#and that's why I'd actively CHOOSE which time I was born in if I could

[amandabe11man]

"I was born in the wrong time" but it's not only about aesthetics or whatever-- I was literally born in the wrong time if I wanted a chance to experience mental peace in my adult life

[microclown]

I was rewatching s1e3 and something finally clicked for me..

Please forgive me if this seems obvious to you. It helps me to type out my thoughts, but I'm sure I'm just an idiot and no one else needs this explained to them, lol. That said - I was always slightly confused by the emotional weight of the holy water arc during the flashback sequence. Particularly I was confused by how angry Crowley got when Aziraphale referred to their relationship as fraternizing in the 1862 fight. I mean, "to associate or form a friendship with someone, especially when one is not supposed to" is exactly what they are doing, right? So why the 80 year breakup?

Crowley says he wants the holy water for if "it" all goes pear shaped. The phrasing is necessarily vague, and could mean lots of things. Since I know what he eventually uses it for, I was thinking about it in the context of Armageddon, or maybe more generally and vaguely about Crowley not always choosing to go along with Hell, and associating with Aziraphale. But there was not much reason for Crowley to already be thinking about Armageddon back then.

As we know from the full diary entry Neil posted, the timeline of the Edinburgh entry, and the cut bookshop opening scene, it seems like Crowley and Aziraphale were spending A LOT of time together by the 1800's. When Crowley is pulled back down to Hell in 1827, he learns that Hell is paying more attention to him than he'd previously thought. Crowley realizes at this point that spending so much time with Aziraphale is actively putting him in real danger. He recognizes that, and instead of breaking things off, or seeing Aziraphale less, he doubles down. If this relationship is dangerous, then he wants the tools to fight for it.

That's what I think I didn't get about the holy water request. It's not just general insurance, it's specifically insurance for if Hell finds out about him and Aziraphale. It's also a super vulnerable request because in making it, Crowley is openly acknowledging how important their relationship is to him. Aziraphale casually brings up the arrangement at the beginning of the conversation, and that's part of it, right? Because the whole basis of their relationship is the arrangement. It continues to be the pretense under which they meet, despite the relationship clearly having developed beyond that. And the arrangement, as Crowley proposed it in 537, is born out of convenience, and the assumption that Heaven and Hell would never notice anyway.

Crowley's request for insurance breaks that facade. He's acknowledging that it's not convenient, or safe, but he wants to do it anyway, despite the risk.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, is not ready for the screen to be taken away so abruptly. To make it worse, he assumes Crowley wants the holy water as an escape, rather than a weapon. Suddenly he is confronted with both the danger their association poses, and the idea that Crowley might choose to take his own life. He can't imagine the guilt of being directly responsible for the latter.

I also think the strength of his own emotional response to the thought of losing Crowley catches Aziraphale off guard. He hasn't admitted to himself how much he actually cares, and it scares him. Worrying about Heaven is more comfortable and familiar, so he falls back on that and switches to "If they knew I'd been... fraternizing!"

But bringing up the threat of Heaven reads to Crowley as Aziraphale saying "You may be willing to put yourself at risk for the sake of our relationship, but I am not." The word choice of "fraternizing" comes off as a dismissive and demeaning way to describe a relationship that Crowley just admitted he would risk his life for.

It's an unintentionally deep cut when Crowley is already at his most vulnerable, and so he lashes out. As far as we've seen, this is possibly the first time Crowley has truly lashed out at Aziraphale. So yeah, 80 year breakup makes sense!

And what makes this so much worse is what happens next. Crowley reaches out again in 1941 with a dramatic gesture (rescuing Aziraphale from the Nazis, saving his books). It's clear they've missed each other. They don't discuss the fight, but it's there subtextually. Aziraphale, tentatively and thrillingly, refers to them as friends, for the first time ever. He tells Crowley that he trusts him.

And then, that very same night their worst fears are confirmed. Just when they've finally reconciled a fight over the dangers of their relationship, and just when Aziraphale has finally admitted that it is not a relationship of convenience, but genuine friendship, they are exposed. Crowley is going to face punishment from Hell, explicitly for being Aziraphale's "trusted confident", and he doesn't have insurance. If Aziraphale's trick hadn't succeeded, Crowley would have had no way to protect himself.

idk it just makes me feel things ok

[emelinstriker]

ESAU Master System Explained

To keep it short/simple: Everyone who wants to be a Reader, is a Reader. I myself am a Reader of fiction, which is why I use my persona to fill in the Reader's space in any non-interactive/fullbody drawing I do for ESAU. Which is also why Macaque referred to their Master being currently female in one of the first ESAU asks- Because in that moment, in my drawings, I'm technically seen as their Master. But most of the time I do change the pronouns to they/them whenever it's them talking about "any" Master.

So when you see the servants swap between their Master using non-binary and female pronouns, this is why. If you see me draw them referring to their Master as a "she", they're referring to basically their current Master in that exact moment. However, literally anyone else could also be placed in that spot. This is just the way I'd interact with the servants myself.

Whenever I refer to a Reader's "reincarnation/life", I usually mean either "the same person, but another life" (aka same looks, just different points in time) OR "different people of the same life/a different life" (aka Person A is the Master in one life, Persona B is the Master in the next).

As in, the Reader can imagine themselves having had multiple past lives, or their "past life" is actually another Reader. We're all Readers, we're all the Reader. That's why I kept saying early on that the Master System is rather philosophical in a sense. Lore-wise within the AU, all Masters, except for the First Master, share the same soul, which the servants recognize and are connected to.

The Reader can imagine themselves if they met their champions as a child or as an adult. However, nothing in ESAU is forced to be romantic or sexual. If you were born as a prince/princess/royalty, that doesn't mean your servants are immediately destined to be romantic or sexual with you, right? That entire portion is up to the Reader to decide and imagine. I do not control what another person thinks of and imagines. If they choose to pick a darker path in what they imagine, that's out of my control. But unless it ends up hurting anyone, or they actively push the topic onto others, I see no issue with however a Reader wants to think up what happens in their life with their servants. All I do is create material for others to play with.

Except for the First Master, any other Master/Reader can be considered either the same person or various people.

But that's up to the person behind the screen, whether they feel more comforted with one idea or another. Because despite all the dark lore and angsty hints, it's still a comfort X Reader AU. If you don't wanna have a certain champion be romantic/sexual towards you, you don't need to imagine them being romantic/sexual towards you. Simple as that. Imagine the boys in the type of relationship with you that you feel most comfortable with.

For example in my case, I'd see all of them as romantic interests except for MK, cuz those who know already know how I see him as a smol chibi yello beaaaan- I mean LOOK AT HIM-

And yet I still made it so he can be seen as romantic/sexual interest for those who do actually see him in a different way. (Not counting the chibi doodles ofc, those are all just him being a bean dhfndshfnds)

(Copy n pasted what I explained before in that rant like 2 weeks ago and tweaked it a bit with bonuses just so it's not just a random quote taken from a previous rant post. For anyone curious about the rant, it's really not hard to find cuz that's the only post I tagged as rant and will probably stay as the only rant post for a looong while. Hopefully a long while. The entire drama logic just hurt my brain, but also gave my friends and I content to laugh and meme over fhgnhfgf)

[twisted-art-wounders]

Here's a Breaking The Seal question to help motivate you: what was the end goal for this story? Not the ending of the story: I mean your goal for writing the story. Like, what did you want to achieve by using the Yugioh characters in this (freakin' amazing) storyline?

Well it always bugged me that Yugi was taken out half way through the season and was basically held captive like a damsel in distress but mostly as a tool to further sell the fact Atem screwed up royally and there are consequences to his actions and all.

Which is fine cause it does help push Atem's character forward but it still feels like a slap in the face to Yugi who again it feels like the producers just didn't like him as a main character. And in a franchise were they gotta sell you those cards a protagonist needs to be "cool" to move the product (thus why Kaiba has so much merch and screen time) and sadly the ppl who will mostly buy the cards and watch the show wanna see the cool guy not the guy who reflects kindness and doesn't look like he'd hurt a fly. And yeah I know there are other shoenen protags who are like him as well but circumstances are different in this one compared to the others.

So yes it ALWAYS rubbed me the wrong way how Yugi was treated in DM; Manga and even Toei did way better and I'll die on that hill despite their flaws they still treated Yugi better then DM did. So with the power of creativity and years of having to sit back and watch my favorite character continually be left out of like EVERYTHING I decided it was time to change that.

And at this point I was more willing to actually write a thing since whenever I try to make long form comics I bail out part way though (Comics take ALOT of work ppl.) so this seemed like the better move.

So I made my first Fan Fic Leviathan Rising but that AU takes place after Yugi was taken and sorta turned into my own fun thing were I actually give character to main antagonist of that season (Leviathan) and sorta turn him in to an OC which I love <3

So for this fic I decided to explore what would happen if Yugi was made into the true antagonist of that season. Truth is Yugi could be just as evil as any person but he actively chooses to not be a total asshole if he can help it. Also I watched season 3 of Tangled the Series (Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure) and while I have my issues with Cassandra's turn to evil and how they handled it I still liked it. So I figured I'd like to take a crack on that same idea of the villain manipulating the hero's closest friend into their greatest enemy.

Thus DOMA Yugi is born! and since I love exploring Yugi as a villain (Black Mirror and Final Yugi AU) it seemed to fit. Since last fic Yugi was unwilling to be part of the evil this time he is (of course he's being manipulated all the way so far...) And at this time in the fic he has gone to DOMA's side so we'll read how that turns out soon :3

(sorry it took so long to answer you! I've been really busy and this sat in my inbox for months T.T; )

[shortscircuits]

Curious about your thoughts on the gay choice poll…..

omg thank you for asking, i just typed this all up and then was about to just save it as a draft and leave it all unsaid. it's mostly about my personal philosophy of identity. when i was writing this, i used 'gay' as an umbrella term that includes 'trans' because it's easier.

that poll asking 'if being gay was a choice, would you choose it' kinda makes my brain twitch the same way a paradox does. because obviously i know what the question means, and what it presupposes. it's asking- if you were given the option to have different impulses, to feel differently about sex and romance, which feelings and impulses would you elect to have? would you choose to feel gay?

the 'yes' option is sweeping. and that isn't surprising to me on a website full of gay people. not because being gay is an easier way to live, but because in a more active way, we all choose to be gay every day. i always tend to think of 'being' like a synonym to 'doing.' i consider myself to be a good person because i try to do good things. i choose to live a gay lifestyle, wear gay clothes, have gay sex, pursue gay romance and gay friendship, i choose to do gay things because i'm much happier being gay. i was not happy when i dressed like a cis heterosexual, when i had hetero sex, when i tried to be straight. in my mind, when i think back to my most repressed and miserable time, i remember, i was straight. for all intents and purposes. i was living a hetero life. regardless of how i felt or what i wanted, that's what i was doing. and so that's what i was.

the 'born this way' model of thinking held me back from understanding my own sexuality and gender for all of my adolescence, because it provides the framework that gay people simply are, there's no discovery or experimentation, gay people know they're gay at a young age. it's a useful model, and now that i'm in touch with myself i can see why people relate to it. i can look back at my childhood experiences and feelings and fondly assign an unwitting gay impulse to those moments. but i'll never fully be able to say for myself that i was born this way. i was not. my identity was formed as i grew up, and in my early twenties, i struggled to discover and connect to the sexual and gendered parts of my identity, and part of that struggle was an active choice, many small terrifying choices, to put myself at risk, at risk of homophobia and at risk of simple emotional vulnerability.

i still make that choice every day. so does any gay person. otherwise they wouldn't be calling themselves gay. and if someone doesn't label themselves as gay, who are we to claim they are? if we were all born this way, finding our identities would be a lot easier, wouldn't it? couldn't we have found it at a younger age? couldn't we have learned it alongside writing our names for the very first time? wouldn't it be like learning the alphabet? but its obviously impossible to already have a fully-formed identity as a child. maybe it's impossible to ever have a static, unchanging identity. the 'born this way' rhetoric is useful for getting people to understand the idea that we need to live this way to be happy. that we'd never have a fulfilling life in a completely straight society. but i think we desperately need a framework that emphasizes that most of us found being gay as an option, realized it was something we could do, something we could be, and are much better off for it. that the reason we push for gay rights, the reason we are gay in the face of homophobia, is because somewhere along the way of forming our identities, we engaged with gay art, gay comedy, gay books, gay culture. and we chose to embrace that culture and be part of that tradition.

so like, yeah. of course i'd choose to be gay. i choose to be gay all the time.

[inghrafn]

I don't know what happened to all the posts I've made over time about being genderqueer. When you have 16,000+ posts in your archive, things fall through the cracks. But Pride (along with a new and very curious young genderqueer colleague) stirs up old questions, so here's me revisiting old answers.

How early did you know?

For the first 3 3⁄4 years of my life, I plainly understood myself to be a boy . Even though my body was structurally the same as my sisters', I was something other than them. They were girls. I was not. I felt very secure and peaceful about it, and I remember this as a happy time.

How early did your family know?

Before ultrasonography became standard obstetric practice, parents simply had to wait until childbirth to learn their baby's gender. From the beginning of my mother's pregnancy, she and my father had a powerful sense that I was male. They'd already chosen a masculine family name for me, so they found themselves in a mad scramble to find a girl's name at the last minute. "You were supposed to be a boy!" they later said, to which I responded, "Are you so sure I'm not?"

When did you find out you were AFAB?

I was almost four years old when my brother was born. My parents made a point of bringing me in to see him at changing time. They pointed out his penis and explained that that was what made him a boy-son-brother. I did not have one; therefore I was a girl-daughter-sister. Obviously I shrugged it off, but the way they approached the topic leads me to believe it was already a point of contention.

What was it like to grow up genderqueer?

Thanks to second-wave feminism and the gender-neutral parenting movement of the early 1970s, unisex clothes and activities for kids were fairly common. Classroom screenings of Free to Be... You and Me were a standard part of the grade school syllabus. But with the Reagan era came a return to "traditional values", and gender distinctions once more became rigidly enforced.

The hardcore punk scene offered a safe haven for dissenters, many of whom occupied the LGBTQ+ spectrum. As a genderqueer teen, I felt most comfortable in the chaos of that setting, but I also spent a lot of time alone. Being militantly straightedge helped to keep sex and romance out of the equation while I grappled with my identity.

Throughout it all, I have to credit my parents for not insisting on cisgender presentation. My mother occasionally wished out loud that my interest in women's fashion extended to actually WEARING it... but my father openly approved of my boyness, even going so far as to present 14-year-old me with his army clippers so that I could learn to shave my own head. A pretty ballsy move for a Dad in 1983!

Did you experience gender dysphoria?

Yes. The onset of puberty was psychologically devastating. I became anorexic and compulsively exercised to stave off the inevitable changes. To this day I have trouble with the presence of some body parts and the absence of others, simultaneously grieving what I have and what I never had. It helps to remind myself that I know who I am. If the packaging doesn't match the contents, it's still ME and it doesn't hurt to try being kind to myself.

Why didn't you transition? Would you ever consider it now?

It never occurred to me then, and I'm not really interested now.

Why do you still use your AFAB name? Why didn't you change it?

The boy-name my parents had expected to use and the girl-name they ended up choosing both carry cultural and personal meaning for me. I consider them both fully mine, one public, the other private. I don't have a deadname, but I'd rather die than accidentally use someone else's.

Why don't you have pronouns or neopronouns?

I do understand the exchange of pronouns to be a new and necessary form of social courtesy. I appreciate learning and using others' pronouns (though it's sometimes challenging, as I have decades of linguistic conditioning to battle against). But I do not have pronouns myself-- and this is the hardest thing to explain to the person asking for them (as my new colleague recently did). Most social pronoun sets are in the third person, a voice I never use to refer to myself. First- and second-person forms of address imply a conversation being had, either between two or many. But third-person pronouns are only used when talking ABOUT someone. And since I have no role in conversations that do not include me, I don't know and I don't care what words people use to subjectively refer to me. Whatever they choose (even - as I'm sure has been the case numerous times - That Bitch) I will not be offended.

[votestaynight2]

14th Day - servant eater (Scene 2)

"――――――――" Hold on. Steal Einzbern's Holy Grail…? "――――!"

I run. I don't care about the laughter. I'm sure he's watching me from a safe place. There's no time to let an old man's drivel get to me――――

"That's right. Hurry, Emiya Shirou! Sakura has turned dark. Once she captures Ilyasviel, she will swallow her without mercy…!" "――――!"

I kick the ground hard enough to tear my legs off. "Please be all right, Ilya――――!" It'll take twenty minutes to get to my house, even if I run full-speed. I glare at the gray sky and run frantically back to Ilya.

Interlude 14-4

The girl is looking up at the sky. The gray sunlight dulls her silver hair and red eyes. "…Yeah. I have to tell Shirou once he comes home." Ilyasviel talks to herself.

The Emiya household is quiet. Shirou and Rin went to find Sakura. Rider, naturally, is nowhere to be seen, leaving Ilya as the only one here. "―――The giant cavern. The promised land built two hundred years ago. From the feel of it, it's already activated." This is the fifth Holy Grail War in Fuyuki. The Holy Grail has been summoned into different places each time, but it has returned to the original site for this war.

It's only natural. They use one of the gates located at the four compass points, and move on to the next when one fails. The first was the Ryudou Temple. The second was the Tohsaka household. The third was the church on top of the hill. The fourth was that burned field. Then this summoning returns to the site of the first. The point of origin. The false utopia that sets the rules of the Holy Grail War.

"――――A Holy Grail filled with the souls of heroic spirits. Using it to open the gate is the very miracle they aimed for… But I didn't expect its contents to come out before the gate had been opened." Ilya murmurs in disbelief. This is far away from the Einzbern's dearest wish. They have failed. The disaster that will be born is a far cry from what they wished for.

"…I can just leave it be. My role is to open it. Nobody told me anything about closing it." And she couldn't possibly close it, even if she tried. Matou Sakura excels her in ability as the Holy Grail. Einzbern's Holy Grail cannot do anything to the gate opened by Makiri's Holy Grail. Matou Zouken thinks he opened the same gate, but in reality, he opened a completely different one. The only ones aware of this are the Holy Grails: the girl and Matou Sakura.

"―――Will Shirou make it? I could run away with him if he does." She looks up at the sky. The girl is wavering. She doesn't know whether to choose the role imposed on her or the desire born from within her.

"But Shirou. It makes no difference to the fact that I'm going to die." The result is the same. Regardless of whether she goes to the gate as the Holy Grail or runs away, she will die. Which is her true self? She asks the gray sky for an answer.

"――――――――"

That's why she doesn't notice. The person who came through the door with an "I'm home." Did she slip through the boundary field, or did it not consider her a trespasser?

"――――――――"

Slowly. She moves from the living room to the yard without a sound, then reaches out to the girl sitting at the porch. "―――You're home late, Sakura. Where were you?"

"――――Nee-san…" The trespasser, Matou Sakura, stops her hand. She looks away from Ilya and to Tohsaka Rin, who has been waiting for her in the yard.

"Get away from Ilya. I'll shoot you down if you get any closer to her." Everyone here knows it's no empty threat. "――――It's useless. Well, go ahead if it'll satisfy you, Rin." Ilyasviel starts walking without showing any surprise. The girl walks to the edge of the yard, as if to watch over the two's confrontation.

"…I see. You were waiting here all along, Nee-san. You knew I was coming for Ilya-chan." "Yeah. I don't have a reason to save you, unlike Shirou. It was obvious that you'd come to kidnap Ilya when the time came. You've done it once before, so I'd be foolish not to keep an eye on her."

Sakura's brows twitch at Shirou's name. Showing unhappiness. She shows undisguised hatred that would surprise anyone who knew her previous self.

"…That's terrible. You're always like that, Nee-san. You always make fun of me. You're beautiful, so you look down on me because I'm dirty. You're absolutely hateful. Nee-san. Am I that bad of a person?" Her voice contains no emotion. The question alone should send a chill up anyone's spine.

"Of course. You're a big idiot who gave up her chance to be saved the instant she stepped out of this house. You didn't trust the person that Matou Sakura wanted to protect." But Tohsaka Rin gives a firm reply.

"Oh――――――――" Sakura looks down. As if acknowledging the truth of her mistake.

"But I…" "Don't say you thought it was for the best. We told you not to go outside. If you had any objections, you should've come and talked with us first. But you went without saying anything. You went alone and made the same mistake you always made. Unbelievable. People take advantage of you because you can't do something as simple as that."

"…You're right. I was definitely like that until now. But Nee-san. I'm not weak anymore. You're the one who can stay in the house now. I'll protect Senpai." Her cold stare, the emitting ominous shadow… "――――――――" Realizing that it's as she feared, Rin takes a step back.

――――Not knowing… That her hesitation is the last trigger that drives Matou Sakura.

"…What's wrong, Nee-san? Curling your back like that makes it look like you're scared of me." "――――――――" It's too late when she clucks her tongue. ……No. It's not too late or anything. When Sakura reached for Ilyasviel, it was already too late.

"……I see. So you don't intend to stay quietly in your room anymore?" "No. I don't need to listen to what you say anymore."

"――――Because I'm stronger."

The shadow dances. Many shades of darkness emerge from the ground below Sakura and engulf the yard. And from the shadow… "Sakura, you――――" …Emerges a swordsman who is contaminated in black.

"Saber, capture the Holy Grail. If she tries to resist, go as rough as you like." "――――――――" Black Saber obeys without a word. …There's no doubt about it. What that shadow is. Tohsaka Rin bites her lip, seeing what kind of fate awaits a Servant swallowed by the mud.

At that instant. "!" "Hah――――!" A merciless attack. A shadow with magical energy far surpassing that of Tohsaka Rin is fired.

"……!" She rolls as she lands. The fired shadow is on the same level as the black shadow. It'll be the end if it touches her. If it even grazes her, it will stick to her skin, covering her in an instant. ――――And after that. If Tohsaka Rin is swallowed by the mud that even a Servant cannot escape, she will be absorbed without hope of resistance.

"Damn……!" The black tentacles whip towards her in rapid succession. Rin realizes that the attacks are not from the black shadow, but a magic Sakura possesses. That magic of Matou is to bind others. But Sakura is originally from the Tohsaka family―――a shadow-user with an origin of the imaginary element, the imaginary number. Matou Sakura is able to embody the black shadow to that degree because she has both of those attributes――――!

"……!!!!" She's easily cornered. Their magical energy capacities are too unevenly matched. Sakura's magical energy is infinite. Her capacity reaches a hundred million. To Rin, whose capacity is a mere three hundred, Sakura is a monster.

She controls both the black shadow and Saber, who has the greatest magical energy out of all the Servants. …Even a Servant will not be able to match such a monstrous magus.

"………This is bad. Her magic's simple, but our energy capacity is too different――――" She stares at what Sakura has become, gasping for breath. …She has no chance of winning, and she cannot escape. It'd be a different story if she had a source of magical energy like the Holy Grail, but she doesn't have such a thing.

"…Well, no magical energy source in the world can match the Holy Grail." She suppresses her frustration by grumbling. "Oh, you can't do that, Nee-san. It's dangerous if you stop there." Sakura points her hand at Rin without hesitation.

There's no mercy. Sakura smiles, enjoying the absolute dominance. "Now――――let's play more, Nee-san. I know you'll be caught in the end, but please keep running until then." She smiles at her beloved sister.

The result is as obvious as she says. Rin cannot get away from the shadow. Sakura can quickly cover the whole house with the shadow if she wishes. As Sakura slowly expands the extent of the shadow, Rin is defeated without being able to do anything.

"――――Ah, ah――――…………" The black shadow covers Tohsaka Rin. The gel-like mud tightly binds Rin's body, turning into numerous tongues to invade her Magic Circuit.

"Oh, is that all? You're not as strong as I thought, Nee-san." She looks down at her helpless sister. ―――Wild breathing and heated cheeks. Her older sister is covered with heavy oil, exciting even Sakura, who is of the same sex.

"――――Sa… kura――――" Her face is left uncovered, perhaps because Sakura wants to enjoy her pain. "――――You―――――………" Rin swallows her contempt and glares back at Sakura. But that's only for a few seconds. The mud that stirs her body violates her internal organs.

"Kuh…! Ahh, haa――――………" "Fufu. Then I'll be having you now. I was looking forward to this. This will be the first time I've eaten magical energy from a magus." The gel-like shadow tightens around Tohsaka Rin. The "meal" doesn't even last a second.

"Ah…… Hm――――――" "……It's good. I'm not full at all, but it helps a bit." The last traces of magic fade from Tohsaka Rin. That's the end. Head down and chest heaving, Rin has no power to resist. She has no way to fight back, but――――

"――――That won't do. I have to kill her here, or I…" Will lose to Nee-san. …It's a groundless assumption. The difference in their powers will never be overturned. But Sakura is firmly convinced that she will lose if they fight again.

So she has to kill her here. Taking her magical energy and leaving her powerless isn't enough. She has to kill Rin here, just as Rin tried to do to her. She tries to convince herself as she opens her palms.

"Nee-san, you――――" The shadow doesn't extend. She trembles, gaze focused on her weakened sister, and… "Sakura――――!!!!!!" The person she least wants to see catches up to her.

End of Interlude

"――――Damn, what's going on…!?" It's obvious that something's going on in the yard. A damp magical energy that makes me want to vomit is swirling so much that I can almost touch it. I would feel the abnormality even if I weren't a magus.

"Wha――――" I was prepared for it, but I get dizzy the instant I see it. Tohsaka is covered by a shadow like coal tar. Ilya is standing at the side of the yard, and Black Saber is standing in front of her. And in the middle of the yard is Sakura, pointing her hand at Tohsaka――――

"Sakura――――!!!!" I jump into the yard. ―――I have to help them both, but Tohsaka is in the most danger right now. Covered in coal tar, Tohsaka looks pale, and it looks like her life is in danger.

"Tohsaka…! Hey, pull yourself together, you idiot…!" "――――――――" There's no reply. "Hold on, I'll have this off you in a minute…!"

I tear away the mud that's covering her. The mud is gelatinous, but it's just like rubber. I can't grab it, and even if I pull it off of her body, it just bounces back onto her.

"……! What is this!? I can touch her, so why…!?" I can't get the mud off, no matter what. I panic and frantically try to free her.

There… "―――It's useless, Senpai. I'm the only one who can dispel my shadow. Someone as weak as you will be swallowed instead." "――――Sakura?" Sakura speaks in a cold voice I've never heard from her.

"Sakura――――your face…" My rage turns to ice.

…Sakura's neck. Something that looks like a tattoo is consuming her. It doesn't look like it, but it's a Command Spell. A mysterious Command Spell is crawling over Sakura's body―――

"…I'm surprised. You came here in a hurry, Senpai. But you're confused. You saw what happened to Nii-san, but you're not scolding me." "――――That's… fine. We don't have to talk about Shinji right now. I'll listen once you've calmed down."

…That's right. I have to talk with Sakura right now. Zouken said a lot of crazy things, but they're all lies. Sakura is still Sakura. She's talking to me like always and―――

"No. I don't want to talk about it, and I don't want to talk with you, Senpai. I'm the only one that gets to talk here. No one can scold me now, be it Senpai, Nee-san, Nii-san, or anyone in town."

"――――!" A chill runs down my back. No, this isn't just a chill. It's an intensely cold thorn, as if a knife were slashed from my brain down to my waist.

"Senpai. Why are you protecting Nee-san?" "――――――――" My vision whites out for a second. A shadow is standing behind Sakura.

"Ah――――" The chill runs throughout my body, paralyzing me with fear. That's Sakura. Even when I heard that the shadow is Sakura, I could bear it. But now that I've seen it, I know.

…My left arm melted when it merely touched it. The thing that went around town killing people like a machine――――is Sakura.

"Sa… kura." My throat goes dry. My eyeballs convulse. My vision wavers as if space itself is twisted. Every cell in me screams a warning, trying to defrost my frozen body.

But it doesn't melt. Sakura's presence isn't human, but something different. It's not her vast magical energy that got to me. There's only one reason why my body's frozen. Sakura is being hostile towards me.

"Yes. You were always like that. You said you'd protect me, but then you'd watch over everyone but me. ―――But it's fine. I wanted you because you're that kind of a person."

――――My vision distorts. The words from the Sakura I don't know cause my mind to break apart. It tells me it's not her. ――――She's not Sakura. Something I shouldn't think about fills my brain.

"My presence here is painful for you, right, Senpai? I know how much of a burden I am to you. You'll continue to suffer as long you're with me. So I had to get away from you."

The shadow dances around. The ground is like a stage for a shadow picture.

"But I can't. You're the only happiness I have. And you can't get away from me. Because you can't betray yourself anymore."

"……Yes. That's why I'll kill you. Then you'll be with me forever, and most of all―――― You won't have to suffer anymore, right?"

――――The shadow stretches. It surges forth like a wave, trying to swallow me along with Tohsaka.

I react by instinct, pushing Tohsaka away. The black tide sweeps over me. I don't even think about avoiding it myself. "――――――――" I was frightened. I thought Sakura wasn't Sakura for an instant. That knowledge wouldn't let me move my body.

―――I know this. This is the darkness I was showered with before. I'll go insane. I couldn't even bear it for a second back then. My mind will disappear before my body if it falls directly on me.

"Guh――――ah."

My body shrivels. My warmth fades away. It's more painful and frightening than I thought, so my body struggles to break free. But I can't jump. First of all, there's no ground to kick off of. I will…

"Ah――――eh?" I realize that I'm back in the yard. My vision is filled with purple hair.

"…Rider, you…" "This is your order, Sakura. You told me to protect Emiya Shirou no matter the circumstances."

"Ri――――der." It's Rider that saved me from the black wave. "Please do not move. You will faint if you try to stand up in your state." "――――" …No, I can't even stand up. I'm on my knees, and just breathing is enough effort to render me unconscious.

"………I see. You're going to oppose me, Rider? Then I'll take you in as well. I don't need any more Servants since I've absorbed something that wasn't in the plan――――

But I'll specially make you just like Saber."

…The shadow stands up. …Maybe she's serious because Rider is opposing her. The shadow coming from Sakura covers the whole yard.

…The whole place is dyed black. Rider doesn't show signs of running away, but stares at the creeping shadow like a criminal awaiting execution.

"That's enough. You shouldn't do anything unnecessary, Sakura. You can't come back if you take any more in."

"――――Ilya." The shadow stops its advance.

"…What does that mean, Ilyasviel?" "I mean exactly what I said. Even if you absorb Rider, kill Shirou, or disable Rin, it'll be meaningless. You're wasting your time, so why don't you stop throwing a tantrum?"

…What's she up to? Ilya walks over to Sakura.

"――――――――" "I'm the one you want, right? Then let's just finish this. I'll go with you, so leave them alone."

"Are you serious? I only want your heart. Coming with me means you don't mind getting killed." "I know. But I'm going to be killed either way, and resistance is useless. You're the strongest one for now."

Ilya talks without emotion. "――――――――" …It pisses me off. In my condition, I can't figure out what Ilya's trying to say.

"Are you saying you'll sacrifice yourself, Ilyasviel?" "Yes. That's my role. But the formal dress isn't here. If you want to open the gate as the successor, we have to go to my castle to get it." "――――――――"

"And you intended to settle things, right? Then there's no need to kill Shirou. You accepted it because you didn't want to kill anyone, but now you do want to kill them? You're contradicting yourself, Sakura." "――――――――!"

…The shadow retreats. Not only the shadow in the yard, but the mud on Tohsaka fades away as though it never existed.

"……All right. It'll save me the trouble of finding it myself. I don't know what you're trying to do, but I'll fall for your smooth talk." Her long hair flutters. Sakura turns her defenseless back to us and leaves, as if she lost interest in us.

"――――Sakura……!" I scream for her to stop. "…………"

"…Please never show yourself again. Should you stand in my way again――――I'll have to kill you."

Sakura leaves. I can't follow after her, or even call out.

"Sakura's right. Your role's already over. Dealing with the aftermath is my duty. I'll take Sakura, so you can rest now, Shirou."

I can't save Ilya either,

"―――Goodbye. It was fun, Onii-chan."

and I hear a sad farewell.

"――――――――" Everything melts away with that. My body stops trembling against the shadow. My guilt over thinking that Sakura was someone else disappears.

I'm pissed. I was trembling miserably, unable even to take Sakura's hand. Not only that. I made Ilya, the one who called me Onii-chan, make a face like that――――!

"Idiot――――!" I run. My whole body feels like lead and my brain churns with cold nausea, but I follow after them.

"――――Do not pursue them. I will kill you if you take another step." "……!" A black servant blocks my way. She points her sword at me, overwhelming us without saying a word.

"…Please get out of my way, Saber. I can't let those two leave like that." "That is my line. I cannot let you follow after them. …And even if I do withdraw, what can you do?"

"――――――――" "…This is your final warning. Sakura will obtain the Holy Grail one way or another. That is the only way for her to be released. Even if the result is her death, Matou Sakura will be saved."

"If you wish to save her, then withdraw. Should you follow us in spite of that―――I will take your head."

…Black Saber disappears. Sakura and Ilya are gone. They've vanished, as if they've faded into the shadow.

"Da――――――――" The spirit that kept me going until now dissipates. My body drops to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. "――――――――mn."

…I can't stay conscious. As my vision fades… The image of Sakura drowning in the shadow sticks in my mind, as if to impeach me.

15th Day - limited.

―――Let's make the final decision.

The outcome of the battle is decided. Or more accurately, it was decided a long time ago. This end has been determined ever since you lost Saber.

'…But Shirou. To oppose that thing is to go down the most difficult path. Please keep that in mind.'

That was said by the girl who fought with you as your sword until the very end. The night you parted with her. You promised to keep fighting by yourself, stop the shadow, and end the war.

There was hell. There has to be a meaning to why you survived that hell. There has to be a meaning to why you must keep living. It's not that you miraculously survived while everyone else died. It's merely that one person was saved by the sacrifice of everyone else.

You hated that. To break through reality, all you could do was become a superhero that can save anyone.

I don't know what those tears were. He destroyed the Holy Grail, denied his battle because it was wrong, and frantically searched for any survivors. No matter what his intentions were, his tears saved you, and you were able to start walking on a new path with him.

But you were left alone on the path. The man who led the way died, leaving the dream to you. 'Yeah―――I'm relieved.'

Emiya Kiritsugu swallowed the sins for which he couldn't atone and left this world.

―――He couldn't save anyone. So he wanted you to be able to save someone.

'If you are to deny everything you've done. The crime will judge you―――'

…I know. I know what it means, and I have to atone for it using all my life. I killed the me that I believed in for ten years. The me that was killed will feed on me.

And this is the embodiment of that crime. A saint's shield is useless. Archer's arm will eat away at me, forcing me to atone for my sins. It will bring an end far worse than death.

That's right. It's only one arm. Now that you survived, you won't die even if you cut it off. So why?

'You know it too, right? You can't choose all, and you can only save one.'

A girl that longed for her father, but lived seeking revenge. She almost cried, but smiled and swallowed her words so that we could live together. Saying we can't do such a thing. We can't live long together. So…

'―――Goodbye. It was fun, Onii-chan.'

――――――――――――.

This is the final decision. You―

[a-libra-writes]

hi! i just found your blog and absolutely loved all your fics!! i may have stayed up till 2 am reading all of your stannis baratheon fics. i LOVED the ones about being his wife in kingslanding and sand and storms!! you write him so perfectly!!! (1/2)

i saw you were taking requests and if you were open it i'd love to read about a high born lady whose the daughter of jon arryn who chose to marry stannis (bc she loves him) and stannis just wonders why out of all people she could have chosen she chose him. maybe like around the era shortly after robert became king and maybe even robert says something to stannis like "idk why she'd choose you" bc she and robert grew up together and were friends at the eyrie :).

Haha thank you for such kind words! Im really glad you enjoyed the fics, bc I adore Stannis and writing for him <3 Im not taking fic requests right now, but I can do a HC thingy on this bc it's very interesting - I've been brainstorming an Arryn!Reader bc it has a lot of potential!!!! so thank you for reading my mind.

This is a lot of Arryn!Reader and Robert -> Reader <--> Stannis angst so STRAP IN.

So, Jon Arryn's only daughter is likely born from his first wife (Jeyne Royce) or his second wife and cousin, Rowena Arryn. Regardless the little Arryn never would have known her mother, having either died in childbirth or from sickness when she was very young. Lord Arryn always held out for a son ... but he saw how sad and quiet his daughter was at a young age, and began to take a more active role in parenting and teaching.

It helped she was exceptionally clever, and their temperaments worked well together. Lord Arryn educated her like he would a son. He always meant to remarry a third time to have a "proper" heir, but his duties and war kept him busy. Lord Arryn always believed ladies ought to be polished and proper, and his daughter was... but she was also sitting in his war councils, helping run his household, learning advanced numbers and political intrigues, and so on. Growing up, she would receive a lot of mixed messages about being a 'proper wife' - that is, docile and cordial - while also knowing how to run a Great House. And yes, she was going to marry into a Great House. Jon Arryn wanted the best possible match for his little girl.

The best is what she was used to, after all. Given how lonely and isolated the Eyrie could be, he tried to make up for it with gifts, fine clothes, horses, ladies in waiting, and so on. The only reason she wasn't absolutely spoiled is because Lord Arryn expected much of her in the way of responsibilities, and she was constantly lectured about humility and patience and (insert more virtues a lady should have here). Again, the mixed messages.

So, finding out two boys from the wild Northern Starks and equally wild Southern Baratheons was very exciting. She already knew much about the history of their houses and why they were fostering. Lady Arryn was two or three years older, but she she was still wanting new friends, even if they were boys. And while her father usually disliked her mingling too much with the opposite sex, he had his sights on a potential future match.

Obviously Robert took to the beautiful Lady Arryn right away, and his crush was more overt as time went on... even if he started messing around with her ladies in waiting, which upset Lord Arryn to no end. He was very careful about the Baratheon boy being around his daughter. At least he didn't have to worry about Ned, who was the one dragging Robert away from Lady Arryn when the flirting was getting too far. Even if his daughter had a clear preference for one or both, Lord Arryn would be careful about their mingling. He didn't want his daughter's virtue called into question, and gods, did Robert make that difficult. Between openly flirting with her, dancing with her at every opportunity, waving at her when he jousted, fighting men who got too close ... Lord Arryn and Ned had their hands full.

Lady Arryn knew Ned and Robert for years, so naturally she heard about their families. Robert didn't have much good to say about his brother, and he didn't often mention Renly, so she didn't think much of them. She had a much clearer picture of Ned's siblings, because he lit up when she asked about them. Politically savvy as she was, she figured her father wanted her to marry one of them, so getting to know their families and Keeps was a good idea.

When the war broke out, it was a shock to her as anyone else. Robert and Ned were good friends at that point (even if Robert could annoy her to no end), and she feared for not just their lives, but her father's. She was terrified he'd take the Mad King's side, but he didn't... and maybe that was scarier. Before Jon Arryn left for war, he put his daughter in charge of the Eyrie. He told his men to protect and obey her as they would him. And at that point, her authority and capability had long been proven. They'd been calling her "the little Lady" for years, and now she was grown. She was Lady Arryn, and she would be Lady of the Eyrie if her father perished in war. Though she didn't know, Lord Arryn wrote many letters and documents that she shall be named his heir if he died.

She was shocked to learn of her father's marriage to Lord Tully's young daughter - she learned via raven that her father sent immediately after the wedding. She was so sure he was going to marry her off for a war alliance, but alas - Edmure Tully was too young, Ned was given to the other Tully girl because of his older brother's arrangement, and the other Great Houses either refused to pick a side or were against them. And even in wartime, her father refused to "settle" for her marriage.

The war comes to an end, and thankfully, her father, Ned and Robert are well. Even if she was always irked with the latter's advances (and often worried about being married to him), she's shocked at his marriage to Tywin's daughter. She was so sure the Lannisters would stay loyal to their mad king... well, her father will have to fill her in. He's Hand of the King, and he intends to stay in the Red Keep with his new wife, but naturally he wants his daughter to come visit and celebrate.

That's where she met Stannis properly, and she was taken aback by a few things. First, he's nothing like Robert described. He was a proper handsome Baratheon, but ... he was also so, so tired and haggard. It made her heart hurt. The whole feast hall was in a raucous celebration over Robert's crowning, and his own brother - who apparently, held siege for an entire year - looked ready to keel over. When he excused himself suddenly and no one noticed, she couldn't help herself from following after and making sure he was alright.

(Not quite love at first sight, but certainly an interest or infatuation, haha).

Stannis knew exactly who she was. When Robert visited, he wouldn't shut up about Lord Arryn's daughter, which always made Stannis uncomfortable. Even at the Tourney, his brother seemed to waffle between Ned's sister and Lord Arryn's daughter. At least she seemed like she had a steady head on her shoulders, and didn't seem to fawn and swoon over Robert like ladies had always done - even moreso, now that he was king.

So. Jon Arryn had his duties as Hand. His daughter should naturally have taken care of the Eyrie, which made him proud ... but he was beginning to see a good match for her in King's Landing. Though he and Stannis were not on friendly terms, they respected each other and understood each other's positions. The young man was deadly serious and capable. Often, Lord Arryn wished Robert was more like him. So he often wrote to his daughter, asking her to visit, all the while carefully keeping other proposals away from Stannis. Quietly convincing the man that he ought to hold out, he was still young. Easily deflecting the dozens of proposals lords gave him for his own daughter. The man had enough social savviness to avoid any suspicions, and, well ... Stannis was not a bachelor the court ladies were clamoring for, even with his social status.

With every visit, Lady Arryn would visit with Robert. He insisted on it, and his closeness to her certainly made her unpopular with the Queen. Her lord father also wanted her to dine with important courtiers and council members, including Robert's brother, whom she was increasingly drawn to. Her father presented the proposal to her first, explaining the practicality of the match. Once he'd laid down all the logical reasons to accept it, he added, "... And I trust him. I think he's a good man who would give you the consideration and life you deserve."

So, that was it. She saw the sense in the match, and well, wouldn't this happen eventually? Hadn't this been what her father raised her to do? And... wasn't she quite fond of the Baratheon boy?

(You better believe there was some fool ass behavior by Robert at the wedding. Probably put Stannis and his new bride on the wrong foot or at least in an awkward as hell place).

But!!! As with many of my other Stannis HCs and scenarios, eventually he and his new wife start getting along and eventually becoming very close. Given her capable upbringing, Stannis would respect her from the start and be grateful for the help in managing Dragonstone. Hell, she'd probably be savvy to much of the council business, given it's basically her father and husband running the show - and the three of them are usually dining together, anyway. Lord Arryn and Stannis might actually have a decent relationship if she's there to help it along.

There was the issue of Robert's jealousy - mixed with his grief over Lyanna, it wasn't always a pretty sight. It led to the Queen becoming even more irate, painting a target on Lord Arryn's daughter's back. He, Stannis and his daughter were aware of this, so she often had duties on Dragonstone. Which, to his surprise, would make Stannis start yearning for her return ... He might even make surprise visits to that accursed island to see her ...

It would be a year or so into the marriage that Stannis would finally bring it up. Was she ever disappointed it was him?

The question both confuses her and takes her off guard. "Whatever do you mean, love?"

Stannis is nervous to continue. That's rare for the man who always speaks his mind, not caring how harsh the truth was. "Robert always spoke well of you, and since you had known him so long - I thought you would be disappointed."

His jaw was clenching and he was trying not to look as tense as he felt... and failing miserably. At once, his wife would be taking his face in her hands, comforting him and trying to keep him from cracking his teeth.

"It took me years to tolerate that brother of your's," She spoke between kisses. "But I was fond of you right away, and now I love you more than I could ever love anyone."

[emersonfreepress]

For trans MCs, you said gender angst can/will manifest in the form of people who knew MC pre-transition can accidentally call them by their wrong pronouns and their deadname. I'm curious about the mechanics of it.

How will you handle the deadname part? Will we have to enter a name or will the narration be like

"And there is you, with the name you...

a) used to have (enter the deadname) b) still use even after transition (name remains the same) c) no longer use after transition. (skip entering a deadname)"

Related to it: will we get to be nonbinary and trans?

Can MC be nonbinary from the start even if cis? Like with the deadname option, will it be like:

"Before coming out as nonbinary, you...

a) used she/her pronouns b) used he/him pronouns c) ... well, you don't want to think about that time (avoid putting pronouns)"

Coding and narration-wise though, I can see that would be hard, especially if those few people who knew MC pre-coming out have dialogues or direct conversations with MC, or even just talking about MC's past to someone else.

Like using direct speech if pronouns and/or deadname is put:

""Yeah, then (Deadname) did (former pronoun) best," said Character A."

vs indirect speech if not:

"Character A said you did your best, using your deadname and former pronouns before apologizing and correcting themselves."

So I'd understand if you don't implement such options.

Ok, there's at least three questions here 😅 That's why it took me a while to properly finish this answer, I think I ended up confusing myself a few times lol

Regarding MC deadnames

I only plan for deadname customization around the time of the first scene it is actually relevant to, which isn't until Thanksgiving-times (typical). You'll be able to write in a custom one or choose that you've always had the same name. That won't extend to misgendered pronouns, though; it wouldn't be anything like the examples used here. Feels shoehorned/immersion-breaky.

Can MC be non-binary and trans?

We don't get assigned or raised as our gender, yeah? Non-binary is trans, so yes.

Can MC be non-binary from the start?

Yes, but with caveats.

I wasn't any less agender when I was using she/her pronouns for the first 20 years of my life; I just didn't have the vocabulary or established language to express it. I still had the queer feelings and thoughts, but I only had the words available to me through others and a ton of straight, cisgender media. I probably referred to myself as a tomboy or a person a thousand times more than I ever referred to myself as a girl. That word bothered me; not she or her. That was the word that was heavy to me, it meant too many things. It held the weight the of the expectations of my family, my peers, and the world at large. It shackled me to activities and mannerisms that I had no inclination towards, it forced me to conform to mannerisms and assumptions that never fucking fit.

When I still thought that not being a boy automatically means you're a girl, all I ever understood about myself was that I was not a boy and that I despised being a girl, wished I didn't have to be a girl, largely hated girls who naturally enjoyed conforming to things that tore me apart inside. There was a distinct hatred of being born a girl but an equally distinct disinterest in being born a boy instead. I didn't know "neither" or "none" was a box I could check or a thing at all and yet that is always what my gender has been.

ANYWAY let me hop off this soapbox ffs /personal rambling over. all of that is to preface the following:

As progressive and different as Emerson is, singular they as an indicator of gender identity and neo-pronouns were beyond obscure of a concept in the late 90s to the general American public; forget about it as an actual practice or show of respect. Book 2 takes place in 2008 and will introduce singular they/them as a third pronoun option if MCs want it. All the rest of my IF projects (🤞🏾🤞🏾🤞🏾🤞🏾) will take place in the current day or the not-so-distant future (or literal Hell ☺️) and will have they/them and pronoun customization as options. Because moderntimes.

So! As it stands, Book 1 limits the MC to using one of the two binary pronouns (he and she) but both books will use 5 variables to represent MC gender: cis boys and girls, trans boys and girls, and non-binary kids. Non-binary MCs get the additional option to clearly indicate that they don't ascribe to, subscribe to, or generally mesh well with binary gender norms and expectations—they will be written as non-binary. it's kinda important to me

I also want the beta and final version to have a "gender angst" toggle that runs the game filtered in such a way that largely leaves out most gendered flavor text and most references to being trans outside of just a few scenes or lines. This would also let MCs use "they/them" pronouns throughout the game without fanfare. I talked about it a bit here.

Idk if it will work for all queer players... and it's possible this is an unsatisfying answer for some folks. But it's what this one queer coder wants to do for their game, so 🤷🏾‍♂️

Ultimately, this is all smoke and vapor until it is properly coded and written anyway. Execution speaks louder than planning, so I'll be trying my damn best ☺️

[ncji]

What if Neji got reincarnated after he died in the war? Same clan, different clan? Same village, different village? Powers? Memories?

[ Ok, no cap (I watch too much tiktok...), but I was recently wondering why the fuck Neji was represented as a blazing bird when he intercepted the spikes. A PHOENIX. But he never did what phoenixes do! There was no rise from the ashes! There was just...death. Don't get me wrong. I'm happy he died after what I saw at the end of Naruto and all of Boruto. It just made no sense.

Neji: Moltres, I choose you! Moltres: -Carries Neji in front of spikes.- Neji: FML.

Anyway, if he were reincarnated, I'd like to think it would be far from Konoha, somewhere he could be free, yet be able to accomplish everything he wanted to accomplish in his past life. He would continue to be the prodigy of whatever he was born into. Powers? It doesn't really matter. Memories? None. His pain would be kept far from him. That is what he deserves.

But where's the fun in that? This is what you came here for, anon:

Hanabi, holding her firstborn child, a little boy she names Neji to honor her late cousin whom she adored so much that she wore his first jacket throughout her childhood. She promises to give him everything her cousin deserved, she promises he will never know her cousin's anger and frustrations. She is true to her promise. She raises her son with the love Neji always deserved and the moral compass she learned from him. He will be her heir, but, above all else, he is her son.

When he's only a toddler, barely able to form sentences, he speaks perfectly one morning. While sitting outside, he watches the birds soar overhead with the patience and admiration of an adult, and he turns to his mother and says, "I'm glad I can watch them again."

Hanabi is in shock. She must have misheard. "You like the birds, Neji?"

Little Neji giggles. "You know I do!"

In that moment, she sees her cousin's spirit in her son's face. Can it be? She begins to cry.

Her son seems to revert back to normal. "Mama ok?" he asks and hugs her.

These moments happen often, and, even when he is "normal", Neji tells her he remembers things he shouldn't, like how Naruto "digs underground", which he never has done since becoming Hokage. He also has sentiments he shouldn't. For instance, he says he doesn't like his grandfather, but Hiashi treats him like a tiny prince or the son he never had. Hanabi shut down his brutal training style from the start, so she knows Hiashi isn't abusive with him, in that manner at least. She leaves him with Hiashi and watches from afar with her byakugan, but, again, after several times of spying on him, all she finds is an old man who dotes on his tiny grandson.

When he's an older child, still in his single digits, he tells his mother Hiashi will hurt his head if he misbehaves. When she asks how, he can't explain. She asks if he hits him, but he shakes his head. Eventually, his best explanation is, "His fingers will hurt my head."

Neji has never seen a seal activated. The practice has been outlawed for over a decade.

The occurrences happen less and less as he ages. In his teens, he is called the Hyuuga clan's true prodigy. Boruto is only half-Hyuuga after all. His response is, "I always have been."

He inexplicably doesn't like Naruto, even though Naruto has always treated him as well as his own son, mostly absent, but no one can deny he loves him. When he explains himself, he sounds like he has a grudge against him.

"He's disappointing."

"He's a liar."

"All he cares about is Sasuke."

Neji has never met Sasuke, nor has Naruto mentioned him around him. It's only Boruto he hears about him from, and Boruto doesn't believe that.

When Lee meets this little prodigy in person, Neji immediately smiles at him, and Lee stills. With shaking hands, he reaches out and grasps his shoulders. "Neji..." he sobs, then falls to his knees to embrace him. "You're back...You're back."

Hanabi knows then. Lee can see what she's always seen. Her son might have come from her body, but he has genes that aren't present in her. Her son is the spitting image of her cousin, with features from her cousin's mother. When he smiles, when he speaks, her cousin's late spirit can be seen in him.

He is Neji.

"I'm back...Lee..." ]

[sigurdjarlson]

you get it! reading greg as totally amoral slime might not be wrong but it's kinda meh. especially when you could read him as somebody who's too poor to put principals above a paycheck from a cushy office job. it ads some much needed depth and it's technically not wrong. I mean, he's well-off now, but there was a time when he had literally no money. he spent his first night in new york sleeping on a church pew. then he stayed in a youth hostel with like, 8 other guys and one shower. he ate doggie bags full of stale office cookies leftover from work that morning. he came really close to being outright homeless and if he'd quit working for atn because of 'the culture' he would've been. like, yeah, it's interesting to theorize that he's jealous of the roys and is fucking them over out of just greed, but a big part of his initial problem was just being THAT broke. brokeness will literally fuck with your whole moral code and who knows how long he spent being broke? but money corrupts so there's no getting out of succession with your principals. thesis statement. if I were greg I'd be worse though, so who's to say

I think that’s a big part of it too. Greg has so much more to lose than anyone else in the game. Logan will never truly let his children be free (which is tragic in its own right) so they will never be where Greg was since he’d be relinquishing control of them.

Greg will fall right back to rock bottom if he chooses the wrong team and screws up. You’re right in some ways he doesn’t really have the luxury of deciding to stand by his morals or any loyalty he may or may not feel because without a job he’d be completely broke (unlike the Roys who live off Logan).

Not to mention he’d lose any of what he perceives as a familial attachment to the Roys if he did so and then what’s he left with? His mom and grandpa again?

Greg is all about survival.

And the amoral slime reading just seems so reductive to me when it’s not accompanied by context? Yes he’s turning his back on his morals again and again but why is he doing that? (I also find it weird people say he never had them in the first place just because Tom said so or he floundered for an answer there)

Greg seems to want to be a good person in the beginning. Even now Greg is not a particularly malicious person. Even when he fucks people over its mostly out of self preservation not a desire to hurt just to hurt people.

He’s not being malicious when he’s being a leech either he’s trying to survive in the only way he really knows how and well, he probably figures the Roys are fucking billionaires so they’ll be fine (and they will be financially) they also generally treat him like shit so..

(That’s why I don’t care when he’s leeching off them lmao)

And I think it bugs me cuz a lot of times they imply he’s like innately an evil person and that just doesn’t vibe with how I view morality or Greg. I also think it’s missing the point of “power and money corrupts”

I’m not sure if jealousy is why he’s fucking over the Roys but I do think there is jealousy there even if he doesn’t actively think about it that might fuel why he wants this life so bad.

An Interesting thing I see is that characters like Gerri who makes her decisions based solely on self preservation get called a girlboss but Greg is evil lmao. Like I love Gerri but she is not a good person. No one who actively chooses to work directly for Logan is a good person.

None of these characters are good people but to read them as being evil for the sake of evilness is extremely reductive. They’re all very complicated and that’s why they’re fascinating to watch. They’re a product of their environment and yet they are still responsible for every choice they make. We all are.

They have sparks of goodness in them too but it’s often eclipsed by the bad because their world doesn’t allow for anything else.

But like you said it money is an issue and a huge factor for those who aren’t born with the the Roy silver spoon in their mouth (and despite what a lot of people claim, Greg did not grow up with anywhere close to their level of wealth) and that’s a big factor in why characters like Greg who didn’t grow up extremely rich do what they do.

Greg is greedy but he’s greedy for different reasons than the Roys are. He’s greedy because he’s never had it and finally does and wants to keep it. He’s been at rock bottom and he never wants to go back.

The Roys feel entitled to the world because they’ve always had it handed to them. Because they’ve been raised to believe they are inherently superior to everyone else because of their family name.

Greg’s entitlement maybe comes from wanting what he feels his grandfather unfairly kept from them. It’s wondering why he isn’t worthy? Why are they apparently inherently better than him? He’s got Roy blood too shouldn’t he get some of the spoils too? The Roy kids didn’t have to do anything to earn their father’s fortune after all.

It probably feels very unfair.

Also a lot of people focus on the nepotism aspect of Greg and see it as evidence that he’s innately a bad person? I find that SO weird when the Roy kids are a million times worse in that department? Shiv even says without Logan running the show they won’t have jobs lmao.

(Greg didn’t even want to pull that card in the beginning)

And frankly I’m going to side eye anyone who says they absolutely would never jump on the opportunity to get a better life through nepotism if it was an option. If I could call one of my family members and say hey, can I work for you and get rich too?? I’d wanna do it.

The Roys don’t want the company just because they want more money. They already have it. They obviously want to keep it but also the Company is basically a metaphor for what they see as their father’s love and approval. (Something they will never ever get)

It’s tragic on every side but the motivations are quite different. (And yet similar in some ways too)

Is it right that Greg is choosing to do horrible shit? No. Do his actions make sense given the context of his character and make me feel sympathy for him despite thet? Yes.

He’s focused on survival. He’s desperate not to fall back to rock bottom and desperation can make people do terrible things like you said. People are willing to do all kinds of things to survive.

Greg is just learning how to survive amongst people who will throw him to the wolves. Why does he owe a single one of these people loyalty? Why is he the only one expected to be the better person, you know?

S3 is undeniably Greg at his worse and unfortunately I think that’s going to continue. It’s the nature of the world he’s living in and I think he’s finally completely giving up on caring what kind of person he is this season?

Sometimes I think people feel like almost betrayed by his descent into assholery because he was introduced as almost the underdog you typically want to root for? But that’s not the story they’re telling. They’re telling us money and power corrupts and Greg is no exception. You can’t be a good person and live that life at the same time. You just can’t.

You either adapt or you get torn to shreds

And it’s very easy to watch the show and go oh I’d never do any of that but if we were faced with the decision and situation…what choices would we make?

[lightrises]

"Only in allowing her to pass..." — Hornet, The Radiance, and the means by which Hallownest turned its victims against each other

A quick note: I read Hollow Knight as an anti-colonialist text. As such I'll be touching on topics related to colonialism as it's depicted in the world of the game, and said analysis will reflect both a sympathetic take on The Radiance and a critique of The Pale King that won't pull its punches. If this sounds up your alley, hello and thank you for the read! Let us be sad about these bugs together.

———

So!! A while back I realized something about pre-canon that felt rather... "curious" is one way to put it, I think. To wit: for all the effort and scheming and determination The Pale King poured into trying to get rid of The Radiance, neither of his plans involved directly killing her.

Was that his long game? Well, sure, that seems clear enough. His tack changed from luring the moths away from their god and creator to a more literal form of incarceration once the infection became a factor, but at its core the end goal never really changed—The Pale King very sincerely wished to destroy Radiance via obsolescence. The Seer lends us foreshadowing to confirm as much:

[Image descriptions: Two screenshots from Hollow Knight, showing the Seer and Ghost in the Seer's alcove at the Resting Grounds. Across both screenshots, the Seer tells Ghost the following: "None of us can live forever, and so we ask those who survive to remember us. Hold something in your mind and it lives on with you, but forget it and you seal it away forever. That is the only death that matters." End description.]

(Which, by the way and given the context, talk about an extremely unsubtle allusion to cultural genocide huh!!! Whew.)

In any case, we're left with a whole bunch of machinations which build up to... well, two very roundabout attempts at committing deicide. That's kind of weird, all things considered! Why not just do the deed in one fell swoop and get it over with?

This could be for any number of reasons. Maybe the king was devoid of the means to instantly kill another higher being. Maybe his personal sense of scruples stopped him short of signing off on MURDER murder (although, y'know, the aforementioned genocide + eternal imprisonment = still cool and copasectic apparently!). Maybe the long drawn-out cruelty was the point. Maybe the idea of playing fuckign 4D chess with the circumstances was too delicious for him to pass up—that man did love to tinker and stick his claws where they sure as hell didn't belong—or maybe it was a little bit of All The Things. Who knows!!

But interrogating The Pale King's methodology on this count isn't what I'm here for, at least not really. The main reason I raise this question at all is that in her own way, Hornet did too.

"I'd urge you to take that harder path... "

See, going by The Pale King's actions and what The White Lady explicitly says, they both foresaw two outcomes wrt the infection: it can be allowed to spread, or it can be contained. At Teacher's Archives, Quirrel acknowledges the fact that Ghost is expected to do... something about this, but he doesn't elaborate on what HE thinks that's supposed to be apart from the obvious "Gotta bust into Black Egg Temple first". Hornet is the one person who presents to us—to Ghost—what's framed as a third option: confront and destroy the infection at its source.

And she doesn't bring it up like it's just another tactic for Ghost to consider, prim and indifferent to what they would do. She nudges them towards it, actively, up to the point where she throws herself into the fray against Hollow at a juncture that's uniquely dangerous to her and her alone just to make that option feasible.

Even when she's couching it in disclaimers that this is still Ghost's decision to make (and let's be fair, she's extremely not wrong about that lol), no one can pretend Hornet is unbiased. It's obvious in that buttoned-down Hornet kind of way that she is way the hell done with the increasingly tenuous stalemate that's kept Hallownest's desiccated corpse from collapsing in on itself. Personally it's hard for me not to read some Toriel Undertale-esque "My father was too entrenched in his own foolishness to pursue any course of action that would have DEFINITIVELY ended this" shade into her stance here, regardless of whether that's strictly true in canon.

And that bit—Hornet's hopes for an end to Hallownest's stasis, moreover her grim calculation of what needs to be done to get there—that's the bit I find super interesting but likewise tragic and depressing as shit, on multiple levels. In no small part because a) canon itself gestures towards Hornet feeling conflicted about the very plan she's pushing, and moreover b) she has at least two (2) damn good reasons to feel that way.

So, what do I mean by that? Let's look here first:

[Image description: A screenshot from Hollow Knight, of Hornet and Ghost inside the Temple of the Black Egg, standing in front of the unsealed egg itself. Hornet has been struck by the Dream Nail and her dialogue is displayed as follows: "... Could it achieve that impossible thing? Should it?" End description.]

As the curtain is about to drop on things one way or another, Hornet thinks,

... Could it achieve that impossible thing? Should it?

Now, looking at that last bit it's easy to go "Oh no, Hornet's worried that Ghost won't survive killing The Radiance!" And I do think that's part of it: Hornet is, categorically, not her father. By endgame it's clear she's not content to view her Void-borne siblings as tools to be used then disposed of. She's also well aware that as a healthy autonomous Vessel amongst the countless dead, Ghost is the only person left alive who has a fighting chance against The Radiance. Knowing someone is the only qualified candidate for the job doesn't make encouraging them to embrace a probable death sentence any less of a bitter pill to swallow, though. And odds are on that this sentiment extends to Hollow too, who IS going to die no matter what happens here. To put it bluntly, it's more than reasonable to conclude that Hornet hates the absolute fuck out of this.

But I don't think that's all there is to it either. Remember what I said earlier about The Pale King's bids for genocide? Well, it's not like the man deigned to limit his efforts to just the moth tribe.

"We do not choose our mothers... "

On top of everything else—an infected Hallownest being all she's ever known, the fact that she only exists because of the infection, the list goes on—Hornet has spent her life wedged into a position that's been uncomfortable and terminally unglamorous at best: she is both a daughter of her father's kingdom and of Deepnest.

Deepnest, which like the moths and many others was here long before the wyrm and his lady wife swanned onto the scene and the God Become Bug laid claim to everything the Light touched plus a considerable amount of change. THAT Deepnest, which has fought claw and thread to retain its sovereignty against same-said settler king, and for which Herrah not only surrendered her life but also agreed to bed her worst enemy, all in hopes of securing a viable future for her people (put a pin in that last part by the way, I'll come back to it soon).

Two Worlds, One Family (Ft. An Indigenous Woman Trying Her Damndest To Work With What She's Got Versus An Imperialist Who Only Signed Up For This Because He Needed The Political Favor THAT Badly, So It's The Height Of Dysfunctional Actually). Fun times!!!!

The baggage this entails for Hornet is gnarly enough without implications made by The White Lady and the pre-canon timeline of events and even Team Cherry's dev notes that the king may well have looked at baby Hornet, gone "YOINK", then ensured she spent the lion's share of her childhood reared within the pearly auspices of his Pale Court*. That would be rather advantageous for Him Specifically after all, the potential to mold a born foe into a future ally and even have her trained in combat under the same tutelage as her doomed sibling. And far be it from him to stop a grown Hornet—his own flesh and blood too!—from making Deepnest her forever home if she so pleased. He totally wouldn't be reneging on his "fair bargain made" by doing this one simple thing until Hornet came of age, not t e c h nic c a l l y.

If that is indeed the case, there's a non-zero chance Hornet's formative years were a hot mess of cultural alienation and being a good deal more privy than most to just how much of a bastard her father could be. There's an equally non-zero chance that at some point she stood or sat within earshot as The Pale King finally, finally dropped all pretense and euphemism to name the Light for precisely what (for who) it was.

See, in conjunction with the question that started this whole dang train of thought I've been asking this one too: Does Hornet know? When she speaks of confronting "the heart of [the] infection" does she know she's talking about not just a literal person but someone very specific? The Radiance, who god though she may be shares skin in the game alongside Hornet as a native woman screwed over by the same settler king, likewise deprived of her kin and saddled with a life gone horrendously pear-shaped?

I'll assume for the sake of exploring the possibility and because I think it's a likely one anyway that yes, Hornet does know. She knows, and despite everything can't help empathizing. She might even look at Radiance and see bits and pieces both reflected and slightly inversed in her own mother: Radiance was forced to the sidelines while her people—her children, the brood she was meant to lead and care for—died out under The Pale King's rule, and it's no stretch to assume she's at least as upset about that as she has been about everything else; Herrah too took drastic measures for her people's sake, trying to head off annihilation by relegating herself to the sidelines in an act that was as much calculated risk as an attempt to find wiggle room and leverage in the face of a nasty proposition.

A calculated risk that, if things continue as they are, might well amount to nothing as the rest of Deepnest gets eaten alive by the infection. It survived The Pale King's advances for so so long, only to fall here. Herrah's sacrifice would be for naught; the other tribes—themselves the king's victims—would keep succumbing to the infection too.

And this is where things fall apart.

"... or the circumstance into which we are born."

Let's be clear: I think Hornet is wise enough to know what's what here, that all the carnage and suffering falls on her father's head for starting this slow-motion trainwreck in the first place. Hallownest wasn't always Hallownest. This domain was Radiance's home first, along with many others. It was the worm-turned-king who rolled up on the scene unsolicited and decided this was a ""'problem""" that had to be """solved""".

But the fact of the matter is that he's gone and The Radiance is here, raging, seemingly inconsolable. Above and beyond being Deepnest's rightful heir, Hornet isn't in a position to countenance more splash damage even if the grief and fury fueling it makes perfect sense. She can understand without ever bringing herself to love Radiance, and she can bend her knee to practicality even if she hates the everloving shit out of it because the fact that it "has" to end this way isn't fair.

This lends itself to one last awful conclusion: that Hornet has probably considered and (rightly or wrongly) discarded the possibility that Radiance can be saved, at least not without dragging more collateral along for the ride. If even her mother and every other enemy to the king seemed to dismiss talking Radiance down as an option way back when... well. Why should Hornet hope for any better after things have escalated so far?

Again, it's practical. A practical net good is what Hornet strives for. And again, it fucking sucks.

For extra tragedy points, this makes Hornet's extended crypticness around Ghost followed by her last minute casting about for a reason to tell them "Wait, don't; not just yet" that she never voices even more of a gut punch. She can't bring herself to burden Ghost with the context that haunts her so, least of all when it might weaken their resolve to go through with what (she thinks) needs doing.

It's the "same song, different verse" which led to the mantis tribe and Deepnest being pitted against each other: Hallownest rigged the game so that two women who could have been powerful allies—who have a mutual vested interest in driving out settler rule—wound up poised as enemies instead. And how awful is that? The king for all his being extremely fucking dead still gets the last laugh, because outside of a miracle the game never manifests Hornet can salvage what her mother started and look forward to a future where Deepnest pulls itself back from the brink if and only if The Radiance dies.

Resolution comes at the price of a completed genocide. Add two more dead siblings to the unconscionable pile thereof, while we're at it. That's what it boils down to whether or not Hornet can bear to articulate it as such, and there's no grace or even a properly bittersweet ending to wring from this clusterfuck. And that is rough.

———

* This has been better explained elsewhere, but a quick rundown: The White Lady tells Ghost that Hornet and Herrah "were permitted little time together." On its surface this can be taken to mean that Hornet was still very young when Herrah was shipped off to Eternal Dreamland—except this doesn't jive with the fact that we meet Hornet as an adult. If the stasis kicked in once the Dreamers went to their rest, which in turn halted the aging process for every living bug in Hallownest, AND before all this Hornet experienced little by the way of quality time with her birth mother... I think you can see where I'm going with this.

To top it off we've got Team Cherry weighing in ominously from their dev notes on Herrah: "As part of the agreement for her alliance and her role as a dreamer, King gave her a child (Hornet). Was she allowed to keep this child or was she taken away?" This isn't confirmation by itself of course, but given additional canon details (see above): Can I get a "yikes" in the chat fellas.

[milkytheholy1]

Apocalyptic Love: Chapter 13: New plan

Tmnt masterlist. Ultimate masterlist. AL series links

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I can't believe you want to work with the Dragons!" Raph screamed, hands waving in the air as both brothers paced back and forth around the rooftop. Leo and Raph had been arguing since the moment the Purple Dragons were mentioned, both storming off to an abandoned tower block to rant their frustrations.

"It's not that I want to actively work with the Dragons, Raph. But we have no choice, I'd rather work with the Dragons for a few days than have New York stay like this hell-hole!" Leo spat back, for once thinking logically.

It was hard to say which brother was right, both having persuasive arguments. On one hand, the Purple Dragons were known as crooks and low life scum, and that was before the Foot took over. But on the other hand, if they knew where the rebel base was that could give you an advantage over the Foot.

"Even after everythin' they've done, ya still willin' to see the good in 'em? God, how brain dead are you, Leo!" Raph chided, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Leo growled in response, quickly growing sick of this conversation. Turning his back, Leo folded his arms and let the nightly breeze dance across his face, "You want to do this your own way, Raph? Fine, but don't come complaining to me when everything crumbles around you."

"It won't crumble cause I won't be on my own, isn't that right guys?" Raph then turned to you, Mikey and Donnie, all of which had just been stood watching the commotion happen. From what Donnie had told you, this sort of stuff happened all the time when they were younger, always fighting over petty things like playtime or pizza slices. It didn't sit well with you, but then again, you never had siblings, born and raised as an only child; an honour for some.

But when Raph called upon you three again, veins popping out of his forehead, you paid attention. "Who agrees with me, eh? The Purple Dragons are nothin' but a bunch of scum that stain these streets, they ain't ever gonna help us." Raph waited for one of you to move, but at the same time, you couldn't feel anything below your nose.

In silence, Donatello stepped forward and moved to stand by Raph's side. Leo clearly questioned his decision, the way his jaw dropped was a give away, "Donnie?" he muttered in disbelief.

"I'm sorry, Leo, but Raph's got a point; which is something I thought I'd never say. We can't trust the Purple Dragons, they're criminals, they would never help us."

"Mikey, what about you?" Leo then moved on, dismissing anything more that the purple-banded terrapin would say, he now knew where his loyalties lied. The youngest jumped over to their leader's side, agreeing with everything Leo had said, people can change was his mantra.

"Sorry, dudes, but I gotta agree with Leo. Everyone can change, yo!" he cheered, not quite realising the impulsiveness of his decision. Then everyone's eyes turned to you, staring intently, awaiting your choice. You had never felt more pressure in your life, even in school. You flicked your gaze between the two team leaders, each staring at you with determination and mock confidence, arms folded and chests bared.

Sulking your head down, you solemnly walked over to Raph's side, a small audible gasp muttered from Leo's breath. You couldn't bear to look at him, knowing he was so confident you would choose him over his hotheaded brother, but yet, here you stand by said brother's side. It's not like Leo cared, he simply brushed it off with a hard glare and an etched frown, it's not like this meant anything, just a petty squabble.

But why did it hurt so much, to see you taking Raph's side instead of his own? It doesn't matter, you weren't his, not to claim.

"I-I'm sorry, Leo. But, Raph, he's right in some ways. The Dragons won't change unless you make them, but then...would you still be the good guys?" you still hadn't looked up at him, feeling a weight in your stomach, the bile bubbling with uneasiness.

"Well, now that's settled, I say we should get going, team. We can't start fixin' blue boy's mistake here, if we're too busy chattin'." Raph praised a wide smile on his face, pearly whites aimed at his brother. Turning with a hand on Donnie's right shoulder, Raph dragged him along the edge of the rooftop, jumping down on the fire escapes until he reached the concrete floor, "C'mon squishy! Let's get a move on!" his voice echoed up.

You rolled your eyes, the motion causing your head to shake, looking up at Leo you finally saw the distraught in his sights. They weren't on you but the spot where his other two brother's had been, "I'll look after them," you promised him. Mikey had long since left, only leaving the two of you alone together, like the many times before. Leo nodded in understanding, thankful that you would risk yourself for them if needed, yet he still couldn't get the sick sinking feeling to leave him.

"Be safe, I'm counting on you coming back." he voiced, tone wavery but firm. You nodded your head at him, only like he did moments ago, "Always, captain." you winked, following your team. Leo felt his cheeks bloom, he knew he'd regret telling you about his Space Heroes fantasy late that night.

--

"Alright, guys, time to come up with a plan. So, what we got?" Raph asked, oozing confidence and cockiness. You and Donnie glared at him, "Nothing! We have nothing!" Donnie exclaimed, exasperated, but he said what you were both thinking.

Raph's cocky smile soon turned into a frown, shoulders slumping forward, shell scrapping the wall behind him. You had settled under a bridge, the river that flowed under it dried by the Foot a year or so ago, their reasoning was to stop a flow of supply ships.

"C'mon, D, you're the smart one here! You gotta know somethin'. And you, ya seem pretty smart too, so you two geniuses come up with a plan!" you now understood why Leo was the leader, not that Raph couldn't handle it but his execution was a little...harsh.

"Well, let's see..." Donnie drifted off, using a metal finger to draw into the dirt, dust rising as his finger drew line after line. However, under his constant ramblings, he'd smash a hand against his failed plan and start again. This went on for over ten minutes, all you and Raph did was watch as Donnie slowly lost his mind.

"I can't crack it!" he then shouted, hands clutching his head. You ran over to him, soothing hands rubbing up and down his arms, you weren't too sure why you were rubbing the metal one but you didn't stop when the thought crossed your mind. Donatello seemed to calm down, thanking you with panted breaths, standing to his full height he strode to Raph.

"I can't think of anything that would be remotely successful, the closest we got was with the original plan."

"So what're ya suggesting, Don?"

"I'm suggesting we just update, change, improve, whatever you want to call it, our old plan. Everything would remain the same, the only variable we would be changing would be the addition of the Purple Dragons. Instead, I propose we swap the Dragons for another group."

"Yeah, well, there's one problem with that, Donnie." you huffed, arms crossed over your chest with a pout. You watched as the boys got to thinking, a saddening look emerging on their faces at the realisation, "We don't have anyone else," Donnie whispered, vocalising your collective disappointment.

"Wait a minute," Raph flicked his head up, fingers snapping when he got an idea, "C'mon, follow me!" he darted off, following the tunnel that led to the sewers. He didn't give you much warning as he sprinted away, leaving you and Donnie to look at him with surprise, you soon lost his form and in that moment decided to follow him with haste.

The smell of the sewers was vile, luckily you didn't stay there as Raph had led you to an open pipe. The light from outside shone through, blinding you on entry, a tough hand grabbed ahold of your outstretched arm and pulled you into a hard chest. Looking up, you caught the vibrant green of Raph's eyes, he let you go and continued on his trail.

You were in a dump, and not just any dump, but New York's dump. The smell of rotting trash and decaying bodies filled the air, your nose having trouble filtering out which smell came from where. Piles of garbage ranged from small piles to skyscraper towers, ready to fall with the slightest push.

"Ugh, this place is-"

"Amazing! Oh, would you look at all that scrap metal! A-and this carbon monoxide alarm!" Donnie beamed, cutting off your insult. He moved around the junk piles, pulling out and grabbing ahold of random bits of trash. He gasped aloud, all the oxygen vastly inhaled into his lungs, "Is that an H180 Camshaft!"

"I don't know, Donnie, is it?" Raph laughed out, mocking his younger brother. Donnie repeatedly nodded his head the moment he pulled the metal free, "It is! Oh my god, this place is like a tech boy's heaven." he sighed. you stifled your laugh, not wanting to eagerly mock him like Raph did, but try to share some enthusiasm.

"More like nerd central, c'mon, this way!" Raph grumbled, but a small smirk was pressed on his lips from what you could see. Over the last few days of knowing the brothers, each had started to grow on you, including Raph. You had obviously befriended Mikey, that would be a given when the guy saved you from a Footbot massacre. You had found solace in Donnie, intrigued by his genius thinking and witty comments. Raph was a little harder, barely spending time with the guy would do that to you, but he was alright in your books.

Then finally there was Leo, the leader and oldest. He was different, you had formed a bond, sure, but you still felt distant from him. Earlier when this whole fight went down, he had a longing in his eyes, but his cold tone said otherwise. You needed to know more about him, what exactly were you getting into.

"Welcome to my humble aboded." Raph's voice rung out, his thick accent making the statement less suave. Raph held his arms in a bow, allowing you both first entry into his simple home, said home being piled under a trash heap. It wasn't that big when you looked around, a rotten old mattress sat in one corner, while some empty beer cans and a walkie talkie sat perched on a table in the other. There were plenty of magazines covering the floor, some you didn't want to remotely look at, you noted that there were a lot of motorbike ones though; perhaps an interest or hobby? you mused.

"This is where you were staying, ugh, it's even worse than your room back in the lair." Donnie groaned, only now picking up on the horrendous smell. Raph shrugged his shoulders, jumping back to land on the mattress, the room suddenly covered in dust. You coughed out what dust you inhaled, waving a hand around your face until you could see again, "So why are we here, oh wise leader?" you ridiculed.

"I got somethin' that might give us a lead." he rolled from his bed straight onto the floor, looking under the table, then moving further until his legs were only visible. "Where are ya you crappy little-" he mumbled to himself, voice strained as he searched around.

"Aha!" he laughed, banging his head on the table, a small curse falling from his lips. Pulling away with caution, Raph stood back on his own two legs and turned to face you and Donnie with a tiny book, "What is that, your diary?" you chuckled, a wicked smirk on your face.

The book was tattered, probably from the years of use it had seen, the casing was leather, scratched in some places. It had looked like it was originally a deep maroon, but with some exposure to the sun, the corners had faded to a light pink. As Raph thumbed through the pages, you noted that they too were tattered and ripped, a coffee brown colour instead of what you assumed was white.

"How is some diary going to help us?" Donnie huffed, just as transfixed as you were when watching Raph.

"It-it's not a diary," he grunted, not fully paying attention to you both, "This is gonna tell us where to find help," there weren't many pages left in the book, yet it still took Raph time to go through, checking each page methodically.

"Great so this tiny diary is gonna help us win the Foot war, we're doomed." you groaned, leaning your back against the walls then quickly realising it was all garbage. You sprung away, patting your back of any rubbish that suck to the fabric of your clothes, ugh, you hated the dump.

"This diary- I mean, book- isn't goin' to win us the war, never said that. But, it will get us anotha player in this team."

"What are you going on about, I thought we had no one left, you even said it yourself!" Donnie groaned, hands waving in the air to dramatise his point. Raph ignored his brother, nearly dropping the book when he slowly came to the last few pages. But out from a random page dropped a small slip of paper, it fluttered in the air, slowly falling to its descent on the ground.

Raph had dropped the book and used two hands in an attempt to catch the paper, it had looked like a cat trying to catch a fly or leaf; cute. When he did eventually catch it, a huge smile was on his face.

"Someone looks pretty smug with themselves," you chided, watching as his glee took over his whole body. It was weird seeing Raph like this, the guy kept up a hard image but to see him spinning in circles on one foot like a princess was very...amusing to you.

You got a look at the paper, all three of you crowding around it in Raph's hands. Written in crood English was an address, you didn't recognise it as being a part of the city, but it was an address nevertheless. No name was attached, no number, nothing; what you did find bizarre was the sketch of a hockey mask beside it.

You wondered what it could all mean.

[tuiccim]

Santi (Part 2)

Pairing: Bucky X Reader

Words: 4430

Warnings: Fluff, flirt, 

Summary: The team leaves for a mission leaving you and Bucky alone at the tower. 

Santi Masterlist

After bidding the team goodbye the next morning you and Bucky head to the kitchen for breakfast.

"How was your first night in the new place?"

"Good. Slept okay. How'd you sleep?"

"I have a hard time getting to sleep any given day but once I did last night I was good."

In the kitchen you pull out a frozen breakfast burrito to heat and grab an apple and peanut butter.  Bucky fixes a huge bowl of cereal. 

"Why aren't you on the mission?" Bucky asks.

"You want the official answer or the truth?" You ask.

"The truth, always."

"Steve didn't want you to be alone so he asked me to stay."

"You were okay with that?"

"Well, you know, my 'particular skills are not needed for this mission'" You say imitating Steve.

"You don't mind being my babysitter?"

"Well, first, I'm not your babysitter. You're a big boy and can wipe your butt all by yourself. Second, I don't mind having some time to take it easy. It's usually hard to come by. And, lastly, the rest of the team has worked with you before. I like that it gives me the chance to get to know you. Not the file or news reports or rumors, but you as a person." Bucky seems taken aback by your answer. "You said you wanted the truth, always." You smile and Bucky seems to relax a bit.

"Thanks." He pauses for a minute but then smirks, "Wipe my own butt? You always had that mouth on ya?"

"All my life." You smile at him.

"Apple and peanut butter?" Bucky asks as he watches you eat.

"It's delicious!" You pick up a fresh slice, scoop some peanut butter onto it. Leaning over the table you hold it up for Bucky to take a bite. "Try it." He eyes you as he bites into the slice you are holding out to him.

"Okay. Weird but good "

You giggle at his expression and pop the other half into your mouth. 

"Are you always happy like this? You always seem to be on the verge of laughing." He asks suddenly.

"No. But, I don't know, I guess I've had the privilege of living my life unlike you and Steve. It's given me the time to work through things, figure out what makes me happy. I guess I've just lived long enough to learn contentment. And I think that's the basis of happiness."

"Lived long enough? You're what? 25? 30?"

Your face falls. "You haven't read my file."

"No."

"Have you read any of them?"

"No. It feels... invasive. Like I'm prying."

"It's not. It's just basics. Nothing overly personal. Abilities. Skills. Things you need to know in the field." You say emphatically. "For example, let's say we're on a mission. I get shot. Femoral artery hit. Bleeding out. What do you do?"

"Apply a tourniquet. Determine if I can complete the mission without you dying."

"Wrong. You just wasted time and possibly cost us the mission. You do nothing. I don't need medical attention." You take a deep breath, "I'm a Gifted. I have healing abilities. My body will force out the bullet and the wound will be repaired within 90 seconds. Blood supply restored in minutes. You and Steve heal fast but I put your abilities to shame there."

"Do you have any other abilities?"

"Additional strength, not your level but decent. Increased metabolism. Slow aging." You pause and look directly into his eyes, "And empathic telepathy."

"Like Wanda?"

"Wanda's a little different. She's more telepathic in the sense of reading minds and forcing waking dreams. My ability allows me, if I choose to, read people's emotions. And I can imbue people with emotions."

"Force them to feel things?"

"Ye...yes." You say hesitantly and then look him directly in the eyes, "Look, I have read your file and I know you've had your mind messed with enough. I will never, NEVER do that to you without your consent. Never."

You stare at each other for a moment before Bucky gives a slight nod.

"Is it helpful?"

"My specialty was deep cover. Being able to force trust, calm, caring. It makes getting to the inner circles easier. But after doing it for so long I had to get out. I was other people so much I started to lose myself. So, I told Fury that I wanted out. And then the world blew up and I ended up right back in the middle of it. I think I'm where I'm supposed to be now."

"How do you do it?"

"I just think it and I kinda push it to the other person. It's even easier when I'm touching them. If a person can somehow resist me mentally, once I touch them the resistance fades."

"What all can you make them feel?"

"Any emotion. Several if needed."

"Fear? Panic?"

"Yes."

"Pain?"

"Emotional pain, yes."

"Love?"

"Yes."

"Pleasure?"

You look at Bucky and raise an eyebrow at that one before replying in a low voice, "Yes."

"Have you done it to me?"

Voice strong again, "No. Never without your permission."

"Our teammates?"

"Only with their consent. Most people want to try it at least once."

"I have nightmares sometimes." Bucky says quietly.

"Yeah." Your tone softens.

"Could you calm me if that was happening?"

"I can, yes. I can also help you sleep. Do you want me to?"

Bucky stares into his bowl of cereal for a moment. When his eyes flicker up to you there is a tinge of red to them. He gives a slight nod. Reaching over you curl your hand around his wrist. "You're my teammate, my friend. I'll do anything I can to help you. Anything, okay?"

Bucky gives a small nod.

"Okay. Time to get some training in. Don't want Steve to think I'm slacking the first day without him." You start clearing your breakfast dishes.

"He's a real drill sergeant, huh?"

"Sometimes." 

"Wait, how old are you? I take it, older than 25."

You laugh, "That's sweet, Buck. I'm 62."

"So Sam was including you in his geriatric patients?"

"I think you have to be over 65 to be in that category. You and Steve are still the geezers of the place." You smirk at him. "I'll catch up with you later."

"I'll see you in the training room in a bit."

"Sounds good." You say as you walk to the elevator. Your heart hurts a little for Bucky knowing it had to be hard for him to ask for help. You hope he knows how strong he is, how brave to ask.

Before Bucky heads to the training room he detours to his room. Going to the desk he pulls out the stack of files Steve had given him and quickly located Santi's. Flipping it open he read:

Name: Bella Santi Delarosa

Last known address: Stark Tower

Date of Birth: November 1, 1957

Place of Birth: Mobile, Alabama

Status: Active

Title: Agent

Aliases: The Saint, Lucia Roman, Marie Frances, Eve Lastra, Elana Romano.

Document Citizenship: United States

Height: 5'8"

Weight: 140 lbs

Gender: Female

Hair: Black

Eyes: Brown

Languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, German.

Identifiable Markings: Triangle shaped birthmark right shoulder.

Family: Parents, Marco and Giulia Delarosa, deceased. Brother, Luca Delarosa, deceased.

Classification: Gifted

Abilities: Healing. Increased strength, stamina, reflexes, balance, and accuracy. Decreased aging. Empathic telepathy.

Skills: Multiple forms of Martial arts, acrobatics, expert marksmanship, espionage, infiltration, tactical coordination.

Bucky closes the file and heads to the training room. He spots Santi lifting weights and joins her. "So, 'The Saint', huh?"

You laugh, "You read my file?" 

"Yeah."

"That's what you took away from it? My code name?"

"Bella Santi Delarosa. Beautiful Saint of the Rose?"

"I was born on All Saints Day. My parents were Catholic." You shrug. "Any other questions?"

"I noticed the slight southern accent so Alabama made sense. Did you grow up there?"

"Until I was 13."

He wanted to ask what happened but knew it wasn't the right time to get into it. Deciding on a subject change, "Expert marksman?"

"You bet your ass."

"I was gonna bet lunch, actually."

"Knives or guns?"

"Knives."

"Yay!" You clap your hands as you move to the weapons cage to pull out knives. "Let's start with a target and we'll see if we need to get to trick shots to determine a winner."

Bucky glances at the body shaped training target at the end of the range, picks up a knife, and says "Right eye." The blade finds its mark with barely a glance. 

"Left eye." Hit.

"Left shoulder." Hit.

"Right shoulder." Hit

"Center mass." Hit.

"Same." Hit within millimeters of his knife.

"Nose." Hit.

"Mouth." Hit.

Getting an idea you move in a bit closer as he says "Forehead" and aims. As he's preparing to throw you reach on tiptoe and blow in his ear. The knife hits the target's groin. 

"I'm sorry. Did you say forehead or foreskin? If it was forehead, you were a little low on that one, weren't you?" You say still right next to Bucky's ear. Bucky turns eyes wide and swallows hard. You smile innocently up at him. 

"Wouldn't you call that cheating?" Bucky's voice is gravelly as he stared down at you.

"I'd call it winning. After all, out in the field there's all kinds of distractions. You have to get used to them." You say in mock innocence with a sweet smile.

Bucky tries to keep a straight face but a chuckle slips through. "Fine. I'll give you this one, Doll."

"I accept your defeat. There is this great diner right by the Museum of Natural History. They have phenomenal burgers and then we can go to the museum."

"I thought the bet was for lunch."

"Well, I figured I'd take you to the museum as a consolation prize. After all, I did cheat."

"I'm not taking you away from any plans?"

"Those were my plans. Now, you get to pay for lunch though."

Bucky laughed and his heart warmed a little at the thought that you had planned out the day with him. 

"Let's finish training and then we can get ready to head out." You say heading back to the weights.

Three hours later, you arrive at the diner and both order burgers and fries.

"Can I ask you something? Personal?" Bucky asks, glancing at you nervously.

"Anything. I'm kind of an open book. Which is unusual in this group."

"Yeah." Bucky says on a short laugh "What happened to your family?"

You knew it was coming at some point. "You want the short or long version?"

"Long if you're comfortable with telling it."

"Yeah." You pause to collect your thoughts. "You read my file so you know I grew up in Mobile, Alabama. My parents were Marco and Guilia and I had a brother named Luca. He was two years younger than me. My parents wanted more kids but it just didn't happen. We were a big Italian family. Steve always says he knows I'm Italian because I'm loud, always eating, and am touchy-feely."

Bucky laughs "Sounds right. You've never shied away from touching me."

"Sorry." You say feeling a slight blush creep up. "Please let me know if I make you uncomfortable. I just don't think about it much."

"No, I like it. Most people don't get very close to me. Keep going"

You smile blushing a little more but continue with the story. "My grandparents, my dad's parents, had a bakery. Most of the family worked there. I loved it. I had 8 aunts and uncles, a million cousins. Big, big family. Nice life, ya know. Lots of love and lots of drama. Then when I was thirteen, we were driving home from my cousin's birthday party and our car was hit by an 18-wheeler. My parents died on impact. Luca…" you pause and swallow hard willing the tears away. Clearing your throat you continued, "Luca died while they were trying to get us out of the car. He was such a sweet kid. Tender-hearted and quiet. I should have died too. My injuries were severe but that's when my mutation kicked in. Before they even got me out of the car my injuries healed. I didn't understand what happened. The doctor explained the mutant gene while I was in the hospital. I was so wracked with guilt that I lived. I didn't want to hear anything about it. Then my family… they were scared of me. I could feel it. They turned me over to the state. They didn't want anything to do with me. I was put in a group home and first chance I got I ran. Ran for nine years before SHIELD found me. They took me in. Taught me that my mutation was a calling not a curse." 

The food came at that point and you both dug in hungrily. Bucky looked up after a few bites. "What'd you do the nine years you were running?"

"Petty theft, lot of trespassing, might have been a grand theft auto somewhere in there, and then I joined the circus."

Bucky laughed, "Serious?"

"Yeah. I got a job helping set up and take down for a circus and when they left I kinda stowed away and they let me stay. I grew up dancing and doing gymnastics, so they taught me aerial silks and rope tricks. I ran errands, took care of the animals, cooked, and eventually even performed."

Bucky narrows his eyes at you, "You're pulling my leg."

"No. It was the 70s. I'll show you some pictures when we get back."

"What exactly are aerial silks?"

"They're sheets of silk you use to perform contortions while kinda flying in the air. I'll show you one day. I still love doing it." Bucky still looked skeptical. "What?" You finally ask when his face was still scrunched up.

"You really have pictures?"

"Yes. Tell me about when you and Steve were kids." Trying to get the subject off of you for a minute. 

You looked across at Bucky and saw a genuine smile on his face for a moment. He launched into a story and was more animated than you had seen before. It was endearing the way his face lit up talking about pre-serum Steve and their antics. He looked young and happy for a few minutes. 

The spell was broken when the waiter delivered the check. Staying true to the bet, Bucky paid and then you walked to the museum a block away. You had already purchased the tickets online and went right in. It was only 12:30 and it seemed to be a slow Tuesday as you were nearly alone in every exhibit. Bucky was enthralled. He went from display to display pointing out observations, wondering at the discoveries, and fascinated with the history. Sometimes even grabbing your hand to follow him. You were enthralled by him. It seemed like for a few hours the weight lifted from his shoulders. 

You stay at the museum until closing and then head back to the tower. Bucky talks nearly the entire way back about the museum exhibits. You thought your heart would burst that your outing made him so happy. 

Heading to the kitchen you look in the fridge. "What do you want for dinner?"

"You pick."

"If I pick, we're ordering pizza."

"Sounds good to me. What movie do you want to watch?"

"You're not sick of me yet?" You smile, amazed that he wanted to spend more time with you.

"No! I mean, you don't have to watch a movie with me. I just thought, ya know, pizza and a movie. You had, uh, mentioned the Star Trek movie yesterday, so I thought maybe..." He trailed off.

"Sounds good to me." You echoed his earlier sentiment and he smiled at you.

You sat on the couch eating pizza and watching the movie. After a while you ended up shifting to lean into Bucky and rest your head on his shoulder.

"You okay?" He asks.

"A little cold. I'm sorry, am I making you uncomfortable?" You say, moving away a little. He doesn't answer. Instead he grabs his hoodie and drapes it and his arm over you giving a little squeeze. You snuggle into him. It's a little harder to concentrate on the movie enveloped by his warmth and smell. 

After the movie was over, Bucky looked over at you, "Tired?"

"No, not really. You?"

"No."

"What'd you think of the movie?"

"It was interesting. I'd like to see the next one. Right now, I'm interested in seeing some pictures someone told me they have."

"Oh, yeah. Let's go to my room and I'll find them." You stand and stretch your arms over your head bowing your back. When you look at Bucky still sitting on the couch his eyes aren't quite on your face. You clear your throat ostensibly and his eyes snap up to yours while his cheeks gain a little pink tinge. "Come on, Buck." You turn away smiling to yourself. 

You get to your room and find the photo album with pictures from the Seventies in it. Placing it on the bed in front of both of you, you skip the first few pages and flip until you find pictures from the circus. They're starting to fade with age, but there you are riding an elephant, another showing you contorted in the silks, one where you are surrounded by clowns, cooking in a tent, and a few more showing your circus life. 

"You weren't kidding!"

"Of course not! It was actually a pretty fun time in my life. It was easier being accepted there. Once I got past being first of May."

"First of May?"

"Green. New. Takes awhile for circus folk to warm up but they're good to you once they do. They were like a big family." 

"Why'd you decide to leave?"

"SHIELD. They could help me learn to control my powers. And to be able to use them for something good."

"What are these other pictures?" Bucky asks as he flips back to the beginning of the album. 

"Oh!" You say in surprise. You reach for the album but Bucky is already looking at the pictures. Resignedly, you explain, "That was the last family portrait we took."

Bucky looks up at you sorrowfully, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have." He goes to hand you back the album.

"No, it's okay. It's been a long time since I looked at them." You point to the next photo. "That was my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary."

"Is that the entire town of Mobile?

"No, that's just my grandparents, their kids, and all my first cousins."

"First cousins?!?"

"Yeah, they were prolific. What can I say? My parents were picked on because they only had two of us."

"How old are you here?" He points to a picture of you holding a stuffed bunny.

"Three, I think." The next picture is you holding a baby Luca. You reach out and touch his little cherub cheeks but only feel the cold plastic covering the photo.

"You miss him?"

"Yeah. I guess you never stop. Losing a sibling sucks, ya know? They're the ones that are supposed to be with you through it all. You expect grandparents and parents to die, but your siblings are supposed to be there. Do you?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I miss Rebecca."

"Sorry. I shouldn't have brought that up."

"No, it's okay. But I probably should get some sleep."

"Yeah."

Bucky gets up and puts the album back on your shelf. "Night, Santi."

"Night, Bucky." You say in a small voice.

"Hey." He waits until you look up at him. "You okay?"

You force a smile, "Yeah, I'm good."

He hesitates, studying you. 

Finally, you give in to yourself. "Actually, can I have a hug?"

"Absolutely!" He walks over to you taking your hand and pulling you up before wrapping his arms around you. You put your arms around his waist and your head on his shoulder. After a minute you feel a soft kiss pressed to your forehead. "Sweet dreams, Doll."

"You, too." You say as you reluctantly let go. You change into a sleepshirt and get ready for bed. Knowing sleep won't come for a while you pick up a book.

A couple of hours later you feel your stomach twist in knots and a loud grunt issues through the wall followed by "NO!" Getting up quickly you knock on Bucky's door, "Bucky, are you okay?" You listen for a second but only hear another grunt. You knock again, "Bucky?" You say a little louder. 

"Стоп!" Hearing the Russian word from Bucky made your decision. You turn the knob and walk in. Bucky is thrashing a bit on the bed. His right hand is clenched around the sheets.

"Bucky, wake up. Hey. Come on, Buck." You put a knee on the bed and lean over to shake Bucky. The moment you touch his shoulder he sits up. The knife in his left hand lands with a thunk in your side. You hiss at the pain but stay still. "Buck. Bucky, hey." His eyes are far away and you know he hasn't come out of it yet. You put your right hand over his hand gripping the knife and your left on his shoulder suffusing calm into him. "Buck, I'm calming you. You said it was okay. Look at me, darlin'. Hey, hey." You see his eyes begin to focus. Finally, he looks at you. "Good. Hey, love, I need you to let go, okay?" You gently nudge his left hand which is still firmly holding the knife in you. You see him glance down and panic blanches his face. Suffusing calm again you take your left hand and touch his face drawing his attention to yours. "I'm okay. I just need you to let go. Bucky, talk to me."

"I'm so sorry!" Comes out in a panicked whisper as he lets go. 

"Bucky, I'm fine. Healing ability, remember?" You gather the ends of your shirt and brace to pull out the knife. "Mmmm...had to be a serrated one, huh?" You press the shirt to the wound to staunch the blood flow and look at Bucky. He looks shattered. "Bucky, everything's okay."

"I stabbed you." He whispers.

"Better me than anyone else." You give a humorless little laugh. You wipe the knife on part of your shirt and set it down on the nightstand. 

"I stabbed you."

"90 seconds, Bucky. 90 seconds and I'll be healed. No harm, no foul."

"I stabbed you and you're laughing." He looks at you incredulously. 

"What's a little stab wound between friends?" You smile but he still looks lost. "Bucky, another empathic part is I can let you feel how I'm feeling. Can I show you?"

He nods and you put a hand on his. "What do you feel?"

He looks in your eyes finally, "Calm. Caring. Worry for me."

"Exactly. I'm fine. Now, are you okay? You were having a nightmare."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay." You pull him into a hug keeping your bloody side away from him. He puts his right arm around you and runs his left hand up your arm to your neck. Pulling away he looks into your eyes, glances down to your lips, and then back with an almost questioning look. It doesn't take empathic ability to know what he's feeling and your heart twists a little. You raise up a bit and kiss his forehead like he did for you earlier that night.

"I'm gonna get cleaned up. Can I borrow a shirt?" You stand up and that's when Bucky notices you had bunched your shirt up to stem the wound exposing your legs and a pair of peach colored panties. 

Tearing his eyes away he stands up quickly and pulls open a drawer. "Yeah, here, Doll." 

You look in the drawer and pull out a black ribbed tank from the top. "This will work." You say as you head into his bathroom. 

Bucky watches you walk away thinking with the peach colored underwear it almost looked like you weren't wearing anything down below. He shook the thought away. Nice, Buck, you stab her and then ogle her, he thinks to himself. 

You take off the shirt you are wearing and grab a cloth to clean off the blood. After washing your hands you slip on the tank. It comes down just past your butt and almost looks like a dress on you. A very short dress. Staring at yourself in the mirror for a second you can't deny the feelings developing in you. Bucky is...you can't even describe it. Beautiful inside and out. But too often your empathic abilities had interfered with real feelings. You had wanted to kiss him in that moment but the emotional charge was too much. What if that's all it was? The heat of the moment? It was too soon. You'd known him for less than 48 hours. Sighing, you shake off your thoughts and walk back out. Bucky eyes you from where he is sitting on the bed. 

"You okay?" He asks. 

"Yes. See? No harm, no foul." You lift the tank up to show him. 

He raises his left arm and touches your side. The cool touch from his metal hand breaks your skin into goosebumps. You cover his hands with yours and for a moment get lost in his eyes when he looks up at you. 

Breaking eye contact you pull the shirt back down, saying softly "It's late. You should go back to sleep." 

"I don't think I can." He says.

You sit next to him on the bed. "Lay down. Get comfortable. I'll help you."

He lays on his side and hugs his pillow. Running your hands through his hair, you suffuse calm and see the tension slip away a bit. Giving him a minute before suffusing lethargy, you watch as his muscles start to relax. Finally, you suffuse a sleepy feeling. You can't force sleep but have found that when these three feelings combine they make a fairly good sleep cocktail. Bucky's form slowly relaxes and you continue to run your hands through his hair suffusing the sleepy feeling until his breathing evens out. You retrieve your ruined shirt and bloody cloth from the bathroom and the knife from the nightstand. You don't want him to have any reminders when he wakes. Switching off his lamp, you reluctantly head to your own bed. 

Part 3

[mbti-notes]

I'd like your opinion on something if you don't mind. Do you think that gender is something you're born with or is it a social construct? I'm wondering because I hear people argue about it and I don't know what to think. I don't believe people "choose" to be a boy/girl but at the same time we are taught how to be masculine/feminine? Sorry if this makes no sense.

A big topic that might land me in some hot water, lol. It’s understandable to be confused about a complicated topic and it’s good to ask questions when you don’t know. Gender is a contentious issue because it messes with people’s idea of who they are and how they should live their life. Nobody likes to think they’re living a lie or that they’ve been brainwashed by society. The question you’re asking is basically the “nature vs nurture” question, which is not the right question to ask. At this point in our scientific understanding about human beings, it’s pretty clear that who we are is a constant interaction between our gene expression and environmental pressures. I don’t see why gender would be any different. 

If you can leave aside the political discussions and heavy theoretical disputes and just try to examine the available research, here’s what I think we know and what we don’t know:

Sex and gender aren’t the same thing but they are related. Biological sex isn’t entirely binary because there are known biological variations. Even if we can all agree that xx is female and xy is male, this is not the same thing as gender because there is a difference between dna code and gene expression. I’m no expert in genetics, so you’ll have to look up the details on this if you’re interested. 

There are, on average, some small differences between male and female brains because of differences in development, attributable to differences in hormone levels and activity. Hormone levels can be easily disrupted in utero, which may produce significant changes in fetal development. These mechanisms are not very well understood yet. There are some working theories about how this can significantly influence gender expression and sexual orientation. 

Very small cognitive differences between male and female brains can be easily exacerbated and made much bigger by environmental influences as well as purposeful reinforcement by society. While it may be true, for example, that females are on average better with detail-oriented tasks, or that males are better on average at spatial manipulation, the differences only become hugely significant and glaring if the environment pushes them to the fore and assigns value to them - biology and environment interact. An analogy: You could possess some genetic talent to sing well, but whether you actually become a great singer is dependent upon whether your environment encourages/restricts you in developing that skill.

What this tells us is that gender expression is not necessarily an immutable “essential” quality of humans but it is also not entirely a social construct that is divorced from biology - it is not either/or. Human beings are first and foremost an adaptable species, otherwise we puny fragile little things couldn’t make it to the top of the food chain. Being adaptable means that we take what we already have and try to make the best of it, we are creative and have learned to take control of our fate whenever possible. Through evolutionary learning, we are capable of living cooperatively in societies. Some scholars argue that the purpose of a society is to perpetuate the beliefs and values that have proven useful in ensuring our survival, i.e., to pass on important knowledge, not just genes, from one generation to the next. We took cooperative living and created this thing called civilization. Civilization may be our greatest innovation and the closest thing we have to immortality. 

But every coin has two sides. A society is more than just the sum of the individual members, it is a large system that takes on a life of its own. You are born into a society that has been replicating itself for quite awhile. This can trap individuals into adopting a set of woefully outdated knowledge, beliefs, and values. And this is why there is inevitable tension between “conservative” and “progressive” forces in society as people in each generation negotiate whether to keep or discard knowledge passed on from their forebears. It may be that gender roles and stereotypes arose because of real but very small differences between male and female cognition. It may also be true that society, with a mind of its own, has exacerbated those differences and taken them too far, in which case we would be right to readjust our thinking on them, if only to give human beings the utmost freedom to be creative and have control over their own fate. Passing on knowledge to the next generation for the sake of preserving it can turn into something stupid if you never stop to think about whether that knowledge is still valid or useful. Nature is always changing through evolution, so we would be right to change with it (i.e. survival of the fittest).

My personal opinion is that society thrives when individuals get to unleash their full positive potential. I believe that gender expression is a human potentiality that should be explored if it allows more people to contribute their gifts to society. Even if one can concede that male brains might be somewhat better at doing this or female brains somewhat better at doing that, I wouldn’t want to live in a society that forces individuals into rigid identities or artificial roles that stop them from exploring beyond their genetic inheritance - this would mean denying them the gift of human ingenuity and the joy of creating something new to pass on to the next generation. Of course, there are people who argue that exploration of gender potentialities would disrupt society’s well-established rules and norms, so they resist changing what they have learned. I see their point but I think, based on my knowledge of history and psychology, suppressing people doesn’t have a good effect in the long run, because it eventually explodes into something unpredictably disruptive, which seems less desirable to me than changing our mindset gradually, as scientific inquiry reveals more and more factual information. I don’t know if that clears up anything for you but it’s my take.

[lizzybeth1986]

Quick Thoughts on DD Book 1 Chapter 5

• Content Warning: There are references to slut shaming while speaking about opera singers, and I speak about executions in the Hamid scene (I've not added grisly details or anything, but to me what I have included does sound a little macabre). I don't know if those warrant a warning, but I'd like to err on the side of caution and ensure that anyone comfortable with that knows this before they make the decision to proceed.

• Okay on with the QT!

• Why hello there, fancy hot looking Ottoman prince dude.

• Looks like not one but both of my MCs will be living the thot life.

• Apologies for the huge delay guys. There was a LOT to unpack this chapter, and it took me a while to actually explore, confirm my research and get a clear idea overall of how I wanted to approach this one. I'm hoping once TRR ends I can get these babies out earlier.

• You know what I realised? The Lady Grandma LIKES a sassy bitch. There are several times this chapter she's actually been more approving of my headstrong Marianne than she has been of my more mild-mannered Florence. See all of this:

She's mostly approving of this, however, when Henrietta is the recipient of this behaviour, but there are also points where she appreciates the MC's candor (if she chooses to show it) such as if the MC refers to the art of the fan as "ridiculous". If there is one thing that consistently gets on Dominique's nerves, it is occasions where the MC might speak of herself and her former background negatively, mostly out of annoyance because it shows she hasn't comfortably settled into her role yet, and Dominique needs the MC to do so if Edgewater is to stay within in the family and bloodline.

• Also I love the subtle streak of independence we get to see in Annabelle. She is someone who is doing what is expected of her, someone who tries to make the best of her circumstances the only way she knows how, but she is also refreshingly open about how stressful it is for her to go down this path, even in her free scenes. She is also playful and mischievous and doesn't take herself too seriously, which makes a lot of her scenes a joy to do.

• I also really really liked the option where you tell her she's the one you want to marry, and her reaction is both a disbelief that such a dream could come true alongside a receptiveness to the idea. It's soft and sweet and beautiful.

• So we start out with a crash course on the nobility we'll meet in London (Alfred Halloway, whose daughter Felicity is debuting this season, and the Barrymore family, who are related to the Halloways by marriage). Only this time, Annabelle wants to be a snarky little boss and fill the MC in on all the juicy gossip that Lady Grandmother won't give her.

• Lady Grandmother: Alfred Holloway is the viscount of Lochdale. His daughter, Felicity, will be coming from her estate at Bellington Hall to make her debut this season.

Miss Parsons: Alfred Holloway is an arrogant prig who looks like an Easter ham studded with cloves.

(For the record, this is what a clove-studded Easter ham seems to look like:

Holy shit Annabelle you savage af)

Lady Grandmother: Miss Holloway's family is also tied by marriage to the Earl of Barrymore...

Miss Parsons: Oh, avoid the Earl of Barrymore. His bed has more traffic than Drury Lane!

Annabelle here must be referring to the crowd that tends to flock around the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, which was popular as a source of entertainment for its plays and had a seating capacity of 3000 people.

• The free scene with Annabelle is important because it eases us gently into the main themes of her scene later on. The women get to speak about the whole concept of a "marriage market", and straight off the bat Annabelle lets us know how uncomfortable she is with having to go through a wedding to another man.

• She also speaks about what else - besides the fact that Harry was her closest friend - about his death affected her. Having been promised to Harry, Annabelle didn't have to go through the rigamarole of finding a husband. She had learned to settle with the idea of being married to someone who she knew and liked at least, if not loved. It's sad to us modern readers now that Annabelle would have to settle for less than passion or love, but back then I don't think she could have imagined a better deal. And now...and now she will have to settle for even less than what she had with Harry. This was a pretty neat way of easing us into the larger conversation she has with us in her diamond scene.

• A few days pass, and Briar is now helping us get ready for the trip to London. You have the option of encouraging her romance with Mr Woods, which...cmon. They cute 😊

•

Ooh so our House Colours are navy blue and gold! (considering that the Earl's default outfit itself is navy blue, I should have figured that would be a house colour). It's nice but MY NECK WHERE IS MY NECK.

Did You Know: that up until the middle of the 19th century, men's and women's riding habits were largely made by men in a distinctively masculine style. This is what Candice Hern's article "Regency Habits, Overview" on her website Regency World, says:

"Though the style and cut of riding habits changed with time and fashion, they continued to be tailored in a masculine style throughout the 17th and 18th centuries and into the early 19th century. In La Belle Assemblée in 1815, we read that: “Habits have, ever since they were first brought into fashion, been considered as decidedly calculated to give even the most delicate female a masculine appearance, and the wits of our grandmothers’ days were unmercifully severe on the waistcoat, cravat, and man’s hat which were then the indispensible appendages to a habit.”"

•

YOU'RE NOT COMING WTF DAD NO.

• WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY'LL DO TO YOU WHILE I'M GONE.

• I'm having a sinking feeling about leaving my old dad around in this house while Henrietta is still there, Grandma had better be his bodyguard (or maybe not. Cordonians seem to have weird ideas of what constitutes a successful bodyguard *COUGHCOUGH Mara and Bastien COUGHCOUGH*).

• Like most of the fandom I have a feeling the Earl will die sooner than we think. @i-dream-so-i-write once mentioned that it could well be towards the end of the book, and I think that's a fitting dramatic turn this book would take into the next. I'm going to miss the hell outta this guy though 😟

• Henrietta sent Mr Marlcaster and Miss Sutton ahead of time so they can screw things up for us, so we will need to butter them up like no tomorrow when we reach there, apparently.

• Hello Luke! It's been exactly one chapter!

• Kinda like the bonding the MC and Luke have with regards to the horse. Their first real conversation began with Clover, so it is fitting that their bonding continues over her at least for their initial interactions.

• Aww man, Henrietta wants Clover the horse to be sold and they give you a diamond option to keep her, name her and get extra scenes with her. Florence calls her Moonstone, Marianne calls her Pepper. Moonstone suits Florence's particular sense of whimsy, and I figured Marianne would want something short and snappy and it helped that Luke gave the horse some salt before the diamond option came up 😂

It's a fairly nice scene I guess, but it drives me batty because this book is already taking astronomical sums of money early on in the book, and people are already beginning to get frustrated. Even TRR, which is a pretty expensive book, took more than half the book before they pushed forward the option to buy the Derby horse. It just is beginning to feel like too much too soon at this point.

• Of all the free scenes this chapter, my favourite has to be the exchange among the four in the picnic en route London.

I found this particularly interesting because all of these people, so far, have been outside the rigors of the Season in some way or other. Briar is the most outside of this system of doing things: she has grown up completely out of it and will probably always struggle to understand the way things work within the gentry. Luke has spent years in that environment (that of the gentry) so he knows some of it, but he still is and will always be an outsider. Annabelle has grown up in this environment and is perhaps the closest to it, but has never had to take active part due to her association with Harry and the Edgewater Estate. And the MC straddles both these worlds. She is an heiress, part of this high society, but she was born in and more familiar with Briar's worldview. And I love how this scene captures all this in just a few bits of dialogue.

• Also Luke's sensible response to Annabelle's question and Briar being a teasing little imp is super cute, I will fight anyone who disagrees with me on this 😂😂😂

• So many gems nestled in Annabelle's scene guys I can't even. There's so much going on in this one. So much.

•

The main thing this scene does is to - without a doubt - establish Annabelle as a closeted lesbian. She's still at the stage where she's aware and finds it odd that she doesn't hold any affection for any man, that the idea itself of marriage frustrates her, and her growing confusion that she's now feeling for a woman all that she "should" be feeling for a man. There are points where she almost welcomes it, like the scene I mentioned earlier, but she still is clearly struggling.

The MC has three ways of responding to this - one where she misses the point completely and says "you haven't found the right man yet" (Marianne, unfortunately), another where she states that she "understands" (which is left open - either it is a gesture of support from an ally, or it is from someone who understands her dilemma to...well...some extent. Florence is the second. She is bi, so her "I understand" was basically "I've fallen for some men sure but I also have a hard time figuring out what my sexuality is"). My favourite is the response where the MC speaks of facing a similar dilemma in her life and is an excellent choice if your MC is also a lesbian. I couldn't use this one for Florence or Marianne because it didn't ring true for either of them, but I did see the screenshots on tumblr and it's quite poignant.

Did You Know: Lesbian/sapphic relationships and sex were not as much seen as illegal as invisible...and this was an attitude that a later monarch, Queen Victoria, would uphold as well, refusing to sign a legislation to criminalize it by insisting that "women do not do such things". Obviously as we all know, she couldn't be any more wrong. Today we know of famous lesbian women of the Regency as Anne Lister, owner of Shibden Hall, and the Ladies of Llangollen - two women from Ireland named Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, who had a romantic relationship for over 50 years. Gail Eastwood, in an article titled "Queer in the Regency: a Slice of Once-Hidden LGBT History" says:

Defying their families, the two established an estate in Wales, called Plas Newydd, rather than enter into marriages with men they did not love. Though they incurred significant debt in order to have a staff, they survived on the generosity of friends until a fascinated Queen Charlotte convinced King George III to grant them a pension.

Plas Newydd became something of a haven for writers during the Regency era, especially since the couple living there could afford to keep it. 

Part of me wonders if elements of this story may be found in the Annabelle x MC route. Or like Anne Lister, who was well-endowed enough financially that she could refrain from marriage and have relationships with women. Maybe, or - given the limitations of having to chart out a storyline that will suit every LI - maybe not. Whatever it is, I'd be very interested in finding out how they'll handle the MC's romance with Annabelle.

• The second most interesting thing is Annabelle speaking about her poetry, and the restrictions her father has kept on her talent. She mentions him looking down on women's poetry as being "all bad rhymes and flowery sentiment", and that - in keeping with the times - he prefers Romantic Age poets such as Wordsworth, and that famous influence on Romanticism, Shakespeare. If we choose to ask her about showing us her poetry, she tells us her writing is "of a...delicate nature" (get it, girl! 😀) and if we choose to encourage her instead, the MC makes references to Mary Wollstonecraft, whose ideas of gender equality were considered radical for the times, and who is seen as one of the earliest feminist icons.

Did You Know: that in a time when female education was mainly geared to prepare women for their domestic roles, Mary Wollstonecraft advocated for women to receive an education that would help them survive beyond the home and the marriage market, stating that the one real barrier in the way of gender equality was the disparity in the education women received compared to men. She says, "this homage to women’s attractions has distorted their understanding to such an extent that almost all the civilized women of the present century are anxious only to inspire love, when they ought to have the nobler aim of getting respect for their abilities and virtues".

Her daughter, Mary Shelley, would write the famous novel Frankenstein in 1818, two years following the events of Desire and Decorum.

• Within this scene also lies a little tidbit that will hold some importance in Chapter 7: the MC tells Annabelle that her mother used to sing in the opera:

So this could be the root of some of the snarky remarks Henrietta makes about the MC's mother. She has close pretty darn close to calling her a "prostitute" on more than one occasion, and her comment after the MC sang along with Annabelle in chapter 3 about how it was "no wonder" that the MC could sing, given her mother's profession.

Did You Know: Opera singers had a very different reputation in the Regency era, not all of it very positive. Shana Galen, who is described as a Regency adventure author, speaks about how opera singers were viewed at the time: Of course, it was perfectly acceptable for a young lady to show her talents on the pianoforte or to sing in front of a small group of family and friends, but performing on the stage at Drury Lane or Covent Garden were frowned upon.

Female performers, especially, were shunned by society. One example of this sort of attitude was seen in the ridicule faced by a singer named Dorothea Jordan, who had an long-running affair with a Duke, bore him ten children, and who was the subject of a "satirical cartoon that showed her in her bedroom, gazing adoringly at a duchess’ coronet, which she hopes someday to wear by marrying her lover. A map on the wall purports to show the route from “Strolling Lane” (i.e. prostitution) through “Old Drury Common” all the way to “Derbyshire Peak.” A genealogical chart of the nobility lies on her dressing table, and her bed-hangings are crowned by a Phrygian cap, symbol of the French Revolution. The latter is intended to ridicule her pretensions to nobility; as a common woman, let alone an actress, she should know her place" ("Glimpse at Opera during Jane Austen's Lifetime" by Maggi Andersen, for the blog Historical Hearts).

• Luke's scene on the other hand is lighter in content but is important if you look at it from the viewpoint of establishing his role in the MC's life before they reach London. As a neutral friend, he is happy to serve her and considers her a vast improvement over Countess Henrietta. He tells her that she possesses what Henrietta lacks, understands something that Henrietta would never understand in several lifetimes: that looking down on people she believes as her 'inferiors' will leave her at a disadvantage eventually.

But if you hint at having feelings for Luke, the entire mood of the scene changes, and you see him feeling torn between his growing affections for her and his recognition that any relationship beyond the professional will end badly for them all.

• The thing with both Luke and Annabelle is that to not fall for them is to maintain the status quo. So even if there is an element of attraction, the MC not reciprocating does not tip the delicate balance that governs their lives at Edgewater over. But when she does...it gives rise both to moments of joy...and moments of fear.

• Ooh I love the animation for the train!!

I mean...just...look at this!

• The MC and Briar get to react in awe to their first sight of London before they get down from the carriage. We find out that we're pretty much stranded on the streets of London and no one has come to pick us up. Gee thanks, stepbro.

• Not gonna lie, but seeing Prince Hamid's shocked!face on his full-body shot made me giggle a little.

• He introduces himself as Imperial Prince Hamid, cousin to "his Imperial Majesty Mahmoud the Second, Caliph of Islam, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and Custodian of the Two Mosques (the last especially was used in royal titles for many Islamic rulers, and refers to the Al-Haram Mosque (al-Masjid al-Ḥarām) of Mecca, and the Prophet's Mosque (Al-Masjid An-Nabawī) of Medina).

• In a sense he kinda reminds me of Kamilah: he is a fictional character positioned as being related to an actual historical figure, so they will give us plenty of background about the countries they were from (Egypt and Turkey [Istanbul in this case], respectively) but keep the actual historical figure at a distance. Making the fictional character a cousin and a person of an important position in that court is a smart choice to make: they're important enough to represent the royals of the times but distanced enough that it doesn't seem unnatural if they aren't that close and ergo can't tell you personal details about said historical figure.

• Did You Know: Sultan Mahmud II (the cousin Hamid mentions) was seen as quite a progressive ruler of his times. 1829 onwards, he tried to bring many, many reforms into the Ottoman empire, including (according to the Encyclopedia Britannica article on him) "adopting the cabinet system of government, provided for a census and a land survey, and inaugurated a postal service (1834), introducing compulsory primary education, opening a medical school, and sending students to Europe. In addition, the sultan’s right to confiscate the property of deceased officials was abolished, and European dress was introduced". It looks like some elements of this way of thought could be reflected in Hamid, from his talk of diplomacy in his diamond scene.

• Hamid not only positions himself as a bit of an outsider to England but also as a man who travels: talk of travelling and seeing the world is his ice-breaker when they get into the carriage. This will allow him not only to help familiarize the MC with London, and his home Constantinople, but also give her (and us) a view of what the world looks like at this point. For instance, if the MC speaks of even London is unfamiliar territory to her, he mentions the Blue Mosque, the construction of which was completed exactly 200 years prior to the events of the story.

• The other very essential point of this scene is to provide a bit of a parallel to Luke, but also as a counterpoint. Luke is disadvantaged both by his class and his race - ergo he has a very layered perspective. Hamid has privileges, but he is also aware of and in some ways used to the reception he gets in England, and has figured out how he wants to respond. Both Luke and Hamid find their ways to cope with their situation, and the MC is allowed - according to the ethnicity chosen for her - to relate to both.

Florence, for instance, relates heavily to this as someone is visibly a foreigner even though England is the only home she has ever known. Marianne does not fully understand this, but she can tell him like any decent human being would that she thinks it's wrong of people to treat him that way.

• Just prior to this the two manage to see the Tower of London, notorious for the imprisonment and execution of many, many people including royals and nobles. There is a short but rather poignant conversation on the "many people tortured and murdered over who had the right to sit on the throne" (among the people executed, you will find names like Anne Boleyn, Thomas More, Lady Jane Grey, Guy Fawkes and Walter Raliegh).

• Did You Know: For a long long time in England, executions were seen as a bit of a spectator sport. The more unusual the criminal, the bigger the crowd. The Capital Punishment UK blog speaks of the kind of atmosphere usually present around the time:

In many counties, executions were held on market days to enable the largest number of people to see them and school parties would be made to attend as a moral lesson, something which is certainly recorded as happening at Lancaster Castle.  Public houses and gin shops always did a very brisk trade on a hanging day.  

However, attitudes towards executions experienced a shift around the late 18th-early 19th century, and by 1864 Parliament established a Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, with a declaration that executions would take place inside the prisons rather than in public.

I'm not sure if this was intentional, but possibly the MC's and Hamid's reactions to the tower may be reflective of their times.

• Interestingly, Annabelle is shown to look jealous if you've been romancing her, and giving you a sly grin if you're just friends. I quite liked that little touch. Luke meanwhile is a little less open about how he feels at this point: whether you're romancing him or not, he is described as "watching you carefully" during your exchange with Hamid.

• So Mr Marlcaster got the letter from the Duchess to send a groom for picking the MC, but didn't...as per his mother's demands, surely. But AT LEAST you should have been a little prepared to answer me in case I dropped by anyway, dude? Instead of just standing there and staring at me like a scandalized goldfish.

• Looks like Edmund is still going to try screwing things up for us, and we'll need to find a way to get him on our side. After all, we get relationship points with both him and Theresa Sutton, and Lady Grandmother did tell us we could find a way to get them to be with us rather than against us.

• I'm looking forward to Chapter 5...but it's Chapter 6 I REALLY want to see. We're going to learn a bit more about the MC's mother's background!

General Thoughts:

• OMG so much was there to unpack this chapter!! A lot of it to do with Annabelle and Hamid, and Luke has taken a bit of a backseat this chapter but I'm hoping that's a taster of what's to come in his case.

• Look I love this story but IT COSTS SO MUCH. WTF. Keeping Clover was a nice option but it really added nothing to this chapter and could have easily been shifted elsewhere. I want this book to do well. I'm happy with how they're writing it, the effort they're putting into their research and into their characters so far...and I would hate for it to not be appreciated because they made it so hard for people to get into the book by making it this expensive so early.

• Florence is going for Annabelle and Luke (leaning more towards Annabelle at this point), and Marianne for Hamid and Sinclaire (I'm not sure yet but Hamid is a very very strong contender!!). Who would have thought I'd have my first polyam MCs in a book on Regency Era England!! Who woulda thunk!

• Annabelle particularly intrigues me at this point. She is clearly established as both inside and outside of this system, and vocally critical of it at least to the MC. She writes about her desires against the chargin of her father, and states that she doesn't want to merely settle into a 'safe' relationship like her mother, not unless she can know and trust that person (which is mostly why she agreed to the match with Harry even if she didn't love him). She is confused, and open and honest about her confusion. I really think the foundation of this character is immensely strong, but they really need to keep working on her and not just drop their efforts on her halfway. And I've seen that happen enough times with female LIs to be afraid.

• At this point, we now have three male LIs (one Master of Horse who is African-American, one family-approved eligible bachelor and one prince of the Ottoman Empire) and one female love interest. Is there space for one more confirmed female LI? I sure hope so but at the same time I don't want keep my hopes up.

However...IF the plan is to keep just one female LI, then they'd better do a pretty darn phenomenal job of her. If you're not going to give wlw players other options it's only fair to make sure the only option is given really, really good writing - consistently. They're doing a good job so far...but there's a long long way to go before I can fully trust PB to do justice to her.

• That's it for now! On to Chapter 6!

• Tagged: @boneandfur @liamraines @thespiritpanda @alanakusumastan @ernestsinclairs @private-investigator-nazario @bcdollplace @thedepthsremember @mcbangle @queenodysseia @novaelaras

If you'd like to be tagged on these QTs, do let me know! 😀