#bajillionth time (I never give him one-)

[spotaus]

Ichor's back again! Decided to do some exercises with my silliest traumatized Sans, and the one that ended up sticking was the Cute Outfit doodles!

[rainydaygotham]

BE MINE VALENTINE

Dick Grayson x vigilante!reader || 3865 wc

summary: Valentine’s Day with Dickie Bird. And you decide to take the next step in your relationship.

warnings: fem reader, drinking, unprotected penetrative sex

a/n: man i need a cigarette. and more than the couple of drinks had here. reminds me, dont worry about the drinking and driving you know his bikes are souped tf up. autopilot is a given

You glanced at the ticking clock on the wall for the bajillionth time. Still an hour before you got off of work. Still an hour before Dick picks you up and spirits you away on his motorcycle, off into the neon lights of the Gotham nightlife.

You tapped your fingertips on your desk. With the agitating knowledge that he was going to be here soon, you were way too distracted to work anymore. Hopefully your boss doesn’t notice you just fidgeting around and not doing your job.

You let yourself daydream about it while you waited.

The way Dick would roll in, probably dressed in clothes that hug him so nicely thanks to the Waynes’ tailor. The way he’d pull that motorcycle helmet off his head, his fluffy black hair sticking to him with sweat. The way he would toss his head back, giving said sticky hair a run through with his hand. The way his eyes would light up when he sees you stalking towards him. The way Dick would pull you in, his hands naturally going down to grip your hips as he kissed you deeply, not caring if anyone was around—

Bzzt! Your phone buzzed.

Oh, speak of the devil. Dick’s made it to Gotham. The picture he sent you was adorable, a selfie of him smiling wide with Jason and Roy at some bar. Not even close to 5 o’clock yet, mind you, but it’s always good to see Dick with his friends. You’re not entirely sure he has them in Blüdhaven, unfortunately.

Cute, you text him. Don’t have too much fun without me, tho :(

Baby, I could never <3

You looked around the room. Everyone else was focused on actually doing their work, and not up walking around. You could probably get away with it…

After checking one last time to see if the coast was clear, you pulled down your blouse just enough that you could see the top of your breast and just a hint of the Nightwing blue lingerie you were wearing. Tasteful, exciting, just enough to rile him up without actually showing anything Dick wouldn’t want his baby brother to accidentally see when he opened this message willy-nilly.

Want a peek? IMG_214.jpg

Please get off work faster 🥺

Well damn Dick I can’t control time

You smiled at your phone, putting it down before you got caught. Looking at that stupid clock again, it was only 20 past 4:00. Ugh. Fine. Guess you’ll at least pretend to do your job for another half hour or so.

-

After what felt like years, you were finally on the back of Dick’s bike, clinging to him as he races through the streets of Gotham with a practiced ease. You wished you didn’t have this clunky helmet on, so you could nuzzle into the back of his neck. But he insists you wear it. And you do, because it’s nice to have someone care about your safety like that.

The bike rolled to a stop as you pulled into a red light. You were suddenly able to hear the city around you in clarity. So, you dipped closer to Dick’s ear, tapping his shoulder to get his attention.

“Do I get to know where we’re going?”

“Wherever the night takes us,” he said seriously.

“So, you forgot to make any reservations,” you giggled in his ear.

“No,” he said with mock offense, “I just thought we could have a mysterious adventure. It adds to the sexiness,”

You snorted, “Sure,”

Eventually you stopped at an amphitheater, where a local band was playing some good music. Thankfully, Gotham had smiled upon its citizens and granted you a cool, not rainy night. The trees were still lit up with Christmas lights, adding to the normal city glow. All in all, the atmosphere was pretty sexy, you’ll give Dick that.

There were food trucks around, so you picked up a few items to share. Some ‘gourmet’ fries from a truck that only sold fries. Chicken and waffles from a chicken and waffles truck. Boba from a truck selling ‘Mexican-Asian fusion cuisine’, whatever that was. There was pretty good array of foods here.

You settled into the grassy amphitheater seats to eat and enjoy the music serenading you.

It should be absolutely freezing out, but somehow it was only in the 50’s. Still chilly, but all you needed was a sweater. Strange for February. And well, you hadn’t worn a sweater. On purpose. So you were in fact pretty damn cold.

You shivered for a moment, making sure Dick saw but not making it too obvious. Or, at least you thought you weren’t being too obvious. Dick chuckled as he took off his jacket, and put it around your shoulders, just like he always does.

“Hmm, I distinctly remember your closet having more than a few jackets,” he playfully booped your nose with his fingertip, “and yet you always seem to need mine, how is that?”

You smiled guiltily, “Well. Yours are more comfortable, you see,”

“Oh, are they now?”

“Mmmhmm,”

He did have a sweater on underneath, making the jacket overkill considering how hot he normally runs. So clearly he not only wanted but expected you to take the jacket. No guilt on your part at all then.

You sat in the grass, listening to the band and talking about anything and everything for a few hours. Most nights, all you have is Dick’s voice over the phone, so it was nice to have him physically there. You could lean against your boyfriend while he told you about his day, actually feeling his body pressed into yours.

Bittersweet, you believe the word to be. That feeling of being so happy here with Dick that it just made you sad. You wished you could have this all the time, but you don’t. A warm body to cuddle into, not a pillow. A real voice in your ear, not transmitted over telephone airwaves.

Blüdhaven wasn’t far. But goddamn, was it too far.

When you had first met, it was on a weekend when he was in Gotham. Even though you had met in the Batcave, you had no idea he didn’t live here full time. Everyone talked about him constantly like he was there, and you knew he had a room in the manor. You just assumed he wasn’t as into the whole vigilante thing as the rest of them were. It took you a while to realize that he just straight up left town after a mission was over.

And then when you started dating, it was fine. He’d take you out for Friday drinks, and sleep in on Saturdays. You’d partner up on patrols or cases and occasionally he’d take you on Titans missions with him. He made sure you got to spend time together at least once a week, and that had been enough.

But then things got more serious between you two. And suddenly it was Not Enough anymore.

Falling asleep on call wasn’t enough. Good morning texts weren’t enough. Little weekend dates weren’t enough. You needed him with you. You need him close to you all the time, not just some of it.

You’ve been job searching in Büdhaven, but it’s yet to be fruitful. There was also the option of asking him to move back to Gotham, but you weren’t sure he would be keen on that at the moment. But either way, something had to give.

You were going to tell him. You had to tell him. You didn’t want to ruin this sweet Valentine’s Day if he disagreed with you, but you had to tell him tonight.

And now was as good a time as ever, you supposed. You looked over at him, and he was already looking at you. You blushed, the words now dying on your tongue.

“You wanna go get drinks?” he asked, oblivious to your conundrum.

“Uh. Yeah, sure,”

You took his hand as he helped you up. You brushed yourself off before letting him lead you back to where he parked the bike. His hand was always so warm, even in the chilly night air.

Leaving for the bar was smart, actually, since it was well past sundown and it’s not a good idea to be out in the open air like this in the dark. People still did it, of course, that good ol’ fashioned Gothamite spirit coming through. But none of the people choosing to stay sitting in the grass were recognizable public figures like Gotham Prince over here. So moving on to a second location was the natural next step in your night.

Actually nevermind. The lounge Dick took you was probably just as dangerous as staying outside, but he seemed to be very friendly with the owner, so maybe it’s fine. Probably.

You were ushered into some ‘vip area’, which wasn’t different from the normal tables area, just a piece of it arbitrarily marked off with a rope. Although, you were still grateful, because these seats looked a little less sticky than the ones just a few feet away.

Soon your favorite cocktail was in your hand. And with a little liquid courage, you can easily start this very important conversation with your boyfrie—

“Baby, I think we need to talk,” Dick interrupted your mental pep talk.

And goddamn. Were those not words you ever wanted to hear.

“Yes, love of my life?” you said shakily.

Dick had the audacity to laugh, “Relax. It’s nothing bad,”

You audibly let out the breath you didn’t know you were holding, “Then why would you say it like that?”

“You’re so cute when you’re mad,”

“Well, you know what. I have something I think we should talk about too. So like. Uno reverse, bitch,”

Dick eyed you wearily before knocking back his glass, “Can I go first?”

Well, if what he had to say altered the possibility of you moving in together in any way, it would probably be best if you don’t bring it up then. Just tell him you no longer need to talk about what you wanted to talk about. So yeah, he could go first.

“Shoot,”

Dick set his glass down on the table and turned towards you, giving you his undivided attention. He took both of your hands in his, tenderly holding them, which was either very sweet or very worrisome depending on what was about to come out of his mouth.

“I’ve been thinking. Things have gotten very.. serious, to me lately. Between us,” he quickly added, “and don’t be mad! But I may have gotten you a job in Blüdhaven��”

He grit his teeth, waiting for you to either stubbornly turn the offer down or even just plain tell him to fuck off. He knew you weren’t really a fan of the whole ‘using connections’ thing, and that you really didn’t like it when people told you what to do.

“…Does it pay better than what I have going now?”

“Well, no. It actually pays worse…” he admitted.

“Then how am I going to pay rent, Dickie? Blüdhaven’s housing market is just as bad as Gotham’s,”

“See, that’s the thing. It’s not going to matter that you’re taking a cut because you won’t have to pay any rent. I can make that whole bill disappear,”

You allowed yourself a small smile, hoping that you knew where this was going, “And how, pray tell, would you be doing that?”

“Well I’m magic, for one thing. Learned it in the circus.”

“Is that so?”

“Uh huh…” he stopped bantering for a moment, sobering up a bit, “I want you to move in with me, y/n.”

“Hmmm,” you pretended to mull it over, “Well, my lease is almost up,“

“Yes, in April,” he supplied.

You laughed, of course Dick remembers every little thing you ever tell him. He always does.

“And I have been missing you like a phantom limb lately,”

Dick’s eyes softened from nervous to endeared, “I miss you too. So much,”

You shook your head in mock exasperation before taking one of your hands out of his hold, using it to guide his face to you as you kissed him sweetly. You could taste the tequila sunrise on his lips. Dick never was one for whiskey.

You broke the kiss, “It’s a deal,” Dick grinned madly at you, “But you’re going to have to tell Batman you’re poaching me,”

“You know what, I’m okay with that,”

Your boyfriend goes and orders another round to celebrate. While he stands waiting at the bar, you get a good opportunity to appreciate, how you say, the sceneic view. You really gotta send that tailor a fruit basket one of these days. Of course, you’re sure Dick could make any pair of pants look good. That ass was to die for. You definitely know what Ella Fitzgerald meant when she said “worship the trousers that cling to him.” If you were at home, you’d wolf whistle.

“I’m sorry, but I got so excited I forgot to ask what you needed to talk about,” Dick sounds sheepish as he places the new drinks on the table.

You take a drink, ah it hits the spot, “Just that either I need to find a job in Blüdhaven or you need to move back to Gotham. Looks like we were on the same page, as usual,”

“Yeah, we are,” Dick says wistfully, “I love you,”

It was nice, how well you and him synced up. Great for vigilante work, and it looks like Blüdhaven’s got a new dynamic duo rather than a solo act now.

“I love you too,” you placed a hand on his knee, “now let’s finish this round, I want to get out of here,”

“Toast?” he held his glass up, “To the next chapter,”

You clinked you glass to his, “To the next chapter,”

-

The ride back to your apartment took too long. You were a bit tipsy, but that didn’t help. You really really wished you could nuzzle into the back of his neck now, feeling how hot his skin was.

Guess you have to settle for pressing your body into his back. You know he can feel your tits when you do that. And with your arms wrapped tightly around his waist, you can let your hands wander while you’re at it, feeling him up.

He shivers underneath you, and you know that’s not the weirdly temperate February air that’s got him like that. You allow yourself a little smirk of satisfaction, but let up so he wouldn’t have a wet spot on the front of his pants when you two practically race down the apartment building’s hallways.

You fumble with the keys at the door. Dick hangs off of you like a cape, and his chin on your shoulder is not helping the whole unlocking the door thing. You feel his breath hot on your neck as you finally turn the knob and open the portal to that world where just you and him exist. Dick wastes no time in pushing you through the threshold.

He basically slammed that door shut and relocked it as fast as the Flash before caging you against the wall.

Dick eagerly captured your lips with his. You tangled your hands in his hair, and he groaned as you pulled it slightly. He gave your lips a little kitten lick and you opened them expectantly, giving his tongue access to start exploring your mouth. Like he hadn’t already memorized every part of it yet. He tasted like, well, tequila and grenadine. Just a hint of sweetness. Not exactly the taste of love but people in clubs mistook it for that well enough.

Soon Dick reached his hands under your thighs, hefting you up as you wrapped your legs tightly around his waist. He ground his hips into yours in time with the swipes of his tongue. You moaned loudly as his clothed cock pressed into your clit just right. You gave his hair a little tug in approval. He got the message, breaking away from the kiss to whine at the friction as he continued to rut into you.

“Bed?”

“Bed,” he panted in agreement.

You wrapped your arms and legs around him like a koala as he stumbled into your bedroom. You thought about how it won’t be your bedroom for much longer and the butterflies in your stomach fluttered.

Dick lovingly placed you on your back at the foot of your bed. You propped yourself up by the elbows to watch him unbutton his shirt as he stood between your knees. You almost went to start removing yours but remembered that it might be more fun to watch him open that present himself. So you just leaned back and enjoyed the show.

Dick had already stripped himself down to his socks before he looked back and noticed that you hadn’t followed suit.

“Do you need help?” he smirked.

“Mm, just a little, yeah,”

You raised your arms to help him lift your blouse up and over and oh—

“I forgot about this,” his eyes raked over your chest as he took in the lingerie. A gorgeous balconette, satiny and blue. His blue, specifically.

Dick pressed his lips to the valley between your breasts reverently.

You could only giggle as he quickly moved on to practically ripping off your skirt to reveal the matching panties. Those couldn’t stay for long either, though. He stepped back and admired you in the set for a moment, before taking those panties and throwing them off to the side.

Dick kissed you as he pushed both of your bodies down onto the bed. His hands fumbled for your hips, and he broke the kiss briefly to line himself up. You moaned as you felt his tip press through your entrance.

“There we go Baby. Just a little more—“ he cut himself off with a load groan as he bottomed out.

He let you get used to the stretch for a moment while he started on your neck. It would be a crime if you walked out of this Valentine’s date without a collection of purple marks to show everyone just how serious you two were now. You were one step closer to being irrefutably his, and he needed people to know that.

“Dick, move,”

Ah, but maybe he got a bit distracted.

He started a slow, sensual pace. Dick wanted to take his time with you tonight. It was only romantic, for a nice romantic night like this. He watched as your eyes screwed shut, your legs pulling him in closer. He loved getting to see how you reacted to him, always so sensitive.

He crawled further onto the bed, hefting you along with him. Once he got you situated comfortably beneath him, he resumed thrusting into you. You gasped as he hit that particularly good spot within you. Dick smirked as he gripped your thighs, moving them impossibly more apart. He moved closer to cage you into the bed. With the new angle, he sank deeper into you. You moaned as his pubic hair tickled your clit with each thrust of his hips.

Dick was still taking his sweet time as he captured your lips with his once more. Not that you minded. His lips dragged across yours just as languishly as his member dragged against your walls. Very heartfelt, very tender. Like he was savoring the feeling of you beneath him.

“Faster, Dickiee,” you whined against his lips. Okay scratch that it’s been long enough that you’re starting to mind.

“As you wish~”

Even though your eyes were shut tightly, you could very clearly picture that smug look on his face you knew had to be there.

“Ah— Fuck…” you heard him say quietly as he picked up the pace.

And he was right. Now that you were properly going at it, the pleasure spiked in your nerves.

You kissed Dick’s shoulder as he desperately fucked you, now chasing that fiery feeling. Slick wet noises could be heard as he pounded into you, gasping and moaning, the sounds going straight to your pussy. He reached down in between you and found your clit with his thumb.

“Mmmph,”

“Yeah? You like that?” Dick began rubbing fast little circles over the sensitive bud.

“Babe— AhhH—“ your breath hitched as you came. Your walls fluttered around him, and he gasped, enjoying the feeling. He was close, and the feeling of your pussy spasming was like you were trying to milk him for everything he was worth. Amazing, he would never get used to this.

Once you had ridden out your high, he started chasing his own orgasm, hips brutally snapping into yours. You felt his tip kiss your cervix with every thrust. His grip on your hips was definitely going to leave little finger sized bruises in the morning, but you didn’t care.

He looked so pretty right now, sweat sticky hair and flushed cheeks. He had the hottest expression on his face as he rutted into you. He was so much stronger than you and yet so gentle even in his feistier moments like this.

“God, you’re amazing, Dick…”

Dick let out a loud guttural noise as he spilled his seed inside you. You felt the hot liquid seep into your walls.

He went limp and fell into you. Wrapping your arms around him, his heart beat fast against your flesh. His face rested on your chest, and you felt his breath fan against your skin as he panted. Recovering slightly, he slid a hand up to one of your breasts, brushing a thumb over the Nightwing blue fabric of your bra.

“You’re.. You’re amazing..” he huffed, “uno reverse, bitch,”

You giggled, bending to press a kiss to his hair.

“Let’s see if you still think that when I forget to do the dishes for a workweek and they pile up,”

“Why would I complain about something I’m also not doing?”

Damn. You better start saving up for a wedding.

You laid there basking in each other’s presence a little longer. You tried to take a good ‘snapshot’ in your brain of this moment, how the weight of his body nestled into you, the feeling of his skin, the scent of his sweat mixed with his cologne.

“Hey Y/n?”

“Mmm?”

“Be mine, Valentine?”

You laughed with all of your chest, “Only if you’ll be mine too,”

“I’m already yours,” you felt his toothy grin against the skin of the boob he had tucked his face into.

“You down for a second round?”

Dick heaved himself back up, hovering over you, “If I ever say no to that question, shoot me, it’s an imposter,”

He crashed his lips into you once again. And again. And again. And… It’s gonna be a long night.

-

It was hard as it ever was to watch Dick leave for Blüdhaven, but this time, you had a lot of hope. Just a little longer, and soon, you’ll both fall asleep and wake up in his arms every day of the week. Just a little longer…

You can make it just a little longer…

[fae-fucker]

Zenith: Chapter 76-79

Chapter 76

Andi has a nice little poetic nightmare. It’s irrelevant. The next morning has the girls preparing for the ball, complete with dresses and makeup.

Some things to note include Lira saying that in Adhiran religion (which is global, I guess), one has to mourn for three days before “letting” the souls of the dead pass on into ... everything.

Andi tries to say that it’ll take time to heal from it all, but Lira is having none of it.

“It will take time to move past what happened on Adhira,” Andi started, but Lira held up a hand.

“My three days of mourning have passed. Lon’s and my aunt’s, too. Now we, and the others who lost loved ones during the attack, must give the lost spirits to the stars, to the trees, to the wind.”

Which basically means that she’s done feeling bad about the unexpected and brutal attack on her home planet, so that’s convenient. Well, if one of our main characters doesn’t care about her people getting senselessly murdered, then why should we?

She also lets us know that her aunt has fixed up the Marauder and brought it here, because of course. Lira wants to arrange for Lon to be transferred to the Marauder, and though she has a logical reason for it (taking him home personally), it’s only a setup so we know why he’s on there at the end of the book when Andi’s bleeding out and needs a universal donor.

Spoilers, I guess.

Andi’s mother, Glorya, intercepts Andi as she tries to leave her crew to their makeover montages, just so we can move into a scene where her mom is brushing her hair and babbling on about gossip and vapid high society stuff.

But Andi, of course, gets lost in a flashback that’s so amateurishly written it’s honestly embarrassing and only highlights Shinsay’s helpless reliance on flashbacks as a storytelling device.

Observe:

Her words faded away as memories took their place. Andi lost herself to them.

The whole flashback is written in italics for some inexplicable reason, even though it would’ve been fine as just regular text since we’re clearly told what’s happening now and what’s a memory.

Also, there’s one bit where the memory “fast-forwards” to a different one. Shinsay, this isn’t a fucking movie. This isn’t a screenplay. What the fuck are you DOING.

The flashback and the mother’s inane babbling are all there to illustrate how vapid and brainless Glorya is and how she only ever cared about her status and not about her kid. Glorya pretends that everything is back to the way it was but Andi curses her out for abandoning her when she needed them most and how “the way it was” was actually always shit.

I mean it’s fine. It’s all right. I see what they’re going for, it’s melodramatic as all fuck but it works for what they’re trying to do? I can see this as being a realistic way for an emotionally neglectful family to look like. I wish it was more nuanced and wasn’t just shoe-horned in here (Glorya doesn’t show up before or after this bit, this is the only time she’s ever present or even mentioned in this book in any meaningful capacity) for the sake of making Andi’s friends look better and for her to not have anything that anchors her to Arcardius, but like, I won’t say this isn’t realistic.

And then Shinsay can’t stop themselves and it’s back to silly time:

“Really, Androma...” 

[...]

“That is not my name,” Andi whispered. She allowed the darkness to come up into her voice, the mask of shadow and steel to sweep across her face. “My name is the Bloody Baroness. And if you or Commander Racella ever so much as utter a single word toward me or my crew again, I will personally strip the skin from your body and wave it like a flag from my starship.”

Glorya let out a soft squeak. Andi snarled with all of her teeth.

Guys I can’t breathe this is too fucking funny. And not in a good “woo vindication!” sort of way, but in a “they really put this right after an emotional confrontation about parental emotional neglect/abuse huh?” way. They really thought this was ... badass? Revenge? Andi, sweetie, you’re, like, traumatized? Presumably? I can’t really tell. But maybe get some therapy?

Do Shinsay think this is somehow a win and that Andi’s threat means she’s fully released from the hurt and pain her parents have caused her through their neglect? It’s honestly written as if Andi just confronted her mother and her own hopes of coming back to her family in this one short scene, and then upon realizing her parents never loved her, she scares her mom a little and then is all smug and satisfied at the end.

That ain’t how it works, darlings.

Then the annoying Marketable Space Pet runs in and starts biting Glorya’s toes and she runs away shrieking like a defeated Disney villain.

Way to undercut your own drama, Shinsay.

The chapter ends with Andi thinking about how her crew is her True Family for the bajillionth time. Because we’re all idiots and Shinsay wants us to remember that.

Chapter 77

It’s the evening of the ball and Andi thinks about how she missed Bavista, which is apparently your generic coming-of-age ball held at Arcardius for every 16-year-old. I’m guessing it’s a yearly thing? The book never clarifies. Not sure why the fuck it’s here tbh.

Actually, it’s a pretty good demonstration of how the worldbuilding in this book is presented so here, have at thee:

She could still remember seeing the otherworldly dresses and suits float by her on the feeds as she watched the girls and boys glide into the A’Vianna House in the Glass Sector. They seemed light as air, full of pride, bursting at the seams with excitement. Once inside, they would be greeted by members of the Priest Guild, who would award each young person three items.

The first was a vial of water from the Northern Ocean, symbolizing strength. For growth, they accepted a single leaf from the oldest tree on Arcardius, known as The Mother, which was said to have been planted when the Ancients first arrived. Lastly, they were given a single floating pebble, no larger than a child’s fingernail, chiseled from the very gravarock where the Cortas estate was. It represented the wisdom of rising above.

Is this relevant to anything? Does this help you understand this world or its inhabitants? Does it tell you anything of the culture of Arcardius or its youth and what’s expected of them? No? It’s just a really generic list of things thrown together using Mystical Proper Nouns as glue? Weeell heeell.

Also what does “it represented the wisdom of rising above” mean? This is utterly generic and means fuck-all, that’s what.

Anyway, Andi’s admiring herself in the mirror. Her dress is very sexy, trust me, I can’t be bothered to include it so just imagine your favorite My Immortal outfit description. It does include sword holsters at the back, which are Andi’s favorite part, because she’s a strong independent woman who don’t need no man. She never actually uses them or brings the swords to the ball so ... Idk what the point of this was.

We also get some shit about how Andi actually LOVES dresses and being pretty but she never admitted it to anyone. But don’t you worry, this badass space criminal LOVES all things girly, because that’s feminism! Can someone check in on Shinsay? I’m not sure they’re getting enough air with their heads so far up Sarah J Maas’ asshole.

Admitting to herself that she looked pretty was something Andi kept private. She didn’t want to give her crew the satisfaction of knowing her true thoughts about fashion. How even though she was a fierce, hardened criminal, she could still appreciate the joy of a beautiful, impractical ball gown.

Huh. And here I thought they were your family. That’s weird that you’d keep this information from them, especially considering all of them seemed pretty excited to be prettied up in the last chapter. I guess they’d really just haaate the idea of sharing this joy with their captain, huh? Why aren’t you admitting this to them, Andi?

You’re saying shit about how “even though” you’re a hardened criminal, you can “still” appreciate beautiful gowns, like those two are somehow contradictory. Are you, mayhaps, ashamed of having this traditionally girly interest? Hmm! Interesting. Why could that be, I wonder? Why would having traditionally feminine interests or even caring about one’s appearance be seen as something inherently shameful or embarrassing, as inherently contradictory to being fierce and “hardened?”

This is all just so *clenches fist* feminist.

Forreal though, somehow Shinsay managed to take their entire made up GALAXY and make it subtly and not-so-subtly sexist. Good job, morons. Really girlbossed that one, huh?

The only bit I like about this whole mess is this:

The dressmaker had also accented her gown with a sparkling necklace full of jewels that Andi didn’t plan on giving back.

This is the one and only space pirate-y thing Andi does -- sorry, considers doing -- in the whole book and honestly could’ve been used to build her character more, but it’s just a one-off joke here. Wasted.

Valen comes to fetch her and we get some subtle foreshadowing.

“Valen the Resurrected.”

He stopped to look at her, brows raised. “What?”

She shrugged. “It’s what the press is calling you in all the feeds.” Valen let out a deep chuckle.

[...]

“Something tells me things are about to change for the better,” he said. “I’m ready to see it all happen.”

Andi wondered what he would do now that he was home with a whole planet at his disposal.

He deserved to have some fun.

Is it bad that I’m rooting for Valen to destroy everything? And this isn’t my villain-fucker coming out, I just want this poor bastard to absolutely annihilate Andi and her gang of acolytes.

Chapter 78

Andi and Valen arrive at the ball. It’s all very pretty and space-y and aesthetic. There’s a bunch of aliens everywhere. Andi sees a woman with funky eyes and assumes it’s a body mod, because I guess she knows the genetic characteristics of every species by heart and can tell when something is real or not.

An old classmate of theirs comes up to talk to Valen and congratulate him on being alive, then Andi reminds him of who she is just to be a smug asshole and the guy fucks off in a panic. She’s just so cool and badass, you guys.

Then it’s time for Valen and Andi to dance, and of course General Cortas looks like he’s about to lose his marbles because these darn kids! >:(

The chapter ends on Andi noticing Dex pouting in the distance.

“Relax,” Andi whispered. “Let’s give them something to talk about.”

She flashed him a wicked grin as the music began.

And as Valen spun her into the first move of the dance, Andi saw Dex standing on the fringes of the crowd, an expression of longing clear on his face.

Chapter 79

This chapter is exactly 298 words of Dex moping around about how he’s actually not over Andi at all when he thought he’d done such a good job of repressing his feelings, and how he should be the one dancing with Andi instead of Valen. If you’re surprised, you’re clinically dead.

[thiswasinevitableid]

For mermay I would love to see some Danbrey for 24 (lighthouse)!

Here you go! I went with SFW for this one

“You excited honeysuckle?” Her father sets her sleeping bag out on the floor.

“Yes” Dani manges her bravest smile. She’s never slept anywhere but their little house on the cliffs, and the lighthouse, with its echoing stairs and lack of true darkness, is the opposite of that.

“It’ll be fun. Like a camp out. I can even make s’mores over the stove.”

“Okay.” She sets her backpack on the floor, then follows him to the kitchen. At nine, she can already tell when her parents are doing their best, can spot the way her father carries himself when he’s tired but trying not to show it.

He makes them dinner, canned chili with goldfish crackers, and gives her a little tour. When it’s time for bed, he tucks her in, handing her the Totoro plush she sleeps with.

“When is mom coming back?”

Her father sighs, “Two weeks, assuming your grandma gets better at the speed they’re expecting. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll recover even faster than that.”

Dani nods. Her teacher expressed surprise that Dani was staying here and not taking the trip with her mom. The given reason was the gated community didn’t allow children to stay that long. But Dani knows the truth; her grandparents don’t like her dad. And because Dani is the result of her mom loving and staying with her dad, they don’t like her, either.

He kisses her forehead, makes her promise for the bajillionth time that she won’t go in the water, and tells her goodnight.

-----------------------------------------

She’s looking for seashells when it happens. Living by the sea means she knows not to turn her back on it. Too bad the wave hits her from the side, carried up and over the nearby rock and knocking her into the surf. She scrambles up, spluttering, touches her neck, and feels like she’s going to throw up. Her bracelet, the one mom gave her for luck, is gone.

“Oh no, oh no, where are you, oh no”

“Um, are you looking for this?” A girl watches her from the surf, bracelet dangling from her hand.

“Ohmygosh” She snatches the jewelry away, holding it to her chest, “thank you. It’s from my mom and, uh, and I try to be careful but it’s hard sometimes.”

“I get that.” The girl holds up a necklace, “this is from my mom. It’s like one she wears; she says I can have the real one when I’m older. Can I come on the beach?”

Dani nods, then gasps as the girl joins her. She’s seen mermaids in books or that pirate movie her mom watches sometimes. But they’re always grown ups with long hair, pale skin, and green tails. This mermaid is the same age as Dani, her dark skin dotted with freckles and her black held in place with pieces of coral. Her tail is shimmering red and black, the prettiest thing Dani’s ever seen.

“You’re a mermaid.” Dani says, because she can’t think of what else to say.

“Yeah. And you’re a human. Why are you here? It’s usually just that guy.”

“That’s my dad. I’m staying with him.”

“Do you wanna hang out?”

“Yes! Wait, how’s that going to work? I’m not allowed to swim around the lighthouse.”

“I’m allowed to be on the beach, so we’re good.”

“Okay” Dani grins, excited, before her dad’s voice carries down the beach, calling her to come in, “shoot, I have to go.”

“Okay, byyyyyeee!” The mermaid waves as Dani hurries up the sand, and is gone when she turns around for a final look.

------------------------------------------

“Got any tens?”

“Go fish.”

Aubrey draws another card, “I still think it’s weird that you don’t really fish during this game.”

“You’re just grumpy you’re losing.” Dani teases. Aubrey sticks her tongue out. Dani responds in kind.

“When your dad finally lets you swim, we’re gonna play it my way and I’ll kick your tail. Legs?”

“Butt.”

Aubrey snickers, wiggles closer on the warm sand. They’ve found a patch of beach that isn’t immediately visible from land or sea, meaning Aubrey isn’t in danger of being seen and Dani isn’t breaking her promise to her dad to stay out of the water.

“If you come to the beach near my house, I can swim there. But I’m still not allowed to swim alone. I could drown.”

The mermaid purses her lips, “I wouldn’t let you drown.

“I don’t think my mom would believe me if I said I had a mermaid helping me.”

“Man, why can’t humans just have tails? Or, like, fins.”

“I think then we’d just be mermaids. Don’t worry; I’ll get to swim on my own when I’m older and we can play in the water then.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“FINALLY!” Aubrey raises her arms triumphantly as Dani wades into the surf. It took four years and passing a survival swimming course for her parents to be okay with her swimming alone. The smile on Aubrey’s face makes the weeks pretending to swim in a riptide worth it.

“Do you wanna race? Ooh, or I could show you the ray nest, or we could go look for otters-”

“Let’s start with a race. I’ve been waiting years to kick your tail.”

The mermaid’s smile takes on a competitive edge, “last one to that rock is a rotten urchin!”

With that, she splashes Dani with her tail and zooms through the water. Dani dives forward after her, but even with her newfound swimming skills she makes it to the rock a good ten seconds after her friend.

“Best two out of three?” She says the moment she comes up for air.

“You’re on.”

Best two out of three becomes best out of ten, and on number ten Dani plays dirty, throwing her arms around Aubrey’s waist when she manages to catch her. Her friend shrieks with laughter, spinning and chasing Dani towards shore. The human slips and Aubrey tackles her, sand clinging to both of them as they roll onto their sides, cackling into the salt air.

They stay on the sand until it gets dark, counting stars and holding hands until Dani has to go home.

-------------------------------------------------

Dani’s trying not to panic; it’s not the first time Aubrey’s missed meeting her. Sometimes the mermaid gets called away for lessons or has last minute things to take care of, and they haven’t figured out a way to get messages between underwater and above it (they tried a supposedly waterproof cellphone but it only lasted an hour). But it’s been three days without a single sign of her friend.

As she’s contemplating getting the boat her dad uses for fishing on his days off and going further out to look for her, Aubrey surfaces. Even before they reach each other, it’s obvious Aubrey’s been crying.

Dani kneels in the soaked sand, opening her arms, and Aubrey burrows into them, salt water of two kinds dripping onto Dani’s jacket.

“Aubrey?”

Her friend hides her face against her neck, “Mom’s gone. There, there was an accident and she, she didn’t-” it cuts off in a sob.

Dani holds her tighter, strokes her hair, murmurs, “I’m so sorry” as Aubrey shakes in her arms. The wind whips around them, stinging her cheeks, chilling her fingers. She doesn’t care. Aubrey needs her.

---------------------------------------------------------

“Ta-dah!” Aubrey produces a massive clam with a flourish, narrowly avoiding sending water onto the slices of cake Dani smuggled down to the beach.

“Aw, thanks Aubrey, you didn’t have to--holy crap!” She gawps as Aubrey opens the clam, revealing a pearl necklace.

“Like it? It took me, like, a year to get them all. Had to fight a few otters for some of the oysters.”

“Uh-”

“Kidding!” Aubrey flops her head into Dani’s lap, “I’d never bug the otters; Dr. Harris Bonkers would never forgive me for bothering his friends.”

Dani clasps the necklace in place, rests a hand on Aubrey’s tail. She traces figure eights on it, smiling when her friend sighs and nuzzles her stomach.

“You’re the best, Aubrey.”

“Thanks. I, um, I just wanted you to have something to remember me by.”

Her heart turns to an iceberg, “You’re leaving?”

“What? No!” Aubrey sits up, bringing them face to face, “you’re eighteen now. That’s when humans leave home.”

Dani giggles, “Not automatically. I haven’t made up my mind if I want to leave Kepler or not. I might just stay in town; I like it here, and Mama offered me a job manning the community gardens.”

Aubrey’s tail flutters, “Um, I have another point in the stay category.”

“Yeah? Oh” Dani sighs as Aubrey cups her cheek and guides her into a kiss. When Dani deepens it, Aubrey trills, shifting so she’s in Dani’s lap and draping her arms over her shoulders.

“Well?” Aubrey whispers, brushing their noses together.

“Definitely a convincing point, cutie pie.”

Aubrey trills again, knocking her backwards and kissing her senseless in the sand.

-----------------------------------------------

Much of Kepler is surprised when, upon his retirement, the lighthouse keeper announces his daughter will be taking his place. After all, why would a charming young woman want such a job?

The charming young woman isn't particularly interested in their speculation. If she took the job in order to be closer to her wife well, that's her business, now isn't it?

[thelightiningthief]

14

first of all, SORRY that this is coming much later than probably expected!!!! i’m So Bad at writing things in a timely manner

second of all, timelines are....not my strongsuit, so i’m gonna make this idk the summer between botl and tlo so PLEASE bear with me here

chilly summer evenings

Percy lay on the bottom bunk of Cabin 3, staring up at the pictures stuck between the frame and the mattress above him. His arm had already gone numb from propping up his head, but that was the least of his worries.

It was the first of August. The beginning of the month that decided his fate. Well, Percy would be the one making the decision, but it was still the Big Month everyone had been waiting for: the prophecy coming true, the imminent war, Kronos’s impending return in Luke’s body. All of it put a sour taste in his mouth that the fresh sea breeze from the Long Island Sound couldn’t whisk away. It wasn’t like he could do anything right now, though, so why was he still up?

Well, there was one picture in particular that kept drawing his attention: It was him and Annabeth after they’d just won the chariot race together, right before Thalia had been de-tree-ified. The edges of the photograph were frayed from how many times he’d held it in his hands, shoved it into his pockets, and crammed it into whatever small space he could. While it was supposed to be in the Big House on Chiron’s cork board, Percy had asked him if he could hold onto it until the end of the summer. Chiron knew this might be his last summer (hell, it might be the last summer any of them would enjoy), so he relented it to him. Ever since, Percy had stared at it any chance he got, memorizing the happiness it held. A small glimmer of hope.

What he was really looking at, though, the thing that sourced all of that hope in a tiny bottle, was Annabeth’s smile. Percy must have already traced that giant and rare smile a thousand times, practically having imprinted it to the back of his eyelids, but he didn’t think he could ever get sick of it.

Things between them had been... Strange. Good strange! Well, sometimes bad strange... But overall just strange? Did that make sense?

Who was he kidding—nothing made sense anymore. They were on the brink of war for Zeus’s sake! But Annabeth had kissed him before he almost died (for the bajillionth time), but they still hadn’t talked about it. Every time Percy even thought about bringing it up to her, his head felt like cotton and he couldn’t feel his knees. At first, he thought a wood nymph was messing with him, but Grover and Beckendorf both said he was probably just nervous.

They were a lot closer than last summer. But he could say that about any of his friends! Him and Beckendorf had been talking a lot more, too! Most of their talks had to do with Annabeth and Percy’s giant crush on her, but that was besides the point.

Before he could even consider actually turning in for the night, there’s a sharp rap at his door. His body is up with a hand flying to his—oh, right, he’s in boxers. Percy considers his game plan when there’s another knock, a bit more urgent this time. “C’mon, Seaweed Brain! It’s freezing out here!”

His once held breath catches in his throat. It wasn’t like he wasn’t used to late nights like this with Annabeth, but it was the first one since everything went down. Since they’d destroyed the Labyrinth. Since he’d practically killed himself. Since she’d kissed him.

“That’s it, I’m just coming in,” she huffed out, clearly annoyed. (Wasn’t the first time, wouldn’t be the last time.) Then Percy’s cabin door was opening right before his eyes to reveal... No one. Just a gust of cold wind that raised goosebumps on his bare skin. He shivered as the door closed just as eerily, and Annabeth finally took off her Yankee’s cap only to punch his arm.

“Ow!” he winced and rubbed the spot. “What was that for?”

“Dude it’s freezing out there, and you were just standing here? Figures,” she rolled her eyes and threw herself onto his scattered bed.

Percy bristled at the slight jab. “Well, sorry! You kind of just dropped in!”

“Excuse me, I came in the front door. And you had more than enough time to put on pants, at least,” she pointed out, covering his lower half with her hands with a giggle.

A harsh blush crept up his cheeks, and he quickly moved to his dresser as she continued to laugh at his embarrassment. He was just buttoning up his jeans when Percy noticed Annabeth was lying back on his bed, mimicking the pose he’d held just ten minutes before. In the dim light from the moon, he could just see a faint blush on her cheeks.

“Where’d you get all these pictures?” she whispered out.

He rubbed the back of his neck, looking over to the fountain Poseidon had gifted to him. “Uh, all over, I guess? They just kept popping up, and I’d asked Chiron if I could have a few.” He said the last part faster than the rest, hoping she wouldn’t pick up on it.

Annabeth’s head perked up to look at him sideways, her gray eyes a bit wider than they had been a moment prior. She searched his own green ones for an answer to an unasked question. It wasn’t difficult for Percy to feel as though he were being scrutinized and start to feel self conscious about the whole situation. Was she seeing right through him?

“What? I just—I just wanted the memories, I guess,” he mumbled out, crossing his arms semi-defensively.

She peered up at him for longer, her eyebrows coming down slowly yet decisively. He didn’t know if he should say something, but he didn’t even know where to start. Yeah, I’ve pretty much collected pictures of us to stare at late at night, because I kinda really like you. In fact, you caught me in the middle of doing that tonight! Ha! Great timing, by the way. Gods, that’d just be weird!

Suddenly, she was up and dragging him by the arm out the door of his cabin. “Let’s go, Seaweed Brain.”

Percy barely had enough time to snatch his blanket from the bed before they were thrust out into the chilly evening air. There was no need to worry about harpies with impending war, but Apollo and Artemis seriously needed to work something out, because it felt completely unprecedented to be this cold at the beginning of August. His teeth were chattering by the time Annabeth had plopped herself down on the sand of the beach, dragging him down with her; she took the blanket clenched in his freezing fists and worked determinedly to wrap them both within it.

After a moment of simply basking in the sudden warmth, Percy became uncomfortably aware of how close he was to Annabeth. To make matters worse, if he scooched even a little to his right, the blanket would completely relent and let in that frigid sea air. So, he sat perfectly still, not wanting to give her the wrong impression.

“You okay, Perce? We can go back if you want,” she said with a slight twinge in her voice that made him look at her for what felt like the first time that night.

Her hair was glowing in the moonlight, silver as if she had joined the Hunters, yet still that bright golden ray of light Percy was so accustomed to seeing a dirty blonde after weeks on a quest. The gray streak that matched his own was tucked behind her ear, and a reminder of a time of longing that he’d rather forget. It was difficult to see in just moonlight, but he could definitely tell her cheeks were flushed, especially with all the staring he was doing at her. In all honesty, it felt as if he were studying a painting. A splash of freckles and a few stray zits were scattered across her face, like brush strokes to a canvas.

However, it was her eyes that made him see the true meaning behind the work. People may call Percy dumb, but there was no mistaking the trust Annabeth was pouring into her downturned, storm-cloud eyes. They were focused so forcedly on his own, that he couldn’t help but come back to them each time he attempted to look at the rest of her face. It took him by surprise, because how could she trust someone like him so wholeheartedly? He’d nearly gotten her killed too many times—at some points he had almost been the one to do it.

“How can you do that?” he asked, looking out to the waves crashing on shore and breaking the trance that was Annabeth.

She had been leaning in just slightly, but jerked back just as much once he wasn’t looking at her anymore. Blinking slowly, Annabeth narrowed her eyes. “What d’you mean?”

He sighed almost exasperatedly, but it was too halfhearted to get anywhere. The next set of waves crashed a little harder than before. “I mean, how can you look at me like I’ll never do anything to hurt you? Like I’m not—not about to decide the fate of the world? Not about to destroy everything just by existing? St. Helen wasn’t even me trying, Annabeth. What else am I capable of?”

There was silence. As silent as it could get with a heavily breathing boy on a beach with a girl looking at him with that kind of look so full of something that everything has to be quiet, just for the time being.

“Percy...” Annabeth started, quieter than the now-swirling sea, “Do you think I’m afraid of you?”

His eyes found hers again, both of their eyebrows knit together like the sweaters they’d wished they brought. Again, Percy was so aware of her warmth seeping into him, keeping him present. “Why wouldn’t you be?” His soft voice carried itself to span the few inches between them, once more holding the weight of the world in their midst.

For a second, Annabeth looked as though she was going to laugh, but decided against it. At first, it could be brushed off as a ridiculous thought, but she knew what Percy was capable of right now—what about when he grew more fully into his powers? She shook her head, No, not even then.

“Percy.” She said his name more resolutely this time, placing her hand on his shoulder to turn him towards her. “You may have power none of us will ever know, but...you’re you. It’s not like you’re some evil mastermind plotting against us.”

A single, unsaid name hung in the air.

“How do you know, though? You’ve heard the prophecy.” Percy’s eyes were searching her own again, looking for some hint of doubt.

Annabeth sighed sadly, letting go of his shoulder and pulling him into her arms. “Because—‘Cause the Percy I know wouldn’t destroy a world with his mom in it. The Percy I know wouldn’t hurt anyone on purpose.” She took a cold breath, smoothing her hand on his back. “And the Percy I know wouldn’t let some stupid prophecy try to stop him from protecting the people he loves.”

Percy stayed still, frozen, but not from the midnight air. “How do you know I’m that Percy still?” The whisper was slightly muffled from Annabeth’s curly hair, but she’d heard him all the same, as signaled by her hand stopping in the middle of its up and down motion.

“I just know.” And it was said with the finality only a daughter of Athena could possess, could hold within her, and could throw back at someone whenever they questioned her.

It was no use for Percy to fight it anymore, so he finally, finally, finally relaxed into her arms, pulling his own around her. The waves slowed on the beach, taking to being pulled by the moon once again. And, for once, they simply sat there, surrounded by a now-sandy blanket that he’d probably have to wash the next morning and an unrelenting breeze that hardly bothered them. Sure, in two weeks time Percy would most likely be dying at the foot of a crumbled Olympus, but he couldn’t worry about that with the cool sea air filling his lungs and Annabeth’s calloused hand rubbing circles into his back. No, that could wait with the blanket.

[atamascolily]

lily watches fma:b, eps. 37-40

I can only watch 2 episodes at a time because I keep having to pause and write angry screeds in a text document. I suppose this is what is called “engaging with the source material” in media studies.

Cut for extreme length and also me ranting about Hohenheim because FUCK THAT DUDE. Also, worldbuilding stuff I don’t understand.

Ed reciting the periodic table to get his mind off his boner for Winry is just perfect.

Meanwhile, Winry's nerding out over combat automail and Kimblee's just sippin' his coffee watching the whole thing

Kimblee got Winry to like him by saying he admired her parents, argghhh

Pride is revealed to be Selim Bradley and harasses Hawkeye because he's a little shit... also it conveniently allows Buccaneer's tunnel team to escape. Why is Pride simultaneously in Central AND Briggs? I guess we'll find out.

Hawkeye going home and seeing her shadow and realizing just how fucked they are is PERFECT.

Kimblee tells Ed he'll give him a Philosopher's stone if Ed helps him find Scar and Marcoh and finish the job at Briggs (i.e., kill everyone to make a stone). Ed asks--very reasonably, I might add--why Kimblee is going along with the homunculi and his answer is basically "for the lulz". (Oh, and they let him kill people instead of locking him up for war crimes.)

(although I'd argue the homunculi only let him do so when it's personally convenient; they have no qualms about keeping his ass in jail otherwise)

(also: please note kimblee ISN'T in jail for war crimes against Ishval, he's in jail because he murdered some Amestrisian guards so no one would know he has a Philosopher's Stone.)

Ed's like, "so Winry, you're a hostage for my good behvior and I might have to comnit mass murder, fyi" AT LEAST HE FINALLY FOUND A WAY TO TELL HER

love how winry forces her way into the convoy and kimblee just goes with it because he's too busy to argue.

(meanwhile, the end credits still have her at the atelier in Rush Valley, lol)

Yoki's flashback in the 1920s film style is HILARIOUS (if biased) account

Scar and Kimblee face off. I'm reminded of the 2003 anime where iirc Scar sacrifices himself to utterly destroy Kimblee halfway through. no such luck here.

I'm still not happy that Scar killed Winry's parents in this version. It was much more interesting when it was the Amestrisian military--specifically, Roy Mustang, one of the so-called good guys.

(It's not that it was morally okay for Scar to kill the doctors who saved his life--or anyone--just because of their race but it's a whole 'nother ballgame when the murder cover-up for a military dictatorship and the perpetrator is a character the audience has come to root for vs. misguided revenge)

What IS interesting here is Scar confronting Miles, asking him how he can serve in the same institution that killed his family. Miles says he's trying to change minds from the inside; Scar is highly skeptical but claims to be glad there are people like Miles in this world (who aren't so consumed by hatred and grief that they can do that kind of work, instead of becoming a vigilante).

one of Miles' troopers has a backpack that's a phone. Okay... WHAT? I guess if they have automail they can have extremely bulk cellphones, but... I don't understand the tech in this world.

brief detour for Al to lecture the chimera prisoners, okay

Yoki actually has a good idea for once!

I don't understand the chimeras saying they want their bodies back - it seems like they can shift from human to their other form and back (they do it a few minutes later) so... I get that they've been experimented upon and it's horrible, but they're not quite in the same desperate straits as Al, who doesn't have a body at all, or Nina Tucker *sob*. Or am I missing something obvious here??

...okay, I think they were moved to DIFFERENT human bodies than their original forms? It's kind of unclear from context.  

Just as I was admiring Winry's piercings for the bajillionth time, a random dude tells her they'll cause frostbite so she takes them out and gives them to Ed as a token. And probably also so Kimblee will suspect the ruse later if/when he notices that detail.

Scar's like, "man, why'd I have to kill the FAMOUS doctors, sigh"

Al has a vision of his body and it's SO FREAKING CREEPY, YO (I like the detail that his nails are really long)

Cut to Father playing with little mini versions of Ed and Al on a transmutation circle in his lair OH YEAH THAT'S CREEPY - he needs 5 people to complete the circle. Ed, Al, and Hohenheim are each little skull-people, Izumi is "a possibility," and that leaves one more... probably Roy.

I love Hawkeye and Roy's verbal codes, Roy hitting on Olivier, Olivier straight up admitting to Bradley she offed Raven, Roy's apparent shift into the flower business, etc, etc.

TIME FOR A FLASHBACK.FINALLY SOME EXPLANATORY BACKSTORY.

Okay, so we meet Slave 23 in an alchemy lab - his master used his blood to make a creepy blob in a flask that is talking to him and names said slave "Van Hohenheim" (because he didn't want to be "Theophrastus Bombastus", lol.) There's a time skip and Hohenheim becomes a skilled apprentice alchemist thanks to the blob's interference and education.

Note: I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS ABOUT ALL OF THIS. Also, WHY.

(but let's be real, I am distracted by the fact that young!Hohenheim, like old!Hohenheim, is extremely hot.)

The King of Xerxes summons the blob to ask it about immortality. I can already tell this is going to end well.

The blob tells the King the secret - cut to laborers digging a giant circular "irrigation canal". also, people start dying in coordinated attacks at specific geographic points just like in amestris.

I still don't understand how this works, though. In the 03 version, you just need a bunch of people to die all at once aftermaking a few preparations. It was city-scale, not country-scale.

also apparently, there's been a time skip because Hohenheim is significantly older than before (his job is to carry the blob in its flask around, I guess?). He's so excited about the immortality thing yet seems to have NO IDEA what it entails.

The blob made the actual center of the circle where Hohenheim was standing so everyone else dies. I'm not sure how that works because it's only a few meters off--is it really that precise?--but okay, whatever, sure.

Also, the blob regards Hohenheim as "blood kin" because it was made from his blood and... it's not WRONG.

the gate opens, the flask is shattered, Hohenheim is now immortal, and everyone in Xerxes is dead, and... Hohenheim was totally an innocent bystander who just HAPPENED to be caught up in it all?

not gonna lie: I'm not thrilled about this development.

I preferred the 03 version where Hohenheim was actively a bodysnatching jackass who decided to DO BETTER BY NOT DOING THAT. somehow the fact that he ends up immortal without trying here just sticks in my craw.

oh, no, but this means that HE KNOWS EVERYONE IN HIS PHILOSOPHER'S STONE PERSONALLY, DOESN'T HE? AHHHHHH

Father takes on Hohenheim's human form because they have the same blood and it's convenient?(also:hot, though I doubt the blob is interested in sex appeal.)

Father: Isn't it great? immortality, amirite? Hohenheim: *through gritted teeth* Thanks, I hate it.

Father and Hohenheim each got half of Xerxes' population, aka half the power.

turns out this was all a dream-flashback and Hohenheim is actually asleep on a train in the present and Izumi wakes him up.

have they met before? signs point to no because Hohenheim doesn't seem to know her. I'd ask how Izumi recognized him, but Hoheheim looks JUST LIKE ED so it's not like it's *hard*.

most awkward parent-teacher conference ever? but actually izumi starts coughing up blood and Hohenheim realizes she's performed human transmutation and opened a gate and uses alchemy to help her.

he can't restore the lost organs (I'm not sure WHY not - he has a philosopher's stone, that's like the whole point) but it helps.

AND THEN HE JUST COMES OUT AND SAYS HE'S A PHILOSOPHER'S STONE IN HUMAN FORM, ARRGGHH, WHYYYYYY, I don't get why he can't just fix her!!

sig decks hohenheim and I'm so thrilled, even if it doesn't actually take. THANK YOU SIG, I LOVE U.

Also: if Hohenheim had stuck around, he could have healed Trisha and she probably wouldn't have died and his sons would never have lost their bodies trying to bring her back, so FUCK YOU HOHENHEIM, THIS IS LITERALLY ALL YOUR FAULT. (And apparently, the homunculi are too, at least indirectly). FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU.

[daggerandrose]

Merry Christmas everyone! I can’t believe that it’s less than 2 weeks until Christmas! I hope you have a lovely holiday season no matter what you celebrate. Here are some fics to read while eating all the things and watching to the Hershey’s holiday commercial for the bajillionth time. (We all know which one I'm talking about.)

As always, make sure to leave a nice comment for the authors and leave a kudos!

Holiday Greetings (And Gay Happy Meetings) by @2tiedships2

"Onwards to drop me off at Robert's before you go to Harry's!" Louis proclaimed when they were safely in the car. Or at least Louis was safely in. Niall was still brushing the snow out of his hair that Louis had accidentally dropped on him.

"We're picking up biscuits first," Niall grumbled as the snow melted into his hair. "You can wait in the car."

After three times of the car sounding like it was dying a slow and tragic death, it finally decided to start.

"This is what happens when you try to change the name of your car after five years," Louis said as a reminder of Niall's stupidity. "You'd be upset too if you were a car named Greased Lightning with a passenger trying to get it renamed to Dusty."

"To be fair," Niall explained, "the name Dusty does seem a bit more accurate."

"Make sure to leave the car running while you're getting whatever you're getting from Harry," Louis said in disgust. "This car is going to choke for good after that comment and I don't want to be stuck at Harry's place when that happens."

Or the one where Niall's dead car and and a foot of snow conspire to force Louis into spending time with an alpha he hates.... or does he?

A Story For the Ages, 7k, by @suddenclarityharry 

Louis is sweating, his mother’s words still ringing in his ears.

We expect you to bring this boy home for Christmas, Louis. We want to meet him.

He should have known it was coming. After seven months of pretending to have a boyfriend in order to keep his mum from meddling in his love life again, he should have realized he’d have to actually introduce her to someone eventually.

My Only Wish, 17k, by @rainbowsandlovehl

“Do you know this Harry Styles?” “Why, is it the one you have to give a gift to?” Liam asked waggling his eyebrows playfully. It’s not like he knew the bloke so why was Liam doing that weird eyebrow lift thing. “Actually he’s the bloke who is walking towards the toilet,” Sophia added helpfully, pointing towards the bathroom door. Louis turned his head just in time to see long legs disappear behind the door. He was a little too late to glance and he hadn’t even seen his face. Unfair!

Or an Secret Santa AU where Louis doesn’t know how it works and keeps giving Harry gifts and being not so obvious about his flirting.

Tis the Season for...Love?, 27k, by @alarriefantasy

Prompt: Harry seems to have it all: A successful career as a pastry chef, a Victorian home in London, and a dedicated boyfriend who he's been with for years. One day he stops by his boyfriend's apartment to surprise him and finds out that he's not so dedicated to Harry after all. Shocked and too depressed to celebrate, he decides to skip Christmas and on a whim leaves on a plane to New York. In New York he meets Louis…

Or...Louis might just be what Harry's needed all along.

Under that Damn Mistletoe, 7k, by @hickeystyles 

Louis' heart froze when he looked over and saw Liam whispering in Harry’s ear and nodding towards the mistletoe. Louis’ eyes widened comically before he dove out of sight so Harry couldn’t see him standing under the mistletoe like an idiot, or worse, like he was part of Liam’s plan to have Harry kiss him.

Or a Christmas Party AU where Louis is in love with his best friend Harry and everyone else is trying to force the two of them under the mistletoe together

Something Unpredictable, 19k, by LSFOREVER

Harry peers inside the gift bag, but all he sees is stuffing paper, the room too dark to see anything else. After turning on the lamp at the corner of his desk, Harry takes out the stuffing paper, then feels around for what's inside. What he comes back with surprises him so much that he nearly drops it, clapping his hand over his mouth after a small sound comes out.

Office AU where Harry plans a Secret Santa Christmas Party for his office floor. What he hadn't planned on, was some certain gifts that make him blush like crazy. Also featuring Mr. Tomlinson, The Boss Man; Zayn, Louis' best friend and company co-owner; Niall, Harry's cheeky mate; and Liam, the oblivious sweetheart.

Like Candy In My Veins, 31k, by @littlelouishiccups

“Um…” Harry said slowly after a moment. “Okay. That’s… this is… Let me get this straight.” He lifted up a hand and swallowed. “You told your family that you have a boyfriend… and my name was the first one you thought of?”

“Harry Potter was on TV, alright? It wasn’t that much of a stretch.” Louis pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t believe he was explaining himself to Harry fucking Styles. He couldn’t believe he was stooping this low. “Forget it. I’m sorry I even thought about bringing you into this.”

Harry snorted. “What? Did you want me to pretend to be your boyfriend or something?” (Basically the A/B/O, enemies to lovers, fake relationship, Christmas AU that nobody asked for.)

let your heart be light, 3k, by scagnetism

When they crawled into bed that night, Louis cuddled into him with hazy eyes, whispering into his neck, “I’m so happy, Hazza,” and Harry will never get tired of that.

He’ll never get tired of being a part of this family and sharing Christmas with them.

Or, Christmas with the Tomlinson family.

one glance and the avalanche drops, 27k, by @wankerville

It's strange, honestly, having someone so gorgeous in his kitchen, and not only physically gorgeous, but, like, the everything else gorgeous. The type of gorgeous that Louis wants his life to always be covered in. The type of gorgeous he wants lying in sweatpants and an old t-shirt on his couch when he gets home from class. The type of gorgeous he wants to have shoving crisps down the front of his shirt. The type of goddamn gorgeous he wants to kiss, and coddle, and like, love.

Which is ridiculous- he doesn't know him. Pfft.

(or an au wherein louis buys a christmas tree and harry is the boy in leggings who delivers it. they are a christmas classic.)

all the lights are full of color, 26k, by @infinitelymint

So, fast-forwarding eight years from the day Harry met Louis, he is now a twenty-seven year old owner of one of the most up-and-coming eating establishments on the London restaurant scene, father of two wonderful boys and… separated from his husband. Now, that last part definitely was never a part of the original plan.

Or, Harry and Louis are separated, but for the sake of their two sons, they choose to spend Christmas together. It may just lead to a Christmas miracle.

all I want for Christmas is, 17k, by crybaby

With Harry up against his side, his little four year old snuggled in his lap like it’s her favourite place, Louis could really believe they’re a real little family, off to their chalet to spend Christmas in the snow. A real little family where Louis would have the luxury of kissing Harry under mistletoe and rolling around in the fresh snow with him, taking him upstairs to his bedroom and fucking him to keep him warm.

(harry is louis' daughters' au pair. they spend christmas in austria)

[haletothewolf]

a rec list with no theme other than awesomeness

or, a handful of fics that I’ve read recently (either for the first time, or the bajillionth)

Light Up My World Like Nobody Else by @lissadiane In which Stiles Stilinski has a little too much to drink, and steals a baby goat.

Trigger Warning by @thesuninside Derek goes home to New York shortly after the nogitsune is dealt with. He begins the long, slow climb toward mental health, and begins a text-based relationship with Stiles. Stiles, who is struggling with very real issues of guilt and consent, is climbing his own mental health mountain. Together, they’ll try to make it.

These Are the Days That Bind Us Together by @brookesbutler In which Stiles volunteers to go to Chicago with Derek and it’s awful. (Except it isn’t).

Cruising by @thepsychicclam Stiles and Scott spend Friday and Saturday nights cruising through town. All the kids do it. Stiles and Scott cruise around, confident and cool. Except, they’re totally not. Stiles and Scott are definitely not cool. They don’t have their own cruising posse, a caravan they ride around with, taking corners too fast and yelling out the windows at each other.They have Liam and Mason, two freshmen who sit in the back and complain about the choice of music.

Rebalance by @rhysiana When Derek loses his powers while saving Cora’s life, he gets sent to Stiles Stilinski, acupuncturist to the supernatural set, to try to fix him. He sincerely doubts it will work, but he’s run out of options.

Come Fly With Me (Or Don’t) by @stileshale Stiles is overworked and stressed out when his flight home gets delayed due to copious amounts of snow. He finds entertainment with one Derek Hale, whom he hasn’t seen since high school but really doesn’t mind getting reacquainted with.

Like Real People Do by @tatsukitty The ladies at the local yarn shop knew him by name now. Sometimes, he sat in one of the ancient soft armchairs in the store with them, frowning at his work as he struggled to maintain his tension.

“How’s it coming?” Edith asked, settling across from him in another chair, working on a delicate lace shawl with a pattern Derek couldn’t even fathom yet.

“It’s… better.” He hedged.

Wednesday Morning by @deepspacebison Derek's going to break, and Stiles is worried he's going to be the one to do it. 

Written in the Stars by @quixoticity Derek Hale is a lucky guy. He's got a great family, good friends, and a fulfilling job as a tattoo artist. He's also one of the twenty-five per cent of the population born with a soul mark. He likes his life, but he's waiting for his soul-match. The odds of meeting them aren't great but hey, Derek's a lucky guy. He has faith. He can't believe how good his luck really is when one day his soul-match wanders right into his studio, all long limbs and copper eyes. There's just one problem: Stiles is there to get his soul mark covered up. Permanently.

Best Case Scenario by @ladyofthelog The fourth time Stiles breaks the fridge, Dad is less sympathetic. 

“Stiles,” he says as Stiles holds the door steady for him to screw it back onto the chassis—there's new hardware involved this time, and not a little duct tape— 

“I thought this werewolf thing was going to help.”

“Yeah, with the dementia,” Stiles says.

Fight Me, Helen by @witchspark Important OTP question: Which one aggressively argues with the suburban soccer moms at the PTA meeting and flips Helen’s 9x12 pan of betty crocker brownies? 

Take Me Out to the Ballgame by @zjofierose It's all fun and games until someone catches a baseball with their face, Stiles.

In Which Laura is Never Going to Let Derek Live This Down by @omimouse A soulmate fic where you’ve got “Help! Save me!” on your wrist. So you do the martial arts classes, and ROTC, and get a concealed carry permit, you are READY, you are SO up for this… and then one day you’re at a friend’s house, and someone comes pounding down the stairs laughing and ducks behind you and goes “Help! Save me!” and that’s how you find out your soulmate was escaping a tickle fight.

Gravity’s Got Nothing on You by @zosofi “Three weeks,” Derek says.

“Still don’t want to,” Stiles says.

“I’ll pay you,” Derek says, and that… that has Stiles interested. Alf’s Antique’s may be a great job, but it’s not a high-paying job, and half of Stiles’s tuition is coming from financial aid, so…

“How much,” Stiles asks, “are we talking here? Because I know your family, dude. And it’ll be kind of awkward after.“

“My family thinks you’re some sort of fucking gift to the world,” Derek seethes, like he’s jealous, “they’ll probably be pissed at me when we break it off, so don’t worry about that. Five hundred bucks.”

“A thousand,” Stiles says, because screw ethics. Also, the Hale family is loaded. Derek can deal.

Chasing the Horizon by @obroech Stiles nearly laughs and for a moment, he sits there trying to think of anything to say. "It's been a good year," he croaks at long last. "I got you back--I got you back and I was so scared I'd lose you, you know? I got out there; I backpacked across half of Europe with my best friends - I got to see the never less than perfectly composed Lydia Martin after a few days without showers or real beds. Scott and Allison got married, dad. I made a speech."  

The Sheriff's expression softens and he smiles, reaching up and clapping Stiles' shoulder. "You did. I was there. You had Melissa, Scott and Allison in tears."

You Can Plunder My Dungeon Anytime by @13callieb Stiles is numb. “I’m a kid,” he repeats blankly. “I’m nearly seventeen. I’m a kid.”

“Um,” Scott says, or at least, the weird man-hybrid that Scott apparently is these days. “You’re twenty-seven. We had, like, a party.”

Thank You for this Dance by @matildajones Derek picks up another glass of champagne, and that’s when he sees him. A man stands at the edge of the room, chewing his lip and staring at the dance floor longingly. Every person walks past him. Derek must have done it a hundred times this evening.

A Strong Heart and a Nerve of Steel by @lupinus, @uraneia Stiles and Derek wake up married in Vegas. Well, they would have if it was legal. In which Stiles is the president's son, Derek is his bodyguard, and Papa President orders them to pretend to be in love for the sake of gay rights.

Seems to Me It’s Chemistry by @halffizzbin Awkward Nerd Derek has been crushing on Handsome Jock Stiles since forever—so getting paired with him on a Chemistry project is definitely the best/worst thing that's ever happened to him.

Somewhere to Start by @lissadiane Stiles has always known that he isn't quite human - the plant life that tends to sprout around him whenever he gets upset or excited gives it away. He's never really fit in among the regular people in Beacon Hills and is determined to wait it out, go to college, and find somewhere to belong. He's forced to abandon those plans, however, after he desperately agrees to enter into an arranged marriage to save his father's life.

[ahiddenpath]

Takeru x Eimi *laughs evilly*

…

…

OMG, why.

Okay let me start by specifying that this would have to be a more canon atmosphere, ie where Eimi wasn’t involved in Digital World stuff XD  Otherwise she’ll forever see him as a little kid that she doted on, which doesn’t lend to romance.

How did they they meet?

A writing or literature class in college.

Who developed romantic feelings first?

Takeru, and Eimi is oblivious.

Who is their biggest “shipper?”

Hikari, Mimi.  Yamato thinks Eimi would be a good influence, but isn’t… sure… that this will… work.

When did they have their first kiss and under what circumstances?

Takeru steals a kiss some time after confessing.  Eimi is flabbergasted.

Who confessed their feelings first?

Takeru, in a poem that would have been amazing if it weren’t so over-the-top.  Eimi is stunned and can’t give an answer, leaving them in limbo for a while.  Alas, Takeru accepts this as a Challenge.

What was their first official date?

Takeru drags her to a group outing while throwing the word “date” around as much as possible, causing her to turn colors. 

Eimi has never been so exhausted in her life.  She passes out next to him on the train on the way home.  He takes a zillion selfies with her head on his shoulder and posts them on social media.  Mimi goes berserk sharing them.

How do they feel about double dates/group dates?

Their dates are almost always group dates to start with, since Eimi really isn’t so sure about dating at all.  Takeru wants her to be as entertained as possible and overdoes it, inviting his most charming friends and throwing Sora at her almost like a lure (”You love Sora, right?  She’ll be there!  Maybe Yamato, too!  I bet I could get Hikari-”)

What do they do in their down time?

Despite her indecisiveness about dating, Eimi loves spending time with Takeru.  They read together and have multiple hour conversations about books, poetry, movies, anything with a story or literary technique.  She is the biggest fan and harshest critic of his writing.  Also, she loves meeting the Chosen and is much more social than usual if it means she gets to meet a digimon (Takeru capitalizes on this).

What was the first meeting of parents as an official couple like?

I… don’t think this happened, although Takeru independently introduced her to his Mom, his Dad, and most importantly, Yamato.  Yamato knew this thing with Eimi was different when Takeru sounded nervous while setting up this meeting.

What was their first fight over and how did they get past it?

Takeru tries so hard for so long to win her over.  At first, it’s fun; usually his charm is more effective, so Eimi’s resistance is a Challenge.  But as she shows signs of intense platonic love while shying away from romantic love, he slowly loses patience and composure.  One day, when she turns him down for a one-on-one date after months of trying to win her over, he loses it and shouts, “What do I have to do?!” or something like that.  She feels terrible but doesn’t have an answer, and she starts sobbing because she feels bad for him but annoyed that he’s put her in this situation.

Takeru starts to understand how hard this has been on her, as well, and he has to decide whether to back off romantically or to accept her slow pace and keep going while being more careful of her feelings.  It could go either way, probably.

Which one is more easily made jealous?

Hmm…  That depends.  In the beginning, Takeru is easily jealous of anyone, male or female, that strongly captures her interest (platonically, even) because his progress is so slow.  But if Eimi ever starts to fall for him, his flirting and charm will make her uncertain of her position with him.

What is their favourite thing to get to eat?

Takeru’s favorite is anything cooked by Yamato.  Since Eimi likes Yamato, he sometimes drags her with him.  She likes the food, but mostly likes watching the brothers together.  She’s happy when Yamato struggles to deal with Takeru (“At least I’m not the only one…”).

Who’s the cuddly one? What their favourite cuddling position?

Takeru is too physical for Eimi’s tastes at first (granted, anything is too much for her at first, lol!).  But assuming they work things out, they are total cuddlebugs in private. They love to wrap up together in a blanket and read.

Are they hand holders?

Takeru is chivalrous towards her and takes her hand to help her stand/navigate/stuff like that.  He will also take her hand if he feels like someone is edging in on his territory, lol.  Eimi holds his hand if she’s scared or overwhelmed, which can happen in social situations.

How long do they wait before sleeping together for the first time?

Oh god, a long time.  Eimi is demisexual and has to really, really be certain of everything before going there.

 What’s the circumstances?

Privacy is key, so Takeru takes her to a love hotel (and enjoys watching her cycle through white, pink, grey, and red on the way, lol).  He’s good about taking charge while being slow and gentle.

Who tops?

Takeru

What’s the worst first they’ve ever gotten into?

I don’t know, it could be something related to the slow, uncertain speed of their relationship, it could be Eimi not wanting to go out for the bajillionth time, it could be Takeru making messes that Eimi ends of cleaning, or it could be related to Takeru’s flirtiness around other girls.

Who does the shopping and the cooking?

Eimi

Which one is more organized and prone to tidiness?

Eimi.  She sometimes complains about Takeru’s messiness, and he has to be on his best behavior for a few days.

Who proposes?

Takeru

Do they have joined Bachelor/Bacheloette parties or separate?

Eimi wants to elope and skip all of this nonsense, so Takeru folds her into his bachelor party and orders her a lap dance or something ridiculous.  Yamato nearly has a heart attack… until Eimi loses her shit laughing and calls for a drink.

Who is the best man/maid of honour? Any other groomsmen or bridesmaids?

Yamato is the best man, Taichi is the “man of honor,” Hikari is the maid of honor.

Big Ceremony or Small?

Eimi wants to elope, Takeru wants to invite his many friends.  It slips out of her control and ends up pretty big and loud.  Eimi grabs Jyou and hides on a balcony at her own wedding while he coaches her through breathing with her head between her legs.  Sora saves the day by piling digimon on Eimi until she’s calm XD

Do they have a honeymoon? If so, where?

Takeru understand the strain the wedding has put on Eimi and takes her somewhere tropical and incredibly romantic.  She melts at his gracious, one-on-one attention.

Do they have children? How many?

Takeru thinks Eimi will be the best mom ever and wants kids, but Eimi is… not so sure about having more children to care for (I’m counting Takeru here, lol).  To keep things in line with the epilogue, they have at least one son, a boy.

[zeldalinklove7]

Quote from review: “Then there's Kuja's (predictable) attack on Alexandria and Garnet's speech: "No... I can't depend on them anymore!" "As the queen of Alexandria, I must protect my kingdom."

I hate this line of dialogue so much, it messes up the love story again, it sounds like Garnet never truly loved Zidane and was rejecting him and all that above mentioned melodrama was completety pointless, there is nothing wrong with relying on someone especially the one you love, as long as it's not over reliance and they can depend on you, but this was never Garnet's problem, her problem was the exact opposite of what she said.

She was under reliant and self centred as shown with her idiotic return to Alexandria plot line, a better line would be "I will protect Zidane and etc. etc. but I digress because as stated above and with Beatrix, this part of the story shouldn't have gone this way, and to add insult to injury, after Zidane rescues Garnet and Eiko from the collapsing tower, instead of reconciling the relationship, the Invincible decimates Alexandria and we go right back to the bajillionth wangsting moment for Garnet, and Zidane completely ignores all this and goes right back to being cheerful for no reason, making that whole plot line even more pointless.

This just sums up my point that Garnet has WAY too much angst and Zidane has too little, Zidane should be the one angsting, he couldn't protect Garnet, and what the game should have done was put him in a coma after the Alexandria attack with Garnet being by his side the whole time and not have that annoying mute thing going on (the damage to Alexandria wasn't even that severe, when you go back most of the residents are there okay, and there are petitions to help fundraise for faster repairs), and Zidane wouldn't wake up until the other characters were captured at the desert palace, giving more focus to the other characters.”

“As the queen of Alexandria, I must protect my kingdom.” 

FFIX WEEK Day 3 (Jul. 03) → Favorite quote(s) 

Dagger starting to understand that she can be strong as well, overcoming her anxiety and fear. Bless this woman.

other notable mentions:  “I had a whole speech ready for her. But it would’ve been a lie! How could I lie to her!? ‘Good luck, Dagger! I’ll be watching you from afar.’ ‘Come find me if you need someone to talk to.’ It’s a big fat lie! That’s not how I feel at all! That’s not how I feel… at all.”  - Zidane “I won’t let you make any more instruments of murder!” - Vivi Also literally everything Quina says

…and guess what i made jUST IN TIME FOR TODAY WHOO 8D

[peaceofpuregold-blog]

Long Ass Post About Guns & Shit (Part 1)

Allow me to give a long preface about with my relationship with guns. I have a habit of being for too verbose and ramble, so I apologize ahead of time.

I’m going to attempt my first “under a cut for length” doohickey.

I had several family members who were either in the military or in the force and was familiar with hunting rifles and a couple different handguns by the time I was in high school. I was taught proper handling etiquette and care, and a hefty dose of both fear and respect. 

The lone handgun we had in the house was always locked up in a small safe, out of reach and well hidden. I consider that gun as the only firearm that was ever potentially necessary to be near me in my whole life. My father had put away some very unsavory folks, so there were code phrases my family had which alerted us to hide in the nearest safe spot or evacuate immediately. 

There was only one time that my father uttered the “hide” phrase (it had something to do with bananas because he fucking HATED bananas). Thankfully the gun was never discharged as my father’s coworkers arrived post-haste after he gave them a ring. My mother was severely traumatized by the event. She had the unenviable task of keeping my father in her line of sight while hiding herself, which included him loading and aiming the gun. She also saw the front of the house get absolutely wrecked to hell before the man was apprehended.

Meanwhile I was reading Little House in the Big Woods for the eleventy bajillionth time that year in the hidey hole I had that was just my size in the upstairs bathroom linen closet. There was a bunch of broken glass and wood I had to be carried over, but I got pizza!

While I see the potential purpose of firearms, I cannot understand the frikkin’ reason why we have so MANY per capita in the USA. There are enough guns now for every single person in the United States, but gun owning households are on the decline. 

Guess what that means? Stockpiling.

And somehow these rises in gun purchases seem to correlate with the recent uptick in mass shootings. And unfortunately the data seems to indicate that in states that have more guns have a tendency to have a higher firearm mortality rate. In addition guns “are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal accidental shooting, criminal assault, or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense”. 

And wouldn’t you know it, when it comes to the “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” rhetoric... 

It happens to be bull shit.

After the NRA came out with this line I asked my father if I ought to get a gun. He asked me if I was ever going to be a police officer or go into the military. When I answered in the negative he sternly told me, “No.” 

I asked why, and he said, “Civilians with guns just add a hell of a lot of confusion to the mix when there’s already a reported active shooter on the premises. When we arrive we don’t necessarily know immediately who is defending and who isn’t. More innocent bystanders are liable to be be hurt, too. This is why I do not go out armed when I’m not at work unless I’m in [location redacted here] where everyone in blue knows me. I would follow the same protocol all other folks should in that situation. Besides, even us cops get nervous, and when we’re on our own we make stupid, terrible, awful mistakes.”

Now we know that last bit all too well. I wonder what he would think about what’s finally coming to light today. Did he know about the racism that’s been seemingly there this whole time? If so, did he fight against the racial the stereotypes that his precinct may have held? Was he determined to treat folks who looked like my mixed momma no different than anyone else and pass that on when he was a FTO?

I wish I had the foresight to ask him when I was younger, but when I think about it... I didn’t have any reason to. All the cops I knew when I was little knew who I was, and with the way I turned out I never had to have “the talk” even when we went to strange places.

I wish I had paid more attention to how my more melaninated brothers and sisters acted around cops when I got older, how their reaction was so different from mine when my dad would pick me up from school in his squad car. I wish I had asked more questions of my mother and grandfather, too. But that time has passed.

And I feel terribly guilty and torn because of it.

TL;DR: From the child of a cop familiar with firearms... Why the FUCK do we have so many GUNS?! They don’t do a lick a good unless there are very limited, specific situations occurring. Ya’ll should be ashamed of yourselves.

NEXT PART: What to do when there is an active shooter near you, and what you can do to help. 

[sending-the-message]

Dead Coyote by Ilunibi

I did not grow up in a nice area. Housing projects, regardless of where they are, are rarely ever “nice.” And, of course, in rough neighborhoods like that, you learn from a very early age who you should and should not go around and under what circumstances those dangerous people are safe. You learn how to make friends with unfriendly people, and you learn the delicate dance of walking on eggshells in the face of folks who’d gut you for the twenty-bucks in your pocket. Most importantly, though, you learn that not every villain is a villain.

Take Dead Coyote for instance.

No, I don’t know why we called him Dead Coyote, but being a kid? I didn’t really care. I knew he was an addict, I knew that he dealt drugs out of his apartment by night and sold pirated DVDs out of the trunk of his car by day, and I knew that he was Honduran, which I only knew because he’d throw a shit fit if you called him Mexican. I also knew that my mom warned me a thousand different times to never, ever talk to him because he was a disgusting junkie, but it was hard to miss him because he always seemed to linger around the basketball courts and playgrounds. My neighborhood friends had just gotten so used to him being around that they treated him like a statue, but me?

Well, I guess I was different. I thought Dead Coyote was just the most fascinating guy in the world. He was taller than my dad and he was skinny as a rail, but I’d seen him get in fights and I had never seen him lose. He wore his hair like a character in a Mad Max movie (which, admittedly, was probably because he didn’t take care of himself), and he was covered in tattoos. Swirls and skulls and weird, squiggly symbols and bugs and flies and maggots and devils.

That’s how I ended up talking to him in the end. Here I am, just barely into fourth grade, and I plopped right next to him on a bench at the basketball court, pointed out one of the symbols on his arm, and asked, “What’s that?”

He looked at me, looked at his arm, looked at me again, and narrowed his eyes. After a few moments for him to figure out that I wasn’t some drug-induced hallucination, he cracked a smile.

“Oh, uh. That’s a Pentacle of Solomon.”

“What’s a Pentacle of Solomon?”

“Uh,” he drawled, his eyes hazy. “It’s, like, a thing I found in a book once. Don’t worry about it, princess.”

And so began an unorthodox friendship.

I know it has to seem odd that a little girl would strike up a sort of sibling relationship with the twenty-something neighborhood dealer, but I was a weird kid, an only child, endlessly curious, and painfully lonely. I didn’t really fit in with a lot of the neighborhood brats, my mom worked constantly, my dad was in jail, and I spent the majority of my time as a solitary latchkey kid who’d come home from school, let herself in, and spend eight hours trying to keep herself from dying of boredom. I didn’t really register Dead Coyote as a danger despite my mom’s many warnings anymore than I paid mind to her pleas to not leave the house while she was at work. I was young, I was invincible, and Dead Coyote was a way to pass the time without feeling completely alone.

Even though we got a lot of weird looks, I kept visiting him during his daily vigil at the local playground. I’d ask him about his tattoos, he’d give me vague answers, he’d ask me about my day, and I’d regale him with stories about the mean girls at school and the boys I had elementary school crushes on. He tried to teach me Spanish curse words, I tried to teach him what every individual Pokemon did, and in general? We got on pretty well. In a way, it was kind of like having an older brother or, if nothing else, having my father back.

It became ritual to drop my books inside my door and run straight back out to meet up with my new friend, but eventually, there was a hiccup. There’s always a hiccup.

It was one of those crisp fall days that seems almost perfect, where it’s not too hot, not too cold, the sky is clear, and everything just seems so vivid and alive. I rushed home, literally threw my backpack in the door of my apartment and watched the contents burst out and scatter across the floor, locked the door behind me, and bolted for the playground. I wanted to show off a new Pokemon card I was proud of, and also ask him for the bajillionth time in months about what a Pentacle of Solomon was. He still hadn’t told me.

The problem was that when I went to the playground, it was empty. I ran around the rickety wooden swings and checked under the slides and equipment, but the most I found were ants and broken beer bottles. So, I ran to the basketball court and, while I could find a couple of Dead Coyote’s regulars, I couldn’t find the man himself. It was weird and it felt very, very wrong, and my thoughts raced to whether he’d finally gotten arrested or, hell, finally gotten himself killed. Did he overdose? In my panic, I interrupted his regulars’ game to ask if they’d seen him, and my anxiety only peaked when they told me that, no, he hadn’t really come out of his apartment all day.

Now, you’ll think I’m dumb, but I knew where Dead Coyote lived. Sometimes, when mom was late getting home and I was too scared to be by myself, I’d slip over to his apartment a couple of buildings down and stay in his living room to watch TV. Since mom had a beat-up car that banged like a metal band, I’d always hear her coming and be home before her. I know in retrospect that I was basically asking for trouble, I know it’s weird that I could identify his regulars because I’d watch Who’s Line on his couch while he was dealing heroin in the kitchen, and I know it seems really weird that a grown man would allow that, but I was nine. I just knew I was scared at night, he was scary, and he’d protect me until mom got home.

So, I went to his apartment. I banged on the door. I yelled into the crack between the door and the jamb, I climbed up on his trash can to look in the windows. The entire place was dark except for little dots of glow that seemed to zigzag around the living room. Candles, I later realized, bright red like Christmas lights, flickering and dancing in the pitch black. I assumed that if candles were lit, it had to mean he was in there somewhere--it’d be a fire hazard if he was gone--so I banged on the window and---

Something grabbed me. Not from the inside, but from behind, an arm hooked around my waist and dragging me off the trash can. It toppled over with a loud crash, I let out the shrillest scream I think I’ve ever managed in my life, and I heard this awful, smug laughter from behind me as I was hauled, kicking and shrieking, around the corner of the building. It felt like all of the light in the world disappeared as I was carted down into the alley, the sun and the street a distant memory.

Then, my captor threw me down. I heard my back pop as I hit the brick of the building and my vision was blurred for a few seconds. When the world came back into focus, though, I could still see two sets of legs, and when I looked up at who they belonged to, I was both horrified and relieved to see that it wasn’t Dead Coyote. Relieved because, well, I didn’t want to think he’d hurt me and horrified because of who it turned out to be.

You see, every neighborhood (even the good ones) has the folks that you don’t want to run afoul of. Unless you’re their level of nasty, there is no possible way to ever endear yourself to them. There’s bad eggs with cream centers like Dead Coyote, and then there’s rotten pieces of shit like Joseph Shepherd.

Joseph was an eighteen-year-old punk who only felt alive if somebody else was hurting. He was the guy who once threw me in front of a bus and chased his ex-girlfriend down the road with a flask of battery acid because he thought it was funny. This was the type of person who legitimately should be locked up and the key conveniently lost. His friend? I had no idea who the fuck he was, but if he was with Joseph, he wasn’t anyone worth knowing.

“Well, well. Looks like we have DC’s little piece of jailbait, eh?”

Joseph stooped down to my level and yanked hard on my shirt. My back roared in pain and I turned beet red when I noticed him looking down the front.

“A little underdeveloped, but the fucker’s a freak anyway. Maybe he likes ‘em like that.”

“I bet she’s tight, though,” his friend offered, and that’s when I saw something in his hand. For a second, I thought it was a gun but, no, it was worse. It was a knife. One of those cheap little hunting knives you get from seedy gas stations. All I could think about from that point on is how much more awful stabbing would be compared to getting shot. I couldn’t even wrap my mind around the much more obvious implication.

I was nine. I never got the birds and the bees talk. I didn’t understand.

There was some more discussion, but my memory becomes a brief blur around this point, like a watercolor painting gone terribly wrong. I remember being jostled, I remember something wet on the side of my face, and then I remember hearing a loud howl of pain and a thud. The next clear thing in my mind was watching as Joseph’s friend hit the ground with a squall, eyes rolled into the back of his head, frothing at the mouth like a rabid animal. His hands curled into his chest, his legs spasmed, then his entire body began to convulse. Joseph began barking curses, but I was more worried about fixing my shirt.

What can I say? It was a lot to take in. I could only process so much. I didn’t leave the house expecting to get molested by a man who’d have an epileptic seizure in the end.

I mean, it was a seizure… right?

If it was, the world wound up seizing, too. As I found my land legs again and pushed myself up to my feet, the earth began to quake and the walls of the building began to tremble. The sun went dark and reality itself began groaning in agony. It was like listening a thousand chanting voices trying to drown the other out, as the air grew thicker and a rancid stench began to fill the air. For some reason, though, it didn’t affect me; I could feel the noise making my bones buzz and I could smell that awful smell, but Joseph was the one who was sliding to the ground and crying. He was the one whose eyes were bleeding, whose body was shaking, whose neck was twisting around like he was trying for a part in The Exorcist.

And he screamed. God, the things he screamed. Things he saw that were invisible to me, of stilt-legged owl beasts and dogs with rows of teeth like sharks. Men in armor with fanged horses. Goat-headed women with twisted horns decorated in bones.

Odd as it was, I was more scared of getting hurt than watching him get hurt, more scared of him than the ghosts he thought he saw. I ignored the pain shooting through my back, turned tail, and ran for the light at the end of the alley like it was relay dash toward the pearly gates. Tears streamed down my face as I turned the corner--maybe, maybe, if I knocked a little louder and screamed a little more frantically, Dead Coyote would answer his door--and I swore up and down and all around that I would never, ever leave the house while mom was at work and I would not stop running until I got home.

Except, I hit something as I rounded the building. After stumbling over Dead Coyote’s spilled garbage, I ran dead into the actual Dead Coyote. I was sobbing, he was surprisingly sober, and as a crowd of neighbors gathered around to see what the noise outside was about, he stooped down and grabbed me in a bear hug like a real big brother and kept telling me over and over and over that everything was okay. Everything was fine.

He sat with me when the police came after he, surprisingly enough, broke his own personal code to call them. They found Joseph and his friend passed out in the alley with no sign that they had been seizing or bleeding or screaming or crying. They were just out like lights, lying in their own vomit in between the buildings. I was told that I was lucky, because it was probably some kind of drug overdose that made them lose consciousness at just the right time, but I know what I saw. And I know what Joseph thought he saw, because he told me, shrieking, every last detail. And even as the police gave Dead Coyote an accusing glance as they drove my attackers off into the sunset, I somehow knew in the pit of my soul he wasn’t the villain in all of this.

“Hey. Princess.”

I looked to him curiously, eyes still puffy and wet. He was chewing his bottom lip and looking straight ahead, rapping his fingers against his thigh in that fidgety way he always did. His other hand absentmindedly combed through his hair before he gave me a sideways glance and nodded towards his apartment door.

“I think it’s about time I teach you what a Pentacle of Solomon is.”