#and then also people have no fucking clue what my gender is generally speaking

[aro-culture-is]

Aro culture is giving off so many mixed signs about your orientation that you get some people thinking that you're straight, some people thinking that you're gay/bi and no one thinking that you're actually a secret third option

.

[deathsmallcaps]

(USA based sorry)

I’m definitely speaking into an echo chamber but like.

Nearly every algebra student I tutor ends up with a word problem involving the gender wage gap. And they’re all confounded by it and have no clue.

And a guy in my fucking Calc 3 class was like “wait you guys were serious? That’s real?” When it came up. BRO YOU’RE ABOUT OLD ENOUGH TO DRINK???

It’s amazing what is and isn’t common knowledge. Feminist history isn’t taught past “and then women got their right to vote :)))))).” With occasional mentions of Title IX and the late 1900s waves of feminism. Of course only in in-depth history classes, not general Ed. Wow.

I am not in training to be a historian or a history teacher, but by all that is right in the world I hope it becomes more normalized and common to speak about shit that is LESS than 100 years ago in depth when it comes to American History & culture. Wtf. I swear even when I took AP history* the professor was afraid to touch on that stuff. For some reason (happily) my English teachers were a lot more willing to teach about modern history & minority stories.

And this is just what affects my white anglo cishetallo abled-passing housed female life personally. I cannot truly imagine the feeling of personal erasure & irritation one of comes to other identities & issues that have only relatively recently been resolved, addressed, acknowledged or even only pointedly ignored. I am fucking angry FOR you and can’t wait for things to change. You ALL deserve better. Don’t forget that.

It’s not your job to educate these people or their children (unless you’re literally a history teacher or something) but I want to shake the people who decide these what gets taught until the cowardice & insecurity & thoughtlessness & malice & election-based anxiety shits out of their assholes and leaves their hearts hungering for intelligent, thoughtful & interested discussions on modern issues and genuine history that should not be squeezed into the last pages of textbooks out of fear of offending paper white & paper thin pride.

Human rights deserve attention. Human rights should not have to be a radical talking point. It should be both as natural and expected as breathing clean air & as ingrained and knowable as to be accessible in math problems.

There is so much to be done. And it is exhausting. But please know that you are not alone.

*interesting tidbit below but basically irrelevant to the above post

I took AP america history to learn about the parts of American history that are never, or barely, covered in history classes throughout the grades. Basically, if it happened outside of the Puritans-WWII, it’s got a poor chance chance of in-depth coverage. And while the class did teach me good analysis skills and some interesting facts, it mostly covered the exact fucking periods I mentioned above.

And you know what? Literally right before we took the AP test, our teacher told us “study up on periods 2-7” (im pretty sure there are 9 periods of American history, forgive me it’s been like 5 years) “they never test on 1, 8 or 9”. Guess what the essay questions were on. And guess what time periods 1,8 & 9 are? If you posited precolonial america, the mid 1900s and modern day, ding ding ding you’re the winner! :))))))

(AP classes are worth it if you’re bored and/or trying to cut down on the amount of classes you’ll take in college & thus save money. But a lot (not all) of the AP certified teachers will try to convince you it’s the be all, end all of learning in high school. Also the weighted GPAs are a scam. No one looks at those. If you’re worried about keeping a good average, stick to the class level that fits within both circles of ‘not boring’ and ‘not going to wreck your life’. You can take an AP test and have it count and not take the class. Just be warned it is genuinely difficult.)

[bunathebunny]

(click the read more for details)

Height

though mhy has never disclosed heights, i hc xiao as being short and 150 cm is the perfect height of a short person

ganyu wears heels and she isn't that much higher than xiao so i'm giving her one centimeter over him

Age

eh mhy is very wishy washy when it comes to age so who knows but what we do know is that xiao was there when guizhong died so he would be 3.7k+ years old

ganyu knows guizhong but aside from putting her at 3.7k+ years old that doesn't give us a good clue whether she is older than xiao but i'd like to think she is younger

well my hc is that xiao is her senior in age but she is his senior when it comes to working for morax

Gender & Sexuality

most of the time i write them as trans but like the ??? means that they are whatever gender and sexuality is the funnier at that moment

Horny level

xiao i think is the kind that has a normal libido but if no one reminds him he just forgets about it

there's also xiao and his complicated relationship with sex in general

ganyu... has a higher libido due to the fact that her work is very stressful and she used to forget about it but then someone *cough* an ex *cough* introduced her to masturbation as a way to get happy chemicals but also a way to tire herself out and knock herself out sooner so yeah it's a habit

Awkwardness level

xiao is super awkward due to a) his introverted nature and b) the fact that he has gotten all rusty because he no longer has anyone to interact with on a daily - or near daily - basis

ganyu is less awkward than xiao because she has exposure to a bunch of people and therefore has experiences with dealing with people in general but off work, she is still awkward in her own way

Jealousy level

they both don't have a high jealousy level because i think they have mutual respect and also because they know neither of them would cheat

Big spoon vs Little spoon

xiao's work is a protector and even when they sleep together that fact doesn't change

also because ganyu either can't sleep or she knocks the fuck out the moment her head hits the pillow so xiao is used to just holding her while she sleeps

he would say it's for her comfort but being close to someone who his own karma doesn't really affect sets him at ease somewhat

it's the closeness and also the feeling of a breathing and living body

Lending & Borrowing clothes

ganyu is a giver through and through and she would happily let strangers borrow her clothes

it's just that she hesitates a bit when it comes to xiao

it's because he's very pretty and if he wears her clothes, which is btw more revealing than his usual ones, she would like it too much

xiao has exactly one set of clothes that still survives until today so no lending anyone anything

Pet names

they both don't use pet names but ganyu would try some but eventually she just gave up because she couldn't stand the embarrassment

ganyu forgoes xiao's title after his multiple times of reminding her to just use his name

that's the closest they've come to pet names

also xiao's name is very important to him so he would prefer that ganyu calls him that instead of using pet names

Introvert vs Extrovert

they are both introverts tbh even if ganyu is sometimes misunderstood as an extrovert

but on the sliding scale ganyu is closer to being an extrovert than xiao is, which btw is still a long way off

she's more used to interacting with people and such so she does ok in crowded places

xiao on the other hand does not have such as many experiences and therefore he is less used to be in crowded places

Words vs Actions

they both prove their affections through their actions because they're both in the "affections speak louder than words" camp

they, however, understand how much power words have and do try to indulge in loving words

it is just that xiao is not used to speaking such things - or speaking to another in general - so he doesn't rely much on words but more on actions though he does make some efforts

ganyu, on the other hand, sometimes expresses her affections through words and she is embarrassed but it is worth it to see xiao gets all blushy

Confession

they are the kind to confess as soon as possible - that is the thing they're confessing is a crime they committed

love confession? oh no they will wait for years and no they wouldn't confess if there is no push

ganyu might pluck up the courage eventually but that would still take a long long time

xiao would just repressed and take it to his grave if he could

he has a very low self-esteem and thinks that ganyu deserves better than him

Dealing with bugs

they're both gentle people who would not squash the bugs if there is other ways to deal with it

if there isn't then xiao would squash it first just to spare ganyu of the guilt

ganyu would say she could do it and he shouldn't have to but he is used to doing the killings for the sake of others so it's fine really

(it's not exactly fine)

Driving

teyvat doesn't have cars but the closest they have would be hm horses or carriages

since both of them are archon war veterans i think both of them can ride horses

they would do well with carriages too but ganyu has a upper hand because she probably has more experiences with carriages than xiao does?

Cooking

xiao cannot cook and i subscribe to this hc

the only way for him to cook is to give him an extremely detail instructions on how to cook but unless it's really simple dishes, he would screw up

ganyu knows how to cook because it is a valuable life skills but also because she can bribe cloud retainer with food so she learned it with that as motivation

she just doesn't cook often because she's so busy

Public display of affections

they both aren't big fans of pda because xiao doesn't really get why people do pda and ganyu gets embarrassed easily

xiao however has the tendency to accidentally does pda and he always realizes it too late and then both of them are flustered messes

Protectiveness

xiao is a protector so he is quite protective of ganyu

he however knows that she can take care of herself most of the time so it doesn't come close to overprotectiveness

ganyu knows she cannot shield xiao from the horrors of his work because while she is strong in her own rights, xiao is far stronger as a yaksha and a general to boot

that, however, does not make her any less protective of him in the simple daily life things

she is very fussy with what he consumes and also keeps telling him to report shady people who come to him to the millelith

Relationship experiences

ganyu has exes, most of whom are dead - the archon war wasn't kind to the adepti and humans cannot hope to accompany a half-adeptus for the rest of her life

xiao, on the other hand, doesn't have exes because his work keeps him too busy to date

the closest thing he had to a romantic partner is the thing he had with his friends

[crimsonxe]

Since you continue to inject this bullshit in the main tag without the most basic thing of "rw/de" usage:

Um actually the thing you're trying to latch onto in a very faux leftist, even faux feminist manner is the gender of the mentor figures; rather than the relationship for why it is. You'd rather bitch about them being male and ignore pesky things like Ruby being Qrow's niece; Yang being Tai's daughter; Winter's family circumstances that would lead to her seeking someone like Ironwood & the Atlesian military; etc. This series doesn't act like males don't exist, they just don't take precedence over the femmes. Also fuck off and fuck your know-nothing ass bullshit trying to speak on what is or isn't empowerment; not to mention once again fully failing to know the damn story. Instead trying to go for faux ass feminist dogwhistles, that ignores the details (or more likely that your braindead ass just doesn't know the details). Basically familial ties and experience should be set aside to shove in femmes to I guess moronically boost RWBY's already 80% femme centered story to 99% instead; cause having all femmes is what makes a story empowering over y'know the girls making their own decisions, being badasses, and at the center of the damn story /sarcasm since your braindead ass probably wouldn't catch it otherwise.

Oh fuck off, that's is completely YOUR view not a general consensus. I love the relationship between Qrow and Ruby; Tai and Yang is interesting even if having some moments that are oof; Ironwood and Winter serves both towards her characterization and familial background situation; etc. Hell even another case of Blake and Sun fails on this front, because there's more people interested/focused on Blake and Yang or Blake and Ilia instead. Also what your dumbass is putting forward is to have sexism injected into the narrative in order for the MC's to overcome it vs. living in a society that doesn't pull that shit and instead treats them the same as any other person. Not to mention with Emerald and Mercury there's a lot going on there that's open to interpretation. The show doesn't at all need to shift to having every damn thing be femme focused in order to be empowerment. And yeah funny how femmes and males that do shitty things are put as fucking villains, so hard to figure why that might be.

That doesn't at all "center a man", it shows where Pyrrha's at in struggling with being put on a pedestal. That having someone break that mold is something that stands out for her as a result. Also no Ruby would NOT have fit in that story, because Ruby isn't a low-tier huntress needing help to even unlock her aura. Ruby isn't the one that is on Pyrrha's fucking team or interacted with her overall. Not to mention having her own dynamic in that vein with Penny.

Oh and absolutely take this bullshit disgusting ass sexist bullshit that just full-on shows your absolutely lacking any brainpower or knowledge of the goddamn story about Pyrrha "becoming Jaune's thing" and shove it up firmly right up your pathetic appalling inhuman sack of shit would get a fucking fist in the face if there weren't an internet connection in place ass. There is not a goddamn single fucking focus on her in that light, instead there is a repeated fucking honoring her as a hero and fighter; that yes Jaune DOES MOURN LIKE ANY FUCKING PERSON WOULD FOR THOSE CLOSE TO THEM. Congrats my view of your bitch ass was already low but this just lowers it into the fucking ground. You are a disgusting ass inhuman piece of sub-sewer sludge that never developed a brain and have not a single damn clue about the show or characters or hell even irl relationships; probably never once even had one being a pathetic shut away with no damn clue what humans do.

Helluva cogent-seeming point you raised about Every Single Major Rhubarb Lady being narratively tied with/driven by some dude. I mean, some of these dynamics run into 'well of course they're affected by uncle/dad/gramps/a BF', but even then, c'mon. Did Emerald really need to be juggling Cinder & Hazel as elder figures? Did (what we saw of) Yang's convalescence & initial PTSD struggle need to involve every onscreen teacher but Glynda? Hell, was Pyrrha & Jaune's thing *that* crucial to her role?

Yeah this. My problem isn't even really that they have mentors or influences in their lives that push them to make hard choices, my problem is that if you wanted an effective narrative about women supporting each other to be better then the vast majority of the mentors/close relationships should have been between two women. If EVERY girl has an Important Man in her life who strongly influences major decisions she makes, even at her own expense, then that just isn't a narrative where women are being empowered through choice without the input of a man.

This is why the relationships between Raven and Vernal or Emerald and Cinder or even Cinder and Salem (etc etc) are so much more interesting than a lot of the main relationships between girls and their mentors (or even between two men. Looking at Ozcar. And at Fair Game.), they're relationships between girls that never have anything to do with a man (Like, Emerald sees Mercury as something of a rival, even, same with Cinder and some of the men on team Salem. THEY feel like they are really struggling with men being valued over them, something the main girls never get to voice). And these characters are all notably antagonists for the bulk of the show.

Huge agree on the Jaune and Pyrrha thing, I think what they were going for was that Pyrrha felt othered by being put on a pedestal, and Jaune never did that to her, so she attached herself to him even when it didn't pay off. Which like, still centers a man I suppose (and like I've said before, I think even his role here should have been taken by Ruby, the main character and the person who actually saw her die, but then I guess they couldn't have done the time-suck Romance Plot they wanted) but it felt like a realistic reaction from her, like a choice she made herself that was not valued by him the way she wanted it to be. But then after she died she became Jaune's Thing, Jaune's Dead Not-Girlfriend, which just. Completely sours it for me.

[jeonstellate]

say the word

your exhaustion (and sudden crush on a certain bartender) somehow led you to your soulmate.

๑彡 lee seokmin x gender neutral!reader

๑彡 soulmate!au, bartender!au — kinda fluff(?)

๑彡 bulleted list format — 2.4K words

masterlist

[gif’s full credit belongs solely to its owner]

following the multiverse theory, this specific universe lives in first words

soulmates are connected by the words that the other speaks to them the very first time they meet

for this universe, the daemon-in-command has slightly increased the difficulty of finding one’s respective other half

or, at least, she took the anxiety of finding the right person up a notch

all for the sake of entertainment, really

by only giving the very first word they will utter to their destined half

literally just the first word

just one

chaos never fails to ensue whenever people get their word tbh

“i didn’t even know ‘ugh’ counts as a word???”

“what— they literally started with ‘what’— hOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FIND THEM WITH THIS???”

“. . . great. i’ll meet my soulmate and the first word they’ll tell me is ‘fuck’. that’s just great”

and also whenever they finally meet their other half

*smack!* “aw! what was that for?”

“you literally gave me an ‘okay’ tattoo! wdym what was that for—”

“but??? you also gave me an ‘okay’ tattoo???”

literally everything’s popcorn-worthy ngl

since one’s soulmate mark might be highly identical to many, the daemon-in-command added another layer of confirmation

by making the tattoos look holographic once they meet their one

(idk if i used the right word— i meant like . . . the tattoos glimmers when hit by light or smth)

(y’know . . . like, it shimmers every time the angle of the light changes)

(think abt those holo pcs)

(idk if those even helped, but wtv)

the luckier soul pairs are the ones who at least have one braincell between them

aka the ones with a person who smartly ask “name?” before saying anything else to a stranger they just met for the first time

since that meant their — the person who asked’s — soul mark is a name

which makes things a little bit easier

or like, more comforting ig

anyway

you’d be lying if you said you wouldn’t have preferred that name-pair mark

because

well

your word just so happened to be the most common word in the entirety of the english language

clue #1: it appeared in this work at least twenty-four times so far

(yes, i personally counted them myself)

clue #2: it was in the previous bullet before clue #1 — and it’s in this one, too

yup

that’s right

your soul mark says “the”

literally out of all the words you could’ve possibly end up with

you were chosen to be part of the continuously growing facebook page group

of unfortunate people who are given the word “the” as a mark

or alternatively, of unfortunate people who were destined with someone who failed to get into the program

you see

to lessen the chances of accidentally giving their soulmate a very common, highkey meaningless word, people of your generation started talking . . . kinda weird

like

take the name-pair example — instead of starting off with “what’s your name?” (and giving the soulmate “what’s” as their tattoo)

people often say, “name? what’s your name?” or smth of that sort

bc y’know

it’s preferable to have “name?” than “what’s” since it doesn’t leave much room for anxiety and overthinking

unfortunately for you, though

your tattoo certainly falls on the latter category — the one full of uncertainty and overthinking

you have no clue what your mark could possibly mean tbh

what are you and your soulmate talking about when you first meet?

is it a positive or a negative thing?

is the “the” like “the store isn’t open yet” or like “the sauce got in your clothes, did you know?” type of thing?

or maybe the “the” is “the one i want to love isn’t you” kind?

or even “the universe must’ve made a mistake”?

eh, who knows?

certainly not you, that’s for sure

thankfully, you tend to not dwell on the what-ifs of your soul mark

partly bc you’re too preoccupied trying to juggle your responsibilities

there are just too many deadlines, man

seriously

frankly, your life involves a solid routine

so there isn’t really a huge window for you to meet your one

you’ve pretty much met everyone that often exist within your routine, so you’ve already confirmed that your soulmate isn’t amongst them

which can only mean your soulmate must appear when you do something out of your routine

but those aren’t really easy to come by bc of your busy schedule

so yeah

not thinking abt your soul mark too much it is

in fact, you got used to basically ignoring your soul mark that

when you do do something out of your routine, you still don’t think abt it at all

just like right now, actually

currently, you are attending a farewell party for one of your friends

who is set to move away soon to live with their soulmate in another country

in a suburban house with a picket white fence

(ngl, ik those fences are nice and all, but what exactly do they do except add onto the house aesthetic?? they’re so short that anyone could literally step over them???)

(i just don’t see how they’ll help prevent any possible crime???)

(anyway…)

yea, that particular friend of yours sure does have traditional dreams

you’re not about to question them on their dreams tho

so let’s move on

you find yourself seating on a bar stool, alone and lowkey exhausted

actually, let’s rephrase that: you find yourself seating on a bar stool, alone and highkey exhausted

bc your friend literally just had to schedule their party on a friday

you get that most people consider friday as a weekend too, but dmn—

your weekday literally just ended hours before you were expected to attend

sure, there’s an interval time between them, but it’s only enough time for you to go home and get ready to go out again

you certainly didn’t have time to squeeze in a nap or smth

(i recognize this might be a very introverted attitude, so just think it was a hard, exhausting week and go with the flow)

just to reiterate: you’re tired

undoubtedly

but, even so, you don’t wanna go home yet

partly bc duh — you don’t get to go out that often

and plus, this might be the last time you see your friend for a while

and they’re literally feeding you for free . . . it’d be a waste you don’t take advantage of it, js

so, obviously, you just decided to recharge by isolating yourself from the action

and gather enough energy through that to socialize again in a bit

however

you didn’t include in your calculations that the person behind the counter would strike up a conversation with you

“the song . . . do you know the title?”

bartender dude asked you after handing you a glass of water you didn’t asked for

you turned to him

and immediately, you were rendered

speechless

jk, or you were just really tired that your comprehension is taking a while to load completely

whatever the case is, it took you a while to reply to the bartender dude

“water . . . you handed me water when i didn’t ask for one”

. . . except you didn’t actually reply to whatever he said when you did answer

but rather commented on whatever he just did instead

(yo, i think your brain short-circuited)

(either that or you’re deaf bc of the bg noise tbh)

thankfully, he took no offense

and just . . . laughed at you

“you looked like you needed one”

you don’t know if that was a good or bad thing

but you thanked him for his kindness, anw

bartender dude left you alone after that to tend to another customer

and, somehow, you found yourself following him with your eyes as you study him

from first glance, it was noticeable that he has a tall nose and a light melanin skin

he also appears to lean on the tall side, but you can’t be sure since you can’t see his shoes

for all you know, he may be wearing platform shoes — or those things you can put inside your shoes to appear taller, wtv those are

as you studied him longer, though, you noticed that he actually has a mole on his cheek

not to mention he tends to smile while talking — an act that often extends into his eyes

frankly speaking, you found bartender dude attractive as hell

that was why it kinda felt awkward when he caught you staring lmao

“can i know why you’re staring at me?”

uh-oh. you’re caught caught

good luck, buddy

you figured you should defend yourself and try to save yourself from embarrassment

but you were too stunned to speak

no one’s counting but that’s literally the second time he did that to you

and dude is literally just doing the bare minimum

“sorry,” you eventually uttered after failing to come up with an excuse

much to your great relief, he laughed

“you’re forgiven,” he accepted your apology with a smile, “but you should really check your wrist”

you paused as you registered his suggestion

“huh what why” you asked almost out of instinct

before looking down on your wrist

a part of you was relieved to find that your wrist was okay and still attached to your arm

by the way bartender dude made it sound, a part of you thought that something horrible had happened to your wrist

thankfully, that wasn’t the case

but the other part of you registered how the word on your wrist looks . . . different

it’s no longer dark-colored, but rather

its holographic

which means—

“i’ve lost my soulmate????” you panicked

literal translation: i’ve met my soulmate but idk which one they are????

which is valid, since you’ve met — and talked to — many people tonight

and it was the first time you looked down on your wrist

how can you find your soulmate now?

“name . . . what’s your name?” bartender dude broke you out of your panicked state

“[first name],” you answered while still in a daze

when he smiled again, your mind miraculously cleared, “it’s nice to meet you, [first name]. i’m seokmin.”

he offered his hand to you, but in a manner as though he was asking for yours — with his wrist facing up

and by doing so, he let you see his soul mark: a holographic “water” shining proudly under the bar lights

involuntary, you thought of the first exchange you had with seokmin

seokmin: “the song . . . do you know the title?”

you: “water . . . you handed me water when i didn’t ask for one”

truthfully, you didn’t want to jump into conclusions too fast

and embarrass yourself further in front of seokmin

so, to confirm your suspicions, you resorted to go about it subtly

“likewise,” you reached for his hand as your brain still strategized how to bring up the whole soul mark thingy. “so, about earlier . . . why did you ask if i know the title of the song?”

“oh, that. i was just checking if you were an actual guest of this event or if you just sneaked in” seokmin shrugged like it was no big deal, “the song that was playing that time was—“

“—‘only’ by leehi,” you completed his statement. “it’s juwon and mingyu’s theme song. bc it was the song that was playing when they first met.”

(i didn’t know whose names to use, so i just used theirs, lol. even if their story is no way connected here)

(let’s just say the couple in question didn’t neglect to tell all their friends abt their theme song so it’s reasonable for seokmin to use it as a secret code of sort)

(okay? okay)

“so you didn’t sneak in, after all” seokmin nodded to himself. “if we go with the same logic they have, then that means our theme song should be ‘only’, too”

bingo

bless seokmin for confirming your bond without you asking

he just saved you from possibly embarrassing yourself again

it is too early to think you love him already?

“let’s— let’s not go with the same logic,” you tell him. “besides, we haven’t gone on a date yet; our theme song should be the least our priorities”

seokmin chuckled softly, “you’re right. so how ‘bout we schedule our first one right now?”

and so, for the rest of the farewell party, you stayed at the bar — accompanying seokmin as he worked

“i’m not working! i’m here as a favor,” he corrected you after you pointed out that he should probably get back to work instead of just talking to you, “mingyu’s not paying me, so it’s okay if i slack off a little”

don’t get him wrong, though: he still helped out the people that approached the bar, he just wasn’t looking like he was available to be approached since he spent all his free time talking to you

you two ended up talking abt a lot of things, partly because both of you never seemed to run out of things to say

you weren’t not rlly sure if it was bc seokmin’s your soulmate or bc he’s just rlly easy to talk to

but either way

you never mentioned how you had to have him confirm your bond just for you to be sure

it was a secret you were willing to take to the ground, ngl

if it weren’t for your own compass telling you it would best if your relationship had no secrets

so

yeah

you did end up coming clean a couple of months later, after you two officially started dating

and

suffice to say

that conversation did not go the way you expected

at all

“did you know i had no idea you were my soulmate back then until you basically told me”

“i did know that, actually”

???????

*insert a person standing emoji here*

(times thirteen, maybe)

huH???

“remember when i asked you why you were staring at me back then? i was actually waiting for you to say something about us being soulmates

“but you didn’t. and then when i told you to check your wrist, you panicked about losing your soulmate

“so i figured you still didn’t know who i was then”

oh.

wow.

talk abt unnecessary anxiety

you lowk stressed abt admitting that to him, just for it to be for nothing??

hmph

jk

not that you were complaining, ofc

you were just . . . too surprised

when relief started to take over, you eventually thought

huh. maybe back then really wasn’t too early for you to think you love seokmin, after all

[dual-ies]

hi, this is @frindoka ‘s Squid Blog! ☝️ here’s Some of my guys (all agents, i have some other ones too), i made this primarily to just post about my ocs for fun lol. short blurbs are under the cut !

my splatoon oc universe is some sort of convoluted weird splat3 au, but hey, i’ll make it make sense one day. contains splatoon 3 spoilers as well

new/neo agent 3 (ari): they/them

very airheaded and spaces out a lot.

named their lil buddy “fortnite” because they thought it would be cool (they found a super beat up copy buried somewhere and thought of it as ancient treasure or something. lol)

kind of stumbled into the sewer on accident and was immediately appointed to agent despite having no fucking clue what’s going on. is fine with it.

sibling of adonis- still reeling from the fact their sibling has been working for the new squidbeak splatoon for a While before they joined. explains the random disappearances.

autistic! doesn’t pick up on most social cues, and has a resting blank face. very friendly though!

fortnite is their best friend if you say anything mean about fortnite they WILL cry and then bite you and then cry again. in that order

chin scar from banging their chin on the edge of a table when they were younger. very embarrassed by this

internet friends with 4/caiman since caiman lives in THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING NOWHERE? and ari in splatsville. they visit each other sometimes though.

agent 3 (anchor): they/them

Also autistic (can u tell i’m projecting.), stone-faced and threatening looking, actually kind of a dork and a loser and is pretty nice. doesn’t speak to most people, if they have to it’s in whispers and short sentences. not cause they’re mean at all though

definitely weird and strange and off putting. eats rocks for fun, will shovel the snow from alterna in their mouth if they were dared to do it.

that sanitization scar is still there uh oh

fond of fortnite. Fortnite is Not Fond of them. also ari thinks they have cooties from ripley/8. anchor doesn’t have cooties (promise)

lots of scars that they’ll insist are from cool battles but they literally just. trip and fall a lot. a few Are from fights but most of them.. are from clumsiness.

agent 24 …..

agent 8 (ripley): he/she

got her nose scar during the fight with 3 while they were sanitized. 3 feels real bad about it still

generally very kind and caring and has a smooth voice, welcoming yet weary around strangers- takes a bit for him to warm up but he’s like the nicest person you will ever meet otherwise

likes nudibranchs. fond of those little beasts!!!

really fuckin good whenever she decides to participate in turf war it’s Kind Of Scary. primarily uses snipers or sloshers.

has visited splatsville a few times. seen fortnite once. she loves him he is her pal!!! her buddy!!!!!!! fortnite is indifferent.

agent 4 (caiman): he/she/they

transed gender. (tbh all of them are but like. most explicitly obvious) named themselves after caimans cause they bite people too.

has gotten into a LOT of fights and has tripped and fallen a LOT, resulting in near constant bruises and scrapes and a few scars. anchor tries to get them to be more careful despite being on the same level of clumsiness…

loud and doesn’t shut up but like. real funny, cracks a lot of jokes but sometimes doesn’t understand the right time to make them.

loves fortnite. fortnite is fond of him. they’re pals!

caiman knows about ari’s agent work and vice versa (he let it slip on accident over a text and ari was horrified cause they work there too)

onto the. Not “Canon” Agents who r just originalll ocs

agent 6 (amaranth): she/he

friendly! excitable! very overwhelmingly positive person, sunshine pours out of him like a faucet and leaks into others hearts… even adonis’

had no friends before the squidbeak splatoon- her overly excitable behavior annoyed a lot of people she was around (those people sucked anyways help) , and they basically all abandoned her. gives her lots of Issues, but she’s healing.

relatively new recruit? has been there for a year ish at most. lives with adonis and ari & is in the Love w adonis lol (they’re dating!)

good at baking.

fortnite kind of scares him

agent 5 (adonis): they/it

was once kinda like amaranth (loud n excitable) before trauma hit them like a truck and now they’re super closed off and bitter. they learn how to be more open with amaranth and ari’s help and care.

former friends with agent X (tehyre divorced. squid divorced.) before X turned out to be working with Bad Guys (tm) - adonis ends up shooting/splatting them when their backs turned and feels a LOT of guilt over it

pays the rent for its apartment but sometimes ari and amaranth chip in

fun fact me making ari and adonis look similar was completely accidental, but i made them siblings to explain their similar appearances lol…

secretly really likes fortnite. it sneaks out salmon eggs from its side job @ grizzco to feed to him.

agent x (nobody knows! not even me!): they/them

mad scientist archetype.

works (worked) with mr grizz to create the fuzzy ooze after they respawned in a … completely random place. (with both their communicator + little respawn machine thing all broken) ended up a test subject for grizz to see if the fuzzy ooze worked before he scattered it about, and now the ooze is slowly overtaking their entire body.

generally a nuisance but not dangerous unless they want to be. kind of like deep cut but they show up way more frequently in random areas to bother adonis specifically.

what’s a fortnite?

generally feels a lot of resentment towards adonis but also mr grizz cause of the fuzzy ooze thing, but he’s their boss + he promised to reverse the effects… Eventually. Maybe.

they uh. they fcuking die btw like since their respawn thing is all broken (basically inklings/octolings have respawn machine things? attached to clothing/backpacks/whatever in order to respawn safely, specifically during turf wars, so they don’t end up just. Dying… but since X’s is broken and barely got them to respawn randomly in the first place, they die as soon as they get pushed into the water in alterna. rip bozo)

[historicity-was-already-taken]

im gonna be a dick and call this post “Gender Trouble”

@hellocutenerd4life first of all, THANK YOU for the kind words. For new kids, this is the original post @hellocutenerd4life is referring to. There are multiple versions going around, some with really good commentary, some with commentary that makes me want to claw my eyes out, and one that @neil-gaiman​ penned and he doesn’t know it yet but he’s going to be endorsing my book. Look through the notes. Second of all [this got really really long because it raised a lot of fascinating historiographic and methodological questions and concerns]…..this ^ commentary brings up a really interesting set of points and questions. For example:

-how does the culture/society/nation in question define gender, and how, according to the available sources, did ordinary people living in that context define it for themselves?

-is the gender binary a historical constant, or a quirk of contemporary western society?

-how do we look for genderqueer and trans identities in societies which conceived of gender differently than we do now?

-How did members of the culture/society/nation in question understand genitalia, and its relationship (or lack thereof) to gender

-If members of the culture/nation/and society were gender nonconforming, how would they have expressed that in the available sources? How did they use language?

The best work I've seen which truly questions and investigates sources with genderqueer and trans identities is The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth Century America by Margot Canaday.

Now, let's apply your concerns to a. Jewish women and migration in late 1930s Germany, and b. young Polish Jewish women who were at least in their teens by 1939.

First, Germany. The Weimar Republic had an active and well documented queer* scene. I can only assume that Jewish people engaged in that world--I can't give you definite statements here, because I've never done that specific research and asked those questions. But, I do know enough about the history of 1930s German Jewry to make several assumptions.

The women the original post was about were generally upper/middle class women, whose husbands worked outside the home. Though Central European Jewish gender roles allowed for all kinds of fun--analytically speaking--we're still talking about a conservative heteronormative group.

So, how would we queer Marion Kaplan's work in Between Dignity and Despair? What questions do we need to ask of the available sources? What language do we need to look for? Can translations be of any service in this particular area, or will they inherently distort any turns of phrase which can give us clues to genderqueer identities in this period? I can’t answer any of these right now, but they’re the questions we need to ask should we attempt to look for these histories, expressions, and identities in upper middle class 1930s German Jewish households.

Now, interwar Polish Jewry in their teens and early 20s by 1939. This is a very cool, weird group. They were known as a "youth without a future," because they were coming of age at a time when heightened Polish anti-Semitism and the Great Depression were coming together to well and truly screw them out of jobs, universities, educational access, etc. They, by and large, felt that their parents were incapable of helping, let alone understanding, their situation, and so they turned to political youth groups for guidance and identity.

Interwar Poland had a fuckton of political youth groups in every political flavor imaginable: Orthodox anti-Zionist, Orthodox Zionist, Orthodox Neither, Bundism (anti-Zionist Polish nationalist in terms of working class solidarity across and beyond Polish ethnoreligious boundaries), Socialist, Communist, Socialist Zionist, Communist Zionist, Pioneering Zionist, Hardcore Right Wing Zionist that the other Zionists didn't fuck with, etc. Meaning, that these young people looked outside the construct of the nuclear family for guidance, morals, etc. 

It also happened that this generation rejected the traditional manner of Polish/Eastern European Jewish engagement in national politics. For quite a time in Eastern European Jewish communities, the way Jews got rights for themselves was basically like, by begging and scraping before the local governor. Like, humbly supplicating yourself before the local Polish magistrate to try to get protection from pogroms.

Interwar Polish Jewry (ie these political groups and the cultures they fostered) rejected these modes of political interaction, and instead moved to a space of demanding rights for Jews under their constitutionally given status as a National Polish Minority. No more begging, no more scraping, no more acting like the Polish Catholics would be doing them favors if they were to suddenly refrain from harassing Jewish university students.

So, what does that mean for gender and gender roles? Certainly you have the classic Eastern European Jewish gender roles and ideals: nuclear household, husband stays home and studies, wife raises children and makes money for the household in a public sphere kind of way (see Gender and Assimilation in Modern Jewish History: The Roles and Representation of Women by Paula Hyman for more). BUT THEN you throw in the youth groups and their influence over young minds. What did they teach about gender and sexuality?

Well, we know that some were immensely puritanical when it came to issues of sex and sexuality. Some were pretty chill about sex, and were very into public health and sex education. Others encouraged romance between its young members, but didn't have an ideology in either direction. Where the youth groups really shine, though, is the very specific way they handled gender.

Like, yeah they did have strictly defined gender roles and conceptions of what men should be doing, and women should be doing. But what's interesting is that I do not see, in the sources, much straight-up misogyny. I actually see a lot of deep male respect for their female peers, in that these men perceived women as their equals, merely carrying out different functions. There was obviously patriarchy and sexism, but its presentation in these cultural groupings was just....different. It's wearing a very specific, complicated, and muted hat. The biggest Thing I see was that men consisted referred to their female peers as “girls,” in memoirs and such, but....so did the women. Like I said, it’s a very specific hat.

And that brings us to questions of sexuality, and gender presentation. How do we queer Interwar Polish Jewish youth? Do we look to gender role subversion, modes of dressing? How do we look at modes of dressing for members of ideological groups which dictate "androgynous," physical labor-ready clothes for everyone and look down on cosmetic usage [ie pioneering Zionism; like, Queen Zivia did not fuck with lipstick]? What language do we look for to find evidence of gender and sexual ID?

How does language impact these questions? Interwar Polish youth groups were extremely political about what language they and their members used to carry out their work, and the choice between Hebrew, Yiddish, and Polish was a deeply political/ideological one. All of those languages have their own constructs and expressions and nuances in the context of gender, sex, and interwar Poland, so what should we look for when questioning the sources? Can we even attempt to ask these questions when it comes to translated sources?

This is very long and potentially boring, but what I'm trying to do here is illustrate all the questions we (as historians) have to ask, and contexts we have to understand, before we can approach the sources with questions regarding sex, sexuality, gender expression, etc. These constructs are in constant flux, so you need an in-depth understanding of where they stand in the exact time and place you're looking at before you can even begin your interrogation of the sources.

And to be clear, I don't have these answers for Interwar Central and Eastern European Jewry. I have a grasp on what the questions might look like, but certainly not the answers.

It makes me want to claw my eyes out (my second time using that turn of phrase in this post; I am both dramatic and unoriginal today), but Judith Butler's Gender Trouble is really good at demonstrating all of the questions we have to ask ourselves as historians before we even begin to question the sources. I'd also take a look at Joan Scott's works.

If this post reads to (general) you as "ummm there were no trans, genderqueer, or otherwise queer identities before 1970s k bye" then (general) you need to do a reread. There absolutely 100% most certainly were. But before historians can look for them, they HAVE to understand how that time/culture/place/etc understood gender. And in historiographic terms, the work being conducted to understand those questions--in my field and many others--is still fairly new.

There's still SO much work to be done, and I, for one, am extremely excited about it. One of my biggest regrets is that I struggle so much with languages, that I'll probably only ever be able to do this work outside of English-language (originally, not translated into English) sources.

*I am as interested in getting into the "queer" discourse as I am about getting into the "Kristallnacht" discourse. As in: I'm not. Don't even bother.

[wagner-fell]

Mari kicked down the dressing room door with a bang so loud Kevin jumped and spilled his hot coffee cup all over himself. Hearing his yelps of pain, Astrid peaked her head out of the curtain, laughed at his expense then shut it again. Maria ignored that.

They strutted out to where the boys were sitting and struck a pose. “Can I rock cottage core or can I rock cottage core?”

Kit didn’t trust himself to speak. He simply nodded instead. While the baby blue dress with short, ruffled sleeves looked a bit out of place paired with Mari’s bulging muscles, she looked absolutely stunning.

The Merry Hoes were located in the back room of the antique store Kevin’s family owned. The Chu’s just got a large donation of vintage clothing. Mari had just gotten their pay check from the downworlder gym she worked at. Kit and Astrid really didn’t want to do their maths homework. It was destiny.

Despite being downworlders both Blessica and Kevin still lived at home. Mari, though, lived with the rest of their pack in an old Edwardian mansion a few blocks away from school. However the five of them slept over at each other’s place of residence so often they blurred together in the young Herondale’s mind. He could really only tell them apart by their smells.

Mari’s reeked of dirty laundry as they were one of four folks on the feminine side of the gender scale out of the lycanthropy of London, Blessica excluded. Her house smelled like Ube, a type of yam her Filipino parents put in everything. Kit couldn’t complain. Ube flavoured ice cream was the best thing he’s ever eaten. Aside from Mari. Though he wasn’t usually the one… Nevermind.

Kevin’s house smelled of Longjing tea and red wine. A peculiar combination that oddly enough, worked quite well.

Astrid had two homes as her parents divorced at the age of six. Stepping into her mom’s house was like stepping into a cookie factory. Which made sense as her mom owned a bakery and lived above it. Kit didn’t know exactly what Astrid’s dad’s place smelled like, let alone looked like, but he could make an educated guess that it was similar to the Los Angeles Institute because it was in LA too.

After they separated, Miss Yang fled to Devon to dodge the possibility of seeing her ex-husband when they exchanged Astrid. Kit related to her on a deep, personal level.

Now Astrid spent her summers in America and Kit drained his battery on international phone calls.

Her three months in the USA each year helped him bond with her better when they had first been introduced. For example, her ringtone was the Perry the Platypus theme song. Blessica, Kevin and Maria had no clue what it was but when the music reached Kit’s ears, the two sang an epic duet that put Kiss Me More (the second most iconic duet in history) to shame.

“How much is this anyway,” asked Mari, turning in a circle to see if there was a price tag. In the process she sent the fabric fluttering as she went. It made them look more magical than ever.

“There is no price on fabulousness,” said Astrid. She had on loose, black dress pants, a white shirt, and black suspenders with gold blemishes.

“Yes there is,” replied Kevin. “54 euros.”

“54 euros,” exclaimed Mari.

“Well it would have been €34 but you made me spill my coffee and this shirt was 20 so..”

“Seriously, Kev. I will fuck your mom. You think I won’t?” A pause. “Wait, only twenty €20?”

“Oh, I know right! There is this incredible thrift store down on Fleet Street and-”

“Don’t care,” interrupted Mar. She took one last look in the mirror before turning back to him. “I’ll give you your parents' price, not your dramatic ass’s one.”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “Fine. But it’s an extra €10 for the shoes.”

Mari looked down at her tan sandals. They leaned against the door they just excited to take the footwear off. “Racist,” she muttered under her breath.

“I’m literally Chinese.”

“Homophobic, then.”

“Pansexaul,” he sang.

Mari was silent for a moment before she banged on the door into the room Blessica was changing into her rose pink gown. “Blessie! Do I have permission to call Kev transphobic in your name?”

“Hey,” said Kevin, looking up from his task of rubbing a paper towel across his sheer, white shirt. “That’s cheating. Blessie, don’t listen to them!”

The nickname ‘Blessie’ was what her family exclusively called her. She turned red when they had first found out. Granted, it wasn’t hard to make Blessica blush. All she had to do was stand in Kevin’s general area.

“Blessica,” called Mari once again. When she still didn’t answer, Maria stood up and pressed their forehead against the changing room door. “You okay?”

“No,” Blessica croaked out finally. Her hoarse voice was laced with sorrow. Upon hearing her speak, Kevin abandoned any hope of saving his top and joined Mari at the door. Kit and Astrid were quick to follow.

“Hey,” said Astrid gently. “What’s wrong?”

Blessica began to sob. “The dress doesn’t fit right,” she whimpered.

“That’s okay,” soothed Kevin. “We have other sizes.”

“Kev, it doesn’t fit my body because it wasn’t made for my body. I just feel so ugly.” All the other Merry Hoes made various sounds of distress. Kit was instantly reminded of Dru,

He was suddenly fifteen again. In Ty’s bedroom as he told him of all the times she’d been told she wasn’t pretty by members of the Shadowhunter society. And all the times Emma or Julian or another member of her family had reassured her that she was. The thought occurred to Kit that maybe they weren’t Emma-y as Blessica needed them to be.

“It’s just like,” started Blessica, “I started taking Estrogen seven months ago, you know? And I still don’t have anything to show for it.”

His mind was racing a mile a minute. “Yes you do,” he said.

“I do?” she asked, sounding dubious.

“Your voice!”

“You do have a really nice voice,” agreed Astrid. “You could totally narrate audiobooks or something.”

“No it’s not,” grumbled Kevin.

“Kevin,” said Mari, glaring daggers at him. ‘Kevin’ in this case didn’t mean Kevin. It meant ‘Shut your mouth right or I will actually kill you’.

“No, not like that! It’s just…” he was blushing profusely now. “Her voice is like the rain. Most of the time it’s soft and warm and it wraps you in one big, wet hug. You can’t help but feel, well, blessed to get to feel it touching your skin.. But when it rains hard you feel every single drop land. But no matter what kind of rain it is, the impact is always enormous. Uh, yeah, her voice is like that.” There was a moment of prolonged silence, where Blessica had stopped crying but no one was brave enough to talk.

The door opened and Kit, Kevin and Astrid stumbled backwards. Mari didn’t. Stupid gorgous jock, Kit thought as she survayed her inferiourors.

Blessica stood in the open doorway. Her eyes were puffy and red. The dress looked perfect on her. Not that this style hadn’t looked perfect on Mari but their arms were so thick, they filled up the entire selve. Blessica was so petite you could see her bones clearly through the skin. It highlighted the flowness of the gown extremely well. “You guys like my voice?” Then, “why are you all staring at me, is it that bad?”

“Blessie,” said Mari. “You can’t just put on that in front of four people who like women and expect them not to stare.”

“Respectfully, of course,” added Kit.

“Just tell us if it makes you uncomfortable,” agreed Kevin.

“Step on me,” breathed Astrid.

“But then again,” said Mari, “you validate yourself too.”

“Run me over with a cement truck.”

“We can see your hot as fuck. But more importantly you have to believe you’re hot as fuck.”

“You could literally kill me and I’d get on my knees to thank you.”

Blessica was blushing as hard as Kevin now. They sheepishly smiled at each other before turning away. “Simp,” said Kit and he held out his hand. Astrid dutifully rewarded him with a high five.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I am on the trans spectrum but I am not mtf. If you are and you feel misrepresented please feel free to private message me or just leave a comment tell me how I can fix it.

@the-wckd-powers @book-dragon-not-worm @thechangeling @the-blackdale @ithurielkeepsgettingkidnapped @illusions-give-reasons-to-live @shelvesofgold @arangiajoan @maxboythedog @noah-herondale-lightwood @its-taff @cncnbr @sofiatheskeleton @thomas-gaypanic-lightwood @im-not-ruined-im-ruination @adoravel-fenomeno

Let me know if I left anyone out. Also let me know if you want to be added or removed from the tag list.

[talesfromcordonia]

The more I play other roleplay apps the more I realise Choices isn’t that good. AKA Why I’ve gone from buying the £100 package a month to not bothering anymore

Why?

Our choices don’t make the slightest bit of difference to the story, like at all. In a few other apps, the choices I make open up completely different dialogues depending on my choices, throughout the book (not for the next few sentences). On some of these apps I get nothing for replaying the story again, no advert reward or anything but I do it because it’s interesting to see the completely different reactions from people. It’s almost a whole new story when everyone treats you differently.

Who you romance doesn’t change the story. This isn’t true in other apps either. If you romance more than one person in other apps, your other LI choices will be annoyed and break up with you. There will be different scenes available to you or not depending on who you chose. As in they will be completely missing from a scene if you’re not romancing that person because them being there makes no sense (I’m looking at you Mayor Dixon, you’re my boss not my partner. Why are you at my birthing class for kids that aren’t yours).

Your LI’s/friends groups also have lives outside of you. They don’t follow you around like lost puppies all the time.

Everything’s really generic. Gender of Choice is nice but they’re all written as blank slates. At least in the other apps where the LI is fixed gender or single LI they have personality traits and depth to their characters. They have backgrounds and family and personalities that make sense for their gender. You don’t end up with the ‘Sam and Sofia’s father’ situation that makes ZERO sense if Sam is female.

Other apps have managed to keep giving us content to the same standard and level as during the pandemic. If I don’t like something, there’s a different book I can read, not with Choices. Content has all but disappeared.

Again diamond choices don’t mean SHIT. I can’t stress how little making a diamond choice in Choices means to the storyline.

I don’t think a single person a Choices has met a child. I don’t have kids but I do have nieces. I also know how to use the internet to google children’s growth and development.

Choices is REALLLLLLY bad at the passage of time. Really bad. Sure they’ll pop in a one liner about a couple of weeks here and there but that’s not all the clues you need, especially when it’s perpetually one season in most books. Background with different seasons, birthdays, anniversaries would all help and guess what, you could do diamond choices with these things. Instead Most books seem to lack a consistent timeline, I’m sure they wrote one but they’re really bad at getting it across. Children that never seem to grow up, dogs that remain puppies beyond their years.

Backgrounds that don’t match the text. I’m fine with reusing backgrounds but if you’ve described the background as one thing it should freaking match. And they’ll resuse the SAME background in the same book and sometimes the SAME chapter for a different place. They’ll also do it with sprites, sometimes with just a change of clothes, like they don’t have a massive back stock of sprites. LAZY AF.

Speaking of... there’s so many little things in the text in practically every chapter that don’t match the background/item/image they use. It’s happened with TNA when Sam said they were going to make us pancakes with bacon and eggs. We got a dessert pancake. It wouldn’t have taken long to use the files they have to make pancakes with bacon and eggs on it. It happened again with the kittens in the last chapter of TNA, literally all they had to do was stick them on a background and it’d make sense. Nope, kittens on a floating white background because that’s how texts work in Choices. It’s fucking lazy and breaks the customer experience. I don’t see this with other apps.

Reusing LI’s names. Again, google, it’s free. Use it.

And finally, misgendering of the LI.

@playchoices

[omegawolverine]

Plesse tell me about queerness in the get down!!

okay okay queerness in the get down let's fuckn goooo

disclaimer: I havent watched this show in full for like 5 months at least, probably gonna get something wrong and/or forget some more important bits. also this wasnt proof read I just word vomited

tws: period typical homophobia, abuse mention, f slur use, bury your gays trope, overdose mention, mention of a creepy possible age gap (the age gap hasnt been confirmed so that's why its possible), cops

going from least to most prominent queer characters, let's start with mylene cruz!

so, from the beginning of this show she has an established romantic relationship with ezekiel (although the status of their actual relationship changes frequently throughout the show) and though this was a relationship she was hesitant to pursue, it is clear that she does have romantic feelings for him and if not for them both having growing careers in very different music genres (zeke specifically working in a genre that she repeatedly labels as bad because she thinks they're ruining records + that it isnt real music because they're using someone elses piece and rapping over it, that's not really important here tho lol) they probably wouldve had a much healthier, smooth sailing romance. that being said theres a few things that happen in the show that, while not explicitly clear, or even really good coding at that—to the point where you wont catch if you really arent looking for it (and trust me, I always look for coding, hers was just so little that it flew over my head until I saw someone else mention it)—are still cool to think about!

so, for starters, I wanna mention the toy box performance, which was performed by mylene and regina, who are best friends. that's all cool and shit, and you dont really think much about it...until you hear about the fact that the show runners purposely colored a lot of the scenes in that performance with the bi colors. like. the writers after the show ended basically said "oh yeah there was plans to make her coding more explicit, but our shit got cancelled soooo" and then dropped the fact that she was gonna be bi (or at least implies bi) in the series, which puts a new twist on a few things.

now, besides the bi coloring in the background of the toy box performance (which was mostly on scenes with her and regina, which involved a lot of uh,, lowkey lewd dancing. with each other. in very revealing outfits. wooooo), there's her music! I dont tend to read too much into this one bc, like I said before, her coding is fucking light and the writers themselves said they didnt really get to do much with it, but I think some stuff with her music is interesting. specifically how her, yolanda and regina's song set me free blew up because dizzee, resident (lowkey enby coded) bicon, got their song played in a queer club. also that the song was majorly important to dizzee and started playing literally right as he kissed a boy for the first time and realized "oh shit I like boys that's bonkers". also that the song can be taken in a gay way since literally the entire thing is about becoming your true self, fully and unapologetically, which is what both dizzee and mylene's entire character arcs are about. dizzee (and a lot of other queer people, apparently), heard this song about being set free and it resonated with them so much that they got that shit most of its popularity.

speaking of dizzee and mylene, they parallel each other a lot in the way that their arcs are about them realizing who they are, coming into themselves and no longer just letting people treat them like shit in a sense (dizzee starting to tell people essentially that they can call him weird all they want, they can make fun of how he acts, what he likes, how he dresses, etc. but he likes how he is and quite literally saying "it's okay to be an alien" as he has consistently compared himself to one throughout the show vs mylene learning that if she wants to be a disco singer she needs to put her foot down, not let anyone, not even the love of her life, not even her abusive father, stop her from achieving her dreams, etc. and continuing to pursue her career with or without their support). one more little parallel that I think is interesting is during I think s2 towards the end of the show is when dizzee and thor are shown together having fun with each other, painting all over the building and each other and are basically just being happy and in love together and then they have these clips of them being interspersed with clips of mylene at a party where she is starting to realize that if she wants to get anywhere she needs to be her own main priority and that she needs to put her career and her dream, which is what makes her the happiest, above all else if she wants to succeed. idk I just think how the show made these two into a weird parallel, accidental or not, is neat. maybe not an explicitly queer parallel, but I think at least how her music and whatnot helped dizzee, the main queer character in this show, blossom, is important.

moving on we got shaolin fantastic also known as "oh no your internalized homophobia is showing-"

so, heres a quick list of...interesting shao facts:

Consistently referred to as fag/faggot (shaolin fanfaggot is my personal favorite); he gets really defensive about this despite nobody actually thinking he's queer, it's just people being assholes to be assholes, and he is the only character consistently referred to using a slur, especially a homophobic one, especially for a "straight" character. dizzee, a canonically queer character, is called a fag less than shaolin is even though dizzee actively goes to gay clubs, has a not so secret dude he "hangs out with" and wont let anyone properly meet, paints his nails, wears less than straight clothes even by the 70s standards and is just all around the definition of fucking queer (and I mean like in the weird way, not the gay way). in fact theres only like once I can remember him being called a fag and it had nothing to do with him actually being gay it was literally just like thrown out there the same way you would call someone a bitch.

Has only shown sexual interest in women, yet refuses to have deeper relationships with women in general (possibly because of trauma but who knows) but takes his relationships with his "brothers", specifically zeke, very seriously

Tells zeke and zeke ONLY his real name when zeke was planning to stop being his friend bc shao more or less got boo boo, a like 14 year old black kid, arrested for selling hard drugs; he was clearly scared and trying to do anything to keep zeke around, literally chasing him down the street and hounding him until he got zeke to stop and argue with him

Kept threatening to beat up zeke in the end but couldn't actually bring himself to do so, instead saying that zeke is "fucking lucky" before walking away

Let's zeke get away with things that nobody else can, in general just has a weird soft spot for ezekiel that he shows with nobody else

when shao found dizzee with thor in a vaguely compromising situation (like they were just shirtless covered in paint sleeping next to each other but shao had also seen everything they painted on the walls ((which some of it was sus)), it was clear they had painted on each others bodies and dizzee had been routinely disappearing with this guy for weeks now yet not producing nearly as much art, at least, as far as we audience members know) he didnt judge him but instead, waited for him to get cleaned up and then told him something along the lines of "theres a reason why im so secretive blah blah blah [not everyone needs to know everything about me]", which, in context, kinda implies that he might be a lil. a lil homiesexual. jus a lil.

whenever even the possibility of zeke leaving him comes up he absolutely loses it. he has literally cost ezekiel life changing opportunities because he thought zeke would just up and leave him for them. this could be abandonment issues bc he's a severely traumatized character, and that probably does contribute to it, but it also is just not a reaction he has to any of their other friends just randomly dipping in and out of his life soooooo

generally speaking, this mfer has got either bisexual with a big hard on for zeke coding or homosexual with terrible internalized homophobia and still a hard on for zeke coding. either fucking way, that nigga gay. he gay as hell. gay as fuck man. there wasn't really much to analyze here tbh bc the coding is just so fucking obvious if you look for it or you are/have been a gay person who's dealt with at least a little bit of internalized homophobia.

also, just a sidenote, idk how fucking old shao, but I'm praying hes like at max 19 bc I'm pretty sure zeke is a minor in this show and shao definetly is not so the whole him being heavily implied to have a crush on ezekiel thing is kinda. oof. not oof if zeke is like 17 but any younger than that? OOF.

edit: apparently the characters are only supposed to be a year apart in age but i had no clue about that before writing this post and since shaos age was never actually stated in the show i naturally assumed he was an adult since his actor Looks Like An Adult. this is definetly on me to a certain extent, but i also never saw anything about this when trying to find our their ages so 🤷‍♀️ maybe i just didnt look deep enough, sorry!

now moving on to the main event...marcus dizzee kipling :]

so, first things first, let's talk enby coding bc him being bisexual was already confirmed!

um, to start off, I just wanna say I dont think this enby coding was intentional or even really coding, it's just moreso me being a dizzee kin on main and knowing as a transmasc enby he has very transmasc enby vibes. for example:

cool, gender neutral nickname that everyone calls him

paints nails various different colors

the whole wardrobe is just a transmasc enby heaven...fishnet shirts, jean overalls, jackets and cuffed pants galore, the big colorful pins, etc

gender neutral hairstyle (when I had my fro it was very sexy and made it easy to transition between hyper masc and vaguely fem, which is pog)

comparing himself to/representing himself consistently with an alien character (though this is meant to represent his sexuality, it could also double as a gender thing too, not neccesarily bc of the whole nonbinary alien trope but bc an enby who likes aliens might heavily identify or compare themselves to whatever their idea of an alien is, whether that just be a genderless entity or a motherfucker with fly style and no need to be perceived as anything other Wacky As Hell)

moving on from there, let's talk about how his queerness is presented to us and how, while it may be a really good piece of representation, especially coming from netflix, it still lacks in A Lot of places.

so, let's start with good things!

i personally really like the get down's queer rep with dizzee bc it's (for the most part) nonsexualized and very very soft, about dizzee figuring himself out and realizing there is a place where he fits in, and about two teenagers in the 70s falling in love over their shared passion for street art. it also features an interracial couple where both boys challenge stereotypes both about queer men and men of color, which is epic poggers and very sexy. this piece of rep specifically is very important to me bc I am a queer black person and even tho interracial relationships are mostly normalized now, I've still had people give me shit for primarily dating white people in a town that is...primarily white lol

mm anyways, I can also appreciate how in the get down, dizzee being represented by rumi the alien is not a thing specifically related to gender (as it often is) and instead is about his sexuality and just in general weirdness and how it has led to him being alienated amongst his peers, poc or otherwise. him seeing himself as an alien is not about just his queerness, which is important, it is about him being a queer black man who talks different, acts different, dresses different and is "soft"—he isnt a walking black male stereotype and he wouldnt have been seen as masculine back in the 70s by any stretch of the imagination. this can be relatable to a wide spectrum of queer poc, from queer black men currently who still have to deal with this shit or to people like myself who are afab neurodivergent mixed race enbies that have always been signaled out as weird and alienated for it. dizzee is god rep bc while he has a small part in this show, his parts are very impactful, hard hitting and show queer poc of all ages that they arent alone and that it's okay to "weird", you just need to embrace it because somebody will love you for you, as thor did for dizzee.

that being said theres um. some minor problemas here,,,

namely:

dizzee and thors first kiss

the lack of development this pairing got

the way dizzee was confirmed bisexual off screen, he never said the words himself, just showed interest in both genders

the way dizzee and thor were never even confirmed boyfriends or just fwb so most of the fandom just calls them boyfriends bc Why Not

dizzee was implied fucking DEAD??? AT THE END OF THE SERIES?????? AND THOR WAS IMPLIED ARRESTED?????????????

now, these might have been things that wouldve been fine had the show been given it's full run but it wasnt which is why we are now left with probelms.

so, from the top, let's go over these: dizzee and thor's first (and only "on screen") kiss was one that was shown in a montage of other queer people making over and doing other vaguely romantic/sexual things, one of those things being a whole ass naked titty being mouthed at, but the actual kiss...was just not shown? like they really did just say "yes they kissed <3 you know this from the context clues of it being in a montage with kissing, hickey giving and titty sucking <3 but no we will not show it <3" LIKE HELLO? I SAW A NAKED BOOBIE BUT NOT TWO MEN KISS??? HUH????????

also, dizzee and thor were both fucking high as hell during this bit like this isnt a terrible thing but it's also like sometimes you do shit when you're high that you wouldnt do sober and they just never kissed again on screen so like?? like idk that's not that bad but it does kinda irk me since they deadass got no other on screen intimacy after that unless you including painting on eacher other or sleeping next to each other on a shitty mattress but not touching at all during it bc they were both at opposite ends of the mattress like half way off it

so yeah, that was trash. then we got lack of development, which kinda goes with the "dizzee being a bisexual but he never says it in canon" thing cause like...okay dizzee was already sort of a side character from the get go like he wasnt the mc by any means, but he became way more of a background character as things continued until we basically only saw him for performances or when he was with thor, yet they got no fucking development as a pairing other than "dizzee realize he gay, he like thor, he and thor spend time together and ig probably do some gay stuff but we dont really know bc we only ever see them do graffiti together now" like?? tf am I supposed to do with that shit. answer. quickly. and then theres dizzee not being confirmed bisexual, which is just a running problem with shows literally doing everything to say a character is bi except for having the character just...say they're bi? which would be so easy? like a good way dizzee and thor couldve had some development is by thor teaching dizzee things about the queer community that he didnt even know existed, thor couldve helped him understand what being bi meant and helped him label himself and whatnot but instead we got an off screen confirmation that the writers had bisexual in mind when writing him. which is garbagé.

the whole thor and dizzee never having a confirmed relationship status is also a development problem cause like literally nobody knows if they were just friends who made out, maybe fucked, who knows, or if they were dating bc dizzee does give a love confession but a love confession doesn't mean there is a relationship, especially since thor didn't say he was in love either (as far as I remember, I could be wrong, plus whether or not that really happened or was apart of dizzee literally overdosing during a performance is unclear so 🤪)

and now for the biggest issue...bury your gays trope.

during the season 2 finale, dizzee and thor are chased by cops after they are found doing graffiti, one of the cops is able to catch thor while the other chases dizzee into a train tunnel and there is a train seen headed straight for him before the show cuts to black on a train horn. the show writers claim that if they had gotten another season, dizzee wouldve been alive but since they didnt and since that's essentially super fan trivia knowledge, most people dont fucking know that and instead had to watch a black queer teenager chose death over being fucking arrested by a white cop. on top of that, thor didnt see any of that shit because he was caught and the cop started hauling him off while dizzee was still being chased so thor literally has no clue where his friend/possible boyfriend fucking is or that he's likely dead in a goddamn tunnel all alone, unless you count the fucking pig that chased him in there who wouldve died too. this shows rep was so fucking good as far as most shows go on not having major fucking problems, on not being toxic and over sexualized, etc, etc. and then they just. killed a black queer teenager for no fucking reason. like it was literally the last episode ever, it would add nothing to the plot, it would just devastate fans and devastate it fucking did. I dont cry easy but seeing a character I identified with, who I had hyperfixated on, die because he'd rather that than be arrested is terrible. it fucking sucked.

so yeah. that's my all too extensive thoughts/analysis on the get down's queerness. theres definitely stuff I missed, or misinterpreted, or looked too much into, etc, etc., but this was a fun thing to spend time writing sooo yeah!! thanks for the ask anon, sorry this was just a big rambley info dump, but hopefully you get some enjoyment out of it since it took like 3 hours at least 😭😭 feel free to ask clarifying questions lol

[silverbastardgoldenfool]

Realm of the Quarantine Reread End-of-Book Questionnaire: Assassin’s Quest

Any differences between your first/previous reading experience and this one?

Keep in mind I’m writing this months after finishing the book lol (it’s mental illness innit). I have LOTS of notes to go off but yeah, things aren’t as fresh in my mind overall. With that said the biggest difference I can think of between my first and second experience with AQ is my feelings towards Kettricken. I think the first time around reading you know that Fitz is an unreliable narrator but you are still limited by his viewpoint so you can get a bit trapped seeing things the way he does. For this reason, I think I pretty much just forgave Kettricken when he did on my first read, whereas on this read I was like……. Waiting for her to actually apologise and show some sympathy towards Fitz and it just…. Never happened.

Like, don’t get me wrong, I still love Kettricken as a character and I fully recognise that she has been traumatised. I don’t expect her to be nice or act rationally, and in the case of being willing to take Nettle for the crown… It’s cold but she’s doing what she feels she has to. My issue is - do what you have to, but don’t expect Fitz to understand or forgive you (same with Starling). But I think what bothered me the most was how Kettricken would constantly confide in Fitz and break down to him and he was always there to let her do so, yet she NEVER gives Fitz the chance to do the same. The one time he does “open up” in a sense is when she forces him to air out his traumas in front of everyone, and she didn’t show him any sympathy for what he’d been through then or later. She has been through hell, absolutely, but while her plight may not have been any better than Fitz’s it certainly wasn’t any worse. She pretty much had two modes in this book: completely cold or a crying wreck - but she was only ever crying for herself. She lets Fitz console her but she never consoles him. Again, this is a result of her own trauma and I don’t expect her to act any differently, but it just reaffirmed for me that while she and Fitz care for each other deeply it is not an equal relationship. Fitz feels an obligation to serve her and she - knowingly or not - takes advantage of that. Like, after realising that this is their dynamic it is so obvious that the same is true in Royal Assassin as well, and it will be interesting to see how it changes (or doesn’t) in Tawny Man as I don’t remember it well enough to say.

Must reiterate: Kettricken is still a great character and I still have a lot of respect for her, unfortunately she just falls into the overfull camp of people who love Fitz but have an unhealthy power dynamic with him.

The other big difference I noticed was that the Verity stuff just wasn’t as devastating this time. Not because it was any less sad but it just didn’t tear out my heart like it did the first time. That’s not a fault with the writing at all, I think it’s just the fact that, knowing what would happen to Verity and that we wouldn’t see the real Verity again, I kind of already let go of him at the end of Royal Assassin.

Something you can’t believe you forgot

I guess more of a misinterpretation/wishful thinking but like, realising that there is no passage explicitly stating that Fitz and the Fool were actually spooning in the mountains murdered me and spat on my corpse.

Oh also!!! Fitz yeeting himself out the window at Tradeford castle jskaskjf

Favourite character introduction moments/scenes

I love Kettle in general and the way we’re introduced to her as a cranky old lady sets her up perfectly

Favourite character arcs

Man they’re all so fucking sad lol but I guess the Fool? He goes from thinking Fitz is dead and his purpose failed to reuniting with Fitz, their relationship growing into something really real for the first time, and actually completing his mission - at least for now lol. This book is really the first time you get to see the Fool be properly vulnerable. Even when he was getting beaten up by Regal’s guards he always had his veneer of snark and superiority to hide behind - and I doubt when he went through his sicknesses at Buckkeep he would have revealed his weakness to anyone in order to be helped. But in the mountains he lets so much of that facade of the King’s Fool fall away - at least when it’s just him and Fitz. When he and Fitz meet again he lets Fitz see his grief and pain and hopelessness and joy as the Fool looks after Fitz, and then later when it’s the Fool who needs looking after he lets Fitz look after him. When was the last time the Fool had anyone really care for him like that, ya know? Had someone protect him purely out of love? Ouch dude!!!!

Also he gets to kiss Fitz at the end so good for him!!!!!!!!!! Be gay ride dragons!!

Favourite quote/s

“I would kill Regal. It only seemed fair. He had killed me first.”

“I had looked into the heart of my enemy. I still could not comprehend him.”

“The more I drank, the less tolerable my situation seemed. And the more intolerable I became to my friends.”

“I had never thought to be disdained by a tree.”

“The Fool, the Fool, only the Fool. I sought for him. I almost found him. Oh, he was passing strange, and surpassing strange. He darted and eluded me, like a bright gold carp in a weedy pool, like the motes that dance before one’s eyes after being dazzled by the sun. As well to clutch at the moon’s reflection in a still midnight pond as to seek a grip on that bright mind. I knew his beauty and his power in the briefest flashes of insight. In a moment I understood and marvelled at all that he was, and in the next I had forgotten that understanding.”

“When you can either laugh or cry, you might as well laugh.” - the Fool

Favourite relationships

Fitzandthefoolfitzandthefoolfitzandthefoolbahslbghabfhalgngjba 

Also fitz and nighteyes (speaking of which, Nighteyes’ arc in this book is also fascinating and surprisingly complex) and Fitz/Nighteyes/Fool mwah magnifico chef’s kiss

Favourite setting

Kelsingra baybeyyy. I remember the first time reading this having no fucking clue what was happening in that chapter but I guess it was the gay agenda all along

Favourite chapter

It’s gotta be the chapter where Fitz and the Fool reunite, right? Catch me just gradually losing my grip on reality with every lingering stare 

Most loved character

Foooooooooool

Most hated character

Ya know, for a minute I was actually wondering if I would like Starling this time round but yeah no lol. She was actually okay for a while but as soon as she sold Fitz/Nettle out she became The Worst, just as I remembered her. It’s not even because she betrays Fitz but because, like Kettricken, she expects Fitz to forgive her for it, to the point of running to tattle to the queen because Fitz isn’t giving her enough attention (I’m also not impressed with Kettricken for actually getting involved instead of just telling her to grow up). Not to mention her constantly misgendering/gendering (??) the Fool or just assuming the Fool’s gender and loudly fucking proclaiming it to everybody is just truly fucking disgusting. Like I cannot even explain how furious I was reading her incessantly using she/her pronouns for the Fool despite no confirmation that her theory is right or that the Fool is comfortable with this and despite EVERYONE ELSE using he/him pronouns. God I’m mad now lol. She just acts like a spoilt brat and it makes my blood boil. But that’s probably because I have known many people like this so… Good character writing lol congrats

Raise your hand if you’ve been personally victimised by Robin Hobb (most heartbreaking and/or visceral moments)

The whole first chapter/s are just so heavy and carry on that gut wrenching feeling from the end of Royal Assassin. Fitz just has no real desire to live and watching him systematically severing the last few ties he has to his human life is just so sad.

Even though I wasn’t as attached to Verity this time, his goodbye to Fitz still made me cry

As did Fitz giving Kettle her skill back

Verity using Fitz’s body to have sex with Kettricken really got to me this time, mostly because I either didn’t notice the first time or had forgotten just how much it affects Fitz. It’s no wonder he doesn’t want to acknowledge Dutiful as his son when the event that brought that fact into being was so fucked up and traumatic. It’s really upsetting.

Burrich saying he almost took Fitz to Chivalry and he should have never let the Farseers take Fitz just …… breaks my heart. Just seeing Burrich so raw like that in general is so unusual it really takes you aback.

Details, observations, spoilery notes made with the benefit of the full picture

Strap in lads this part is lonnnngggggggg

Is it bad to immediately want to cry just from seeing “Sandsedge” on the map and thinking of Sandsedge brandy

I never really thought about how poor Hap didn’t get the real Fitz all those years and how their relationship could have been if Fitz hadn’t been partially forged

Pls I have no idea why but to picture someone as emotionally repressed as Fitz actually sitting down and writing about his life makes me want to fucking cryyyyeeeee

Fitz in the prologue talks about needing a purpose as something to distract himself from sinking [into his chronic pain, mental illness and addiction] and boy howdy if that ain’t relatable. As someone with mental illness and chronic pain Fitz is just painfully relatable way too often.

“I have never forgiven myself the triumph I ceded him when I took poison and died.” Fitz :(((( my guy :((((((( forgive yourself for surviving however you could baby!!!!!

This book mentions Bingtown providing slaves to Chalced

It’s so funny to me when people expect Fitz to have social skills as if he didn’t literally live as a fucking wolf for weeks at a time. It’s a miracle he bloody speaks

The state Fitz is in at the beginning of this book was literally Burrich’s greatest fear for him, yet Burrich doesn’t just say I told you so and leave. He stays, is patient and even optimistic.

“He (Burrich) is not bigger than I.” Why does this feel so wrong lol??? I just can’t picture Fitz as bigger than Burrich

“When you were younger and not supposed to go into taverns without me…” So it’s fine if the child goes into taverns and gets drunk as long as you’re also there. Got it, Burrich.

Fitz calling Chade “the grey one” wow get rekd old man river

Seeing Chade and Burrich interact is so bizarre

Fitz is still having seizures at the beginning of this book! I had forgotten that

God okay so idk if I can articulate this point super well but the whole thing of Fitz going through this extensive abuse and then essentially becoming an animal feels like a metaphor for the way your brain’s “higher” needs and functions just shut off sometimes under certain levels of stress. Like in order to cope with the trauma you don’t think about concepts, or long-term goals, or other people. You just take care of your basic needs - food, sleep, shelter, water - long enough that you start to feel safe and secure again, at which point your brain can open up a bit more and allow you to really think again; to want again, to plan again etc. Like obviously literally becoming an animal is a heightened version of reality, but the functionality of it is the same; our wounds and our fear stop us from fully embodying ourselves.

Burrich be like, Fitz was getting way too dependent on drugs before all this so let’s steer clear of those. :) LET’S GET HIM ABSOLUTELY SHITFACED INSTEAD

I  love how Fitz has his own unique relationship with Lacey and she’s not just Patience’s servant in his mind

Fitz talking about how even his memories from before his time in the dungeons are soiled by his trauma :( baby boy

Dude it’s so rich Chade lecturing Fitz about not making a life for himself, having friends or just chilling out like???? WHO TRAINED HIM TO BE AN ASSASSIN CHADE?? Like I get your point but what the hell kind of life did you think he was gonna have? Who ever took the time to teach him the importance of making connections with people for their own sake, and when would he have ever had the time anyway? I think Chade himself doesn’t actually know what he expects from Fitz.

Fitz saying he’s bad at making decisions because he’s never actually been allowed to make any is literally a point I’ve made lol. This is what happens when you teach teenagers how to murder in lieu of any basic life skills.

Burrich + Chiv were luv at first sight. No I will not elaborate.

“We kept you a boy, looked after you too much.” Huh??????? Fitz was never fucking sheltered lol. He didn’t have autonomy. There’s a difference.

I’m so fucking glad Fitz hugged Burrich before he left and that they actually left off on okay-ish terms. I didn’t remember that and it vaguely dulls the blow of knowing we don’t see Burrich again til Fool’s Fate (and that he thinks Fitz is dead the entire time between now and then).

“If I shaved my hair back from my brow” bitch disgusting

“Honey was the older of the two women. Perhaps my age.” jskfjnajgbl my guy those aren’t women then those are children!!!!!! U freak

I was wondering for ages why Fitz doesn’t mention the Fool like literally at all bc that’s so unusual right? Even in Assassin’s Apprentice he thinks of him when he goes to Moonseye and just in general the Fool usually enters Fitz’s thoughts pretty frequently. So why now, when Fitz doesn’t even know if the Fool is okay, is he just not thinking about him? And then I realised that that is exactly why. Because the only two people from his old life he doesn’t think about are the two people whose fates he knows nothing of: Kettricken and the Fool. So he can let his mind wander to think what Patience and Lacey might be up to at Buckkeep, or who Molly is with or whatever, because he knows they are all safe. But in such a fragile state I don’t think he can bring himself to really wonder whether Kettricken and the Fool made it to their destination - he probably doesn’t really believe they could have, and that is far too painful a road to go down when you are trying not to think at all.

I know the first act of this book is slow and that bothers some people, but I think it is so necessary, not only for Fitz’s arc but also because it really demonstrates just how severe the situation has gotten with the red ships and forged ones AND it shows just how destructive a king Regal is. Without this perspective it would probably be much harder to buy that the extreme measures taken at the end of the book are really worth the sacrifice.

Fitz is Demisexual, Exhibit A: when Honey is coming onto him, all he can think about is Molly.

Fitz is so scared of the Forged ones :( his trauma affects everything. He has no faith in himself and less heart for the violence than ever.

Speaking of trauma metaphors: the way Fitz tends to drift off into the wit or Skill after a traumatic experience is… pretty much just dissociation but magique

I forgot that witted folk can apparently communicate with each other mentally, not just with animals

“Her head was the size of a bushel basket.” Ah, yes, a bushel basket, a thing whose size we are all intimately familiar with.

Fitz finally finds others like him and even then he is not fully accepted. Told he is doing the wit wrong. Othered by the Others. It’s the queer experience innit.

Also forgot that apparently the forged are attracted to the wit as well as the Skill?

“I wondered if I had as many wolf mannerisms as they had halk and bear.” Yeah no probably not you only bloody LIVED as a wolf, Fitz.

Okay I know it doesn’t need saying but Patience is just so fucking cool!!!!!

Jesus fucking christ, Fitz skilling out to Molly when he knows Will knows he’s alive and is looking for him is just… so dumb. So so dumb. I know he’s just fixating on her because he’s miserable and she’s like this unsullied thing he had before everything went wrong but holy moly is it frustrating 

Not to mention he doesn’t connect the dots between the fact that Burrich went to “help a friend” and every time he reaches out for Molly he sees Burrich sajkdbshkhja dude

Nighteyes leaving just goes to show that Fitz cannot rely solely on Nighteyes for companionship. No matter how innately the same they are they are equally as innately different. Fitz needs Nighteyes but he shouldn’t have JUST Nighteyes (which is why he, Nighteyes and the Fool are the holy trinity). When Nighteyes leaves, Fitz is in way too fragile a state to be left alone, but Nighteyes cannot think of the future or what might happen. All he knows is he’ll be back at some point and that’s all that matters.

“My anger fed my competence” whatever you need to tell yourself sweetie

I think I had blocked out the fact the Regal was keeping animals trapped in filthy cages so they could ravage people in the king’s circle uggggghhhhhhhhh I hate him

Fitz is down on himself saying that without Shrewd’s largesse, Chade’s information and Verity’s protection his idea of himself has been stripped away and that he’s not actually competent etc. but like. This is an extreme situation!! You’re literally alone in the wilderness with nothing and no one!! Who would thrive in this situation? And nobody gets by without help anyway! The people in our lives do define us to an extent. You don’t have to be able to stand 100% on your own at all times with zero resources to be considered capable. It’s human to depend on others. Yes I am chiding myself as much as Fitz here :))))

Burrich’s earring is the repressed gay earring. No I will not elaborate.

Fitz refusing to sell Burrich’s earring is frustrating yet something I would 100% do lol

Direct from my notes: Celery hiding out in caves?? Bad bitch

“I felt I was within the flames looking deeply into the Fool’s eyes” um okay gay

It’s actually surprising that Fitz admits he would not have gone after Molly even if he had known she was pregnant when she left. On one hand so self aware yet this doesn’t stop him from completely idealising their relationship.

And then you have Molly who says he was supposed to come after her “so she could forgive him”, that he was supposed to be the one to light the candles for her childbirth etc. The fact that she in any way thought he was mature enough to be a father just shows how little they really knew each other.

Burrich treating Molly like a horse while delivering Nettle is way funnier than it has a right to be jskakjasd makes me think of Dwight treating Phyllis’ back injury in The Office lol

The first thing Burrich notices about Nettle is that she has Chivalry’s brow are you fucking kidding me. Gay!

Fitz is Demisexual, Exhibit B: He had no interest in Tassin whatsoever until she literally started kissing him. At this point his body reacted, which is normal, but as soon as he got a second to actually think about it he stopped, because for him it would not be satisfying to sleep with someone he didn’t have feelings for.

“It seemed to take years for the dried beans and lentils to soften.” Okay mood

I love how Fitz just assumes Molly will take him back. “I have a woman and child awaiting me.” Says who bitch?

Small ferret? More like big legend

Ya know, we give Fitz so much shit but honestly with so much physical, mental and emotional stress on this journey how can we expect his mental faculties to be at 100%? I wouldn’t be making good decisions either, in fact I would be long dead.

Starling telling Nik that the earring once belonged to Chivalry is truly a smooth brain move

“Do not fear, little brother, I am here to take care of you again.” Words can’t explain how much I love Nighteyes and how often his dialogue makes me smile :’)

It’s so cute how Nighteyes is worried about Molly and Nettle until he knows that Burrich is taking care of them

It’s really interesting when Fitz claims “I’d rather be with Molly even if it meant rocking a crying baby in the middle of the night” because, well, he’s literally made other claims to the contrary, saying he wouldn’t have gone with her even if he’d known she was pregnant. Because at the end of the day as much as Fitz is compelled by others to do work for the greater good, I think deep down a lot of the time it is what he would do anyway. Like I really don’t think he could actually enjoy being with Molly knowing that the world is burning down around them. He would want to get out there and help somehow; not only to secure their own future but to reduce other people’s suffering as well. He’s an empathetic boy even though he’d like to be selfish.

Every time Fitz calls Molly his wife I lose ten years off my life

Again, I understand why he’s thinking like this, but Fitz’s ownership of Molly is just so uncomfortable. The fact that he can’t imagine her not having a place ready and waiting for him in her life when he returns just illustrates that she is not a fully realised person to him. She is just a comforting idea.

Oh yes, it was definitely Starling’s “pillowtalk” that got you captured and not the fact that you fit the exact description of the witted bastard right down to having Chivalry’s earring and a whole ass wolf

Somehow forgot that Jhaampe is basically a city of tents with only a few permanent buildings and people constantly coming and going

Fitz’s first words to the Fool are “I’ve come to you.” I’m gonna fucking die

Literally every single word from the moment Fitz realises it’s the Fool and starts describing him is a full body assault and personal attack I am seeking reparations

God the tenderness, the angst, the relief……… shall i pass away

“I doubted he was much taller, but his body was no longer a child’s.” My dude this is a gay awakening if I ever saw one

Fitz be like *spends 87 pages describing the Fool in painstaking detail* anyway I love being a heterosexual male

I’ve heard ppl cite Fitz’s descriptions of Kettricken as evidence of a crush (hard disagree) but literally nothingggggg even comes close to the way he describes the Fool. Not just this once but over and over again it’s insane.

“Talk fell off between us. The bottle of brandy was empty. We were reduced to silence, staring at one another drunkenly.” skjakfnajghajgnaLNGJ is it gay to silently gaze into thine homie’s eyes

The Fool protecting Fitz from everyone - especially Starling - in Jhaampe is often hilarious and always heartwarming

Realising Fitz was skinny enough for the Fool to lift on his own ahhh no wonder he said the famous “When I recall how beautiful you were” line, Fitz is a total wreck

I love that the Fool actually gives Chade shit for his plan to take Nettle. I love him.

“Too few folk cared for me. I could not hate a single one of them.” Oh, Fitz :(

I always wonder how the Fool really feels about Molly. Is he jealous? Does he compare himself to this woman Fitz idolises and he doesn’t know? Does he know that Fitz is barking up the wrong tree or is he stuck thinking Molly must really be Fitz’s soulmate since he won’t shut up about how much he loves her and can’t wait to get back to her? He just never really lets on how it makes him feel when Fitz has relationships with women. We know Fitz gets jealous of the Fool (for litch rally like no reason lol), so with the Fool being much more honest with himself/in general about his love for Fitz and having much more legitimate reason to be jealous, is he? Or is it just something he’s made his peace with, that these women give Fitz something that he cannot? Is he okay with that cos he has to be or does he have a different, less monogamous view of love and relationships (he does have three parents after all). I dunnoooo dude I just have so many questions. Like obviously - OBVIOUSLY - if Fitz and the Fool didn’t have romantic feelings for each other before, there is no doubting that romantic feelings appeared the moment Fitz appeared in the Fool’s hut. Fitz won’t admit that but mere chapters later the Fool is talking about how he loves Fitz in every way so like. He knows. So how does he feel when Fitz is calling out for Molly in his sleep, or openly speaking of seeking her out when all this is over, and lying to the Fool to protect Molly and his daughter. Really makes u think!!!!

Fitz reuniting with Sooty and going to see her every day in Jhaampe is so cuuuute and made me so happy. Sooty is a good girl :’)

Fitz be like *leans against the table where the Fool is carving and watches his fingers at work like a true repressed gay*

Verity is literally so strong???? He submerged himself in skill and was able to pull himself back from the stream can u imagine? Go off king!

Bro I literally can’t with the Fool mentioning Jofron so casually and Fitz immediately thinking wow oh my god they’re definitely fucking oh my god the Fool has a girlfriend - Fitz sweetie calm down

I love how Fitz and the Fool just naturally walk together :))) and Nighteyes babysitting Kettle is so cute

Molly never once says that she misses Fitz. She says she always expected him to do the right thing, to come after her and not leave her alone with a child. But she doesn’t look back on their time together fondly or have much positive to say about him as a person. And all that is fair, but it’s also just… Not really the behaviour of someone who’s been separated from their soulmate. It’s more just someone who’s been left in a shitty position by someone they cared about but hardly knew.

Fitz asking the Fool what is between him and Starling when they’re literally just being civil is sooooo fucking funny. Not everyone finds the Fool as irresistible as you do, Fitz.

The Fool just casually finding a pretext to call Fitz the light of his life

Fitz telling Kettricken firmly that he will not travel if the Fool is ill is one of the only times he ever puts his foot down with her GEE I WONDER WHY

I’ve said it before I’ll say it again…… there really do be something about the way Fitz can’t meet the Fool’s eyes………. It’s not like they’re weird and colourless anymore like they used to be!!!

The Fool already talking about Clerres in this book!

Fitz and the Fool and Nighteyes playing in the stream is too fucking pure omg, it’s what they deserve

And then Starling has to bloody ruin it bc she’s homophobique

But seriously, Fitz actually lets go for the first time in ages and has a nice evening only for Starling to go tattling to Kettricken, and Kettricken having the gall to confront Fitz about it. And then Fitz solves the problem by saying he doesn’t disdain her when like!! He has every right to!!!! She sold him out, sold his daughter out. She never even apologised but instead has just been totally petty and self-righteous and stirring up trouble amongst the group. She hasn’t earned or even asked for his forgiveness. So fitting that she’s the one constantly judging Fitz for his relationship with Lord Golden in Tawny Man lol, she just cannot let Fitz and the Fool be the queer icons they are!!!

Verrrrrrrrrrry interesting that Fitz only “suddenly missed the human warmth and comfort” of Starling taking his arm or sleeping against him literally IMMEDIATELY after the plumbing and love confrontation with the Fool. I mean he has been doing all of those things with the Fool (sleeping together, walking arm in arm etc.) so it’s not about human touch at all, it’s about convincing himself that a WOMAN’S touch is somehow inherently different.

He does the same thing with Starling as with Kettricken. She technically apologises but it’s not sincere and that’s not why he forgives her. Same as Kettricken, she tells her sob story and he can’t hold onto his anger. It makes sense, but it’s just very toxic. It would be nice if at least one person would really recognise how much they’ve hurt Fitz and really, genuinely want to atone for it, or apologise without expecting forgiveness. The onus should not be on Fitz to forgive Starling but on Starling to grow up and not need Fitz to like her in order to remain civil and do what they have to. Also “I do not find your wit bond offensive” has the same energy as someone telling you out of nowhere like “It’s fine that you’re gay :)” like wow thank u?? lol

Fitz is Demisexual, Exhibit C: “I wanted her with a desperation that had nothing to do with love, and even, I believe, little to do with lust.”

“By his love he is betrayed, and his love betrayed also.” So fate agrees with me, Fitz and the Fool are in love? :)

Anytime the potential that Fitz might have to choose between Molly and Nighteyes I lose brain cells. That’s ur brother Fitz!!! It’s not even a choice!! How dare u

It’s just sooooo intentionally laid out for us in this book that Fitz’s relationship with Molly really wasn’t good or healthy and that his fixation on it is misguided, and I think that’s why I struggled sooooo hard with the ending of Fool’s Fate, because it kind of implied the exact opposite. I’m hoping on this reread I will pick up on it being laid out as a result of Fitz getting his memories/teen feelings back rather than it just feeling like a lowkey retcon, but I guess we’ll see lol

“I felt I was a bit in love with him, you know. That sort of lift to the heart.” the confirmation that the Fool KNOWS HOW IT FEELS TO BE IN LOVE sends me deep into the swamps goodbyeeeeeeeeeeee

“The one who loves him best will betray him most foully.” So fate agrees, the Fool loves Fitz best :)

“You do love me! … Before, it was words. I always feared it was born out of pity.” Godddddd Foooooooooool!!!!!!!!!!! 

Everything about Fitz, the Fool and Nighteyes meeting in the skill for the first time is just truly perfect iconic unparalleled.

Fitz’s love for Verity hurts my heart so much. Just think of the relationship they could have had if they weren’t stupid royals.

Kettle’s whole speech about Fitz and Molly… Just yes to every word.

Look I’m just gonna say it… The way Burrich reacts to Molly’s advances … like I know it’s probably not intentional but it just reads as very much fitting in with my headcanon that he is gay. As soon as she makes it clear she wants to sleep with him he like leaps across the room lol. I do believe he cares for her and loves her in his way, but it does feel mostly like he’ll just do whatever he needs to to care for her and the baby.  Sowwy

I wonder why the Fool wasn’t as affected by his giving up of memories to Girl-on-a-Dragon?? Or was he, and he just gets them back before we see him again in Tawny Man?

“Take my hurt that I never knew my father, take my hours of staring up at his portrait when the great hall was empty and I could do so alone.” um this is so fucking sad

It was the Fool who sent Starling to find Fitz after Verity uses his body and again I have to ask, wtf is going on in your mind, Fool!

Fitz is Demisexual, Exhibit D: Even once he actually sleeps with Starling he has no enthusiasm about it, he just kind of goes along with it, likely to prove to himself that he has really let go of his past/Molly. 

I always wonder why the Fool leaves now. Is it because he thinks their work is done and doesn’t want to risk messing things up by hanging around his catalyst like at the end of Tawny Man? Does he intend to come back and find Fitz again but get sidetracked by a lead or a new dream? Like it’s just weird because at first he was like “Prophet and Catalyst stick together” and was gonna stay with Fitz - or was that just an excuse because he was obsessed with Girl-on-a-Dragon? Fool u spicy lil enigma

It’s blood and the wit that wakes the stone dragons so does that mean King Wisdom was witted? Or is that obvious lol

Fitz isn’t even bothered by the Fool’s kiss, just shocked. I am looking.

Patience shouting orders at Verity-as-Dragon is beautiful ksjjk

Of courrrrrssse Burrich names his first son Chivalry

In the epilogue, the Fool is the only one Fitz actually says he misses. Exquisite.

I know some people have an issue with Regal’s death but personally I find it delicious

Okay that’s all (I say as if this wasn’t 139841989 pages long). See y’all in 92 years when my sister finally starts reading Liveship!

[skinfeeler]

you may notice so-called progressive members of religions (including those which are minority religions in ‘the west’) spend much more time on critics of religion than conservatives in their own circles. sentiments such as “X discussion belongs within the community” might clue us in as on why, but allow me to proffer a red thread that i believe i have identified throughout all of this.

it is, obviously, true that critique of religion often constitutes or is a vehicle for assorted bigotries. a certain vigilance can be understandable and i advocate among my peers to not let us become callous of the very real dangers that members of certain ethnic and cultural groups (however one might understand these) face, even people marginalised in and by such religious communities. this is then, in fact, the crux of my project: the acknowledgment that say, ex-muslims aren’t really helped by islamophobia given the fact that it’s not like they’re going to get support from those people peddling it, which is exactly why it’s so tragic that many of them feel there’s no place for them on the left, because so many people on the left refuse to acknowledge that even though islamophobia is well, extant, it’s not like people stuck in certain spheres (among which gay and trans people, women, and all children) are impervious from being harmed just because larger society might not be accepting of those who level that harm unto them. this much then is important: to do right by everyone who must be done right by in whatever way and to leave people’s dignity intact, and to do so in such a way that cannot be co-opted by white supremacists and the like— the most important way to do this is to attack the concept of parental authority, which (culturally) christian conservatives will never accept but will resolve basically all problems that result from the shape of religion as a non-elective membership propagated through the family (as structured by clergy etc etc, whatever).

inoffensive as this clause should be to anyone who claims to be part of the left — which must fundamentally oppose the family for either marxist reasons per engels or for other reasons — even anti-theism which very clearly takes this form is mistaken, usually on purpose, by many religious apologists, to be something it’s not. one of those things that get invoked is the very real white supremacism and imperialist thought that is too endemic in our circles. i’ll admit to tendencies herein appearing from time to time — including in myself, at times, regrettably — but i also insist that a large part of this is simply the fact that while religious people enjoy the benefits of community and avenues for discussion and review, many of us do not: all we have at this stage, sadly, is the diatribes of new atheists who consider christendom an important ‘bulwark’ to protect the ‘occident’ who are useless to anything but an insipid culture war. mistakes are going to be made, and i think some small leeway should be allowed those most ambitious of us who still have a clear and provable dedication to justice and equity (and this is in fact the point of any useful notion of freedom of speech), especially since what we currently have works for nobody except those who want first and foremost to remain comfortable— which is exactly what i believe describes so many anti-anti-theists, but we do in fact need an alternative.

it’s not easy to be leftist and religious and my heart goes out to those who try, even if i don’t ultimately think that where they are heading will allow them to keep their principles coherent and intact: members of one’s congregation and one’s spiritual leaders may tacitly condone or endorse ethnic cleansing in the levant, assorted infant genital maiming rituals, reifications of gender that only those least abject to it can find peace with (consider the humble theyfab), the imperative and exaltation of procreation, to name a few possibilities, which one then is implicitly required to respect in order to remain part of such communities, and i understand the struggle of wanting to be or remain part of those and to have to tangle with that. what i don’t understand then, though, is the abhorrence of people outside such circles who perform critique of the like: i simply do not agree with the fact that certain discussions should stay within the community and they should be well left alone in literally every way with no demands made given the fact that certain members in those communities who this harm is visited upon and whose membership isn’t elective (including all children) do not have voice or agency in those discussions — they deserve support and solidarity across cultural lines, especially as it’s apostates from so many religions who helped me survive and i will owe this to them forever — let alone those in the outgroup who fall victim to the real geopolitical consequences of the substance of certain positions that proliferate in some of these communities, as is now more relevant than ever. this latter aspect is obvious to even the progressive religious apologist, however… at least those conservatives, both inside the congregation and in much more conservative movements don’t threaten what they perceive to be the faith.

an instantiation of this which i will see even most progressive religious people abhor is the notion that any religion is tied, inherently, to not just a nation, but a state. and so they can quibble with their zionist peers and spiritual leaders on this, because both of them have one thing in common: the idea that even if one’s religion/culture is not most meaningfully embodied through state, it is through family, and the criticism of the conservative that the progressive has is not that they are wrong, but merely inauthentic and clinging to something unnecessary, but they are not. i vehemently disagree: the nature of most organised religions has changed through both necessity and acknowledged moral imperative. why can a religion which doesn’t transmit through the family (one of only adult converts perhaps) be envisioned— which in turn wouldn’t depend so heavily on the reification of bodies and family immanent in the aforementioned (a conclusion worth stressing on its own)? if you ask me, it’s a matter of a lack of courage borne from a lack of understanding of history— one may want to read doubt: a history by jennifer michael hecht who is considered jewish according to halakha (for however much that fucking means) who speaks on what the german jews in the 19th century, understanding that they could either stay stuck in the present (and thus have their worldview eventually become as farcical as those who believed that recreating the temple era of judaism was either viable or desirable in any histiographical or theological sense as a result of you know, history historying) or establish those principles which they believed were actually important that could be passed on regardless of how judaism was envisioned before. their work, however hegelian in nature, produced some of the greatest minds even among their apostates, including theodor adorno. turns out that even when people become philosophers rather than rabbis (or ministers, or imams, or gurus), they have plenty to offer, there is wisdom and value in exalting sagehood above the pulpit and how the pulpit must always lay down the law for the mechanisms of familial transmission.

consider second, the ancient greeks: the ancient greeks no longer possess the structures required to exercise their worldviews and theodicies as a bloc (in diaspora or otherwise). regardless, many of their concepts and wisdoms persist in various cultures literally all across the worlds, including mine: their strands of cultural dna have germinated in a larger cosmopolitan phenotype, and i believe this is beautiful and worthwhile in its own right, and in no way whatsoever a loss. sure, their influence might not be recognisable as an enduring culture, but does that make it any less valuable? no, not in the slightest. the fact is, once you are on the other side this is the most normal thing in the world, nobody will mourn it, and everyone who wishes to return will be easily dismissed as entertaining a fantasy. the only way to forestall this is in fact a tautological clinging to the present which will necessarily through the course of history become an immanence of reaction, after all, the prime fallacy of reactionary thought is that it is in fact possible to recreate the past, which is plainly not true except perhaps for aesthetic but which will regardless necessarily be rooted in the current conditions of the world. all that forestalling this progression constitutes is the insistence on the completely artificial. much like the workings of the state are one that imposes a false reality, a phantasm, a reification onto the world, so with family, and literally the moment you stop propping it up it will be superceded. let me repeat that: supercession is inevitable, and the most sophisticated elements of any culture acknowledge this and have for literal centuries (although some cultures are ahead of others in this regard by-and-large). for every generation of a culture persisting as itself, apostates and deviants emerge and at this rate they have done more for the progress within any cultural body than will ever happen within such cultural bodies, which must begrudgingly acknowledge that they are dependent on modernity in order to make any progress at all (and as such, will wither away together with modernity), although of course they will deny this at any front— the adaptation of any covenant is desperately contingent on integration and naturalisation of the apostate and the ‘modern’, or at least her wisdom , which the embodied religious individual will then, of course, pretend to practisee more ‘maturely’ than the apostate because they insist on integrating it in a neutered fashion where it is stripped of future potential of development until the next steal comes along, which is better than fully embodied anti-atheism as the ever-sublating struggle against entropy, for some fucking reason.

this is the promise of ‘externality’ that foucault dreamt of: that there is a way of thinking ‘outside the box’ that allows us to once and for all dispel and move on from the ways of thinking that we cannot think outside of. derrida then disputed him by arguing that there is no outside context. derrida is right— regardless, i remain optimistic: perhaps this cosmopolitan neotenous emergence is a culture in itself, but it is as divergent from what came before as christianity is to judaism, and islam to both christianity and judaism. all it takes is courage, and once the leap of faith has been made, this state of affairs will be the most normal thing in the world. in light of this, the claim that anticlericalism is simply an outwash of christendom becomes obviously farcical and a clear double standard when one considers in juxtaposition their insistence that christianity is divergent from what came before, even though in both cases (christendom versus judaism, anticlericalism versus christendom) perhaps some commonality in language exists and perhaps some people exist who have not managed to estrange themselves from the trappings of christian thought— not to mention the worldwide history of anticlericalism that is yet to be integrated which exists exactly because clericalism necessarily has the same structure and function across all religions. join me in this supercessionist bliss, reject the idea that chronology of thought implies that successors are one and the same as what they draw upon or co-opt, and help usher in the only future world worth conceiving of, resting easy and comfortable in the truthful rejection of the notion that any culture needs to cling to the notion of familial transmission to have any worth at all or that its existence as such is inevitable. the complete and utter nullification of familial logic will happen regardless of whether you want it or not anyway, because it is as artificial as the logic of nation and state and likewise unsustainable and on its death march— this is the one and final eschatology of this world which is not a threat, but a promise, since it will (and can) not be the result so much of repression but of religion collapsing under its own weight, and this much is only uncomfortable to those who are disciples to the family regardless of whether they admit it to themselves or not.

[bangtanloverboys]

thought trade (i) // jjk

summary - In a world where soulmate systems exist, you get one of the strangest ones you can think of. You speak your soulmates thoughts without any regard for context and that’s your only hint. At first it’s a bit strange, as you start blurting out random Korean phrases and stuff but one day you get so fed up that you start cursing at the world for giving you the most useless systems there is. It isn’t until you check twitter and see that a certain K-Pop Idol is trending for a random outburst in English that’s your words. . .

pairing - idol!jungkook x gender neutral!reader

genre - fluff; soulmate au

word count - 4.2k

warnings - none 

author’s note - the reader in this fic in gender neutral and when there’s italics it means they’re talking in korean. also this is the first story i’ve published publicly in 6 years, if you’ve noticed anything about this fic grammarwise, please tell me and i’ll correct it.

part ii

You honestly don’t know what you expected when you turned 20 as you awaited for your soulmate system to show. Most common it was tattoos that showed up, your soulmates first words or birthdays. The lucky ones got to share thoughts or perhaps even see each other in dreams but none of that happened to you. No, soon as you turned 20 nothing really changed. It wasn’t until 2 weeks later when you were out having dinner with some friends and you just blurted out a random full sentence in full Korean. 

You were confused. You didn’t speak Korean at all, you could barely speak Spanish from the 4 years you took it in high school. So how in the world did you say. . .whatever you said without any prior knowledge. The friend you were having dinner with suggested it was your soulmate system. But you’ve never heard of a system that would have you blurt out Korean. Keeping the soulmate system in mind though, you decided to seek out a sort of soulmate doctor.

With soulmate systems becoming more and more common, they were confusing to the people that had the system as well as the people around them, so some people have taken it upon themselves to study and record different types of soulmate systems to help understand. Very next day after your Korean dinner burst, you google the nearest one and book an appointment for the following week. 

You still had no idea what you’re saying so you’ve started a habit of keeping a voice memo recorder on you at all times recording every single thing you say or hear throughout the day. You’ve gone through three so far and only caught one outburst. You managed to roughly translate a few words: Army, dance, and concert. You have no idea about any of the context behind those words but you’d have to wait before you’d get any answers.

Finally your appointment with the soulmate doctor rolls around and you explained your situation, how you randomly burst out in Korean and how you have no idea what to do with what’s going on or how to communicate with your soulmate. The doctor frowned upon hearing your description. Turning to her computer, she began to type in your system attributes. 

“Well, your system is fairly unique, I’ll say that for sure.” She responded, as she turned back to face you. “What I mean is, there have only been about 3 or 4 other cases with systems similar to yours. It’s called thought trade. You’re speaking your soulmates thoughts or words. As for the Korean bit, your soulmate is Korean and that’s as much as I can tell.”

“Is there any way I can control it? To a point where I don’t randomly blurt out stuff in another language?” You asked, desperate for any sort of solution. The three times you burst out were very embarrassing and the looks you got made you feel weird and shameful.

“Hmm, soulmate systems have only been known to let up until after the fact you’ve met. As for controlling? The only record we have of that is pressing enough thought to a point where you can force them to say it. Other than that, no, I’m sorry.”

You left the soulmate doctor feeling a bit dejected. You honestly didn’t know what to do about this; soulmate systems were supposed to make finding your soulmate easier and this didn’t seem to help you get anywhere. The only logical thing you could think of was to start taking a Korean language class at your college. Before the first class had started, you were sure to explain to your professor your reasoning behind taking the course. Thankfully, he was very understanding and promised he’d help you personally with any translations if needed. 

After a few classes you finally had an outburst in class. Everyone in your class turned to stare at you in confusion, clearly whatever you said wasn’t a part of class and you felt your face grow red. The looks of their faces made you want to curl up under your desk and hide until the end of class. Your professor took liberty to explain to the class that it was your soulmate system upon seeing your embarrassment; to which your fellow classmates were understanding. 

“Y/N, if it’s alright with you, may I incorporate your outburst into the lesson.” You gave a small nod as he clasped his hands together. “Alright, can anyone guess or translate what Y/N, or moreso, what their soulmate said?” He asked the lecture class, a few people raised their hands. He pointed to one of the guys in the front row. “Yes, Jay?”

“They said ‘I don’t know why I’m speaking like I don’t know my own language, hyung!’” Jay responded, before turning to look at you at your desk. “Perhaps he caught on to you learning the language and you’re mispronouncing some things?” 

“He?” You question, you’ve never known the gender of your soulmate, so with Jay using the male pronouns you were rightfully taken back.

“Yeah, he said hyung. That’s the honorific he used.” He responded. Once the professor confirmed that is in fact what your soulmate said, he resumed the class yet you barely paid attention. For as little as it was, you had something. A clue.

As the months passed, the outbursts became more and more common happening at least twice every other week. Fortunately, your Korean had improved enough for you to start translating your bursts on your own. Some of it was a bit difficult to understand as to what he was talking about as it varied from a bunch of things like fire being too hot, and leaves falling down. Other times it was stuff about body aches. 

Your classmate Jay had slowly become a blessing in your life when it came to further trying to understand your outbursts and your soulmate system in general. After your first outburst in class, he approached you and asked you a couple more questions about your system. He admittedly was interested in the many vast different types that existed and had never heard of yours before. He had offered his help on translating and thus your friendship began. 

The semester was finally drawing to a close and you had Jay over to help study for the Korean final when you had another burst about the army, something about purple, and food. If you were completely honest, you were getting fed up with it. “I’m honestly tired of it! Why the fuck does nothing he say make sense! I’m already learning another fucking language to understand whatever the fuck he’s talking about but what he says doesn’t make sense!” You shouted, completely frustrated with the entire situation. “I’m still completely clueless as to who my soulmate is! And he’s not giving me any hints!” 

Jay merely sat in silence as you sat back down, cooling down after your little meltdown. “Feel better after that?”

“Yes, a little bit.” You sighed, “Sorry you had to . . . witness that though.”

“No problem, honestly, I think you are being given hints they’re just too. . .vague to connect them.” He said in an attempt to reassure you. 

“You on his side or mine here?” You retorted, eliciting a chuckle from your friend. “I just. . .want to strangle him sometimes.”

“I would too, if I had your system. I got lucky though, I just doodle on my arm and it shows up on her arm.” He smiled proudly as he looked at his forearm. He really was lucky when it came to having a soulmate system. Jay had been able to quickly locate his soulmate within a matter of hours after his system made itself apparent. His soulmate, Jenna, lived in Canada and he had plans on flying over to meet her for Hanukkah. 

“Can we put a pin in this study session until tomorrow? After that, I’m exhausted and don’t think I can look at another sentence without getting angry at him.” You huffed as you leaned back on your couch.

“Yeah, final ain’t till next week. Call me if anything happens.” He assured you as he started collecting his things. 

Once he was gone, you pulled out your phone and opened twitter. You barely use it unless to check up on some random celebrities tweets or check random news stuff. Upon opening the trending page, the top trend catches your eye: 

JUNGKOOK SOULMATE

As someone with a weird soulmate system, you’re intrigued with what’s going on with this ‘Jungkook’. Upon opening the hashtag, you learned he is a sort of K-Pop idol, now you don’t know a lot about the music industry of the language of your soulmate so you decided to leave it, but before you close it you come across a video of said Jungkook from a livestream. He’s this cute guy that can’t be any older than you with brown hair that’s swept over his eyes and staring into the camera lovingly. He’s sitting in a hotel room and he’s just talking in Korean, and you vaguely understand what he’s talking about. He’s talking about his day, the food he’s tried lately, and addresses the viewers as ARMY. Then in the middle of a sentence about an interview he bursts out in full English “I’m still completely clueless as to who my soulmate is! And he’s not giving me any hints!” before he slapped his hands over his mouth and scrambled to the camera to end the livestream. 

Those were your words. He said your words.

He’s your soulmate?

You swipe more down the tag and you see a bunch of stuff about theories about what his system might be. You come across a thread of several times his voice was bleeped out in a bunch of videos, while fans assumed it was swearing they began theorizing it was his soulmate system and he didn’t want them to hear him talk about things that probably didn’t make any sense. 

That didn’t help you on your part. Now you only have one piece of evidence that proves he’s your soulmate. Exiting the app, you moved to google and see if you could find anything else about this Jungkook and low and behold, more photos of the cute guy from the video clip was there and you frantically called Jay. 

“I just left what’s up-”

“I found him.”

“You what? You found him?” Jay was astonished to say the least, especially since less than 10 minutes ago you were cursing him out over not knowing who he was.

“Either I found him or I’m having a nervous breakdown.” You chuckled nervously as you began pacing back and forth in your living room. 

“Okay, I’m coming back over.” You heard him turn and make his way back over to your apartment. “Who is he?”

“This sounds. . . completely insane but like. . he’s a K-Pop Idol named Jungkook, whoever the fuck he is, he’s my soulmate and I have no fucking idea how to get to him now.”

“Wait wait wait, slow down. Jeon Jungkook, of BTS, is your soulmate?” Jay inquired, “How did you find that out?”

“Well apparently the universe heard me complaining about not having a clue and went BAM ‘Here’s your clue’.” You still couldn’t believe this was real. Of all people that had to be your soulmate, he was it. You opened your mouth to speak again but instead of English, Korean toppled over your lips. One word that mainly stuck out was ‘I’m sorry’. “I think he’s in trouble. Fuck, I got him in trouble.” You hadn’t even met the guy and you were already causing problems for him. Or maybe this wasn’t new at all, maybe you’d gotten him in trouble before?

“Open the door, I’m outside.” You ran to the door and wrapped your arms around your friend. To say you were overwhelmed and scared, didn’t cover half of it. You knew who he was now, but now had no idea who you were and now you were clueless as to how you can even get to see him!

The next day and a half, instead of studying for your Korean final, you made it your business to find out anytime you could on Jungkook. As you watched some of the music videos, slowly more and more of what you’ve said in the past made sense. The weird sayings that you thought were completely random were song lyrics, the complaints about muscle pains made more sense when you saw how intense and hard they all danced. The “army” you constantly burst about was the fanbase they had, ARMY. You were given clues, you were just too stupid to use google once in a while. 

Meanwhile, your outbursts have gotten more and more frequent. Happening almost twice a day. You could almost feel Jungkook’s concern and fear behind his thoughts because apparently BigHit was really good at hiding their idols’ soulmate systems and with your one outburst you ruined it for him. 

ARMY slowly became a concern for you on your side because apparently a site of soulmate systems crashed because so many people were frantically searching for what his system might be. Once people found out about the rare thought trade system, almost daily you saw on Twitter of people claiming to be his soulmate. Those were easily debunked as the impostors were either too young to even get their soulmate system or the phrases they said in Korean were badly pronounced. Usually one of those two or they didn’t speak English fluently. That was the only clue ARMY had about their Golden Maknae’s soulmate, you spoke English. 

You thought quietly to yourself, trying to push a thought to Jungkook about being sorry about this happening and that you weren’t posting any videos on Twitter, because either way you wanted him to know you were you and not give him the wrong idea. You don’t know if he got the message until several hours later when you were getting out of the shower and in perfect English said, “I understand.” You smiled, happy he got the message and you were able to connect to him at least in some way. 

A full month after the “live burst” as ARMY dubbed it, you (and Jungkook) were able to decipher with the fact that you could only get each other's thoughts when you were extremely emotional, which explained the live situation. Sometimes if you thought really long and hard you could push the message across but that was usually hit or miss. It was currently winter break and Jay was currently on his way back from Canada when he called you. 

“Pack your bags.”

“Uh, nice to hear from you too, Jay. I’m doing great. Why should I pack my bags?” You rolled your eyes as his demand. 

“Because my dear YN, for Christmas I got you tickets to go see BTS on Jimmy Fallon-”

“You fucking what!? First of all that’s all the way in fucking New York City! Second of all, fucking wHAT?!” You screamed into the phone, a bit flinching seeing how you probably just got Jungkook to yell at the top of his lungs. 

“Listen to me, YN. This is crazy yeah, but it’s like, the only chance we can get for you two to meet. Hence why I got you a round trip ticket to New York. You’re welcome,” the smugness evident in his voice.

“Jay. . .I can’t believe you’d do this for me? All I got you was socks, you can’t just buy me a plane ticket!” 

“Jenna helped pay for it if it makes you feel better, we both want you to get your man. It’s our gift to you. Now go pack, the show is in two days and you leave tomorrow morning. We also got you a hotel ticket. You’re going to be there at least 5 days at least. Have fun!” 

Soon as the call ended, you felt like you were going to cry. Was this going to work? You had no idea. “New York City? You go?” You heard your voice speak.You quickly thought back a yes for him and scrambled to your room to pack. You threw together your best and nice clothes to wear at the show and as you were getting ready for bed you heard yourself say “See you maybe.” You smiled as you tucked yourself in, wanting to be asleep as soon as possible in order to leave.

You barely slept that night, to a degree was somewhat okay because you could always sleep on the plane. You left two hours before your flight with the information that Jay had forwarded to you, and soon enough you were seated outside your gate waiting for your flight to be called. Seconds seemed like hours as you waited, you just wanted to get to New York as soon as possible and see Jungkook. Live and in person, right in front of you. But then it came to you, Jungkook had no idea what you looked like. So you came up with a little plan for the opportunity to arise.

After you came up with a plan, you saw on your VLIVE app, after the live burst last time you decided to download the app to be sure you didn’t have another repeat, you would simply sit in silence as you watched your soulmate talk but after the outburst, it seems he was limited from going live. But he was allowed to go live with other members because there he was with Jimin, sitting and talking to ARMY. After a sudden lack of Jungkook, the chat was spammed with questions about his soulmate and his system but he avoided that entirely. You watched them as you waited for your flight to be called, they playfully bickered about some dumb little game they were playing. 

After nearly an hour, your flight was called and you decided to leave one message in the chat. ‘See you maybe.’ You watched for a few seconds as Jungkook scanned the chat. He saw his eyes light up a bit and open his mouth but before he said anything you had already closed the app. You couldn’t reopen it now as you were steps away from boarding your plane. You made your way to your seat and put your phone on airplane mode. The flight attendants went over the safety precautions but you didn’t hear a word they said for you were so close to Jungkook now.

Soon enough the plane took off and you put in your earbuds and played some of your already downloaded music, including some of BTS and more specifically Jungkook’s solo songs and covers. While you did love and appreciate the other members and their talent, you obviously had to be biased to your literal soulmate. His soothing voice lulled you to sleep and sure enough you slept the entire flight to New York City. 

Soon as you landed you made your way over to baggage claim and called an uber to your hotel. You were getting more and more antsy to the point you were giggling like a maniac. “You okay?” Your voice spoke up. Okay, maybe you were getting too excited by this. You laughed a bit and thought back that you were just excited. You unpacked your things and then decided to check through twitter, and of course, Jungkook was trending again. Clicking on it you see a clip of the live stream after you commented and left. Jungkook’s eyes lit up and he said “You too”, you chuckled and scrolled through and saw a bunch of people’s theories as to who his soulmate is and as his response to your comment was vague, no one pointed to you. 

After a few hours of mindlessly scrolling and watching videos, getting to know what these people thought of Jungkook. He was very important to these people and you couldn’t help but be a little scared because they automatically assumed a lot about idols’ personal lives and you were possibly going to be added to that equation. You felt your stomach grumble and you decided to make a quick stop at a McDonald’s as it was cheap and easy food. Belly full, you fell asleep and happy to possibly see your soulmate within 24 hours.

You woke up a bit early to get ready, the dress code was smart casual so you dressed as such, only messing with your physical appearance very little as you didn’t bring much with you in your rush to pack. Once you noticed the time, you were on your way to the studio and you felt like your heart was going to beat out of your chest. After waiting for a few hours, you all filed into the audience and watched as the crew set up for filming. You couldn’t breathe as Jimmy stood in front and announced that BTS was here and you felt your heart stop when they came out. 

They all came out looking very cute in their current concepts style, and they all look ethereal. Then your eyes landed on Jungkook and all of time seemed to stop. He looked so cute and you couldn’t believe it. There he was. So close yet so far. Every fiber of your being, every atom yelled at you to get up from your seat and run to him but you couldn’t, that was the stupidest thing you could ever do. No, you had to stick to your plan. Hopefully it will work. They danced their way to their seats as the band played, then they all sat down around and on the couch. You couldn’t register anything that was going on, all you could hear was your heartbeat in your ears. You watched them introduce themselves and you had to bite your tongue, because all you wanted to do was scream out to Jungkook that you were here. Just wait, you reminded yourself. Wait.

As they talked about their new music, you heard Jimmy ask about soulmates, more specifically Jungkook, with his system being exposed recently and if he found them. 

He shook his head no. “Still looking.” he shyly admitted as the nearest member, Jimin, patted his thigh. 

This was it. You shut your eyes and thought hard as possible trying to get him to hear you. Please please please. 

“It’s been difficult to find them as-” Namjoon started to explain when suddenly

“I’M HERE!” Jungkook blurted out, cutting him off. It worked! His eyes frantically searched the audience and suddenly a bunch of screaming people were claiming it was them, even people with the most obvious soulmate marks exposed on their bodies, desperate for the love of their bias.

“Wait, they’re here?!” Jimmy shouted over the growing screams of the crowd, Jungkook stood up and watched the crowd intently, unable to pin point you. 

Namjoon said something in Korean to Jungkook, encouraging the younger member to do something. Listening to him, Jungkook closed his eyes and the entire audience went quiet. Waiting for his soulmate to show themselves.

You felt the similar pull, the need to speak. Opening your mouth and standing as you let the words tumble out of your mouth in a shout, shrieking something about raw eggs and Jimin. As random as the saying was, Jungkook’s eyes locked with you and suddenly you felt your legs move without your permission. You frantically pushed past all the people sitting around you and you ran down the stairs to your soulmate. Your Jungkook. As he saw you run down the stairs, he ran to meet you halfway across the stage. You leapt into his open arms and you felt him spin you around as you held on for dear life. 

Soon as everything stopped spinning you could feel him cry into your shoulder. You pulled away to see his eyes starting to grow red from the amount of tears he let go. From that sight alone, you as well burst into tears. He pulled you back into the hug by your neck and you both openly wept into each other's arms. You felt the other members (and you think Jimmy as well), join in the hug as you all stood there. You heard Jimmy say they’re gonna have a quick break and you all were gestured to go backstage. You almost didn’t follow but Jungkook pulled you along, not letting go of you. 

Once in a back room, you were surrounded by the 7 members of the biggest boyband in the world, one of which was your soulmate and you honestly? You were a bit starstruck because while you had hoped that the plan would work, you didn’t think this far ahead. 

“So, uh, what’s your name?” Namjoon broke you out of your trance and you felt your face flush, looking to the ground a bit. 

“Uh, YN LN.” You said, continuing to stare at your toes.

“It’s perfect.” You heard Jungkook mutter as he pulled you into another hug from behind, burying his face in the crook of your neck. 

Jimin lightly scolded the maknae in Korean, saying something along the lines of something about the conversation, the interrupted interview, and 'schedule mess up'.

“Sorry about that, didn't really. . .think of that. . .” You lightly chuckled as you dragged your fingertips up and down Jungkook’s arms that were still wrapped around you. 

“Don’t apologize. I don’t care. I have my soulmate now. I have you.” Jungkook whispered into your ear. 

“We have to go back to the interview. JK, they’ll be here when you get back, right?” Namjoon’s turned to you, putting you on the spot. 

“Y-yes, of course.” You sputtered out, nodding your head. 

You could feel Jungkook pouting as he looked up to face his members. Talking really fast, you managed to understand a bit of what he was saying to them. Asking them about missing the rest of the interview and something about Jin and his soulmate. A few of them went back and forth about whether or not it would be good with Jimmy or the staff. But it was when Hoseok spoke out that the other members agreed, Namjoon only sighed in response. Telling Jungkook he’d be excused from the rest of the schedule today. He then told him to get out of the outfit and get back into his normal clothes and take one of the cars back to their hotel. Jungkook agreed almost immediately as the rest of the members filled out of the room, leaving you and your soulmate alone for the first time.

“This why you excited for New York City? You seeing me?” Jungkook asked as he turned you to face him, you nodded. He laughed lightly. “You really surprised me, and you kept me on my toes the past two years.” Oh shit, he’s been voicing your thoughts way before you even started it because he’s two years older than you.

“Oh shit- I’m, I’m so sorry!” You laughed, you can’t imagine all the weird thoughts he got and not to mention in English so he was probably just as confused as you were. 

“It made concerts difficult, but motivated me to learn English better.” He teased. He placed his hand on your face and you closed your eyes, leaning into his touch. He whispered a small plea. “Please don't let this be a dream.”

“It’s not. This is real.” You whispered back, opening your eyes and looking into his.

“Good, because then I can do this.” He gently pulled your face closer to his and met you halfway with a kiss. You’ll admit, you’ve never kissed anyone before but with Jungkook it all felt right. Granted it was a short and brief kiss, but you felt the emotion behind it all. He pulled away first and just looked at you. You could definitely see what all those comments were talking about with them saying Jungkook has the entire galaxy in his eyes. “I need to change now. Be right back?”

“I’ll be here.”

[cowboypossume]

so i reread keeper of the lost cities and here’s my fresh input:

a note before we begin: you know how people fake throw up at things on tik tok? this book is the reason i now unironically do that.

dex and fitz really have the enemies to lovers troupe going for them and i’m ok with it. i really am.

so do sophie and biana at the beginning but it fizzes out so a better description is enimies to friends to lovers

marhella and stina give me such power top energy i cannot express how much i think that contributes to people not liking them

speaking of stina i wish sophie didn’t just immediately hop onto the bandwagon of “oh she’s evil” without investing further, especially with how much she is written as a ‘good’ person (which i can and will defend to the day i die that good people don’t exist but that’s for a different day).

there’s way too much heteronormativity and Patriarchical Ideas mushed into the book. like three hole pages of a 488 page book of teenagers being like “oooooo girls like guys and guys like girls” only for della to join in. not to mention the amount of times keefe is the reason for those ideas because he’s teasing like “oh fitz has a girlfriend”

keefe and fitz didn’t have as many bonding moments™️ in this book as i remember, but they stil know each other really well, have comfortability around each other, and would make a 10/10 best friends to lovers troupe.

oh my god s o many crushes i swear. like two teenagers of the opposite gender really can’t not like each other apperantly

i miss read a line and really thought there was cannon sexism for me to do a whole ass rant about in the notes part of my analyzation but n o p e

but we do have classism, sexist stereotypes, and the fact that there’s been SO many characters who’ve spoken and ✨🌺far too many of them are white🌺✨

oh also: no ones disabled. which annoys me because their society is described as ‘euptopic’ almost implying that it’s something that makes people problematic, which,,,, no

ok a side note on the society, i understand that the story’s message (kinda) is that things that seem perfect are probably deeply flawed, but something tergan said stuck with me. on a page i can’t remember at the moment he says something like “[the black swan exists] in a society that doesn’t have rebels”, which it suck with me bc that’s boarderline dystopic if it’s not there already. it’s one thing for laws not to be broken, but when you think your society is so perfect despite it having obvious flaws and you think that no one rebels, then i really hate to break it to you, you have a massive rebellion about to occur; it’s just scented as foul under your resplendent nose.

please stop flirting. i get its part of teenagers being teens but i swear if i read “s/he realeased a breath” or “their heart fluttered” or literally ANYTHING like that god no.

yall. i missed dex. he actually has more role in this book than ‘you can gadget and we need one’ and oh boy i really missed him. he’s a BEAN and deserves better.

hole’s said everyone deserves better and i absolutely agree so we’re adding that note here.

if you do what i did and read this book out loud to one of your best friends who has no clue anything about this weird fandom and give fitz a really deep voice for no reason it’s comdy GOLD.

i really think i’m reading too much into this point but iggy seems,,,, symbolic to me?

like ok with humans, sophie didn’t ‘fit in’, right? like she grew up hearing things like “why can’t you be normal like your sister” (which i can do a whole other rant about how that will affect her for the rest of her life just a s k)

not to mention looking really different from her family and graduating high school at age twelve 

but you know who never judged her?

m a r t y

so anyway sophie meets this teal-eyed, movie star smiled wonder boy who takes away her entire knowledge of everything she’s known while taking away her family too

and it turns out even in a place of weirdos she still manages to be the exception to everything

and she doesn’t have the comfort to hear what people are really thinking about her anymore (which as i said before say the word and i’ll deadass write a whole speech about how everything she heard will completely fuck up every relationship she has) which unfortunately means that she grew used to confirming people didn’t like her but now she doesn’t have that

she has to adapt to this new space and feel like she’s always felt, like an outcast in a place that was accepting, but yet again, she the exception to everything

but about halfway through the book she starts to become more comfortable around grady and edaline and that’s when iggy comes in

she finds him while cleaning garbage, and grady compliments her. they have a bonding moment and it’s because of this t h i n g. and then sophie actually feels proud not only does she take up a room, but she did something

and her new parents are proud of her

so she finally feels like she BELONGS because she helped out at the place where she lives/they work

to me it seems iggy is kinda a manifesto of the world building and character development that happens in this book

i think the plot/character arc is fixated a little too much on how different sophie is. like, i get it, she’s exception to everything, but the plot really didn’t need her to be that quirky. yes, she’s different, but there’s a lot more to the plot and her character than how different she is.

also, i had to reread pages a lot bc i needed an exact paragraph number and,,,, it’s really paced like a fanfic

some questions i have about the society is:

it’s established that they use books, physical papers, etc., and the only thing i remember about trees is the speech alden gave her about how she doesn’t know the name of their most popular tree, and the fact that people become trees when they die. even then i don’t think the second one is in this book. never o n c e do i remember something about planting trees that aren’t dead elf’s, so do they feel the affects of deforestation and that jazz?? like if they use trees, will they run out of them? can they??? and do they use the coffins of elf’s for paper??

this is more of a rant than a question, but here it goes anyway. in foxfire, students have a testing system very similar to the one in america: a huge test at the end of the year determines the future of a student. that in of itself doesn’t sound too drastic, right? well,,,,, not necessarily. several studies have shown that tests in general, but especially these types, don’t work. despite how good or bad of a teacher i think my past and current teachers have been, every single one of them hates this system that we have in place. they know it’s an unfair assessment that does it’s damnist to make you fail, and they’re trying so hard to denounce it. however, that doesn’t happen at all in the lost cities. in fact, most of the teachers pride themselves on failing students. so if elf’s are in such an advanced society, why do tests still exist? especially in an environment where the consequences are far greater than just staying back a grade. 

so sophie’s figuring out that major problems exist in the world the elf’s created, right? i wonder if more society structured problems exist more than ‘oh bad people do things and the law justifies which is what’. like, as i’ve previously stated, there’s sexist stereotypes presented (like girls like dresses and guys don’t), but does sexism still exist? does racism exist? it’s established that poverty isn’t a thing because of the fund elf’s have at birth and their limited usage of money (which if you understand please explain bc i don’t really get how they buy stuff but still don’t use money) but if someone gets shipped off to exile, do they lose their money? is it possible for elf’s to starve to death because they can’t afford food? do they pay for food?? if they did starve who would they call? because someone on this website, who’s post i tried to find but i couldn’t so if y’all know what i’m talking about please link it, brought up a good point that elwin is a school physician, he shouldn’t be dealing with the near-death experiences sophie has, so who would they turn to? especially if they don’t have access to foxfire because they got exciled??

is therapy a thing in this world? sophie and dex could really benefit from it, yet mental health has only been brought up when someone went insane, which REALLY shows how little they think about it.

that perfectly transitions into my next point: sophie and dex’s trauma. i really don’t get the vibe that there was much thought going into their kidnapping, other than sophie needed something to trigger her inflecting ability and establish the black swan are on the good side, which really sucks because wow trauma doesn’t happen lightly. and the fact that it happened seems rushed to me, but i’ll come back to that. but anyway, their trauma doesn’t get developed that deeply in this book because it wasn’t given the space to. they were beaten, tortured, starved, gagged, and who even knows what else for t e n d a y s, only for them to find them again, repeat the process, but someone saves them and dumps them into an illegal city and they both nearly die from dehydration, coldness, and lack of concentration, and you’re telling me after three days of conscious of bed rest sophie wants to get her failing out of school over with? ma’am, it takes more time than that to adjust to THAT alone, not to mention the realization that “hey your entire life is fake because people genetically altered you to be their weapon in a war so much bigger than yourself” that was recently dumped on her. like,,,, you really expect me to think that three days is what made her feel prepared and CONFIDENT? no sir. i don’t buy it.

coming back to it being rushed: the book starts out slow and then really hits the ground running and doesn’t stop. so much more stuff happens in the second half of the book than the first and it never gets fully developed it feels like. in the first half sophie moves away but gets a new family and struggles a bit but adapts, fires maybe but hey don’t worry about it, dex hates fitz, fitz is ✨d r e a m y ✨ but our main girl doesn’t like him like that, right?, stina’s a bitch, and sophie is a quirky girl and telepath but can’t tell anyone. pretty basic stuff, not too plot intensive. the second half though: sophie almost fails her midterms but doesn’t, grady and elaine want to unadopt her (which that’s never really explained as to why they do that but ok) fires exist in san degio but they’re fine but they’re actually a rebel elf so..., sophie accidentally breaks a law but it was an accident so it’s fine, update on the fires: sophie burns herself trying to get the evidence that it’s a rebel elf and it works, she’s the moon lark and basically a weapon bc no one knows her well enough to evaluate her safety, sophie and dex get kidnapped but fitz can now transmit to her and she has two new abilities so it’s all good, trauma doesn’t exist except for nightmare you can fix with sedatives, sophie doesn’t fail out of school, and yayyy her family doesn’t want her remove their adoption. there’s probably a lot more that i missed, it’s just that’s a LOT of stuff crammed into a little bit further than the second half of the book that really could have been devolped or explore further instead of forcing into less than 244 pages, ya know?

fitz’s eyes are mentioned seven times, the first time being on page TWO of the novel

his smile is mentioned three times

alden says “no reason to worry” five times, he writes it once, and sophie points out he says it a lot so he chances it slightly to something like ‘don’t stress about it’ so i didn’t count those though i should have

speaking of alden, in this book he’s absolutely creepy, but something that stands out to me is how much he calls sophie girl. i didn’t count it, but he said “that’s a good girl” to sophie too many times for it to be normal especially when you consider how he doesn’t do it to anyone else.

i kinda forgot i was annotating for sophie’s anxious habit of pulling out her eyelashes so i got she did it twice, but i highly doubt that number

but i will keep adding to this when i actually do the words with my annotations.

[lexicals]

Liner notes for An Echo, An Answer

Okay let's give this a go I guess? I may add more to this if I remember things too lol

Fair warning this is an exceedingly long post. It has ~subheadings~ (ooh). These cover: 

Fun Facts

Notes about mira

Notes on actual writing/plot

Post-canon tidbits (to be supplemented by actual post-canon oneshot coming maybe not soon but definitely at some point probably)

Needless to say this contains some BIG OL’ SPOILERS. Please enjoy o:

Some general Fun Facts™:

When I posted the first few chapters of this fic, I didn't have a fucking clue where it was going. I didn't even know how kravitz died until I'd already posted like 10 chapters lmao. This was a stressful way to write and I am never doing that again

In terms of inspo, I remember there being a fic in which taako was a ghost and kravitz was a medium (if anyone knows what fic this is PLEASE tell me I cannot find it) and I think I subconsciously took inspiration from this. Also I’d already written a vampire au and I wanted more undead boyfriend shenanigans, I looove playing with the liminal aspects of kravitz being a dead-but-not-dead character

There was a goof version of this fic where kravitz wasn't from the 1900s at all and died in like. The early 2000s or something. He died having come back from/at a costume party, people assumed he was an actual ye olde victorian ghost, and he decided to just lean into it. Cue fake accent. This was scrapped mainly because I loved the ‘sleepy hollow’-esque man-out-of-time shenanigans way too much and also because I know very little about the early-2000s US but do you know what I do know a moderate amount about? 1900s england

I have not read the cask of amontillado and I did not know what it was until seeing the memes, which was after I wrote the basement body twist. I just wanted to have a cheesy secret basement behind a bookcase c'mon it's a murder mystery in an old spooky house let me have this

Anyone who's followed my content for a while probably knows that I'm a big trans kravitz stan, but I dithered over making him trans in this fic a Lot. This was mostly down to self-doubt abt a story ft. a trans man living as his preferred gender in that time period would be deemed "unrealistic" but in the end I said fuck it I want this & I think that was the correct move. Also I read a fair bit about absolute legend dr james barry & that made me a bit more confident about committing to the decision bc these people did exist & they deserve their rep

You may notice that all of the major OCs created for this fic are women. This was an accident but also I stand by it bc I think it helps to balance out the fact that so much of the ‘screentime’ is being dominated by the male leads (inc. angus, who probably has the 3rd most screentime after taako & krav). They’re also all just, absolutely indomitable people. I have a type when it comes to OCs. Speaking of:

Notes on mira:

Mira was very much a character created to serve a purpose, but she ended up becoming a lot more than that and I'm glad people warmed up to her while reading as much as I did while writing. She wasn't going to have anywhere near as much screen time initially as she did in the end but I just loved her & how her relationship with kravitz turned out so much that I ended up writing a bunch of snippets with the two of them just for me, which eventually turned into the fragment chapters because I wanted to share how gd cute they were. Also they ended up being pretty useful for plot too lol

She and flossy were actually kind of the same character to begin with, being kravitz's best friend who he lived with in a kind of lavender marriage with neither of them interested in the other but being happy enough being friends & pretending. I scrapped this pretty early for a lot of reasons but she was still the cause of his death in that version, whether or not she actively killed him. I think there was a gambling debts element at some point

Whatever iteration of the story, she was always going to be the cause of death. I ruled out actual murder pretty early on because I didn't want to tell a story about a gay, black trans man getting murdered in cold blood in his own home, which in a ghost story only really leaves manslaughter, and an accidental killing by a loved one was an idea that followed pretty hot on the heels of that decision - it's very sad, but there's no hatred behind it, so it's not too outright depressing for what is most likely an audience with a high population of marginalised people. That bittersweetness of tone - sad events, but almost always with loving intentions behind or around them - ended up being a real touchstone for the story as a whole

In terms of post-canon content for her, or I guess just stuff that wasn't mentioned in-fic lol, my idea of how her life played out is that she was a pretty solid pillar of her community for a very long time. She took what kravitz said about thinking about what she wanted to add to the world very much to heart, and her answer was for her to be to as many kids and vulnerable people as possible what kravitz was to her. Obviously in the end she poured a lot of herself into helping others out of guilt for having killed a man who she likely remembered a little rose-tinted, but the intent was always there before that too

I don't know how much this came across in the actual text but mira is mixed race (Black/white), though she is Black-coded in terms of how people see and respond to her (please tell me if I’m using these terms incorrectly). I downplayed a lot of the racial elements of this fic bc I don’t feel like it’s my place as a white writer to delve into those areas, but it is an element of her story that ties into anti-miscegenation laws and general societal attitudes and I didn’t just want to entirely gloss over those aspects, bc that wouldn’t be right of me either, so I can only hope the balance ended up working here, and for kravitz’s story too. I did a lot of the writing for mira’s story before even really thinking about this angle which is something I’ve learnt from now bc oh boy should I have thought about it sooner lmao........

Anyway. I love her. I’m very glad that other people love her too

In terms of story writing:

I used to watch A LOT of crime dramas when I was younger, and got so familiar with the structure of them that I used to predict who the killer was going to be about a quarter of the way into them almost every time. Most of the time the killer is someone introduced early on as someone fairly innocuous, but still notable, before the narrative doubles down on a red herring suspect who's proven innocent about 3/4 of the way through, paving the way for the real twist killer. You see where I took my base structure from here

So, mira is introduced early on as someone important to kravitz, who was involved in his life (& death) somehow, but in general she's more suggested to be a victim than a culprit - because of course she is, she’s a child and she loves him! I'm only just realising now that this is a "person of interest" style plot twist here. (Remember what I said about the crime dramas? Just so many of them.) But then in the end she suffered just as much as anyone else, so I guess you could say she's both a victim and a culprit, even by accident.......

Structurally I'm actually really happy with how this turned out. In my head (BECAUSE OH BOY I DID NOT WRITE ANY OF THIS DOWN! Or at least not in a coherent way) the story was split into three mini arcs - the enemies section ending with the kitchen blowout, the friends section ending with the the bay window scene, and the lovers section which covers the rest of the fic. This ended up integrating really well with the main mysteries/pulls of the story - the first being the will-they-won't-they (they will, it’s fanfiction, but how?) of the romance element, and then once that's tapering off starting to dig more into the murder mystery element, which had been more of a subplot up until then, while the romance moves onto the back burner a little bit. The dual genre was an interesting challenge to try to balance and I think it turned out pretty well!

While I'm on this, setting up my breadcrumb trails for the plot twists was simultaneously very stressful and very rewarding. Trying to keep things obvious enough to be noted but subtle enough not to give the whole game away? Gave me so many headaches lmao. I actually thought for sure that some people would twig about the body in the cellar sooner than ch42, but then actually in ch42 way more people picked up on fisher's sniffing around than I expected. Clues are hard!! But at the same time seeing the handful of people who called mira as an adoptive daughter, or the fact that krav fell down the stairs, or the fact that mira's og parents were involved was very cool and it made me very happy to see people picking up the little stuff and putting it together

QUITE A FEW PEOPLE SAID NICE THINGS TO ME ABOUT HOW CLEVER THE PIANO TUNING ANGLE WAS. I CANNOT TAKE COMPLETE CREDIT FOR THIS. IT WAS A PLOT HOLE THAT I SUDDENLY REGISTERED OUT OF NOWHERE WHILE I WAS IN THE SHOWER & THEN ENDED UP WORKING IN SO I GUESS IT TURNED OUT FOR THE BEST & MADE ME LOOK VERY SMART BUT IT WAS AN ACCIDENT

Something else that a couple of people have noted & that I only realised in the process of writing was the fact that a lot of kravitz's ghostliness in this fic has the potential to be read as an allegory for chronic illness/disability. This was something I only caught onto myself while I was writing the scene on the porch at the end of ch42 when I was writing kravitz's dialogue and was like..... oh shit that's a thing huh. Bc he is, y'know, quite literally housebound and limited in what he can do in a lot of ways, which is part of the reason I really tried to hammer home in that chapter that even though the fic ends with him being 'cured' (because that ending was always the intention from day one before I ever thought about this reading), they would have been happy together regardless. Love is not conditional!

Post-canon thoughts:

Taako and kravitz go into the house. Kravitz says oh my god what is that smell. Taako says he made blueberry pie earlier. Kravitz says okay we're putting bedroom fun times on hold I need that RIGHT NOW

Kravitz eats way too much too fast and spends the rest of the afternoon curled up on the sofa with a horrible stomach ache. He is not used to that much rich food. Taako is not impressed with this

He rolls his eyes and they watch a movie and talk instead and get to the bedroom fun times later

On the topic of food you Know krav ends up with a bit of a tummy from taako spoiling him. He looks & feels great and taako loves how comfy he is

Also on the topic of bodies I think krav does a lot of experimenting initially with what feels good now that he has a lot more freedom in presentation. He likes to mess with his hair a lot. Dresses and skirts are still a bad feel but a little makeup is fun sometimes. Kravitz living his best undeath 2k18 (I took so long to finish this fic it’s set 2 years ago now lmaoooo)

Kravitz lets taako drive him somewhere exactly Once before vowing NEVER AGAIN taako's driving privileges are REVOKED kravitz is going to get magnus to teach him to drive instead.

Taako says what the hell are you gonna do if you get pulled over you are a hundred and thirty and also dead you can't get a license. (He could get him a fake one, but he's not going to, because he's being petty about kravitz insulting his driving.) Kravitz says fine show me yours then. Taako says no but kravitz steals it anyway. A minute later he’s produced his own undoubtedly fake license out of nowhere complete with a fake DOB and a very nice picture

Taako says gasp kravitz that's ILLEGAL. Also you know you have to make this picture worse if you want it to be convincing right

Kravitz starts giving angus music lessons. Angus isn’t a natural by any means but he works hard and that gets him a long way

OH ACTUALLY I SHOULD PROBABLY SAY SMTH ABOUT THE REUNIONS HUH. GINNY THESE ARE FOR YOU:

Maybe it's weird to start with barry but the poor man has to have a sit down. He has so many questions. Kravitz what is the afterlife like it's fine you can tell him just give him a hint please and also can he maybe get like. A blood sample or something. No that's not weird it's for science what are you talking about taako bring him back

Kravitz is fully expecting lup to wreck his shit, and she acts like she's going to right up until she's close enough to give him a big ol hug instead. She says she missed him a lot & that he's much nicer to hug now that he's not a freezy boy, and kravitz goes ;_;

It's a very tight hug though. In some ways it is still a punishment

Also could he maybe hook her up with this death goddess of his? Lup would like to be immortal too, kravitz. Kravitz can you get a resume to your boss and could you write lup a reference while you're at it

Angus!! He’s so happy to have his other uncle back!! There’s a new caleb cleveland book he needs to read so they can talk about it!! All of this after a lot of crying and hugging.

I think at some point they do go over to visit mira’s descendants. Taako says hi remember me? I brought my boyfriend to visit! Unnamed great great grandchild #1 is like um he looks kind of familiar. Kravitz says well yes there is kind of a reason for that and it’s because I’m in that picture on the wall over there, hi I’m your great great grandfather nice to meet you

The family is a little weirded out by this at first but eventually they’re like. Well alright I guess do you want a coffee

Kravitz says yes please god do you know how many people keep offering me tea

He babysits for the youngest ones sometimes. The kids love him and the adults are happy to give him stories in exchange for his time, seeing as that’s all he asks for

Taako says ask them for money and contribute to this household kravitz. Kravitz says absolutely not they’re family and you’re already getting my youtube ad revenue

Yes kravitz has a youtube channel and is also very involved in the local music scene. He can’t do anything that would technically be classed as interfering with the flow of the living world but no-one said he can’t anonymously share some of his music here and there

Johann gets him a gig conducting for his orchestra every now and then. Kravitz is fucking ecstatic and finally gets to conduct some of his own pieces in front of an audience. Maybe they actually get to that biography johann mentioned at some point. Idk I haven’t thought about that part too much

Okay I wrote WAY more than I meant to here but I hope at least some of it was interesting and feel free to ask me questions if there are elements I’ve missed off of here that you want to hear more about! (Bearing in mind some of the answers may be “actual post canon content coming soon/later” lol.) As you can tell I have a lot of things to say about this fic & I’m always more than happy to hear that people are interested!! o:

[delldarling]

always, we return | hyrian

This was March’s Story of the Month over on Patreon! Can you tell that the weather sometimes influences the subject of my stories? non-binary rain elemental x gender neutral reader 2.5k words sfw | one showing of blatant interest, mention of drinking, but otherwise read more is for length!

The sound of the rain is making you strangely drowsy.

It shouldn’t be. You’re cold as hell, sitting on the front porch of your new house at midnight, nursing a drink one of your roommates made to celebrate. The false heat the alcohol had made inside you seemed a little too hot, so you thought that stepping outside might give you a jump to your system Might wake you with the snap of the cold. Instead, the heavy rain pouring into the yard and onto the street has you blinking your eyes furiously to keep them open. 

The droning noise is just so soothing.

You suck in another deep breath, trying to relish the sear in your lungs - maybe you are fighting it - but then you’re distracted by the figure in the rain. They walk slowly, like they’re walking with something heavy on their legs or their shoulders, the rain bouncing off of them, creating a strange kind of misty aura. You… You can’t see them. Just their shape, the splash of their feet in the growing puddles, some kind of walking stick in their arm that they swing back and forth. They’re invisible. Their clothes, their body, the stick in their hand- everything about them is invisible.

The lethargy builds, until you’re swaying in your seat on the porch stairs, eyes narrowed as you try to focus, because- because that can’t be right? Can it? And then you feel the weight of their eyes, can see a spark-like gleam where their eyes should be and wind chimes seem to echo in your ears-

You wake, finding yourself back inside on the couch. Cold morning light fills the living room and casts shadows over one of your roommates, sleeping soundly on the floor next to you. Obviously they’d drawn the short straw and remained nearby to make sure you were alright.

“What the fuck was that?” You whisper into the silent room, heart racing loud enough to nearly drown out your words. 

Outside, the rain continues.

Once everyone is awake and recovered from the previous evening, you fully expect someone to bring up what happened. To make some kind of mention as to how they found you outside and hey, what were you doing out there anyway? But no one says anything. It’s almost 2 in the afternoon before you finally breach the topic, clutching nervously at a glass of water on the counter. 

“Did I pass out on the porch last night?” You ask, forcing yourself to take a sip. The motion helps, even if you don’t feel thirsty, which is, frankly, odd. You were drinking last night, you know you were, but you haven’t felt any kind of ill effects at all. Everyone else has been doubling up on water or gatorade since they got up, and here you feel… Normal. 

“Did you?” One of your roommates asks, but that feels like it’s going to be the extent of the conversation until you keep talking. 

“Yeah? I mean. I’m pretty sure I fell asleep out there. And I saw something really weird.” As soon as you get the story out, as soon as you explain the strange chiming noise you’d heard and the abnormal drowsiness, everyone treats it like some half remembered story. 

“It sounds like some kind of fever dream. Or maybe you were just really drunk - though I swore you didn’t-” Your roommate trails off, and then brings up a prior appointment, rushing through a goodbye to you and then calling out goodbyes to your other housemates before they’re out the door. When they leave, you see the rain still cascading over the street, filling the gutters, opaque where it reflects the heavy clouds above, and then the door closes, leaving you staring at nothing but pale paint. 

The rest of the day, all you can think about is the continued rain. You check the weather multiple times, half afraid that the rain will clear up before nightfall, before you can slip outside unnoticed. Even though part of you does wonder if it was some kind of hallucination, brought on by drink and tiredness.. You also can’t help but wonder if seeing what you did requires some kind of special stipulation. Maybe it’s like those fantasy or sci-fi shows where only one person can see the ghost because they ate strawberries or they’re distantly related. Regardless, seeing the figure felt special, and you really would like to see it again, if only to prove that you weren’t imagining things.   

As soon as it’s dark, and you know that no one else is going to be coming and going through the front door, you slip out onto the porch. You’re not as warm as you were the night before. This time you aren’t bolstered with alcohol in your veins, falsely warming you from the belly outward, and the rain has been going for long enough that everything is vaguely chilly. You want to go back inside and grab a blanket or a coat, but in the back of your mind, you’re almost convinced that the moment you do is when the figure will appear once more. You’ll miss it, them, their cold eyes shining through the sheets of rain, their body obviously solid, but invisible to your eye. You stay outside until you’re tired and aching, staring out at the downpour without any kind of excuse to keep you here. There’s no strange lethargy rolling over you either tonight, just a steadily growing grumpiness from subjecting yourself to such discomfort. 

“I suppose that’s it then,” you whisper, letting a yawn well up and close your eyes. “Time to go in,” you add, turning and reaching for the front door handle. As soon as your fingertips touch the cool metal, a sudden intangible weight seems to drag at your heels. Faint chimes echo amidst the rain, growing louder as you turn your head to glance back over your shoulder- And then you see them.

They’re in the street again. 

This time they aren’t moving. They’re still invisible, still only noticeable because of the rain bouncing off of the seemingly empty space of their body. And their eyes - like cool sparks or the reflection of passing headlights on hidden bits of polished metal. They’re watching you, tracking your every movement as you turn to face them, shocked into silence for an extended period of time. What are you supposed to say now?

“Am I dreaming?” You can’t help asking, breath coming fast and sharp, the chill of the rainy night making your fingers ache the longer you watch them. You clasp your hands together, trying to chafe them into some semblance of warmth when there isn’t any kind of immediate response. You’re not sure as to whether you expect them to answer - maybe they’ll just keep on going? Or maybe they can’t speak, and then you’ll have to pick out clues that they share through mud puddles or- It doesn’t matter. You’re still not sure as to whether this is even reality, because honestly, you’ve never even heard of something like this- But then their voice fills your ears, watery, eerie, every punctuation to their words a well timed drip into a puddle or splatter over the rooftops. 

You walk the waking realm. And you See. 

Their words are.. Balanced, between irritation and awe, like they should be unhappy with this information, but have found themselves strangely, unexpectedly, amused instead. 

“It’s… Good to know I’m awake,” you say, and then stop, blinking, ready for them to vanish from sight. “And, yes? I do see you.” It seems like the most obvious answer in the world, but then they’re walking closer, the cold gleam of their eyes growing clearer. You still can’t see them, not the entirety of them, their body or their features, but their shape is there, visible in the rain. “I- does that mean that others generally can’t? Or that your presence makes people forget? Because I have a few ques-”

Can you Touch? They ask, overeager, and you’re fairly sure their hands are curled around the railing on your porch now. The moisture on it is vanishing, leaving behind two dry shapes like handprints, though they’re oddly shaped and look to have three fingers each.

“Touch what?” You ask, wanting to kick yourself, or to take back the words. A myriad of follow ups fly through your mind - do they mean yourself, or the rain? You finally settle on the idea that they must mean them, can you touch them, but you’re a tad too shy to give voice to it.   

They aren’t shy though. They don’t answer at first, but rain splatters the porch railing again, and then their hands are curling around your wrists, cool and fluid and- their touch feels like raindrops. You’re still dry, and there’s definite weight to their hands around your wrists, but it’s as if their heartbeat is so strong against their skin that you can feel it with every brush, in time with every pitter-patter of rain across the ground, on the street, on the tree tops. The taste of fresh rain permeates every breath you take, and their eyes grow closer and closer, until they stop just shy of your face. They don’t blink, but a second pair of hands smooths over your shoulders and then strokes back up to your neck until they’re cradling your face.  The rain is coming down harder. 

Too few can Touch and we miss it. The warmth. The brightness that humans bring. 

“We? Are there more of you?” You ask, glancing over your shoulder, worried suddenly about the second pair of hands belonging to someone you’d yet to notice, but they keep you focused on them, still cradling your cheeks, touch just strong enough to keep you still. 

Water, they say. Rain. We journey across the world, we scatter, but always we return to the sky. The sound of their voice and the way they speak is so rhythmic, that you’re fairly sure their speech was what sent you to sleep yesterday. It was slower then though, and softer, harder for you to actually make out the spoken words… They might have asked you a question, now that you think about it. Once, they continue, rain drop touch trailing over your parted lips, humans recalled their connection with Us. But so few of you carry Us now-

“Carry us. Carry. Okay, uh, do you… have a name?” You ask, freezing when your tongue brushes over what feels like a water droplet on your lower lip. They don’t admonish you though, or even acknowledge that you might have licked something of their body. Heat still zips through you like lightning though, and you would be looking away if you could see any kind of expression on their face.

Hyrian, they murmur, sighing as they pull away. You can still see the spark of their eyes, can still taste the clean rain on the air, but you have to cross your arms over your middle, concerned about touching them without invitation. Part of you is highly tempted to look up stories of invisible people now, if only to know how to navigate conversing with.. With Hyrian. With rain. 

It has been an age since we have been Seen. Would you be opposed to us returning? To courting?

The question leaves you staring, minding spinning with worried thoughts about whether or not you’re looking at their face or whether you’re just staring past them. What if- what if they think you can actually see all of them and you’ve accidentally lied?

“I- Okay, so wait. I can see your eyes, your- the shape of you. Like a shadow, or an outline, but not you entirely. I swear, I’m not trying to lie, and if you’re asking because you think that I-”

Hyrian laughs and the tree branches and power lines near by rattle and shake as water cascades off them into the street. Worry not, you see us correctly. If we took more form we would still not be.. Solid. Perhaps more opaque.

“Ah. Awesome, and then.. well, we’ve just met, and you’re- You’re magic? I’m not sure why you want to court me.” You try, hoping that isn’t offensive. 

Hyrian’s voice turns wistful. Once humans would seek us out, would journey into the wild places looking for us, if only to spend a night in our company. We’d only just met them, Hyrian reveals, almost teasing in tone. Let us attempt to court you, to show you why those humans would come back from the wilds rejuvenated and carrying tales of being loved by wind or water itself.

“I need to think it over,” you blurt, but you don’t sense any kind of unhappiness from them. The rain is still steady and their eyes, unblinking, are still focused on your face. 

The sweet sounding wind chimes echo through the street again, finally turning Hyrian’s attention away from you. You don’t know what the chimes mean, if they’re summoning Hyrian, or if they herald some kind of arrival, but it keeps them facing away from you for longer than a few seconds. When they turn back, their eyes look smaller, tired, but no less kind. 

If not for courting, then for friendship, let us return? We will not press to be your suitor, but we do crave companionship and speech. Humans are so much brighter, you see.

You might not know how to feel about a rain spirit asking to court you, but you do know that you want to see them again. You don’t even have to think twice about their question this time, you stick out your hand, pulse pounding and offer them a smile. 

“I would like that, Hyrian,” you say warmly. That drumming beat of rain held captive under their skin has you shivering. Two of their hands close over your one, gentle in grip, but strong, and even after they let go of you, the thrum of their touch lingers. 

Then we shall return. Look for us at the next crest of clouds, we will be close behind.

And then the rain slows. You can still feel them, can still see their eyes gleaming, but the less rain there is, the more they truly fade into nonbeing. For the second time in two days, you grow drowsy out on your porch, listening to the chimes on the air, but this time you watch Hyrian fade from view. Even after they’re gone, you stay where you are, eyes searching the now quiet street, the only sounds that of cars far off in the distance, the last remnants of water rolling off of eaves and drain spouts. You make your way inside and into bed, this time all on your own merit, and start drafting up the questions you have for Hyrian. You can’t forget their touch though, the buzz of it lingering on your hand and forearm. The sensation follows you, even into your dreams.