#but I could see them setting the foundations for one to be explored later while resolving the character arcs in a satisfying way

[lukedanger]

Caitlyn's Narrow Way Through without a Golden Path - A Spectulation

So, in the new S2 teaser, Caitlyn lists three objectives for her task force: locate Jinx, dismantle shimmer, and neutralize any of Silco's remaining loyalists. A clear set of objectives, and ones that in theory allow for precision as not every Zaunite is a Silco loyalist - the Firelights, for one. And ones that would almost certainly be in contrast to someone else's idea of how to retaliate. Say, a Noxian invasion? An invasion that this compromise of her leading a task force into Zaun can avert. Yet to do so, Caitlyn would still need to lead the Enforcers into Zaun as a military force: the opposite of what she wanted before.

This is not going to be pretty, but I think this is going to be a situation where she sees it as the least bad option. Caitlyn knows full well that the Piltover Council being exploded was not an attack by Zaun as a whole - Jinx made the decision herself. Caitlyn absolutely wants revenge, but I do not see her wanting to collectively punish all of Zaun for it.

Others, though, are itching to punish all of Zaun for the hexrocket attack. The most likely leading voice for that? Ambessa Medarda: if Piltover does nothing, then Noxus steps in. And Ambessa's methods would be an indiscriminate orgy of blood and fire that isn't going to care whether a Zaunite was one of Silco's men or a Firelight who opposed him. And we know that Noxus is sending at least one ship full of troops for the job from the teaser.

So, Caitlyn, now the closest thing Piltover has to a leader (assuming Jayce and Mel are out of action even if they live), steps up to the plate. She takes the reins before Ambessa makes a decision for them. And with that Sword of Damocles overhead tries to find a way through, however narrow, that avoids a total war between the cities or Piltover becoming a de facto Noxian vassal.

She creates a compromise to appease the warmongers while still avoiding collective punishment of Zaun, and asserts that Piltover is not free real estate. A narrow path of three limited objectives to resolve things in the absence of a golden path to bring justice to both cities. It is not a good solution, but the now-dead council missed every opportunity for one in their neglect and apathy. Cait makes a plan with the options she has available to her after all the better ones were lost.

Is it a good plan? Hell no! I fully expect that Cait's willingness to launch even a limited invasion of Zaun as a compromise is going to be because she wants revenge herself. At the same time, I don't think it is going to completely erase her good heart. She still is going to want the cities to heal, she just sees this conflict as one that needs to be resolved. Definitively. By her actions. Once she finishes fixing this crisis, they can deal with the actual root causes. The alternative means surrendering to despair and letting the broken system continue to fail.

But with her judgment clouded by revenge and no small amount of "I have to fix this because I seem to be the only topsider who cares", Caitlyn could lose the good heart we know her for in the first season. No doubt Ambessa will be there constantly encouraging Caitlyn to listen to the little voice in her head that says 'screw them all, they deserve to suffer for killing mom!'. To include more and more under the description "Silco's Loyalists" until that distinction is functionally meaningless. Or even starts counting Silco's enemies like the Firelights when they object to the inevitable excesses of the Enforcers.

This is where Vi will step in, I believe. She is someone who cares about Cait as a person and who is not going to fall in line to enable her worst impulses past a point of no return. I fully expect that Vi will call Caitlyn's judgment into question when it absolutely needs to be, painful an argument as it will be for those involved and to watch.

At the same time, it will be that argument that yanks Caitlyn away from the void she was about to step into. The other half of this is that when Vi calls Cait out, she listens and learns. It's just that this time, it is the lover's plea to the hero to step back before it is too late.

Maybe it is still too late for the main plan by the time this happens. Maybe this is what causes the final showdown between sisters as Cait has to let go and trust Vi to face this alone. Or maybe Vi has to do it alone because Caitlyn has to stop Ambessa as their timer runs out. There's a lot of ways it could go from here, but I think it will be a continuation of the same thing: a desperate attempt to find the narrow way through as every better option is closed off.

[tonythr]

The Watcher's telescope view is a social commentary and here's why

Ok so let's set some things right first. City of Tears is amazing.

(Yes, Pale Court is also an amazing mod)

I've played Hollow Knight many times, and City of Tears is probably the one location I never get tired of. The scenery, the lore, the room layout, the music, the atmosphere - it's all perfect. It's the culmination of Halllownest's beauty, the peak of the game's art style, and the narrative's most essential location. City of Tears is the heart of Hollow Knight.

This game is a story about a Kingdom and its death, a tragedy of a society that was built on dreams of light but ultimately was consumed by the light so much that darkness became its only hope. And City of Tears stands at the center of this story. So it's fitting that the themes of corrupted dreams, society flaws, and dark hopes are what shape the lore and atmosphere of this beautiful, gorgeous location.

Did you ever notice that the tears of this Kingdom are dark despite them originating in a glowing blue lake, and the waters that flood the streets are almost as dark as the void in the Abyss? Do you ever think about how the vibrant blue color of the City is basically a culmination of how the color blue is presented in other locations (Howling Cliffs, Forgotten Crossroads, and later Royal Waterways being more of a remix of it), and how it's tied to the very essence of Hallownest (and how Resting Grounds, the location that contains Blue Lake and also uses a bright blue color, represent the very foundation of Hallownest's history, that being Seer's story about the Moth Tribe's betrayal that started the war between Pale King and the Radiance)? Do you feel like Soul Master basically represents the thunder and the lightning in this never-ending rain? Do you get it????

Anyway yeah, there are many things that can be said about City of Tears, and this is hopefully not the last time I make a post about it. What I want to talk about here is the City's society.

Basically, Monomon said it better than anyone could:

It's a very complicated topic. The narrative basically explores the inner mechanisms of a free mind, how its primary need is finding a purpose, and how its purpose turns out to be a constant need of... something. Anything. As long as there is something to want, a free mind will want it. As long as there is something to yearn for, something to enjoy, something to dream about, our minds are going to move in its direction, never wanting to stop. Because a stasis is worse than death. Because a world without dreams is an empty world.

But then again, isn't constant yearning another instance of, well, constance? If dreams never end but also never evolve, doesn't that create another kind of stasis?

Like I said, it's very complicated. Let's go back to what I was getting at in the first place. What I actually wanted to say is this:

Theese guys fucking fucked up as a society.

It's classic dystopian shit (or maybe I'm using the wrong word, but you get the point). Rich people are living in luxury while the rest are suffering. They're making gold a fucking religion and are seeing it as the only beauty in the world. The corrupt upper class are using heavy gatekeeping on the lower class.

Literally.

What's interesting is that, at first, we barely see any lower class bugs in the City. There's suspiciously few regular husks in this location, compared to how many rich guys are on the eastern side. But then we get to Soul Sanctum and it all starts to make sense.

There are no red cloaks in those corpse piles. Only the poor were killed for those experiments. It can't be a coincidence. It's straight-up elitism-based genocide (again, I don't know if I'm using the right terms, correct me if there's a better way to say that, but the point is clear).

Also, see how many streets are flooded on the western side in comparison to the eastern side.

Point is, the bugs that ruined the kingdom by always wanting more (what Monomon wrote about) are most likely theese rich ones. It's a very fitting thing for this dystopian narrative: neverending greed that leads to the downfall of a civilization.

There's a note in the Hunter's Journal that describes it in the best way possible:

For every location in the game, there is a place that functions as the center of its essence, its narrative heart, the culmination of its themes. For Queen's Gardens it's the White Lady's cocoon, for Greenpath it's the Lake of Unn, and for City of Tears (or at least its eastern part, the one with the upper class) it's the Watcher's Spire. The tallest building of the great capital. The home of (evidently) the most rich and influential bug of the City's high society. Literally the top of this social hierarchy.

He is also arguably the most mysterious dreamer out of all three. I mean, why does he have only one eye? What type of bug is he? How did he get this much power? Does he really have some kind of connection with the Collector? Is he a motherfucking fluke? Why does he seem to have an obsession with serving the King?

That last question is kinda answered by the cut content though.

That last sentence is kinda confusing. Is it regret? Is it humility? Is it pride in his sacrifice? In any case, here we see that Lurien actually knew that the Pale King was literally a god, and desired to worship him, like any other bug yearns to worship some kind of deity. So while other bugs of Hallownest worshiped PK because he was a monarch, albeit a godlike one (for all they knew he could be just an extraordinary bug, but a bug nonetheless), Lurien worshiped him as an actual god. And the intricacies of worshiping a god are one of the central themes of the game. From the moth tribe's betrayal of Radiance leading to the birth of the Infection to the Godseeker's shenanigans leading to the birth of the Shade Lord - the game makes multiple statements about gods, religious devotion and the semantics of divine power. Just that one idea that a god takes its power from the ones that worship it deserves its own post - heck, it deserves its own book.

So yeah, Lurien's devotion to the King is an important part of the story. He sure is an important character in this narrative. He also got a cool house. Being able to observe the entirety of the Hallownest's capital is badass.

But there's one thing I find odd about all that, and it's the moment we get to actually look through his legendary telescope.

Is it just me, or does this feel kinda... Underwhelming? Almost disappointing? I mean, don't get me wrong, I love this view, it's beautiful, and I would certainly love to be able to see something like this with my own eyes irl, but, looking at this picture, I can't help but wonder...

Did he actually see anything from up there?

In cut dialogue, Lurien talks about how he loves the City's streets, and his hidden lore tablet contains words about his love for bugkind, but... I see neither any streets on this image, nor any bugs (that are not vengeflies). Only spiked rooftops and rainy fog, clouding the view of the actual City.

And sure, the Spire has many windows and even had multiple watchers who were helping Lurien with overseeing the capital...

But his own spot was always this one.

His telescope was sealed in one place, letting him see only a small portion of the City and its life. Almost like his own worldview was stuck in one perspective.

Notice the wording here. It's not "The Seals must remain". It's "Bonds must remain". He's not thinking just about the Seals containing the Infection. He's thinking about the whole Kingdom needing to stay unchanged. His dream is the stasis that the Knight (and also Monomon, Hornet and, in a sense, even Radiance) want to end. The stasis that the Pale King wanted to create in order for his Kingdom (and therefore himself) to be eternal. The stasis that would allow for both Pale King and Lurien's worship of him to remain forever.

But there is always a cost to ascending higher than others, and it's that you can no longer see what's going on below or who's suffering down there. I think Lurien, sitting atop the tallest tower, was actually detached from the struggles of regular bugs. He and his Spire are the culmination of the City's upper class' ignorance towards the ones who were below them on the social hierarchy. A dreamer who dreamt of watching over the very heart of the holy civilization lived so high up he could no longer see his beloved world in its complicated, detailed entirety – and the tears of the stasis created by those like him only blinded him more.

All those flooded streets, those broken buildings, those empty halls, those starving bugs, those sealed doors - even though he watched over them, he couldn't see them.

I'm pretty sure Lurien didn't even know about the Soul Master's experiments, despite the fact that the Soul Sanctum was located right next to his Spire.

Or maybe he knew but chose to turn a blind eye to it (pun intended).

But it's kind of poetic, isn't it? It's the beauty of the tragedy of this game's characters. A Beast who had to surrender everything to the opposing civilization. A Teacher who could no longer teach. A Watcher who couldn't see the truth.

And all that makes me wonder... How much suffering could the Pale King see, standing on that platform at the top of the Abyss, facing away from the pit where his children died?

TL;DR: Lurien's point of view was too high up to actually see what was truly going on down there, both literally and metaphorically. His desire to worship the Pale King made him ignorant of the struggles of regular bugs. Similarly, the extreme elitism of the high society of Hallownest lead to ignorance, discrimination and greed, which ultimately caused the sprawl of the Infection. This side of Lurien's story might also parallel the Pale King's with his ignorance towards the discarded vessels.

TL;DR²: Eat the rich

[thesecretwriter]

a memory, chapter 1 (tom riddle).

pairing: tom riddle x female reader

warnings: nothing hectic, it’s a slow burn beginning, but the foundation of it is needed for more important parts later.

summary: y/n find the diary of tom riddle and becomes curious when she finds that the diary is unlike any book shes encountered before as well as a man from the past who leaves her with even more questions.

word count: 1.3k

a/n: Happy reading, hope you enjoy!

minors/ageless blogs dni.

series masterlist

masterlist

Funny, the damage a silly little diary can do, especially in the hands of a mindless girl such as yourself.

The diary was found in the restricted section of the library that no one ventured into. You had got a hold of it when curiosity got the best of you. Hogwarts allowed you the privilege to use studying to explore topics not taught in the syllabus as one of the students who was furthering their studies.

There was nothing special about it, just a normal diary, but when your fingers first brushed against them, you felt a jolt of an unknown emotion that made you hastily grab the diary. The pages were blank, no writing, no drawings. Nothing.

How peculiar.

You made your way out of the library, taking your usual route back to your houses common room. However, you couldn’t shake off the feeling as if you were being watched.

You stopped walking as you turned down a dark hallway, waiting to see if someone was following you, but there were no sound of footsteps. You dismissed the feeling to your sleep deprivation and carried on to your common room.

So, you sat at the study table in your common room while your housemates slept soundly. You grabbed your quill and dipped it in the ink. You wrote your full name onto the first page and watched as your writing disappeared. It didn’t phase you since you expected it to be some kind of magical diary. However, it was what next appeared that baffled you.

Hello y/f/n.

You took in a deep breath and thought for a moment before writing again.

Is this an enchantment diary?

Maybe, maybe not.

Your brows furrowed. It seemed like it might’ve been like one of those items that Fred and George sell, but then why would it be in the restrict section of the Hogwarts library?

Why was this book hidden in the restricted section of the library?

The words disappeared like before.

So that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

You inhaled sharply and decided that was enough for today. Your curiosity got you this far, but you knew better than to dabble in this further. You closed the book and put it back into the pile of books and began your usual research.

In the following days, your mind couldn’t get rid of the thought of wanting to find out more about the diary. It’s as though you’re under a sort of spell of desire for it.

You found yourself in Professor Remus’ classroom. He seemed to be busy marking papers.

“Y/n, what do I owe the pleasure?” he said with a kind smile.

“Evening, professor. I was hoping to ask you a few questions about a recent topic I’m researching,” you said as nonchalantly as you could.

Professor Remus nodded in reply and set the papers in his hand aside.

“What questions do you have for me?” you walked to his desk and set your books aside.

You weren’t going to show him the diary, but you could work your way around finding out information.

“I was curious if it were possible to enchant a book, specifically a diary,” you explained.

“Enchant it in what way?” he asked slightly confused.

“Perhaps maybe having it reply to whatever is written inside of it,” you said to clarify.

He wondered for a moment. There were many books which he encountered that were enchanted, some even being textbooks used at Hogwarts like the Care of Magical Creatures textbook.

“There are books which are enchanted, but not in the way you mentioned,”

You sigh at his reply, not gaining anymore answers that the ones you had before.

“Alright, thank you, professor. For clarifying,” you said with a smile and nodded as a way of saying goodbye.

Just as you were about to exit the classroom, you heard his voice call out.

“I know you have an interest in researching topics, y/n, but if you find yourself too far in, it can be harmful,” he advised.

“I know, professor,” you smiled and continued on your way.

That night, you sat at the very same desk as before with the diary in front of you. Once again, you took the quill which was dipped in ink and wrote in the diary.

What are the origins of this book?

They disappear as usual and a few moments later you get a reply.

I don’t believe I can tell you…

You sigh in frustration and put the quill aside, just then, more words appear.

… but I can show you.

Your brows furrow in confusion and concern. Feeling like you have reached your point of research for the night, you went to close the diary when all of a sudden bright flashes of light came from the book and you felt yourself being pulled towards it.

You closed your eyes in preparation for what may come, but you felt nothing. You opened your eyes carefully to see yourself in the hallways of Hogwarts, but it seemed so different than what you’re used to seeing.

A shadow appears on the wall in front of you, and you quickly hide in an adjoined hallway. You heard the footsteps approaching, the figure came into view. It was a young man who seemed slightly older than you. His robes were of a different style but had the emblem of Slytherin.

The young man stopped his walking looked as if he was checking the hallways, when you looked more closely at his robes, you saw that he had a badge, a prefect badge. He started to walk in your direction, which caused you to walk backwards, but another voice interrupted both your movements.

“Tom,” a familiar voice called after him.

“Yes, professor?” Tom answered.

The source of the familiar voice came into view, and you were shocked to see Professor Dumbledore, but he seemed to be much younger than he is now.

“I think it would be okay for you to retire back to your living quarters,” Dumbledore advised.

Tom nodded his head in agreeance. “Very well, professor. I’m doing one last check around the halls, professor,”

Dumbledore nodded and bid Tom a goodnight.

You watched as Tom waited for Dumbledore to walk away before he continued on his way towards the hallway you were in. Which reminded you that you were trying to hide from him. However, as he walked towards you, he walked on as if he never saw you.

This further baffled you, but as your curiosity grew, you silently followed him. He walked to the end of the hallway and waited. The wall started to change, slowly revealing a door that was not there before.

He stepped inside and was about to close it, but he stopped and seemed as though he was looking right at you. Fear spread throughout you, though that was short lived when Tom closed the door.

As you took a step to walk forward, you felt the same feeling as when the diary consumed you. A bright flash of light appeared, your eyes closed and when you opened them again, you were in your common room, sat at the study table with the diary in front of you.

You were trying to compose yourself after what you’d just witnessed. Did you dose off and dream the whole thing? Was your lack of sleep catching up with you? what spell would cause such an effect?

All these questions jumbled into your mind, and you were about to stand up and gather your things, but then words appeared on the page in front of you.

Now you know who I am.

[humanpurposes]

Just to chime in to what that anon asked you, unfortunately that Twitter account is extremely reliable (even though she does make some jokes from time to time). She knew about nettles being cut and Rhaena getting sheepstealer before filming started and only chose to hint at it an entire year later. She has a connection in production which gives her access to the scripts so I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s seen something already. It’s disappointing because if I could choose a “ship” to happen it would be Alys and Aemond. But I think it’s safe to say they are going to double down of Aemond being the big villain for the rest of the show and there isn’t a chance they are going to let his character have a romance. Ewan already seems disappointed with the direction Aemond is going in, saying that season 3 will be “interesting”. Alys was a great opportunity to give Aemond depth as a character but they will throw it all away to make Aemond the one dimensional boogeyman they want him to be.

Oh interesting, thanks for chipping in! I don't go near twitter so I have no context about the post or the account.

I find it really frustrating with how badly the writers fumbled Aemond. He had a great foundation as being cruel but understandable in season 1 (in my opinion at least), and I was really interested to see how they would play the aftermath of Storm's End. I think Aemond's emotional state should have been explored through his connections with his family. Show us that Alicent is horrified at the man her son is becoming. Show us that Aemond feels guilty about Luke's death or how he struggles to express that because he doesn't want to look weak. Show him trying to comfort Helaena after her son dies when it was his actions that led to his murder.

I said this in a few posts while the show was airing but a lot of characters weren't given room to breathe or develop in a way that felt natural. Aemond is being set up as the main obstacle to Rhaenyra's cause and it makes no sense because he still feels like a secondary character. Like why is Daemon warning Alys about how evil Aemond is when the worst thing Daemon's seen Aemond do is call his step kids "Strong boys" and shove Jace to the floor lmao??? Aemond is the "big baddie" because it's what the plot asks for, which makes for really unengaging TV.

Sorry I'm rambling but I agree, I was excited to see what we'd get with Alysmond in terms of what their relationship would be like, the power dynamics, how it might humanise both of them, but my expectations are kinda in the gutter after season 2. Still, it all comes down to speculation. We won't know what will happen for sure until the season airs.

[quill-pen]

So, DnDverse question. We know Adonis basically gets ping-ponged into the fantasy dimension to get rid of him from his modern timeline.

Then he meets the Cratchits, Bess and Wolf, Connie, and obviously begins to set up a life there. Takes over the manor. Marries, settles down.

Do you think there’s ever any intervention or magic that comes up where some mage is like, “Good news! We can send you back to your own universe. One Ebenezer here, the other Ebenezer there! Just let me know when.”

I’m sure it’s somewhat of a choice. I mean, he was ripped away from the life he knew. But also, leaving his new found-family? Leaving Connie?

And if this conversation came up while Connie was already secretly pregnant, I imagine she hasn’t told him, so she goes to Bess that night and just sobs about losing him.

“I can’t keep him here, Bess! He should go home … if he wants. I shouldn’t be selfish, but gods preserve me, my heart will break without him. How could I go on? How could our baby go on?”

This is such an interesting topic, and I have thought about it. Can he go back? Would he go back? Who would offer to send him back? Would Connie go with him back to his world if he went?

Interestingly enough, I actually see the Queen of the gods being the one to offer to send him back. She approaches him somehow, somewhere, someway, and tries to tempt him into returning to his home. "We both know you don't belong here. You weren't born of this world; what does it have to offer you, child?" She tries to play it off as benevolent mercy. What it is, really, is her own self-interest and self-preservation, because he's part of the group destined to end her reign. Without him, the prophecy doesn't come true. Of course, nobody knows that yet. But they do know, via the moon goddess at the very least, that the high goddess is not to be trusted.

However, after she's defeated, and they can find someone powerful enough to do the magic to send him back, is a different story.

Does Adonis consider it? I mean, who wouldn't really? Yes, the world he came from was harsh and cruel, and he was alone and friendless in it, but that was the only home he'd ever known before being sent here. And I'm sure he wonders what's happening there without him. Is Harry all right? Does he miss him? Is he looking for him? Is anybody? Do they even know he's gone? And he probably has regrets about being so cruel and not making amends back in that world, now that he's a changed man here. Going back is not something to jump into or brush off so quickly; it's too complicated for that. He has to think.

Funnily enough, while Bess is consoling Connie, I can see Wolf being the one to go to Adonis to have a chat. I think that brotherly relationship from other worlds just kinda... carries over here. The two of them have a long talk about home and what it really means and about what's really important in life. They've both learned a lot since their... change of situations.

"I've travelled all over this land at least twice, in my time," Wolf says. (Due to his lycanthropy, I imagine Wolf is even... older in this world. lol) "I've even explored a few others. Even before I was bitten and forced into that life, when I had a roof fit for a lord over my head and money overflowing and then some in my coffers, I've never experienced what home was until I met my Brightness.

"Whenever I think of home, I don't think of four walls and a door post, or a roaring fire under a solid roof in a rainstorm, or a comfortable bed in the dead of winter, or even a table stocked with a feast at the end of a long day--I think of Bess. Her smile, her laugh, her kisses, her arms, her scent, her warmth, her heartbeat. Everything else about home comes from her; she's the foundation. Without her, I'd have none of it at all.

"So, let me ask you this, Brother: when you think about home, who do you see?"

When Adonis and Connie meet up again, later, I think Adonis just goes to her and pulls her into a tight embrace and solid kiss. If she says this feels like a goodbye, he nods. "It is. To whatever was before this world--before you. Wherever you are, Constance, that is my world. You, Sunflower... you are home."

[cupofteainme]

I've been so happy with queer representation in Young Royals. I also have notes. Here are some musings about season three.

We didn't get to see many ripple effects of Wille coming out in the show, but trust me, the world changed the moment he held that speech at the end of season two.

Nils and Stedrica

Nils found the courage to come out to his best friends. We don't know how much he was directly affected by Wilhelm. The common struggle with restrictions and the the graduation seemed to tighten the bond between August, Vincent and Nils. Honesty was a strong thread of the season. Wille's confession inspired students to come forward about iniations, later even August yelled at people to stop arguing and to just be sad about Hillerska closing—to be honest about their feelings.

We can make a mental leap and say that Nils was affected by these events and found his courage to be more honest. He also complimented Wille on his bravery and asked the prince if he regretted coming out and Wille answered with a firm no.

I liked how Nils said that he 'sleeps with guys'. You could see how hard it was for him to tell him friends. In season two Nils uses the word 'gay' about himself to Wille. I like how YR shows how people can use different definitions of themselves in different situations or choose to be unlabeled. I got a feeling that this was a huge first step on Nils' journey to accept that part of himself.

Stella and Fredrika are minor characters so they didn't get much screentime regarding their romance. Them ending up together was motivated by something the show explored in season two with Simon, Marcus and Wilhelm—jealousy. While I enjoyed Rosh being frustrated with her gaydar, Stedrica's arc left me wanting. In season two, Stella told Sara that she hesitates to make a move on Fredrica in fear of losing her beast friend if they break up later and things get awkward.

In season three we weren't shown what made Stella feel like she and Fredrica have a good enough chance to succeed in their relationship to put their friendship on the line. It's a shame. I would have loved to see some character development.

The audience is introduced to the sexual side of Stedrica straight after the white party when emotions ran high, Rosh was there to hit more on Stella and the teens were drinking and partying their hearts out. At the time of Stedrica's hook-up Wilmon were broken up, demonstrating exactly what Stella was afraid of—losing the other person completely. We can say that Wilmon didn't set up an encouraging example for them.

Even though Frederica's face looks blissful with Stella, I'm left wondering, am I supposed to read their kissing as a passing fancy that they can play down as part of their friendship again. ("every girl makes out with her best friend while drunk")

I was hoping for some connection to the main story with their arc. It could have been something with honesty, one remark from Stella to Madison for example: "I can't keep lying to my best friend."

Choosing the foundation

Queer matters were lifted to the table and discussed in the scene where Wille needs to pick his charity. Good for Simon for encouraging Wille to use his platform. I especially loved hearing that Wille knows how his love for Simon is changing the world. Not bad for a sixteen year old who's been out of the closet for five seconds.

Let me say this clearly: Queer people don't have to represent a group they identify with, not even Crown Prince Wilhelm. A young person's identity is rarely so strong yet, that they have the strength to carry the public's negative reactions. We saw how much online hate hurt Simon. He and Wille both have the right to protect their identities and relationship. Simon deserved better help with his social media.

Wille told Simon in season one that he doesn't want to say anything (referring to the sex video). At the end of season two, Wille took it back in his speech, but his attitude didn't change. It was a part Wille wanted to keep as private as he could. Over time, Wille could talk about both his mental health and his queerness more openly and in a way that would affect change. He has time to do so when he grows up.

I thought that the pressure for Wille to use his queer identity for good press would have come from the monarchy. It was mentioned once when Farima talked about new royalists and then dropped altogether.

I don't know why YR wanted to differ from the real Swedish monarchy in this instant and rule out LGBTQIA topics as political, when in real life the Crown Princess has taken a stand for them. (Plot reasons, duh, but it's irritating. I was under the impression that for example the amount of LGBTQIA rights and the discrimination LGBTQIA people face are on the same level in real life Sweden and in the YR universe. When one detail doesn't match, it makes the whole foundation wobbly).

That said, LGBTQIA rights don't exist in a vacuum. Sport and health foundation is a brilliant and super topical place to advance non-discrimination and inclusion in sport. Wille could advance LGBTQIA rights without drawing attention to himself when he's underage, perhaps still figuring out his identity and in his first relationship with a boy.

I can't stress enough how impactful it would be to have a queer Crown Prince (or King!) patronage a sport foundation. We can see that the pictures in the launch event of the foundation are taken with diversity in mind. Even if this is a PR strategy on the Court's part, people far removed from the court are going to work in those charities every day. And what do people think about when they see Wille's name and title associated with the foundation? The answer is not a straight boy playing football.

I hoped that YR would have shown in more concrete way that Wille understood the positive impact his queerness brings to people. We got a moment like that with Simon on the First of May when he was asked to take a picture. He got to feel like a role model. Wille could have had a similar encounter at his birthday or even at Hillerska. I feel like the show very carefully avoided to give Wille any good experiences related to the monarchy.

Is there homophobia at Hillerska?

There is a disconnect in how much hate we see Simon get, how Wille is not allowed to support queer rights versus how casual and obvious being queer is to Hillerska students. We saw girls at Hillerska openly kissing next to August in season two. Nobody batted an eye. The students of Hillerska knew it was Wille in the video and there was gossip but no negative reactions.

Young Royals seemingly treats queerness as a neutral or positive thing—even the biggest bully Vincent is not a homophobe and supports Nils when he comes out. Simon's parents are cool with their son being gay. Wille gets personally no backlash after his speech (or at least we don't see him be affected by it as Simon is).

Season three paints a very gloomy picture in contrast. 1. Simon gets mostly negative comments online. These comments hit to where it hurts, into the intersection of Simon's identities (latino lover) and his aspirations with music (chacing clout). 2. Queen Kristina falls sick straight after her son comes out. 3. Erik took part in homophobic hazings that were a tradition at Hillerska.

We don't get to see instances of this homophobia in the school or in the interactions between students except in s2e4 in 'Wille to the table' scene when the Forest Ridge boys celebrate Wille kissing Felice (and conforming to the heteronormativity). It tells us that being straight is the preferred option.

Young Royals claims that homophobia is in the walls, it lives in traditions and institutions. I partly agree. Homophobia needs also people to survive and everyone at Hillerska was shocked and appalled by the hazings. That made it kinda feel like YR put homophobia on-call for plot reasons.

Where is my big scandal about homophobic monarchy?

The journalist in Sweden might have had a keen interest about the disappearance of their Queen from active duties especially when it coincided with Wilhelm's historical coming out speech. Any accusation about the Queen's homophobia would have been devastating for the Monarchy in a country where support for same sex marriages is over ninety percent. (Go Sweden!)

Media would also have a field day about the hazings and their connection to Erik. It's very recent history. The media would wonder if Erik was a victim and/or the perpetrator. No way there would be radio silence. The burning question would be if the freshly out-of-the-closet Crown Prince suffered from homophobic hazing as well.

In season one, Wilhelm had to give a statement about a video he denied being in. In season three Wille has just come out and it turns out that his school has messed up homophobic traditions, the Queen is unable to perform her duties and it's confirmed that somebody filmed the Crown Prince with another boy and uploaded the video. There is nothing 👀

Queer up!

Wille's character is not only queer for loving Simon but queer in the broader (queer theory) meaning of questioning the prevailing conditions by bringing in new ideas, like in season one: 'What if I just want to be with him and not say anything?'

Wille never had the tools to question his position morally or academicly. At the same time he always knew what he wanted at the emotional level. Simon helped Wille with these questions. They had talks about the monarchy and Wille said he was learning from Simon.

Simon was the catalyst for Wille to find his voice and to figure out what he wants his life to look like. More than that, Simon's character allowed the viewers to look into the life of the rich and powerful through queer theory's lens: questioning, revealing, challenging status quo.

Whatever direction their ways ago after the ending, Wille's and Simon's love will continue to make a difference.

[danganronpadedication]

DAY 13: DANGANTOBER

Day 13: Favorite Mastermind

Okay, okay. I spent the last post raving about her followers, it only makes sense to talk about the girlboss that started it all.

First of all, I believe all of the masterminds in this franchise are worth their own post. My definition of a mastermind is a bit different than other people's. I believe the mastermind is the person or persons who got the characters into the location of the game, set up the circumstances for said game, and facilitated what happened within. So, while most people only consider Junko, Izuru, and Tsumugi as the masterminds, I have a few more people added to that list.

For THH, it's Junko and Mukuro. They set up the game, caused everyone to be trapped in Hope's Peak, and Junko facilitated the game while Mukuro posed as her.

For SDR2, I think the masterminds of that game are Junko AI, Izuru, and Makoto. Junko once again facilitated the game, Izuru provided the means by putting her in the simulation, and Makoto (not working with the other two, obviously) put everyone in the location.

For V3, it's definitely just Tsumugi, and Team Danganronpa as a whole. She does it all, the location, the facilitation, it's all her.

For the anime, it's Tengan. He's gathered the Future Foundation heads together, provided the means for the game, and while he doesn't facilitate, he sets up the automated control for the game. Tengan's an opp, and so is Ryota. Sorry to those who like them, just my opinion but like much of my opinions, I'd love to hear the opposite side!

Anyways, back to Junko. As much as the other masterminds are neat, she's the one who started it all. The Ultimate Despair herself, the mastermind of all masterminds.

I love how it's kind of a running gag that, no matter what, it's always her or someone very closely associated with her. She's the William Afton of Danganronpa. Hit 'em with that "I ALWAYS COME BACK'' mess, in a golden Monokuma suit.

As a child, Junko quickly grew very bored of what the world had to offer. She was very smart and analytical, and thus could easily predict the outcomes of certain situations. The reason she fell in love with despair is because she found it unpredictable and exciting. You could be as sickly creative as you wanted, and the outcome would always differ in some way.

I'm not very knowledgeable about Danganronpa: Zero and the characters explored in there, like Yasuke Matsuda, but I'm aware of the general gist of their relationship (thanks Danganronpa wiki!) Junko and Yasuke were childhood friends, with Junko soon rising to stardom in the modeling industry, while Yasuke was named the 'Ultimate Neurologist'. She was scouted into Hope's Peak by recommendation of the Steering Committee, who are just the suckiest people in Danganronpa. Giving Junko the resources she needs, and creating the Kamukura Project? Come on, guys.

We first see Junko in the anime whilst meeting Mukuro at an airport. She's in an absolutely killer outfit, which is something we don't often see from someone who's supposed to be the Ultimate Fashionista. Those of you out there who give her alternate outfits are delightful <3 You are lying if you say she didn't slay this fit.

Speaking of slay, she promptly detonates a bomb that she planted in a taxi, and while driving away, attempts to kill Mukuro with an ice pick just for entertainment. Mukuro is obviously able to hold her own against her. It is the musings of a teenage girl that ultimately brings society to its knees. She discovers the existence of Izuru Kamukura, and quickly becomes infatuated with the idea of him, mainly his numerous talents and what use that could be to her. She kidnaps a Hope's Peak trustee, and is later seen with only his eyeball for the retinal scan for Izuru's little room.

Junko appeals to Izuru's rampant boredom, enticing him by saying that despair will finally be something he can't predict the outcome to, something that will provide endless entertainment for him. She's injured in this encounter, so while he sits to think on it, Mukuro takes her to the school infirmary, where they meet Ryota Mitarai, the Ultimate Animator.

Original Uploader: Anime Essential on YouTube

She takes an interest in Ryota's talent and desire to create moving anime, and after noticing that it has an emotional effect on both her and Mukuro, she learns that he puts subliminal messaging in his work to make it get more of a reaction, and he equates it to brainwashing (something he does a lot, like dude...). Junko sees an opportunity for herself, and makes him get to work on the various different despair videos for her. She blackmails him by threatening Mikan, whom she had kidnapped prior to meeting up with him to see his work.

That night, Junko springs Izuru from his room, and thus begins the student council killing game, which is more of a massacre. Izuru watches the chaos unfold, and is shocked when one of them actually manages to slightly injure him. This moment may be what ultimately swayed him to despair's side.

Junko uses the footage from this event to frame Izuru as the sole culprit in this game, exposing Hope's Peak for using the reserve course student's tuition money for human experimentation, which causes the reserve course students to start to turn against Hope's Peak.

Junko brainwashes Mikan, and Mikan tells her about her own class, how they're all so close and full of hope, which is what gets Junko to select them as the class she wants to plunge into despair. Fast forward to when Chiaki and Nagito find her little hideout, her initial plan was to get Nagito out of the way (really whoever accompanied Chiaki) and then brainwash Chiaki, but that didn't work out for her. Chisa is instead selected as her target, by making her watch the despair video. Chisa proves to have enough mental fortitude to resist, and Mukuro is ordered to forcefully lobotomize her to make the process quicker.

Junko also demonstrates that she's gotten the reserve course students to her side, making one brutually unalive himself, and having others protecting her when Ryota tries to stop her. He runs away, and Juzo is also blackmailed by her. She says if he does not waive her of all suspicion, then she'll reveal his feelings for Munakata.

She then has Chiaki go through that infamous dungeon like obstacle course, resulting in her death, and the creation of the Remnants of Despair. Junko then makes the reserve course students commit mass unalive (I don't know tumblr TOS that well) and hides out among her class in the aftermath for the events of THH.

Behind the scenes here, her and Yasuke were experimenting with memory erasure for the killing game, and she tested it on herself. She assumed the identity of Ryoko Otonashi, while Mukuro took out the school board. Once Junko remembered who she was, she killed Yasuke in a fit of despair. Junko also took the WOH under her wing, instilling them with the belief that they belonged to her, and that they should start creating a paradise for children by force. Mostly, she was just interested in Monaca's standing in Towa City, the rest were just tagalongs to her.

We know what happens next from this point on. She facilitates the Hope's Peak killing game, which ultimately results in her death. She manages to not completely die, having converted a version of her consciousness into an AI, and putting it inside two different Monokuma units, Shirokuma and Kurokuma. Through those two, she monitored what was happening in Towa City, until Izuru came along and put her in the Neo World Program. She facilitated that game as well, which ultimately resulted in her deletion. Her goal in that game was to rebirth herself into the bodies of those that had died in the game, and eventually taking over the Future Foundation and the world.

Finally, we see a version of her for the last time in V3, where Tsumugi assumes the identity of Junko Enoshima the 53rd. Junko's influence is even felt after her death, with the many different contingency plans and groups she had set up. From the WOH and the Remnants, to Chisa and Tengan in the Future Foundation, she had her hooks in everything.

Junko stands out as a very unique villain. She is manipulative, cunning, analytical, all traits that are wanted in a strong villain. She manages to think of and carry out disturbing acts, all with a smile on her face.

No matter how much you idolize a character, chances are, if they're not from V3, then they were effected by her in some way. That's the kind of influence that crowns you as my favorite mastermind.

Seriously, Hajime put it best.

[thestoriedwillow]

Thinking about media that I have lost. About things that I just can't engage with anymore, but nonetheless shaped the core of who I am today. Media that shook me to my foundation that I just cannot come back to anymore.

Thinking about Skyrim, which had me in awe back in high school, quite possibly being the decisive moment that solidified a love for games that follows me to this day. And yet now I look back on it and cannot see the wonder, cannot see past the shortcomings, cannot bring myself to enter that world again.

Thinking about The Name of the Wind, a book that blew me away on my first read, but as I read the second book in the series and reread the first, I found myself drifting away from it. Some of my favorite prose out there is still in that book, the prologue in particular is a masterpiece I still get chills reading, but it's no longer up there with my favorite books simply because other parts of the story have fallen flat for me on further reflection. And here I am, missing the love I once had.

Thinking about Outer Wilds, easily one of my favorite games of all time, and yet something that I can never truly experience again. Of course one can never return to that first magical experience with any story, but Outer Wilds in particular stands out in that regard, an experience of pure discovery, learning and exploring through a playground of secrets both grand and small, heartwarming and deeply tragic. I can't go back to a time where I do not know those secrets, and so am left with naught but the memories.

Thinking about Sky: Children of the Light. Oh, darling, wondrous Sky. You were everything for a time. Every day I would jump into your world and find peace in the music and the feeling. I did the quests, followed the events, and most importantly... I spent time with friends. I met some of the most wonderful people in the world because of this beautiful game, friends who I cherish on to today, some of my closest confidants and companions in this strange world we wander. And yet I just cannot become lost in those skies anymore. I can't find it in me to chase those daily quests and only find myself logging in every now and again to find some ambience. Sky has brought me to tears with its beauty so many times before and now... The spark is gone.

I think about a piece of fanfiction I may never be able to find again. A story about a Nuzlocke challenge run that I wandered into just as I was starting to look into the incredible community behind that challenge. A story I can't remember the name of, that I can't remember the author of, that I can hardly recall much about at all these years later... A story set in a post-apocalyptic Kanto, probably based on Firered... So much is lost from my mind, but I know that story opened a door for me. It taught me about what a piece of fanfiction could be, something wild and unusual and totally my own. It wasn't long before I stumbled upon the Nuzlocke forums and started writing a story myself.

Did I ever tell the author their story changed my life forever? Inspired me to start writing and oops now my greatest creative accomplishments are my long running nuzlocke stories and I'm part of the community and...

I don't think I did.

It hurts to think I never told that author how meaningful their story was to me. That I've lost the opportunity to just let them know that hey I enjoyed this thing and... Now it's gone.

It hurts that I can't go back to all these things that once brought me joy, that once shaped the person I was and would become. It feels in a way like I have lost a part of myself, only able to feel the impact of the thing yet never again able to take hold of it.

Perhaps all I'm really feeling is that age-old yearning for days past, chasing memories of joy while the complexities of the moment batter at my door. Even still, I think that in that nostalgia there is a real sadness that ought to be seen and understood, just like any other feeling. Some part of me cries out for moments past, and I ought to sit down and bear that longing, if only so I can hold that sadness close, whisper gently that new stories will come, and let it go.

[saltylittlecreature]

Okay, the inspirations of the Copper and gunpowder idea

I have some ideas stirring in my head for a little while listening to some videos. So I'm contemplating how certain people work in the setting, alongside inspirations and sources I primarily used. So while those ideas are cooking, I'm Gonna list out my inspirations for this setting, so if anyone wants to do something with it, they'll know some places to draw from if they're interested (This List may expand in the future, please keep this in mind).

Insperations

The Bronze Age: The basis of the setting with many of its technologies embedded in it. It is quite blatant in some of the setting's areas. Although I see it as early into it, I do often pull from it's later histories.

The Copper Age: It was the transition between the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. I dare say it holds some of the primary foundations for many towns.

The Pirates of the Caribbean: Although not by any means traditional, curses and magic in general in this setting are the primary focuses on deals or magic items. There's always a price. For those reading this in an RPG community, think of it like a warlock pack, or artificer. if you want to run this in a system that doesn't work like that, it could be possible more stereotypical magic like wizards or bards will possibly be Trail Blazers, people who are exploring new ways of magic.

Shadow Runer: This could be a bit out of left field, but it's largely from the fact that magic came back and is slowly growing. The very presence of magic is coming back to the world. With enchantment, spirits, and god-kings just being the most recent results. The magic will only grow as time goes on.

Ancient Greek Mythology: This is Cleshay, I know, but it just has so much to pull from. Granted, this is more jumping up points and inspiration of certain elements. I also pull upon Greek mythology because Mikanain Greece is wrapped in here, including bits and pieces of what we know about their mythology. For Example, how Posiden was both king of the earth and underworld and leader of the pantheon (Hadies didn't exist, but Persephone did. Or how Arimiss is present, but Apolo isn't. Or for more recent Greek mythology, how Apollo and Artemis weren't associated with the sun and moon, they had their own gods and myths about them. It's genuinely cool to study to me).

Epic the musical: Yes yes, clearly. But the music of the Epic albums has earned their name ten times over in my opinion. Not to mention has a really good story, and is based on the oddisy. Which as a mythology nerd, is near and dear to my heart. Alongside the songs being a vibe. (The inspiration is both the toll of war on soldiers, the gods having personality, and monsters having one hell of a vibe).

OverlySarcasticProductions: They have so much to draw from, that it be a waste not to include them. The humor and writing advice are very fun to look over and listen to as these are written. At the very least they're worth a good listen.

American Gods: It is something a little strange, but I really enjoy the idea that the more faith a deity has, the more power they get. So even though it is largely animistic, the more faith they get, the more power they get as a result, this doubles for epithets.

[fearowkenya]

Winds of Change -

Chapter 2: The Perfect Storm

Shuuji hangs there, breathless in its grip, and everything fades away until there’s nothing left but what he can see in that wild pair crimson eyes, swirling with anger, anguish, and above all else—fear. Maybe he’s too afraid to string together an apology, or maybe it’s that he knows there’s no use in offering one.  Either way, what a fitting end, for a pair of monsters to destroy one another.  But there’s always a critic, and today it’s Ryo.

Shuuji makes it out of the fight in the waterway alive, but somehow, it still goes horribly, horribly wrong.

AO3 link in source, and, as always, extended author's notes under the cut! (:

whoops! the chapter is late. I thought I'd have time to post it before my dads wedding yesterday, but wouldnt you know it, there wasnt quite enough time to get everything formatted properly without rushing thru it.  I was super tired after the wedding and tried my best to at least do my first proofreading before bed, but i kept dozing off. so here I am. better late then never!

this chapter was an absolute blast to write! i figured that one good way to really justify the groups collective paranoia was to let wendimon get VERY close to accomplishing a total party wipe. the mood I was going for was something similar to the hopelessness of trying to take down plutomon or boltboutamon - no matter how many megas get thrown at them, it never seems like enough. that's why I made wendimon a fair bit stronger than what's typical of a champion level digimon.

as I said in my author's notes on ao3, I think this kind of situation would definitely justify falcomons behavior too, both while hes actively arguing with minoru, as well as the time he spends refusing to return to the group even after minoru apologizes. falcomon has his insecurities like the rest of them, but hes always seemed to me like the one who is the most self-assured in who he is and what he cares about.

that's not to say that the others arent, but in terms of his understanding of the world and of himself, I find that falcomon is the one whose identity has the strongest foundation, and I think watching something like this happen to arguably the most gentle member of their group shakes that foundation to its core. 

even when the professor explains that this only happened because of a partner bond sustained severe damage, i think it would do very little to ease falcomon's worries -  it's hard to tell just how messed up minoru's self-image is under the big smiley front he puts up to hide his insecurities, and falcomon KNOWS that. but that's beyond the scope of what I'm exploring in this fic lol. it might be something I circle back to later on though! minoru is the character I find most interesting on my second run of truthful; there are SO many subtleties about him that i absolutely did not notice the first time around.

anyway, the waterway. hoo boy, the waterway. choreographing the waterway fight was probably the hardest part of writing this chapter. when I first drafted it, i was very confident in the image I had in my head of the waterway battlefield, but when I went to check screenshots, it turned out that I had it all wrong! so I had to rework the whole damn thing! which was really hard, because the biggest challenge was keeping track of where every single character was placed on the field!

the goal was to spread characters out so that they weren't all bunched together, but still located conveniently enough such that I could pull them into the fight with wendimon when necessary. in order to do this, i drew a big stupid diagram on actual physical paper made one big (temporary) change to the waterway battlefield which i doubt anybody noticed unless you, like me, are unhinged enough to study the structure of the in-game locations down to the smallest details.

in the game, a little behind the place on the map where you set your units, theres a gap on the left that usually has a treasure chest on the other side, one that you have to send a flying unit to retrieve unless you want to go alllllllllllll the way around. I needed to be able to get takuma, minoru, miu, and kaito over there so that arukenimon could be all menacing on the top of the stairs, but i couldnt figure out how to make it work without having to make them go past wendimon on the central path and around megaseadramon on the top left platform. so what I did is... close that gap.

but closing the gap created the problem where the kids could easily use that path to regroup with Shuuji and the others. which was inconvenient when i needed them to stay split up. so you can imagine how clever I felt when I had megaseadramon cut them off by destroying the stairs and putting the gap right back , which is what I meant when I said the change I made to the battlefield was temporary lmao

speaking of megaseadramon, when i was first writing this chapter, i was very overwhelmed at the idea of having to simultaneously balance the fight against wendimon with the fight against megaseadramon. splitting the party seemed like the obvious choice, but it felt very anticlimactic to be like "oh yeah here comes the other half of the group to the rescue, they kicked megaseadramon's ass off-camera lol"

by that same token, I didnt want to put TOO much focus on megaseadramon and detract from wendimon. so once again I felt like a genius when I realized that the solution was simply to have wendimon not only deal with megaseadramon, but raise the stakes and tension by demonstrating that it is on a completely other level compared to the other champion stage digimon. (in poor megaseadramon's defense, it was not at all expecting to be attacked by wendimon, and was likely at least a little worn-down by shellmon, sangloupmon, greymon, and diatrymon. I think it would have fared much better against wendimon in a clean one-on-one match.)

as for wendimons defeat, well... no matter how much I amp up its strength, I felt that taking a point-blank giga destroyer would probably do the trick. AND give us some truly horrific imagery. I struggled a LOT with that last couple of paragraphs, and I'm still not sure if I was able to give the exact image i wanted to leave off with at the very end.

while this chapter answered a bunch of questions asked in the first one, it also raised plenty more. theres some stuff i set up here that I'm really looking forward to people catching on to (: unless they've caught on already...?? heehee (: i wonder which things will take people by surprise, and which ones they saw coming a mile away...?

on that note, id love to hear what people think of the fic so far. kudos are nice and I greatly appreciate them, but nothing launches me over the moon quite like comments. I'm so curious to know what part(s) people liked best, both about this chapter and the first, as well as any predictions people have about the stuff I'm starting to hint at as I get further into the story. i won't confirm or deny anything of course, but it will make me smile so so so big.

please look forward to chapter 3! I'll evaluate when exactly I'm posting it as the week goes on, as im currently away from home and have a bunch of busy days coming up - I'll be sitting thru a 4 hour car ride on sunday and trying to see some friends on monday before I fly home on Tuesday , so I cant say with any certainty when chapter 3 will be out other than at some point within that Sunday-Monday-Tuesday timeframe. thank you for reading, please consider leaving a comment, and until next time!

[samthehyena]

Throwing my own questions right back at me, tehehehe XD Anyways, thank you for your answers to the questions Jaja!!! i loved reading through them!

Here I gooooooo!!!!

How did you get into femslash?

Probably sometime in early high school. I watched the entirety of Steven Universe, She-Ra and Adventure Time in pretty quick succession. The depictions of queer characters really resonated with me even back when I was in massive denial during my “I'm totally straight, I'm just a really good ally era”.  I suppose there's something universally human about themes of love, self acceptance, resilience and embracing one's differences that go hand in hand with shows that place a heavy emphasis on queer characters. And the WLW in SU, She-Ra and adventure time might have been what clicked with me the most in those shows - because the F/F relationships weren’t perfect in they had their ups and downs. But whether Catra and Adora were on opposites sides of a war, Bubbline and Marceline started to reconnect centuries after a nasty breakup or Ruby and Sapphire processed the revelation about pink diamond - the fact that these characters still loved and cared about each other didn't change. So that aspect of canon F/F representation in media really jumpstarted my femslash fangirling ways - because there's something so beautiful about love persisting in spite of messiness.

(Yes, I adjusted my own question when it was my turn to answer it bc I realized I didn’t answer the question properly until I’d already typed out a long paragraph XD)

2. What are your favorite femslash pairings?

From the F/F ships I grew up with probably Bubbline, Rupphire and Catradora. I also have a major soft spot for Scorfuma. 

As for more recent favorites probably Togachako and Glassheart (Descendants).

3. Which F/F rarepair(s) do you wish got more love and why?

Minaocha for sure. I adore how they are both pink and bubbly and space themed - like Minaocha sci fi aus are so fire!! Plus I find that canon lays some nice foundational elements for Minaocha shippers to work with. After all, think of a scenario in which Mina teases Ochako about her crush on Izuku because she's always blushing when Mina sees them together - but what Ochako is actually blushing bc she's always blushing when MINA is around bc Ochako has a crush on her. Seriously though, I really like how Mina teases Ochako in canon and it sets up some good dialogue and banter vibes for them. Also, I could envision a scenario in which Mina thinks of her acid quirk as dangerous and harmful but Ochako assures her that's her quirk isn't evil (*coughs in togachako pretending like I didn't draw a very similar parallel with my 2nd favorite Ochako ship*)

And most importantly they're really cute.

I could talk about rarepairs all day but I'll leave the rest of this section as is because I'll talk about Inko/Midnight later and I already made a Momomei ship manifesto post a while back.

4. What is your favorite thing about writing femslash?

I think my favorite part is how versatile femslash is, especially when it comes to the F/F ship I've written the most fics for (togachako). Whether horror, comedy, angst or fluff usually one of my favorite F/F ships fits the bill when it comes to any genre or vibe I might feel inclined to write. Like say I want to do horror… well toga has plenty of vampire vibes. And when it comes to angst the bnha characters have been through SO MUCH that there are leaps and bounds of canon material to pull from (like imagine Joke grieving the death of Midnight). When it comes to rom com vibes I can easily picture Inko/midnight and Mina/Ochako going through so many shenanigans and misunderstandings before they ultimately realize they've been pining after each other. As for fluff… after everything that's gone down in canon I’d say that togachako has more than earned some tooth rotting fluff. TRAGIC YURI WE RISE AT DAWN 😭

Also it's fun exploring themes like girlhood and fleshing out female characters who didn't get enough time to shine in canon.

5. What is your greatest challenge when writing femslash?

I think my greatest challenge when it comes to writing femslash is finding the “special sauce” to really give a fic a good hook through a fun concept. This is mostly an issue with togachako for me since after having written 33 fics tagged togachako I'm running out of ideas - because my creativity isn't bottomless and there are only some many conversation topics, character arcs and premises I can think of over a relatively short span of time. So going forward I want to give my ideas more time to cook since a lot of my femslash one shots recently have been very repetitive in their themes and execution (in a nutshell it's a lot of fluff, chatfic and water-related settings). Variety is the spice of life and I want it back ✨

6. Do you prefer reading/writing femslash one-shots or longfics?

Both I suppose. When it comes to reading my attention span is short so usually I tend to gravitate toward oneshots for F/F and fics in general. But whenever I have had the reading spoons I do enjoy picking up a meaty Togachako or Momojirou multi chap especially – it’s really nice how longer form writing allows for character arcs to be expanded on in more detail and I always love seeing subplots as well as the interpersonal relationships a given F/F pairing has with a larger cast of characters.

As for writing… let’s just say it’s chaos. I may or not may not have an unreasonable amount of incomplete multi chaps posted on AO3 (it’s 11 fics helpppp). So I long story short I love starting multi chaps since I really like writing the beginnings of stories especially and I’m actually pretty fond of writing ends but I always get kinda bored when I reach the middle. That’s when I get distracted by shiny new ideas and the cycle starts over again.

It’s okay though, I’ll probably finish some of those fics one day. I think at this point me and hopefully anyone who reads my stuff has accepted this fate. But yeah longfics are funny because I love exploring all sorts of character dynamics in them – like in my togachako longfic dabihawks are like parental figures in Himiko’s life and that’s been one of my favorite parts about writing the fic.

One shots are fun too because sometimes I like writing things that are short and sweet. I’m burned out from one shots because of fandom events though so I’m only going to focus on multi chaps for a while unless I get a spontaneous urge to write a one shot if a persistent fic idea haunts me.

7. What is your favorite/most underrated F/F fic you have written?

Probably my Inko/Midnight Bachelor AU fic. I’m pretty proud of it since it was the first long one shot I ever posted and it was written for Fic Fight so the turnaround time was really quick. Also, it was really fun exploring Inko’s POV and how she was exploring her sexuality later in life and ultimately found love and human connection even though she thought it was out of the cards for her. Plus, I really liked that the AU let me blend comedy and angst with elements ranging from Pro Hero Wash as the Bachelor to Inko experiencing comphet. And this is one of the few fics I’ve written that I can enjoy reading without getting my enjoyment bogged down by getting fixated on my writing mistakes – so I really love this one XD

8. What sort of background pairings do you like to see in fics with F/F as a main pairing?

In togachako fics I love background dabihawks. Double the hero/villain yayyyyy!!!

9. What are your favorite tropes in F/F fics?

While answering these questions, it started to dawn on me that I tend to like messy F/F pairings best. After all, Himiko has her stalkerish moments toward Ochako (which is really fun especially with how it’s recontextualized with Himiko’s themes and broader character arc), Bubblegum and Marceline are exes while Catra and Adora are fighting each other on the regular. As much as I like fics about fluffy relationships, I really like the angst and conflict that comes baked in with a lot of my fave F/F ships.

10. What tone or vibes do you prefer in femslash? Crack? Angst? Fluff? A bit of everything?

I LIKE EVERYTHING. When it comes to tone in F/F fics I read everything from Crack Treated Seriously to angst to fluff to some really kinky stuff. What I like best of all though is a tonal blend between angst and comedy since those tones balance out each other well – it helps emphasize the gravity of the situations the characters are going through while also sprinkling in moments of levity. My own writing most often falls under the “Crack Treated Seriously” umbrella – I always commit to the bit and play it serious because honestly that’s just more fun and seems more true to myself. But yeah, I love writing the sillies (with angst as a little treat). 

11. Are there any specific fics that inspired you to write a specific fic or even femslash in general?

Yes!!! It was “Swan Dive” by SilverMistAnimeLover that inspired me to write my first F/F fic. In "Swan Dive" there was background Inko/Midnight but Inko died before Midnight could propose. So I was determined to write an AU in which they were happy together. Then one night my roommate and I were talking about how good the thief/cop trope was and then I realized… Midnight gives cat burglar jewel thief energy and Inko deserves to be a BAMF detective. So that was my first ever femslash fic I wrote! 

And although the Inko/Midnight in “Swan Dive” was fairly minor it really had my gears turning over how fruitful a pairing InkNight is. Inko has a sense of earnestness to her and I love how hard she’s trying even though she stumbles and makes mistakes along the way. Meanwhile, Midnight has a sense of confidence that is really infectious and I feel like she’d help Inko get out of her shell. And on the flipside I feel like Inko’s sense of earnestness and compassion would help Nemuri feel more humanized and step out of role as a celebrity in a world where she is constantly in the limelight. So I love how they have the potential to bring out the best in each other – plus, it’s also amusing for Inko to be dating one of Izuku’s teachers :DDD

Also, I’d like to rec J+M a really fun Momojirou fic about fanfic. It was the first F/F fic I read in the BNHA fandom and it opened my eyes to the fact that there ARE femslash fics in this M/M dominated fandom – I just had to look harder.

12. Are there any specific F/F WIPs you are working on or ideas you’ve cooked up that you’re especially excited about?

Yes, I’ve got 3 I’m hyped about!

There’s Dear Google, is my girlfriend a vampire? – a long convoluted togachako chatfic I started writing/posting on a whim in August 2023. I don’t even know how to describe it since it’s kind of gotten away from me – but it was LOV found family, conspiracies, comedic misunderstandings, a weed arc, parental dabihawks and so much more. Anyways, I recently wrapped up the part when Ochako found out that Himiko murdered a middle school classmate and she accepted Himiko anyway. I’m looking forward to getting into some more LOV found family and possibly some todoroki family drama in the upcoming chapters.

Secondly, there’s Knee Deep In the Passenger Seat – which is a post canon fic in which Ochako is in a situationship but still can’t get over Toga. It’s been pushing me out of my comfort zone since I only rarely write a fic that’s mostly angst let alone something rated E. But this has been a very fun adventure as my first NSFW multi chap and I’ve really been loving the identity shenanigans. I think I’ll only need 3 more chapters to finish the story??? I’m most looking forward to writing the “Akabane” (that’s totally not Himiko in disguise) POV chapter :DDD

I also am tentatively working on a Descendants 4 fic called Walk In Another’s (Glass) Shoes that will essentially be a canon rewrite featuring comphet, hopeless pining, fleshing out the character arcs a bit more that in the original movie and adding the theme of “you can’t change the past but you can change how you perceive it and process it”. So fun stuff!! 

13. Any fic recs?

I'll go digging through my bookmarks later bc I have lot's of good recs there. I just have fallen a bit behind on schoolwork lol so I'll do it later.

femslash writer/artist interview

I’m trying to get back into interviewer mode for one of my jobs and classes, so I decided to make a (hopefully) fun little game. Feel free to reblog, tag ppl and answer as few or as many of the questions as u want. And feel free to tailor the questions to make them more applicable to u

How did you get into reading/writing/drawing femslash?

What are your favorite femslash ships?

Which F/F rarepair(s) do you wish got more love and why?

What is your favorite thing about drawing/writing femslash?

What is your greatest challenge when drawing/writing femslash?

Do you prefer reading/writing femslash one-shots or longfics?

What is your favorite/most underrated F/F fic you have written or F/F thing you've drawn?

What sort of background pairings do you like to see in fics with F/F as a main pairing?

What are your favorite tropes in F/F fics?

What tone or vibes do you prefer in femslash fics? Crack? Angst? Fluff? A bit of everything?

Are there any specific fics or other forms of media that inspired you to write/draw for a specific ship?

Are there any specific F/F WIPs you are working on or ideas you’ve cooked up that you’re especially excited about?

Any fic recs?

@pianogav1n @jajalala @vriska @linkyychan @thisisej

[norahastuff]

penny for your thoughts on salmondean codependency ?

Sure. Fair warning it’s long (was longer but I stopped myself.)

I think it’s complicated in a show that’s had so many different showrunners because they’ve all handled Sam and Dean’s relationship very differently. In Kripke’s era (s1-5) there was a romanticization of the bond. Sure there was a lot of in-depth exploration of how they wound up at the place they were at, spoiler alert: it was all because of John and his obsessive crusade to find the demon that killed his wife. That’s all he cared about and as a result, Sam and Dean had to be everything to each other. But Kripke had no intention of dismantling that at any point because he was (and always had been) writing a tragedy. Gamble continued that too. There was no room for anyone else in their lives and it would always just be the two of them against the world. So Cas had to go. Bobby had to go.

(Actually, it's funny because Gamble didn't intend this at the time, her plan was to kill Cas off, but by Edlund creating the masterpiece that is The Man Who Would Be King, he not only saved Cas from being seen as a villain, but he also deepened Dean and Cas' relationship in such a profound way and inextricably linked the two of them emotionally. And since Cas was eventually brought back, that laid the foundation for a lot of what their relationship would become.)

Up until this point, there hadn’t really been any significant dismantling of perhaps the more unhealthy parts of Sam and Dean’s relationship. Enter Carver. He stripped things down and started to explore what drove these characters. What they wanted and why they couldn’t have it. It starts with Dean being mad at Sam for not looking for him in purgatory, which sets up the whole speech in the s8 finale of Sam’s guilt about letting Dean down, but the thing is, Dean was never honest with Sam about his year away either. He never told Sam he could have gotten out much sooner if he hadn’t stayed to find Cas. I mean Dean had assumed Sam was up there alone doing God knows what to try to bring him back, and yet still he stayed in Purgatory because things were clear there. He needed Cas. Anyway, I just find that interesting, but Cas isn’t a victim of Sam and Dean’s relationship in s8.

Who gets the honour of being cast aside? That would be Benny and Amelia, two characters they introduced in s8 specifically to highlight that Sam and Dean’s relationship doesn’t allow for anyone else to be a significant part of their life. I mean that’s nothing new, we’ve watched that happen many times before. Lisa even said as much to Dean. The thing is this time? It’s framed as a truly sad thing. That moment at the end of 8x10 when Dean has just ended things with Benny and Sam leaves Amelia, and they’re sitting alone drinking beer and watching tv is such a hollow empty moment. This is not what they want. But it’s the way things have to be.

I’m actually fascinated by Sam and Dean’s conversation in the church in the s8 finale. Not so much Dean’s assertion that there is no one else he would put before Sam, but more so what provokes it, which is Sam saying “who are you going to turn to instead of me. Another angel? Another vampire?” See the thing is Dean saying he would always put Sam first is not news. We know this and it’s not really an unhealthy statement in itself either. A lot of people would put their sibling above anything else, not less a sibling who you raised and is the most important person to you. But in this context? After what Sam said? It just highlights how unhealthy they are if Sam believes that Dean having other people in his life means he doesn’t love him enough. That he’s a disappointment to him. That’s so profoundly fucked up.

(Note, Dean tells Sam that he killed Benny for him but he doesn’t say anything about Cas. I think like I said before, this is because Cas and Dean’s relationship has largely existed out of the Sam and Dean stuff up to this point - Sam and Cas don’t even really have much of a relationship yet besides both of their connections to Dean.)

And then from here, things start getting steadily worse. But we also keep being shown how bad they are. Dean lying to Sam, taking away his free will by letting Gadreel possess him. Dean sending Cas away, Kevin dying. It’s all awful. The whole “there ain’t no me if there ain’t no you line” from 9x01 isn’t really said by Dean, it’s Gadreel, but that is how Dean feels. He does think that’s all he’s good for. And over the season we’re shown how much of himself and what he truly wants he’s had to give up because of his ingrained “Save Sammy” and “Sammy comes first” mentality. It’s always been this way for him. In 9x07 we see that he had found a happy home, a good father figure, and his first love, a first love might I add that he had to leave behind with no real explanation because Sam needed him, and Sam comes first.

I mean just one episode earlier we had him rushing out the door elated about seeing Cas and spending time with him, only for their time together to come to sad and melancholic end when Dean once again leaves Cas behind without any real explanation, because despite what he wants Sammy comes first. What he wants doesn’t matter.

See I think after the Gadreel stuff comes out is where the narrative starts to get a little wonky for me. You can clearly see that this was intended to be a shorter story that they ended up stretching out to a much longer one because of renewals. There’s also the fact that this is a formula show so they can’t necessarily be separated for longer than an episode or two. S10 is a rough one to get through at times, I think the themes still mostly hold up but it’s a rough one to get through.

S10 highlights all the connections that Dean has, Cas, Charlie, Crowley even, but Sam doesn’t really have those bonds in the same way.  For Sam it’s just Dean, so he goes down a reckless destructive “do anything to save Dean!” path and so many innocents pay the price, and ultimately with the release of The Darkness, the whole world.

They skirted right up to the edge of exploring just how toxic and dangerous their relationship had become in the season 10 finale.

DEAN: I let Rudy die. How was that not evil? I know what I am, Sam. But who were you when you drove that man to sell his soul... Or when you bullied Charlie into getting herself killed? And to what end? A..a good end? A just end? To remove the Mark no matter what the consequences? Sam, how is that not evil? I have this thing on my arm, and you're willing to let the Darkness into the world.

I can’t say evil is the right word, they were never evil, but they were wilfully blind to everything and everyone else when it came to saving each other. S10 tested my love for the show because after watching it, because there was certainly a feeling that the two of them had become the villains of this story. And don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have a problem with that, it’s just after 2 seasons of this I can’t say I had a lot of faith that this was going to be properly addressed or if we were going to keep going in circles around it. Keep being shown, it’s bad and then nothing much being done to fix it. Your mileage may vary on how it was handled, but I think s11 did a relatively ok job considering it wasn’t the end of the story, and the show needed to keep going.

See from Dean’s side a lot of the codependency rests on 1. His father’s orders to always save Sammy 2. His low self-esteem where he sees himself as nothing but a blunt instrument. 3. His guilt at not being able to perfectly fulfil every familial role in Sam’s life 4. His belief that no one could choose to love him but family has to love you. 5. The unhealthy example of what it should look like to love someone that he got from John. You give up everything but them.

For Sam (and honestly it’s not as clear for me as Dean’s side is so feel free to correct me/disagree on this) 1. Everytime he’s tried to leave and create his own life it’s never ended well. 2. His guilt over wanting freedom and a normal life when he was younger (I’m referring specifically to Stanford era here) 3. His guilt over everything Dean has given up for him. 4. John. 5. Jess.

Ultimately it all comes down to isolation. They both had to be everything to each other, and the deeper they got into this fight, the more people that they lost, the tighter they clung to this notion of family and brothers. I think s11 (and 11x23 in particular) was an important turning point, both for Sam and Dean’s relationship, as well as for them as individuals. Because they weren’t alone there anymore. Cas was there. Sam let Dean walk to his death. Of course, it would devastate him, but he knew it was what had to be done. And he didn’t walk out of that bar and go back to the bunker alone. He had Cas, he had someone who cared about him and wanted to help him and talk to him. Sure Dean asked Cas to take care of Sam for him (you know after Cas offered to walk to his death with him) but Sam let him. He let him be there for him. We didn’t get to see much before the BMOL showed up and blasted Cas away, but still, we saw enough.

I think that’s a significant difference to note why their relationship was different in the Dabb era. It wasn’t just them anymore. Cas was an important member of their family and given a level of importance he’d never been given before and couldn’t have been when the story they were telling was of the dangers of their codependency. Mary was back. Eventually, Jack would become a part of their unit too. Just the two of them wasn’t enough for them anymore. This is made abundantly clear with all of Dean’s desperate attempts to get Cas to stay in s12, followed by his inability to keep going when they lose Cas and Mary in s13. Similarly, Sam really struggles when they lose Jack and fail to get Mary back later in the season.

Another big moment is Dean letting Sam go alone to lead the hunters against the BMOL in 12x22 while he stays back to try and reach Mary. Like he tells Mary, he’s had to be a brother, a father and a mother to Sam and he never stopped seeing him as his kid, but in that moment he makes a choice. He lets Sam take charge and he shows that he trusts him and believes in him. He knows he can handle it.

Sometimes it’s not even a character growth thing. Sometimes having other people there stops you from making destructive choices even though that’s still your first instinct. I’m thinking specifically of 13x21 after Sam was killed. Dean would have run headlong into that nest of vampires and got himself torn apart, but Cas was there to stop him. He was able to make him see reason.

Basically, I think that for a long time, they thought the only relationship they could have was each other, which then became a self-fulfilling prophecy because their desperate attempts to keep each other around led to them losing the people around them. They eventually started to learn that that wasn’t true, they could have more, they were allowed to want more, and that it wasn’t an either-or situation. Dean didn’t have to choose between Sam and Cas. They didn’t have to choose between each other or Jack. The same goes for Mary. Different relationships can coexist without threatening each other, and not say that their relationship in s12-15 was all smooth sailing, but it was certainly so very different from everything that came before.

(There’s maybe a point to be made about how they didn’t have anyone or anything in the finale and how that relates to the story we got, but honestly I have no idea what the intention was with any of the choices made in that episode so I’ll leave it at that for now.)

[mrmrswales]

Exclusive: the ‘profoundly powerful’ moments that shaped Duchess of Cambridge’s children’s charity work by Camilla Tominey

It all started with secret visits the public never got to see. Newly married, and with the world’s press chronicling her every move – down to the details of her designer dresses – the Duchess of Cambridge resolved to go "below radar".

Acting as Prince William’s "plus one", rather than a fully fledged solo royal in those early days, the newest addition to the Royal family knew that she wanted to find a cause she could champion as impactfully as Diana, the Princess of Wales’s landmine campaign; it was simply a question of where to find it.

Having already announced her first patronage of Action on Addiction, a charity working with people with drug and alcohol problems, Hope House, a women-only rehabilitation centre in Clapham, south London, seemed as good a place as any to start.

It was October 2011 when the then 29-year-old Duchess paid the first of several, incognito visits in a bid to find out what had sent its clients on a downward spiral of self-destruction.

According to Rebecca Priestley, who accompanied the Duchess on the visit and would go on to spend five years as her private secretary, it played a pivotal role in her decision to put childhood at the heart of her philanthropic endeavours.

Speaking on the record for the first time, Mrs Priestley, who is now an executive coach, recalled:  "I remember going up to Anglesey, where they were living after the wedding, to have a conversation with the Duchess about her royal life."

At that point, she had the philanthropic world at her feet. She could have done anything she wanted in the charitable arena. Typically, she had put a lot of thought into it already. Addiction was an issue she was instinctively thinking about – but she was also genuinely interested in understanding what support was there and what role that played in the bigger picture of mainstream societal issues."

With the Duke having flown to the Falklands for a six–week tour of duty with his RAF search and rescue squadron, Mrs Priestley put a programme together to support the Duchess’s desire to "listen and learn"."A lot of it was behind the scenes, just talking to people and hearing where it was that they needed more help.  The one thing that united all of the women at Hope House was that the derailing had started so early on. They could trace the problems in their adult lives back to childhood."

A subsequent private visit in February 2012 to Clouds House, a treatment centre in East Knoyle in Wiltshire, served as further confirmation that the early years should be a key area of focus. But it was during a later meeting with female inmates at a detox unit at Send Prison in Woking when the penny well and truly dropped.

"It was a profoundly powerful moment,” recalled Mrs Priestley. "You go in there with this preconceived idea that these women have done things wrong, that it was their fault. Then one woman started speaking to the Duchess about her earliest memories of seeing needles on the floor of her home."

She had always thought addiction was a misunderstood issue, but after this, she became concerned that there was a pre-destiny about those affected – an inevitability about it. These women were born into it and there was very little chance of escape."

The experience set in train a sequence of events that will next week culminate in the Duchess, 39, stepping up her ambition in driving awareness and action on the impact that early childhood can have on society at large.

She will launch a new initiative through the couple’s Royal Foundation to further explore the science around early childhood, raise awareness of the issue and foster collaboration and partnerships across relevant groups.

According to Lord Hague, who became chairman of the Royal Foundation last September, the "ambitious" new project will be equal in stature to William’s £50 million Earthshot Prize, launched last year with Sir David Attenborough to find workable solutions to climate change and environmental problems.

"The Duchess truly believes this is one of the great issues of our time," said the former Tory leader. "This is the central plank of her work in the way conservation issues are for the Duke. It’s a hugely significant moment."

While politicians are often in a rush to make a difference during the comparatively short time they have in office, royals are there for life, which perhaps explains why Kate has taken 10 years to get to this point.Having been instrumental in launching the Heads Together campaign with William and Prince Harry in 2016, designed at tackling the stigma and changing the conversation on mental health, it was not until 2018 that she convened a steering group of experts to look at how cross-sector collaboration could bring about lasting change.

In January, she delivered a landmark speech after her Five Big Questions on the Under Fives survey garnered over 500,000 responses.

"People often ask why I care so passionately about the early years," the mother-of-three said.

"Many mistakenly believe that my interest stems from having children of my own. While of course I care hugely about their start in life, this ultimately sells the issue short. If we only expect people to take an interest in the early years when they have children, we are not only too late for them, we are underestimating the huge role others can play in shaping our most formative years, too."

Pointing out that the social cost of late intervention has been estimated to be over £17 billion a year, she added: "The early years are therefore not simply just about how we raise our children. They are in fact about how we raise the next generation of adults. They are about the society we will become."

According to Eamon McCrory, Professor of Developmental Neuroscience and Psychopathology at University College London, the Duchess "has a vision of how she can help transform how we as a society view and invest in the early years for the benefit of society".

Describing her interest in "the role the brain shapes our early experiences and how that sets us on a path to adult life", he explained: "When you look at very young babies and infants, on the surface they don’t appear to be engaging in complex emotions so there's a tendency to underestimate the millions of synapses that are being formed every minute. But science is telling us we have to look under the bonnet.

"There’s no question that for the Duchess, this is a lifetime piece of work. The last five years laid the foundations, now we are entering a more proactive phase.” Described by one source as “thoughtful, professional and determined to do a good job,” there is a sense that Kate has never been in it for the early wins, but the long haul.

As one well-placed insider put it: "She took the job very seriously right from the very beginning. She continues to want to get it right and do her very best - for the institution, for William and the importance of the work she’s doing.

"She doesn't just want to rock up for a picture opportunity, which is why she used to get quite frustrated with all the early focus on what she was wearing. She really cares about this stuff."

Another source said she was "much more fun" than people give her credit for, pointing out how she has grown in confidence having found a cause that she is not only passionate about - but also well informed.

As Lord Hague put it: "She’s been reading the books and had trustees reading the books. People assume her interest in the early years is because she has children – actually it comes from all the adults she’s met." The other key influence has been Kate’s own idyllic childhood.

Brought up in leafy Bucklebury in West Berkshire by her entrepreneur parents Michael and Carole Middleton, pictured below with the royal family, the Duchess has never made any secret of how fortunate she has been to be brought up in a loving and supportive family.

"She always recognised that she benefited from such a great start in life," added Mrs Priestley.

"That’s why sport and the outdoors has always been a key theme for her. She was always asking how those sorts of experiences could be made accessible to others."

For Dame Benny Refson, president of the children’s mental health charity Place2Be, where the Duchess has been patron since 2013, Kate’s grounded upbringing has proved an asset.

“The Duchess listens and people feel heard and valued. It’s nothing to do with privilege. The groups she meets in challenging areas in London don't look at what she's wearing. What makes a difference is that an important person has shown a genuine interest in them. She can relate without passing judgement, which is so important."

Having started out as a reticent public speaker, the Duchess has finally found her voice – and next week she will have a lot more to say.

[ashesandhackles]

Harry And Personal Conflict: A Meta On Evolving Dynamic With Ron and Hermione

One of my last metas on Harry was how his abuse at the Dursleys informed who he is as a person and a lot of his main personality traits. This time, I want to explore Harry's relationship with conflict, mostly in regard to his best friends - Ron and Hermione.

First things first, because of his abusive upbringing where he is constantly in conflict with his caregivers, conflict is seen as Bad Thing when we first meet him as a 11 year old. And it informs how he reacts to both Ron and Hermione at first. He instantly relates to Ron because Ron is an underdog - a boy who feels neglected and passed over in his large and boisterous family. Harry shares his own experience of neglect with Ron and they both bond instantly.

His initial impression of Hermione is that she has a "bossy sort of voice" . The bossiness is an important characterstic to his impression of her - she reminds him of an authority figure and he does not particularly take to her as easily as he does Ron. Before the troll incident, he is frequently annoyed by her interventions because "he can't believe anyone would be so interfering". It's her vulnerability and the fact that she may be in danger that makes Harry, and by extension Ron, go after her. And she pays it back in full with a demonstration of loyalty to them in front of people she wants to impress: teachers. This sets the tone of his friendship with Ron and Hermione.

There is sense of easiness to his friendship with Ron, especially in earlier books that he doesn't quite share with Hermione. This is a bit gendered as well, of course. His relationship with Hermione evolves as Ron's own equation with two of them changes, more specifically Ron's cognisance of his romantic feelings for Hermione. So how does this inform his relationship with personal conflict?

Let's look at it Book wise.

Book 1-4: Since Harry tends to see All Conflict As Bad, when Hermione becomes his friend, he tends to ignore traits of her that he particularly doesn't take to. Specifically her argumentativeness - which he usually leaves Ron to deal with. For example, look at when Hermione drags him off to the kitchens in GOF. When he realises what this is about, he nudges Ron, and Ron does the protesting: "Hermione, you are trying to rope us into that spew stuff again!".

Often, you can say he is amused by Ron's more ..let's say colourful.. reactions to Hermione being overbearing. So when Ron and him are not speaking and Hermione gets a Quidditch term wrong, it causes him "a pang to imagine Ron's expression of he could have heard Hermione talking about Wonky Faints". It's that deeply ingrained into the dynamic.

While Ron acts buffer and protects Harry from stepping into a potential conflict ("skip the lecture", "don't nag" he tells her), Harry's world view remains quite the same. Part of Harry's growing up is integrating conflicting points of view and gaining nuance. For example, he can't understand why someone like Snape, who seems to hate him so much, can also save his life at the end of Philosopher's Stone. This is his first venture into trying to integrate two conflicting things about a person into nuance. Dumbledore gives him a very easily digestible story, one that appeals to his ideal of his father and Harry is sated.

Again, Harry's world view is tested when he finds out that he relates with Tom Riddle - for their "strange likenesses". He doth protest too much at Dumbledore's office: "I don't think I am like him! I am Gryffindor!". And Dumbledore offers him a wisdom nugget: "It's our choices which define who we are" (paraphrasing). Harry is uncomfortable that he empathises with Tom Riddle, his parents' murderer, at this point in the story.

In the first four books, his only proper personal conflict has been with Ron.

It is depressing to think about in these terms - but Ron is Harry's first experience of unconditional love (we can even put Hagrid here, but he is not the one who spends most time with Harry). And when Ron and him fight, Harry is so hurt by the prospect that he proceeds to abandon Ron before Ron abandons him. (the whole chucking a "Potter stinks" badge at him and making a jab about having a scar is what he wants, or the fight in DH where he yells "then leave! Pretend you have gotten over your spattergoit and have your mummy feed you up"). It's an interesting defense mechanism and he feels "corrosive hatred" towards Ron during these times because Ron and him aren't supposed to be like this. Ron is a certainty in his life. It's also why when Ron comes back, Harry either doesn't need him to apologise (as in GOF) or quickly forgives him in DH - although I do think Harry thinks the locket bit was punishment enough. But even without the whole locket, I think Harry has trouble holding Ron accountable in general beyond few slaps on the wrist - especially if Ron and he are on good terms.

5th Book: This is the transition point for Golden Trio friendship. Harry has come back from an immensely traumatising night at the graveyard and his PTSD isolates him from his best friends. This is also the point where Ron, especially after GOF, is aware of his romantic feelings for Hermione ("the perfume is unusual Ron", Hermione tells him in this book). So in this book, we often see Ron and Hermione on one side, with Harry on the other.

Ron is unwilling (quite like Harry in that respect) to engage him in a direct conflict, but he is also unwilling to shield him from Hermione's nagging in this book. This is why, OOTP is the book where you see Harry ignore or avoid Hermione and lie to her more than usual to avoid conflict. For example, he tells her that Snape thinks he can carry on Occlumency once he got the basics - that is categorically not what happened. Or the entire day he spends ignoring Hermione's warnings about breaking into Umbridge's office. (The description here is comical - about Hermione vehemently hissing so much that Seamus Finnigan is checking his cauldron for leaks. ) If he cannot lie to her or avoid her, at the end of the rope, he will treat her to display of his frightening temper.

Interestingly, OOTP is also the book that his world view goes through a tremendous upheaval: mainly, his ideal of his father and having empathy for Snape. It is unnerving for Harry to see Snape being the "boy who cried in the corner" when his father shouts at a cowering woman. Similarly unnerving is that his intense empathy for him - "he knew exactly what Snape felt when his father taunted him and judging by what he had seen, his father was every bit as arrogant as Snape always told him".

While he is placated that his father grew out of it, this memory of his father being a bully is something he cannot bear to watch again in DH. Few chapters later, he grins at Ron "sweeping his hair" back to make it look more windswept, just like his father - suggesting that Harry is beginning to integrate two conflicting things he knew about his father: from the people who loved him vs the people he was cruel to.

6th Book onwards: It's interesting to me that his better appreciation for Hermione comes after OOTP (one, because she is the one who challenged the whole Ministry plan and she followed him into a trap knowing it was one anyway) but also the timing of it is in line with Harry having a more nuanced understanding of his father. He struggled to hold conflicting information about him into one cohesive person - the boy who was a bully vs the man who joins Order of Phoenix to fight a war he could very well have sat out. The pedestal crashing helped Harry gain nuance (he thinks of his father and mother with pride in HBP - of them walking into an arena with head held high). HBP also sets up his deeper understanding with Snape in DH. There is lovely meta by about this by thedreamersmusing. Read it here. HBP is also the book he feels "sorry" for Voldemort and also feels "reluctant admiration" for him - both of things he is less defensive about.

And this nuance informs his relationship with conflicts - especially the kind he has with Hermione. He is more confrontational with her and does not lie or sneak around her as much as he did in OOTP in the Half Blood Prince. ("Finished? Or do you want to see if it does back flips?" He asks her when she takes the book from him to check if it's jinxed. Or the "I hope you enjoy yourself" he calls out irritably when she declares intention to find out who HBP is. And "do you want to rub it in Hermione? How do you think I feel now?" He tells her when she says she was right about HBP).

The fact that he is willing to be confrontational with her is a big step in his character - a step up from his unregulated outbursts in OOTP, which is a function of him not knowing how to put his anger across in normal ways. He is also more willing to stand up for her in front of Ron too - "You could say sorry" he tells Ron bluntly. This is in contrast to his more quiet standing up for her in POA: "Can't you give her a break?" Harry asked him quietly. In POA, he lets the subject drop after Ron flatly refuses. Here, he presses on more : "What did you have to imitate her for?" "She laughed at moustache!" "So did I, it's the stupidest thing I have ever seen".

His relationship with Ron is an interesting contrast to his relationship with Hermione, which functionally teaches a very important lesson for an abused child who thought all conflicts are bad: That his friendship with her is challenging, and frustrating, filled with conflicts but their love for each other isn't disputed. It's a very important thing for brain development in general - to hold conflicting information in one space. The defense mechanism abused children do to avoid this is called splitting.

So, Ron allows Harry to be the age he is: a teenager and it's foundation for his further development, and Hermione teaches him how to be an adult, and therefore, spurs his growth. (In esoteric terms, if you look at Ron and Hermione as proxy parents - Ron is the Mother archetype, the one who offers unconditional love. Hermione is the Father archetype - one who demands best of him, and guides him).

Additional reading: Harry, Prongs and Prince - Harry's Inner Struggles For Forging An Identity. By u/metametatron4

Harry Identifies, and Reluctantly Admires Snape Even Before The Prince's Tale by thedreamersmusing

[occasionalhumor]

Anthropophagy

Enjoy dom!/Switch Hawks with some kitchen spiciness!

[cw: counter/kitchen sex, Biting, talons, ooze, switch/fighting for dominance/degradation/semi sub Hawks, explicit]

Quirk Description: Primordial Ooze: A black ooze that sits under the skin and can be expelled and controlled lis appendages. It can morph but not feel like nerves - only pressure.

@corvaous

2.8K Words/11 min read

It had been raining all day, soaking the patio and painting the sky a deep ominous blend of purple and navy. This was one of the worst thunderstorms with rumbling that shook the foundation of the complex and lightning that offered reprieve from the darkness of your movie nest.

Spending the day inside was honestly quite a treat, you cuddled into the large Number 2 hero branded blanket and watched Ghibli movies all day as there was an anniversary marathon. So you sat, snuggled in the scent and artificial warmth of Hawks, and munched on snacks all day.

Have you even eaten a meal today?

As you pondered the question, you melted into the animation of the forest spirit transformed into it’s blue, iridescent form. You pulled the blanket over your shoulders and squeezed it closed.

Is there even anything to eat here?

You stared at the assortment of snacks on the coffee table, a little disgusted and not finding them appetizing.

There may be some instant ramen in the cabinet.

A bright flash of lightning illuminated the inside of the apartment in a nearly blinding flash. Moments later, a chest tightening thunder crack followed. You sighed as your stomach rumbled, begging for sustenance.

Pulling the blanket off you, shuffling your bare feet across the wood flooring. After sitting in a plush blanket all day, the chill of the apartment air was shocking against your bare legs, but at least your torso was warm since it was covered by an oversized hoodie.

The kitchen was just behind the living room with a wall divider that blocked your view of the rest of the apartment. But what you couldn’t see you could hear . The balcony door slid open and the sound of harsh rain filled your ears until it was replaced by the sound of boots being shuffled off and shaking.

You peered around the corner of the wall, turning the electric kettle on. Hawks was peeling his coat off his body, dripping fresh rainwater all over your floors. He sent a collection of freshly shaken feathers to collect some towels.

Until his feathers return, you expel a dense oozy hand from your skin, snaking it parallel to the floor. The black tar lifted to Hawks’ cheek and rubbed it’s thumb over his plump, warm and wet cheek.

“Welcome back, handsome.” You said from the kitchen, preoccupied with preparing food.

Hawks turned his head and kissed the fat of the extended hand, “thanks, Dove.”

He continued to strip, unbuckling his pants and shucking them off. Your hand retracted back into the kitchen as his feathers returned with dry towels. Hawks stood in his damp spandex undersuit. He traded the towels on his feather with his soaking jacket and pants and they disappeared into the laundry room.

Hawks patted himself dry and meandered to the kitchen to see you, watching the kettle bring the water to a rolling boil. He brought one of his hands to the fat of your rear, squeezing it in his palm earning a small chuckle. Hawks snaked his other hand over your hip over your meaty thigh and toyed his fingers in the crease of your hip.

He hummed a low growl into the crook of your neck before kissing just behind your ear, “you smell good.” He planted a gentle kiss on your hairline, and continued with some gravel in his voice, “...and a bit like me.”

Your spine shivered at the warmth of his breath and the heat of his hands as the one on your hip trailed up your chest to your throat. He cupped your soft throat in the pads of his fingers and grumbled into your ear.

Your hips buck back, rubbing their short covered skin over his damp spandex. He chuckled, “eager?”

You smile and a scoff leaves your lips, “no, it’s cute you think you can dom me.”

Hawks runs his tongue over his molars and you feel him pull his hips back, “gonna be a brat, huh?” He brought his hand from your hip and clapped it to your ass with a loud smack . “...Princess Mononoke give you some ideas?”

The hand around your throat tightened and you huffed a muffled moan. He smirked and ran his teeth over the soft flesh of your shoulder and reached your hands behind you, looking for his hips. Hawks expelled some feathers and jerked your wrists forward, holding them above your head towards the cabinet.

“You’re mine tonight.” His voice shuddered your entire body, the gravel tone drug itself over your skin dampening your tight shorts.

Even with the coil of excitement winding itself in your stomach, you couldn’t help but retort to him in a series of strained huffs, “really? -- Those hickies I left on -- you -- the other day makes me thin-... think you’re -- my little bitch.”

Hawks nibbled the back of your throat before sinking his sharp canines into the soft flesh. He continued to apply pressure, until you opened your mouth, releasing a symphony of unmuffled moans.

He pulled his mouth from the darkening skin, “I guess I’ll have to give you twice as much then.”

Hawks ran the flat of his tongue up the lateral of your neck to your ear and nibbled the lobe, “gonna be good and listen to me, baby?”

You smirked and pressed your hips back, rubbing yourself on him again. You playfully look over your shoulder, to make eye contact with him, “I don’t know, Hawks . I think it’s more fun to play with you.”

The sound of his hero name caused his feathers to flare, “ Hawks ?” He grumbled into your cheek before playfully biting its plumpness.

You smirked, “yeah, Hawks . That’s your name innit?”

He released a low growl as he finessed his fingers through your hair and pulled it back. He placed his canine over your jaw, “only to the public.”

He took a step back, releasing all the grips he had over your body. His feathers returned to him as you turned to face him with your back to the counter. You gripped the edge as he quickly pressed himself back to you.

Hawks gripped his taloned hands into your thighs and forced a kiss onto your lips. You toyed with him, keeping your lips shut, so his tongue couldn’t explore your cheeks. He growled into the softness of your lips and squeezed tighter, earning a small moan which gave him enough to shove his long, broad tongue behind your teeth.

He kept his eyes open, gazing into your deep purple ones and pining with excitement. Hawks brought his hands lower on your dense thighs and cued a lift as he nudged you onto the counter; all while feathers aided in sliding your shorts down. He playfully sucked your bottom lip into his mouth and dragged his teeth over the soft flesh.

He brought two fingers to your bud, pinching it lightly between the fat of his knuckles. With this other hand he rubbed your nipple gingerly before pinching and pulling it out. You inhale sharply to which Hawks smirked.

“I’m gonna make you say my name…” He kissed your lips again, “...and submit. I let you dom.” He stared into your eyes with a fierce bout of aggression that wet your folds, “... know your place. ”

You matched his energy, glaring back at him and smirking as the skin around your ribcage oozed. Two black iridescent gelatinous arms slid from under your sweatshirt. You mischievously slide your oozy hands to his hips and pull him closer to the counter for you to rub your slick over his tight spandex.

His bulge was accentuated in the black synthetic fiber as you ground yourself onto him. He growled into your lips, obviously frustrated with the advance.

You smirk, placing a small kiss on his lips, “where exactly is that, Hawks? Dominating you, right?”

Hawks expelled a set of six feathers and stabbing them into the ooze and tacking them to the wall, “not today, Sweetheart .”

He gripped your fleshy waist and dug his talons into the fat of your hips. He leaned into you, growling and huffing into your bare neck as he rolled your hip over his, toying his head over your bud.

You mute your moans, as to not give him the satisfaction but on the occasional bite, you open your mouth and watch as his feathers ruffle at the non verbal praise. He gripped your hair and pulled your face to look at him. He planted a kiss on your lips, nibbling on the bottom one, then he trailed bites down your neck, your collarbone, to your breasts (where he placed a dark hickie), your stomach and the tops of your thighs.

Hawks kneeled down, caressing your leg to your ankle. He bent your knee and positioned one heel on the edge of the counter. He used his fingers to hold you open for him to lick a wet stripe over your hole and held your opposite thigh in his hand, squeezing the flesh.

You couldn’t help but run your fingers through his hair and gripping as you rutted your juices onto him. He pulled his head back, taking your grip in strides and shook his head.

“Tsk, still gonna try to fight me, huh?” He sat back on his heels, “maybe I should just stop, not let you have any reprieve.”

You glared at him, tightening your grip on his hair, “I don’t beg.”

He winced at the aggressive grip in his hair and smirked. You felt your bits heat up with the excitement of seeing him almost submit to you again. But he doesn’t, instead he brings a collection of feathers to collect your hands and tack them to the counter behind you, just enough to give you support.

The army of red swarmed your nipples and he gripped your thighs again as he descended back into your slit. Hawks fluttered his tongue over your bud before taking a long drawn out suck and you moan in response, attempting to slip free of the feathers holding you down.

He rolled your flower between his tongue and the flat of his bottom lip and growled into it. Muffled moans were few and far between as the pleasure built up in you, you couldn’t resist releasing them freely into the air. Hawks brought a finger to your hole and delicately rubbed it as he flicked his tongue on your button.

He slicked his tongue down to meet his finger at your hole and slipped them both in earning a strained moan from you. He smirked and met your gaze as you huffed with lustful eyes.

“Yeah? Feel good?” He growled into your hole as he curled his fingers up, rubbing your bundle of nerves.

You groan, tilting your head back at the pleasure and releasing a loud moan from the back of your throat. You expel another oozy arm from the ankle closest to his hip. You took advantage of his light distraction and slithered your slime mass under this spandex to his cock.

You wrapped yourself around his shaft and molded into a jelly-like sleeve, allowing his head to peek from the top. In doing so, his feathers ruffled and he lustfully glared at you. You smiled down, continuing to moan and began pumping him.

His golden eyes rolled back from his own pleasure as he fluttered over your hotspot, fingers deep rubbing the spongy spot. He felt you begin to quiver and your heels slip from the ledge of the counter from the uncontrollable pleasure.

Hawks adjusted his wing, placing the bend of your knee over it’s wrist and lifted your leg, keeping it stable. The shadow from his wing covered his face and his eyes glowed with passion as he felt your pent up pressure release with the clenching of your muscles and a bellowing moan. Your ooze jiggly in satisfaction before losing its shape and returning to your body.

“That’s my good Dove.” He smirked in your slit as your body pulsated pressure on his fingers.

He licked another wet stripe before readjusting you on the counter. He pulled your hips to the edge and rutted his shaft over you. You expel two oozy hands to shuffle his spandex off.

A loud crack of thunder rattled the apartment as he slid himself into you. The storm muted each of your pleasure momentarily as he rolled his hips up, filling your tight hole. He dug his face into your neck and your oozy hand clawed at his back, under his flared wings as he found his rhythm.

He bit into your neck, placing more dark hickies across your skin all while rubbing your flower with one of his hands. You grip his hair in pleasure, but also in a light attempt to regain dominance. You match his rutting aggression by planting your teeth on the soft of his neck, giving him his own small collection of hickies.

Your hips slip under you and your head gets scrunched but the cabinets as he pulls you closer to get deeper. Hawks growls into your collarbone in frustration and lifts you from the counter. He pumps you a few more times standing and you lean your head back. He takes the opportunity to lick over your throat, huffing warm air on your skin.

He uses some of his feathers to support your back and you oozed some concave shapes to reach behind you and lower onto the wooden kitchen floor. He pulled himself from your warmth and you groaned in detest. A feather disappeared to collect a pillow from the bedroom and Hawks gingerly placed it under your head.

He gripped his girth, running his hand over his hardened shaft and smirked, “I’m going to sit back and let my feathers work my magic on you…” he brushed some hair from your face, “...until you say my name.”

You ran your tongue over your molars before the shock of a feather wiggling around your bud. He leaned back onto his heels, jerking himself with his hand as your skin bubbled with chills. He chuckled through a moan as you attempted to expel your quirk but it shook flacid from excitement.

“You good there, Dove ?” He mocked, rubbing his thumb over his head.

You moaned and glared, watching Hawks examine his feather at work. He pressed his thumb at your entrance, earning another strained moan from you.

“Just say it, baby.” He sneered, knowing he earned his dominance.

You choked his name back and glared at him, huffing, “ Hawks .”

He smirked, shaking his head and pressed his thumb into you, “Really, baby, just say it.”

Hawks replaced his thumb with two fingers, itching your bundle of nerves bringing you back on another high but before you could release it he pulled everything away. You fidgeted in frustration from the stimulation being removed.

He leaned in, cock in hand on your stomach. He kissed your earlobe before growling his demand, “ say it. ”

Chills ran down your spine and you teasingly turned your head to face him and quietly spoke on his lips, “ Hawks .”

He ran his tongue over his lips, “you’re such a fucking bitch sometimes.”

Hawks rutted his hips into you, grinding his head against you entrance. He groaned into your ear which earned a symphony of moans at his teasing.

“ug-..ugh , Keigo, just fuck me !” Keigo smirked into your skin and slipped himself fully into you. A deep throated moan came from you and your eyes rolled back as he leaned back.

Keigo gripped the tops of your thighs and began pumping you full again, “that’s it, Dove. My good little Dove.”

He continued his thrusts as he shifted one foot up, under your rear. His speed increased and he squeezed you closer, searching to release deeper inside you. Keigo shifted his other foot up, until he was squatting over you.

He adjusted your legs over his shoulders as he pressed into you in a mating press. He continued to thrust his hips until you folded under him on your shoulders. He supported your back with his feathers as you orgasmed in the fold, legs shaking around his head.

He pulled your hips into his and with a few long thrusts he held you there expelling his seed deep into you. Keigo gently pulled from you with the sound of slick and cum. He gently set your hips down and sent a feather to collect a towel to wipe you clean.

He pulled your back up and snuggled your head into his collarbone, “you did so well for me, Dove.”

He caressed your hair, planting delicate kisses on your forehead. You rubbed your cheek into him and chuckled lightly.

Keigo smiled, lifting you two from the floor and walking to the bathroom with you wrapped around him, “what’s so funny?”

You give him a kiss on the cheek, “well, if I’m Dove and you’re Hawks… Is it considered cannibalism when you eat me out?”

Hawks scrunched his eyebrows, mouth agape and processing your comment, “I mean...I guess it is. He kissed your forehead as he set your feet to the tiled bathroom floor and turned the shower water on.

He turned his head to you and smirked, “...and I’d do it again.”

[kythed]

what love tastes like

terushima yuuji x reader

synopsis: in which you learn that falling in love tastes like monster

--

“Taste,” he says. He holds the cold rim of a freshly opened can to your lips, and first it’s metallic, salty, but then it’s sweet. 

You take a sip. 

“So you’re telling me you’ve never tried Monster before?” he asks, taking a drink himself. The two of you are sitting on a park bench across the street from a gas station. He licks his lips-- the silver ball embedded in his tongue winks at you, a shallow token of youthful rebellion that somehow seems more significant on him. 

“Never. I’m more of a Dr. Pepper girl.” You reach for the can again, letting the saccharine liquid sloshing inside coat your tongue. It’s really too much for me, you think. But of course, you won’t tell him that. 

“Not anymore,” he says, and he slips a firm hand around the back of your neck, pulling you towards him and daring you to look away with a wicked grin-- it’s attractive, to say the least. “Now you’re my girl.” 

You’ve barely parted your lips to respond before his mouth is on yours, tongue halfway down your throat, and you’re whimpering into the kiss as he snakes a hand down your back and presses your body to his. The whole ordeal tastes like Monster and feels far more energizing than the packaging promises. 

Within your first day of meeting him, Terushima Yuuji has already claimed you as his own. 

And you’re okay with it.

--

He’s about as healthy for you as the Monster is-- which is to say, not at all. 

In your next couple months of dating him, this becomes apparent. He takes you to the edge of the woods at twilight and lights your first cigarette, laughing as you take a draw and end up coughing. Plucking it from your fingers, he holds the cig high as smoke curls into the hazy sky and eventually melds with the faintly orange cumuli. “Guess it’ll take a little practice before you can smoke with the big dogs, huh?”

You flush and snatch it back, determined to prove your aptitude for defiance. By the end of the night, you can blow smoke rings-- he applauds, and for some odd reason your heart swells at his lazy grin. 

(The next kiss tastes like tobacco and novelty.)

He shows you each of his tattoos, some of which peek out from underneath his clothes, some of which aren’t exactly visible to the onlooker’s eye. There’s a tendril of ivy climbing down his forearm, a flock of wild cranes taking flight from his left shoulder. A dark silhouette is on his chest, kneeling low to who knows what. You trace the image of an unlit candle on the back of his neck, asking what it means-- for a millisecond, his mouth tightens into an expressionless line, but then he laughs. “Why, you want one too? Let’s go to the parlor then.” 

When you decline, he takes a permanent marker from his bedside table and prints a small label on your inner wrist. ‘Mine’ it says, accompanied by an oddly appropriate smiley face. “Then this will have to do.”

(This kiss tastes like ink and enigma.) 

He brings you to a decrepit manor on the outskirts of town-- legend has it a young, newly wealthy couple purchased it twenty years ago, unaware its foundations rested on a centuries old cemetery. The spiteful spirits drove them to the brink of madness. The sort of madness that could only be alleviated by the resounding finality of death. 

“They were found hanging from their bedsheets in the west wing,” Yuuji whispers to you, his breath tickling your ear. An unwanted tremor runs from your head to your high-tops. You don’t believe in ghosts, so it must be because you’re cold. (At least, that’s what you tell yourself.) “I want that kind of love.” 

You turn, surprised to see his expression remains entirely serious. “The kind where you die for one another?”

“The kind where you die with one another,” he corrects, wistfully gazing into the dingy bay windows protruding from the manor’s anterior. 

You remain silent. 

“Life is just an accumulation of bad decisions, and love is just an accumulation of bad decisions you make with another person,” he muses, still peering at the grandeur of the lonely estate. He turns to you, a dangerous glint in his eye. “Wanna make a bad decision with me?” 

The next hour is spent in the modest company of Yuuji, a couple of baseball bats, and the empty halls of a long dead house. There’s no one to witness the two of you shattering each dusty antique vase save for the portraits on the wall. Soon, their frames, too, receive a violent visit from a vindictive bat, usually accompanied by Yuuji’s unadulterated glee and a resounding whoop. 

You’re not a fan of destruction. Especially not the destruction of rare, precious items reminiscent of a life bygone. Yet, it’s exhilarating to indulge in it, to swing your bat with a meaningless vengeance and watch as whatever priceless heirloom that evoked your baseless wrath fractures into pieces. You demolish a set of fine china found in the dining room cabinet and Yuuji gathers you into his arms, kissing you fiercely (it tastes like some sort of perverse, seductive joy, rosewater mixed with ashes). He chuckles into your mouth when you push your tongue into his, retribution for your first kiss many weeks ago. It’s deliciously gratifying. 

If Yuuji is right, and love is just a mosaic of bad decisions and desire-- maybe you’re okay with that. Maybe this is all I really need, you think, watching Yuuji from the corner of your eye on the drive home. Yellow street lights cast irregular shadows on his angular features, lending him an otherworldly sort of beauty. 

“What is it?” he asks, without taking his eyes off the road. One of his hands inches up your inner thigh, giving it a quick squeeze before retreating to the responsibility of the steering wheel. 

You hesitate, just for a second. An unseen force constricts around your throat; you banish it with a hard swallow. “I love you.” 

One second passes. Then two. 

He says nothing the rest of the ride home, and you sit in mortified silence, watching traffic blur by with glassy eyes. You must’ve misread this whole thing. You’re just a fling Yuuji plans on discarding whenever he grows tired… your mouth goes dry with regret. 

When you pull up in front of your house, he walks you to your front door. You can hardly stand to look him in the eye. 

“Well, thanks for today,” you say, examining your shoelaces with false interest. “I had a lot of--”

“I love you, too.” 

Startled, you look up. “I- what?” 

“I said,” he says, stepping close, putting a hand beneath your chin to tilt it upwards. Your body is eclipsed by his larger one, and you’re overwhelmed with the sudden urge to hide from his penetrating gaze. “I love you, too.” 

A beat of silence.

“Oh,” you breathe, and, suddenly, his lips are on yours, kissing you fervently— but this time, it’s chaste, it’s… loving (and it tastes like honeyed laughter). Only for a second though.

Then his hands are on your waist, fingers gripping hard enough to leave bruises; he’s aflame with a hotblooded passion-- your body is his Holy Grail and your mouth is its rim. He leads you into the hallway, fumbling to close the door behind him. You gasp when he pushes you up against the wall and harshly sucks at the sensitive skin beneath your jaw, your nails digging into his back through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. 

“I love you,” he mumbles, painting your neck with a line of ardent kisses, trailing from right below your ear to right above your collarbone. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” 

--

There’s something a little too tender in the way he caresses your face the next morning to wake you after he’s slipped his clothes back on, in the way he smiles softly at your bleary eyed confusion, in the way he holds you in his embrace a fraction of a second longer than you hold him in yours before saying goodbye. 

Terushima Yuuji may play the part of a reckless delinquent, but he’s not your average troublemaker. There’s something inscrutable behind his gaze, even as he sprays obscene graffiti on stop signs and shoplifts alcohol from the neighborhood drugstore, a walking cliche of hoodlum culture. 

There’s something a little too careful about the boy who claims to be careless. 

Yuuji is still fun, of course. He takes immense pride in being fun. He invites you to one of his friends’ gigs, some sort of grunge-esque affair with a heavily pulsating bass line and a preponderance of cheap liquor in red plastic cups. The drummer winks at you during one of the songs-- later Yuuji slugs him in the jaw, taking a few hits in the process, and makes a show of kissing you sloppily while the poor drummer nurses his rapidly forming bruise with a pack of frozen peas. (The kiss, of course, tastes like blood and pride.) 

He teaches you how to use a switchblade-- “Just in case,” he says, wrapping his hand around yours in an effort to show you the proper grip. In exactly what situation you’d be forced to use a switchblade remains unclear, but when you ask he just laughs and shrugs, spinning the knife in between his slender fingers. “You never know.”

(He tells you a story of a fist fight years ago and lifts his shirt to point out a pale, faded scar-- the other guy brought a knife concealed in his sleeve. You then agree it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.)

The two of you trespass on the regular, scaling fences and picking locks to dip your feet in private pools, to run barefoot on the soft grass of a golf course late at night, to explore taped off tunnels and underpasses. 

All of it is fun, all of it depicts your relationship as something accidental, something reckless, the convergence of two beings as coincidental as the convergence of the two cells that provoked the Big Bang. 

But your intimate moments, the faintest imprints in between the lines, tell a different story. One onlookers don’t see. 

They don’t see how Yuuji places a hand on the small of your back to guide you over a crosswalk, or how he pours a coffee and carefully blows on it before bringing it to you. They don’t see how he laughs when you laugh and smiles when you smile. 

They don’t hear what he whispers to you under the sheets-- sweet nothings that would make Cupid himself blush-- as he touches you slowly, purposefully, following your curves deliberately as a sculptor molding clay. 

They don’t feel his kisses, delicately placed on your lips, your neck, your stomach and thighs. They don’t feel his eyelashes fluttering on your cheek as he allows himself to rest with you in his most vulnerable state. 

It’s during these moments that deep secrets are so shyly exchanged in the sleepy haze of late nights and early mornings. He bares his soul to you in all its imperfection (you suspect you are the only one to have ever seen it in this state). He shatters himself bit by bit like the vases you splintered so long ago, offering you the fragments so you can gradually piece together the entire portrait. 

“You know how I told you my dad taught me how to fight?” he asks one of these times. Your head is in his lap as he strokes your hair ever-so-lightly. You nod, looking up into those sweet brown eyes-- they look sad today. “That’s only half true. He didn’t teach me, but I had to learn because of him.” 

You take his hand and brush your lips over his knuckles, humming softly, and he takes this small act of comfort and stores it away like he always does. 

I’m sorry. 

“I’m scared of trying to be someone different than I am now, but I want to be. I wish I could be.”

You can. 

“I’m sorry for getting you into so much trouble these days.”

Don’t be.

“I think we should run away, just you and me. We could make it, you know.”

I know. 

Of course, all good things come to an end. You know that. 

You just aren’t anticipating something so good to end so soon-- as suddenly as Terushima Yuuji becomes yours, he disappears. 

One morning, he’s sleeping in the bed next to you, and the next he’s gone without a trace. Literally. He leaves behind no extra t-shirts, no stray sock or phone charger, no note. You pad down the hall, ducking your head into each room.

“Yuuji?” you call. “Is this some sort of joke?”

It’s not. 

You call his phone and reach his voicemail. Hey, this is Terushima. Not available right now, probably busy doing somethin’ stupid or taking a piss. Leave a message if you want. 

The sound of his voice grows more and more painful to hear over the next six months. At first, you call every day, then every week, then every month. At month six, you’ve stopped calling at all. If he wanted to answer, he would. You don’t even know why you’ve kept it up so long when he obviously left for a reason. 

So, you pick up the pieces of your broken heart and cobble them together again. It’s not a graceful recovery, but it’s a recovery, and that’s what matters. The gaping hole he left is gradually filled by your family, your friends-- you don’t go on a single date, but that’s okay. (You’re just not ready. You tell yourself that you will be, someday.)  

Soon, you’re whole again. As you discover, there are ways to find yourself other than falling dangerously in love with a dangerous boy. 

You run into him one day, eight or so months after his disappearance. You’re filling your car at a gas station, and at the park across the street, he’s sitting next to a girl you don’t recognize. She laughs at all his jokes and sips a can of Monster he offers her. As if he can feel your stare, Yuuji glances over and catches your eye. He jogs across the street, dodging traffic, and you two exchange tentative pleasantries before the conversation comes to an uneasy rest on the taboo-- why he left.

It wasn’t because of you, it turns out. At least, not really. You were just the catalyst.

“I was the problem,” Yuuji says, laughing, though the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “You remember how I once told you I thought love was making your bad decisions with someone by your side?”

You nod, and the wound has scabbed over enough for you to remember it lightly, with a slight curve of the lips.

“You showed me that wasn’t true.” He tugs on the collar of his t-shirt absentmindedly, not quite meeting your gaze. “I started wanting to make good decisions instead. And that just wasn’t me. Love isn’t for me.”

“It could’ve been,” you say simply. He stares at you, momentarily unable to form a response. Then he laughs it off, a sound you used to adore that now sounds harsh and grating. 

“Maybe someday,” he says, but his expression tells you otherwise. It tells you how scared he is of ever being that person.

The thing about love is that it gives you something to lose. It gives you a reason to make good decisions. It gives you something to fear for. 

As he turns to leave, Yuuji freezes in his tracks. He throws a look over his shoulder. “Just for the record-- it hurt. Leaving. I did love you.” 

You smile. It’s a genuine smile, but it’s sad, too. “I know.” 

And the thing about fear is that some people can’t bear it well enough to let themselves love someone. 

You watch his retreating back for a brief moment before climbing into your car. It’s not until you’re halfway home that you realize you’re crying. Tears roll down your cheeks into your lap, staining your jeans. 

You hope he comes to love that new girl, the one he’s sharing a Monster with. You hope she loves him back with all her heart. You hope she spends hours and hours picking through his pieces and reassembling him from the bottom up. You hope she comes to find that his kisses taste like tobacco and novelty, like ink and enigma, like rosewater and ashes and joy. You hope that, to her, those kisses never taste like regret. 

You hope that this time, he’s scared. But not so scared he can’t let himself stay.