#and i have a lot of stuff i need to do before i leave the country and I'm a bit stressed over that and money

[burrowkit]

I'm feeling a tad bored, so I'm going to apply this to 4 characters from the Blood of Eden series by Julie Kagawa.

1- What does your character do when they think no one’s looking Allie: Reading a book Zeke: Reading The Bible/sleeping Jackal: I would like to think he secretly reads books when no one is watching. Conducts science experiments. Kanin: Looking for a cure to the virus he accidentally released

2- What’s the one thing your character would save in a fire (beyond the necessities)? Allie: Zeke Zeke: Allie Jackal: Himself Kanin: Everything

3- Who’s on speed dial? Allie: Zeke, Jackal Zeke: Allie Jackal: Azura, secretly Allie Kanin: No one

4- Your character gets turned down for their dream job. What’s their second choice? N/A

5- What would they tell their ten-year-old self? Allie: You will get through this. Just keep going, you can do it. Zeke: Eden exists. And, you'll fall in love with a vampire. Jackal: You're going to become a monster and love it. Kanin: I cannot remember being 10.

6- Where would they want to go on a first date? Allie: A library/bookstore (abandoned, as they all are in their universe) Zeke: Some adorable boat ride with a picnic. Maybe to find a new place. Would end up saving humans before the date is over, forgetting that it's supposed to be a date. Jackal: Nah. Maybe some blood sport event or killing rabids. Kanin: N/A

7- What’s the best advice they’ve ever received? Allie: Something something you aren't facing your grief and just burying it. You will kill people, you just need to figure out a way to live with it. Zeke: You're a monster. Decide what kind of monster you want to be, but just make a decision. Jackal: (in the books that we know of) You do know your raiders are just going to back stab you, right? Kanin: I guess in book, Allie's pep talk in the sewers

8- What’s the worst advice they’ve ever received? Allie: You're a monster, you just need to accept that. Zeke: All vampires are evil, soulless creatures that don't care about humans Jackal: To leave the group Kanin: To trust Jackal's words and intentions

9- What’s one physical detail they’d change about themselves? N/A, I'm not answering this one

10- When was the last time they were held? By who? Allie: Well, Sarren tried to kill me. So did my brother. Oh, you mean like hugged? Cuddled? Zeke. Zeke: Allie <3 Jackal: You don't want to know. Kanin: It's been awhile, Allison. Do not linger in the past.

11- What’s their favorite thing about their favorite season? N/A, I'm pretty sure Zeke would like summer/fall for the food on trees. I don't think Allie really cares much, other than not freezing (which she can't anymore). And Jackal seems too disconnected to really care. Okay, adding Kanin to this, I don't think he really cares.

12- Their wallet gets stolen. What do they do? Allie, Jackal: Kill the person who stole their wallet/stuff Zeke: Offers the thief food, water, medicine. Kanin: Takes his wallet back, probably finds a way to make the human have a better life

13- Prioritize: Love, money, power, knowledge? Allie: Life. Knowledge. Love. Zeke: The human race being okay. Love. Jackal: Power. (Familial) love. Already seems to possess a lot of knowledge to become powerful. Kanin: Knowledge of how to undo. Has power. Tossed love out the window. Money doesn't really apply in this world

14- What’s something nobody knows about them? Allie: Is allowing herself to forget about being human Zeke: Maybe how jealous he was of Jackal until he found out Allie and Jackal were siblings? Jackal: Has a heart Kanin: He cares about all his children. All of them

15- What’s in their fridge? Blood.

16- What (creature, object, substance) are they most disgusted by? Allie: Rabids, vampires (especially ones torturing humans/being cruel to humans) Zeke: Evil vampires, Sarren, himself Jackal: Bleeding heart vampires, sewage Kanin: Vampires viewing humans as nothing but food (even though he does the same).

17- What’s their second worst habit? Second worst? Alright... Allie: Worst is trying to save everyone. So I guess forgetting the world for Zeke? Or opposite. Worst habit is forgetting the world for Zeke, and second worst is trying to save everyone at the cost of her own life. Zeke: Worst is probably his self hatred / hatred of vampires. Second worst is his desire to stay attached to specific humans / revenge without knowing Jackal's side Jackal: His worst habit is probably his love of killing those that are important to others. So his second worst is probably killing randomly/being so detached. Kanin: His worst is probably putting human kind above his family. His second worst is probably thinking he knows everything.

18- What are the victory conditions for their life? Yeah, maybe best if I skip this one

19- In the end, your character fails to save the day. Assuming they survive, what do they do? Allie: Fall apart, go for revenge, pull herself together, save the day Zeke: N/A. Probably is kidnapped by the villain. Jackal: Pretends to betray everyone just to betray the betrayal and save everyone. Kanin: Picks himself up, tries again.

20- Your character is charged with a crime they didn’t commit. What do they do? Allie: Accept it. Pretend to leave. Protect the humans. Zeke: Allie argues his innocence. He just hangs his head and accepts that he's probably the villain they think of him. Jackal: "Lol, I'm a monster, so?", proceeds to kill anyone in his way Kanin: Accept it. He feels like he deserves it.

21- Your character is charged with a crime they did commit. What was the crime? Murder.

22-25- How would you describe your character’s life in one sentence?What important statistic would they want displayed above them?What’s the first thing they would buy if they won the lottery? What profession do they most respect? N/A

26- What childhood injustice did they never get over? Allie: Being left to starve. Her mother's death. Zeke: Not able to face a hoard of rabids and save everyone. Jackal: Not so much childhood, but almost being killed by his vampiric father Kanin: N/A

27-35- How would they handle having a panic attack? Your character is burdened with an inconvenient superpower. What is it? If they died and could come back as any person, animal, or object, what would they be? What’s the best meal they’ve ever had? Where would they stand at a dinner party? Who would they invite to the dinner party?What makes a perfect day for your character? If given the opportunity, would they want to know how and when they died?What’s the one thing they’ve always wanted to do? Why haven’t they done it yet? Mostly N/A, or already covered in the book

36- What do they tend to joke about? Allie: Being a monster. Not being a monster. Zeke: Not much Jackal: Killing others. Betraying others. Being a cruel monster. Kanin: Not much. He left his sense of humour behind centuries ago.

37- What’s off limits? Allie: Someone dying Zeke: Harming humans Jackal: Being predictable Kanin: His past.

38- Whose wedding would they cross the world to attend? Whose funeral? Allie: Wedding- Jackal's if he decided to get married. Maybe Azura. Caleb and Beth's. Funeral- Caleb. Beth. Jackal. Zeke: Wedding- none. Funeral- Jackal, but he'd be the one killing Jackal so... awkward funeral. Jackal: "My sister" Kanin: N/A. Probably Sarren's funeral. Maybe Allie-x-Zeke's wedding. Allie, Jackal and Zeke's funerals. Possibly Jackal, but he'd ensure no one knew he was there.

39-43- What impossible choice did they make that turned out to be the right one? The wrong one? Your character has someone to hype them up. What would they say to get everyone excited about your character? What recurring dream does your character have? What is the meaning of life to your character? What book does your character pretend to have read? Skipping

44- Someone takes undeserved credit for your character’s work. What do they do? I don't think they really care too much. Jackal might try to kill whoever stole the credit, or remind them of the shared credit (to his sister). Kanin would probably not care too much.

45- What controversial belief or view does your character hold? Why? Do they hide it? Allie: Humans do matter. Doesn't hide it. Zeke: His love for a vampire at the beginning. His love of blood at the end. Jackal/Kanin: I'm not sure.

46- Your character is at a theme park. Where do they go first? N/A

47- What’s your character’s favorite name? Discussed in the books

48-50- What’s the biggest compliment they’d give themselves? How does your character feel about bugs? If your character could hit a reset button on their life, would they? N/A

Character Development: 50 Questions

What does your character do when they think no one’s looking?

What’s the one thing your character would save in a fire (beyond the necessities)?

Who’s on speed dial?

Your character gets turned down for their dream job. What’s their second choice?

What would they tell their ten-year-old self?

Where would they want to go on a first date?

What’s the best advice they’ve ever received?

What’s the worst advice they’ve ever received?

What’s one physical detail they’d change about themselves?

When was the last time they were held? By who?

What’s their favorite thing about their favorite season?

Their wallet gets stolen. What do they do?

Prioritize: Love, money, power, knowledge?

What’s something nobody knows about them?

What’s in their fridge?

What (creature, object, substance) are they most disgusted by?

What’s their second worst habit?

What are the victory conditions for their life?

In the end, your character fails to save the day. Assuming they survive, what do they do?

Your character is charged with a crime they didn’t commit. What do they do?

Your character is charged with a crime they did commit. What was the crime?

How would you describe your character’s life in one sentence?

What important statistic would they want displayed above them?

What’s the first thing they would buy if they won the lottery?

What profession do they most respect?

What childhood injustice did they never get over?

How would they handle having a panic attack?

Your character is burdened with an inconvenient superpower. What is it?

If they died and could come back as any person, animal, or object, what would they be?

What’s the best meal they’ve ever had?

Where would they stand at a dinner party?

Who would they invite to the dinner party?

What makes a perfect day for your character?

If given the opportunity, would they want to know how and when they died?

What’s the one thing they’ve always wanted to do? Why haven’t they done it yet?

What do they tend to joke about?

What’s off limits?

Whose wedding would they cross the world to attend? Whose funeral?

What impossible choice did they make that turned out to be the right one? The wrong one?

Your character has someone to hype them up. What would they say to get everyone excited about your character?

What recurring dream does your character have?

What is the meaning of life to your character?

What book does your character pretend to have read?

Someone takes undeserved credit for your character’s work. What do they do?

What controversial belief or view does your character hold? Why? Do they hide it?

Your character is at a theme park. Where do they go first?

What’s your character’s favorite name?

What’s the biggest compliment they’d give themselves?

How does your character feel about bugs?

If your character could hit a reset button on their life, would they?

Source

[leighsartworks216]

Oh, Hold Me Now

Zayne x AFAB!Reader

Guess whose period just started haha The things I would do to be in Zayne's arms rn istg

Title from "Hold Me Now" by the Thompson Twins

Warnings: menstruation, period fic, lots of domestic fluff, reader has a uterus but no other gender-defining things

Word Count: 1,726

Main Masterlist

Love and Deepspace Masterlist

AO3

Tag List Form

With a whimper, you curl in on yourself. The pain in your abdomen rapidly ramps up. You clutch at your belly, willing it to stop, please god stop. It doesn’t listen until tears prick at the corner of your eyes. Then it slowly ebbs away, letting you breathe again.

You reach behind you, but all you find is a cold bed. You whine, annoyed with your emotions and just how upset you are that Zayne isn’t there. Even on his day off, he doesn’t sleep in.

You slowly slide out of bed. Your feet touch your warm slippers, a gift from your husband when you were dating and had just moved in together. They hug your feet in a familiar embrace, cushioning your weight as you force yourself to stand. You shuffle off to the bathroom.

It’s miserable and uncomfortable and you’re cursing your existence by the time you finish on the toilet. On top of that, you’re almost out of product, and what you have definitely isn’t going to last the day. You groan to yourself thinking about Zayne, on his nice day off, having to take care of you. He wouldn’t complain, but it gives you half a mind to change into real pants and go to the store yourself, just so he doesn’t have to deal with this. The other half is just oh so comfortable in your pajamas. You have enough stuff to last a couple hours, you’ll just go then.

After you scrub your hands within an inch of their life, you open the medicine cabinet and pull out some good ol’ painkillers. As desperate as you are to get rid of this pain, you’re not desperate enough to wash the pills down with water from the tap. Not yet, anyway.

Wanting nothing more than to be at the peak of coziness right now while your insides tear themselves apart, you throw on one of Zayne’s sweaters and leave the bedroom to face the cruel day ahead.

You see Zayne’s head peeking out over the top of the couch as he reads a medical book, as big as his head and as thick as your arm. You would chastise him for working, but he’d say he’s reading for his leisure. The threat of an oncoming cramp forces you to ignore him and turn to the kitchen.

“I already got you a glass of water,” he calls. He turns to look at you over the couch, expression softening with sympathy as you double over, hugging yourself as though you could compress all the pain into a tiny little ball. It grows in intensity for a moment, forcing a whimper from your throat, before finally receding. You take a deep breath and stand back up, continuing to hug yourself. “Come sit down, my love. I’ll make you some tea.”

How could you refuse? You shuffle over and settle down into the plush cushions. You almost whine when he gets up, but you bite it back. You do pout, though, which makes him smile despite your pain.

He rounds the couch and plants a kiss to the top of your head. “I’ll only be a minute. Take your medicine.”

The water is still nice and cold when you take a sip from it. So cold you can feel it running down your throat. The pills go down smoothly, and you’re more than grateful not to be choking on pain meds today of all days.

You close your eyes and lean back into the couch, abandoning your slippers on the floor in favor of tucking your feet underneath you. You can hear the kettle starting to bubble as he opens and closes cabinets, gathering what he needs to make you the perfect cup of liquid gold to ease your suffering. The thought brings a mix of guilt and affection; both upset that he is taking care of you on his day off, and glee that he’s, well, taking care of you on his day off. If this was the weekend, maybe you wouldn’t feel as guilty. As it is, he has work again tomorrow, and he had work yesterday, so it’s not so much a day off as it is taking a house call.

He returns with a matching pair of mugs, steam rising from the tops and the warm smell of tea and bitter coffee filling the air. He sets his drink of choice down on the coffee table, but you greedily cradle yours to your chest, letting the heat warm your face and the scent relax your body. He sits back down beside you, drawing you closer to him while being extra careful not to spill your tea. He doesn’t say anything about you wearing his sweater, but he does playfully tug on the hem, signaling that he’s noticed.

You smile for the first time today and tilt your head up to kiss him good morning. “Thank you,” you hum, kissing him again for good measure, before adding, “and I’m sorry.”

He shoots you a disapproving look, softened from his lack of glasses and the morning light coming in from the windows. “Don’t apologize. It’s completely out of your control.” He slips his hand under the sweater to massage gently right where you need it. You relax into it immediately, practically melting against him as he takes care of you. His massages are always the best, and they drastically lessen the cramps that torment you this morning. “Do you need anything else, my love?”

You make a disgruntled noise at the reminder. “I need more product.” You quickly cover his hand with one of yours, heated from holding your mug, to make sure he doesn’t pull away. “It can wait a bit longer, though.”

He chuckles softly, but he makes no attempts to move. His fingers press gently into you, seeking out where you need it the most. You hiss as another cramp assaults you. You instinctively draw your knees up, leaning more of your weight into him as you curl up. He slips beneath the final layers of clothes to lay his warm palm fully over your lower abdomen. The heat sinks in slowly, but it does help.

“Can we watch a movie?” you ask as the pain comes back down, voice slightly rough. “Unless you wanna keep working.”

“Reading a book isn’t working,” he retorts, fully catching onto your jab. You point it out nearly every time you go to the library and he checks out something from the medical section.

“It is when it’s almost a thousand pages of nothing but medications and surgical procedures.”

He leans forward to reach the remote and passes it on to you. While you turn the TV on, he also grabs his mug, before relaxing back into the couch. “What do you want to watch?” he asks instead of continuing to pointlessly defend himself.

You hum noncommittally as you scroll through the library of films and shows, ready to watch at the press of a button. There were a few medical dramas you liked watching with Zayne, if only to listen to him correct the show or insult how unprofessional the main cast is, but they don’t really strike your fancy right now. Something funny would be nice. Or something comforting.

It’s only a matter of time before you put on a familiar movie you’ve seen about a thousand times. Zayne makes no comment on this. Instead, he blows gently on the surface of his coffee and takes a tentative sip. His coffee contains enough sugar to mostly negate the bitter flavor of the drink, but it’s just perfect for him. You drop the remote to the side and take a sip of your drink as well, humming at the perfect flavors that ease down your throat. The morning sun warms you both.

-

“Get up for a moment.”

You hum sleepily, looking at him with tired confusion. “The movie isn’t over,” you mumble.

He gives you a reassuring smile as he rubs your back. “I know, my love. I’m not leaving yet.”

With a gentle nudge, you pull your feet from under you and stand on wobbly legs. You watch as he lays out along the couch, legs parted, and gestures for you to lay back down. He can almost see the spark of excitement in your eye as you situate yourself on top of him, your legs between his and your head tucked safely under his chin. He pulls the blanket from the back of the couch overtop of you, before wrapping you in his arms. One hand massages the tension from your lower back while the other pets your hair. It’s heaven, being in his arms like this. You melt fully into him, forgetting the movie in favor of hiding from the sun outside, burying your face in his chest and shoulder, and breathing him in deep. He smells warm and sweet, with the shock of his aftershave. He smells like home.

You scoot upward to hide your face in his neck. He welcomes you readily, pressing a kiss to your temple. “I’m sorry I’m ruining your day off,” you mumble.

He tilts his head toward yours slightly, hiding you further from the sun. “How did you ruin it?” he asks softly. “I get to watch one of your favorite movies with you while we cuddle. How is that ruining my day?”

“Cuz you have to take care of me…”

“I always take care of you.”

You huff. “You know that’s not what I mean.”

“I don’t think I do.” He rests his cheek against you. His lips brush your forehead as he speaks, like little kisses with each word. “Why do you think taking care of you would detract from my enjoyment of being around you?”

You remain quiet. The only reason he knows you haven’t fallen asleep yet is because of the hand you have on his chest that traces shapes over his shirt. He stops massaging your back to catch it, holding it firmer to himself.

“I can’t think of a better way to spend my day off.”

Your sigh fans across his skin, making the hairs on his arms raise. “I love you…”

He smiles. You feel it against your forehead as he kisses you again. “Get some rest. When you wake up, I’ll run to the store.”

---

Tag List:

@the-golden-jhope @deepzombieyouth @huen1ngk41 @armycaratlover @cheesemachine44 @nyx2021 @angel-jupiter

[starswritingdorm]

“ you make me wanna make you fall in love! ”

synopsis: your three boyfriends just finished their practice and boy do they look fine right after playing..

- listen to Juno by Sabrina Carpenter for better experience -

cw(s): f!reader, poly, P in V, P in A, double penetration, oral sex (m!receiving), kisses, public sex (in the gym), (pink fuzzy) handcuffs, lmk if I missed any

───────── ⋆☆⋆ ─────────

sitting on the bench, I watched as the basketball team was practicing since they have a game against RSA if a few weeks, so every practice is needed. I watched as Ace passed the ball to Jamil then Jamil passing to Floyd which made the basket. I smiled seeing them work together for once. They always fought when passing the ball or trying to make a basket which results in Vargas to yell at them.

They finally found their own rhythm to work with each other and also keep their cool when one of the other doesn’t do what they planned right. After the whistle got blown, insinuating that practice was officially over.

“Great job, everyone! I’ll see all of you on Thursday at 3:40”

Vargas smiled before grabbing his things and leaving the gym. Right after he left, Floyd turned around before jogging over to me with a big smile on his face. “Shrimpy!! You came to watch us today!!” “I did! I finally had the time to” I smiled as floyd hugged me tightly, feeling his sweaty body against mine as floyd kissed my head. “Glad to hear you were free” Jamil came up to us as he had a smile on his face as he pushed some of my hair out of my face.

“Must’ve been hard to get grim off you” Ace said as he sat next to me, pulling me into a side hug as he smiled down at me. “Not really, I just gave him a lot of food and he passed out right after, so he’s just sleeping now” “shrimpy! Did you see how cool I was out there? Way better than these two” “huh!? I beg to differ! I was way better than you two” “all of you are wrong, I was obviously better”. Soon enough the three started to semi-argue about who was better. I couldn’t help but stare at them watching the sweat drip down their neck onto their chest, into their basketball jerseys.

As the three of them kept “arguing”, each of them would take their jersey and wipe their foreheads or neck, revealing each of their toned abs. “Y/N!” “I’m sorry? What?” “You airhead, I asked which one of us was better?” “Hey! Don’t call me an airhead! That’s not a nice way to talk to your girlfriend and besides I have a better way to settle this” “ehhh?? What is it Shrimpy? Better not be boring or I’ll get mad” “what do you have in mind, honey?” Jamil asked, giving me a questioning look.

“well, have you ever tried or considering this way?”

────── ⋆☆⋆

I felt myself letting out whimpers and moans as I felt Floyd thrust at a decent pace inside my hole. “Oh, fuck..!” I moaned as I gripped the bleacher seat. I was on my knees facing into the bleachers as I looked over to my side to see Ace and Jamil coming back from closing the gym door and soon went to my bag to look for a condom in my wallet.

“Eh? Look at this Jamil, I think our girl was planning this, not only did she have condoms in her bag but her pink fuzzy handcuffs we got her”

“My my, I didn’t know she was this horny, bringing stuff that’s for the bedroom only”

“She was begging for this I bet, she’s so needy”

Floyd chuckled after he said that, he had a huge smirk before leaning over to grab the fuzzy handcuffs and soon opening them as he puts one of the cuffs on his wrist and the other on the girl’s wrist so when he pulls his arm, she’s restrained a bit. “Shrimpy’s making a mess all over the bleachers, it’s everywhere” Floyd just chuckled more as he kept thrusting faster into her.

“Floyd, move, im going to be under her to take her pussy” Jamil smirked a bit before ripping the condom open. “Uh who said you’re taking her pussy?!” “Me, because I grabbed the last condom in her bag”. Jamil looked back over as Floyd pulled his arm that had the handcuffs which brought Y/N back with him, but not roughly, enough to make her pull with him. Jamil slide right under her before nodding that he was good. Floyd soon pushed Y/N back to her original position which had her toppled on Jamil.

Jamil bit his lip before sliding his cock into her pussy making her moan out loudly as she took her free hand and placed it on his shoulder to steady herself. “God she’s so fucking tight, I might just bust a but right now” Jamil soon bucked his hips before thrusting into her pussy at a decent pace. Y/N but her lip as she closed her eyes feeling herself get lost in the pleasure before feeling a hand grab her chin and make her look at them.

Ace smirked before he let go of her face and pulled his pants down, revealing his hard cock that sprung out of his pants. “Wanna help me out, baby?” “mmm yes..”. Y/N soon took Ace into her mouth as she sucked and bobbed her head lightly causing Ace to moan out softly. Ace ran a hand through his girl’s hair before tugging on it gently to mover her head at a fast pace.

“Also, Y/N, don’t think this is just it, baby, we’re all getting started, right guys?”

“You know it”

“Mhm..”

[kradogsrats]

I am Near, I am Here: Rayla, the Moon, and Love as Presence

I was originally going to add this to @raayllum's post about Rayla's lullaby and Ethari but then the number of screenshots I was taking before I even started to write indicated that it had gotten out of hand.

Rayla's lullaby ties in with a lot of stuff going on in s6, most of them related to her relationship with Callum, which has its last barriers broken down and leaves their bond stronger than ever. Surely so strong that nothing in s7 could possibly challenge it. Most of Rayla's life has been defined by absence—the absence of her parents, her own forced absence from her community, her chosen absence from Callum. The lullaby, however, affirms that even when the moon appears to be absent, it is still there, and has been all along.

This is an interesting facet of the Moon arcanum, which is usually focused on certain dualities—life and death, reality and illusion, presence and absence—but also on the permeable borders between them, on change and cycles between those states.

We also actually have a window into Rayla's own understanding of the Moon arcanum—her first transformation into Moonshadow form in Bloodmoon Huntress. Look, just... bear with me, okay?

It's explicit that not all Moonshadow elves can achieve Moonshadow form, and that for most it takes months or years of meditation and training. I read this as that, while Moonshadow elves are born with an innate connection to the Moon primal, attaining Moonshadow form requires developing a deeper understanding of its arcanum. Runaan describes it as being about the balance of life and death:

Rayla can't reach Runaan's understanding of the Moon arcanum, which is somewhat hilariously about recognizing yourself in your enemy (something Rayla winds up being very good at) and understanding why you have to kill them, anyway (something Rayla winds up being very bad at).

What does work for her to achieve Moonshadow form at a terrifyingly young age is focusing on her wingaling, and a statement from Ethari:

Both are about love as being present—something Rayla is conflicted about in her parents' absence. The wingaling represents a promise that Ethari and Runaan will always come for her when she's in need. Ethari's statement is originally made in the context of explaining that Runaan's devotion to his people may require him to make great sacrifices, but that devotion can also be the smallest act of presence, and both are necessary. Her understanding of the Moon arcanum is about that presence—the moon that is always there, even at times when there is no light.

As Rayla is struggles with why her parents Runaan leaves those he loves to risk his life for others, Ethari explains that he and Runaan both know he may never come back, and that is something Ethari has to accept because Runaan can't be separated from that devotion and duty when it comes to loving him. What's missing from the conversation is acknowledgement of the trust and commitment that underpins that acceptance—Ethari's trust that Runaan will come back, and Runaan's commitment to do so.

The moon is there even when it has waned to invisibility, but it goes unstated that it also always waxes back to full. You can trust that it's there when it can't be seen, and you can trust that its light is coming back. You can trust that it's there when it can't be seen because you can trust that its light is coming back.

I am near, the lullaby says. I will be with you again soon. Until then, remember that my love is always here.

That's an understanding that Rayla crucially doesn't have when she leaves. In Dear Callum, she never once promises or even suggests to Callum that she will come back to him, even if she finds Viren. The closest she gets is the lukewarm:

I wish I could say that we will see each other again, but I don’t know if we will. I hope so.

So not only is she shattering the trust Callum had in her by abandoning him after she told him they would stay together, she won't even offer any real reassurance that she will return. Because she doesn't really think she will. Her only commitment to keep him safe, and as long as being separated accomplishes that, she will stay away. How is he supposed to accept that? What reason could he ever have to believe that she and her love are there, even when out of sight?

And yes, all of this does stem from things she learned from Runaan—Mr. "I do what I must so those I love don't have to"—but the key difference is that when push comes to shove, Runaan understands something else:

The same thing that Tiadrin and Lain did:

And that Amaya does:

That love is ultimately strengthened through presence, and through presence it strengthens us, in turn. When we open ourselves to strengthen those we love and trust them to strengthen us, then our love cannot be diminished by distance or absence.

Somewhere between Bloodmoon Huntress and s1, Rayla loses sight of that, and she doesn't rediscover it until confronted by Amaya over how her leaving harmed Callum—and how it harmed Rayla herself. Amaya isn't the first to tell her how she hurt Callum, but she's the first one to really convey to Rayla that keeping her secrets and burdens from Callum isn't sparing him from their weight and pain, only weakening her. It has always weakened her. Until she turns that around, she is denying both of them their best selves—her as the light that will bring him out of any darkness, him as the anchor that will bring her home from any distance.

The end of s6 beautifully shows the culmination of all Rayla has learned in the slow return of her relationship with Callum, and to top it off, she gets to demonstrate it to Runaan. (Since Callum already knows.)

Trapped in the In-Between, Runaan is consumed by guilt and self-loathing—he fights Rayla's attempts to guide him back to life because he doesn't believe he deserves to go back. He's too ashamed to want to go back. The way Rayla brings him back is twofold:

She reminds him of his promise to Ethari—his promise to return. She made no promise to return to Callum when she left. She probably wanted to, but she believed that the sacrifices that might be demanded of her would be more important. It would at least be out of the question to return before finding Viren, but in the end that's what she does—she returns to Callum, even though she must do it defeated, ashamed, and alone.

She also tells him that she needs him. She needs her father. She's weaker with him not there for her. When she left Callum, she genuinely believed that things would be better that way. He'd be better off safely away from whatever danger her search brought her, and making sacrifices for the people she loves—taking on difficulty and danger alone, so they don't have to—has always been her duty. She's spent three seasons re-learning the strength she has with Callum, now it's time for her to do the same with Runaan.

Rayla is very different now than she was the last time they met, and Runaan—like Callum—is going to finally see the truth of her: that she was never meant to be an assassin, but not because of failure or weakness. She was always meant to be a hero.

[on-a-lucky-tide]

Want my prompt to shake the table a bit, see a pairing that I almost never see alone:

Ghost/Gaz. Something sweet, something feral; a nice mixture. Your call but I trust your judgment.

Gaz tries to give Ghost what he asked for but it's too much.

cw: failed scene, Dom drop.

"You sick bastard, by the time I'm done with you, you'll be wanting to tell me everything," Gaz murmured close to Ghost's mask, circling the end of the riding crop around one pale nipple. It pebbled eagerly, a flurry of goosebumps running over Ghost's shoulders as he watched Gaz sneer. "I'll need a gag to shut you up."

Ghost hummed low in his throat and spread his knees out, testing the rope cuffs securing his wrists behind the chair. His cock strained against the confines of his keks and he wanted nothing more than to feed it between those pretty lips. Gaz was in control through, which set Ghost's fuckin' blood on fire.

The first strike stung. A firm lash across his chest that caught a nipple. His head fell back and he grunted, eyes fluttering as the welt prickled and throbbed in the aftermath. A second fell right next to the first, precise, measured, and Ghost's mouth fell open under the mask; the third punched a low groan, his shoulders rolling, wrists straining against the rope.

There wasn't a fourth.

Ghost looked up, examining Gaz through lidded eyes. It took him a moment to surface through the fog in his head created by sting of the riding crop, but when he did, the pinched expression on Gaz's face set his teeth on edge.

"Sir," Ghost tried. Nothing. He kicked his boot against the floor to get Gaz's attention before the pit opening in his head swallowed him whole. "Kyle, colour."

Gaz blinked. "Huh?" He looked washed out, hollow, his eyes distant. The crop dangled in one hand, his shoulders hunched.

"'m red, we're done," Ghost said.

"Shit, was it... Did I do something wrong? Si, I'm sorry, I..."

"Ya gonna untie me before I pop my bleedin' thumbs to get out?"

"Don't do that, you crazy arsehole," Gaz cast the crop aside and ran around the back, picking the knot open until it fell away. Ghost heard him hiss, and then in the next moment his fingertips were stroking the friction burns around Ghost's wrists. "Fuck, shit, look at... I'll get the... I'll get the stuff."

Ghost watched him scuttle over to the chest of drawers at the far wall and find the Savlon. It was a nice chest of drawers. Not like the IKEA shit in Ghost's gaff, but one of those oak numbers from Oak Furnitureland. Ghost had half expected Gaz to still live at home, to have to shove a t-shirt in his mouth as they fumbled in his childhood bed with Thomas the Tank Engine bedsheets.

But, like in many things, Gaz had surprised him. The flat was tidy. Nice little bolt hole in northern Kent where he was just close enough to visit his parents in London, but just far outside enough to be able to afford to eat when he was on leave. Ghost didn't miss the sergeant's salary.

Gaz approached tentatively. "Give me your wrists," he said, trying for the commanding tone he has used in the scene, that he used so effortlessly in the field, but missing the mark. His voice wavered and that pinched expression was still on his face.

Ghost patted two hands on his lap, drawing his knees together enough to create a platform, and then opened his hands. Gaz didn't need a second invite and sank gratefully onto Ghost's thighs, his own either side. "Wrists," he insisted, and Ghost lifted them up for inspection.

"Gonna tell me what happened?"

"It's nothing," Gaz said, squeezing out a little bit of cream onto his forefinger and then carefully rubbing it against the burn. Ghost knew this part of it was important. Gaz cared. He cared a lot, fuck knows why. Ghost didn't pretend to understand how his mind worked; Gaz was good, you know, proper, and rather than try to dissect that and risk driving it off, Ghost has decided to throw himself heart first into earning it.

"We won't be goin' anywhere 'til you do."

"Oh yeah? What if I kick you out on your arse?"

"I'd climb back in the window."

'We're on the seventh floor."

"Yeah."

"Fuckin' nutcase," Gaz breathed through a chuckle, and then moved to Ghost's second wrist. "I'm sorry, alright? I'm sorry I couldn't... I couldn't give you what you needed."

"What did I need?"

Gaz fixed him with a quizzical look and Ghost gazed back placidly. "You needed me to beat you, right? Like I would in a fucking interrogation." There it was. Ghost could feel the sharp edge of it, like running his fingers over a soft blanket and finding a razor sticking out of it; the hurt biting into Gaz's skin.

"Ya didn't hurt me, Kyle."

"Yeah? Wos all this then?" He gestured at Ghost's wrists, his chest, pressing his lips together.

"Pleasure."

"What?"

"Told ya when we started. I like it, makes me feel good, makes the next part when I fuck ya even better."

Gaz got that sheepish look on his face and Ghost knew if he kissed him, Gaz's cheeks would be warm beneath his lips.

"I'm sorry, it... It was too much like... Look, I can do better next time, I can get my head on right, and.."

Ghost hummed, hooking a thumb beneath his bally to pull it off. Gaz's pupils blew wide. Ghost liked that, the way Gaz looked at his unmasked face; with want and affection. He took Gaz's chin and pulled him down for a kiss, teasing his lips open, keeping it gentle. He scooped a hand behind Kyle's arse and scooted him forward until the warm seat of his sweats sat over the hard bulge in the front of Ghost's belted combats. He needed to feel; to be grounded in the reality, rather than the fiction he'd created in his head, of what he'd done.

Gaz moaned softly into Ghost's mouth, a muffled 'Simon' tried to slip out, his hands splaying on Ghost's chest, trapping the cold tin of the tube against his skin. When Ghost drew away, still with one arm to keep Gaz against him, he tilted his head. "There are plenty more ways ya can make me beg."

Gaz rolled his lower lip between his teeth, one eyebrow raised. "I thought you liked the pain..."

"I like to be pushed to my limits. Pain's the easiest way."

"Yeah, looks it..." Gaz said dryly, eyeing the reddened stripes on Ghost's pale chest. He stroked down the edge of one with his fingertips, grimacing. "Alright. What are the other ways? Not gonna lie, Si. It wasn't doing much for me."

"Ya could shove a big vibrator up my arse and edge me 'til I cry."

Gaz choked on air. "What?"

He liked it though. The sound of it. His hips gave a little twitch, the first squirm of arousal.

"Ya could make me do push ups until I can't, then punish me by not letting me cum 'til I beg you."

Oh, he really liked that. Ghost's eyes dropped to Gaz's lap, head tilted, to admire the curve of his cock pushing through the grey flannel. "What else?" Gaz asked, his voice low.

"I could warm ya prick while ya watch footie. Cuff me so I can't touch myself, maybe put a remote control vibrator in my arse."

Gaz licked his lips. "Yeah, I... I like these ones better."

"Soft touch."

"Ah, fuck off, mate. I..." Gaz sighed, running a hand through Ghost's scruff of blonde hair. "I want to make you feel good, I do, but the whip just feels like I'm bringing work into our bedroom. Makes me feel sick, you know?"

"Thanks," Ghost said, "for tellin' me. I wouldn't have been as brave."

Gaz studied him for a long moment, his thumb brushing over the faint lines at the corner of his eye, then down the knife scarring over his jaw and lip. "You sure it's not the pain you want, Si? Don't lie to me."

Ghost considered his answer carefully. "I like it. But I don't need it. I need you," he said. "No point in it if ya in your head when we fuck after. I ain't selfish, Kyle. Not with shit like this."

He was selfish in other ways. Hoarding Kyle's time on leave for one. He knew, realistically, he had to go and see his mum tomorrow or face her wrath, but that didn't stop Ghost resenting the absence slightly. Their time was precious, finite. Ghost didn't like sharing.

His answer appeared to appease Gaz, who sat back to smooth some more Savlon over the welts on Ghost's chest. While he worked, Ghost's hands wandered, the one behind slid into the crease between his legs to find the heavy, warm weight of his balls, while the other caressed over his abdomen, backs of his fingers playing in the soft trail of hair down the middle. "Oi, let me finish before you get handsy," Gaz grunted.

"No." Ghost went to Gaz's chest and thumbed over a nipple, savouring the gasp like the first sip of bourbon after a long op. It didn't take him long to get Gaz hard, ignoring his protests when he stood and carried him to the bed, pushing those sweats off to the floor so he was gloriously naked against his crisp sheets.

Ghost sat up, spreading his knees open between Gaz's legs, leaving him on display to be admired. Gaz knew how good looking he was, with his sculpted arms above his head, his body chiselled from bloody marble, his Hollywood good looks, his perfect cock arched up from groomed pubic hair, and the perfect furl of his hole. He writhed, twitching his hips up in needy little thrusts as he basked in his arousal. "Hng, Si," Gaz moaned, lower lip rolling between his teeth.

"You fockin' tease," Ghost growled, undoing his belt with one hand and whipping it out as he popped his fly with the other. He got his keks halfway down his thighs before he leaned forward and sank into a kiss, hands stroking up Gaz's biceps to lace their fingers together.

They'd fuck all afternoon, like they always did in the first few days of leave; hot, heavy, frantic, sometimes tender. They would emerge later to eat and play FIFA on Gaz's PS4 with some beers, before falling asleep in a heap on the sofa. In the morning, it would be the gym, then some bedroom cardio, before mooching about a local town, back to the bedroom, rinse and repeat. Boring for some, maybe. It was the first time in Ghost's life he'd ever looked forward to his annual leave.

[fuck-customers]

This was a couple of decades ago when I worked in sales, let’s say for an electronics company or appliance company or something similar to that. We had an older gentleman come in and he wanted to buy some high end stuff and quite a bit of it, so we were more than willing to help him out. Things started getting out of hand with him pretty quickly though. He was starting to demand that during the delivery and installation we would do stuff above and beyond what we could do because what he was asking for was against corporate policy. When we started to explain some of this to him he was all “You don’t know who I am, do you?” and he started to tell us that he used to be the ceo of a global company that I’ll leave unnamed. Think something big like energy, tech, or media. A company that has products in almost every household. He was telling us how corporate policies are all about lawyers and accountants and he doesn’t give a damn about that kind of stuff. If anything went wrong he wouldn’t hold anyone accountable and we could take him for his word. He said he used to make multimillion dollar deals on the golf course or over dinner with nothing more than handshakes and promises of phone calls over the next week to further hash things out.

We all thought this man was full of shit but he was willing to spend a lot of money, so we just let him keep on talking while we figured out ways to talk him down from his unrealistic expectations. It felt like a hostage negotiation. From time to time he would go on tangents and give us his “insider knowledge” about this company or that. It was all far from insider knowledge. It was everyday stuff that could easily be learned by reading Forbes or The Wall Street Journal.

I was the main salesperson and his first point of contact so I talked to him the most. He talked foul and looked completely disheveled. Everything about him and the whole interaction was the exact opposite of the types of corporate businessmen I was used to dealing with. I was starting to think we were getting conned. After about two long and painful hours the sale was completed and payments went through, much to my surprise. While a lot of equipment needed to be delivered, I volunteered to load the stuff we had on hand into his car. When we got out to the parking lot I saw that his car was a busted up and rusted out relic from the mid ‘80s. I thought that there was no way an ex-ceo of a global company would be driving something so crappy. I was convinced that he was just taking us for a ride for God know’s what reason.

When I got home from work that night I googled his name. Lo and behold there he was with photographs and articles. Tons of them. Not only was he who he said he was, he actually downplayed his career. I printed out some of the articles to take into work the next day. My boss, my coworkers, and I went over them, just dumb struck. We just couldn’t believe it. This complete asshole was exactly who he said he was. We ended up calling the installers to give them a heads up and warn them that they were probably be going to deal with one of the most difficult customers they’d see that year.

We never saw him again. On the one hand we were happy because none of us wanted to deal with him again. On the other hand we were kind of disappointed. He spent money without even trying.

I believed he was who he said he was before you said you looked him up.

The really rich people (worth billions) will drive a thirty year old car, wear clothes decades out of date, and expect a lot of things "extra" on everything they do buy. That's how they stay rich. The CEO of our company is still using a flip phone and came to our meeting (when I was still in corporate) in jeans and a t-shirt. And that dude is worth billions.

The showoff's (flashy car, new phone/bag/shoes) either are millionaires that will not be rich their whole life. Or celebrities/influencer's that need to have that image of wealth.

At least that's my experience in retail corporate and working security for the mouse.

-Rodney

[tr4gictea]

Smoker Trail [Aizawa+Smoker!Teen!Reader]

❥Masterlist

Tags: Underage smoking, angst to comfort, implied domestic abuse, Dadzawa

Including: Shota Aizawa, mention of Katsuki Bakugo

word count: 1.3k words

A/n: Im really getting into MHA rn and I will be doing a lot of that now so if you have any request for My Hero, send a request pleaseeee. Enjoy <3

You were standing on the rooftop of the U.A. dorms, leaning against the railing with a lit cigarette between your fingers. You blew out smoke into the night air blissfully unaware of your surroundings. The rest of the class was asleep in their rooms, none would be awake to see you. Suddenly the roof door opens, mid inhale, to reveal your teacher, Mr. Aizawa. You quickly flick the cigarette off the roof and cough the smoke into your jacket.

He turns towards you, “Y/n? Kid, what are you doing up so late?” he says raising an eyebrow.

Fuck, he has awful timing. You were scared by his sudden appearance that the smoke got caught in your throat. “Hi Mr. Aizawa, cough, I was just-, coUGH-, out here for uh, breather, COUGH, COUGH.” You wave him over, trying to play it off as if you just needed some space. But the residual smoke in your lungs made it hard to breathe.

He sighed, shaking his head disappointed. He’s seen this happen before, too many times with students to believe your words. He walks closer to you, still keeping a distance from you.

“Don’t give me that ‘breath of fresh air crap’. Why are you out here? Really?”

“I told you I came out here for some quiet,” You tried to redirect the conversation, “Bakugo was yelling at me for what happened this morning during training.” You say rolling your eyes at the memory. You recall the scruffy blonde yelling at you after a training incident. You were told to destroy your assigned training dummies. But that objective went out the window when you decided to use a new special move you came up with and accidentally knocked out all of yours and Bakugo’smachines in one go.

“Trust me if I didn't take a breather out here, we would be in Principle Nezu's office right now for fighting and property damage,” you said chuckling.

He sighed, looking back at you. "I'm sorry to hear that. Bakugo is hotheaded and I’ll talk to him about it afterward.. But you're not supposed to be out here. It's 1:56 am and you have to get up early in the morning for school."

“Yeah I know, well I should be heading to bed then…” This conversation has gone on for more than you would like, so it's time for you to roll up outta here! “Well, goodnight Mr. Aizawa I will see you in class tomorrow!” You start walking towards the door to leave, “I hope you have a good night and-”

Aizawa stops you by your shoulder, preventing you from leaving. “Hold it kid, you can't pull crap like that on me. Sit back down.” He says gesturing to a metal box next to him

Shit.

You sit your ass back down. You didn’t need to look up at his face to know that he was less than displeased with you. His eyes were practically burning into your head. You haven't seen this side of Aizawa before, and it was scary.

“Now, give me the pack.” he holds his hand out in front of you.

“What do you mean? Mr. Aizawa I-” You try to defend yourself but he cut you off not letting you speak.

“Stop talking hand them over.” You're caught, and you know it. “You're on thin ice kid,”

You fumble threw your pocket trying to find the box, you just finished the pack that night so you weren't worried about losing it. But what did make you worried was the look on Mr. Aizawa's disappointed glare was bad enough as you placed the red box into your teacher's hand.

He takes the box in his hand and places it in his pocket. He moves to lean back on the railing as he looks at you. “Y/n, you know we don’t tolerate this stuff here. I understand training can be tough but you can’t be pulling crap like this.”

“I know,” I say lowering my gaze.

“How long were you even out here?” He questions.

I recall the actions that led me here in my head: Well, I came out here after Bakugo and I had a screaming match, and that was at 10 I think… “Since 10 probably,”

“10...” He groaned and rubbed his nose. “Okay, okay, how do you get your hands on these?”

“I found them..” You lie through your teeth.

“You found them? Hm, you just found cigarettes lying around?” He questions unconvinced by your answer. “Seriously Y/n you’re not gonna get into any more trouble by being honest with me right now. Spill.”

“Well… I'm not lying, I did find them.” You admit shifting uncomfortably in your seat, “They're from my family... they leave the packs lying around and I just steal them when they're not looking.”

Aizawa was beginning to get rather annoyed. He was tired, as were most of the staff, and finding a student on the roof smoking was just the cherry on top. “You know that smoking on campus grounds is punishable by expulsion?” He stated, crossing his arms. A look of fear shot into your eyes. Expulsion?! "And if said family found out you were expelled for this, where would that leave you?"

“I…” you take a moment to think about how angry your father would be if he found out. You don't know what would be worse: if he found out about the stolen cigarettes or the fact that they got you expelled from the top hero school. “Well, I don’t know…”

“You don’t know…” He sounded angry, maybe a little concerned. An awkward silence fell over the two of you until Aizawa spoke again. “Listen, kid, your lucky it was me who found you. Any other teacher would have reported you on the spot. But, I for one, don’t think its fair for a student’s future to fall apart after one mistake. So, I'm giving you one chance to get clean.”

You look up at him with hopeful eyes, “Really?”

“Yeah, you’ve got potential as a hero and a good heart. I’d hate to see it go down the drain. You got one chance to do better or I won't help you the next time you get caught.” After a brief moment of silence, he speaks up again.

“You’ve got a good head on your shoulders kid, use it.”

By this time tears have been threatening to spill from your eyes. You have been feeling so many emotions at one time. You can’t help yourself as you dive to hug Mr. Aizawa.

He jumps a little, taken aback by the sudden affection. “T-thank you Mr. Aizawa,” You're now sobbing into his black shirt as relief washes over you.

He places one arm around you and the other on your head, gently patting it. “Don’t mention it kid..” You both just stay like that for a little bit, him holding you while petting your head. Whilst you calm yourself down. You pull yourself away from the hug wiping your tears, “Seriously though, don’t mention it. This could get both of us kicked out of U.A.” His tone turned more serious.

You let out a little giggle at the sudden change in tone, “Of course Sensei.”

He hums in response, “Tonight I expect you to hand me over any extra pack of these,” he says while tapping the cigarette box in his pocket, “And tomorrow we are going to recovery girl to help heal some of the damage done to your lungs. She owes me a favor so she’ll be discrete about it.”

You nod, “And from now on you have to be on your best behavior and not lie to me anymore, alright?”

“Yes, Sensei,”

“Alright, get back to your room and hand me over any extra packs, and then go to bed. You’ve already lost enough sleep as it is.”

More MHA/BHNA Stories *ੈ✩‧₊˚

https://www.tumblr.com/tr4gictea/756555235100704768/masterlist?source=share

More Aizawa Stories ೃ⁀➷ https://www.tumblr.com/tr4gictea/766187185887215616/class-1a-extras?source=share

I would like to apologize to you guys because links are not working at all for me right now and I'm trying to fix whatever is going on. The best I can do for right now is just regular links. Again so sorry for the trouble. 🙏

REMEMBER TO SMASH THAT LIKE BUTTON, OBLITERATE THAT FOLLOW BUTTON AND, REQUEST FOR A SHOUT-OUT IN MY NEXT VIDEO 🗣🗣🗣🔥🔥🔥

[eponymous-rose]

Monday!

It's been a while since I've done one of these week-in-the-life posts (and I LOVE reading them from others), and it's a particularly stressful week where I'm trying to stay off social media for Reasons, so hey, let's do this again!

It's a busy day, but it starts relatively late - I don't have to leave for the office until 10AM. So, you may ask, why on earth do I set my alarm for 8:30? Is it because I have an elaborate morning routine? Is it so I can hit the gym and go for a jog? No, no, no, it's because I have a little cat who takes the alarm as her cue to cuddle and I don't want to disappoint her, so I inevitably spend half an hour hugging her like a purring teddy bear first thing in the morning before I get up.

I respond to some e-mails as I get ready and on the bus ride over - mostly prep for our department's holiday party (I'm in the band and we're trying to get as much practice in as possible), but also a little work getting supercomputer access restored for an undergrad research assistant, offering to write a letter of recommendation so my colleague doesn't have to (we both know the student well and said colleague is traveling across the country for a funeral on a redeye flight tonight...), reworking some elements of the rubric for the faculty search committee I'm on, and confirming a meeting with my grad student.

10:45 - I get to the office and go to make my usual mug of tea... and realize in the moment I close my office door that the keys are still inside. I get the hot water from the lounge and meander by the office, but nobody's there. Just as I'm about to work up the nerve to go interrupt a more senior professor's meeting to borrow his keys, one of the office staff walks by and is happy to open the door for me, phew.

11:00 - My most senior grad student is doing an internship in Colorado this quarter (it's the location he most wants to do a postdoc at as well!), and we've set up a call to catch up after a few weeks without chatting. It's a bit of an awkward chat because he wants to go to his second conference in two months, and I had to bring out the "well, um, this is a side project you're doing with someone else's research group and you may want to check with them about where the $2000+ for conference costs is coming from". I possibly have an avenue - I might ask him to just attend for a couple of days instead of the whole time, so I can use some funding from a different grant, but I'm hoping we can get some cost-sharing going here, or possibly the other professor he's working with can present his poster for him if need be. Still, his work's going great and I'm hoping we can get him to this conference! He finishes his PhD this year, and I can attest to how helpful conferences are for landing postdocs.

12:00 - Speaking of grants, I had a successful grant come through late last summer to study wildfire smoke dynamics with novel instrumentation (something new to me!), and the whole team is meeting up for the first time to talk logistics! I also have to teach real soon, so I'm only on for the first chunk of the call, but we get some of the plan set up. Looks like we'll be meeting at a NASA facility early next year to do some siting stuff prior to the first controlled burn. I genuinely have no idea what I'm doing on this project, apart from being willing to write a big chunk of the proposal, but it's a good time!

12:30 - Class time! This is my domain-specific intro-to-python class that I developed 5 years ago and have been iterating on ever since. It's going a lot smoother this week than last, and the students are pretty responsive to my jokes (priority #1, lbr) and seem to be following along quite well, judging by the handful of questions I get after class. Not a ton of technical issues today, either, which is a HUGE win over last week.

1:30 - Forecasting time! I'm once again part of our university team in a giant forecasting contest. While I'm decidedly average at it (usually around 250th out of 1000 participants), my grad student was #1 for a while there. We chat in broad terms about the next week of weather in our targeted forecasting region.

2:30 - Meeting with another graduate student! We talk about some of the researchers he reached out to after his first conference a couple weeks ago, and we're starting to narrow down a possible author list for his first paper. He's working on writing up the methods and data for that paper while he incorporates a few new datasets into his preestablished workflow. He's been doing really well! Being a dual-major in CS means his code is a heckuva lot more organized than most second-year grad students I've had.

3:30 - ...nothing??? I've decided to skip my usual seminar and postpone one undergraduate student research meeting this afternoon (the one currently locked out of the supercomputer he needs for his project) since I have a couple of grant proposals due very shortly. I head out to grab some teriyaki to bring back to my office for lunch/dinner, but the restaurant just has a big sign out front saying "closed for FIRE" so I opt to go across the street for some chicken katsu and boba tea instead. I approve the final budget (coming up on a million dollars, no pressure) and keep plugging away at the statement of work (which is basically "what are you going to do, in detail, with one million dollars over the next three years? please tell us in exactly 15 pages, not counting your 3-page bibliography and 6 appendices"). I even find a perfect paper to reference to discuss one of our theories! We've made it through one round of reviews with our pre-proposal, and man, we'd love to do this project - it would be myself, a colleague, and a postdoc looking at some really novel stuff in severe storm predictability over the next three years. I also get a little work done on the invited talk I'm giving to a student journal club tomorrow, and work on some more e-mails (trying to set up a meeting with a friend's graduate student to help her out with some methods she's using from an older paper of mine).

5:15 - One of my colleagues has retired this year and has a farewell song he wants to sing at our holiday party, which happens to be mostly voice & piano, so we agree to meet up before the main practice and go over it a couple times before the rest of the band shows up and he has to head out to dinner. I'm really sorry to see him leaving (although I know he's delighted to get to spend more time with his kids and grandkids) - he and his wife were extremely welcoming when I started here, and were so kind and supportive when Mom died. Just very touched that he reached out to me to play piano on this one. Tragically, though, whoever was supposed to bring in the keyboard hasn't left it in the practice room, so we'll have to wait and run through it with the rest of the band on Thursday. Instead, it's back to the office to get caught up on e-mail and try to slog through more of the grant application (all today's research and work has netted me... 1 page of writing, blah).

6:00 - The rest of the band shows up! We run three songs of our eight-song setlist, and I'm somehow now playing on 4/8 of them, despite there being five people signed up for keys. It's a good time, though!

8:00 - I make it home and give Clara a bunch of new toys that have arrived with her prescription food (one of which she licks for 15 minutes straight). Luckily, tomorrow's work schedule is much more chill!

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s5 episode 1 thoughts

bouncing. bouncing up and down. off of the walls. this episode was SO good. thank you. everyone say thank you, chris carter. thank you for fainting scully, tomato lover scully, doctor scully, crying mulder, plotting mulder, breaking and entering mulder, and for skinner in general.

but back to who i was before yesterday... allow us to return to past juni.

it’s been 800 years… (and by that i mean a week and 2 days have passed since i last watched an episode)

we left off in a pretty… precarious position. so i’m interested to see where things go from here. and hopefully they will be less stressful.

but i’m so happy to be back! i swear once i finish this show i’ll have to quit my job. there will be nothing to get me through LMAO.

it sounds like mulder is going to do some breaking and entering… again, fork spotted in kitchen

how the HELL did he fake his own death… this is giving sherlock!!

god, hearing her voice trembling again as she talks about identifying his body… i did not need to relive this pain!!

so we go back to him crying and watching alien stuff on his couch the night before her big meeting

“an act of faith began with an ineloquent certainty that my journey promised the chance not just of understanding, but of recovery” <- oh… so he admits to the whole thing being about healing…

and he says that he hoped finding the truth would reunite him with his sister, which i KNOW he was thinking all along, but hearing him SAY IT is still devastating; the way he never actually said it aloud before was very impactful, and so is his decision to break that vow of silence

“a belief which i now know to be false and uninformed in the extreme” <- NOOO please do not give up my king… i do not entirely believe this kritshcgau fool

he’s sobbing. he's so pretty when he sobs even if it is sad.

“my folly revealed by facts which illuminate both my arrogance and self-deception” <- oh no… i wanted him to Realize he was being Like That... but not in this way…

so he picks up the gun, saying it would be easier to end this journey if the pain had just been his own… and oh my god......

but then the phone rings… and it’s kritshcgau? he’s trying to explain that he might have been followed after leaving his apartment, but mulder does not give a FUCK LMAO

he wants to know who this man is and if they really gave scully cancer because of him. understandable.

he’s looking around for bugs in his room as he is warned of what’s going on…. and he finds one on the ceiling!! and not the insect kind, the camera kind!!!

mulder finds someone upstairs watching him on camera and burning stuff, but then this mystery guy picks up his shotgun and shoots mulder??? maybe?? it’s hard to tell??? strategic cutoff??

(i assume it’s shotgun guy from before, but frankly i don’t remember what his face looked like, so. listen! a lot can happen in a week and two days)

ah, it feels so nice to be watching the intro again. nature is healing… and by nature i mean me.

scully gets home at midnight, checking her voicemail… she starts to get undressed for bed

“keep going, FBI woman” <- WHAT THE FUCK. 

IT’S MULDER??? she’s soooo GAGGED LMAOOO THE LOOK ON HER FACE???? i’m howling 

MULDER BABY YOU CANNOT JUST SAY THAT WHEN YOU BREAK INTO SOMEONE'S HOUSE. BAD BOY (sprays with water) (sprays with water) (sprays with-

“mulder? what are you doing? why are you sitting in my bedroom in the dark?” <- a VERY reasonable question!!!!

he says there’s a dead guy in his apartment. she’s had ENOUGH of his shenanigans, and he clarifies that he is NOT joking

he had been under surveillance for at least 2 months!!!!! that is freaky omggg… god only knows what they saw him doing

he says that he can’t talk to anyone at the bureau because this whole hoax leads back to the FBI!!!

HOLD ON PAUSE. WHY THE FUCK DOES SCULLY HAVE A POSTER OF DIFFERENT TOMATOES ON HER APARTMENT WALL. HOLD ON I’M FUCKING CRYING. STOP. THIS IS SO FUCKING FUNNY. oh my gooood. 

she saw a poster of tomatoes and said you know what? this would look FANTASTIC in my apartment. 

god, scully, you truly are the best character of all time. i had no idea you felt so strongly about the humble tomato. 

i cannot complain about anything else that happens in this episode, i’m out of breath from laughing. oh my god. this is gonna get me through so much. tomorrow i’m gonna go to work and a customer is gonna yell at me and i’m just gonna smile thinking about scully’s tomato poster.

i don’t even really remember what was happening. 

okay, right, so the guy whose apartment was above mulder’s, he was destroying records of himself calling the FBI. so who in the FBI was he calling?? and must it be the one who is behind all of this??

“i will not allow this treason to prosper- not if they’ve done this to you” he says <- OKAYYYY!!! protective man is in his protective mode 🔥 you truly do LOVE to see it. it’s almost as good as scully in doctor more but let’s be honest, nothing can ever beat that.

ohhh, he says they can lie back to them!!!! sneaky sneaky man... your fox-like nature is showing

so it was HIS IDEA to have her come and make the ID on his "body" even though it was false!!??

so she was ACTING in that meeting??? WAS SCULLY A THEATRE KID?? because she sold that for real!!!!

he’s going on about how he’s asking her to lie so they can find out who this enemy from within is….

scully runs into skinner after identifying the body, who asks if it’s true that mulder is really dead, and she lies, saying yes. he wants to know if she’s okay, and she pulls the “i don’t know what to say” card, which is entirely understandable.

he asks how she made the ID if he died from a shot to the head, so she says she saw him earlier that morning and he was wearing the same clothes. and there’s a look skinner has into the distance as he tries to determine how and why they would have seen each other before 6:30 am. like you could see the gears turning in his head as if he was saying omg, so they WERE together this whole time. it’s comical, in a way. 

which also leads me to wonder, well i’m no expert in these things, but if you know someone long enough, wouldn’t you recognize them even sans face? by body alone? 

he says he’s very sorry. and when she tries to leave he very sternly calls out “agent scully >:| section chief blah blah blah thinks you’re hiding stuff” (paraphrased obviously)

skinner looks SOOO suspicious of whatever she's plotting lmaooo. and he is right to be!

meanwhile, a very alive mulder is going to the department of defense to scout some advanced research using the dead guy’s ID!! ooooo high stakes, high stakes!!!! he's narrating that if they’re busted, they’re done for good!!

now scully is in the office with the section chief. and he’s talking about someone from the DOD giving her classified information. 

they ask her for information and she’s clearly hiding stuff…. but she identifies kritshcgau!!! omg i didn't think she was going to!!

uh oh… kritshcgau sees mulder in the DOD!! “hey! how’d you get in here?” “through the front door” <- lmao he can never be serious!!

kritshcgau tells mulder to come with him… is this a trap??? 

he’s gagged because that card gives mulder LEVEL FOUR CLEARANCE which i take is a BIG DEAL

yes, it is, because it would give him access to EVERYTHING!! even the thing he wants most of all… the cure for scully’s cancer!! you can see the tears forming in his eyes at the thought… oh man. ohhh mulder…

cancer man has burst into mulder’s apartment… now what are you doing here, you freak???

OHHHH he finds a photo of mulder and samantha on his desk when they were kids... ohhhh... my heart 😭😭😭😭😭

(there’s also some art on the wall of mulder's apartment that i can’t make the details out on. one piece seems to be some sort of pastoral scene with a sheep in it? and the other seems to be abstract. does anyone know what they are? i mean, it’s no tomato poster. but still)

CSM is actually crying seeing this photo and the blood he presumes to be mulder's on the carpet, and i don’t know if he feels genuine sadness or is just heartbroken his decades long alien colonization plan has been thwarted. honestly i do think he’s sad about mulder. he seemed to be in love with both mr. and mrs. mulder tbh, and that can do things to a guy. 

he finds the secret ceiling camera...

scully is in mulder’s office now, calling someone. she pulls out the phone number shotgun guy had been calling!! holly answers it and says she is so sorry to hear about what happened to mulder…. but scully has no time to talk about these things

who is this holly? how does she know scully? are they friends? i need the backstory.

scully… you are so beautiful…. holding this paper and calling holly on the phone, telling her when the calls were placed so she can track down who shotgun man called a million times…..

OH GOD!!! IT’S SKINNER’S EXTENSION!!!

scully looks devastated by this… but just as she begins to process it all, the scientist calls her back about the ice!! she has so much on her mind, please do not make her come look at some damn ice 😭

now, i do not believe that skinner is really behind all this. if he is involved at all, it is because he made that deal with CSM to try and save her... and maybe he was tricked, but he did NOT do it willingly!

kritshcgau and mulder are talking about level four, which apparently a place and not just a classification, and is home to medical facilities!! and vast quantities of DNA storage!! from every person who has ever given blood or tissue since ww2!!! 

damn that’s crazy. how tf would you even store all that?? it’s gotta be a warehouse.

he’s saying this is the hoax into which mulder was drawn…. the US fanned the flames of UFO stories to draw attention away from the whole “mutually assured destruction” thing, which, well, not sure how well that worked out 

OPPENHEIMER MENTIONED‼️him and that damn hat…

(actually still haven’t seen that movie btw. sorry i guess. idk. i’m busy)

KHRUSHCHEV APPEARS ‼️i love to see a familiar face from my textbooks in my TV programs. it's like a crossover event.

kritshcgau says the business of america isn’t business at all, it’s war. well yeah. that is true. and the cold war was an excuse to keep spending military money with no war. which i guess that sort of maybe tracks??

writing off korea and vietnam as just countries squaring off “a few times” is kinda crazy, but his point is: no one used the big bomb.

mulder asks what we are all thinking: what does this have to do with UFOs?

well, let kritshcgau tell you, son. after roswell, the more the government denied about UFOs, the more the public believed them, which was great timing for a country developing supersonic flight

oooo, he claims they almost got caught in korea, as they were accused of using germ warfare. but it’s nothing like what they have now, like what was used for the gulf war, developed in this very building! (said with a very dramatic flourish)

this is a lot of world building at a breakneck pace, and i don’t even know if i’m supposed to believe any of it. maybe some secret top percentage of the government thinks this is true, and the tiny syndicate knows it actually isn’t. that’s my best guess.

the abductions actually did happen, he clarifies, but not by aliens. hmm. a top secret project. well without aliens what's the point?

kritshcgau says it’s about DNA control. but for what purpose???

mulder asks, why make a whole fake alien body for all this then? and kritshcgau says because scully wouldn’t have been alive to disprove the alien body if their timing had been correct!!! so he would have believed it, then they could discredit him!

kritshcgau also says his son coming back sick from the gulf war is his retribution for going along with all of this, and he's thinking there’s a cure for him somewhere in there. well i think the whole gulf war disease and advanced cancer are very different. but maybe they both have secret cures?

off mulder goes, into level 4, taking one last look at kritshcgau, who is immediately apprehended by the DOD for questioning!!!! i feel that this will be the last we see of him.

cutscene to someone racing a horse?? is it bestie well groomed man?? and his many horses??

no!! it’s the department chair guy meeting with CSM!!! CSM is pissed that he didn’t know someone was watching mulder, but the chairman denies it.

he is even MORE pissed about being cut out of this project; “i CREATED mulder” <- okay so that is not putting out the “CSM is actually his father” allegations

chair guy says that mulder is dead

OHHH BUT CSM SAYS “i’ve never underestimated mulder. i still don’t” <- DAMN!!! that’s absolutely wild… i guess it’s important to know your opponent, and how willing they would be to fake their death, and if they could pull it off or not

(CSM angrily leaves)

back to scully at the ice core guy’s lab. and again, oh my god, she’s beautiful. no no no i don’t want to hear about fetal bovine serum. what the hell does that even mean. go back to her beautiful face.

he put the junk from the ice core in the serum... the cells were dividing… into somatic development?? the beginning of a life form. she looks shocked by this, but again. idk what that means!

bleugh, the ice core sample creature... it looks ugly…….

mulder’s snooping about the level 4 area, but the DOD people are behind him, and none of the doors have opened!!! he says that if they find the cure, it will mean for sure that he has believed in a lie from the start. well, i don’t think that’s true necessarily. i mean, the abduction thing could be from an alien-government collaboration, or aliens could still be out there, just not involved with this one thing, you know?

he picks a lock (okay!! crazy skyrim reference) and finds himself in a very dark room. and i am attracted to him. don't worry about it. anyway, whatever he sees seems to shock him???

cut to a TON of CGI aliens on cots LMAO WHAT???? just laying out n about 😭 it had to smell so bad in there… i imagine aliens smell very bad

now this alien closest to him has been lovingly crafted with practical effects, which is much better. so we can see his slime. that is not the part that is better, the slime visibility; its just that practical effects look more visually convincing in such a case

scully is narrating that she had no way to reach him and talk about their discovery of an unidentified life form. which is what happens when you fake your death and go in the secret medical facility of doom.

why is he TOUCHING the nasty alien body???? EUGH!!!!!!

scully is pondering if this thing she found in the serum could be the proof of an alien or the proof of a hoax… a lot of big questions for her to handle here 

he sees some flashing lights deep in the secret corridor, and follows it…. a whole lot of strobe light action going on in here. that stuff doesn't even bother me and i was like damn, that was a lot. i imagine it was much worse for the people who already have issues with bright lights.

she says that maybe this thing in the ice core sample is biologically connected to her cancer?? 

how does this connect to all of those half-alien, half-human people they found back in arizona??!!

beautiful man is looking through the window… 

OH MY GOD HE SEES A BUNCH OF WOMEN BEING SCANNED????? WITH BRIGHT FLASHING LIGHTS?? oh man.... WHAT IS GOING ON???? what are they DOING??

what did they call it before?? inducing mega ovulation?? yikes.

BLEUGH. i paused here as scully was getting blood drawn. i am woozy. how do they fake that for filming??

she needs a southern blot, btw. if that means anything to you. to compare that culture to her own DNA.

belaughhh. she needs the match before 7. he says we can’t do that.

“it’s got to happen. everything in my life depends on it” <- YOU TELL HIM!!!

he has no idea wtf that means but is taken aback by her seriousness

NOW WHY IS SKINNER WATCHING THIS????

OHHH SHE GOES OUT AND CONFRONTS HIM!! “is this more dirty work you’re doing for the DOD??” <- OHHHHH she is NOT HOLDING BACK

he says he has the tests from the body they found in mulder’s apartment on his desk; he knows it isn't him!!! and as she compounds the lies, she compounds the consequences!!!!

OHHHHH THAT WHOLE SCENE WAS SOOOOO JUICY I’M GONNA TEAR OUT MY HAAAAAIR

“all lies lead to the truth, isn’t that right?”

“and what about your lie, agent scully? what does it lead to?”

“the truth- about the men behind what happened to me, about my abduction and the tests, about being exposed to something against my will, about being put on a table and having something implanted in me and then having my memory stolen, only to have it returned along with a disease that i was given.” (ohh she was getting more and more furious as she said this and it was SO good)

“is that your justification? if that what you’re going to tell the joint panel tonight?”

“are you afraid of that?” <- OHHH her mocking and accusatory tone… i need it bottled

“well, considering the dead man in mulder’s apartment was murdered in cold blood and you willfully misidentified him, yes, i am afraid. but i’m only afraid for you” (<- and i do believe him, that he is scared to watch her proceed in this way, almost recklessly, even though it's calculated)

“you’re going to use that against me, aren’t you? you’re going to use me as i’ve been used all along- to preserve the lies”

“where is agent mulder?”

(she walks away)

WOOO baby, that scene was ACTING!! the tight closeups on their face was crazy, and it def could have backfired had they not been so freaking talented. every microexpression spoke a thousand words. i feel energized just watching it!!

jumping up and down. jumping up and down. we are sooooo back.

ohhh she goes into the lab herself to do the testing… in her lab coat… and her goggles… spinning the blood around… i’m faint…

meanwhile, mulder's walking through some weird pipes?? 

AUGH, there’s something IN HER BLOOD WATER, and she says it could be a connection between the conspirators and the cancer in her blood…. well to me it looks like a worm

he finds a new secret door and enters with a hand in his pocket, looking around... tension!!!

she’s ready to blow open this whole conspiracy!! ooooo you'd better stand back and watch it happen!

(they’re narrating all of this because this is a tv show and that is how an audiovisual media works, but i find it funny to imagine them speaking into a voice recorder as they describe their highly illegal activities)

he reaches the end of the mystery space and finds a ton of filing cabinets??? so he’s going to the scully file. he finds hers!!! it is a paper with a bunch of letters on it. which clears up nothing

and he pulls one out for kritschgau’s son as well!!! but it looks like his is blank???

someone from the DOD calls CSM to say that “scott” (mulder with the dead guy's ID card) made his way into the pentagon!! so he’s off to go find him. stay away from him, freak...

scully is rolling some sort of paper after soaking the mixture of stuff from her blood. you’re confused, i’m confused, i’m fascinated as to how this was explained for filming purposes, but here we are

“if my work with agent mulder has tested the foundation of my beliefs, science has been and continues to be my guiding light” <3

“now i’m again relying on its familiar and systematic methods to arrive at a truth- a fact that might explain the fate that has befallen me”

i love that she sees science as familiar and systematic; she really seems to be someone that values those aspects of stability, of knowing what can and cannot be true, and as the world grows more and more complex as they unravel the conspiracies, she turns to what she knows she can rely on. it reminds me in a way about how she values the comfort of a home, of the known, of what can be experienced and understood. she seems to thrive on that sort of knowledge, and i relate to it. something steady to keep her afloat, you know? it also speaks to her rigidity in following the rules. there is order and structure that maintains things, and that can be a great comfort, or a terrible hindrance if it is used for evil. but she, deep down, believes that there still is fundamental good. the rules, the science, the facts, the comfort of them all. it’s a terribly scary world; her biggest fear is what others are capable of. of course there is comfort in the known and the material. i like that a lot.

she hopes to match the virus from the mystery organism to the stuff in her cells, which would mean that her cancer has a cause, even if a cure is unknown! and maybe then they could find a cure to the virus thingy...? is this wishful thinking??

“if science serves me to these ends, it is not lost on me that the tool which i’ve come to depend on absolutely cannot save or protect me, but only bring into focus the darkness that lies ahead” <- hey. hey ouch. pain.

i refuse to consider such a possibility. there are too many more seasons ahead.

back to mulder in the labyrinth, looking for stuff that matches the numbers on her card. ough… why does his hair look so good…

anyway, he finds some sort of liquid

OH scully has done it!!! she’s mixed her DNA with the viral DNA from the cell!! oh, the ice core doctor guy is SHOCKED to learn that she has stuff in her that was also in the CANADIAN ALIEN MOUNTAINS!!

she explains that she believes she was exposed to this material that gave her an illness… and when he asks what kind, all she says is that it cannot be cured. damn. that was very dark.

so mulder finds this little vial of stuff with the specific numbers on it?? in a tiny tiny little bottle?

is it shots shots shots shots time??

he’s leaving from the pentagon, and in a voice over monologue, points out that he is as dependent upon her as she is upon him for the cure!!! as now she must convince the committee of her story!!!

she goes into the meeting room, bracing herself…. and she begins where we began in the last episode!!!! and now we know WHY she is reporting on the illegitimacy of his work!! ah, it is sweet relief to know there was no backstabbing between them

mulder is trying to sneak out… but his card swipe isn’t working…. and the military guys enter!!! 

can he play it cool?? can he beat them in a fight??? well, it FINALLY works, and one thing he can do is run!! and he manages to!!!!

GASP! CSM sees mulder leave, and says to let him go!! he seems almost relieved to see mulder alive and with this mystery liquid

and scully’s doing her oscar-winning performance about identifying a body. an absolute serve.

but skinner comes in just as she says this…. 

her eyes are filled with tears as she pulls out the evidence… (which is just two lines on paper, but you KNOW she is going to explain it)

and she notes that the whole thing was “planned and executed by someone in this room”, seeming to blame it all on skinner… oh my god…

OH MY GOD SHE’S STARTING HER PRESENTATION AND HER NOSE STARTS TO BLEED???

SHE FAINTS?????? and SKINNER CATCHES HER????

she looks at him and says “you…..” before passing back out <- WHAT DID SHE WANT TO SAY TO HIM??!??!?!?!?!

mulder is with the lone gunmen analyzing the mystery liquid…. and it’s water??

hold on, i had to rewatch her fainting and skinner catching her… how he starts to hold her face but stops himself… the way she says “you” so quietly… and then she loses consciousness again… oh my god… to be caught by the person she thinks is killing her… 

and skinner… i don’t believe for a minute that he is behind this. how hurt he must be at her accusations, his terror in watching her march ahead recklessly and lie to these people who would kill her in a heartbeat, and actively ARE killing her, and he was the one that made the deal with the devil to try and get this to stop happening, but what if he’s only advanced the work of the devil and got nothing out of it for himself…? and she doesn't even trust him!!!!

i rewatched that scene 4 times. and it was amazing during each of them.

and mulder… with his water… mystery water in vials… what can it do?? is it really just water?? why tf would the government hide vials of water with incredibly specific numbering deep in the pentagon. i don't buy it.

oh man, we are SOOOOOO back!!!!! i am bouncing off the walls. i cannot WAIT to learn what happens next. the angst here was EXQUISITE.

i’m such a sucker for angst involving mulder/scully and skinner. it’s going to get me EVERY time. over and over and over again. it just punches me in the gut. and all the other stuff punches me in the gut too, but this one has a certain je ne sais quoi factor about it; is it the mentor/mentee relationship of it all?? the way they care about each other but don’t know how to express it?? how they go from being willing to die and to kill for each other and then suddenly that trust is entirely removed, back and forth, back and forth? oh, it’s like CATNIP to me.

scully fainting and him catching is already going to be on my list of favorite moments, i know it, i know myself too well.

AUGHHHHHAUAGGHHHHRAUGGHHHHHAUGHHHHHH i LOVE THIS SHOW see it can be SO GOOD WHEN IT WANTS TO BE!!!!!!!!!

the trickery!! the plotting!! the deception!! the mysteries within mysteries!!! i still think the aliens are real though!! what are they doing with those women?? giving then alien DNA so they can steal their eggs to make alien babies?? what is that oil stuff in mulder?? and where does krycek fit into this??? and again, those half alien things in arizona?? don’t tell me!! don’t tell me because i am excited to learn!!!

YEAHHHHH!!!

[madamemiz]

MILD SPOILERS! impressions from the votv 0.8.1 update (day 2)

KEL WALK CYCLE REAL even if it's a bit janky. feels almost strange to see moving feet when i look down. got peakaboo'd by this character model while climbing the tower too, i didn't realize the little rectangle on his beanie is the aso logo, that's a nice touch! (if i saw that correctly that is)

i love the glasses as an equipable item, velma mode is unnecessary but funny 10/10 just like me fr

tf you mean burgers cost 95???? and pizza so expensive?? hello???

flour?? cooking?! ok now that's a fun prospect, i'm getting the cookbook as soon as i can

on that note i've heard berry bushes are a thing now, but i've yet to come across any and i've been actively looking while out and about

aww kel's tummy growls when he's hungry now, that's cute. mfer got a hell of an appetite for someone so picky. also just like me fr

they changed the eating sound and i'm sad, i liked the original ;w; it was oddly satisfying

has the vending machine always had a nice glass texture?

that's it for now, so far so good. i've seen the stuff about kerfur, as well as more farming integration. the farming bit sounds fun, as for the kerfur crafting changes:

hoo boy. i like the idea of needing to get a few more things, it makes sense in-universe. they do most of your job for you, it's fine to make the requirements a bit more difficult, but... i'm gonna level with you, the recipe i've seen and what you need to do for it seems overboard for a casual player. keyword casual. it almost feels like the difficulty spike was created with youtubers and streamers in mind--yknow, people who are professional gamers, or at the very least people who look up hacks to speedrun their kerfurs, because several of them made it seem very easy. i don't think the vast majority of people playing the game play it that way though; i didn't have omega kerfur until a couple of weeks in-game time, and i've seen a lot of people say the same or later. these changes could potentially push kerfur to closer to endgame for a good chunk of players, which seems like a bad move to me for a few reasons--

firstly, i'd imagine this change is in part to encourage players to get out of the base more instead of relying on kerfur for the hashcodes, but having an omega greatly opens up how much free time you have, which allows you more time to explore and make your base cozy. i never had time before i had them, i was too busy running around getting hashcodes and scrounging up money

secondly, late game has quite a few enemies that can instakill kerfur, which makes sending them out for codes and repairs kind of pointless. at that point you may as well keep your base kerfur as-is instead of spending the time and resources to upgrade. not to mention that one of the items requires mining in the cave which... personal note, i never found the pickaxe or stepped foot in the cave in 0.8.0, and frankly never planned to. guess i have to now!

thirdly, like... people get attached to their kerfurs. a lot of returning players i've seen discussing the update are upset they won't have their wife/husband/partner/child/roomate etc back until later in their run unless they mail them over. why would you wanna separate the players from one of their favorite aspects of the game? hell, i've contemplated mailing my 0.8.0 kerfur over not bc of the difficulty spike, but bc i feel bad leaving them behind in my old save

maybe i'm just overthinking and it won't be as bad once i do it, but i've just been puzzling over the changes. what do y'all think?? are the changes justified, or nah?

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

I see “what was Aragorn’s tax policy?” as a philosophical exploration of the granular aspects as related to ruling, especially in terms of doing it well. It’s the very act of posing the question in the first place that matters, not the act of answering it and providing a clear cut solution.

And within the books too, GRRM challenges the ideals of a perfect king. For example, Gilly kneeling before Jon and beseeching him to help her in ACoK, based on the ideal that it is a king’s duty to give protection and justice to the innocent. GRRM has said many times that he is writing a low fantasy series with a dose of realism. Jon Snow is perhaps the most quintessential knight-in-shining-armor in his story—he’s undeniably a good person. And he wants to help Gilly in that moment. Given the trope he occupies in this story, that of the valiant knight, this moment is a chance for him to perform the chivalric ideal of the perfect knight, to be the king of justice Gilly needs. But he cannot do that given the little power he has as a mere steward. In that moment, Jon fails. That’s the point. It’s a bitter taste of reality, and a much needed one since Jon gets his call to action because he wants to be the typical fantasy hero. The lesson here is that may try to be a hero, but he can’t always be one. So he leaves that scene angry with himself, and angry with Sam for putting him in that situation! Is Jon’s failure any less interesting from a literary perspective? I’d say no, especially with him being a deconstruction of the fantasy hero.

Your mention of Jon’s failure in the tags that seems to be a sore spot for you, but I think that’s really the point. Failure for the sake of growth. Especially based on the full quote and historical example GRRM gives (and his previous non-ASOIAF work):

But one thing that I'm trying to get at in the books--a political aspect if you would--is to show that this stuff is hard. I mean, I think an awful lot of fantasy and even some great fantasy falls into the mistake of assuming that the good man will be a good king. That is, all that is necessary is to be like a decent human being and then when you're king, of course, everything will go swimmingly. And even Tolkien, who is the, I think, my respect for Tolkien is second to none and all modern fantasy flows from Tolkien, but there's an unspoken assumption in his books there that Return of the King. Aragorn is the king now. Everything will be hunky dory. The land will prosper and it'll be wonderful and the crops will be good and there will be justice for all and the enemies will be defeated. And you never actually get into the nitty gritty of Aragorn ruling. And what is his tax policy? [laughter] And how does he feel about crop rotation? [laughter] How does he handle land disputes between two nobles, both of whom think that they should have this particular village? So, they take turns burning it down in order to establish this claim that--. These are the hard parts of ruling and be it in the Middle Ages or now, and of course, it's not enough to be a good man to be an effective ruler. And it never has been. If it has been, Jimmy Carter would be the greatest President of the 20th Century. I mean, he's clearly, I think, the best human being to be President in my lifetime. But he not a particularly effective president. For all his decency and his humanity and his compassion and his undoubted intelligence. I mean, the man was a nuclear engineer in the Navy. But nonetheless, he failed at it. And there are some examples of medieval kings in history who were terrible human beings, but they were nonetheless very good kings for their country. So, it's complicated and it's hard. And I want to show not just with the women, but you see in my books repeated examples of both kings and the hand of the king, the Prime Minister if you would, trying to rule. And whether it be Ned Stark or Tyrion Lannister or Tywin Lannister or Daenerys Targaryen, in the latest book, Cersei Lannister in the book before that. And trying to deal with some of the real challenges that affect anyone trying to rule the Seven Kingdoms or even the city like Meereen. And it's hard. We can all read these books or look at history as, "Oh, so and so was stupid. They made a lot of mistakes. Look at all these stupid mistakes they make." But these kinds of mistakes are always much more apparent in hindsight than when you're actually faced with the decision of "My God, what would I do in this situation? How do I resolve the thing? Do I do the moral thing? But what about the political consequences of the moral thing? Do I do the pragmatic, cynical thing and just screw the people who are screwed by it?" I mean, it's hard. And I wanna get to all of that and be it a male ruler or a woman’s ruler.

Jon wants to effectively arm the watch and save the wildlings. But he does not have the resources, so what should he do? He should be able to rely on the crown, but the crown has betrayed it duty to the be ‘protector of the realm’. But Stannis is there—a king who actually cared! Can Jon realistically be neutral then? Can he realistically tell Stannis, “fuck you the Night’s Watch takes no part”? Especially when Stannis wants to liberate Jon’s father’s castle which has fallen into enemy hands. And Jon is loyal to his family, almost to a fault. And Jon’s sister has now been married off to a monster. So what should he do. The Night’s Watch takes no part….but can Jon truly abandon her? Would it really be a moral choice? These questions are right in line with GRRM quote above.

You say Jon is as far from Aragorn as he can get, and I think we’re touching on very different aspects of these two characters here. They share narrative parallels, starting with the character archetypes both characters are operating under; and add Dany too. And the point is that Jon doesn’t have the decades Aragorn has. He’s just a kid—literally. ADWD is a moment of learning for him, he’s not meant to get it on his first try. So come TWoW and ADoS when he gains more leadership positions, he can apply these lessons and evolve. The same with Dany. She fails too. That’s why her last chapter in Dance is so cathartic. She learns her lesson—to truly move forward, “fire and blood” is a necessity.

I think a lot of people are dissatisfied with Jon and Dany failing and not providing clear cut answers to “what was Aragorn’s tax policy?” But I don’t think GRRM ever set out to give any solutions in the first place.

This is actually so funny because….isn’t this literally the point of Jon’s political arc as a ruler in ADWD? 😭 What policies can he enact to ensure that the Watch and the wildlings are fed through the winter? The question even comes up during Alys Karstark’s wedding, because Jon knows that the Watch is down to its last sticks of butter. This is the same arc GRRM uses, along with Dany’s in Meereen, as a reference of how he would like to explore this very question. Btw Jon Snow is arguably Aragorn’s closest parallel in ASOIAF so 😭

[bunnyboy-juice]

spent the first hour and change at work deleting some old files and am having a grand ol time laughing at myself for not realizing i was a lesbian sooner

[waywardsalt]

bc its been bouncing around in my head i think another little tiny grievance i had with totk is that i got to the end and just felt a sense of ‘well what the hell was that all for then’

[front-facing-pokemon]

[eri-pl]

Ooooh. :) What an interesting topic to think of. (disclaimer: that is all purely for intellectual fun and not expected to fit with any real-world theology or anything also may contain peanuts.)

I am slightly surprised with your take on the Ainur (the accents, not the content) but yes, the fact that they existed before time makes it somewhat weird when you look at it too closely, but,... idk. Let's handweave it.

Maeglin is blamed on the Doom of the Noldor? I forgot that, that's interesting.

Yes, the non-Noldor, and early Noldor were not perfect, also, Miriel died and Finwë get this really strange for Elves thing when he fell in love again, and this was before the whole thing. "In some ways" is the key here, I agree. Like... they are not all-fallen-as-a-race but many of them seem kinda fallen. I think it's another case of Tolkien trying to do many things at various times and those things not working well together.

Also, you could say that the Dark Elves fell when they refused to go to Valinor, maybe? That would fix a lot. The Vanyar do seem non-fallen, unless you hc them to be jerks. And you could also blame the Teleri for waiting. This still leaves the pre-exile Noldor as an open question. But they do work with Melkor after his release….

Elves are tied to Arda, they are maybe more like the natural world, maybe their fall is very gradual, fuzzy... Men are more all-or-nothing than elves, I would assume. The Elves are connected to Arda, they are sort of grounded, maybe their corruption and the corruption of Arda is not fully separable. Yes, we're probably getting to stuff that normally would be a heresy, but idk it's a fantasy book and maybe we can see it as a metaphor for something.

Yes, Men are… Men. And hobbits are Men, but smol. And yes, the Shire is Tolkien's nostalgia wish-fulfillment land in a way.

The Dwarves are, I would say, not fully integrated in the narrative as a metaphysically-on-human-level race. They started off as monsters, like Orcs, and evolved among Tolkien's drafts and ended up a little unfinished. Other seemingly-posessing-souls creatures (Ents, Eagles if you don't see them as Maiar,..) are even more unintegrated.

I don't think I have a good explanation of the Dwarves, but also, with them we are working so far outside any framework we know…

I don't have much new thoughts to add, I'm sorry. It's just… What we are doing, what Tolkien tried to do is just jumping so much above out heads. (But also so interesting.)

OK, let me propose something: the Dwarves have both the "problem" of Men (die) and the "problem" of Elves (while alive, they're attuned to Arda). They just get un-attuned when they die. Somehow. Because Aulë made them in a way that was… well, he tried. I like Aulë.

So the Men are, in a way the only unfallen (except that they fell) race: they are the only ones that are not corrupted by the marring of Arda, because they are not connected to it so strongly, like they have a kind of filter? So… OK, we're getting to a place where I need to put my hc on a shelf to even be able to discuss that close enough to what Tolkien wrote or suggested. So I will not go into the details. Anyway the outcome is that they are fallen too, but they are fallen in a different way. From the inside.

And it seems the exiled Noldor may have this too? I'm not fully buying it tbh. But maybe that was Tolkien's intent about them. So they would be breaking both from the outside and from the inside. But they do not die. So, you are probably right, it's not the same thing.

Anyway, the marring is one thing and the fact that the Valar aren't working perfectlly either… it may be the result of the marring, it may be just the result of them being ...whatever to call it. But they do make mistakes, to mention the biggest: the whole Dwarves situation. I think this also has an impact on the state of the world.

The world is falling apart (just slowly) and the Men (and only them) would not be falling apart with it, except they do, just for a different reason. This makes no sense on many levels, probably, but makes some sense to me as a way to read the Silm. It fits with the theme of diminishing and fading and all that.

In which I puzzle over metaphysical implications as regards the peoples inhabiting Arda

fyi, a certain familiarity with the (predominantly Christian, I think) concept of fallenness/unfallenness is assumed, although it turns out that it doesn't necessarily work here. Feel free to ask for clarifications

So. I'm once again wracking my head as I try to make sense of what I shall call: 'metaphysical states' of elves, men and others, because the subject is emphasised and lampshaded a lot in the books, and I can't force it all to make sense when taken together.

Ainur are a specific case and I should really leave them aside for now. They certainly can fall — and, unlike angels, change their mind, apparently (which goes both ways) — although they do seem to be more all-or-nothing than everyone else. Still, I think as long as one doesn't go into the implications of time and what its existence or nonexistence changes, they're almost straightforward. But then you have:

Elves. The 'Fall of the Noldor' is very strongly emphasised as a metaphysical fall from grace and further evils, even ones unconnected with the matter of the Silmarils themselves, are blamed on it later (Maeglin!) So far so good. Except. Non-Noldor are also liable to behave in ways that are not exemplary in the slightest, and it doesn't seem to signify a cesura in the same way — and the Noldor in Valinor were able to commit acts that perhaps weren't as heinous as what we call crimes, but weren't good either. Getting into rancid fights with your brother isn't much in comparison, but these are not the actions of unfallen people.

And on the other hand, authorial quote (paraphrased): "Elves in some ways represent Man in an unfallen state". And I'm inclined to agree: they aren't subject to death (except they may be killed, so doesn't this already break down?), and there is something very poignant in the image of their artistry, "extempt from earthly limitations". But they do not lose it, not in any easily tangible way. We can argue that evil diminishes creativity and it's probably true, but there is no hard line anyone passes. And this is again lampshaded in-world with the Númenoreans ("If we die because of some darkness that lay on us before, than why don't the Noldor?").

Which brings us to Men. The existence of a direct cause-effect relationship between fallenness and mortality in Arda cannot be ascertained (Even taking into account a Catholic framework, I feel that logically it need not be the same relationship as the Biblical one since, in contrast with the Garden of Eden, the world was already marred when humans appeared). While I consider the Tale of Adanel to be Gondorian in origin, I can also see the possibility that whatever Men did back then, beyond memory (or in other words "we purposefully forgot") was just that much worse than Alqualondë and the Oath. In any case, Man is very straightforwardly Fallen.

Hobbits. The rules for Halflings are presumably the same as for Men, which is certainly notable, given that they seem to be the least inclined to evil of all incarnates. Not perfect, not by a long shot, but unknowing of wars and violence. A pastoral image, only in-world it's true.

And at the same time, my musings bring me to the unexpected conclusion that dwarves are the only notable "generally unfallen" kindred. Which is, in context of everything that regards them, weird — because by their actions, they are very similar to Men. And yet — either the circumstances of their creation make them disadvantaged from the start (which doesn't really make that much sense), or something happened off-screen, or it's the same case as Saeros, or Thingol sending Beren to his death.

Ents? I honestly don't know if we've seen enough of ents to judge, although they seem generally good-inclined? Huorns are a different kettle of fish.

Before I try to explain orcs, it would do well to know what they are exactly.

In other words, I cannot make sense of it all, enough that I've resorted to calling the default state of incarnates in Arda "semi-fallen" (or, as is, "semi-unfallen"). Which is not a thing that makes sense, philosophically speaking — but I can find no better way.

(Although, to be quite honest, the default state of being in Arda (because of the discord?) seems to be significantly different from the unfallen state of Man as described by religious thinkers in some ways, and not all of them regard merely such things as physical marring, so perhaps "semi" isn't the worst way to describe it.)

In any case, if someone has thoughts on the subject, I'm very open to hearing them.

[druidshollow]

"what would your character be like without their trauma?" is such a hard question for me because it makes me feel like a massive asshole LMAO

(im attaching a picture of a tundra literally to add context to my ramble in the tags because my posts are structured by a sane person) (you should read the ramble in the tags i talk so much about rivers fsr)