The man paused, looking surprised before glancing down, one hand pulling at the pocket of his hoodie before he looked up, shrugging, both hands up as if to say, ‘I don’t know, its fine.’

Adrien just shook his head, taking a sip of his okay coffee and was happy to see the man laugh. He couldn’t help but smile into his cup as he watched him.

He was surprised to see that the man kept watching him too for a moment, still looking his way as he took an extended drink. A few cars passed between them, the street cold and distant and filled with other people they might have seen every day. Maybe all these dark jackets and blank faces were also daily commuters, ducking into cafes and businesses and making this street as much their space as anyone else’s, but neither of them knew for sure.

They’d never paid attention to the others before.

Adrien only realized he was stuck in the moment when the man finally glanced away, looking down at his phone. It occurred to him that he should probably look away as well, turning towards the interior of the café without really seeing it, frustration steeping again as he realized his daily ‘conversation’ was now over.

That’s what he waited for? A smile and a wave hello, a point of contact shallower than small talk. But he would rather he had it then gone early; he knew that.

He fought the urge to sink into his chair, knowing the man could still see him if he looked up (which he did sometimes), but he couldn’t help but lean over his cup a little, staring down at it. He tried to talk himself out of harassing himself, and he also tried to talk himself out of getting so attached to a familiar stranger, but neither ever got him to move.

He was frustrated by a handful of things about all this

He was annoyed by the fact that this was about the best he ever seemed to do when it came to meeting people these days. A non-negative association at a great distance with very little risk, how exciting. He used to be more social, so he thought, a little better at making friends and putting himself out there. But after a few scattered heartbreaks and a handful of missteps he found himself staring at a dark, slowly cooling cup of coffee wondering at how bad he was at this. He liked to think he was bold enough to cross the street, to finally put a name to a handsome face and maybe say something charming.

Maybe buy him a cup of coffee, maybe ask what he did for a living.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. But no, never. Least, not for about five months in a row now.

He grit his teeth, looking in at the café counter, looking in towards the tables and the decorations and the few dirty plates people had left behind. He looked in, and away, and then out the window, his expression still heavy as he hardly made it a minute without looking.

And he froze again, the man already watching him.

Adrien stiffened, noticing immediately that the man wasn’t smiling. A car passed between them, but neither of them took the opportunity to look elsewhere, and Adrien was stunned to see the man make a gesture of his own.

He pointed forward, right at Adrien across the street and across the patio and through the pane of glass, still looking at him with an expression too subtle to see from this far. And then he touched his index finger and his thumb together in a circle, the other fingers fanning out above it, the message clear and simple.

‘You okay?’

Adrien was frozen stock still as he took in the question, and the concern that came along with it. He must have been obvious, his spiraling thoughts displayed in his posture somehow… and the man noticed. He must have been staring the entire time, not having lost the silent conversation Adrien had been mourning, holding on to it still and waiting for him to look up again.

To make eye contact so he could ask.

Adrien felt his face heat up as he gripped his coffee cup tighter, embarrassed suddenly and unsure of himself but not looking away, the man tilting his head just slightly, waiting for an answer of some kind. But it wasn’t something he could or even would try and pantomime in these weird distant talks they had, to explain what even? It was nothing, but the familiar stranger still asked, and still stared, even as another car darted between them and blocked their eyeline.

He had to admit it was sort of exciting, which was exponentially more pathetic and insane. Being even remotely delighted that the man reached out again just made this dumb exercise even worse, but he accepted that he was just too invested to ignore him.

So after a long, silent moment, as all their moments were, he shrugged. Exaggerated enough for the man to see, but his annoyance with himself forced his eyes down, and the moment ended.

He didn’t look up again, sighing so heavily that it sent a ripple across the surface of his coffee.

Maybe he was being hard on himself, but the fact that a handsome stranger’s concern was the closest thing to an intimate moment he had had in two years was a little discouraging. And it was just the kind of cold, lonely morning for that sort of thing. Overanalyzing everything over an okay cup of coffee.

He closed his eyes and sighed again, running a hand through his hair as he let the chilly morning finally claim his mood. His early start at work slipped steadily away and he committed to loitering, though he wondered if the man was staring still. Over the next three or so minutes he resisted the urge to peek, feeling a little too much like a loser to allow his little morning routine, but his resolve wavered at about the fourth minute. By then he had reasoned with himself that oh well, you’re already lame, just look. The difference a minute could make.

When he glanced up his heart sank a little, confusion filling the empty space on the bench. Adrien sat up a little and scanned the street, the man’s seat unexpectedly vacant despite the fact that…

Surely the bus hadn’t come. He always heard it, the bus wasn’t exactly quiet, especially not on such a little street. Honestly it was a miracle it even came down this way, holding up everything whenever it did, but of course he was grateful that it was there. It was never a very crowded bus and obviously not a very popular line, but that’s where the stranger sat. So he liked that it was there.

His moping couldn’t have drowned that out, but still the man was gone.

He stared at the spot unabashedly now, looking around for him and wondering where he went. To work, maybe, as he should do. But didn’t.

The cafe door opening sent an uncomfortable rush of cold air into the space, all of its higher-than-average volume of patrons leaning away from it moodily, not that Adrien looked. He had settled the weight of his head on one hand, staring out vacantly towards an old, empty bus stop. He lifted his cup and took a long drink, resolving to leave once it was finished, when quite suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a tap on his shoulder.

Adrien jumped a little, not expecting someone from the outside world to come breaking into his, cup still half raised to his lips as he turned. The first thing he saw was a hoodie, having not nailed the eyeline on the first glance. He still wasn’t quite up to the persons face by the time they started apologizing, their voice deep and a little nervous sounding as they laughed through their “Sorry! Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

Adrien was staring at his face as the tall stranger continued to ramble, as if the momentum of his sentence gave him no place to stop and the words would bunch up and fall apart if he hesitated. The stranger mussed with his hair as he did, displacing his deep red beanie. It was old, Adrien noticed. With a snag near the edge.

He wondered when that might have happened. Or had it always been there, and he had been too far away to notice.

“I know that maybe this is a little weird,” the man was saying, the unexpected bass tone to his voice rattling pieces of Adrien’s mental image and sorting others into place. “Maybe I’m breaking some like cardinal rule like, you’re never really supposed to engage you’re just supposed to exist like, parallel to each other forever and you never say much. Or anything. But I don’t know maybe I’m not maybe there is no rule and I just made that up cause I overthink a lot. And I know it’s sort of simple and I know I’m gonna like, miss my bus, but you seemed kind of down and um…,” the stranger paused,

and Adrien noticed for the first time that his eyes… were nearly gold.

He laughed, just a little, and like nearly an afterthought, like introducing himself seemed unnecessarily to someone he really didn’t know but had just become so familiar, he gave an awkward little smile.

“Well uh, hey.”

   And just a little out of breath, just a little.

He said, “Hey.”

 It’s you.

[tomakeitbeautifultolive]

Hey I was just wondering on your interpretation of Jonerys in the books? Because according to the bad leaks we will get Jon killing Dany, but in the book version its pretty clear that these two will marry and I don't necessarily see how those two things jive with each other, unless we get a literal repeat of the Azor Ahai/Nissa Nissa bs with them🤷🏼‍♀️ Thoughts? Because I have given up hope for the show and need some reassurance on the books after reading all of them plus the history books,,

Look, anon. Even in the fucking show these two have been paralleled to death - in a way that inextricably links their lives together, as seen here and here and here. When you learn that when Ian McElhinney (Barristan Selmy) confronted D&D about how he thought it was too early to kill off his character, it made them want to kill him more, out of spite… it makes it pretty clear what D&D are doing.

In their effort to adhere to shock and subversion… they’ve left mounds of unused foreshadowing all over the place (I’m still working on a master post of unused foreshadowing and plot elements). As you might’ve guessed, Jonerys foreshadowing is among those casualties - such as Dany mentioning she may have to enter in a political marriage at the end of season 6 before setting sail for Westeros, or the four different instances that challenge Dany’s belief that she can’t have children, that her family hasn’t seen its end, and that Longclaw will go to Jon’s children after him. As of right now, none of the leaks indicate that any of this meant anything other than dialogue filler. If it was never intended to amount to anything, then the writers should not have included these lines at all, especially in a show that was cut down from ten episodes to seven. Way, way too much emphasis was put on challenging the notion Daenerys can’t have children. It’s what a good writer might call ‘trimming the fat’ from the story, otherwise, it does nothing but muddy up the story unnecessarily.

Jonerys aside, D&D have killed so much foreshadowing in the series just to make a shocking ending (which by the way, makes no sense at all). I was flabbergasted when I read this quote from 2013:

When I asked Benioff and Weiss if it was possible to infer any overall intentionality to the upcoming 10 episodes, they sneered. “Themes are for eighth-grade book reports,” Benioff told me.

Uh, what?

As you may have seen, I already recently covered why Jon shouldn’t care so much about the incest aspect - in the comments I received, there was a great point about how Jon has borderline romantic feelings toward his cousin Arya (who he believes is his half-sister), tending to think of her when he wonders what his love interest’s (Ygritte) body looks like under all those clothes. In the original outline for the series, Jon and Arya were supposed to end up together or at least be involved in a love triangle with Tyrion.

As you see, in the books, Daenerys has already been groomed for the reality of being wedded to her brother, so her nephew won’t be some grand depature from this. She’s a dragonrider, and if the shows are to be believed, Jon will be, too - and if the majority of fans are to be believed, then there might be something magical about Targaryen blood that makes them different or unique or magical, hence the incest.

When you look at just how finely crafted this book series by GRRM is… it makes it really hard to believe that he’d throw out all of his foreshadowing for shock value.

“It’s easy to do things that are shocking or unexpected, but they have to grow out of characters. They have to grow out of situations. Otherwise, it’s just being shocking for being shocking.”—George R. R. Martin

I think we can all agree that season eight of Game of Thrones is all about futility, shock, nihilism. So, check out this quote:

Q: Early on, one critic described the TV series as bleak and embodying a nihilistic worldview, another bemoaned its “lack of moral signposts.” Have you ever worried that there’s some validity to that criticism?

A: No. That particular criticism is completely invalid. Actually, I think it’s moronic. My worldview is anything but nihilistic.—George R. R. Martin

It was George who said we’d get a bittersweet ending, not D&D. It was George who said he wanted a LotR-style ending, not D&D.

While there are many conflicting quotes out there about GRRM’s ending vs. D&D’s… This recent article published right after episode 3 had some interesting lines:

“Of course you have an emotional reaction. I mean, would I prefer they do it exactly the way I did it? Sure. It can also be… traumatic. Because sometimes their creative vision and your creative vision don’t match, and you get the famous creative differences thing — that leads to a lot of conflict.”—George R. R. Martin

My interpretation currently is that yes, Jonerys is real in the books…

(just as it was in the fucking show until they decided to abandon all preestablished groundwork and foundation) …and has been thoroughly foreshadowed - and not in a tragic way.

First of all, the series is called ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ - while this stands for many things from literal to metaphorical, I’d say it absolutely encompasses Jon and Dany. I have some very unpopular ideas that ice actually represents Daenerys and fire, Jon. Whether or not I’m right about that, we have some hints that Jon will ultimately accept his Targaryen identity…

Subtle clue about who he is, in one of his true house’s colors:

“The next time I see you, you’ll be all in black.”Jon forced himself to smile back. “It was always my color.”

He idolizes historical Targaryens:

“Daeren Targaryen was only fourteen when he conquered Dorne,” Jon said. The Young Dragon was one of his heroes.

He’d pretend to be Targaryens while playing as a child:

“I’m Prince Aemon the Dragonknight,” Jon would call out.

For Daenerys, we get this curious line:

“Mother of dragons, bride of fire…”

Bride could also be metaphorical in some way, sure, but let’s just say it’s literal. Jon is the dragon, the fire.

Okay, so for the books, I’ll try to hit the bullet points:

First and foremost, the pair are incredibly similar, both stepping into positions of rule after immersing themselves into a foreign culture, adapting to their way of life before making allies. Both Jon and Daenerys make grave mistakes while wielding power, and they learn from their mistakes. They’re being shaped into rulers.

Both fall in love, yet still feel alone:

“Her captain slept beside her, yet she was alone.” / "Even with Ygritte sleeping beside him, he felt alone.“

Daenerys dreams of her lover:

“It was never Jorah Mormont she dreamed of; her lover was always younger and more comely, though his face remained a shifting shadow.”

Jon is described as a shadow:

“A shadow half-seen behind a fluttering curtain.” / “He would be condemned to be an outsider, the silent man standing in the shadows”

Daenerys also dreams of life as a wife and mother:

“In her dream they had been man and wife, simple folk who lived a simple life in a tall stone house with a red door.”

Both dream of children they will never have:

“I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms.” / "I will never have a little girl.“

From Jon’s first chapter, there are hints that Benjen knows his identity and that family might someday be important to Jon:

"You don’t know what you’re asking, Jon. The Night’s Watch is a sworn brotherhood. We have no families. None of us will ever father sons. Our wife is duty. Our mistress is honor. You are a boy of fourteen, not a man, not yet. Until you have known a woman, you cannot understand what you would be giving up.”

“I don’t care about that!” Jon said hotly.

“You might, if you knew what it meant,” Benjen said. “If you knew what the oath would cost you, you might be less eager to pay the price, son.”

We have those quotes from Maester Aemon, that hint that Jon might choose love or a child over duty:

“What is honor compared to a woman’s love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms … or the memory of a brother’s smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.”

While yes, Aemon hints that it is both glory and tragedy, we’re coming off a long, long line of tragic Targaryen love stories - the difference here being that one of these Targaryens is out to break the wheel that destroyed so many of these star-crossed, doomed Targaryens loves (Rhaegar/Lyanna, Duncan/Jenny, Daemon/Daenerys, Aemon/Naerys, etc).

Blue roses are linked to Lyanna Stark or even House Stark in general. In a vision, Daenerys sees:

“A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness.”

Meanwhile, there is foreshadowing that Dany will help Jon’s effort against the white walkers with lines like these:

“He might as well wish for another thousand men, and maybe a dragon or three.”

Daenerys, herself, has a weird moment with some ants while she wakes in the Dothraki Sea, brushing them off of her body as they swarm over a wall:

“To them these tumbledown stones must loom as huge as the Wall of Westeros. The biggest wall in all the world, her brother Viserys used to say, as proud as if he’d built it himself.”

Around the same time, Jon is killed, whispering to his wolf:

“Ghost,” he whispered. Pain washed over him. He gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold…

Meanwhile, after ‘opening her third eye’ with some berries, Daenerys hears the call of a wolf all the way over in Essos:

“Off in the distance, a wolf howled. The sound made her feel sad and lonely.”

We can extrapolate that this is, in fact, Ghost… as first, there don’t seem to be wolves in the Dothraki Sea, but also this line from Bran also provides context:

“Here in the chill damp darkness of the tomb his third eye had finally opened. He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon.”

Now that we know Jon’s true name (at least according to the show), this curious line from Daenerys also hints she might marry Jon:

“A crown should not sit easy on the head. One of her royal forebears had said that, once. Some Aegon, but which one? Five Aegons had ruled the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. There would have been a sixth, but the Usurper’s dogs had murdered her brother’s son when he was still a babe at the breast. If he had lived, I might have married him.”

Meanwhile, Jon is infatuated with Val, a woman who sounds an awful lot like a precursor to Daenerys, who is a warrior woman with silver-pale hair… Jon is also reminded of Val’s hips and breasts and that she’s 'well made for whelping children’…

“The light of the half-moon turned Vals honey-blond hair a pale silver and left her cheeks as white as snow. She took a deep breath. The air tastes sweet.”

“Lonely and lovely and lethal, Jon Snow reflected, and I might have had her.”

“A warrior princess, he decided, not some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair and waiting for some knight to rescue her.”

As for GRRM, he told a helpful clue to director Alan Taylor circa season one of Game of Thrones:

“Anyways, he alluded to the fact that Jon and Dany were the point, kind of. That, at the time, there was a huge, vast array of characters, and Jon was a lowly, you know, bastard son. So it wasn’t clear to us at the time, but he did sort of say things that made it clear that the meeting and the convergence of Jon and Dany were sort of the point of the series. So, I was happy that a big step forward was taken in the episode I got to do this season is where he has fallen for her both, you know, emotionally and politically I think.”

But that’s not all. I did write a meta about the mother goddess Danu and her parallels with Dany - and this, to me, rings much more true to who Daenerys is in the books rather than whatever impostor is parading around in Dany’s skin on screen in season eight.

There is a lot of proof that GRRM puts a LOT of thought and detail into his books - even down to the Starks ‘howling’ and ‘growling’ and the Lannisters ‘roaring’. I’ve uncovered a cool trend where many of the names he assigns to characters reflect their numerological gemstone house colors - and the names he chooses all shed some light on the characters they are given to, such as Bran meaning ‘raven’ or Sandor meaning ‘defender of man’ or Gendry meaning ‘son-in-law’.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about these things, and I just cannot see GRRM throwing out all of his foreshadowing or all of the clever little things he’s been hinting at since book once, all for the sake of shock value or subverting expectations… That’s not his style and he speaks out against it.

Bearing that in mind, the clear mad queen is Cersei, who shares virtually every parallel to Aerys Targaryen - the way she tortures parent and child chained just out of reach from one another, the way torture sexually excites her, the way she was tortured into madness, and straight down to her wildfire use. Daenerys better fits the archetype of an anti-hero rather than a straight villain. With only two books left and still no signs of madness… I just don’t see it going down this way in the books.

As for whatever just happened with Daenerys, I’ve been given a compelling argument that in the books, as she squares off with (f)Aegon Targaryen, or, Young Griff, in an effort to expose the Mummer’s Dragon, she might accidentally set off these wildfire traps that make her look just like her father, and perhaps she even goes a little mad with grief.

Especially considering that ASOIAF is so heavily based on Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, which share countless parallels, such as:

Norn (White foxes)  → The Others (White walkers)

Sithi (Dawn children) → Singers (Children of the forest)

Witchwood  → Weirwood

The Storm King → Night’s King

Ineluki → Azor Ahai

Sorrow → Lightbringer

Black iron → Dragonglass

Nisse → Nissa Nissa

Hayholt Castle → Winterfell Castle

Green Angel Tower → Winterfell Crypts

Simon Snowlock (secret heritage) → Jon Snow

Princess Miriamele (disguised as a boy) → Arya Stark

Warring brothers King Elias/Josua → Stannis/Renly

Tailed star → Red comet

Black priest Pryrates → Red priest Melisandre

Daenerys is suspected to be the Princess Maegwin figure, a woman who “is forced to watch as forces conquer her people and is eventually driven to madness in her desperation to save them.”

You make a good point about Fire & Blood and ASOIAF prehistory, too. Aside from the doomed Targaryen love stories I mentioned earlier, we get another history book that basically gives us a rundown of various Targaryen ladies who never got to be queen. I’d say this book has a strong feminist message - and might even hint that the last vestige of House Targaryen just might accomplish what her foremothers could not - finally becoming the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with a clip from the man, himself, about Dany:

“From my mother’s stories, I always had this kind of sense that I was like disinherited royalty. Here was this dock that my great-grandfather built - it wasn’t ours anymore. Here was this house that my mother had been born in - we didn’t own this house anymore. We didn’t own any house, we had an apartment. So it was like, ugh, I came from greatness - like Dany! And I will take back what is mine with Fire and Blood! I think on some level, that must’ve gotten to me.”—George R. R. Martin

I could be wrong about all of this, of course… but that’s my current take. 🤷

[ducktracy]

73. honeymoon hotel (1934)

release date: february 17th, 1934

series: merrie melodies

director: earl duvall

starring: n/a

notice anything different? that’s right, our first color cartoon! until 1936, the merrie melodies would be in cinecolor, a two strip color method consisting of reds and greens. for comparison, technicolor was a three strip color process, and thus a whole array of colors were able to use. with that comes prices: cinecolor was cheaper and faster, and disney also had the rights to technicolor at the time. cinecolor went out in the 50s, whereas technicolor isn’t commonly used today, but is sometimes used in films set in the mid century to convey the aesthetics of midcentury movies.

enough history! the song “honeymoon hotel” would be used as one of carl stalling’s situational underscores, present in cartoons such as porky’s romance and porky’s hotel (i smell a theme) to name a very select few. two doting bugs room in the honeymoon hotel, but never seem to find some privacy.

look at those gorgeous colors! the cartoon opens with some bugs singing the titular “honeymoon hotel”, advertising folks to come to their very own home of bugtown. the vocals are rich and beautiful and inviting as always!

while the painters sing, we’re shown the bustling streets of bugtown. cars amuck, happy bugs frolicking, living in their teapot houses, eating in their toolbox lunch rooms, exiting a chamber of commerce pot, riding a trolley, even getting locked up in the city jail bug trap.

elsewhere, we view our happy couple, skipping hand in hand. the man snags a spare pea pod and dumps the peas out, fashioning a canoe for him and his sweetie to lounge in on the river. the musical underscore is sweepingly romantic and gorgeous, like the climax of a hollywood romance film in the 30s. the atmosphere is also heightened and appreciated more with the freshness of the cinecolor and excitement of change and progress in the cartoons.

the happy couple go from smooching in a pea pod to exiting a church as a married couple, riding along in their car advertising their vow exchanges, the gag reused in porky’s romance.

we have a lovely moody shot of the honeymoon hotel at night as the ladybugs prepare to make their stay. their car is anthropomorphized (like all cars), bidding them goodnight with an envious sigh. they check into the lobby, greeted with more happy verses of “honeymoon hotel” as the hotel advertises its facilities.

a birdcage elevator takes the newlyweds to their room, and they enter so happily, tipping the caterpillar bellhop graciously. but what’s a hotel without a serial peeping tom? the peeping tom peers into the keyhole, which is moved up to the top of the door with a hook from the inside. discouraged, the tom sneaks around to other rooms, getting the same harsh treatment. a spit in the face via keyhole and a punch in the face via keyhole. two hands from the adjacent doors reach out from their keyholes and shake at their handiwork as the peeping tom lies unconscious on the ground.

back to the ladybugs, some attempts at flirting occur, interrupted by knocking. a few bugs sing some more of the eponymous tune, bringing in refreshments. a parade of housekeepers also bring in some bedding. the male ladybug finds the disruptions disturbing, asking merely for a goodnight. the staff bid them goodnight as they finally make their exit. side note, i love the detail of the thermometer on the wall! (it’ll come into play later.) that’s such a vintage thing—actual mercury thermometers, or those like it, are rarely on anyone’s wall anymore, obviously replaced by the practical electronic thermometers. i say that because my grandparents had a pretty neat unintentional thermometer collection going on in their screened in porch, maybe 4 or so covering the wall at minimum? so seeing that brings me back. just a little anecdote!

finally alone, the bugs return to their business in private... or so they think. after a gag of all of the staff peeping in on the couple, the moon outside their window bursts into their love life, and unsuccessfully they pull the curtain down, it rising back up each time. the moon might just be a regular moon character, but his voice reminds me of the jack benny caricatures later voiced by mel blanc. i wonder if that’s what they were going for? i could be thinking too deeply into it. anyway, look at that beautiful shot! the magic of the color certainly enhances this cartoon and adds to the excitement.

with much needed privacy, the bugs kiss. a heart pops up and rises into the thermometer above, breaking the glass and starting the fire alarm. i love the explosion of the heart, the experimentation with color is evident. however, and i know it’s a cartoon, the heart sparks an ACTUAL fire, a fleet of fire trucks racing to the hotel, which is now ablaze. i know it’s a metaphor for their red hot blazing love, but it lacks coherence, especially since there was no prior indication of any fire. not even stray sparks to light things on fire. nevertheless, suspension of disbelief!

gags galore as various patrons jump to safety on a water pack trampoline. one bug loses his pants, who jump right after him. a screwdriver serves as a slide for others to whirl down and get to ground.

our main couple isn’t so fortunate. fire blocks their every path, smoke filling the room and serving more as an imminent hazard with each second. with all the doors blocked, they run into the bedroom and seek refuge in the bed, that conveniently flips upward like a door.

the firefighters are no match for the blaze. the hotel explodes, a charred shell of its former self. all is gone...

except for the ladybugs’ bedroom. the husband runs to the doorway, blocked by rubble, and slings a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door. privacy at last! he dives back in bed, the two winking as the bed flips back up. there’s a calendar on the bed turned door with a baby on it, which winks knowingly as we iris out. innuendos!

i know for a fact this is because of the newfound use of color, but i really enjoyed this cartoon! it was very cutesy and cozy, but funny and promiscuous enough to juuuust classify it as looney tunes instead of disney. the colors were beautiful and a delight to see, the music was phenomenal and moody, animation good—nothing too impressive, but good, and the happy couple were likable and believable on their quest for some gosh darned peace and quiet. the whole love turning into a physical fire element is still slightly unclear and vague, but it’s a cartoon and the metaphor gets across regardless. it’s worthy of a watch!

link!

[queen-swagzilla]

Ruthlessly Alive - Chapter 10

Rated: M

Summary: Everything is going wrong. Clarke is at her wits end and so is her co-leader, Nathan Miller. The two of them and their mini-council—Wells, Raven, Finn, Monty, Jasper, and Syl—keep trying to find solutions, but nothing is helping them stay alive. When the dropship carrying her mother crashes, they come to a decision. They have to surrender, and ask for help.It just so happens that the price for help is Unity. But it means something much different on the ground than on the Ark.

Chapter summary: Raven's got some misplaced anger. Bellamy's got a stab wound. Clarke's got paper and charcoal. Syl's got grounder braids. Miller has very little patience for bullshit.

Like the story? Consider buying me a coffee!

Don’t know what’s going on? Read it all on Ao3!

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Bellamy remained under Clarke and Diggs' watchful eyes for two days. After he’d woken up, Irene had pulled Clarke aside and tied the red ribbon around her wrist.

“But I didn’t finish the ritual.” Clarke objected.

“Didn’t you?” She asked. “At the very least, you’ve proven that you have the ability to care for him. The rest of your people, however, I am beginning to distrust.”

Clarke looked away. She couldn’t exactly fault her for that. She had trouble imagining Finn poisoning a knife, especially since peace was a real possibility. Unfortunately, she didn’t really see who else it could be.

They’d searched the Art Supply Store, to no avail. It was devoid of any poisons or suspicious substances. Finn had come back the next day saying he’d gone exploring, and they’d no reason to hold him prisoner except for their collective suspicion. That simply wasn’t enough.

“Raven?” Clarke had asked, flanked by Miller and Syl. Raven narrowed her eyes. She wasn’t exactly pleased that Finn had been detained upon his return. It felt too much like the first time he’d been arrested. “I need a favor.”

“Yes, your majesty?”

Clarke winced but plowed forward. “Look, I’m not sure if Finn did anything. I can’t find anything to indicate that he did, but he’s the most vocal opponent to the terms of our alliance. We need this, and you know it. I need you to keep an eye on him and tell someone—not necessarily me—if he starts to act suspiciously. If it was him and he does it again, he won’t just be imprisoned, he’ll get all of us killed.”

It left a bitter taste in Raven’s mouth to know that Clarke was right. That she was just doing her best with the information she had. Why couldn’t she be wrong and unreasonable so that Raven could resent her for just a minute? “Fine. Is that all?”

Clarke looked saddened (and it killed Raven that it bothered her) but nodded and turned, leaving the tent with Syl in tow. Miller stayed behind. “She is going to be queen, you know. That means making tough decisions and giving orders that we'll have to follow.”

“Do you have a point?”

“You can’t hold it against her like that. She hates the idea already. She doesn’t want any of this to be happening, and you know it. Sure, she’s pretty into her fiancé, but the idea of being queen gets to her. Don’t make it worse by throwing it in her face when she makes a decision you don’t like. We’re under a monarchy now. There are always going to be decisions we don’t like. What matters is that we trust our leaders to ultimately make a decision that benefits us, and that’s all she’s been doing since we landed. She made the right call, and you know it.”

Raven glared at Miller. “My relationship with Clarke is none of your business. I agreed to watch him, didn’t I?”

“That’s not the point, and you know it.” He snapped. “She needs you, Raven. Stop taking your frustration out on her and refocus it on the person who actually deserves it.”

He didn’t wait for her to reply, pushing out of the tent to go looking for Clarke. Raven tamped down the urge to go after him and blow up in his face. Because god damn it, he had a point. Unfortunately, she didn’t really have the time to sit and think. Today was the day they’d begin taking the Dropship to scrap.

Without power tools.

Anyone who wasn’t working with Raven and Monty on the Dropship or in Medical with Clarke fixing their inevitable injuries was directed to Octavia and Lincoln for training. Syl had found herself directly under Octavia’s thumb, struggling through seemingly endless pushups.

While everyone seemed to be occupied, Murphy stood guard over Bellamy in his tent. He’d complained for hours when both Clarke and Diggs had insisted he remain on bed rest and outright whined when Octavia had demanded that he be guarded until he was up and about. Now, though, he found himself grateful for the quiet. A drawback of being King was that he was constantly swarmed—truly quiet moments were few and far between.

“Have you sent word to the Commander yet?” Murphy asked.

Bellamy shot him an annoyed look. “Of course I have.” He grunted.

“Has she said anything back? She could refuse to acknowledge it, couldn’t she? Turn us out of the coalition?”

Bellamy grimaced. “She could, but she won’t. She’d risk losing her hold on Trigedakru.” He replied, wincing. “Turning us out means putting them at risk of fighting a war on our border for territory. Sure, the rest of the coalition could come to their aid, but Azgeda would opt to sit it out. Emboldened by Azgeda’s refusal, the rest would refuse to put their warriors at risk for a border dispute, and the coalition would unravel. She won’t risk that.”

Murphy eyed him thoughtfully. “How long have you had that figured out?”

“Since Sterling first told us about their situation.” He admitted. “I knew this was a possibility. I wasn’t going to take this on without considering the risks.”

Murphy smiled wryly. “Yet you had no qualms about letting a stranger stab and poison you. Look where that got you.”

“I was in good hands.” He defended both himself and Clarke. “It could have been much worse.”

“Yes, it’s a good thing she likes you.” Murphy teased. “Or she’d have let you die.” There was a note of caution in Murphy’s voice. Bellamy frowned at him.

“Not with her people at risk, and definitely not with you and Octavia watching over her shoulder.”

Murphy raised an eyebrow. “If she thought it was right, Clarke would slit your throat without even blinking. Apparently she was seen doing the same for one of her people caught in the Fog.”

“Then it would have been out of mercy.”

“You think that calculated ability to kill doesn’t extend to her sense of justice? To her need to protect her people? Don’t be naive, Bellamy. She’s a good person, but you can smell it on her. The moment she needs to be, she’ll be ruthless. You had better hope that she’ll be on your side when that day comes, too.”

Bellamy barely even blinked. “She will be. I won’t give her a reason not to be. You know I don’t do things by halves, Murph. Her people and my people will be the same.”

“And what are you going to do when they discover who actually poisoned you?” He demanded.

Bellamy paused. His instinct, of course, was to have them executed. Not only for treason but also for violating a sacred rite and the grounds of a peace treaty. That, however, would not be in her people’s best interest. There were so few of them, and she’d feel each loss keenly. “I would leave their punishment to her.” He decided. “Our treaty is still in its fledgling stages, and they aren’t required to follow our laws. It’s encouraged, but they’re still separate. Until they officially join Trishanakru, we’ll allow them to govern themselves.”

“They poisoned you. The offense was against you, so your laws should govern the punishment.”

“Not if we want them to trust us.”

“They won’t trust us if you allow them to flout our laws without punishment. They’ll just do it again. There has to be some form of punishment from us. Maybe you can negotiate the punishment with Clarke and her advisors. Find a punishment that you’ll both deliver.”

Bellamy had to admit, that did sound better. “I can do that.” He agreed. He laid back docilely, and Murphy regarded him with a healthy amount of suspicion.

“That felt too easy.”

“Maybe you’re paranoid.”

Murphy snorted. “Yeah, maybe."

Things seemed to settle into a busy but peaceful rhythm. For three whole days, they took the Dropship apart, got drilled by Octavia and Lincoln, and started workshopping ideas with Wells, Monty, and Syl. Bellamy was recovering under Diggs’ (and sometimes Clarke’s) watch, and Clarke had taken over all diplomatic duties with Murphy whispering instructions in her ear at Bellamy’s request. So far, they had been visited by a representative from Yujledakru and Louwoda Kliron Kru, who were both staying in camps just outside the gate. She’d accepted their gifts—tokens to celebrate their impending marriage—and fed them. Then, she’d introduced them to the camp’s leaders and asked if they had concerns.

So far, the trust she seemed to have fostered in Bellamy, Octavia, and Murphy was enough to keep them calm. She was immensely grateful for that.

Syl seemed to be taking to Grounder culture like gas to a fire. Someone had clearly been teaching her the language because even with Murphy translating, she seemed to be getting the gist of each conversation.

Someone had done her hair, too. Every morning, Syl arrived at their status meeting with intricate braids that pulled her hair back from her face to unveil her sharp cheekbones and glittering black eyes. Clarke was a little jealous.

Raven, on the other hand, seemed to be shrinking from it. On that end, Clarke was concerned. At first, Raven had been more than ready to learn and grow into Grounder culture, but since the ritual, her enthusiasm seemed to have petered off. Not to mention, she was sour at Clarke, furious that she’d implicated Finn without hard evidence.

“What’s eating you, Princess?” Syl asked, sliding up to Clarke with Miller in tow.

“Nothing.”

Miller rolled his eyes. “So you’re glaring at Mbege for no reason?”

She realized that she had, indeed, been glaring at Mbege, who now looked extremely skittish—eyes darting from the task before him to Clarke and back in rapid succession. She offered him a sheepish smile and he seemed to deflate with relief. “Oops.”

“So? What’s the matter?” Syl prodded. She was fiddling with something—a bullet, Clarke realized—as she spoke.

“I’m so jammed up with meeting people and being a good host that I’m not learning anything.” She muttered. “I want to learn the language, you know? I just don’t really have the time.”

“You’ll have plenty of time to learn the language after all this diplomatic crap is over.” Miller replied soothingly.

“I know.” She sighed. “It just feels like everything is moving so fast. We only have three weeks left to get everything ready, and finish the courtship rituals. I haven’t even had time to get started on my gift for Bellamy.”

Syl gave her a once over. “Well, what are you doing right now?”

“Right now?” Clarke asked, frowning. “Nothing. Basically just waiting for someone to hurt themselves.”

“Well,” she drawled. “Why don’t you get started on it now?” Clarke flushed. Octavia had gotten her paper and charcoal the same day she’d asked for it, and Lincoln had offered to show her how to bind a book when she was ready.

“I can do that.” She admitted. Syl chuckled, taking her by the arm and guiding her back to her tent, Miller trailing behind him.

“You need to stop waiting for bad things to happen. Trust me, if they’re happening, they’ll find you. You gotta live in the meantime.” Syl insisted. Miller grunted his agreement. “We’re at peace. Your only duties right now are diplomacy and medical. If you’re not being sought out, you can take time to make your extra-special engagement gift, or train, or learn the language.”

“I need to make sure—“

“Then we’ll give you status reports, Clarke.” Miller interrupted her, successfully predicting her train of thought. “Syl’s right. You don’t need to be everywhere at once. Focus on what you need to get done or want to learn. Whatever. We’ll step up. I am your co-leader, remember? At least for the time being, I can keep the ship running while you plan out your engagement and wedding crap. And hey, learning the language is important for diplomacy right? You have a good reason to makethat a priority. You can get Grounder Jr. here to help you out.”

Clarke blinked at him. It might have been the most Miller had said at one time in ten years. “Are…you frustrated with me?” She demanded. He raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Why?”

“Because I’m pretty sure one of the conditions for me being okay with this alliance was that you’d take care of yourself. Trying to manage everything in camp and your own marriage is not taking care of yourself, it’s burning yourself out.” He scolded. She never thought she’d see the day when Miller scolded her.

“I’m just trying to make sure this goes smoothly! Survival is the very foundation of my self-care!”

“No, Clarkey. You’re trying to micromanage a hundred juvenile delinquents even though your survival is guaranteed as long as you stick to the terms of the alliance. And you have at least six people who are willing to lend you a hand.” Syl reminded her, a little exasperated but mostly amused. “I promise we’ll come to get you if there’s an emergency, but we’re more than capable of handling the nitty-gritty. That’s what we’re here for.”

“Yeah, didn’t you say we were your advisors or something? Isn’t that what our literal jobs are now?” Miller grunted. “Your job is to keep it together and lead us. Our job is to help you do that. Let us help you and take a fucking chill pill, Griffin."

They were in Clarke’s tent now and away from prying eyes, she allowed herself overflow a little. The affection and gratitude she felt couldn’t really be contained, but she doubted Miller would forgive her for going soft on him in public. So here, in the tent, she threw her arms around his neck in a nearly vicious hug.

“You guys are adorable.” Clarke dropped Miller immediately and whirled to face whoever had just entered the tent. It was just Wells and Monty (it was Wells who’d spoken, but Monty was snickering), but Miller flushed anyways.

“Did something happen?” Clarke asked, immediately on alert despite the conversation they’d just had. Syl flicked her on the forehead.

Wells eyed them oddly, noting the disciplinary action but taking it in stride. “No. We just wanted to let you know that the Dropship interior is completely stripped. We’re going to work on cataloging and packing it before we start working on the actual structure.”

“We got together with Octavia and agreed that the core group of scientists should hold off on training until the dropship is done. That way they’ll have the energy to actually do the work.” Monty added.

“The hunting party is back, too. They’ve got three deer and pulled in a bunch of rabbits and squirrels from snares. They think it’s a good idea to dry and store two of the deer and use the rest fresh over the next couple of days. They wanted your opinion, though. Well, they wanted Murphy’s opinion, but they’re kinda afraid of him, so they want Syl to ask him.”

Miller gave her a smug smirk, and she rolled her eyes. “See?”

“Fine. Okay? Fine! You were right. I’ll ‘chill out’.”

Syl snorted. “Yeah, unlikely. Just…don't preemptively panic. Do what you gotta do, and trust us to keep you in the loop. We’ve got this, Princess.”

They left Clarke in the tent, pulling out the piles of paper and charcoal she’d been given along with the copy of the Iliad that Octavia had gotten for her. She assumed it was Bellamy’s copy, so she handled it like it was made of glass.

Before she knew it, she was completely lost in her task—relaxing into the lines and shading as she brought the ancient story back to life. The last time she’d had uninterrupted time to draw was when she was in the Sky Box, and it was relaxing then, too. It took her mind off the endless vacuum of space. Here, it took her mind all of the things that could go wrong, and she was grateful for the time to decompress.

Soon, her hands were covered in coal and her body was completely unclenched. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, just that she had a tidy stack of perfect drawings and it was getting dark inside the tent. “Clarke? You coming for dinner?” Jasper poked his head through the tent flap. “Syl wanted to get you for lunch, but Miller and Wells didn’t want to break your stride if you actually managed to chill out enough to stay put.”

She blinked up at him, only now realizing how late it was and how long she’d been sitting in one place. “I’ve been in here all day. I’ve been in here all day?! I need to check on Bellamy! Were there any injuries in camp?”

“Hey! Hey, relax. You can check on Bellamy after dinner. He’s been sleeping all day, and Diggs has been taking care of him, along with all the other minor scrapes that have come in. We need to learn to trust them, right? It’s good that we’ve been having our people go to him. It’s actually kinda important.” Jasper reminded her, alarmed at how quickly she’d panicked. “We didn’t just let you have the day. If we’d needed you, we’d have gotten you.”

“Right. Right, sorry. I’m just…”

“Not used to being fine? I know the feeling. Spear, remember?” He chuckled. “C’mon. Come have dinner with us then go check on your boooooyyyfriend.” He teased. She threw the charcoal stub at him, and it smacked him in the cheek.

“You’re terrible.” She muttered. “I’ll join you in a minute, I just need to go wash my hands.”

“Roger that, boss. We’ll save you some stew.” He grinned, saluting her jauntily.

As she walked through the camp, she was pleased with how little disarray there was. If she’d left camp for a whole day when they’d first landed, there would be broken fingers and collapsed structures in every direction. Now there were some murmurs as friends prodded each other’s blisters or scrapes, but it looked like everything was running smoothly.

Probably because they had a collective goal with a big fat scary deadline.

But hey, no matter the reason, as long as no one was dying or pissing off Grounder diplomats, she wasn’t going to complain.

Miller and Wells had come to him that morning to tell him that Clarke would be out of medical on other projects all day, and he couldn’t lie—he was disappointed. If he was bedridden, he was at least hoping for company other than Murphy (who hated talking, even to people he liked) and Diggs (who always had some gross new observation about the human body to share).

There were a few other delinquents who stopped by for their own cuts and bruises, and they talked while Diggs patched them up. He was quite fond of Harper, who talked his ear off about how limited his appreciation for classic literature was if he was stuck in ancient Greek epics. “Maybe someday,” she said wistfully. “We’ll find a way to reconnect to the Ark mainframe and be able to download the library.” He quite liked the sound of that.

Miller came to keep him company for a while and asked about politics and war on the ground. He seemed pleased that Bellamy was fascinated by history and therefore could give detailed accounts of the clan wars that had taken place before the coalition, as well as the skirmishes that had taken place since.

Other than that, he’d been bored. His philosophy had always been “if there’s nothing to do today, sleep while you have the time”, so he’d essentially napped his way through the entire day and felt lethargic as hell when he woke.

Murphy shoved a bowl at him when he opened his eyes. “Eat.” He grunted.

“Everything going alright out there?” He asked as he complied.

“Everything’s fine.” Murphy dismissed him. “Actually, without you and Clarke breathing down our necks, I think this has been their most productive day yet.” He continued, unsheathing his knife to clean under his fingernails.

“I heard that.” Clarke declared, sliding into the dropship with her hands on her hips. “And that is yet to be determined. I’m getting status reports after I check on Bellamy.” She paused. “Wow. They really did strip it bare.”

Anything that they didn’t need for immediate medical procedures had been disassembled and stacked in a corner—seating and seatbelts, wiring, and the video components had all been scrapped.

“I think we were both hoping it would take longer so that Bellamy would have someone to talk to all day.” Murphy drawled.

Clarke frowned. “Weren’t you here all day?”

Bellamy snorted. “Yes, ten hours with the surliest bastard south of Azgeda.” He shot Murphy a fond smile. “I slept most of the day.”

She chuckled. “Well, I hope it was restful.” She was leaning over him now, unwinding his bandage to examine his stab wound. She was pleased that it wasn’t infected and already seemed to be knitting together. “How are you feeling?

“Hmm. Like I was poisoned by someone other than my wife and put on bed rest.” He replied. “But better than I felt during the ceremony. I’ll feel better once I can get up and move.”

“Well, I’d feel more comfortable if you relaxed for a couple more days, but we treated you quickly and you do seem okay aside from the stab wound. Just don’t push it. Besides, we don’t know who poisoned the knife, so even if you’re not on bed rest I’d feel better if you had Murphy or Octavia with you.”

He groaned.

“See? Clarke agrees with us. Now you have to listen.” Murphy cried. “He doesn’t think he needs protection once he’s healed enough to move around.”

She frowned at him. “I know you’re an impressive fighter, but there’s no harm in having a second set of eyes. You’re being targeted. There’s no need to tempt fate. Besides, you’re a king. What would happen to your people if you just let yourself get assassinated?” She prodded him in the chest. “Be responsible, Bellamy.”

“Our people have a line of succession. We’d prefer not to use it, but still. It's your people you should worry about. There’s no guarantee a new alliance could be reached if Bellamy died.” Murphy reminded her.

She glared at him. “Yes, obviously, I know that. I just figured that was obvious. It’s obvious, right? We’re screwed without you. Besides, I’m getting pretty attached to you. I’d be very upset if you died because you decided to throw logic out the window."

He grumbled, but his pout told her that she’d won the argument. Sensing that Bellamy’s sulking wasn’t going to be short-lived, Murphy decided to sweeten the pot. “Maybe if you spent…half the day in here tomorrow keeping him company, he’d be a little more ready to follow your instructions.” He suggested.

Clarke couldn’t find anything wrong with that plan, so she agreed. “Maybe while we’re in here you can teach me some Trigedasleng.” She smiled, sitting by the cot and taking his hand. “Syl’s a natural. I need to keep up or she’ll never let me live it down.”

“Miller and Wells are, too.” Murphy supplied, unhelpfully. “They just don’t talk as much, so you haven’t noticed.”

“See?” She whined, tugging his fingers petulantly. “They’ll tease me forever if I don’t learn faster.”

He smiled at her mischievously. “Can’t say I blame them. I have a feeling I’ll have fun riling you up in the future.”

“Only if there is a future.” She scolded. “So for the love of God, please don’t get murdered.”

“Alright, princess.” He chuckled. “I’ll be careful.”

Raven was waiting for her in her tent when she returned and immediately she was on edge. Then she was sad that she was on edge because it was Raven. “I’m sorry, did you need something? I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”

“Oh, no,” Raven assured her, standing. “I uh…well. I finished a few radios. I know you’re working on your gift for Bellamy, so I made enough for you, me, Wells, and Miller. I’ll have a couple more soon, but this way you can get status reports without having to run around.” She explained, holding out Clarke’s radio to her.

“Thanks, Raven.” She smiled, taking the scrappy tech. Raven didn’t really have a poker face, and she was grateful for that. Right now, her tone was soft and sincere, and her body language was open—if a little skittish. “Really, I appreciate it. I know you were going to make them anyway, but it’ll be nice to know what’s going on without having to drop what I’m doing.”

“I wasn’t going to make them yet.” She admitted. “I made a few when Monty told me what you were up to today. I realized you hadn’t started yet because you didn’t want to miss anything. This way you won’t have to.” She rubbed at the back of her neck. “Look, I’m not happy about the Finn thing.”

Clarke sighed, shoulders drooping. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s hard to imagine it’s him, and I don’t know if I think it is, but we have to—“

“Be sure. I know. You’re doing the right thing here. I don’t like it, but I can’t really deny that it’s what needs to happen. Besides, blaming you isn’t going to get us anywhere, you didn’t poison Bellamy, and it’s not like you’re locking him up before you’ve proved him guilty.” She admitted. “It just stings. He’s always been the person I trusted the most, and now he’s taking stances I don’t agree with and there are people I trust more than him. It’s all new.”

Clarke stayed quiet. She couldn’t imagine how Raven felt, so there was nothing she could really say to make it better. She could listen, though. She was good at that.

“I know what happened between you two before I landed. I don’t blame you, so don’t even.” She held up a hand when Clarke (predictably) opened her mouth to apologize. “He seems to feel like he has a hand in your decisions just because you’ve slept together, and that’s really stupid, but I don’t know if it’s the kind of stupid that would lead to him poisoning a warlord during a sacred engagement ceremony. That seems beyond him. I don’t think it would even occur to him. So while I’m not ruling it out, I am begging you to keep an open mind on this. He’s more likely to ruin this by opening his fat mouth to the wrong people.”

Clarke had to admit, she had a point there. “You’re probably right.” She agreed. Raven looked a little startled by the admission, but her eyes focused in like a laser. “At the time, he was the only person that we noticed was missing, and he’s been the most vocal opponent to the terms of the alliance. That’s why I wanted to look at him first, not because I thought that he’d definitely done it. I just wanted to be sure.”

“And the verdict?”

She grimaced. “Still not sure, but it’s not xi. That’s why I wanted you to watch him. No one would know if he’s acting out of character better than you.” She shrugged. “Aside from that, I would rather focus on keeping Bellamy safe than watching potential suspects. I don’t want it to be one of us. Granted, I don’t know who else it could be, but it would be a nightmare if it was one of us.”

Raven nodded but looked horribly guilty. “I’m really sorry.” She said quietly. “About how I’ve been acting for the past few days? I get tunnel vision when it comes to Finn, sometimes. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I know you’re just trying to do what’s best.”

“Hey, it’s fine. I’m new to this leading thing. You wouldn’t be one of my advisors if you weren’t comfortable pointing out where I’m going wrong.” Clarke assured her.

“That’s my point. You didn’t do anything wrong. I just let my emotions get in the way.” Raven insisted. “And I can’t promise I won’t do it again, so if I’m going to be one of your advisors, you need to tell me when I’m lacking perspective. This is all hard enough, we don’t need to make it worse by not communicating. That means you can’t just take it on the chin. We’re putting a lot on your shoulders here, so if you want us to count on you, you can’t set yourself on fire just to keep us warm.”

Clarke smiled self-deprecatingly. “That’s not the first time I’ve gotten that lecture today.”

“Good. Because I’m apologizing here, but this is also a serious teachable moment. You totally let me slam you with that ‘your majesty’ comment earlier. I know you’re not super into a monarchy, but damn Clarke, you’re about to be a queen. The correct response to my statement would have been ‘if you don’t want to follow my orders, find a new fucking clan.’ I would have been pissy for a few more hours, but it’s not like I’m gonna leave. Jesus.”

Clarke raised her eyebrows. “I would literally never say that.”

“Then I’ll have to follow you around and say it for you.” She snarked. “Because those puppy-dog eyes were lame. We’re a warrior nation now, not a warm-fuzzy cuddle puddle.” She stepped up to give Clarke a quick hug before heading for the tent flap. “Now go to bed! Your eye-bags look like they could hold ten days’ rations.”

Her jaw dropped, affronted. “They do not! You take that back!"

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Kettle Buying Guide - Find the best for you

If none of the top 10 best kettles that we reviewed suit you then read our Kettle Buying Guide for choosing the best for you. Choosing the wrong kettle can waste water and energy, make you wait longer and be noisier than they should.

How can I buy the best kettle?

There are three things that you should think about when buying an electric kettle: 1. Budget We saw that the amount you pay doesn’t actually influence quality. So you can buy a cheap and good one or an expensive and bad one. The pricier models can come with more features and better design. We found really cheap kettles that are easy to use, quiet and quick.  2.Design A more traditional look is taken by the dome kettles. That comes with a bit of inconvenience when filling them up because the handle is on top. Jug models on the other side can come with bigger windows that show the water levels. They usually can boil less water than the dome models. Some kettles may need at least four cups of water to boil at one time. This is wasting electricity and time, while others can boil just one cup.  3.Water hardness If you live in an area that has hard water you should make sure to get a kettle with a good limescale filter. Also, make sure that it has one because some of them don’t have. Some kettles have a water filter as well but they’re harder to fill and need changing regularly.

Kettle features and types?

You can find two main types of kettles in the market: stovetop and electric models. Because the electric models are the most popular ones, that’s what we’ll be focusing on. While electric kettles come in different sizes, shapes and range they fall in two categories:  – Dome/pyramid kettle –  like a stovetop kettle, traditional dome-shaped having the handle on top  – Jug kettle – Jug shaped with the handle on the side (taller than usual jugs)

Features you should consider on a kettle

The key features that you should consider when buying a kettle are as follows: Minimum fill/one-cup boil Some kettles will require you to boil four cups worth of water at once wasting water, energy and your time. If you usually make just a cup of tea or you want to save energy look for a kettle that can boil from as low as one cup which is less than 300ml. Kettles that boil quietly Sometimes kettles that are marketed as being silent are louder than they should. You might find a loud whistling kettle really annoying, more so if your kitchen/living area is open-plan.   Water level gauge If you want to see how much water is inside at a glance look for clear and large windows on a kettle. Some kettles have the level indicator behind the handle which makes it hard to see.  Multi-temperature kettles With this type of kettle, you can choose from a different range of temperatures to heat your water. This will help you the most if you’re a green tea or coffee drinker as these taste better with water at cooler temperatures.  Matching toaster kettles There’s plenty of choices if you’re looking for a matching set to make your kitchen more stylish. You can almost always find a toaster to match, whatever your design preference.  Smart kettles A smart kettle will allow you to check the water inside, boil it remotely and see how hot the water is all from an app on your smartphone or tablet. Nonetheless, it is pricier than the other kettles and you also still have to fill it up. There’s not too many of them but there is one in particular that stands out and that is Smarter Ikettle 3.

Other important things to consider when buying a kettle

 Speed – If it has a 3kW element than that is a good indicator that it might be fast, but our reviews prove that you have no guarantee. Some of the worst kettles will take more than twice the time to boil compared to the best ones. Efficiency – Some kettles don’t stop when they reach the boiling point and also make you boil more water than you need wasting energy and water. Ease of use – Even though kettles may seem simple some manufacturers make the design pretty without thinking about functionality and you don’t want that on something that you use every day.Weight and size – Kettles can way a bit when you fill them with water. Less than 1kg is what you should go for because it’s light and comfortable to handle. You should also have in mind that plastic kettles are lighter than glass or stainless steel ones.

Should you buy a cheap kettle?

There are good and bad models at both ends of the price range( 5£ to more than 100£). You can buy a kettle for less than a tenner but if you are willing to pay more, then you get a premium style, materials and finish and also more extra features. Usually, cheap kettles stick more to basic design and materials. They also just do the basic job of boiling, without extra features. There’s also a less likeliness that you’ll have a one-cup boil feature on a budget kettle. 

Do kettles last a long time?

One of the most unreliable household gadget is a kettle. In the first two years, at least one out of five kettles will let you down, but that doesn’t hold true with all the brands. If you live in a hard-water area, descaling the kettle will prolong its life. 

Should I get a hot water tap instead of a kettle?

A quite popular and expensive alternative is to install a hot water tap and forget about a kettle. With the hot water taps, you can have near-boiling water just with the touch of a button. They’re a good way to save some space in your kitchen and you might even argue that you save energy because you don’t heat more water than you need. We hate to disappoint you but you don’t get just savings with this setup. Even though a water tap is convenient and saves you space, it is expensive and also has ongoing maintenance costs that go beyond any savings you can get. If you don't want to go through the process of choosing a good kettle with this kettle buying guide we already reviewed the Top 10 Best Kettles of this year so you can quickly find the best for you. Read the full article