#and now like existing without them is weird

[seungcheorry]

Ot13 reaction on how many kids SVT would have?

how many kids svt would have:

seungcheol probably wants to have two at least. i can picture him having a baby girl and then getting too excited once his partner is free from the whole post partum thing and getting them pregnant again right afterwards. he would really wish for a baby boy then.

jeonghan would love to have two as well, and i can see him having twins - i don't know why, something in him just screams FATHER OF TWINS to me. probably two girls? it's a lot of work though, he'll be done with having kids, would probably even do the surgery so he can't have any anymore.

joshua is very similar to seungcheol to me, would probably have a boy and then get too excited and have a girl because his dna is just good like that. the prettiest kids to ever exist actually, and he's so in love with them that it can be quite easy to talk him into having another one after a few years.

junhui screams boy dad to me, so yeah. i can see him having only one child, a really savage boy just like minghao was back in the day? weird but in a good, chomical way. he would be really good friends with his kid, like a partners in crime type of relationship.

soonyoung... oh, soonyoung. he says he wants to have lots and lots of kids because he loves having his house full but after the first one - a baby boy -, he gets so tired that he actually apologizes to his mom. might slip or be talked into having another one (he just wants his kid to have a relationship like the one he has with his sister); would really hope for a girl then, would probably get another boy though.

wonwoo is a definitely a girl dad too. he would really hope for a boy (i don't know why, i just feel like he would) but then it comes a baby girl and he turns into mush for her. such a goner, i can't even begin to describe - she can tell him to stay put for 20 whole minutes while she pretends to make tea and he won't move a muscle, just stay there and watch her because she told him to. would probably just want one.

jihoon is a girl dad and i will die on this hill. he's also a goner for his girl, he's very strict with things but also he doesn't like to be rough to her so he's just, i don't know, the perfect balance? most likely to be the favorite parent and learn about his daughter secrets before his partner because she just trusts him like that. would also just want one.

seokmin would love three - the first one (a boy) is probably planned; the second one (a girl) is probably an expected accident as he doesn't mind having sex without protection even though he knows the risks; the third one (another boy) is probably an unexpected accident that he cries in joy when he sees for the first time. he would definitely tell his partner "i'm so glad we got drunk that night" while seeing his two oldest children ganging up to change the new baby's diaper.

mingyu definitely wants two kids, he loves his sister too much and knows how a sibling relationship can literally save someone. most likely to have two girls, and his partner might ask him if he isn't sad that they didn't have a boy but he's too busy to answer as he's teaching the girls how to make ramyeon :(

minghao already said himself, he's not the one who gets to decide how many kids he and his partner will have, but he wants two - and can be bend into having a third one. i can see him having a boy and then a girl, and if he and his partner decides for another one, then it would be another girl, probably.

seungkwan would have two girls and his dramatic ass would say it's karma because what do you mean he grew up with his older sisters and now he has to take care of yet other two girls who will bicker and gang up on him just like his sisters did? behind that facade though he would love to take care of them and to see them grow together. most emotional dad, for sure.

vernon is a boy dad to me and he would say he only wants one kid but then he sees him growing up on his own and don't get me wrong, the kid is totally fine with it, but vernon can't stop thinking about how sofia changed his life and he would go "yeah, we might need another one" to his partner. makes a whole deal about it when he finds out his second child is gonna be a girl. "REALLY, WHAT ARE THE ODDS?"... but it's not that hard, vernon. i'm glad you're happy though, i know you love your kids.

chan is also a boy dad and he would probably want another kid but once he realizes how much work and effort it takes, he's sticking to just one. if his partner ever wants another one they would have to really talk him into it, might even need to ask seokmin for help, because chan would stand his ground and say no. but honestly? he's a loverboy, at the end he might just say yes and then meet his cute little daughter and be like "oh my god, why didn't we make her sooner?"

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

Oh boy there is so much here and I'd absolutely love a crack at explaining it. "What is weird about cats in Arknights?" a lot actually, and honestly, it's what is weird about every animal in Arknights.

So, yes, first of all, you have the "Feline" race, which broadly includes every cat person in the game, with the exception of lion people, who are categorized under Aslan instead. These aren't actually super important to our discussion immediately, so I'm going to gloss over them for right now. Point is, lots of people are cat people in this world, and this isn't given much pause.

That, at minimum, though, is a little weird. People on Terra don't seem to know that "cats" exist for the most part. There are a few people in particular that are important to our discussions here: first is Mousse, who has a bunch of friends she calls "kitties" but whom don't seem to be creatures known to the wide world; second is Haze, who has a major interest in "kitties", but these being BOTH the normal cat looking varieties AND Felines; and Phantom, who is a feline that is followed around by a two-tailed cat named Ms. Christine.

Ms. Christine gives us our first clue into all of this. Haze has a lot of respect for her, and Ms. Christine seems to just randomly appear in places following Phantom. What's more, the implication is that Ms. Christine won't show herself without her consent. If she doesn't want you to find her, you won't. While this might just seem like your average cat behavior, this is actually a common trait about the various Beast Lords in the game. Dolly, the Beast Lord for Sheep, can also make it so he is not visible to people if he so wishes, with one exception (Kal'tsit).

Ms. Christine hasn't talked at all, so we don't specifically need to know what her deal is. We do know that she is trying to keep Phantom away from the Crimson Troupe, the wandering assassination theater group who raised and groomed him from when he was a young orphan, and given that she can freely walk amongst the troop's castle in Calais, it's at least clear she's not ordinary.

What about Mousse's kitties? We don't know! They do seem to have some degree of deliberate intelligence to them, but they might simply be normal cats. The point here is that the others don't know what they are, so it's possible they could be Beast Lords too.

What IS interesting is that, according to Dolly, Beast Lords and their modern races originate from the same source. Beast Lords are _probably_ manifestations of animals that resulted after the first Catastrophes brought Originium to the surface worldwide, and from that point, the Beast Lords were born and the other animals began their evolutionary divergence (because remember: this is not a people becoming animals story, it's an animals becoming people story!).

There are also cloudbeasts, or at least at minimum, cloudbeasts are similar enough in shape to cat and dogs that the people of Terra don't find Mio or Woof to be particularly strange (Mio and Woof being Beast Lords themselves). Terra does seem to have its own unique versions of many animals we would know: fowlbeasts for birds, burdenbeasts for large herbivores etc. But on Terra, by and large (depending on what is happening with Mousse), it lacks the animals that we would expect in our world, as they either became Beast Lords or turned into animal people.

(For example, there is a Hound type enemy in the game, but they're actually some kind of fragment of a dog-like Beast Lord in Bolivar. This is only explained in the CN only lorebook because Hypergryph hates me in particular.)

This covers almost everything there is to say about cats in Arknights, with one exception: Kal'tsit. The like immortal green cat girl of the setting. Her conversation with Nezzsalem, the almost as immortal leader of the Nachzehrer, indicates that she seemingly was not always a cat girl, and we know that she is actually an artificial creation from the Precursor Civilization to Terra that brought both the original animals and Originium to the moon. So what is Kal'tsit, if she were not always a cat girl?

We don't know! My theory is that Mont3r, her companion, is in some way a "larval" form of Kal'tsit, given that it is sentient and that Kal'tsit seems to trust it to do the right thing when she passes. Curious!

Anyways yeah. Cats are weird in Arknights.

Arknights could pull off an event about a young witch searching for her lost cat in the alps. In fact it’d actually be super hype considering how weird cats are in lore

[shorthaltsjester]

sorry it so truly laughable to me to look at campaign 3 and determine the success of the stories therein based on screentime like. disregarding the fact that i personally take c3 to be the least valuable in terms of stories told, particularly ones about romantic love, for the moment: on principle it’s goofy as hell to think that a large amount of hours = a story that has something to say let alone something meaningful to say. like, yasha and beau, for example, have a fairly small amount of hours due to the fact that a) ashley missed half the campaign b) they were also generally slowburn, and while that influences the depth of certain aspects of the story, the time spent with yasha and beau has little to do with how meaningful their story is. it wouldn’t matter if they had 10 hours of screen time or 100 if what is in question is the story told; yasha’s story as someone chained by grief choosing to move on & beau’s story as someone angry after a life of being treated like shit finally getting justice for the wrongs done to her which both conclude in their campaign’s finales aren’t successful because I can launch some meaningless number of how many hours it took them to take build those stories together into the ether and say “they did this for women’s rights” just because two women existed beside one another. both yasha and beau resonate as stories that have a significant feminist read because they both deal with fantasy versions of things extremely relevant to women in a way that maintains their agency without shirking their responsibility, and they are particularly strong stories about queerness not simply because they’re two women who fuck but because they deal with emotional themes relevant to queer experiences — anger and grief — and how, while the reasons for those emotions are grounded ones, they both choose to grow beyond the boundaries they allowed those emotions to enforce in their lives.

further, the notion of screentime for a show that takes care to show all of the players on screen at a time in a medium where the player/character distinction isn’t always clear is such a subjective calculation and on top of being a stupid justification for ‘success’ or ‘value’ of a story, is also easy to manipulate to your favour.

it’s just, the screentime for im*dna’s relevance and success doesn’t ring true to me just because it’s a bad reason. but further it just isn’t persuasive. i don’t care if i see someone for 1000 hours or 1, if a story resonates it will do so with any amount of time. whatever amount of screentime they’re calculated to have does nothing to repair or hide the fact that their story as a couple says very little of value in the text, without whatever fanfic extrapolation has taken place (and to be clear, this isn’t to say fanfic can’t be valuable, it’s to say that the character explorations you do in fic or in meta for that matter doesn’t mean that analysis or elaboration is canon). like. halfway through the campaign, before they got together, imogen told laudna “our weirdness is what makes us right” and laudna agreed verbally but now 1 billion hours of screentime later or whatever, laudna has still failed to integrate that belief into her, which is made obvious in a scene after the divine intervention that ties laudna’s life to imogen’s when imogen tells laudna she’s grateful she got to hear the music of laudna’s thoughts, and laudna’s response is “it was probably a bit of the insanity, honestly”, something which on paper might read like a joke but in the moment is played like a (maintained from hours upon hours previous) dismissal of what imogen is saying she values about laudna, evident in the way laura/imogen deflates when she says “well, it was pretty…”. and simply because it’s been a trillion hours of screentime that’s supposed to be representative of a relationship in which the characters help each other to grow.

(addendum to say that stories that are about stagnancy can be just as valuable as stories about growth, but textually and by the sections of fandom im critiquing here, imogen and Especially laudna are treated as a relationship that grows)

truly, if anything, counting up as many hours as possible to dictate the success of imogen and laudna’s story actually ends up working against the story. because i’d probably be more forgiving of the stagnancy if it was a shorter story, but knowing that they had so many hours and still failed to deliver a story with actions and behaviour that matched the claims the characters would make and the tropes/themes that would get applied to them, that makes it worse.

[utilitycaster]

Forgive me if you've already been asked something on this topic, but I was curious about your opinions re: Laudna's epilogue. Specifically, about how her lifeforce and aging is now tied to Imogen's in a 'marriage' ceremony even though they've only been dating for a few weeks in-game. It felt like an extension of the flaws baked into her entire arc that Laudna bound her soul to yet another magical woman, and in a way that would discourage any conflict between her and said mage. Laudna's epilogue with Imogen being considered a 'happy ending' really hinges on the idea that those two each other's perfect matches

So this is an interesting approach! I have to admit: I don't find the choice to age to be particularly bad, nor discouraging of conflict. I think it just means that she'll live around as long as Imogen will, as a human woman. I think if they were to break up, or if Imogen were to meet an untimely end, it just means Laudna would still live to a typical human lifespan.

But this is an interesting point that I think I touched on briefly when interacting with that weirdo last night, which is that it really feels in the end that Laudna never has her own life. Hell, Liliana manages to more satisfyingly say "huh, I've spent my entire life from probably my early 20s to my 50s either effectively on the run and alone, I fell into the hands of a very powerful wizard who treated me as a vessel, I never really unlearned my brainwashing from that, and now that it's over I think I need to go out in the world and figure out who I am as a person because my entire adulthood was lost to that" and Laudna never does. Even the ritual to make her live a typical lifespan feels very much a having your cake and eating it too - it's always been interesting that Laudna made these sort of intermittently expressed overtures towards liking her weird gross undead state and that mechanically Marisha leaned into it beyond the rules of Hollow One but then she does not get the unwilling immortality because of yet another quite literal Deus Ex Machina. It feels like just one more case of this party getting to have it both ways, for free, without ever having to choose, and the dumbest people alive shrieking at me that what I find to be a desperate saccharine dying dream of an ending is happy and that because it is "happy" any criticism must be a personal failure (and then some other rando will weakly bust through like an incontinent kool-aid man to fart out how unfortunate it is people are so uncivil and unkind and attacking people's intelligence and morals this campaign, meaning, of course, me for existing while holding an opinion and not breaking down in tears and capitulating to everyone who comes on my posts, but not the people who come on my post and call me stupid and unfeeling, because they agree with those people, because campaign 3 appeals, as I've said many times, to the posers who can dish it out and not take it, and not to like, intelligent adults.)

I don't find this ending happy because it's so divorced from reality it feels like weightless nothing, in the end; that's my feeling on all the lack of consequences, actually - as one of my mutuals said, easy come, easy go. Laudna never has a story; she never lets herself out of her own cages to have a story. The only framing people can even come up with to make it happy is "she had TRAUMA and now she has an ENDING where she's left alone" and even then it's like. Personally my feeling on anyone who treats their trauma as the reason they are interesting should be made to retrace the steps of the Franklin Expedition, which will make them interesting and/or at least temporarily remove them from my vicinity. If being left alone to do nothing is happy, why aren't you guys giving me a happy ending.

I meant to be a bit more reserved in this answer, and I have a similar ask to get to as well but I think what I'm trying to express and slowly losing my mind over is that the people who like Campaign 3 and loudly defend it are increasingly quite literally not of an intellectual caliber or level of interpersonal empathy to even join in the discussion with those of us who found it lacking. It's like explaining quantum physics to toddlers. We find ourselves having to define words as basic as "conflict" and "consequence," and repeatedly, with eroding patience, explain "sometimes, I think it is interesting when bad things happen to pretend people, and it is boring when good things happen to pretend people, because they are pretend, and sometimes different people have different feelings, and that is okay! but you need to let people have different feelings. Someone saying they don't like the blue truck doesn't mean you can't like the blue truck! But you can't make them like the blue truck."

[inmyheaddd]

kiss it off me - jameson hawthorne x reader

a/n: hold me.. console me.. then ill leave without a trace... woah i haven't posted a fic in a hot minute!!! this idea has been brewing in my mind since like october... may become a series, who knows!! anyway, i hope you enjoy 💖 wc: 5k synopsis: you and your long time best friend, jameson, meet up on a stranded beach to escape for a little while. who cares about anything else when the person you love looks hurt? warnings: tobias is alive in this, best friends who r inlove, what else is new?

Your leg bounced up and down in front of you as you waited, sitting on a bench overlooking the beach.

You came early so you’d have some alone time, time to think, but you quickly realised that was the worst idea ever, because you didn’t want to think.

You wanted to shut your mind off, you wanted to just be, and most of all, you just wanted to see Jameson.

So, there you sat, an hour earlier than the time you had agreed on with Jameson, wishing you had something to do other than sit and wonder and rattle your brain with thoughts. 

You’d been doing more than enough overthinking this winter.

The beach was a pretty sight, the sun starting to set, painting the sky shades of orange and pink, clouds looking like oversized strings of cotton candy in the sky. 

You let out a frustrated sigh of boredom, got up from the bench, and walked over to the sand. You looked around on the isolated beach—you were the only one here. 

Your family owned this strip of the beach, so you weren’t surprised that it was empty.

It had quickly become one of you and Jameson’s favourite hideout places. Not that you were particularly hiding from anything; it was more so just an escape from everything and everyone else. 

On that beach, nothing existed but you and Jameson, with the sand, the sky, and the sea.

You walked over to the blanket you always kept on the beach, folded and placed underneath a rock about twice the size of your fist to keep it from blowing away. 

You unfolded it, sat down, and entertained yourself by putting some breathing exercises into practice. Your therapist had given them to you months ago, but if you were being quite honest, you didn’t think of using them a single time after you left that room.

You weren’t even anxious; you were simply bored. You wished you had your headphones with you, or something to keep you company. 

The sun was setting even further; you stared out onto the beach in front of you and wished Jameson was seeing the sunset with you. Your favourites were the ones that had hints of pink and purples in them, while he liked the ones that ‘were golden and painted everything else golden too.’

He would love this one.

You then looked at your watch, which was a huge mistake. Whenever you thought about the time or checked it, it only seemed to pass infinitely slower.

Only 10 minutes had passed since you last checked. Another deep breath, and you exhaled it all as you held your head in your hands.

You brought your knees up to your chest and then hugged your arms around them. Your hoodie kept you warm, and so did the layers you had on underneath, but you still felt a weird shiver in your bones. You made a conscious effort to not check the time, then looked up. 

You turned your head left, seeing nothing but the beach, then right, and saw a figure far away, walking in your direction. 

The walk, the clothes, and the way this person began jogging once they spotted you—it all told you it was Jameson. 

You couldn’t help the smile that stretched on your face. You brought your arm up, waving wildly at him. He was closer now, and you could see the own grin on his face as he sent you a chin nod and waved back. 

You looked back at your legs as he finally approached the blanket you sat on. “Hey, you.’’ He breathed out, standing over you for a second and grinning, only a little out of breath after running 100 metres or so, just to get to you.

With a smile, you brought your gaze up to him, ‘’Hey there yourself,’’ you laughed through your sentence at the stupidity of the greeting.

“Pretty sunset, isn’t it?” He said

Just like how you had expected. “Yeah,” you nodded in appreciation of the sky, “It’s pretty.”

He suddenly tilted his head slightly. “You’re early,” he pointed out, and then with a furrow of his brow, he said, “How long have you been here?”

You ignored the last part of his question. You glanced at your watch before answering, “Technically, you’re also early. ’’

“Technically, I don’t care.” 

“Okay, still. Why are you early?” You insisted. If you were being honest, you were insanely thankful that he was here right now, and didn’t arrive an hour later like you’d originally planned.

You had absolutely no clue what you’d do for an hour, which seemed to stretch on forever when you were alone.

He was silent for a moment, then sighed as he finally sat down, leaning back with his legs outstretched, looking at you. ‘’I know you; I know you’d be early.’’

You quirked a brow up, despite the way your stomach erupted with butterflies. I know you. 

‘’Okay…?’’ You forced a chuckle, tearing your gaze away from Jameson and telling those butterflies in your stomach to respectfully leave and never come back. ‘’What does that have to do with you being early?’’

Jameson shrugged like it was obvious, looking at the sea when you finally looked at him again. ‘’I just wanted to spend more time with you.’’

The butterflies did not leave and never come back. 

You wished they would’ve, because Jameson was your friend. Your best friend, though you felt that friend wasn’t even a good enough term to describe what you were. 

You’d known each other since you were kids, been there for each other when your family wasn’t, and seen each other through just about every embarrassing phase there is. You often times felt as if you knew each other better than you knew yourselves. 

Friend didn’t cover it. 

But whatever he was, whatever your friendship was—it didn’t include romantic feelings. 

Again, you wished those millions of butterflies to go find someone else to torment.

“The real reason?” You prodded, raising a brow at him. 

‘’That is the real reason.’’ He protested, gasping in mock offence. ‘’Although, I wouldn’t be lying if I said that one of Xander’s started making a weird buzzing noise… And, well… Getting out of the house was the safest option."

You felt a little twang of disappointment, then you felt annoyed that you were feeling disappointed. “Since when did you care about safety?”

Jameson shot you a look. “Since I don’t want my eyebrows burnt off.” He deadpanned.

“Okay, fair.” You rolled your eyes with a slight laugh. "Well. I’m glad you’re here.’’ You said a little quieter. “With both of your eyebrows intact.”

“I’m glad I’m here too.” His eyes glinted with a smile, “With… both of my eyebrows intact.”

You were both silent for a second, holding back laughs as you looked at each other, until Jameson let out a snort— and you both started laughing.

You covered your face with your hands, shaking your head as you tried to control your giggles. 

God, could you get any more awkward? This was why you hated the idea of having feelings for him, because then you started to act different and make things awkward by saying things like I’m glad you’re here with both of your eyebrows intact.

You were a goner.

Your laughter died out, then you started talking about your respective days—the things that set you off, the things you waited to tell each other in person, overall, about nothing and everything.

After a moment of silence, you looked over at him, noticing a strange look on his face as he stared out at the horizon. There was a deep crease in his dark brows, his expression almost grim. You scooted a little closer to him.

“What’s up with you?” You nudged his shoulder gently. “You have that weird… furrow in your brow.” 

“Nothing's up with me.” He turned to look at you, offering one of those dangerously distracting Jameson Winchester Hawthorne grins for a moment.

But it didn’t work. It looked off and strained. “What’s up with you?”

“Deflecting and a weird look?” You raised your brow incredulously. “ We hang out too much for that lie to work on me.” 

He sighed dramatically, looking forward. The sky was shades of dark pink and orange now, the sun bouncing off the clouds and colouring them. 

Jameson looked at you once again, his green eyes looked extra inviting with the pink sky around him, like a dangerous sea you could get lost in, possibly never find your way out of, but one you almost wanted to get lost in nonetheless.

His eyes flickered over you, and you got the feeling he was trying to read your expression. “It’s times like these I wish you didn’t care about me." He said so casually, "Then I wouldn’t have to face my emotions.” 

The way he said it—without realising, he made it sound like there were other emotions, not just whichever ones he was dealing with right now. 

“Oh, don’t worry.” You responded jokingly, rolling your eyes the slightest bit. “I don’t care about you. Not in the slightest.” 

Jameson’s smile seemed a little less strained at that. “Wonderful.”

“Truly.”

“Agreed.” 

You let the silence stretch for a moment, seeing if he’d say anything else.

He didn’t.

If this were anyone else, you’d stay quiet.

But this was Jameson; your friendship meant more to you than the fear of being seen as annoying or pushy. Besides, you quickly learnt that Jameson wouldn’t talk unless he had that push, even if he did really want to.

“Okay, enough of these one-word answers.” You sighed, trying to mask the pure concern you felt with a light chuckle. “What the hell is wrong?” 

Jameson chuckled humourlessly, propping himself back up on his hands again. “You know how it is,” he said, “the usual.” 

“The usual as in the old man?” You deadpanned, “Or the usual as in you did something reckless to shut your brain off?” There was no point in beating around the bush, especially when you both knew each other more than anyone else in your life. 

Jameson didn’t meet your eyes. He shrugged casually, “The usual as in both.” 

Your heart tore a little at his words. You wondered if he was lying about one of Xander’s machines exploding. Then you thought about it; you knew Xander, and knew he often resorted to his robotics room when he felt hurt.

It was highly probable that Jameson wasn't lying. He just wasn't telling the full truth.

It was a Saturday. What could the old man have said that managed to ruin his grandsons like this?

You hated how Tobias could reduce your best friend to a mess of feelings and emotions—to a boy who felt like he wasn’t good enough and would never be—with just a few disapproving words.

Nobody should have that amount of power. Ever. 

You pressed your lips together for a moment. “I don’t like your grandpa. Not one bit.”

“That's funny.” That dry, sad chuckle of Jameson’s was killing you. He ran a hand through his hair. Roughly. “He rather likes you. Says you’re a bright girl, a good influence for me.”

“I told you, Jameson,” your voice came out softer than you intended, “I don’t care about anything he has to say.” 

He called Jameson ordinary. 

Jameson felt like he was betraying Tobias for simply telling you what he said.

That was the moment you lost respect for the man.

“Everything he says is bullshit. If you don’t want to talk about it, I get that.” You paused for a second, watching his expression and waiting for him to meet your eyes. 

The second he did, you almost wished he didn’t, because the look of sheer hurt in his eyes almost made you lose your breath. 

’But Jamie…” You couldn’t hide the worry on your face anymore. “Please know whatever he says isn’t worth anything. If you’re going to trust me on one thing, let it be that.”

Jameson was silent for a moment, looking down at the sand. His voice came out hoarse, then he finally met your eyes. “I trust you with everything.” 

You managed a little smile because you had a feeling that if you didn’t, you would’ve probably teared up instead. “You still wishing I didn’t care about you?”

Jameson shut his eyes for a moment, chuckling. “God, no.” He admitted. “I don’t even know what I’d do without you.”

He said the last part so simply, so matter-of-factly, you almost didn’t catch it until you realised what he said.

“If it’s any consolation,” you started, a slow smile dragging on your lips, “I trust you with everything, too.”

Jameson went still for a moment, something shifting in his expression.

He masked it so quick you might’ve missed it if you weren’t watching him so closely.

Then his grin slowly returned. “Some would say that’s a dangerous choice.” His voice was playful, but his eyes told a different story.

“I don’t mind dangerous.” You shrugged.

Now his eyes turned teasing. “You probably should.”

You rolled your eyes at the irony, but you still couldn’t even manage a small laugh because of the moments prior. “Look who’s talking, Jamie.”

“Hey, I do mind it sometimes,” He raised his hands up in mock surrender. “Yes, I like playing dangerous; I’m simply saying... I don’t like playing it dangerous when it comes to us.”

Us. He said that like it was something important to him.

“Yeah.” You tried not to overthink what he just said. He didn’t want to play it dangerous, as in he cared about your friendship so much? Or was he trying to say he didn’t want to take it any further than friends? And let you down slowly? Or was he saying the opposite, that he was scared to?

Your eyes flickered over his face as your thoughts ran, finally focusing on his eyes. “Good. We’re keeping us safe.”

He ran a hand through his hair, smiling at you. “Good.” He echoed.

After that, neither of you said anything else for a minute, which you didn’t mind. You fell into a comfortable silence as you so often did. It was never awkward with him, there was never a need to fill the silence. You could just be there with each other and exist.

That was what you loved. In both of your lives, there was always way too much pressure on who you had to be, the way you had to act.

But there was no pressure when it was just you two.

You stared out at the beach in front of you, quickly entranced at the way the waves met the shore, the way nature seemed like the only constant when everything else was hectic in your life.

Well, nature, and you and Jameson.

‘’It’s freezing, c’mere.’’ His voice shook you out of your trance-like state. He didn’t have a grin on his face like you’d expected when you looked over at him, but more so a look of concern.

He opened his arms out for you, and you let out a little laugh as you scooted closer, leaning into his chest.

Your arms wrapped around his torso, head on his chest. “It is freezing.” You paused, “Oh God, I feel my teeth clattering.’’

“Yeah? I can hear it.” Jameson laughed, slowly lowered the both of you down onto the blanket, then his arm began running up and down your arm, the other bringing you even closer in attempts to make you feel less cold.

You lay in each other’s arms, your head on his chest as you looked up at the sky above you. 

You stayed like that for a while, simply talking.

Every time he laughed, you felt his laughter, and you thought, surely there’s no other better feeling, his laughter vibrating through your body.

Feeling it warm your heart like it was your own happiness doing the job.

The sun quickly set, and the stars were on full display. You specifically loved this beach, because it was so far away from all the city lights that put those stars to death. You could see everything when it finally got dark.

You lay in his arms while you spotted constellations, and laughed while arguing with Jameson over which one was which. 

“I’m telling you, that’s the Big Dipper. I’m sure of it.’’ He said, unwrapping one arm from around you and pointing to a bundle of stars. 

‘’No, Jameson,’’ You guided his arm over to the left with your hand, ‘’That’s the Big Dipper.’’

You turned over in his arms to face him, one of his arms wrapped under your waist as you lay on your side. 

Your head was propped up with your other hand, so you watched his expression as he lay on the blanket, and he hummed in thought with his eyebrows furrowed. 

He opened his mouth to argue but then fell flat. ‘’Oh.’’

He pointed back at the stars he was pointing at earlier, your hand still on his arm. "So… what’s that then?”

You paused, looking at them for a good minute, trying to decipher which constellation it was. You came up blank. 

“My knowledge might be limited, but…’’ you mumbled, your hand returning back to your side, and then you looked down at him again. “I don’t think that even is a constellation. They’re just some stars.”

Jameson was silent for a moment before putting his arm back down in defeat. He hummed, “That’s oddly sad.”

You adjusted the way you sat, scooting back into his arms and laying your head on his chest as both arms wrapped around you. You hadn’t realised how cold you were just a minute earlier until you felt warm.

Your hand drew patterns on Jameson’s arm. “But it doesn’t have to be.’’ You muttered, hesitating slightly. "I mean, they can still be important without being a constellation. They can just be stars.”

“They can just be stars,” Jameson repeated, and you were suddenly hyperaware of the fact that you could hear his heartbeat, your ear on his chest. “I like that.”

“Listen,” he started again, “This defeats the whole purpose of what you just said, but… Why don’t we just make it our own constellation?”

You laughed a little, shaking your head. “Just let them be stars, Jamie, for Godsake.” You huffed a laugh, tilting your head up to look at him. 

“Just tell me what you see. After we leave this beach, they’ll go back to being stars. But when we’re here, it’s our little constellation.”

“Okay, fine.” You rolled your lips inwards, “Our constellation…” You trailed off, trying to find something that fit those clusters of stars.

“I can’t see anything.” You admitted after a long second. 

You were almost saddened by the fact that you had a chance to make some special moment between the two of you, something for those butterflies—that insisted on never going away—to actually have something to be happy about. 

Instead of saying all that, you just stared at the stared at the stars and saw nothing extraordinary. Hiding that weird sense of melancholy, you asked Jameson, “Well, what do you see?’’

“I see…” he chuckled, “God, what do I see? I think… I see a bench… With two people on it.”

“A bench?” You questioned.

“Yes, a bench,’’ he craned his neck down to shoot you a look, then leaned his head back on the blanket. ‘’Those ones at the bottom, those are the legs; then that part is the bench; then those are the heads of the people.” He said, pointing at each part as he went along. “See?”

You squinted as you tried to imagine the picture Jameson was trying to paint. You tried, you really did, but you had no idea what he was on about. "Oh, actually, yeah!’’ You said, nodding. “Yeah, I see it.”

A silence followed… Then Jameson suddenly started laughing.

You felt him chuckling against you, so you lifted your head. The sight of his smile was enough to make the biting cold disappear for a moment. ‘’What?” You said through a smile, unable to stop yourself from laughing too.

“You are by far,’’ Jameson managed through a series of low laughs, one arm slung over his face as he continued laughing. ‘’The world’s worst liar.”

Your jaw fell open, accompanied by uncontrollable laughter on your end too. “What! I’m not lying—I do see it!” 

Jameson kept laughing, so you fully sat up, pushing yourself off of him and crossing your legs. He propped himself up on his elbows as he watched you. 

“Look! I see it!” You wouldn’t believe yourself if you were him, because you couldn’t even speak without laughing through every sentence. 

“That's the bench, and those are the legs, and uhm… Those are the heads. It’s our constellation!” You pointed up at the sky, vaguely in the direction of the stars you were looking at.

“I beg of you,” Jameson’s laughter was dying out, but he still had that smile on his face, ‘’Never attempt to lie again. That was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m not lying.” You said through a stifled giggle, putting your most serious face on.

“Say that again without that look in your eyes, and then I’ll believe you.” Jameson said.

Your smile faltered a little, and everything else in that moment seemed to slow down for a moment as you stayed looking at him, “What look in my eyes?”

Jameson’s endless green eyes never left yours. He pressed his lips together for a moment, then let out a low chuckle, which more so sounded like a sigh. He didn’t answer your question. “Nothing. Lay with me for a while, will you?”

A part of you was disappointed he changed the subject; what did he mean by ‘look in your eyes’?

Then you criticised yourself for being disappointed. He probably just meant a teasing glint in your eye, like the one he has before he’s about to say something stupid in hopes of making you laugh.

You shook yourself out of your stupor, looking at the sky for a second before you looked back at Jameson.

With a roll of your eyes, you uncrossed your legs and shifted towards Jameson. “What a stupid question.” You remarked. “Of course I will.”

Jameson’s expression turned amused with a raise of his brows. “Insulting and sweet, all in one go.” Jameson said, almost in appreciation. He lay on his back, and you on your side. “You are an enigma.”

“Don’t push your luck,” You muttered back, resting your hand underneath your face as you looked at him. “Next time, I’ll be just insulting.”

He turned to look at you, his hands resting behind his head casually with his elbows wide and relaxed. “I won’t mind.” He said simply.

You managed a dirty look, which only resulted in the both of you laughing. Your voice was hushed, “You are very strange.”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t love strange.” He responded, a low chuckle escaping as he spoke.

You swore his eyes literally shone— glinted, sparkled, any word in the dictionary to describe something shiny could’ve been used to describe his eyes in that moment, but it still didn’t feel true enough.

You were a little obsessed with the way they always seemed to be a little smiley when it was just you around.

You managed a bored, frustrated sigh as you puffed out your lips. “And what gave you that impression?”

“Quite a few things, actually.” Jameson’s voice was low and gravely. He grinned at you, his eyes lidded slightly.

Your brows furrowed at that statement. Why was he saying things like that today? What on earth did that mean too? You were too tired to worry about it.

You felt a shiver pass through you as you looked away, then Jameson rose a brow and took that as a sign to open his arms out for you.

Wordlessly, you accepted the invite as you shuffled forward into his open arms. His arms wrapped around you tight, like they had a million times before. And you curled up against him, your arms around his middle.

You just then realised how late it had gotten. You’d been here since sunset, and the sky was completely dark now. Yes, it was dark this whole time you were stargazing, but you didn’t really let the fact sink in. 

How long had passed? 3 hours? 4?

You noticed that Jameson’s breath steadied, his hold on you the tiniest bit looser. Your own eyes were feeling extremely heavy.

You tried to stay awake, to dwell in the moment a little longer and memorise the feel of Jameson’s arms around you, the faint smell of his cologne—faint cedar and whiskey—and the comforting chill of the breeze.

You couldn’t help closing your eyes for just a few seconds.

Your eyes fluttered open, and you found yourself lying in a completely different position than you slept in, Jameson’s front against your back with both his arms around you. You and Jameson must’ve fallen asleep still holding each other because of the cold gust of winds.

You carefully unravelled Jameson's arms around you. The pins and needles in your arm told you: you definitely did not just close your eyes for a few seconds. It must’ve been way past midnight by now.

Still slightly numb, your pushed yourself up so you were sitting up slightly.

Your attention went back to Jameson when you heard him groan slightly, his arms patting the blanket for a second, then he shifted to lay on his back.

You looked at the way stars shone in the distance, the sun long, long gone, and replaced by the moon. You then looked down at Jameson, who was still lying down, and his eyes were fluttering open slowly.

Thank goodness for the moonlight, and the faint beach house lights far away that illuminated his features in the prettiest way.

His eyes then opened fully, and you locked eyes for a moment.

A small smile played on his lips as he furrowed his brows slightly, as if asking you, What are you looking at?

You smiled back, despite your heart beating faster in your chest and feeling like you got caught in the act.

A part of you wondered how you could feel so warm inside when it was the middle of winter.

Jameson simply opened his arms out once again from below you, beckoning you in.

You didn’t move, only letting out a sleepy laugh as you tried to engrain this image in your mind—the slight messiness of his hair, messier than usual, the way the green in his eyes was no longer visible because of the dark, but they still gleamed and glittered all the same.

You suddenly wished you had thought of the time more, so that it would’ve passed slower.

“Come here,” he grumbled, feigning annoyance with that stupid smile on his face, his voice tinged with sleepiness.

“Only ‘cause you asked so nicely,” you mumbled back, as if you spoke any louder, the moment would shatter.

Your voices didn’t need to carry much volume in this moment, because you didn’t really need them. He could understand you just with a single look. You understood each other.

You fell back into his arms, and his arms wrapped around you a little tighter this time.

One hand was doing the same thing as last time, running up and down your arm, while the other was wrapped around your waist and pulling you close, like if he held you any looser you would slip between his fingers—someone trying to pick up sand, or hold water in their hands.

Your legs tangled in each other's, Jameson's soothing hand began to slow down, but you selfishly didn’t want to fall asleep quite yet.

“Jameson?” You mumbled against his chest.

He hummed, and you felt the vibrations coming from his chest. “Yes?”

“What if…” You started, “What if this was every day? What if we just ran away from everything for a while?”

You were rambling nonsense, of course you weren’t going to run away. You couldn’t lie and say you never thought of it, but, it was simply reckless.

You could afford the consequences of running away, not with who your parents were and the image you’d paint.

‘’I think… I wouldn’t mind my days being full of you.’’ He confessed quietly, ‘’I mean, having fun with you. Making memories, living life to the fullest, and all that jazz." He continued, his hand resuming going up and down your arm. He exhaled, and you felt his neck move, looking down at you. ‘’You got any more ‘what if’s’ for me?’’

You hummed in thought—you had a lot. “Yeah, actually.” You laughed slightly, “What if we get hypothermia out here? And, like, die before we get the chance to even run away?’’

You felt him let out a low, sleepy chuckle against you. You bit back your smile even though he couldn’t see you, out of sheer habit.

You wanted to lift your head and see his face, see his smile, but you felt way too comfortable on his chest to move a single inch, and you had that nagging feeling that if you did get up, you wouldn’t be able to find the same comfortable way you were laying when you went back down.

“Never mind.’’ He decided, his voice breaking your thoughts. “No more what if’s for you.”

If only that could silence the what if’s that lingered in your mind.

“Hey!” you defended yourself, laughing slightly. “It’s a valid question.”

His hand that was previously on your back lifted up, and you suddenly felt cold again, until he began toying with the ends of your hair, then ran his hands through it, sending shivers that had nothing to do with the cold down your spine.

“One that I don’t have the answer to. We’ll see when we wake up.”

You managed a laugh despite your tiredness, and also managed another sarcastic remark. “But… will we?”

You heard him gasp incredulously, though it was quiet. “You,’’ he tapped your shoulder as if to emphasise your point, ‘’Are one dark, twisted person. If you don’t have hopes for us surviving one night, how do you have hopes for anythingelse?”

“I’m not dark and twisted! I have hope, I swear.” You felt yourself getting sleepier, eyes getting heavier, and you couldn’t help the light chuckles passing by your lips. “I’m just tired. Anything feels possible when you’re awake.” You stifled a yawn, ‘’Especially with you—like, having someone with you to keep you going. You know?”

“Yeah, I know.” Jameson said. “I’ll still know you’re there, though. Even if I’m sleeping. Or tired. You’re in my arms. Anything still feels possible.” He continued lowly, “So, I will survive hypothermia.”

Jameson’s voice could almost bring you to sleep. A giggle slipped your lips, “You’re going to survive hypothermia by sheer willpower? Subconciously?”

“Thats the goal, yes.”

Shaking your head, you let out a long sigh. “You and your Hawthorne overachiever goals.’’

You felt Jameson laugh tiredly against you, then you realised he was trying to keep himself awake, like you were, for the sole purpose of staying in the moment together for longer.

‘’Don’t act like you didn’t know what you were getting into when we first met. You knew me.”

You let out a sigh, picturing the little middle-school version of you both ditching an event held by your parents, and accidentally meeting each other by the staircase to the cellar. Your spot.

You remembered your frustration when he asked you what you were doing there, when he was in your house.

Then you remembered thinking his green eyes were quite pretty, and after you got to talking, thinking he wasn’t all that bad.

“I pretty much did, yeah.” You agreed with a light laugh.

Though, a part of that wasn’t true. Sure, you picked up on his dangerous, devastating smile, that he was a risk taker, and that he did things according to his will. You knew he was a Hawthorne, and that Hawthorne’s weren’t easy or simple.

But you would’ve never known upon seeing him that first time, that you would develop a friendship with him that made you believe in fate.

“Then you should know,” He said, “hypothermia is not standing a chance against us.”

That word again. Us.

“If we survive the night,” You jokingly started, hearing Jameson hold back a laugh and mask it with a cough, “Let’s do something crazy tomorrow to honour it.”

“Crazy,” he hummed, “crazy, as in?” He prodded on.

“Crazy as in we run away for a day.” You blurted, without really thinking. “I dare us to do it.”

He let out an amused chuckle. “Well, you know I’m one for crazy.” Jameson said, and you could hear the grin in his voice as you pulled yourself closer to him the tiniest bit more, adjusting your head on his chest. “And you know I’m not one to back down from a dare. But are you being one hundred percent serious?

His hand ran over your hair, sending tingles down your spine. “Yes, I am. I’m not fully insane; we aren’t really running away, I guess. It’s just like a little road trip if you think about it,” you said.

“A road trip with no destination and not telling anyone where we are off to.” He contemplated, “Sounds like a recipe for disaster. I like it.”

“And, where are we running off to?” He then said, continuing. “You know, if we do survive this horrible, tempestuousnight.”

You let out a little laugh at his dramatics. You felt so at peace in this moment, looking at the pitch black sky with stars dotting it alight, hearing the faint sound of the waves crashing against the shore.

Your gazed fixed on those special cluster of stars, and you could almost start to see what Jameson was saying earlier.

The bench, the two people. Our constellation, you thought giddily.

“I don’t know,” You admitted, “anywhere but here. Just for a few days. I’m kind of growing sick of it all.”

“Then we’ll go anywhere.” Jameson concluded. “Just for a few days.“ His hand slowed, then stopped in your hair, then it moved to the middle of your back, and his hand lay flat.

Your eyes were heavy, and you attempted to stifle a yawn but failed.

You wrapped your arms tighter around Jameson, and felt his hand grasp the fabric of your hoodie. You wondered how long it would take your parents to notice your absence. Then you thought about all the things you could do, places you could go with Jameson.

“I’ll make a plan tomorrow morning.” You mumbled in your half-awake state, because it didn’t hurt to just be a littleorganised, especially when your ‘runaway partner’ was someone who liked to live on the edge 24/7.

You could hear Jameson’s tiredness in his voice, along with that intoxicating smile. “I knew you’d say something like that.”

A little chuckle fell past your lips as you felt Jameson’s chin rest atop your head. You curled a little closer into his chest, finally letting your eyes shut.

You’d give up the sun, the moon, the stars, and everything in between if it meant everything could stay like this forever.

Well… Maybe not the stars. You wouldn’t want to give up your new favourite constellation.

taglist: @x-liv25-jamieswife @wish-i-were-heather @thecircularlibrary @whatsamongus @littlemissmentallyunstable @anintellectualintellectual @lovethornes @maybxlle @sheisntyou @emelia07 @midiosaamor @sweetreveriee @charsoamerican @hxress23 @imaseabear @clarissaweasley-10 @off-to-the-r4ces @thelov3lybookworm @graysw1fe @lanterns-and-daydreams @hermesenthusiast @elysianwayy77 @that-daughter-of-hephaestus @apollosmusee @hijabi-desi-bookworm @goldi-1-graysons-version @saigonharrington @peppapigsposts @thoughtdaughter3 @apollospoem @jjsblueberry @yayyy-insecurities

[800milesisadrive]

Going through and sunsetting my accounts, may end up keeping this one online since it's the closest thing to an actual archive of my time online as Rev Hale.

Tumblr is owned by a billionaire with an authoritarian ego, but at least it's not the one actively dismantling democracy?

I've been posting less and less as Hale. The climate around NSFW communities has rotted so deeply. Too much of my immoral fantasy has been turned into real weaponized regressive policy.

I wish I could share the specifics as to why I'm shutting shit down now, but for personal safety reasons, maintaining a horny alt is a very very bad idea.

Pursuing public legal action against this administration is unfortunately very risky. I've taken great effort to firewall this account against the rest of my professional and "IRL" identity, but I'm likely going to have active efforts to discredit me and people I love over the next year.

I stand behind mine and everyone's right to be stupid horny online... but I'm making the decision to forgoe this to fight for the legal existence and safety of those I love.

If you're actually reading this, thank you for tolerating my soapbox posting. If we've chatted over the years, I'm sorry I can't take the time to properly say goodbye to everyone.

Stay safe. Protect yourself. Stand up and fight for the right to be horny, queer, kinky or just weird. I highly recommend following the Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union.

See everyone on the other side, and hope someday in the future I can resume this kind of creation without fear of it being weaponized against my loved ones.

- Rev. Hale

[whereserpentswalk]

Children are no longer legally allowed to exist.

Human reproduction was the last of the major functions of the human body to be technologically replaced. Sleep has been cut down to less then an hour a day, the digestive system has been altered so a modern person can eat as much or as little as they want, and gain and lose as much weight as they want, without producing waste. Even aging is no longer something done by those who don’t want it. It only made sense that the luxury of the modern world would eventually outmode the cruel and diminutive state of childhood.

A modern person will be conceived artificially, possibly with thousands of individuals contributing to their genetic code, and grown in a large tube from the age of minus nine months to the age of eighteen. For nearly nineteen years they will lack any sentient thought, being put in a state on anesthesia until they come of age. It is considered unethical and inhumane under international law to allow a human being to exist in a larval state.

Before being awoken, people have knowledge of basic education that in previous generations would be covered by years of schooling. They are also given basic knowledge to exist as an adult. Most people are awoken as students within universities, their first experience being their initiation into school and their freshmen year, their first home being their dorms. In some places companies are allowed to awaken humans as workers, which is not legally slavery because people are allowed to leave the jobs they’re awoken into, even if they’re not told they are able to. In times of war people will sometimes be given a pre awakening conscription, meaning they’re actively awoken as new recruits in basic training. Eugenics isn’t legal, but there’s not much oversight for if a company or military organization tends to awaken more people with physical traits they prefer.

Without children the world looks a lot different then it did in when they were around. Those who remember when the transition was made can talk about a world with empty playgrounds, and toy stores without customers. But now the world is completely without anything catering to children. Those who argue for the return of children to the world are met with just how little exists for them in this world. There are no safety standards with children in mind, no ratings on movies, nothing made in child’s size save for a few accommodations for dwarfs. Every piece of media is made with an audience of exclusively adults in mind, even things like plushes or action figures are designed for adult collectors, not children who would play with them. There are some superstitious people who think doll eyes have always looked a bit sadder since they last children grew up.

Since children are no longer legally allowed to exist, the means to physically produce them has been removed from human bodies. Long before any human in awakened the organs that would be used to reproduce are removed through painless surgery, and the ability to desire sex is whipped from their minds. It makes things easier. And likewise it’s safer, just as the removal of children meant the removal of the abuse of children, the removal of sex means the removal of sexual predation.

People in a way have a type of freedom without sexual attraction that they wouldn’t back when it existed. People can touch or cuddle each other in any way they want without it being weird, people can dress how they want, women don’t fear men the way they used to. It’s possible these things could still happen within a species with sexual attraction but we never got there, and the education implanted into people’s minds before they awakening certainly teaches one as leading to the other. There are still a few people who do still have some amount of those feelings, but they’re considered a statistical anomaly and are encouraged not to talk about or act on such things.

There is a feeling of emptiness in some people who remember the world when children existed, like something is missing. Even some people born long after children were outlawed sometimes feel an emptiness. Some people get pets if they have a instinct to take care of something, though humans are the only mammal to survive the great plague, there are lizards and birds and snakes and small robots that can keep people company. Some people take on apprentices that they can grow extremely close to them, often having relationships that reflect a parent’s relationship to an older child. There are even some subcultures where people will form relationships where one person will pay for another’s expenses for nothing in return, and allow that person to live with them without any employment, which some theorize in a mirror of parenthood. There are even some people who practice types of sensual acts that seem to mirror the mating process humans once had, even if they’d never seen such acts. It’s like these things are part of us, even when we don’t have the things these emotions were meant to interface with, like an animal still having a cry to alert for a long extinct predator.

Children are one of those things a lot of people think they might be happier if they got to live in a world with, but legalizing them just never seemed practical or ethical. There isn’t really any major political ideology that wants to bring them back, it’s not something people think about. People talk about children like they do swords, something that once was, but is not thought of in the context of fantasy. And perhaps that is how it will be. People will have their normal adult lives, and life will go on, and people will still have happy memories, and still write books, and still look at sunsets, and still sing songs, even without them.

There are some people who believe you can hear the ghosts of children in certain places, their laughter ringing in people’s ears in lonely spots near ancient parks. Psychologists haven’t yet figured out why every culture possesses such a superstition.

[djarins-cyare]

Get to know your moots!

Thank you for the tag, @djarinmuse! I love these little questionnaires ����. Challenging myself to be more succinct in my answers for once (yeeeah, don’t all hold your breath 😅)

What’s the origin of your blog title?

In a stunning lack of originality, I just used my writing pseudonym for my blog title: Jyar’ika. If it’s not obvious, that’s the Mando’a word cyar’ika (sweetheart) with a J for Jem replacing the C. It’s pronounced JAH-ree-kah, with emphasis on the first syllable (like Jessica or Erika). And on my sideblog, since it’s a rec blog, I’ve just titled it “Jyar’ika enjoyed…” because apparently WYSIWYG with me 🤗.

OTP(s) + shipname:

Oh man, there’ve been many over the years. I was an early X-Files fan, so MSR in real-time, of course. I shipped both Bangel and Spuffy at different points. Big on Polivia in the first few seasons of Fringe (when I discovered fanfiction existed). Fell completely down the fanfic rabbit hole with Carter/O’Neill from Stargate SG-1 (who unsatisfyingly never seemed to get a portmanteau ship name). Those are probably the main ones.

Favourite colour:

Teal; all shades thereof.

Favourite game:

It’s gotta be the old point n’ click PC games I played as a kid in the 90s, but I can’t pick one favourite. Big fan of the Monkey Island games, the Indiana Jones games, Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle – basically anything LucasArts. Also, every game in the Broken Sword series, the Gabriel Knight series, and the Tex Murphy series. These are a fraction of the titles I played and loved.

Song stuck in your head:

I was doom-scrolling on Twitter the other day and saw (didn’t even hear!) a tweet saying Take That’s song ‘Shine’ was released 18 years ago, and it’s so iconic that my brain immediately played it to me. It’s been in there for days now! I was recently shocked and saddened to learn that most Americans don’t know about Take That 😱😭. I was never a massive fan or anything, but they are UK pop legends.

Weirdest habit/trait:

People at work think it’s weird that I don’t like speaking on the phone. If I have to have a phone call, I need to know what time it’ll be so I can prepare. But it’s because, without a visual of the other person, I find reading between the lines of neurotypical conversation more difficult. I can do it, but it’s an effort, and I need time to prepare for that kind of brain-taxing interaction.

Hobbies:

The Mandalorian, duh. Writing fics about it, mainly.

If you work, what’s your profession?

I’m in criminal law, basically doing the lawyers’ jobs for them because I have a critical eye for detail and can catch stuff they miss when preparing cases. But I never did my LPC, so I don’t have to go to court and do all the scary legal argument stuff. Win.

If you could have any job you wish, what would it be?

Author of a well-loved fiction series. I aim to make this happen one day, though at the rate I’m going, I’ll probably be retired when it finally happens! It comforts me to know that Douglas Adams always found writing to be a slow and arduous process, too.

Something you’re good at:

The English language, I guess. I have a good understanding of the technical side of writing.

Something you’re bad at:

In contrast to the above, the poetry of writing. I often struggle to ensure my writing is sufficiently dynamic and beautiful, and I have to go over things many times to try and inject more soul into my words. I’m glad I’m aware of this weakness, though – every day’s a school day, and there’s plenty of time and space to improve.

Something you love:

The Mandalorian, duh. Specifically Din Djarin.

Something you could talk about for hours off the cuff:

The Mandalorian, duh. Specifically Din Djarin.

Something you hate:

I try not to hate; this world needs more love. And if I can’t avoid hating, I do it quietly and won’t share it. So, I’ll pass on this question, thanks.

Something you collect:

Words. I love learning new ones. I love learning additional definitions and nuances of ones I already know. I can never have enough words.

Something you forget:

The time. Seriously, I have no sense of time whatsoever and am late for everything. I’ve just looked at the clock and realised it’s coming up 6:00am, and I haven’t gone to bed yet because I didn’t realise how late it is.

What’s your love language?

Of the five, mine is definitely the ‘acts of service’ one. I show love by trying to ease the burdens of others, and I feel loved when people do the same for me. At the other end of the scale is the ‘receiving gifts’ one… I can’t pick out gifts to save my life, and I always feel awkward receiving a gift I haven’t asked for and don’t need. Gifts are almost a hate language for me!

Favourite movie/show:

The Mandalorian, duh.

Favourite food:

I’m gonna say pizza. I don’t get to have it much anymore because I’m eating healthier these days, but I still indulge in the occasional Domino’s order.

Favourite animal:

Can I say Din Djarin when he’s been dosed with sex pollen? 😏

Are you musical?

I guess this is a yes because I’ve played a variety of musical instruments since the age of 5 (starting with the humble recorder, then violin, piano, guitar and other random stuff like the harmonica and ukulele) and was in choirs for the whole of my childhood and adolescence. I performed in several big shows, including a performance at the Royal Albert Hall of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana (even if you don’t know the name, you’ll likely know one particular movement of the cantata; it’s been overused in ads, etc). But it’s been years since I played or sang anything, so maybe notsomuch anymore.

What were you like as a child?

As a very young child: unknowingly autistic. This mainly manifested in me ruining family vacations by refusing to step foot on a beach if there was any sign of seaweed, or enter a restaurant with ceiling fans, or get in a swimming pool if there was a mosaic on the pool floor. Anything outside my regular routine was terrifying to me, but nobody knew about autism in the 80s, so my parents just thought I was overly sensitive. I learned how to mask pretty early, though, so by the time I went to school, I’d figured out how to fit in. Despite that, I was always the kid who had intense hyperfixations (boys, TV shows, bands, hobbies). I still am, really!

Favourite subject at school?

English literature. Fiction was (and still is) my happy place. I also had a massive crush on my maths teacher when I was 13-14, so I was a maths nerd for a whole year. I still remember the quadratic equation!

Least favourite subject?

Religious education. It was the one subject I failed my exams in, mainly because I’m an atheist, and as a kid, I couldn’t see the point of learning about something I didn’t believe in. Later, I realised that exploring different worldviews helps us better understand ourselves and how to respect and appreciate diversity, so as an adult, I’ve made an effort to make up for my childish ignorance by learning as much as possible.

What’s your best character trait?

My autism. It heightens my attention to detail and makes me especially concerned about others’ happiness and well-being.

What’s your worst character trait?

My autism. It frustrates neurotypicals who don’t understand why I act or respond in particular ways.

If you could change any detail of your day right now, what would it be?

I would’ve gone to bed earlier. It’s 6:31am, and I’m tired.

If you could travel in time, who would you like to meet?

I’m not interested in going backwards, so nobody really. I’d probably go forward simply to check that the world didn’t end and that the USA didn’t turn into the Free American Independent Theocratic Hegemony (F.A.I.T.H.) or anything. (That’s a Bobiverse reference for anyone who’s never read Dennis E. Taylor… which, TBF, is probably most of you since his novels are pretty niche. I recommend reading them, though – super fun and packed with geeky pop culture references).

Recommend one of your favourite fanfics (spread the love!):

I finally got around to reading You Were Marked by @handspunyarns last week, and let me tell you, I could not stop binging it. It’s been a long time since I was last addicted to a fic to this degree. I’d had it on my TBR list for a while, but I’d prioritised others because I wasn’t sure if it would resonate with me since I don’t see any of myself in the main character… but boy, was I wrong! It’s extraordinary, compelling, and at times heartbreaking and agonising, but so well-written with exquisite worldbuilding and a daringly original plot, all of which seared it into my mind forever because I’ve never read anything like it. I implore you all to try it if you haven’t already. It’s a masterpiece 💜.

I usually check to see if the people I tag have already done the game, but I’ve really gotta sleep, so I’m just gonna tag at random here. I’m really sorry if any of you have done this already.

@604to647 @cheekychaos28 @cw80831 @darthbeebles @desert-fern

@dindenimchicken @frickatives @here-briefly @ishabull @jessthebaker

@lilac-boo @mosssbawls @nervoushottee @papurgaatika @qunariagenda

@roughdaysandart @the-color-is-black @the-mandawhor1an @toomanytookas @zaddymandalorian

[writingdevil]

Ok this is kind of a weird prompt but it would be interesting to write something relating to the Narrator, since I’ve noticed he doesn’t have much stuff of his own despite being one of the three important characters that makes the construct

It would be interesting to see how you write him

(Oh, that's an interesting one! The Narrator is one of the most important characters and he's very intriguing to me. Still, he's not a character that I write or think about a lot, but I'll try my best and I hope you like it-enjoy!)

"You're on a path in the woods..."

This was going to work. This was going to work. It had to. He may be an Echo, but he can still do something to get the paradise he deserves. He's come this far, and he can't exactly back out now.

"...and at the end of that path, is a cabin..."

He created this construct and this script, just to make sure that his plan succeeded. Nothing could go wrong, because if it did, then he wouldn't be able to be at peace anymore. He can't risk that. He won't allow that reality to come to fruition.

"...and in the basement of that cabin, is a princess."

This was the right thing to do. Maybe in another life, another echo of himself, he would be ashamed of himself for taking the very two concepts that shaped the universe, giving them consciousness and godhood, only to trap them in this vicious act-but he wasn't. She has to die, so that he can get the happiness he deserves.

"You're here to slay her."

The figure that he was narrating to, flinched and froze at his words, but it didn't matter. He couldn't stop this, stop what needed to be done. The Echo couldn't bare to live in a world where she dictated how the universe worked.

No, the concept of change was a terrifying thing, and the Echo was determined to have the Long Quiet erase it from existence, for there was only so much that the Echo himself could do. Change was something that the world didn't need. Forcing all the good and love that he once knew to disappear, just for something different and wrong to take its place, leaving him with no handle on how to keep going.

People can't just disappear like that. People can't just force him to live on, knowing that all that made him happy would one day rot and die. He can't live in a world like that anymore. He did, once upon a time, but he would rid the world of that suffering for good now, so that nobody would have to feel what he once endured.

Everything would be perfect, so long as the reality that the Echo wants, is made without the concept of change, without the possibility of death and grief and loss. He refused to feel like that again, and there's nothing that these two little gods can do to thwart his plans.

"If you don't, it will be the end of the world."

[bnhaobservation]

@biggibbins said:

My take on the 'retcon' I think it's more of a "what is seen in the shadow is often misunderstood by the mind of a child" kinda thing yk? Because both Touya and Shoto were children when they last saw thier mother, and there is litterly NO way for Dabi or Shoto to know that information(same goes for Dabi accusing his father of forcing his mother to have children) Rei isn't the type to discuss such things with her children so my guess on it is Dabi and Shoto making assumptions instead of retcon.[i hope that made sense] Also with the flowers; is it not possible to greenhouse them to get the result of them blooming/staying the same out of season?[i know nothing about plants]

Don't worry, it makes sense and it's a possible Watsonian explanation, but it comes with some problems.

From a Doylist angle, generally, when an author uses this trick he also reveals it's a trick. As in he let the characters involved know they remember wrong or have someone who's aware of the truth say they can't reveal it to them. Here neither Enji nor Rei (Touya also told his mother that her parents sold her) correct Touya's belief or give us a reason on why it was better if Touya were to think so.

Also, another thing to consider is that chapter 301 originally wasn't planned at all. When Shouto told his own past, Horikoshi hadn't planned Touya yet, and originally Enji wasn't supposed to live long enough to take part to the second war, and, very likely this also means it would have been only Shouto who would have faced Touya in battle, not the whole family.

If chapter 301 originally weren't meant to exist, if Touya as a Villain was created after Shouto told us of his past, this means when Shouto explained things to Midoriya the Todoroki family's past was meant to be very different.

We know that the Todoroki family's past was retconned more than once, Shouto's prototype was changed to give us our current Shouto, Horikoshi in chapter 302 first messed up and said Rei was hospitalized AFTER Touya burned, when he had Fuyumi said if was PRIOR to it, and then he had to retcon the scene for the volume version.

Honestly I have doubts thinking when Shouto told Midoriya about his past, Horikoshi already planned to have him be mistaken because at the time he was a child.

If we move to the Watsonian angle instead, Touya was made aware at 4 that he was born to fulfil his father's dream. It's not something Touya says, we've Rei saying Touya now knew why they had him, likely this happened when they discussed the problems Touya had with his Quirk with the doctor, meaning they might have explained him of the Quirk marriage.

It's canon for some reason they discussed WHY Touya was born in front of Touya. Touya is also not so small when he last saw Rei as he was almost 14 and, as said before, he discussed with his mother how his grandparents sold her, with Rei never telling him he was mistaken.

It would also be pretty weird for Touya and Shouto, who canonically couldn't interact together, to make the exact same assumption without the slightest basis.

Note that Touya never said Enji forced Rei to have children, he said he forced Rei to marry him.

If we want to try to smooth the retcon into something that could work in canon, Rei's parents needed to be persuaded because they originally wanted to marry Rei with someone else, then Enji waltzed in and they changed their mind. Rei being forced doesn't mean being dragged into that marriage kicking and screaming but being pushed into it by social conventions.

In the same way as Touya, who is Enji's firstborn, would be expected by society to inherit his father's job, and the fact he can't makes him a failure in society's eyes, Rei, as the Himura's daughter, was expected to be a good daughter and help her poor family and marry Enji and give him the children he wanted.

Still, this post is pretty hold... I've discussed a little better Enji and Rei's marriage here.

As for the Gentians... I couldn't find info about greenhouses growing them out of season. I guess it's not impossible but, as I can't find info about them, I can't tell for sure.

Said all this, if you prefer to theorize that Touya and Shouto are simply making assumptions, please, don't let me stop you and sorry for the long rambling. I just love to talk about the Todoroki family.

BNHA Observations, speculations and assorted info: Pre-marriage Todoroki Enji (Part 2)

So, in order to write my fic, I spend much time observing canon scenes, comparing the manga and the anime version, take note of details, translations and info in them as well as finding out how are some things called.

Since what I noticed/speculated/found out can be of use for other fic authors I thought to share as well.

Resources:

Chap. 301 "The Wrong Way to Put Out a Fire, Part 1" (火の不始末前編Hi no Fushimatsu Zenpen) Chap. 31 "The Boy Born with Everything" (全てを持って生まれた男の子 Subete o Motte Umareta Otoko no Ko) Chap. 302 "The Wrong Way to Put Out a Fire, Part 2" (火の不始末後編 Hi no Fushimatsu Kōhen) Chap. 187 "Flaming Roar! vs. Nomu: High-End" (燃えよ轟け！VS 脳無：ハイエンド Moeyo Todoroke! vs. Nōmu: High-End) Chap. 387 "Congealing" (煮凝り 'Nikogori')

Ep. 130 "The Wrong Way to Put Out a Fire" (火の不始末 Hi no Fushimatsu) Ep. 19 "The Boy Born with Everything" (全てを持って生まれた男の子 Subete o Motte Umareta Otoko no Ko) Ep. 88 "His Start" (始まりの Hajimarino)

School Briefs I "Notice from School"

OBSERVATIONS, SPECULATIONS AND ASSORTED INFO:

As of now we only have two more scenes which depict Enji pre marriage, the first being his 'Miai' with Rei and the second being their first 'date'.

The scene are flashbacks placed while Enji is at the hospital so first let's look at...

THE FULL SEQUENCE AS IT IS IN THE MANGA

So now let's focus solely on the scene in question and, since it has been transposed in anime version (and the anime added scenes) let's have a...

COMPARISON BETWEEN THE MANGA AND THE ANIME

The anime starts by adding more scenery, we see what could be the Himura house, which is also a traditional Japanese house... though with all the green it has around it seems its garden is a lot bigger than the one of the Todoroki mansion.

Actually it might also not be the Himura mansion but some place they have chosen for the meeting but it seems more a traditional Japanese house than anything else and the Himura used to be wealthy so they might still have their old residence and anyway... who knows?

The anime gives us also a close up of the Shishiodoshi (鹿威し literally, "deer-frightening" or "boar-frightening") device or Sōzu (添水 "Adding water") fountain, a bamboo water funtain originally derived by a devices to frighten away animals that pose a threat to agriculture and who's currently part of the visual and aural design of gardens, and are used primarily for their aesthetic value.

We also see the Soribashi (反り橋 "Arched bridge"), a red arched bridge, over a pond (probably a Koike (鯉池 "koi pond") filled with Koi (鯉) carps, or, more specifically, Nishikigoi (錦鯉 “brocaded carp”) carps.

'Jiki No.1 no yobigoe takai Endeavor-sama kara o koe kake itadakeru to wa yume ni mo omoi masendeshita! Gyōkō no kiwami ni gozaimasu!!' 「次期No.1の呼び声高いエンデヴァー様からお声掛けいただけるとは夢にも思いませんでした！僥倖の極みにございます！！」 "I never dreamed that I would be approached by Endeavor, who has been hailed as the next No. 1! We are at the height of luck!!"

The anime shows Rei's father bowing to Enji while the dialogue has him calling Endeavor-sama. He uses his Hero name and the -sama (様) suffix which is highly respectful.

Interesting enough, even if Enji is marrying Rei because he doesn't think he can surpass All Might, according to Rei's father there's many people who think he'll do it.

All Might and Endeavor have around 10 years of difference as, during the final fight with All for One All Might says he's more than halfway through 50 while Enji should be 46.

In chap 165 Enji has said at 20 he figured out he couldn't surpass All Might, and we know Touya was born when he was 22 so, considering Touya should have been conceived when he was 21, either he's still 20 or he's just turned 21 and he and Rei will have a fast marriage.

On another side, Rei's father never mention Enji also coming from a prestigious family, just that he's the Number 2 Hero and, possibly, will become the Number 1, which might hint to how Enji didn't come from an equally prestigious family and make a name for himself after he became a Hero.

The anime partially shows us Rei's father's face. In teh manga he's just a black shadow but he gives me the feeling Horikoshi planned him to look different than in the anime.

The anime changes the background a little, in the manga there's a scroll on the wall, in the anime we see white Fusuma (襖) doors, vertical rectangular panels which can slide from side to side (they're often painted with scenery but not in this case).

Also the glass window in the manga is close while in the anime is open.

They are in a Washitsu (和室) room, a Japanese-style room with a Tatami (畳) mat flooring and they're sitting on Zaisu (座椅子) chairs, Japanese chairs with a back and no legs.

In the garden there's also a Ishi-dōrō (石灯籠 "stone lantern"') lantern, a lantern made of stone in its Yukimi doro (織部灯籠 "Snow-viewing Lantern") variant. The customary placement is at the edge of land and water and the original Japanese character describing this lantern may have meant ”floating light”.

The anime adds Rei's father turning toward her but doesn't show Rei looking at the side. She's just staring down. As for Enji he seems to frown a little.

The group is drinking tea. In the manga they're probably using normal Chawan (茶碗 "tea bowl") bowls, traditional Japanese bowls used for preparing and drinking tea.

In the anime though they seem to be using the Chinese Gaiwan (盖碗) bowls, Chinese lidded bowls without a handle, used for the infusion of tea leaves and the consumption of tea, which consists of a bowl, a lid, and a saucer and they are still used by tea connoisseurs all around the world, as a simple piece of teaware that gives the brewer a lot of control over the tea.

I might be wrong though, maybe they're just Chawan bowls or maybe the Himura are using their best tea set, which happens to be a Chinese one.

The anime then adds exposition from Enji's point of view.

'Ichiō, miai to iu katachi o totte wa iruga, koreha "kosei" kon' 一応、見合いという形をとってはいるが、これは"個性"婚 "Just in case, although it was made to look like an arranged marriage meeting, this was a "Quirk" marriage."

'Jishin no "kosei" o yori kyōka shite tsuga seru tame ni haigūsha o erabi, kodomo o uma seru tame no kekkon' 自身の"個性"をより強化して継がせるために配偶者を選び、子どもを産ませる為の結婚 "A marriage to have children in which the spouse is chosen in order to strengthen and pass on one's "Quirk""

'Ore wa nozonda noda. Ore no honō no "kosei" to kōri himura-ke ichizoku no kōri no "kosei" ga majiwareba, All Might o mo koeru Hero ga umidaseru to' 俺は望んだのだ。俺の炎の"個性"と氷叢家一族の氷の"個性"が交われば、オールマイトをも超えるヒーローが生み出せると I wanted it. If my fire "Quirk" and the ice "Quirk" of the Himura family were combined, I could create a hero that would surpass All Might.

'Katsute wa meikadatta Himura-ke mo ima wa aoikitoiki…' かつては名家だった氷叢家も今は青息吐息… "The Himura family, which was once a prestigious family, was now in deep distress…"

'No.2 Hero no chii to meiyo, soshite djisankin meate ni Himura-ke no tōshu wa ore no teian o assari to ukeireta' No.2ヒーローの地位と名誉、そして持参金目当てに氷叢家の当主は俺の提案をあっさりと受け入れた "The head of the Himura family easily accepted my proposal, aiming for the status and prestige of the No. 2 hero, as well as the dowry."

'Kotowaru koto mo dekita hazuda' 断る事もできたハズだ "She could have refused."

'Daga kanojo wa "kosei" kondearu koto mo shōchi no ue de, ie no tame ni ore no tsuma ni naru to iu' だが彼女は"個性"婚である事も承知の上で、家の為に俺の妻になると言う "However, even if she was aware that it was a "Quirk" marriage, and said that she will become my wife for the sake of her family."

So... this exposition remarks it's a Quirk Marriage but they don't quite want to admit it so they make it pass for an arranged marriage. Because if your family sells you off but it's not for the purpose to strenghten your husband's Quirk, it's so much better. -_-

Anyway at the meeting there's just Enji, Rei and the "family head" (当主 'tōshu'), which is generally assumed to be Rei's father (but it could have been her grandfather if he was still alive... or her brother if her father died prematurely).

Generally in arranged marriages, or better in the 'Miai' (見合い, "matchmaking"), the marmatching meetings made to organize arranged marriages there's either a mediator or the parents of the two who're meant to marry. Enji though is alone. We can speculate that Rei's mother (whom we know is alive) is absent because she's preparing more tea or retrieving sweets... but Enji went there alone and we'll never, through the whole story, hear about his mother.

Maybe she died too.

While in the manga the family head only sounds honoured to receive Enji's proposition in the anime he looks at Rei greedily, as if instead than Rei she's saying a stack of bills. I feel bad for Rei.

On a sidenote this clashes a bit with how Shouto presented the whole thing back in the past. Shouto made it look as if they were pressured into agreeing to him marrying Rei...

...while in the manga they just seem glad he asked to marry her and in the anime they seem delighted to sell her to him.

Also the anime in this scene and the manga in another scene implied Rei could still have refused. She was likely pressured but could still say no, while Shouto paints it as if she and her family had no choice but to sell her off... though it can be a matter of translation.

'Jisseki to kin dake wa aru otokoda… Oyaji wa haha no shinzoku o marumekomi' 「実績と金だけはある男だ... 親父は母の親族を丸め込み」 "He is a man with accomplishments and money. . . My old man won over/seduced/persuaded my mother's relatives"

'Marumekomi' (丸め込み) seems to have a not so positive implication as it's used to imply you manage to talk someone into doing what you want, as if the Himura didn't really want to sell Rei and needed to be persuaded.

Tōya too also seem to imply the Himura were forced into selling Rei...

'Endeavor wa katsute chikara ni kogarete imashita. 「エンデヴァーはかつて力に焦がれていました」 "Endeavor was once thirsty for power."

'Soshite All Might o koe renai zetsubō kara yori tsuyoi "kosei" o motta ko o tsukuru tame' 「そしてオールマイトを超えれない絶望からより強い"個性"を持った子を作る為」 "And out of despair of not being able to surpass All Might, in order to create a child with a stronger "Quirk"

'Muriyari tsuma o metorimashita' 「無理やり妻を娶りました」 "He took a wife by force"

Tōya uses 'muriyari' (無理やり), which means "Forcibily, against one's will".

In the manga he'll also say (without Rei correcting him)...

'Obāchan-tachi ga binbō shi tetakara okāsan o uttandaro' 「おばあちゃん達が貧乏してたからお母さんを売ったんだろ」 "Grandmother and the others were poor so they sold mother, isn't that it?"

'Okāsan wa sō suru shika nakattandaro' 「お母さんはそうするしかなかったんだろ」 "Mother had no choice but to do that, isn't that it?"

Here it doesn't say his father forced them to sell his mother, but that his grandparents did it because they were poor and insists on how Rei "had no choices" (しかなかった 'shikanakatta')... which Rei doesn't deny with him but will later deny in an inner monologue.

'Sentakushi wa kagira rete itakeredo' 選択肢は限られていたけれど "Although my options were limited"

'Erande susunda no wa watashi no ashi de' 選んで進んだのは私の足でーーー "I chose to move forward with my feet."

'Semete sono-sakide wa waratte iyou to' せめてその先では笑っていようと "At least I'll try to smile there"

'Omotte ita no ni...' 思っていたのにーーー… "That's what I was thinking…"

She claims she had limited options but, confirming Enji's words, she still could choose.

I should probably say that the impression I get from Tōya first saying it was Enji who forced Rei to marry against her will (same as Shouto), and then him instead choosing to blame his grandparents for Rei's marriage, with Enji and, more important, Rei, feels like a retcon (and since this chapter already contained a retcon in its magazine version I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case here as well).

Of course we can excuse it with an 'at the time Tōya was still longing for Enji's love and didn't want to blame him too much...' only to remember he was blaming him in that same chapter in his chat with Natsuo so... whatever.

And, in addition to this, there's also the narrator in "School Briefs I: Notice from School" which says Enji "singled out his would-be wife and forced her into a Quirk marriage".

Really, this doesn't make it look like Rei even had the option to refuse... only for chap 301/302 to change the situation having Enji say she could refuse, Rei saying she chose that path for her family's sake and Tōya not blaming anymore his father but his grandparents for that marriage.

So, skipping the old bits as retconned out of the story, honestly the impression I got of the Himura from the scene was they saw this as their golden chance as soon as they were asked out so Enji didn't really have to work on being persuasive. Maybe it's just me, though we'll later learn the Himura were already into organized Quirk marriages... however their own were to strenghten their own Quirk as they tended to marry among distant relatives.

In Japan is considered incest only if you marry someone who's a second or a third degree relative so I guess they could safely marry among forth degree relatives.

Rei also will claim she

Anyway really, I doubt Enji had to do much work to persuade the Himura and, if he hadn't shown up, her family would have still likely try to organize her marriage so...

The anime cuts Enji's pouting face as he and Rei walks around the place.

The flowers Rei is watching are Gentians.

In the series we see Enji gifting them to Rei in November as she has them during the Second Hero Billboard chart which takes place in November but she also has them during the Paranormal Liberation War which takes place in March.

Now, we can assume the first kind of Gentians Rei has are likely the ‘gentiana scabra’, a specie of gentian with a blue (青色)/purple color (紫色), also called Japanese Gentian. In Japan their name is Rindō (リンドウ/竜胆) and well, they're basically The Gentian in Japan as when you mean to say just gentian in Japan you say 'Rindō'.

However this comes with a problem. In Japan the ‘gentiana scabra’ blossoms in Autumn, from September to November... so it's fine for Enji to gift them to Rei in November for the Hero Billboard chart... but it would be difficult to do the same in March, before/after the Paranormal Liberation War,

The alternative is that the second gentian we see, the one she's holding in March is actually a 'gentiana zollingeri' or Fude Rindō (フデリンドウ), another gentian typical of Asia which is either white or blue and whose flowering period is Spring, usually from April to May... but the problem is I've heard this gentian is usually quite small so... no idea. For now I'll let the guessing to who knows more about gentians than me.

Now let's focus a moment on what Rei says...

'Kono ohana watashi ga suki tte itta no' 「このお花私が好きって言ったの」 "I told him I like/love these flowers"

'？' 「？」 "？"

'Hajimete atta koro tatta ichido' 「初めて会った頃たった一度」 "Only once when we first met"

Actually, the Japanese text in this scene matches more with how we saw it being played out. In the flashback Rei never said they were her favourite flowers and here she confirms she only told him she liked/loved them.

Anyway, according to this scene, this mean they have that walk in which they saw the gentians on their first meeting.

And that's all we know about Enji pre marriage form the manga.

[sukibenders]

Not some JayViks are calling Arcane, specifically the show creators and writers, even animators, homophobic for not catering to their ship...even though the show's main couple is wlw...

[deoidesign]

Someone killed my boss last night and he sent me this I'm so fired

god I can't wait to make this comic.

[candyskiez]

I'm not a super big ekurei shipper but I have to admit the fact that Dimple can possess Reigen while he's unconscious and yet Reigen will be fully present anyway is Very compelling regardless of your explanation for it. Dimple was very specifically trying to wake Reigen up and used most of his power to do so? Hell yes, love it. Reigen being very atune to spirits because of. Well. The past four years. And going WHAT THE FUCK and waking right back up only to immediately go "oh. It's just dimple." Fascinating scene idea. Looking directly at it. So much potential for a fascinating missing scene there. Ekurei is growing on me at alarming rates. Help.

[icewindandboringhorror]

Some (late) holiday photos of the boye~!

[lilacerull0]

most of the time i am deeply freaked out by these books, but then i remember the ultimate message is that they're called MY BRILLIANT FRIEND!!!!!! elena really said the most historical and the most unshakable truth about your life is that i loved you. elena's history book as an antithesis to all history books.(this is why it is the best one)

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...