#and imparted these messages on us

[kierancaz]

Nothing like watching Pride and Prejudice and Little Women back to back to make me yearn for the bond that the oldest and second oldest sister have.

[the-owl-tree]

not a fan of psychoanalyzing people over the internet but considering all of brambleclaw's abusive behavior was written by accident and that one blogclan post where kate goes "well i don't know what happened there but let's accept that he veered off the right path for a moment alright? he's a good guy! he and squilf would've bullied me in highschool though". really makes you wonder what's going on inside the erins' brains while writing 😭

(and on a meta note: said blogclan post makes me feel we're never gonna solve the "wc fandom treating characters as independent people and not narrative tools" problem when erin hunter ALSO does that. The Horrors)

RIGHT!! Like, I can assume it's an amalgamation of things: the shitty gender existentialist approach a lot of xenofiction takes + some weird beliefs the authors and editors intentionally/unintentionally carry + them playing telephone with books while also pumping them out super fast + no quality control and etc. etc. etc.

that post in particular is like a brother to me. makes it so much funnier when you know kate doesn't like bramblestar.

[cerastes]

Habe you ever had a "did we even play the same game?" moment with someone?

My favorite game ever used to be Metal Gear Solid 4, it’s still up there in my top favorites, and this time at a party I met a guy that said he didn’t like MGS4 because he felt like it ruined Snake as a character and that it misrepresented him. I asked if he could elaborate and his response was that they took this Rambo dude, this super manly war hero and emasculated him into a weak old man.

I need you to understand that Solid Snake was without exaggeration fundamental in my growth as a person: I am from a latino country, grew up in what’s widely considered the wrong side of the tracks in the middle of nowhere, being macho, manly, tough was incredibly important to me, because that’s how it was in there, and Snake (plus “The Knight In Rusty Armor” by Robert Fisher) basically made me question all of what I’d grown up thinking up until then, because Snake isn’t a badass because grrr manly beef jerky I kill and swear, he is this incredibly solemn guy who hates what he can do, but is the only one that can do it, and if he doesn’t do it, then nuclear war happens, or worse. There’s a whole angle of expectation as a narrative arc in regards to Snake: Meryl expected a glorious, boisterous war hero, Otacon expected a grizzled, badass action hero, Liquid expected Himself But Better In Every Way, Ocelot expected a tool and nothing else, Naomi expected a callous and cold killer… And they were all wrong, he is, ultimately, an exhausted man that cannot stop no matter how much he wants to stop, because if he does, the world might likely go up in literal flames.

So to hear this self-proclaimed superfan of Snake say this just made me skip anger and go all the way to pity. In-universe, those in the know of Snake worship him as an actual God of War, and it’s a common thing that gets addressed in-universe: The whole point of MGS2 is that Raiden could never have won if he tried to be Snake, because you don’t want to be Snake. Snake hates being Snake. Snake isn’t manly because he beat a tank on foot one on one, Snake is admirable because he does the right thing, even if he’s breaking down molecule by molecule as he goes and he wants nothing more than to fuck off and raise dogs in the arctic, but keeps on going anyways because he can do something about it. The most important message he imparts on Raiden and Meryl is Don’t Be Me; Create A World Where Snake Doesn’t Need To Exist.

I felt pity because if you feel like MGS4 misrepresented Snake, then you really and explicitly are exactly the kind of fodder PMC nobody that feeds the proxy wars in MGS4. I think only by skipping every cutscene you can come out thinking that way. The only thing super about him was ficial.

[floatyflowers]

Dark! Platonic Father and Mother Faerie x Human! Reader

Seraphina, was surprised when her husband, Sylvanas brought, you, a human child to their home in the faerie realm.

But was delighted when she got to know that he did this for her, because she was infertile.

Just ignoring the whole fact that her husband stole you from a human couple.

Your faerie parents, being creatures of magic, would enchant your surroundings with a touch of their otherworldly essence, creating a home filled with ethereal beauty and a sense of perpetual wonder.

They'd teach you the secrets of their enchanted realm, sharing ancient tales of mystical creatures, hidden realms, and the delicate balance between magic and the mortal world.

Despite their ethereal nature, your faerie parents would express love in unique ways – perhaps through the shimmering glow of their presence or the gentle touch of their wings as they embrace you.

As a part of the faerie realm, celebrations would be extravagant and filled with enchanting rituals, like dancing under the moonlit sky or sharing laughter that echoes through the enchanted woods.

Your faerie parents might gift you with magical items, each imbued with a specific power or purpose, serving as both a connection to their world and a means to protect you in the human realm.

While they understand the nature of human life, your faerie parents would instill in you a deep appreciation for the beauty of fleeting moments, emphasizing the importance of cherishing every experience.

Communication might involve a blend of spoken words and telepathic messages, creating a unique form of connection that transcends the limitations of mortal language.

Your faerie parents would guide you in developing a strong connection with nature, teaching you to communicate with plants and animals, fostering a harmonious relationship with the natural world.

They would be protective, using their magical abilities to shield you from harm while imparting wisdom to navigate the complexities of both the mortal and faerie realms.

The bond you share with your faerie parents would be enduring, transcending the boundaries between worlds.

And as you grow, they'd stand by you as guardians and mentors, always ready to offer guidance from the enchanting depths of their timeless existence.

[omegaverse-anthropologist]

crawling out of my nest after…four months to write pt 2 of the scent post

scents and pheromones

pt. 1: physiology and function

pt. 2: scent messages

along with reproductive cycles and mating bonds, a heightened sense for interpreting scents and pheromones is a pillar of the omegaverse. this series uses language that describes scents in a way we can understand, but the effort to describe scents is in reality much like the effort to describe color to someone who may never have seen it. scents are intangible, and the descriptors used in this series are abstractions and metaphors rather than direct concrete descriptions.

review

to briefly summarize the first entry in this series, humans have scent glands present all over the body, with higher concentrations in certain areas (e.g. the palms, neck, and groin, among others). the scent carries pheromones which are interpreted by the vomeronasal organ (VNO) and decoded as basic information about approximate age, dynamic and phenotypic sexes, mating status, and pack health.

individual scent

individual scents function exactly as they sound. they are unique markers that help distinguish one person from another. they are the core of a person’s whole scent, and they contextualize all the sensations and underpinnings that carry the broader information about age, sex, etc. these scents are most frequently described with comprehensible reference points: honeysuckle, burning wood, vanilla. there are dynamic sex stereotypes—dark and earthy for alphas; light and floral for betas; warm and soft for omegas. in reality, individual scent is not influenced by a person’s dynamic sex. an alpha is just as likely to smell like chocolate cupcakes as they are to smell like petrichor or citrus.

what does dynamic sex smell like?

this is difficult to describe. dynamic sex can be described almost as a sensation more than a scent, the way that spice and sourness are sensations that can be carried by flavors without imparting flavor on their own. with that in mind, consider the following descriptions.

alpha: heavy, blunt, magnetic

beta: electric, sharp, vibrant

omega: bright, round, slow

the sensation of a dynamic sex underpins an individual’s scent. a warm, woodsy scent might be underpinned with vibrance, which would communicate that it likely belongs to a beta.

the scent of age

it may be more accurate to say that scent carries an approximation of an individual’s life stage. upon birth, infants of all dynamic sexes carry a primarily watery, milky, or powdery scent underpinned by the scent of the parent who carried them. the older a child becomes, the more their baby scent gives way to their individual scent. by five or six years old, a child may carry a watery floral scent.

at the onset of the first soft cycle, the dynamic scent sensation begins to emerge. here, a pup may have a bright, powdery, honeyed scent. the presence of the first two sensations communicates that (1) the pup is likely an omega, (2) the pup is young, and (3) the brightness and powdery scent combined mean that the pup likely has not reached their first hard cycle.

the closer a pup becomes to reaching their hard cycle, the more their pup scent fades. a strongly milky scent combined with the dynamic scent indicates that a pup is very near to their first soft cycle, while a scent that is strongly individual with only traces of milkiness suggests that the individual is approaching their hard cycle.

mating status and pack health

this information is strongly inference-based, as mating only slightly changes an individual’s scent and pack health does not directly affect it at all. bite-bonded mates’ scents will carry traces of their mates’ individual scents. on their own, those scents are not enough to communicate who someone is mated to, how strong the relationship is, or any information about their mate’s sex. they only communicate that a mate exists. more detailed understanding of both mate and pack health comes form scent marking.

in healthy packs, members are regularly marked with each other’s scent, creating a ‘pack scent’ shared by all members. bite-bonded mates’ scents tend to appear stronger or more intrinsic to their mates because they are emphasized by the ‘mate’ scent marker the bite imparts.

most people infer from a person’s lack of pack scent that their pack is unhealthy or distant, or that they have been shunned. pack scents that are tinged with anger, frustration, or other strong emotions aid in inferences drawn on relationship health.

emotional scents

much like dynamic sex, emotions add a sort of sensation or undertone to a person’s scent. in general, emotions like contentment, joy, and relaxation tend to add warmth, brightness, or softness to a person’s scent; while emotions like sadness, loneliness, or frustration tend to darken, sour, or muddy it. because emotions are complex, however, it would be dishonest to say that ‘joy brightens the scent,’ for example.

there are some universal markers—fear and pain are distinct and consistent scents that can be identified by infants in their first month of life. but while broad emotional strokes can be inferred by near strangers, more nuanced and complex reading of a scent’s emotion requires familiarity. just as you may be able to distinguish your partner’s polite laugh, surprised laugh, and delighted laugh easily, close relations tend to have an easier time distinguishing the scents of frustrated determination, frustrated confusion, and frustrated resignation.

how can any of that information be decoded?

scents carry massive amounts of information that the brain decodes in fractions of a second, providing understanding. to describe how that information might be decoded, consider music.

most people can determine whether a singular note was played by a stringed instrument, a keyboard instrument, or a wind instrument. a skilled violinist may be able to determine whether that note came from a violin, viola, cello, or bass due to their familiarity with and repeated exposure to those instruments.

musicians hearing a singular phrase can determine which mode and key is being played, and they may be able to describe oft-used chord progressions in that mode or genre.

repeated exposure to a stimulus, when that stimulus is important, creates ease in its decoding. while newborns’ vision is blurry and limited in its color perception, a seeing adult parses a myriad of visual stimulus each second, creates connections, and draws inferences, all without conscious thought. we can pick out a close relation’s voice in a crowd because we know that voice intimately. parsing and decoding scents functions much the same way.

[communistkenobi]

I’m watching FD Signifier’s new video about edgelord white guy movies. He spends a decent amount of time talking about how creators have responded to their edgelord fanbases, using The Joker and The Boys as two examples, where these creators feel uncomfortable with how their art has been received and taken up by “angry white men,” and that in response to this, they have followed up these artistic products with sequels or new seasons of television that are incredibly blunt and obvious about how you shouldn’t think of Homelander as a based chad or Arthur Fleck as a motivational figure in your life. And like he ends the video saying this is insufficient because these audiences won’t care about the messages in these follow-ups (largely bc these are downstream of larger social issues), but his framing of it in terms of “the death of media literacy” is still really frustrating and annoying because it’s buying into the idea that the main problem with people “not getting” art is literacy/education. And its not just his video, this framing is a popular memetic phrase across social media, and he does a better job than most people in talking about it

But like I just straight up do not accept that the audience of these edgelord movies “didn’t get” that they are portraying bad people, that audiences of mass media are “taking the wrong message” of “very obvious” pieces of art. Not because I think they do secretly get what these films are ‘actually saying,’ I don’t care about what’s in their hearts, but because this concern with people ‘not getting it’ feels wildly off-topic. I think it has been demonstrated over and over again that mass media is not an educational tool where people go to “learn lessons” or “take away a particular message.” I think the very fact that we have a consumptive marketised relationship to these artistic products structures and produces a specific set of responses, which is, above all else, “getting my money’s worth.” Who gives a shit what the movie is ‘really’ trying to say! That’s unimportant when faced with the question of did I get what I paid for? And I don’t mean this in an annoying lib “consumerism is making us all stupider” way I mean the economic structure of artistic production is the primary determinant of how commodities on a market are received. The idea that, under these conditions, we can purchase a piece of art that will “teach us” something about the world is laughable, that art-by-itself contains the authority to impart political knowledge. The idea that we can purchase our way into good values, good politics, that we can buy a movie ticket and see the error of our ways is buying into this same exact consumptive framing.

“The death of media literacy” implies a point in recent history where this economic relationship to art was unimportant, that we used to be able to participate in mass standardised artistic production and be unaffected by this arrangement. I think about Adorno & Horkheimer’s argument in The Culture Industry, that the profit motive is itself an object of consumption under capitalism, that advertisements are themselves products & as a result, all mass standardised artistic products are advertisements for their own capitalist production processes and logics. 

I think when people “don’t get” that Starship Troopers is depicting a fascist society, when people “don’t get” that Travis Bickle is a bad, un-admirable person, they aren’t stricken by a sudden deficit of education or literacy, they are responding to the conditions under which these things get made. Being able to get art’s “true message,” no matter how supposedly clear or compellingly-articulated, is to argue that ‘message’ and ‘meaning’ can be made independent of the conditions under which those things are created and presented to people. The industrial capitalist machinery outputting standardised artistic products is itself an authority telling you how to interpret its own products, much the same way a cathedral is presented as evidence of god. There is a material & physical authority in their presence and social arrangement that are themselves arguments. Adorno talks about this with the radio - that this vast industrial infrastructure of radio towers, broadcast stations, systems of wires and cables, and the production of standardised radio receivers (available for purchase, of course) is utterly incomprehensible to most people and amounts to hearing the voice of god when you turn on the radio. The arrangement of artistic production & presentation is itself the structure through which you experience art, and that structure is an authority you can neither comprehend nor alter. And again as A&H say in The Culture Industry, the techniques, narratives, and genres of the culture industry become standardised themselves, cookie-cutters on a production line, and therefore dictate meaning above and beyond any particular semantic meaning injected into an individual film or story. “Romcoms” are a cultural authority above and beyond the sum total of every romcom film ever made, and it is these genres and techniques that transmit the justification for their own continued reproduction. Under this arrangement, the meaning of this film or that television show are rendered marginal - not unnoticeable or irrelevant, certainly, but secondary to the cookie-cutters they were produced from 

Now does this lead to a widespread ignorant, impoverished, reactionary view of art? Of course, but that is not because the guy who likes wearing V for Vendetta masks is illiterate. To place the blame on individual education, discipline, or literacy is to take Hollywood for granted as a natural eternal entity, to take it as just another church. It’s a goofy fucking argument! 

[tiktaalic]

M not surprised in that I think very quickly supernatural learned that there wasn’t a way for them to engage with the homosexual male in a way that wasn’t a joke without it being entirely damning. But it does kind of feel like a gap in archive that there was never an ep where Generic Hunter strong bearded etc shows up and it is revealed somehow that he is gay and deans like. Oh. Yeah. [very uncomfortable] good for you man. And then something happens and the portrait of masculinity who is gay calls something gay in a derogatory manner and deans like. 🤨 but. You’re gay? And the guys like i mean I think guys are hot but come on. We all know it’s gay to eat a salad.

Which still makes homosexuality the butt of the joke but previous punching down on homosexuality has been. These two gay men are really weird and stupid and unattractive and cringe and yes a portion of that is because they’re gay. Gay porn all hours of the day = Andy is laughing because it’s Funny to think about a straight guy being made to watch gay porn but there’s also the inverse where if you think about it for two seconds he’s using this as a cudgel to Punish another man. Andy and the audience is meant to realize it should be uncomfortable and upsetting and a punishment to be confronted with explicit male homosexuality. Gay for that poor dead intern = not a man who fits in with his group, is portrayed as dweeby and unserious and slightly incompetent. Part of being dweeby and not being taken seriously is the fact that he is gay and experiencing sweet and giggly attraction to another man.

Vs like. A gay man who uses gay as a pejorative. Explicitly defining him as Not Dweeby and One Of The Guys which serves to impart the lesson that the word gay conjures up images of lisping emasculated annoying helpless twinks. But if someone is gay WITHOUT being emasculated then it’s basically like he’s not even gay and is normal. And the emasculation is the True Meaning of the word gay. and that someone can be attracted to men in a non emasculating way and it’s still kind of weird because the assumption is that gay=emasculated which he is bucking. But that if/when you get over the shock of these actually having separate meanings it’s okay for a man to be homosexual. Which is NOT a message. That supernatural wanted to impart on me while Dean Winchester was on a twelve year course to having a male life partner he shared a child with. And also might have been too homophobic? Too homophobic for supernatural sounds like an oxymoron but maybe it was.

[snowdewdreams]

The fourth chapter of Deltarune wasn't just beautiful because of the soundtrack or imagery, but the message. And I suspect this message will play a major part in the future of the story.

(spoilers below four Chapter 4!)

During Susie's fight against Gerson, he has this to say about the fourth chapter of Lord of the Hammer:

Given how his book was based on The Prophecy, this chapter is clearly alluding to the current fight they're having. Gerson, the smith, will give Susie the axe, the "terrible weapon" if she wins their little duel.

However, there's another way of interpreting this line that completely recontextualizes the meaning.

While smith can refer to a blacksmith, what if it refers to a wordsmith? Like an author? That still points to Gerson of course, but we can also interpret the "terrible weapon" differently as well.

A weapon can be more than just a blade or something physical. It could also be "knowledge" depending on how its used and applied. And what does Gerson impart on our heroes throughout Chapter 4?

Knowledge — but of what exactly?

Based on his dialogue, Gerson doesn't seem all that fond of The Prophecy. Not that he hates it or doesn't believe in it per se, but the belief that it's rigid and set in stone.

This sentiment he expresses, to search between the lines and not be blinded by the brightness of The Prophecy, seems to be the thesis he wishes to pass on to Susie and the others. I don't think that this is merely good life advice, but something incredibly relevant to their journey and the overarching narrative.

Given Gerson's familiarity with The Prophecy, it's very likely he not only knows that Kris and the others play a part in it, but the terrible fate that awaits them at the end.

And I think he's trying to prepare them for it.

A pretty big reveal after the Gerson duel is that Dragon Blazers was based on Lord of the Hammer. This means that Dragon Blazers is an interpretation of an interpretation. (We could get into how Noelle called the Cat Petterz RPG a ripoff of Dragon Blazers, but I'm not going to open that can of worms right now.)

This idea might be what Gerson wanted to pass on to Susie and the gang — the power of one's own creativity, and how it can change your interpretation or perception of something. I think this power is a major clue to how Susie can avert that awful fate she saw.

While The Prophecy itself may be unchangeable, our interpretation and perception of it can change.

Sure, there may only be one ending to the story. But if we read in between the lines like Gerson, we could make the outcome more favorable.

By embracing this terrible weapon, our heroes can break away from the constraints of The Prophecy and reach Freedom.

[chilling-seavey]

Lessons in Lust and Other Illicit Desires (gr63) —THIRTEEN

↳ A/N A little lunch and learning some more George lore ;)

↳ Series Summary: Sensible, wise, and a hopeless dreamer, Rosaline was used to men not giving her a second glance. She soon discovered it was merely those mundane college boys who were nothing more than simply intimidated by her intellect. What she needed was a man — someone who could impart knowledge beyond the Classics and guide her in discovering her own confidence as a woman. The thrill of sneaking around with the ever-so-charmingly handsome Professor Russell was certainly a bonus.

↳ Pairings: OxfordProfessor!George Russell x Innocent!Student!OC, Max Verstappen x Charles Leclerc (background)

↳ Chapter Word Count: 5.5k

↳ Chapter Warnings: None

The weather was warmer than it had been all year that particular Saturday. Rosaline was comfortable in her skirt and blouse, her jacket folded over her arm, as she lingered in the well-kept grounds of Blenheim Palace, awaiting the arrival of her company. Despite her love for history, she had never had the chance to visit Britain’s historic treasure; an impressive 18th-century castle nestled in the countryside just a quarter-hour drive north-west of Oxford. She hadn’t even stepped foot in the Palace yet and she already had her breath taken by the impressive architecture, rendering it in her mind as the Versailles of England. 

Birdsong accompanied her waiting as she meandered down winding pathways lined with shrubbery and pristine gardens of blossoming flowers, gravel crunching under her feet with every step. Other visitors walked past her, sharing polite head-nods or ‘good morning’s, each dressed just as nicely for a morning stroll at such a location. Slacks, collared shirts, spring dresses—Rosaline felt right at home.

The buzz of her phone in her hand pulled her from her wandering mind and she peeked at the screen to reveal a text from George. 

G: You look beautiful today

Rosaline smiled at the message and then looked up from her phone and scanned the gardens to see if she could see him. Her free hand raised to shield her eyes from the sun as she turned towards the palace. There, George’s familiar figure stood atop the slight embankment along the side of the Water Terraces Garden where she had been exploring. When she spotted him, he grinned and raised his hand up for a modest wave. She waved right back.

George waited for her as she headed to join him and she tried not to rush as she climbed the few steps up to the main walkway. She couldn’t help but notice his striped collared shirt tucked into slacks—not an unlikely outfit to see him wear—but the addition of the white cashmere sweater draped over his shoulders and tied pristinely over his chest added an air of casual outside of his usual lecturing suits. For a moment, Rosaline thought he looked younger like that; but perhaps it was the combination of the light coloured fabric and the bright spring sun.

“Good morning,” he greeted her with a handsome smile. He set his hand on her arm and leaned in to press a quick kiss to her cheek.

“Good morning,” Rosaline echoed, trying not to let her words falter from the pleasant surprise of his kiss. 

His hand lingered on her arm even as he stepped back, his thumb caressing the soft skin of her bicep just under the sleeve of her blouse. In a gentle voice, he apologized, “Hope I haven’t kept you waiting too long, I forgot how far the parking lot is.”

Rosaline waved her hand as if to brush aside his concern, “No, you’re fine. It was nice to wander the gardens anyway.”

“I would have picked you up at your dorm but…you know how it is.”

The reminder of their risky relationship didn’t go unnoticed by Rosaline, but she shrugged with a casual smile, “It’s okay. I don’t mind the bus anyway.”

George’s eyebrows raised, “Oh, I don’t think anyone has ever said that before.”

They shared faint laughter for a fleeting moment. 

Then, he gestured towards the palace, “Shall we, then?”

She smiled at him, nudging her glasses up her nose with the back of her index finger, and agreed with a sweet, “We shall.”

The entirety of Blenheim Palace was a historic relic and most of the rooms could be explored either with a tour guide or individually and, since George was arguably a walking encyclopedia, they chose to explore on their own. With tickets purchased in the main hall, George then led the way into the first collection of ornately decorated rooms lined with expensive portraits and custom furniture pieces from centuries ago. 

It was quiet in the palace; other tour groups speaking in hushed tones and walking in slow, gentle steps to respect the delicateness of the space. Floorboards creaked here or there and the lofty ceilings carried even the slightest of whispers across the elaborately decorated rooms and the heaviness of a space weighed down by years of history lingered all around them. 

Meandering side by side through one of the rooms, George and Rosaline took in the grandeur of the gold trimmed furnishings in peaceful silence. She peered up at the intricate carvings on the crown moulding around the perimeter of the room, admiring every detail.

“For the grandeur of this place, it was built for relatively cheap,” George explained quietly. When Rosaline looked over at him, as if wanting to know more, he continued, “It only cost a total of roughly £300,000 back in the 18th century.”

Rosaline’s eyes widened in surprise and she gestured her hand around, “For all this?”

“It’s been renovated on and off since but, yes, the integrity of the palace and a majority of its design and architecture is the same.” George answered without hesitation, “It’s a World Historic Site too.”

“I didn’t know you knew history just as well as you knew literature.” Rosaline teased lightheartedly as they walked through to the next room. 

George shrugged modestly, his hands held behind his back as they took in the sights of the space around them, “Somewhat. History and classic literature often go hand in hand anyway.”

“Can’t know one without the other, really.” Rosaline added.

He glanced at her with a genuine smile, as if in awe of her, “Exactly.”

There was a momentary pause as they took in the new room they found themselves in. 

Then, George added, “I also just really love Blenheim. It’s not far from Oxford so it’s worth the drive up to sit in the gardens and read or grade papers.”

“You’re like a love interest in one of those lovely literary classics, you know?” Rosaline complemented as they wandered aimlessly through the rooms of the palace, “Well dressed, well read, likes to sit in palace gardens…”

George’s lips turned up into a bashful smile and he glanced at her, “That’s some high praise, Miss Kent.”

“Just the truth,” Rosaline shrugged and followed it up with a playful, “You know I’m the best literary analyst in the class.”

George chuckled, the sound low and warm and it made her heart skip a beat. She smiled at him shamelessly as if making him laugh was the pride of her existence, admiring the sight of his well crafted profile amongst the backdrop of golds and velvets. 

He nodded, humouring her with a light, “Yes, that is true.”

Rosaline stopped in the middle of the grand hall they had stepped foot in, surrounded by intricately carved stone columns that stretched up to the impressively high ceiling, supporting thick crown moulding around the trim of the arched ceiling. The emptiness of the vast space had their steps sounding like popping firecrackers over the marble floors, echoing upwards and to every corner of the hall. 

Directly above them, the domed ceiling donned a Renaissance style painting depicting flushing figures in well-preserved colours against a romantic backdrop. It was trimmed and circled in intricate gold, the ceiling arching upwards towards its frame to draw the eye to the composition. Rosaline found herself getting a slight ache in her neck from how long she stood there, staring at the ceiling and all the minute details of the grand hall. 

After a moment of appreciation, she followed George over to one section of the space where, along the wall, hung a collection of gold framed portraits, each depicting generations of the family that once resided in the palace walls. The two of them lingered in front of the small gallery, admiring the artistry of each brushstroke, side by side, silent. Rosaline’s attention was drawn to the nameplates, the name ‘Churchill’ standing out to her. 

“Is this the Churchill family?” she inquired in a whisper so as to not disrupt other visitors.

George, without taking his eyes away from the paintings, replied, “Yes, Sir Winston Churchill was born here in 1874; and back in the 18th century, it was gifted to his ancestors as a celebration of the Victory won over France in the Spanish Succession.”

Rosaline looked at him again, once again privy to the way his expression was relaxed in the presence of subjects he was passionate about, of things that brought his heart and mind satisfaction. His ease of recall in remembering all these facts had a smile pricking at her lips and she looked back at the paintings. She calmly replied, “I wish you could teach me every class. You make everything feel so interesting.”

“I think you’re a tad biased,” George glanced at her with a playful smirk. 

Rosaline scoffed and met his gaze, “Certainly not.”

“Well, I doubt I could make maths interesting.” he argued lightheartedly, “I reckon I’d put even myself to sleep with that one.”

“Oh, no,” Rosaline shook her head matter-of-factly as she looked back at the paintings like she was declaring nothing more than the evening news, “No one can make maths interesting. That would take a miracle worker.”

“I wouldn’t risk trying,” George replied.

When they naturally moved on from the Churchill family portraits, he set his hand on the small of her back to let her lead the way. Rosaline bit back her fond smile and kept her hands tucked under her light jacket she carried as if physically trying to stop herself from reaching out and touching him. Sure, they were safely away from Oxford but she still felt quite exposed exploring a museum with her professor on a Saturday. Forget that just earlier that week he had eaten her out to completion and then came all over her stomach. 

Rosaline’s instinctive clear of her throat to rid those thoughts from her head echoed through the grand hall. 

It was a given that George and Rosaline would inevitably find themselves in the library. Taking up almost a full length of the palace, the library stood just as grand as the rest of the interior, painted a nice calming yellow and accented with elaborate marble columns and trim. The ornate bookshelves were built out from the wall and stocked full of historic texts with gorgeous spines nestled behind dainty metallic mesh. At the far end of the library, all three walls were covered in bookshelves and a narrow ladder led to the mezzanine where another level of bookshelves lined the high walls. 

Rosaline and George stood in awe, peering up at the millions of words that surrounded them, bathed in the noonday sunshine streaking in through the arched windows at the top of the lofty space. The ornately painted and carved ceiling details towered above them, cocooning the centuries of books within those well preserved walls. 

They wandered closer to one of the shelves, knowing better than to touch the artifacts but desperately wanting to get a glimpse at any of the titles the library housed. As they peered through the thin metal mesh that protected the books, they both nearly held their breaths, side by side, shoulder to shoulder. 

Rosaline was so entranced that she didn’t notice the way George was staring at her more than the books. It wasn’t until his fingers brushed her hand that she was pulled back to reality with a hitch of her breath at his unexpected touch. She kept her focus on the books as if to play it off coolly that she wasn’t fazed by his sudden display of affection, even if she truly couldn’t focus on anything but. 

She relaxed her hand to welcome his into hers and she could feel the slight hesitation in his movements as he timidly intertwined his fingers with hers. Neither of them moved for a few long seconds as if what they were doing was horribly immoral and they would be stricken down at any moment. They kept their eyes forward, staring stupidly at the stocked bookshelves, hand in hand. Rosaline nibbled at her bottom lip. 

Then, George spoke, casually, “You know, this library holds more than ten-thousand books.”

Rosaline glanced at him when he spoke, his words cutting through their momentary uncertain tension. The familiarity of his fun facts had a relaxed smile pricking at the corner of her lips. Her hand eased into the comfort of his.

“I wonder how many we’ve read.”

Rosaline didn’t realize how clammy your palms could get after holding hands for so long. By the time they reached the Orangery Restaurant and the host showed them to their table, they had already finished an entire tour of the palace without separating their hands once. When they sat down across from each other, they separated, and Rosaline discreetly wiped her palm on her skirt under the table. 

George was peering out of the white trimmed windows overlooking the gardens as they settled at their table. The mid-day sun streaked in prettily through the glass and across the marble floors of the renovated orangery, the rays of light making George’s hair look almost blonde. Rosaline felt like she was dreaming. 

He had said this wasn’t necessarily a date but she figured it wouldn’t hurt anyone for her to silently pretend it was. Besides, he was a damn good option for her first ever date. 

A brief silence settled between them, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Rosaline took the opportunity to actually look at him, at the way the sunlight softened the usual sharpness of his features. He looked relaxed, like he was entirely at home. And so, so pretty. She captured her bottom lip between her teeth as she shamelessly admired him and his profile in the midday sunshine. 

After a moment, he turned his attention away from the gardens and back to her, “I still can’t believe you’ve never been here before. You’re the writer. I’d have thought a place like this would’ve called to you, especially with it being so close to Oxford.”

Rosaline picked up the menu in front of her but barely glanced at it, “I didn’t even know it existed. Clearly I need to get out of those dorms more.”

George smiled over at her, his own menu in hand, amusement flickering in his eyes, “I think we can work on that.”

“Mm,” Rosaline scrunched up her nose in playful doubt, replying with a sarcastic teasing, “I dunno, my Classic Literature professor is a real stickler with the assignments.”

George let out a breathy chuckle, “Oh, wow, he sounds like a right arse.”

“He’s okay,” she smiled back at him.

Their gazes lingered for a moment before they both looked down at their menus. Rosaline found herself rereading every item, unable to process what anything was saying; it was as if she was running so strongly on adrenaline and infatuation that her logical part of her brain was lagging behind. She reached for her water glass and took a sip to try and calm down for a moment. 

“See anything you fancy?” George asked her after a moment.

“Mm, it all looks great,” she answered as if any of the words actually processed in her brain. She nudged her glasses up her nose with the back of her index finger and turned it back on him, “What are you having?”

“Always the same thing,” said George with a smile, “Their fish and chips are the best I’ve had. And that’s saying something since I’ve sworn by the chip shop in my hometown for decades.”

Rosaline set her menu down, “I’ll have the same then.”

“A beautiful woman who has good taste; what a catch,” George praised.

She folded her arms on top of her menu, leaning towards him with playfully narrowed eyes, “Was that a fish pun?” 

George genuinely tossed his head back with a laugh, hand over his chest and everything, “Oh my gosh, not an intentional one.”

Laughter lingered between them, soft and easy, just as the waiter arrived to take their orders. When they were alone again and the menus were gone from in front of them and their drink orders had been quickly delivered, a momentary silence fell once again. George’s eyes drifted back out to the gardens, his arms folded calmly on the edge of the table. Rosaline lifted her glass of soda from the table and took a sip.

“So this chip shop in your hometown,” Rosaline started, swirling her straw around her glass absentmindedly, “Is it one of those mom-and-pop shops?”

As if thrilled by the chance to talk about his hometown, George turned back to her with a grin, “Yeah! Yeah, it is. My family got quite close with the owners over the years—this older couple with no kids of their own—and I frequented it often during secondary school. They always gave me a good discount. Saw me like a son, really.”

Rosaline smiled and set her glass back down to give him her undivided attention, “That’s sweet.”

George’s expression faltered for just a moment, his tone falling quieter, “I attended the husband’s funeral in the winter.”

“Oh,” Rosaline’s shoulders sank, “that’s heartbreaking.”

“Yeah, the wife sold the shop because she couldn’t keep it going on her own and she’s getting up there in age too. The new owners changed so much, it’s really not the same. But it will always exist in my memory; the crispy breading, thick-cut chips, the smell of grease on every surface.”

“The melancholy of growing older and being forced to accept that things are no longer what they used to be.”

George cocked his brow at her playfully to lighten the mood, “What do you know about getting older?” 

“Plenty,” she laughed lightly. 

“At the ripe age of, what, twenty-two?”

Rosaline folded her hands together under her chin, elbows on the table as she stared back at him, “Yes. I have my own life experiences.”

George just stared at her for a moment with a melancholy upturn to his lips and he spoke to her with a kindness that came with his twelve added years of experience, “You’ll have hundreds more and, someday, you’ll look back at yourself in this very moment and think about the million things you should have done differently.”

“No,” she insisted, “not this.”

He let out a soft breath as his face melted into a bit more of a smile. He unfolded his arms and reached across the table for two to take her hand from under her chin before guiding it by her fingers towards his mouth. Rosaline’s heart flipped in her chest as he pressed a slow, lingering kiss to her knuckles, his eyelashes closed gently atop his cheeks. 

When he looked at her again, he held her hand in both of his, thumbs gently rubbing over her skin. He didn’t offer a verbal reply, but she could see the honesty in his steadfast gaze. 

In that moment, Rosaline didn’t want to think of the possibility of a future without George in it. In all honesty, she had been so caught up in the ‘here and now’ of their agreement that she had forgotten to think ahead and what it would look like in the future…after graduation. She swallowed back those thoughts and kept staring back into his eyes, earning her another few gentle kisses to her knuckles by his soft lips. 

They separated by the time the waiter returned with their plates of crispy golden fish atop a heap of french fries and they passed the salt between them and took their time beginning to eat. Rosaline had to agree that it was arguably the best fish and chips she had in a while. 

She balanced eating with admiring her company, taking in every little detail down to the way he held his fork and knife and how he didn’t eat his chips with his fingers like almost everyone did. As he raised his fork with a spiered french fry on the end to his mouth, the sun caught the wristwatch peeking out from under his sleeve. He was always so put together, the perfect idealized man in her eyes. It made her wonder why he was still a bachelor in his mid-thirties. 

They ate in silence for a little while, Rosaline toying with whether or not it would be appropriate to ask such a question before, finally, she spoke, “Can I ask you something?”

George looked over at her as he lifted his glass from the table, “Of course.”

He kept his eyes on her as he took a sip.

“You don’t have to answer,” she assured.

“Try me,” he pressed. 

Rosaline dropped her hands to the side of her plate, willing herself to speak, “Do you…you’re single, right?”

She internally cringed at how awkward it came out. Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip to hide her grimace. 

George’s face bent into an amused smile and he set his glass back down on the table with a dull clunk, “Yes, I’m very much single. I would not be taking you out to my favourite sights or partaking in our agreement if I wasn’t.”

“Okay,” Rosaline nodded, tucking her hair behind her ears.

“Did you think I wasn’t single?” George questioned, cutting another piece of fish casually. 

Rosaline shrugged, “Just…hard to believe that you are.”

He glanced over at her again, “Why’s that?”

Rosaline huffed a nervous laugh at his obvious pressing for her confession and she shifted in her chair, “You’re just so…wonderful so it’s strange to think that no one has laid claim on you yet.”

George visibly melted at her soft words and he set his fork down to give the conversation his full attention, “You’re sweet, Rose.”

“It’s true,” she insisted, “I keep waiting for something to happen…some twist to reveal to me that all is not as I’ve been led to believe.”

“Well, I can promise I am single. I have been for about a year now.” he told her, genuinely, “And anything you want to know, I will tell you. I’m an open book to you.”

Rosaline shifted in place for a moment, weighing the options of things she could ask now that he had given her the okay. She nudged her glasses up her nose and crossed her legs under the table and started with the first question that lingered at the forefront of her mind, “Why did the last relationship end?”

George settled back into his chair as his gaze dropped to the tabletop, “Starting with the deep questions now, are you?”

Rosaline flushed, “Sorry, I—”

He politely waved his hand between them as if to brush aside her apology before he answered her question, “We were engaged, actually, for about a year, but I was so focused on my career, my research, my publications, giving everything in me to Oxford, that it got between us. I couldn’t give her the kind of work-life balance she expected of me.

“My career is something I’ve poured everything into, something I’ve worked tirelessly for. I just can’t imagine giving any of it up—not now, not ever. And if a partner can’t understand that, then that’s not the person for me.” George explained so eloquently, so calmly, the truth heavy in his words.

“I’m sorry,” Rosaline exhaled softly. “It must hurt when someone you love doesn’t understand your priorities.”

“It’s fine—it was a mutual agreement,” George shrugged. “But that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.”

A brief silence lingered.

Then, in an attempt to lighten the mood, George added, “But she never read poetry.”

Rosaline smiled in dramatic shock, “Never? Maybe you dodged a bullet then.”

George laughed, “Perhaps so.”

He shared some more with her about his past, from his first little girlfriend in primary school to his awkward first kiss behind the aforementioned chip shop in his hometown. Although Rosaline enjoyed hearing his stories and learning about him, the evil glint of jealousy in knowing he had been with plenty of women in his past tugged at her heart.

So, once their plates were empty and cleared and they each dug their forks into the piece of pie to share, Rosaline turned the conversation to something lighter with a simple, “When’s your birthday?”

“My birthday?” George’s eyebrows raised in amused surprise at her question, his forkful of pie held in midair, “February 15th.”

“Oh, so it’s already passed.”

George smiled and took his bite of pie, “There will be another.”

After lunch, George insisted on paying, despite Rosaline’s protests to split the bill. She felt a twinge of discomfort, her desire to contribute stemming from her forced independence that she had grown accustomed to through her life, but his quiet insistence left no room for argument. The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering through the gardens of Blenheim Palace, hand in hand, discussing literature, their lives, and everything in between. It felt effortless, like something they’d been doing forever. Rosaline tried not to let herself get ahead of the moment.

They climbed into the front seat of George’s Mercedes together in anticipation to head back to Oxford. Rosaline glanced around the interior of the car with her hands folded on her lap, taking note of how pristine it all was, not even a speck of dust on the dashboard. It was something she hadn’t noticed before the last time he had driven her home, but perhaps, after the day they had just shared, she was starting to see more of who he was underneath his handsome exterior. 

As he turned the key in the ignition, George asked, “Should I drop you off at the dorms then?”

“Um,” Rosaline tucked her hair behind her ear as she tore her gaze away from admiring the car to look over at him. In reality, the concept of saying goodbye felt absolutely dreadful to her. She decided to try her luck, “Can I stay with you tonight?”

George’s eyes widened as if that was the last thing he had expected her to say. He blinked at her, processing, and she could almost see his brain hurriedly debating the pros and cons of such a situation. She opened her mouth to take it back, but he spoke first.

“Alright, if you’re sure.”

“Yeah,” she exhaled with a smile she tried to bite back to avoid looking absolutely psycho, “if that’s okay with you.”

“Should be,” George nodded as he buckled his seatbelt, “Just…no getting any ideas, okay? That’s not what I wanted out of today.”

“Fine with me,” Rosaline agreed. She’d give anything just to spend as much time with him as possible. 

They drove through the countryside back to Oxford to the soft sounds of radio. They didn’t talk—having done enough of that during their time at the Palace—but the calmness of the drive was relaxing. Rosaline kept stealing glances over at George as he drove, one hand on the steering wheel and the other resting on the centre console. He looked so effortlessly handsome and suddenly the idea that she was going to be staying the night at his house had butterflies filling her stomach.

It helped that she had been to his house before, almost a sense of familiarity easing the slight nervousness inside her as he pulled into the narrow driveway and parked. She peered through the windshield up at the modest white paneled townhouse as they unbuckled and she followed him up the front steps to the jingling of his keys in hand. 

He apologized for the mess, not having expected to have company, but in reality, there didn’t look to be much mess at all. It simply looked homely, lived in, with items on the coffee table and mail stacked on the foyer console. 

She followed him into the kitchen and he offered her something to drink like a good host and, with her glass of water in hand, she stood with him as he made something simple for dinner. Their conversation flowed naturally, laughter filling the room with warmth and their voices carrying through the main floor when the topic got more exciting. 

Once the pan was in the oven, Rosaline found her way in front of him, trapping him against the counter as her hands helped themselves around his waist. He didn’t push her away—he never did—and, instead, his fingers stroked through the ends of her soft hair as he stared into her eyes. They shared a few slow, lingering kisses in the privacy of his kitchen after a long day of going without. 

His hands felt so good on her body, even in all the innocent places he touched over her hips and her back, and Rosaline’s arms draped around his shoulders until they were chest to chest. It was sweet and languid and yet it still had her heart absolutely racing with every small sound of their lips meeting and parting. She swore she could have kissed him forever. The timer on the oven broke them out of their reverie with a startle. 

They sat at the kitchen table and each had a serving of the shepherd’s pie he made; a family recipe that his mum used to always make when he was a kid. It was a little dry but Rosaline didn’t offer a single complaint, it was still overall quite tasty. Besides, she was his guest and it wasn’t like it was realistic for him to be good at everything. 

After eating, they shared the responsibility of washing the dishes (even if George insisted that she didn’t have to help) and then cuddled up together on the couch in the living room to watch a movie. Rosaline was impressed with herself at her ability to act normal and not let her hands go wandering. In fact, she was enjoying herself so much just being with him that there wasn’t even much of a need for anything more. 

When the film was over and the night was coming to a close, Rosaline followed him up to the second floor and he showed her where the bathroom was, right at the top of the stairs, and then the small guest room and, finally, his bedroom. Situated at the front of the house, his bedroom was painted a deep royal blue with matching trim to that of the main floor, housing gold framed paintings here and there along the walls. Dark furniture and an antique paisley rug filled the modest space with a matching masculine bedspread tucked neatly over the sizable queen size bed and topped with two throw pillows. Warm, elegant, homey, him. 

“It’s up to you if you want to stay in the guest room or in here with me,” George told her from the doorway, “No pressure.”

Rosaline turned to face him from the centre of his room, her cheeks dusted pink with the unfamiliar concept of sharing a bed with a man despite how much her heart yearned for it, “Can I stay in here?”

George smiled softly, “If you wish. I wouldn’t mind the company.”

He let her borrow some of his clothes for bed: sweats and a t-shirt that were only slightly too big on her. She changed in the bathroom and he, of course, didn’t bat an eye. Once they were both washed up, George took the responsibility of taking off the two decorative pillows from the bed and then moved to close the curtains. 

As he did so, Rosaline helped herself under the sheets and took off her glasses, folding them and setting them on the bedside table, and then snuggled down, pulling the covers up to her chin. After months of sleeping on a lumpy dorm mattress apart from the odd weekend at home, the feeling of a real bed was heavenly. She sighed dreamily, “Your bed is so cozy.”

George chuckled and pulled back the covers to join her on the other side of the bed, teasing lightly, “I’ve heard it’s even better with two people in it.”

She giggled, “Not that I’d know.”

George settled and turned his head to look at her with a smile, “Now you do.”

She met his gaze, illuminated only by the warm light of the bedside sconces and shadowed in some places. After a moment, she whispered, “Thank you for today. I loved it.”

George smiled genuinely, his eyes crinkling slightly in the corners, “My pleasure.”

Then, as if driven by instinct, Rosaline moved her body closer, the sheets rustling around them, and he lifted them up to welcome her against him. His arm settled around her waist and he let out a peaceful exhale against her head. 

“Are you a cuddler?” she asked with a small giggle. 

“Very much so,” he replied lightly. 

“Mm,” she shifted under his arm again, “show me how.”

George’s breathy chuckle fell against her temple, “Alright, face away from me. Hope you like being the little spoon.”

As Rosaline rolled over as per his instruction, she couldn’t help the leap of her heart at his words and the way he pulled her body back against his chest to mould to the shape of him. Once they settled, she replied with a simple yet cheeky,

“Guess we’ll see.”

♡ Enjoying my content? Support my writing here :)

♡ None of the original writing on this blog may be reproduced, reposted, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

[moneyfor-nothing]

A Note To All My Trans+ Siblings

I’m in an issues in trans+ communities seminar, and today we talked about the “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism & Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” executive order issued by 47 on his first day in office.

I openly cried in lecture. I was fortunate enough to flee the US at my first opportunity (perks of being a dual citizen), but I fear for my community. It is easy—and understandable—to fall into hopelessness and despair right now. But I would like to share with you a message of hope imparted on me by my professor.

My professor, sociologist & sexologist Aaron H. Devor, holds the inaugural position as the world’s first Chair in Transgender Studies. He is an internationally recognized leading expert in trans+ issues, and truly, he has done so, so much for our community. I think we could all do with some of his wisdom right now. This is a direct quote from him today:

“Trump and his ilk are often referred to as reactionaries and … what that means is that social change is happening in a direction that moves away from the old, and these people are reacting against that change.

They’re trying to stop it, trying to turn the clock back, and ultimately they will not be successful. A lot of people will get hurt before they are ultimately not successful. But bear in mind, what Trump is pushing for used to be standard. That used to be the norm, that used to be what everybody thought and what everybody believed, and nobody had to argue about it—that was just taken for granted. That there are only two sexes, there are only two genders, nobody can change sex, gender is not a real thing—that used to be the mainstream.

And the fact that the people who are pushing to go back to that are the reactionaries tells us that progress has been made.

You can’t sit back and say, ‘oh well, there you go, done …’ The fact that Trump got elected tells you that you have to always be continuing to push, continuing to defend any advances that are made.

But you have to understand. Trump wouldn’t be a reactionary if what he wanted was what everybody believed. Cuz reactionaries are trying to undo the progress that has been made. And there’s a whole lot of people who made that progress happen who are going to be defending it and are gonna be pushing for more progress. …

Keep it in perspective in terms of why this is happening—it’s happening because we have been successful, we have made a lot of changes, and there’s a lot of people that wanted that to happen that made that happen who are going to be trying to keep Trump and his buddies from getting too far in where they wanna go.”

Do not give up. Do not stay silent. Now is the time for solidarity, and for rising up together and fighting for our rights. We have been successful in the past. And we will continue to be successful.

[sapphicjackal]

Bingyuan Soulmate au 3

Part 1 Part 2

Shen Yuan was overjoyed now that he had made contact with his Soulmate at last. Binghe was absolutely precious. The burst of his emotions written into his words were all so genuine and adoring. Once Binghe knew that they were soulmates, he all but bloomed into an adorable white lotus. The way he writes in a more formal and archaic dialect is charming, especially since it’s paired with the calligraphy brush he consistently uses. Shen Yuan finds his quirks overwhelmingly cute.

They had only known each other for two days, but Shen Yuan was working out something of a pattern for Binghe’s messages. He would wake up well before Shen Yuan, leaving a message on his wrist like Shen Yuan has done for years. Then Binghe will be busy for the rest of the day until late at night.

Maybe he works on a farm? 

Shen Yuan tried to picture an adorable (because there’s no way that Binghe isn’t the cutest thing in existence) child waking up with the sun to work on a farm. Shen Yuan doesn’t really know what work is done on a farm. It would probably be a lot of manual labor. Binghe’s too young to be working all day!

What if he’s one of those kids stuck in a sweatshop forced to do labor?

The thought of it breaks Shen Yuan’s heart, and fills him with protective fury.

His soulmate is a lot younger than him, so Shen Yuan has been trying to keep the conversation more shallow to protect his soulmate’s privacy and safety. However, he’s getting the feeling that Binghe isn’t in a great situation. 

Not knowing about soulmates indicates a level of isolation and deliberate ignorance. Being illiterate at 10 implies a level of disenfranchisement. The long hours that Binghe keeps where he’s too occupied to talk. Those emotions of fragile hope and loneliness that undercurrent some of his words.

Something is wrong, and Shen Yuan should address it sooner rather than later.

“Bing-er could you tell me where you live?” Shen Yuan writes during the afternoon, knowing Binghe will likely respond later that night. He keeps imparts emotions of curiosity, concern, and care, hoping Binghe will feel safe enough to tell him, even if they hadn’t known each other long.

He had to wait a few hours but finally he felt the tingle of a brush dragging across his skin. 

“This Binghe is a disciple of Cang Qiong Mountain’s Qing Jing Peak” Binghe wrote. Shen Yuan stared blankly at the words. He would doubt them, but he can feel the truth in the words. 

Soulmates can tell when the other is lying, because the communication is between two souls that are linked together. Soulmates can lie to each other verbally, but words written on skin can only be true to the soul, if they’re dishonest then your soulmate can tell.

Shen Yuan pulled up his phone and looked up Qing Jing Peak, not expecting anything to come up. He was surprised to get results. However the results were to a web page of a relatively new Web novel called <Proud Immortal Demon Way> which only has 4 published chapters.

Shen Yuan read the summary in disbelief, his eyes skimming over it before reading it over and over again to make sure he got it right. The main character’s name is Luo Binghe, named after the river that his washerwoman adoptive mother found him floating in after being abandoned in a basket on the coldest day of winter. 

Shen Yuan didn’t understand what was happening. He didn’t think that Binghe was lying, their bond would tell him. Why would Binghe introduce himself as a character in a web novel that had barely started and had practically no audience. It made no sense.

None of this makes sense.

Shen Yuan can feel the tingle of a brush on his arm, Binghe must be wondering why he was taking so long to reply. Shen Yuan decided to read <Proud Immortal Demon Way> tomorrow during the day while Binghe is busy. He wouldn’t ask any questions that could make Binghe think that he doubted him. Shen Yuan just knows that it would shatter Binghe’s heart.

“Yuan-ge?” Binghe had written, light impatience mixed with a hint of nervousness and hopeful anticipation.

Shen Yuan decides to just go along with whatever Binghe says. No need to contradict him.

“I’m not a part of any sect. How do you find Qing Jing Peak?” Shen Yuan asked.

This time it was Binghe who took a long time to respond.

“This one likes Qing Jing Peak. Qing Jing Peak does not like this Binghe.” Binghe says, his words carry with them the faintest amount of bitterness, with a stronger mixture of sorrow, pain, and loneliness. The words feel like a whispered confession, like a truth too terrible to speak aloud. It feels vulnerable and painful raw in its honesty.

Shen Yuan’s heart hurts with the words. He has gotten so used to Binghe’s overwhelming vibrance, it makes it all the more clear how achingly diminished he feels in those words. All the brewing heartache that’s being exposed.

Shen Yuan glances at the summary page for a web novel, seeing the tags that promise a revenge story and power fantasy. It’s exactly the type of web novel that Shen Yuan likes to read. He pushes away all of his confusion and doubts to focus on what’s important, Binghe.

“I don’t know how anyone could not like Luo Binghe.” Shen Yuan writes, soaking the words with protective anger and overflowing adoration. Binghe is a good boy. Binghe deserves the world. Shen Yuan has only had him for 3 days but if anything happened to Luo Binghe, Shen Yuan would kill everybody in the world and then himself. 

“Yuan-ge!” Binghe writes, joy tinged lightly with heartache.

Shen Yuan changed the subject to instead ask about what Binghe was learning. Binghe told him that Qing Jing Peak was a Peak of scholars and that he was meant to learn the 4 Arts. However he wasn’t allowed into the classes with the other disciples and he was told to do chores instead of cultivating. 

It filled Shen Yuan with indignation. 

“I don’t know if my education holds up to Qing Jing Peak standards, but I have been learning the Four Arts. I’ll teach you whatever I can.” Shen Yuan wrote. He began trying to think of the best ways to teach the subjects with limited space and an inability to actually demonstrate in person. It would be difficult, but written instruction could hopefully help Binghe in some way.

“Thank you Yuan-ge!” Binghe wrote enthusiastically, filled with anticipation and hope. His brush strokes were messier than usual with his giddiness. 

Shen Yuan smiled at his arm. He had been thinking about becoming a teacher after he found tutoring his meimei to be enjoyable. Maybe this could be like his test? He’ll take this seriously, only the best for his Binghe. 

That means that Shen Yuan will have to do deep research into the four arts to expand his knowledge, and also work on putting together lesson plans. He should also look into teaching methods. (Not to mention the fact that his soulmate might just be the protagonist of a xianxia novel, a fact he was studiously putting out of mind and out of sight, meaning he should also research cultivation type settings.)

The bottom line is that his soulmate needs help, and after 15 years of waiting, Shen Yuan is prepared to do anything for his soulmate.

Part 4

[housemdork]

house md rewatch: 1x10, "histories"

featuring an unlikely, fascinating duo and wilson as the anti-house.

this is long asf. i'm sorry.

i love, love, love it when older house md used to relegate wilson to the background before his major episodes, like they were charging him up to maximum strength or something. as a result, 1x10 is one of my favorites of season 1, and of the show at large, really. i just can sense the fun they had expanding his role over time.

with that in mind, i think the way we arrive at the core message of the episode is actually a little winding, and that cuddy is the one to deliver it! the whole "oh it's about the characters' backstories because of the episode title" is too superficial for me.

when cuddy drops off two students to house who are learning to take patient histories (lol), she reminds house that you can "learn so much from teaching."

earlier, when the patient of the hour is admitted to the hospital, a homeless woman named victoria, foreman and wilson are immediately at odds. wilson has taken a keen and clearly emotional interest in helping victoria, while foreman has taken a keen interest in discharging her as soon as possible. in the face of this hostility, wilson reminds foreman that "we are a teaching hospital."

however, the resident anti-teacher, from whom the ducklings learn the most, doesn't do much teaching in this episode. house takes something of a backseat after wilson asks him to take the case despite foreman's protests. his reasoning is clear - he wants to know why both wilson and foreman have such personal stakes in a "nobody." he has no problem playing them off one another when snooping in their personal files doesn't give him the answers he wants.

foreman and wilson's conflict is sooo exciting and unexpected, but when you give it a thought, of course these guys wouldn't get along as their season 1 selves. yet it runs deeper than temperament issues - they're mature enough to move past that. unbeknownst to each other, they share a very specific type of emotional baggage that could not manifest in more disparate ways, a lot like the initial diagnoses - ovarian cancer and a tuberculoma - manifest with similar symptoms but different root causes. brotherly trauma! we don't know that about foreman yet, ofc, but it's hard to decontextualize this episode on a rewatch.

so, back to teaching. the last few episodes have done a lot of legwork in establishing that, despite their strained relationship, foreman is both a lot like house and has learned quite a lot from him. but PPTH does exist beyond the Church of Diagnostics (shockingly enough), and the character that passes between these permeable barriers the most is none other than "boy wonder oncologist" james wilson himself.

we've got a new, impromptu teacher for the episode! and he's imparting a pretty dangerous lesson - caring way too much.

even without the later knowledge about wilson's brother, before the end-of-episode reveal, wilson's interest in the patient makes sense because of his diagnosed pathology from 1x07: "you love everybody. that's your pathology." 1x10 asks the question of what would happen if house's misanthropy were exchanged for wilson's compassion? the answer is nothing good, but watching foreman - still the student - absorb it is so touching.

wilson, unintentionally, guides foreman away from house's practices. foreman starts out dismissive and refuses to humanize victoria. he's uninterested in her patient history, just like how house would rather read victoria's comics than learn about her directly. but as wilson's compassion-poison starts to take effect, foreman combines house and wilson's opposing methodologies - he reads the comics and asks victoria about them, thus uncovering large swaths of information relevant to her treatment and diagnosis. house comments on foreman's knowledge of victoria's history, too: "you've been reading! my, how you've changed."

like wilson with his cancer patients, foreman is becoming increasingly and personally invested in victoria. he gets the most face-time with her; she bites him, a permanent mark of their involvement.

unfortunately for foreman, this means going forward that he's privy to all of victoria's pain, physical and emotional. she becomes attached to him. when they put her in an ice bath, victoria demands that foreman be there, and then weeps when she feels that foreman is punishing her through this treatment. it's a really hard scene to watch, but not something that's so out of left field for wilson. chemo being such a brutal treatment, it follows that patients may feel that wilson is putting them through pain a la victoria and foreman.

later still, when victoria is brought back to the hospital after running away, she asks for foreman by name.

the most devastating part of this whole episode is, of course, the final diagnosis: victoria has rabies and won't make it through the night. foreman is fully entrenched in victoria's life now and wants to solve the puzzle of the elusive james she keeps mentioning. so, for a time, he calls a truce with wilson and they follow the trail her comics leave behind. together, they uncover the puzzle, with wilson narrating every detail: victoria was married, had a child named james, and both her husband and son died in a car accident that left her only with a broken arm. wilson and foreman have both fully engrossed themselves in this doomed patient, and what lies at the end for them both is more tragedy.

if we take a house-esque view of this outcome, it's a failure with little to be gained. we don't see much of house's final thoughts on the case, but we see a deep transformation in foreman. he wants to be with victoria in her last moments. more than that, he's learned enough about her personal history that he embodies paul, her late husband, while holding her hand. that's not an idea anyone who just read her drawings could come up with, and it's the one scene that's made me cry so far on this rewatch </3

this outcome sort of confirms that house-esque vision, too. what has foreman learned as a doctor by (subconsciously) following wilson's example? he expresses this out loud to wilson when he says that he feels the usual platitudes aren't worth it: "doesn't matter. now she's gonna die in that room." yet wilson gives his eternal reply that yes, those platitudes are what you say. once again, in the house-esque view, this accomplishes nothing, which is what foreman (and the audience) have been trained to trust the most so far.

i still think, however, that foreman finds a lot of value in wilson's perspective. 1x10 offers this visually by having wilson give foreman his rabies shot - probably the most intimate moment we've seen between any of the doctors so far! house md writers are always chomping at the bit to make sure we know that wilson is gentle. and viewers are relieved, probably, to know that another kind of doctor exists out there with similar vigor who doesn't just rely on drawings to take a history, right?

well, too bad. because wilson is beyond fucked up. is foreman's involvement with victoria, a drug addict who's unintentionally hurt people in her life, not just a parallel to wilson's involvement with house?

the ducklings don't seem to know this at all about him, and the audience has just had it teased so far. the secret work of this episode was less about giving foreman and company a lesson in hippocratic kindness and more about showing wilson's masochistic need to see someone else's pain through to the end, to his own detriment. he's teaching foreman a good human trait, maybe, but one that has proved emotionally injurious to him for years, and one that house is always perplexed by. this is my favorite part of house md. their practices are virtually antithetical to one another.

that antithesis quality also explains the novelty of this scene! house and wilson pretend that they're extrapolating all sorts of deep psychological information about victoria just by skimming her drawings, blowing the ducklings' minds.

how can these 2 possibly be working so well together? they're so diametrically opposed. it makes no sense. because it's a farce. as we'll come to know, house and wilson don't work well together in any way that's productive, just like their little stunt here. doesn't mean they don't need each other like how 2 lungs need each other, though.* it's also cute that their shirts match colors this episode.

okay. FINALLY. the scene that locked me in to house md (and wilson) permanently. a lot like the scene in 1x05 where wilson invites himself over to house's place on christmas eve, we learn important things very quickly about wilson: he has 2 surviving parents, both of whom house has met, one brother house has also met, another brother that house did not know about, and that wilson plays this close to the chest. wilson says as much: "it wasn't relevant," and the "medically relevant" goes unspoken.

house's knowledge about wilson isn't whole, which is shocking, and it opens a can of worms that won't be wholly excavated until 5x17, which just so happens to be one of my favorite episodes, as well.

yet another reverberation of 1x11 in season 5 is 5x04, when house demands that wilson confront his fear of loss. but i'll save that for the future! ;)

so! what did we learn? the ducklings are still just like sponges, taking in not just proper medical practices but also their superiors' ways about the world; caring about patients can be very painful, and it's possible to care too much; wilson's care (his need for neediness) is masochistic; holy moly are he and house 2 opposites made for one another; james wilson is so fucking hot.

also, for whatever reason, his line delivery in this scene felt like the first time his character has been completely realized - go watch, if you can! when he says "wait a minute" i hear the same voice and intonation that RSL carries till the very end:

*oh my god is that what 8x02 was getting at...

[voraciouskingdom]

It’s been said that you cannot give away what you do not have. One of the most spiritually important insights or secrets in life is that you already have, and always have had, what you need to give away. If you impart the message that ‘I am not worthy’ the universe will send it straight back in many shapes, forms and circumstances. When we say ‘give me’ we are imparting this message. We are saying we think we need to get something to complete ourselves or prove our worth.

Most of us are taught to live a life of "gimmie gimmie gimmie" – always striving, desiring, wanting, struggling. We do so only because we think that when we get what we want we will be fulfilled and esteemed by others. But it’s an illusion. We are all already complete and worthy but we cannot know it and experience it, until we give it away.

Only giving allows us to know what we are and what we have within. Ask the question – how can I serve? The intention to serve will point you towards what you need to give. If the intention is real it also generates the will. The most successful people in life are not go getters, but go givers.

🔥❤️‍🔥

[divine-motion]

the thing about Handler Walter (his full christian name) is that he's a really horrible guy. he's a guy who's decided that he needs to be an extremely cold, pragmatic, paranoid man willing to use anyone and anything to "right the wrongs of the past" (which is to burn it all down and commit genocide, even if he doesn't know that Coral is sentient that is still what he's doing, plus i imagine every Rubiconian dies too in the Fires ending or are at the very least heading towards a slow death of starvation and such)

but

he's also really sentimental, something he's tried really hard to bury to be the man he feels he needs to be in order to fulfill the legacy passed onto him and Carla. this is why he ends up caring a lot about C4-621 aka Raven (aka G13 aka... the list goes on) and probably all his previous hounds too. he doesn't want to do what he's done to them - using them as slave soldiers, attack dogs to throw into the meat grinder as necessary sacrifices even though he himself is at least capable as a pilot. he lets 617, 618, 619, 620 and who knows how many others get killed because he thinks it's better that they die than that he dies before he can finish the mission. this then likely changes with 621 as he determines that they have a better shot at finishing the mission than he ever did and makes sure that they escape rather than him (also maybe pragmatically thinking "if Arquebus re-educates 621 then everyone loses forever" bc he has at this point discovered that he pulled god's greatest killing machine out from the bottom of the bargain bin) in addition, while i think him wanting to get 621 Raven to "buy their life back" and "undo the surgery, become 'normal' again" is a genuine desire for them to attain some happiness or so, i think it is also, mainly, a way for him to feel better about what he's done to them. a way to wash the sins of his father from his hands - sure, the blood of every other hound is on his hands, and there are still plenty of old gens suffering similar fates to 621, being treated like dogs and machines that can just be switched on or off whenever their Handlers want to, but at least this one made it out, at least this one could escape the Coral

and yet. asking them to burn Rubicon. is dooming them. history knows them as the monster who burned the stars from then on. there is no peace for a hound that chooses to carry on his legacy that he imparts to them.

sure, Walter is kind of, textually, Raven's dad. and he's kind of a bad dad. well-meaning and caring in his own gruff way, but still not great. i think he puts it himself best in the post-credits message, where he says "I'm sorry... and I'm grateful." he knows what a burden it is. and despite the fact that he gives Raven a lot of choices in what they do, it doesn't really change that Raven never got to choose to even go to Rubicon, the legacy is still something thrust onto them with little say in the matter. they were switched off by the cerebral Coral control device when they were being transported to Rubicon, and Walter holds the power over them completely since he decides when or even if Raven gets to be awake and about. i think it is very telling that Raven can and will take jobs that are specifically behind Walter's back, and that it's only once Walter's gone that they dare to go against him directly (or when offered protection by ALLMIND, who proves themself to be able to circumvent Walter's watchful eye).

that's not even to say that i think that 621 Raven hates Walter or anything! the fact that in the liberator ending, after he puts the gun down with the "you found a friend" line, Raven is backing away at first, keeping their eye on Walter as long as they can before turning to escape the Xylem being pulled down by Rubicon's gravity, all that i think means that they do care. the emotional core of that ending hinges on the fact they don't want to fight Walter. it's like how you kind of inevitably love your parents even if you know how they've mistreated you (not saying this is universal but it's what i know from personal experience and from a lot of friends i have that have been in similar situations to me).

but anyways. the point is. i really like walter. he kind of sucks! and i think we should explore the side of Raven that isn't slavishly loyal to him, because they very obviously aren't, or else they wouldn't be so comfortable repeatedly going behind his back. Fires ending is an exception tho since, as i've pointed out in another post, the one where you actively choose to remain nothing more than Walter's faithful hound

[midnightbears]

✿ duskbound, afterlight.

#STARRING: cybertronian femme reader & other characters.

#TAGS: none i can think about???? megatronus appearance lol

#NOTES: sorry i forgot i also had this fic on tumblr lol it's a lot more updated on ao3 / thank you to @juicygf for her OC, Echo! I hope I have done her justice for her small appearance in the chap! Reminder that if you would like your oc to appear on the story, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message!

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six

Bluey took nearly three days to half-forgive you for that stunt you pulled with the Overseers.

It took even longer for the controversy to gradually die out in the simmering city of Kaon, the audacious scandal of the self-named gladiator, aka you, barraging through the underbelly of the city. The uproar sent tremors through the working bots of the lowest levels, stirring them from their routines and igniting a firestorm of controversy that, frankly, lasted longer than you would have liked.

If the rumors circulating among your comrades held any truth, your actions had caused quite the commotion outside of Kaon.

Your exploits spread like wildfire among the segment of the population that avidly followed the entertainment and broadcasts surrounding the gladiatorial fights. The rebroadcast of your match took the Grid by storm, particularly the 15-second clip that captured the explicit moment when you simply lost it at the disrespect you were facing. The sheer force of your actions made you a topic of fascination and debate throughout the community.

You wondered if your old comrades had heard of this.

Did the miners at Nuna 5PY recall the fierce figure that had defiantly hurled that shard of plating at the crime bosses who loomed over the brutal gladiatorial matches of Kaon? Did they see in her the image of the introverted, helpless-looking worker from the H branch, the one who had, through no fault of her own, been thrust into the role of living entertainment in a world that thrived on suffering? 

What might H–01 think of you now? And what of Starlight—had she been alive, would her clear gaze still recognize the essence of who you were? Would they see remnants of your former self entombed beneath the layers of the lessons you had learned, or would they only see the ruthless warrior you were slowly becoming? 

What would you even say to them? I swear, it wasn’t me. The Pits changed me. I had to do it. They made me. I made myself do it. To survive. To stay alive. To avenge you. To avenge all of us. Because I was scared. Because I was enraged. Because I did not want to die. Because I lost everything. Because everything was at stake. Because I had nothing to lose. Because I didn’t know what else to do. Because I wanted to prove I could. Because I hated them. Because I hated myself. Because it felt right. Because it felt wrong. Because I couldn’t stop. Because stopping would mean admitting it. Admitting that maybe this is who I always was. Or maybe this is who they made me. Maybe it’s who I had to become. Maybe it’s who I need to be. Maybe it’s too late to change. Maybe I don’t want to.

Between these mumbling thoughts, it became near impossible to discern which were the veracious whispers of your spark and which were the treacherous insinuations of your mind. It was so strange. It was born out of the silence of injustice, the moment you felt the gaping absence of fairness. It changed you, redesigned your beliefs, and imparted knowledge as heavy as stone.

Would they understand if you told them how the days in the dark bled together, how the screams of others became the sounds of the wins? Would they see the trembling servos that first held the blade and understand how they became steady with practice, helmed by obligation?

Or would they turn from you, repulsed by the monster you’d become? You wondered if they would hear the echoes of your defiance in the acts you committed or only see the emptiness you carried now. When you finally stood before them—whether in this life or the next—what could you say that would bridge the chasm of who you had been and who you were now?

Could you ever explain that it was a single moment that changed you? Would that be enough? Would you be enough?

Were you really the same femme you once had been? Or were you merely donning her old protoform? 

You paid the price to satiate your spite. You fed your anger; you willingly did it.

What did that say about you?

As everything does, the rumors and whispers faded away. The result was a welcome reprieve; no longer did Bluey or your newfound band of companions feel the need to shadow your every move, their initial worry easing as the crowds of enthusiastic gladiators retreated into the background, no longer clamoring to voice their admiration or to share their astonishment at your audacity.

What bothered you most was that you had not been punished.

You mulled over it as you meticulously honed the edges of various weapons, the lilting scrape of metal against metal breaking the otherwise stillness of the room. With no matches slated for the day, Bluey practically dragged you to the armory you both frequented for peace and quiet.

You were still waiting for one of your comrades to appear, but in order to pass the time, you had come up with the lame excuse of wanting to sharpen some blades in order to save yourself from the imminent conversation Bluey wanted to have.

Inside the pits, the armories were considered a place to reprieve, its cavernous walls holding so many forms of violence in different shapes, its tools long since outmoded or discarded, awaiting purpose or oblivion. Away from everything else, among the scuffed blades and tarnished plating, you could think— or at least attempt to.

Bluey was perched on the edge of a disused weapons rack, his frame slouched but optics trained on you with the sharp attentiveness that he hid so well, so carefully. He knew what you were doing, and yet he was entertaining your wishes. Although, only for a short time.

“Shanix for your thoughts,” Bluey’s voice cut through the quiet. His tone lacked its usual romp and jest, replaced with something softer, something more sympathetic. “Seriously, are you still thinking about it?”

You didn’t look up. “Shouldn’t I be? Nobody gets away with what I did. Not really.”

“Not many are crazy enough to do what you did,” Bluey countered, folding his arms as his gaze shifted to the weapons etched into the wall behind you.

You scoffed. “I don’t know what you expect me to do. Forget about it? Pretend it didn’t happen?”

“You could start by not acting like you’re waiting for a firing squad. You made your point. So, what? You want punishment? You want them to come down here, drag you out, and make an example of you?” His voice sharpened, his optics flickering with barely restrained frustration. “Because if you do, you’re not just slagging yourself—you’re slagging me and everyone else who’s been backing your sorry aft. No one who saw that clip’s going to forget it anytime soon, so maybe you ought to let it go.”

His words stung in a way they weren’t meant to. Let it go. As if it was that simple. As if the memory of the Overseers’ dismissive sneers and the crash of energon cubes toppling in front of their lofty perch didn’t appear behind your optics every time you closed them. The image still flashed in your mind, unbidden—the way their optics finally snapped to you, the way the entire pit seemed to hold its collective breath as you turned and walked out like you owned it.

“It wasn’t about making a point,” you muttered, more to yourself than to him.

Bluey didn’t miss a beat. “Oh no, throwing a hunk of scrap at their fancy energon stash was just a friendly little gesture, then? Sure fooled me.”

This time, you did look up, fixing him with a glare. “They weren’t even watching, Bluey. I could’ve been anybot out there, and it wouldn’t have mattered to them. All we are to them is noise. Static.”

“Static doesn’t throw tantrums,” he shot back. “Static doesn’t stop the show cold and have bots talking about it across half the Grid. You’re not static, and you’re slagging well smart enough to know it.”

The truth in his words twisted uncomfortably in your chassis, and you hated that he was right. You hated that, in the moment, you hadn’t thought past your own anger to the weight of what it meant to act on it. To take what you were feeling and throw it—literally—in their faces. You’d discarded the one thing Bluey had drilled into you and now you were paying the price. You opened your mouth to argue, but he held up a servo to stop you.

“You’re scared,” he said after a long pause, “Not of what you did, but what it means.”

With a solemn swallow, you darted your helm away. Just before the mech could speak, he was so close to doing so as his dermas were parted, the doors to the armory bolted open, letting him see the hallway for a second. He saw a pair of sentry guards passing by the doors, but his attention was only caught a split second by them before he redirected his optics to the reason the entrance had opened in the first place.

With airy steps, a femme made her way toward the two of you. To your surprise, behind her followed Megatronus.

Bluey bristled, leaning his servo on the table. “I thought we agreed on a private hangout, Echo.”

The femme looked at him with a raised optic ridge, her expression as unimpressed as ever.

“We did,” Echo said flatly, her voice cool and laced with that signature sarcasm that always seemed to cut right to the point. “Then he decided to invite himself along.”

She thumbed over her shoulder at Megatronus's imposing figure. The towering gladiator's sheer presence filled the armory, his optics sweeping over the room like he was already cataloging the weapons in sight.

The room seemed smaller now, the oppressive silence filling every corner as Megatronus stepped further inside. The dim light and shadows seemed to bend and curl around him, his presence pulling the atmosphere taut like a wire about to snap. Even among gladiators, he was larger than life—a figure carved out of myths and whispered stories that no one dared to speak aloud. His armor gleamed faintly, the darkened metal catching just enough light to highlight the scars etched into its surface, each one a mark of battles fought, victories earned, and enemies crushed.

Bluey shifted uneasily at your side, his servo tightening around the edge of the table. His usually easygoing demeanor—the casual grins, the sly remarks—was nowhere to be found. Now, his optics flickered with tension, darting toward you for something unspoken, something grounding.

"Didn’t realize we were hosting a fragging summit," he spoke directly in Megatronus’s direction, the strain in his voice betraying his attempt at humor. His words cut through the silence with ease, but they did little to lighten the weight in the room.

If anything, the tension seemed to thicken, settling heavily over you. Your spark pulsed harder in your chest as Megatronus’s optics locked onto you, pinning you in place with their suffocating intensity. His gaze wasn’t just commanding—it was predatory, cold, and unrelenting. There was no pretense of curiosity, no veneer of civility. He was here for a purpose, and whatever it was, it loomed larger than any excuse you could muster.

But you’d be damned if you let him intimidate you now. You stepped forward, mindful of Bluey’s optics trailing your every move. “What do you want?”

“You’ve made an impression,” Megatronus said at last. His voice was low, a resonant growl that seemed to reverberate through the walls and into your plating.

The urge to meet his intensity burned within you, but you forced it down, keeping your tone even. You knew better than to show weakness, yet every instinct screamed at you to tread carefully.

“That depends on what kind of impression you mean,” you replied, your voice steady despite the storm raging in your processor.

For a brief moment, the corner of Megatronus’s mouth twitched upward—not quite a smile, but enough to send a shiver down your spinal strut. “One worth investigating.”

The silence that followed was oppressive, each second stretching longer than the last. Bluey shot you another sharp glance, his optics narrowing as though willing you to say or do something that wouldn’t get you both scrapped.

You swallowed hard, drawing in a shallow intake. “I asked you, what do you want?”

Megatronus stepped closer, his imposing frame towering over you. His optics narrowed slightly, studying you with an intensity that felt almost surgical. When he finally spoke, his voice was a deep, measured rumble. “An answer. Not to what you did, but to why you did it.”

His words hung in the air like a blade suspended over your helm, waiting to drop. The temperature in the room seemed to plummet as his question bore down on you, the walls closing in with the weight of every optic fixed on you.

Beside you, Bluey tensed, his servo twitching just slightly toward the blade you’d been sharpening earlier. The movement was subtle, but you caught it, your spark stuttering at the thought of what might happen if things escalated.

Lying would have been easy. You could’ve spun a story, fabricated some excuse that might’ve deflected his scrutiny. But Megatronus wasn’t the kind of mech to accept falsehoods, and you weren’t sure you wanted to risk what might happen if he saw through one. Whatever answer you gave, it had to be the truth—or at least a truth that he’d believe.

You forced yourself to meet his gaze, “Because someone needed to remind them we’re more than their entertainment.”

For a moment, Megatronus said nothing, his optics boring into yours as if measuring the strength of your resolve. Behind you, Echo seemed to pause, her posture stiffening ever so slightly as she watched the scene unfold.

Finally, Megatronus nodded.

“Good,” he said simply, his tone as sharp as it was final. “Then you’re exactly the kind of bot we’ve been looking for.”

“Looking for?” you echoed, tilting your helm slightly as you folded your arms. There was a spark of defiance in your optics, one that you knew full well Megatronus wouldn’t miss. “You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t jump at the chance to be part of whatever ominous plot you’re about to drop on us.”

Megatronus’s optics gleamed faintly, his expression unreadable, though the faintest edge of amusement tugged at the corner of his lip component.

“I expected hesitation,” he said, his tone bearing a poundage that hinted he was more intrigued by your reaction than insulted. “But not doubt. I thought you had conviction.”

Your spark pulsed harder, though you refused to let it show. “Conviction isn’t the same as blind faith. If you want me involved, try using actual words instead of ominous statements.”

Bluey let out a soft, barely audible whistle. “She’s going to regret saying that…”

Echo snorted from her perch near him, lowering her voice. “Nah, I’m betting she survives. Megatronus doesn’t usually scrap his recruits on the first meeting. Makes for bad morale.”

The towering mech’s optics flicked briefly toward her, a fleeting but sharp glance that silenced her with a single raised optic ridge.

“Enough,” he said, his tone dismissive, though not unkind. His focus returned to you, his looming presence swallowing the space between you in a way that felt both suffocating and oddly exhilarating.

“What we’re planning isn’t for the faint of spark,” he continued, his voice dropping to a low rumble that seemed to resonate through your frame. “It’s for those who are willing to challenge the rot festering in Kaon. To remind the so-called crime lords that their reign is built on the backs of those they consider expendable.”

Your optics narrowed slightly as you took in his words. He wasn’t just talking about rebellion—this was something more calculated, something bigger. “And you think I’m the right kind of bot for this... crusade?”

Megatronus’s voice dropped, the intensity palpable. “You’re more than the right kind of bot. You’re the perfect one! You’ve got fire, strategy, and the kind of grit that’ll get us past the ones who think they’re untouchable.”

“And if I say no?” you challenged, raising an optic ridge, feeling a defiant spark of anger flare within you. “What happens then?”

“Then you’ll have made a mistake,” Megatronus replied, his tone cold and unyielding. “One you won’t get a chance to correct.”

You held his gaze, unwilling to break. “Is that a threat?”

“Call it what you will,” he said. “But you’ll find that there's no backing out when you’re involved in this. Not if you value your spark.”

The challenge tainting his words was clear. You tilted your helm and uncrossed your arms, the weight of his scrutiny sinking deep. “And if I decide to play along?”

Megatronus’s optics flickered, something unreadable flashing in their depths. “Then you’ll realize just how much you’re capable of. Soon enough.”

“Is that supposed to be comforting?” you asked.

His optics softened slightly, but only for a split second. “It should be. Because I wouldn’t have wasted my time if I didn’t think you had what it takes.”

You scoffed, taking a step back, feeling the pressure of his presence like a vice. “So, you’re just going to throw me into your plans and hope I don’t get caught in the gears, huh?”

Megatronus took a step closer, his frame almost imposing enough to block out the dim light. “You’re already caught, whether you realize it or not. Follow my lead, and you’ll find out soon enough.”

But you weren’t done yet. “What if I don’t follow your lead? What if I do things my way?”

For a split second, Megatronus seemed to consider it, his optics glinting with something dangerous. Then, his dermas curled into a smile, though it was anything but warm. He crossed his arms, extending a servo out. “Then we’ll find out who’s better at this game.”

The words dangled between you like a challenge, a threat, and an invitation all at once. You weren’t sure which you disliked more.

“What game?”

“You will realize,” he said, his voice dropping to an almost intimate whisper. “Soon enough.”

Your optics narrowed further. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one you’ll get,” he replied smoothly, a faint flicker of something—amusement, perhaps?—dancing behind his optics. “For now.”

You didn’t respond. Didn’t need to.

With one last lingering look, Megatronus turned to leave, his massive frame moving with the grace of a predator—always hunting, always calculating. The sound of his heavy steps echoed as the doors to the armory hissed shut behind him, leaving the three of you alone.

Echo’s optics lingered on the door for a moment longer before she turned to you, a crooked frown tugging at the corner of her dermas. "Well, that was dramatic. I’ve seen more convincing threats from half-welded scrap drones."

Bluey snorted at that, the sound breaking some of the tension in the room. "Yeah, well, remind me to avoid half-welded scrap drones if they’re anything like him."

You didn’t smile. You didn’t even laugh. It wasn’t funny.

Instead, you simply gazed at the vacant spot where Megatronus had been, sensing the heaviness of his challenge weighing down on you like a persistent pain and pulling you down with it, sinking into your tanks. He had presented you with a decision, but that wasn’t what troubled you the most. It was the realization that, deep inside, you understood it was an offer that would change everything.

There would be no going back from this.

No easy way to evade it.

You didn’t look at your friends at first. You just reached for your blade, the cool metal a familiar weight in your servo. You ran your digits over the edge, feeling the sharpness, the perfection of its form.

You would have to make your choice soon, and there would be no going back after it.

In that moment, you realized something: You hadn’t just been fighting for survival. You’d been fighting for control. And whatever happened next, you weren’t going to let anyone take that from you.

Not Bullway. Not any other overseer. Not any gladiator who thought they could taint you. Not Megatronus. Not anybot else.

[whenlifeisscaryanddepressing]

A message to my American brothers and sisters whose candidate lost this election:

Firstly, I am neither American nor did I vote for your election so do take what I say with a grain of salt.

I’m writing to you guys because I know how you feel. I’ve been there.

During the 2020 Presidential election of the Philippines, I too supported a movement. Not a candidate—a movement. A female presidential candidate who raised hope, became a champion for marginalized communities whose only goal was to create opportunities to shift my country away from the vitriol that came from a previous president who strong armed my country into a bloody war on drugs that saw the death of thousands of poor people.

And like you, I lost.

With the spread of misinformation and lies, my country elected the son of a dictator who proved himself to be the ineffective, incompetent and dishonest leader we all secretly hoped he wouldn’t be.

Our hopes dimmed.

Tears were shed.

Resentment flowered in us like a storm.

It was difficult to swallow the results of an election that had so much at stake. You see, like your President-elect, our current President spent millions of pesos contesting a fair election that saw him losing out to the vice presidential position during the previous election.

Through bullying and intimidation, he sought to undermine a fair election that took him out of power.

And like your current President-elect, he still managed to win at the end.

It would have been easier to accept the results had it not been for the mocking of 31 million Filipinos who voted our current president into office.

We all heard them tell us, “You’re crying over an election? You need better things to worry about.”

I want you to know that it’s okay to cry.

Your frustrations and disappointment are valid.

It is rare to find a candidate you’re able to place so much hope in and to have that hope dashed away is a bitter pill that is difficult to swallow.

I know, you’re probably tired of hearing it.

“Turn the other cheek.”

“Accept it and move on.”

“It is what it is.”

“There’s nothing more to do.”

It’s okay. I’m tired of it too.

I know you’re probably scared and angry and so, so, so tired. Two years after our election and I am still all of these things.

I still think about the what if, the what could have beens. I think a lot about how better off we would have been if the right person won.

I want you to know that it’s okay. It’s okay to mourn those things.

You did your part. You voted and you campaigned and you fought hard. Sometimes, we just lose.

If there’s any advice I can impart, it’s that I hope you take your frustration, your sadness, you exhaustion, your anger, and turn it into righteous fury.

Take that fury and do something with it.

Because the movement cannot stop here. The moment we stop fighting, they win.

To lose hope means victory for the other side.

I get it. It’s easier to get mad at the people who voted for him. It’s even easier to spew the same vitriolic hate towards them when they start complaining about how things don’t change and how your country is worse off but theirs is the vote that put a wannabe-dictator in power.

Don’t do it.

Because that divide is precisely why they keep winning. It’s the same divide they sowed into my country and we are still struggling to fight that division everyday.

Losing this election is a step backwards but losing hope would be another step back.

Even to this day, my presidential candidate continues to inspire hope for change in my country.

I know yours will too.

It’s not the end.

I need you to remember to breathe.

Breathe in the hope you desperately fought for;

breathe through the hurt of the loss;

and breathe out the fear they so badly want you to feel.

The road is long and it’s scary.

But there’s about 50 or so million other people on that road with you. You might not be the majority but even David was small when he killed Goliath.

Cause if you voted for Kamala Harris, you already know you have the courage and righteous fury to fight for change and you cannot give up now that you’re so close.

You lost the battle but it’s not the end of the war.

So tonight, grieve. Cry. Hug your friends and family who are right there with you. Be sad and mourn the loss of what could have been.

Because tomorrow, when you wake, you will continue fighting for change.

Because no one else will.