#but I have no intentions of clogging up the dash here each time I have a song thought 😅

[thetwilightroadtonightfall]

my super power

[crispy-crust]

top 10 yuris

usually i would answer these asks in a jokinG manner but you've asked me about a topic i am extremely passionate about so prepare for a massive text post

addinG a cut here because this post is larGeee and i don't want it cloGGinG up any dashes

NUMBER 10: hatbow!

at number 10 due to the extreme lack of canon interaction but the fact it's here at all despite how little of it exists is a testament to how much these two have rotted in my brain. Go play a hat in time it's so cute and so fun i wish there was more content of these two

NUMBER 9: kimona!

ah kimona. how i wish there was more actual canon content of these two. this shit made volume 5 for me it's the reason volume 5 is the only volume i own of the hardcovers (for now). there is undeniable tension between these two i refuse to believe bryan lee o'malley wrote this without the intention of makinG it seem romantic. and as a friend once said "they two bad bitches n they kissin each other 🔥🔥🔥🔥"

NUMBER 8: ROSEMARY

iconic in every sense of the word these two are special to me. i have to include them here purely due to how influential they were it's awesome not much else to add here as this isn't one of the ships i'm severely brainrotted about i just think they're neat!

NUMBER 7: lumity!

i used to be biG into these two they're wonderful and it was Great seeinG somethinG like this on modern television. shoutout dressinG up and travelinG toGether (iykyk)

NUMBER 6: weblena

now we're GettinG into brainrot territory. the showrunners said somethinG alonG the lines of "webby won't Get a romantic interest because the show isn't about romance" and i Go "what the fuck are you talkinG about we already had a romantic subplot with her and lena that was clearly the point of all of that" there is a scene in season 1 where webby calls lena a "beautiful idiot" and then looks at her like this

TELL ME THAT ISN'T gAY! YOU CAN'T BECAUSE IT'S gAY AS SHIT THESE TWO ARE SO FRUITY TOgETHER DUCKTALES 2017 I LOVE YOU FOR EVERYTHINg BUT I WISH YOU ALLOWED THESE TWO TO HAPPEN

number 5: sashanne!

much can be said about this ship and the anGst behind it and all that. i'm huGe on sashannarcy as a whole and i considered addinG that ship to this list but i thouGht talkinG about the dynamics of the pairs would be more interestinG sashanne is a stronG case of missed potential to me, a lot could have been done to make their dynamic a lot more compellinG even more-so than it already is and a lot could have been chanGed about the way they handled sasha's "redemption arc" in season 3. season 3 as a whole is a mess that i have many opinions on but that's for another day. despite all the flaws and missed potential this ship still aches me in the best way possible. they were 13 years old at the time of amphibia and they had to deal with ALL OF THAT. at aGe 13 sasha elizabeth waybriGht attempted actual honest to God suicide due to a fiGht she had with anne while lean on me was playinG in the backGround and the world was forever chanGed. amphibia was so held back by so much and the amount of missed potential in it (especially in season 3) kills me but despite all of that this relationship shined throuGh as one of if not the best part of the show for many people. Good shit!

NUMBER 4: lapidot!

NOW WE'RE gETTINg TO THE gOOD SHIT how come even in media that has explicit queerness everywhere i always tend to Gravitate towards the dubiously canon clearly more than friends who were done dirty by their lack of screentime toGether? lapidot is a lot for so many reasons and i'm very much not alone in beinG abnormal about these two. IN FACT REBECCA SUgAR HERSELF DREW HUMANSTUCK ART OF THEM! AND THE OFFICIAL CARTOON NETWORK SOCIALS HAVE RECOgNIZED THIS SHIP MULTIPLE TIMES!! the way these two Grow to be comfortable around each other and learn to live in this new stranGe place toGether is so charminG and so Gut wrenchinG when you're rewatchinG the show and know what's cominG. in the episode where peridot learns to bubble stuff for the first time she sends the bubble off and when she asks steven where it'll Go he says "home" AND THEN IT CUTS TO LAPISSSSSS. SHE THINKS OF LAPIS AS HER HOMEEEEEEE DON'T EVEN FUCKINg gET ME STARTED ON DISTANT SHORE I ACTUALLY SOBBED SO FUCKINg HARD WHILE WATCHINg THAT SCENE IT'S UNREAL they were done so dirty with their reunion as well what do you mean all we Got was a "hey" I NEED TO SEE TEARS AS THEY MAKE OUT DAMN IT!! these two are imperfect and they stumble throuGh this whole life thinG a lot and there are many ups and downs to their relationship but that's what makes it compellinG that's what makes it so Good and damn it at the end they made it back to each other... if we ever Get more official su content and these two aren't canonized in it i will end up on the news

NUMBER 3: stephcass!

yea what did you expect of course this was Gonna be here these two are everythinG to me and every day that passes by where they aren't canon is a day i am in physical pain their dynamic throuGhout batGirl 2000 Gives me life and the anGst that comes from it is delicious the obvious queerbait in batGirls doesn't help this at all. they knew what they were doinG and you can't convince me otherwise these Girls and their relationship persevered despite all the editorial nonsense that tried to split them up and each time they came back stronGer than ever they have such undeniable chemistry and they're universally loved as a pairinG come on dc you would be actually stupid not to put them toGether come on everyone already clocked them like 2 decades aGo

NUMBER 2: junerezi!

dear lord this pairinG has had an affect on me. you really do Go into the epiloGues expectinG roxyGen and then end up on the other side screaminG and clawinG at the walls in the name of junerezi i was hooked on them before i even read meat! the little crumbs in candy were so dense and so impactful to me their dynamic is so incredibly fun to read and their scenes in meat are so painful and so powerful they are the reason i own the epiloGues physically i need beyond canon to be done already so i can see the end of this plotline throuGh i need them back toGether you don't understand june's death in meat while in terezi's arms actually made me feel numb irl for like a week i wish people would Give the epiloGues a chance because they're actually really damn Good and the junerezi is sooooo delicious i cry so hard i usidgfbuiydboguiszdghbfuijdsbvgfyihsdfobuijgbf[9usapigbvfuidjbsfuijdb

NUMBER 1: MARCANNE

spoiler warninG for amphibia

i don't talk about these two often on here, not as much as i'd like at least. but marcy wu as a character and this ship specifically literally chanGed me as a person. there is a reason i still call marcy my favorite character in fiction despite havinG read stories i consider to be much better than amphibia since. and this may sound stupid but i Genuinely do not know if i would be alive today were it not for marcy i started amphibia at a very rouGh time in my life and the character of marcy and the lenGths she went to for anne hit me so incredibly hard due to that imaGine with me for a second that you are 13 years old. a child Genius! everyone around you recoGnizes you as someone who will be incredibly successful later in life you have 2 people who are incredibly important to you. they mean everythinG to you you would Give the world for them and yet those two people cannot be bothered enouGh to enGaGe with you about your favorite movie or your interests in General

marcy Gave up her entire life back on earth just to be able to exist around anne and sasha. she had everythinG GoinG for her earth was her home she Got Good Grades her future looked briGht she was studyinG for the SAT from aGe 13 and earth was where all of her interests were. everythinG she knew. and she Gave that up for anne and sasha. do you know how deeply you have to care about someone to be willinG to do that? do you know how stronG your love for them has to be? cut to true colors. this episode ruined me i won't even Get into the confession scene. i have that scene memorized by heart and i start to tear up whenever i think of it i Genuinely don't think i can handle talkinG about it the stabbinG scene however.

once aGain i remind you this is a 13 year old. imaGine beinG 13 and usinG what you think may be your very last words ever to apoloGize to someone. someone you so deeply care about. you are dyinG in front of them and all you can think to say in that moment is sorry. because you believe they hate your Guts at that moment. could you imaGine GoinG throuGh that?

could you imaGine then wakinG up realizinG you're alive only to be Greeted by niGhtmarish hallucinations of your worst fear. and what's your worst fear in that moment? your friends hatinG you. them leavinG you behind after all that you went throuGh to stay close to them

the first thinG she said when she woke up was "sashy...? anne..??" SHE WAS DREAMINg OF THEMMMM

AND THEN WHEN SHE'S TAKEN OVER BY THE CORE HER FANTASY IS gETTINg TO EXPLORE NEW FANTASTICAL WORLDS ALONgSIDE ANNE AND SASHA!!! ALL SHE WANTS TO DO IS SPEND TIME WITH THE PEOPLE CLOSEST TO HER this is quickly turninG into an essay about just marcy so let me try and Get into some of the more liGhthearted aspects every sinGle scene we see of marcy and anne throuGhout their time toGether in season 2 is the Gayest shit i've seen in my whole life. them sobbinG and huGGinG each other after beinG reunited... anne boopinG marcy and tappinG her on the head later in the episode.. anne tryinG to impress marcy by actinG smart... marcy STANDINg STILL IN ONE SPOT UNTIL THE SUN WENT DOWN IN A DAY AT THE AQUARIUM AFTER ANNE LEFT TO gO WITH THE PLANTARS. ANNE BLUSHINg AT MARCY'S INFODUMP IN NEW WARTWOOD. THEIR ANTICS IN THE SLEEPOVER EPISODE. THE PROCESS OF ANNE gETTINg HER NEW ARMOR AT THE END OF SEASON 2 AND THE WAY MARCY LOOKS AT HER AFTER SHE DECIDESSSS

as previously stated this ship is extremely influential to me and i would not be the same person today without it. i don't even know if i would be here today without it. so i would like to close this post off by sayinG thank you amphibia. thank you matt braly. and most of all thank you marcy wu <3 you are a treasure that i will cherish for the rest of my life nothinG will ever compare to you

[brotherdusk]

talk to me about how the great expectation adaption sucks!

anon I hope you know what you've activated here!

I'm gonna preface this by saying - well first of all I should say that I've only watched one and a half episodes of the three that have aired, so who knows, maybe I missed something in episodes 2 or 3 that justifies their choice to completely gut young pip of everything that makes him sympathetic or likeable or even interesting as a protagonist. I doubt it though!

preface #2: I am totally open to adaptations changing things and getting weird with it, especially when it's a story that's already been retold ad nauseam! my favourite adaptation of great expectations is the 1946 david lean version, which strips down huge parts of the story to fit a two hour runtime and alters the ending quite a lot. you could put a cynical bent on it and say they sanitized dickens' rather bittersweet ending in favour of an over-romanticised, old hollywood vision - but I don't care, the final words of that film make me cry every time!

continuing below the cut because I have a shred of self-respect and I'm not gonna clog people's dashes with this any longer 🫡 if you click the readmore then godspeed. spoilers ahead!

so in this essay I'm mostly gonna examine the show's depiction of young pip compared to the original, and then wrap it up with a speedrun of everything else about the show that feels off or rewrites the original intention of the novel for no apparent reason.

the view we get of pip as a young boy is crucial to understanding his actions and relationships for the rest of the story! in the book, he's a polite, sensitive, almost painfully impressionable little kid who lives in fear of pretty much everything - his older sister abuses him, meeting the escaped convict magwitch fills him with mortal terror, he gets criticised and belittled over christmas dinner for the crime of Being A Child, and he's convinced that he's about to be arrested and put in prison forever for stealing one (1) pie from the larder. he has a vivid imagination and it's clear that things leave an impression on him, even if he doesn't realise it himself at the time.

but there's a simplicity to his innocence! he and joe quietly support each other through mrs joe's abuse. they have a mutual respect and understanding. he later becomes apprenticed to joe as a blacksmith, but really he's joe's apprentice in every way. they both live simple, almost childlike existences, with no expectations for themselves, and they're quite happy that way.

Joe and I being fellow-sufferers, and having confidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me [...] I always treated him as a larger species of child, and as no more than my equal.

so what's the worst thing that could happen to pip at this point? meeting the beautiful estella and hearing her mock every aspect of his being, of course!

I set off on the four-mile walk to our forge; pondering, as I went along, on all I had seen, and deeply revolving that I was a common labouring-boy; that my hands were coarse; that my boots were thick; that I had fallen into a despicable habit of calling knaves Jacks; that I was much more ignorant than I had considered myself last night, and generally that I was in a low-lived bad way.

[...] I thought long after I laid me down, how common Estella would consider Joe, a mere blacksmith; how thick his boots, and how coarse his hands. I thought how Joe and my sister were then sitting in the kitchen, and how I had come up to bed from the kitchen, and how Miss Havisham and Estella never sat in a kitchen, but were far above the level of such common doings.

this meeting is absolutely catastrophic for pip and makes him irrevocably aware of his class. he is desperate to shed his common-ness and jumps at the chance to get a proper education and become a gentleman. being joe's apprentice in life is no longer enough. he never outright rejects joe, he's too attached to him for that, but pip's deep shame forms an uncomfortable rift between them. it reaches a breaking point when joe later visits him in london;

Let me confess exactly with what feelings I looked forward to Joe’s coming. Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many ties; no; with considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity. If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid money.

so, just to recap on book!pip: he goes through several formative experiences at a very young and impressionable age - threats from magwitch, abuse from his sister that solidifies his bond with joe, and humiliation from miss havisham and estella. these all form deep impressions on his psyche and inform his actions throughout the rest of the story. it's also the catalyst for miss havisham's iconic "what have I done! what have I done!" breakdown later in the novel.

with this in mind, let's look at how bbc great expectations completely fumbles the character of young pip and makes everything outlined above a complete non-event for him:

first of all... why is he so... old?

I have an annotated copy of great expectations (yeah I'm that bitch. sorry) that includes a transcript of charles dickens' original working notes, and he imagined young pip as roughly 7 years old. tom sweet (young pip above) is 18, but he's got a young face so let's be charitable and say they were aiming for 15. that's still such a vast difference? the way a 15 year old reacts to and internalises things is indescribably different to a 7 year old! why!

the show's clearly going for a moodier and more mature take on young pip but he's so fucking boring and insufferable. from the opening moments of the first episode he's quoting shakespeare to get through the tedium of blacksmithing, telling joe he doesn't actually want to be his apprentice, and clapping back at his sister's folk beliefs with #facts and #logic. steven knight has a brave new vision of pip and unfortunately that vision is an atheist redditor.

it's so bad. it's the "overly self aware misfit teen protagonist"-ification of classic literature. I didn't watch the new wednesday series but I imagine this is why it made everyone so mad. this pip's answer to everything is either 1) "k" 2) 😏😏 WELL ACKSHUALLY 😏😏 or 3) read at 8:32pm. why should he care if magwitch threatens to eat his liver or if estella is a bit of a cow? he's already dissatisfied and bored and knows better than everyone else in this backwater village! there's no tragic corruption of innocence to be done here! pack it in! we're done!

the first episode opened with adult pip attempting to commit suicide so I guess the series is going to examine how his dissatisfaction and disconnect from his roots grows and grows until he reaches a breaking point, which is kind of the theme of the novel, but... his connection to joe in particular is so cold and dead on arrival. joe's humbleness and warmth is so central to the book, but here he's just some guy? mrs joe isn't even particularly monstrous, she's just... unpleasant and argumentative and agrees not to beat pip when joe tells her not to. ok? glad that's settled then?

I can't judge estella or miss havisham because their arcs haven't really gotten going yet. I'm interested in the miss havisham drug addict storyline and cautiously optimistic about the prospect of olivia colman acting out miss havisham's final breakdown and decline, but I won't be surprised if the show finds some way to screw it up and remove all emotional depth from it :~)

as for mr jaggers: why is he described as corrupt? I recall he could be a little creative with the rules when required but was fastidiously, obsessively lawful and self-policing whenever possible. what??

wait I just looked ahead at the upcoming episode descriptions and genuinely what the hell is going on with jaggers. what's up with the bbc doing colourblind casting and then making the characters played by people of colour significantly worse than in canon (this is a bbc les mis thénardier subtweet)

and as for herbert pocket, my bestie my sweetie pie the light of my life...... look how they massacred my boy 😭 the real mr pocket would NEVER!!!!

I cannot express how much jairaj varsani was wasted here. he had a recurring role in the first season of foundation and his character, poly, was so much closer in personality to mr pocket than the actual mr pocket of this show. huge heart huge spirit zero self preservation instinct. he could have been perfect here with a script that was actually good!

(I made this meme about the character in 2021 lmao)

I'm mixed on how central they've made the magwitch-compeyson conflict. I'm always down to see more of compey purely because trystan gravelle is very very good at playing deranged 19th century men, but I feel they've reduced the fear and mystery of magwitch's presence by giving them so much backstory so early.

as the for the mr pumblechook/mrs joe sadomasochism subplot.... sure I guess. why not draw a parallel to pip's obsession with estella despite how much she hurts him. put the wwdits guy's naked ass on screen I'm beyond caring at this point

the tragedy is that bbc great expectations could have worked? I'm very into les misérables and have seen enough adaptations of it that the weird ones that didn't quite stick the landing but made an attempt to do something different are much more interesting to me than oversimplified paint-by-numbers adaptation #847594. the same can be said of dracula, or sherlock holmes, or any other classic story that's been retold over and over. I bring this up because there are so many similarities between bbc great expectations (that I don't like) and bbc les mis (which I do like despite its many many faults) that it's a useful comparison to have on hand. they both strayed from the source material and changed character personalities, to the chagrin of a lot of fans, but despite its odd choices bbc les mis never quite lost the heart of the story in the way bbc great expectations did. in my opinion at least.

maybe the show can pull it back and do its own thing with the story, but it's already thrown away so many opportunities for emotional weight that I just can't see it succeeding at this point. rudi dharmalingam as wemmick has piqued my interest so I'll probably go back to it, and get hurt again by whatever the hell they've done to his character.... honestly I'll probably skim through the whole series out of curiosity to see where miss havisham's plot goes, if nothing else, and angrily liveblog it when I'm inevitably disappointed 😭

hope this satisfied your curiosity anon! this answer was probably more than you bargained for haha. I just adore this story and have many feelings about it ✨

[eoieopda]

blog info

⇢ how tf do i pronounce your username?

oy-OPE-da. it’s the romanized version of 어이없다, which is one of my favorite korean words. listen to hoshi scream it here.

⇢ why do you have a problem with minors and ageless blogs?

i discussed this here. as of summer 2023, i am no longer blocking ageless blogs and am instead ignoring their interactions unless and until i have some reason to believe they're an adult. see here for some ways that i (and other creators) approach this.

⇢ can i request to be tagged for new stories or new parts?

i don't do fic-specific tags (with the exception of force quit) because it's a massive hassle. instead, i have permanent taglists which include fics/chapters + drabbles:

multi (for all of the groups listed below)

bts

seventeen

stray kids

ateez

⇢ can i tag you in xyz?

i track #eoieopda archive (and also #eoieopdaarchive because some people use that instead). i don't like to be tagged outright in fics if:

i didn't sign up for a taglist or otherwise consent to be tagged

i didn't beta it or have anything to do with its creation, and/or

we don't know/talk to each other (because i can't vouch for whatever it is you've tagged me in — or you, personally — and don't want to be explicitly linked to it).

⇢ when is xyz being posted/updated?

when i have the brain juice and time and i want to 😌

⇢ why is xyz on hiatus/discontinued?

likely because i, icarus, have flown too close to the sun. sometimes, the idea part of my brain moves faster than the follow-through part; and i need to take a silly little break before i’m able to pick up a story. sometimes, i lose interest entirely and will then remove something from my masterlist + make it very clear that a series is discontinued.

personal

⇢ your real name was leaked — can i call you that?

it doesn't bother me if people use my govt. name when they talk to/about me! my whole tagging system uses my nickname (jade) because my actual name wasn't supposed to get out, so that's (primarily) how i'm going to refer to myself on here.

⇢ you said you were adopted —can you tell me xyz about this entire process, what you know of your birth parents, what you remember about korea, etc.?

no thanks! i know very little about the whole thing because i was literally 18 months old. i've also had experiences on here where users' entire communication with me has been to ask/talk about these things, which is icky at best and fetishistic at worst (whether or not it's intentional).

⇢ i’m not korean — can i call you unnie/noona/hyung?

i don’t have a problem with this, and i actually find it pretty cute. keep in mind that my opinion here isn’t universal amongst koreans; and i did not grow up in my own culture, so koreans that did are entitled to feel differently.

⇢ can i come into your inbox and ask very invasive questions about your personal life and/or spew racist garbage and/or erase your identity and/or tokenize you?

thanks for checking — absolutely not! playing stupid games will win you stupid prizes (aka being blocked and/or reported).

⇢ i’m confused by your pronouns — which should i use?

my gender identity is essentially the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ emoticon at this point, so i use both she/her and they/them. and by that, i mean: pls don’t stick to one or the other (exclusively she, exclusively they) because i am not exclusively either.

i’m comfy with almost all “gendered” terms (sis, bro, dude, girlie, sir, ma’am, gworl, etc.) because i think gender is fake, lol. i do not vibe with “queen”, though, and i don’t know why. #kingjade

⇢ is it cool if i pop into your ask box with random thoughts, memes, tiktoks, non-k-pop stuff, etc.?

hell yeah, brother! let’s be friends.

⇢ you talk so much and it’s clogging up my dash — what do?

check my tag index here and filter shit to your heart's content!

requests (read the rules here before submitting)

⇢ who will you write for?

bts, seventeen, stray kids, and ateez.

i don't write for han jisung, kim seungmin, yang jeongin, or choi jongho as a personal preference. i adore them, but i don't see them in a romantic and/or sexual light.

⇢ are there any requests you won’t take?

i’m open to trying most kinks, dynamics, and AUs, depending on what's being requested of me (and the weather, what i ate for breakfast, the lunar phase, etc.) i'm down with poly!member x reader; and member x reader x member (etc.) dynamics, but i don't currently write strictly member x member.

hard passes:

non-con

anything involving minors

harry potter AUs

⇢ did you get my request? are you done yet?

pleeeeaaaaaaaaseeeee don’t. i did get your request. i’m a full-time attorney with fibromyalgia & ADHD and therefore cannot make any promises that my brain and/or body and/or schedule will allow me to finish things quickly.

i don’t complete every request i receive! sometimes, the requests are too similar to what i’ve done already, they don’t spark anything for me, etc. i reserve the right to pick and choose what i spend my time on.

rev. 12/9/23

[vetyver-soaked-stars]

I get why folks do softblocking but I also get why people hate it. But sometimes there's a point where the things you read and the interactions with your characters don't feel comfortable so you do it out of safety. I've had to do this a few times. My rules hard state that if all your intentions are are to sex up my muses, ya gonna get blocked. And yeah there are times you can talk things out and times where the alarm bells are ringing. My biggest gripe is when people use their rp tumblr as a personal tumblr that has nothing to do with their characters. There's reasons folks do the DNI personal blogs. I've always had this boundary drawn because honestly? Stuff like that clogs up the dash. And it honestly costs nothing to have a second blog. Just saying... I know the big thing right now is that the RPC here on tumblr has been dying but so much of it isn't great. I don't say this out of malice. A lot of it is cringe and judgy and...frankly? Exceedingly horny. Not all interactions have to be flirt/sex based (and this is coming from someone who is sex positive) but like...c'mon. I wanna see character building. I wanna see stupid crack of characters from different universes talking to each other. And for godsakes PLEASE put your smut under read more. It's not hard. It's not. I'm sorry, I needed to get this out there.

[gingerteaonthetardis]

WIP Telephone: "Spooky"

if you don't want to see what might become an increasingly long tumblr post, feel free to block the tag "WIP telephone." (i'll also be tagging it "long post," just in case. don't want to clog up people's dashes.)

when i logged on this morning and opined what to do with all the WIPs i know i'll never finish, it was brilliantly suggested that i offer some of them up to be collaboratively worked on by my pals here on tumblr. it's intended to be a tag game, of sorts, with each person adding maybe a hundred words (obviously, since my WIPs are all more than a hundred words, my starting excerpts are going to be… a bit longer than that, oops; and feel free to add more than that, if you feel like doing so) and then tagging someone else to add more, and so on, etc. etc.

if it's fun and anyone's interested, i'll do more, but i thought i'd start with something... 🍂 seasonally appropriate. 🍂 i'll be sharing additions as they come along!

also, tagging you for the next hundred words, because you're the one who started it all: dear @mrunmione (i'm not telling which doctor this is supposed to be; i'll let you pick!)

-

She hadn’t meant to say it.

“I’m not sleeping in here without you.”

In all honesty, she’s perfectly capable of sleeping on her own in a strange place; she’s done it plenty of times before. Living with the Doctor means getting used to sleeping in unusual spots. Hospital gurneys. Motel rooms in the far future where the beds float. Under ballroom tables, though that was just the once, and she’d had a lot to drink. The occasional jail cell.

Needless to say, she’s well acquainted with catnaps in odd places.

Only “odd” isn’t really the same as “haunted.”

And this place—wherever they are—is definitely haunted.

No matter what the Doctor says.

-

"Spooky," she decreed as they trudged up the damp path toward the house on the hill. "Think it's haunted?"

"There's no such thing," he insisted. The Doctor rolled his eyes in clear scepticism, but they both knew there was some reason the TARDIS landed them there. 

Entering through the unlocked door, they set about taking readings of the entrance hall and cramped lower rooms, all covered in dark wood and heavy tapestries. The decor was decidedly out of date, like something from a period film. No modern lighting, no electrical outlets to speak of. 

But though the place had something unsettling about it, it also seemed decidedly empty.

“This house is old,” the Doctor said, eyes intent, scanning over the low ceilings. “A few hundred years, I’d say. Maybe more."

When Rose wandered to the hearth, his supposition was confirmed by two small, framed sketches: two different women, their hair pulled back in artful ringlets and their faces set in gentle Mona Lisa smiles. One was dark and the other fair. And there were no names. 

They were both dated 1781. 

Before she could point them out, the Doctor was already running up the main staircase, rattling off jargon that she couldn’t even begin to understand—nonsense about atmospheric pressure and residual readings of… something—his voice too-loud in the stillness of the house. 

She trailed after him, only sort of half-listening. But as she turned the corner back into the hall, the whole place rumbled—and thumped, a sound like stones grinding against the bottom of a ship. The floorboards shook perilously under her feet, and she reached out on instinct, steadying herself against the base of the bannister.

“Doctor?"

The Doctor, of course, didn't so much as move. He remained stopped about halfway up the stairs, effortlessly balanced despite the unstable terrain. His head cocked and a half-smile on his lips, he said, "That wasn't a quake."

Of course not.

"What was it, then?"

His smile spread, becoming a full, face-overtaking, slightly manic sort of expression. "I have no idea."

To her very great alarm, he sounded delighted.

-

"Don't tell me you're scared, Rose," the Doctor laughs, sending the torchlight juddering through the darkness. "Look, it's cosy!"

"I'm not scared," she insists. "It's just—"

"Yes, spooky." It's a little too dim to tell, but she's pretty certain he's rolling his eyes. "So you've said." 

He'd picked her room for the night seemingly at random, nudging open doors until he found one with a suitable bed. And in the faint light, the bedroom does seem—nice. Less haunting, maybe, than the rest of the house. But still… off, somehow, in a way she can't quite put her finger on.

As she steps around him, careful not to cut off the wavering beam of the torch, she peers around, making note of all she can see: the crisp linens, the intricately carved wooden bed posts, the glint of polished glass—an oil lamp, she realises.

Something catches at the back of her mind, and she turns toward the Doctor with a frown already creeping over her face. "It's all sort of… clean, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, it's not musty or anything in here." Gesturing at the bed, she waits for the torch to illuminate the bedspread; startlingly, the coverlet is tucked down, as if someone had only just recently got in or out. Though, perhaps not. Maybe the last occupant of the house just really went in for turn-down service.

But then, she sees it, on the pillow…

She ducks down, looking closer at the little shadow against the pale linens. A faint waft of something carries up to her nose, and it takes her a moment to register just what it is: floral, reminding her faintly of Mickey's Gran.

"Lavender," she murmurs, thumbing over the little bundle of flowers, held together by faded ribbon. "It's fresh."

With a click, the torch light blinks out, and for an instant, she is overtaken by unstoppable, irrational fear. The Doctor is in the room with her, and as he's reminded her several times tonight, they've swept the whole house, searched every nook and cranny: there's nobody here.

But the wind howling outside the window, the faint blueness of the night, and the whisper of dry, bare tree branches scraping together all press in around her, thick as shadow, making her skin crawl and her breath catch.

The prospect of passing a whole night like this, alone with the dark and whatever lurks inside it, is almost too much to bear.

So, fine. She is a little bit scared.

Then there's a rustle, a scrape, a hiss, and then a match blooms with fire, lighting the sharp lines of the Doctor's face from below. He's grinning as he lowers the match to light the oil lamp.

"You're right," he says pleasantly. "This is spooky."

[young-dumb-and-vaccinated]

Cult Girl: Doctorate (Hannibal x Female!Reader) pt. 11

Cult Girl goes on a little solo excursion while Hannibal works.

@wisesandwichshark @pearlstiare

Trigger warnings: (fake) blood, mentions of death overseas, anti-choice harassment, discussion of abortion

Archie and Max leaving the picture was a problem you couldn't bring yourself to deal with when you awoke the next day. You anticipated a massive downward spiral if you didn't do something for yourself and fast. You'd spent so much time worrying about your schoolwork and your baby that it was long past due.

You made a couple of phone calls and found a GameStop a little out of the way with a used copy of Pokémon Alpha Sapphire for sale. About twenty minutes drive. Hannibal had back-to-back appointments clogging up his day, so it gave you an excuse to go on a little excursion.

You climbed into your car, picked an extensive playlist of your favorite songs and set off. You plugged the directions into your phone and let the map guide you. The roads narrowed as you watched your surroundings grow less and less familiar.

Soon enough, you pulled into a parking lot. Nestled between a Planned Parenthood and a used bookstore, the GameStop beckoned you. At the end of your tunnel vision was that game and nothing could stop you from getting it.

Certainly not from lack of trying.

"Stop right there!" A voice said. It chuckled, trying to make the rude interruption seem friendly.

An obstacle appeared in your line of sight: a plain-looking middle-aged white woman with dyed blonde hair. Just your garden variety Karen.

"Can I help you?" You said, giving your voice a distinct, annoyed bite.

She smiled, though not without discomfort. "Are you going, y'know, in there?"

She gestured to the building behind you. Uncertain of what she wanted or why she was making a trip to the GameStop so weird, you answered in the affirmative.

"Yeah, why?"

She wrapped her hand around your arm, as if to restrain you. Her touch made your skin crawl.

"I really don't think you should go in there."

You finally put the pieces together. This lady was just some anti-choice maniac, waiting outside a Planned Parenthood for any random pregnant woman to approach.

"Yeah, I totally carried this baby for five months just to get rid of it within a week of the legal termination threshold." You rolled your eyes. "I just want it to feel the maximum possible amount of pain when I destroy it."

The woman's face turned into one of abject horror and you smiled, feeling proud of yourself. You yanked your arm from her hand with full intent to walk away. That should have been the end of it.

"Wait!" She shouted, snatching you by the shoulder. "Please, reconsider. God gave you that little one because he wants you to be a mommy!"

"For the love of fuck, woman." You snarled. "Can you seriously not pick up on sarcasm? I'm not even going to the clinic. I'm going to the GameStop."

She wasn't convinced. "See, I think you're lying to me. I think you're telling me one thing and then you're gonna do another thing."

"What the hell is it any of your business, Karen?" You scowled at her. "Leave me alone!"

"Just pray about it, please!" She pleaded. "What if your baby grows up to be a soldier? Protecting your freedom?"

"Oh, then I should definitely kill it now." You snarked. "Would save him the trouble of getting blown up by other Americans in a senseless war like my dad."

Adda girl, [F/N]! You thought to yourself. Nothing gets nosy strangers to go away quite like revealing even more personal information!

She put both her hands on your protruding belly. "Don't worry, angel. Mommy isn't going to kill you! Aunt Laurie won't allow it!"

You vaguely remembered your obstetrician saying something about how twenty-week fetuses could hear the outside world. You weren't planning on subjecting the kid to violence this early on, but desperate times call for desperation.

You grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her down. She screamed, getting the attention of a few onlookers.

"Help!" She wailed, lying on the ground as if she couldn't get up. "I'm being attacked!"

You dashed as quickly as your legs could carry you into the GameStop. The lone cashier, a purple-haired girl with a nose ring, pretended that she hadn't been watching the altercation and looked back down at her sandwich.

"Welcome to GameStop." She said, hesitantly. "Are you... [F/N]?"

You nodded. "Yeah, I'm here for that copy of Alpha Sapphire."

"Tubular." She rummaged in a drawer beside her for the envelope.

A rather massive eevee plush displayed behind the counter caught your eye. "How much for her?"

The cashier placed the game on the counter and looked back at the massive eevee. "Fourty-four ninety-five."

"I'll take her too." You said.

The cashier pulled the eevee down from the shelf and scanned its tag.

"Aight, your total is sixty-nine eighty." She said.

"Nice." You snickered, reaching for your credit card.

The cashier smirked as you inserted the chip. "Hey, was that crazy lady accosting you outside?"

"I take it she does that a lot?" You asked.

She heaved a sigh. "You have no idea."

You looked behind at the large windows and saw the woman standing outside the door, waiting for you. You felt like a caged animal. Your eyes scanned the room and landed on a couple ketchup packets. A sick idea formed in your head.

"Are you gonna use those?" You asked, pointing to them.

The cashier glanced at the woman and raised her eyebrow. "Not if you have a better use for them."

The bell jangled as you walked out of the store with a shopping bag around your wrist and a ketchup packet in each hand. Just as suspected, the woman grabbed your arm.

"Oh, honey!" She exclaimed. "Before you leave, god put it on my mind to say a little prayer for the unborn soldier he's gifted you in your womb."

"I'd rather you not." You said, trying to yank your arm out of her surprisingly strong grip.

"You're brave, but foolish, girl." She barked, positioning herself in front of you. You fidgeted with the ketchup packets behind your back, opening them just enough.

The woman put both her hands on your belly. The second you felt her touch, you threw yourself backwards. You landed, not without pain, squarely on your ass.

"Oh my?" The woman covered her mouth with her fingertips. "Are you--"

You leaned forward and moaned in pain, clutching your baby bump with one hand while drenching your shorts in ketchup with the other. You pretended to cave around the pain, then threw yourself back, revealing a bloody stain leaking from between your legs. The woman shrieked.

"Oh my fucking god!" The cashier from the store said, rushing to your side. She put her hand on your shoulder and glared at the woman. "What did you do?!?"

"She pushed me and I think it hurt my baby!" You wailed.

"Holy shit, why would you hurt her baby?!" The cashier shouted, allowing you to slink your arm around her shoulder for support. She then snatched your shopping bag from the ground.

"I didn't mean to, honest!" She said, on the verge of tears. "I was just trying to spread god's love and joy-"

"By assaulting a pregnant woman?!" The cashier yelled. You were clutching your stomach in fake pain. She helped you to your feet. "Come on, let's get you to the clinic."

You conjured up some fake tears. "You killed my baby!"

"You wicked woman!" She cried out. Her voice faded out as you approached the clinic. "You don’t deserve a baby!"

You kept up the crying and wailing until you arrived at the Planned Parenthood. More interested in covering her own ass than begging for forgiveness, the crazy woman made herself scarce. Entering the clinic with an incriminating bloodstain on your pants was awkward, for a moment. But it was easy enough to explain and even earned a laugh or two from the doctors on staff.

Once you were completely certain the crazy lady had left, you scooped up your shopping bag, said goodbye to the cashier and climbed into the car.

Before you put the key in the ignition, you took a moment. You took a moment to do something you knew you shouldn't have.

You placed your hand on your belly and stroked it. "We make a pretty good team, huh?"

You didn't know why you paused. It wasn't like the fetus was going to answer.

"Sorry you had to see that." You said. "Or, I guess, hear that. I wish I could tell you that people aren't really like that in real life, but I can't. Either that or I'm just a magnet for insane people. Hope that it's not genetic."

It just occurred to you that, if your obstetrician was right, the fetus heard everything that you said about killing it. Logically speaking, you knew it wasn't developed enough to comprehend what you were saying, but you still felt like you owed it an apology.

"Hey, scamp." You said, appropriating a nickname your grandfather gave you. "I'm sorry that I talked all that shit back there. About killing you and whatnot. I don't want to kill you. I actually want you to live an amazing life."

Just then, you felt a kick. The doctor war right: there was no mistaking it. The baby kicked.

Your mouth hung dumbly open, delight and fear chasing each other around in your mind. "Holy crap!"

You drove home as fast as legally possible. You needed to get home. As you pulled into the driveway, you noticed that Hannibal's car wasn't there.

He'll be home any minute, you thought. Might as well stay out here to catch him when he arrives.

That was an hour ago. Not that you'd noticed. You would have sat in that car, talking to your baby for an eternity. It wasn't until you heard a tapping on the window did you exit your trance.

Hannibal examined the scene. The ketchup, the massive eevee and his suddenly very chatty fiancée shooting the breeze with her fetus. He smirked.

"Did we have a fun afternoon?"

[oftenderweapons]

Introducing the girlfriends: the looks.

Hello puppets! In this post I’d like to show how I imagine the OC Girlfriends in terms of face and looks, mostly in terms of fashion.

I won’t state how many times my self esteem abandoned the conversation as I made this post, so let me do a disclaimer before I make y’all suffer with me (sorry). These pictures come from my Pinterest board called “Simply incredible people”, which contains mostly photos of people that have very unique facial traits and that I use for reference. Now, ALL OF THESE ARE MODELS. They were photographed BECAUSE after hours of makeup and hair and clothes chosen perfectly for them, a set made up specifically to enhance their good looks, a fair bit of photoshop and unfairly good genetics they were put in the position of being beautified. Don’t think that these gorgeous folks are The Thing: I picked them because of specific reasons explained under each picture, and in my opinion all the guys are pretty far from dating perfect young women with perfectly symmetrical features and flawless complexion and... all of that. However, yes, in my mind they date regular, “unbeautified” versions of these women. If your self esteem can’t handle disgustingly beautiful models, then please, don’t open the “read more”. Also, you’re absolutely free to keep imagining your ideal girls and not check out this post, no hard feelings ✌️😘

However, if — like me — you are incredibly attracted to girls with pretty unique facial features, then do open. If you’ like girls, I’m sorry, you might have one (or more) new crush(es) after this post.

Now, all of the girls have Asian traits — because according to my plots and headcanons, (which you can find in my masterlist) the guys have always met their s/o while in Seoul/Korea and also because I’ve always imagined the girls Asian. However, I’m not saying that they like these specific types or looks, or that they’ll end up with a person with traditionally Asian traits: I am simply assuming in statistic terms. Also, since I write memberxFem!reader, they’re obviously all girls.

I only know two of the people inserted here (that is Vixen and Kitten). I might have accidentally inserted someone famous, however that was not my intention. Also, the girls have been chosen exclusively for facial features: there is no shipping going on between real people here.

After this lengthy introduction, let me move on to the real deal.

In case you need my masterlist, here it is! (Remember to vote for next prompt!!! Link in bio 🥰)

Enjoy✨💜

Vixen - (Namjoon)

— The face —

Baby face: yes

Doll lips: yes

Very intense, borderline scary, November-baby glance: yes.

This is Vixen, with her baby cheeks, her sharp, refined looks and a doll-like face that mixes innocence and seduction. Top that with deep red lipstick and artsy jewellery. Her eyes show ten thousand different feelings and her face is suitable for acting, being extremely expressive: every little sensation and emotion can be found in a quirk of the mouth or an arching of the eyebrow, a little curl of the nose or a pursing of her lips.

— The Look —

Total black winter look, basic and classy, thigh-high boots for her long legs, simple, plain bags and purses, and finally a long coat to keep her warm over her dresses usually characterised by a high neck and a generous slice of leg. But don’t let that fool you: her favourite looks are oversized sweaters stolen from Namjoon’s wardrobe — that obviously fit like dresses on her —, fluffy woolen tights or stockings and comfy shoes when they go on breakfast dates, but also thick jumpers, large jeans and comfy sneakers when they go for walks and bike trips.

Angel (Seokjin)

— The Face —

Traditional Korean Beauty: yes

Big eyes: yes

Soft pink lips: yes

Angel is the definition of Korean Beauty, looking young and innocent. She could easily have the face of an idol, with the purest of charms. And her cute bangs... yes.

— The Look —

Even though her job requires a total black look, which often means pretty flats, black trousers and a turtleneck, in her free time she likes wearing preppy looks, with lots of plaid prints and cute dresses that match Korean standards, with not-too-revealing necklines and a skirt that hits just above the knee. Match it all with cute, warm coats and small bags.

Kitten (Yoongi)

— The Face —

Intimidating look: yes

Angular jaw: yes

Plush lips: yes

Kitten has angular, almost aggressive facial features, characterised mostly by the rectangular shape of her face and her jaw, and quite jutting cheekbones. She has a rough, tough beauty which can be difficult to understand but absolutely charming to observe.

— The Look —

Another one with total black, but unlike Vixen, who likes coloured clothes once winter ends, Kitten keeps the black look all year round, inserting tiny splashes of colours with accessories and jackets. Expect a lot of turtlenecks and blazers for her work attire, but also fancy shirts for more elegant occasions, mostly silk blouses that offer a generous view of her bosom.

Giggles (Hoseok)

— The Face —

Strawberry blonde: yes

Freckles: yes

Too cute: yes

I’ve always imagined Giggles with a mop of messy reddish-blonde hair, may it be natural or dyed. I know the combo is pretty rare; still, she’s a fictional character so... a girl can dream.

— The Look —

A vintage mess of prints. She messes around with flowers and stripes and plaids and colours. You could most definitely spot her in a crowd. Even when she’s working (remember she’s a vet), she has very colourful scrubs and bright coloured clogs/nurse shoes. Overall too cute and tiny for her good, her being so small makes it easy for her to shop in the children department and find even more coloured, fancy prints.

Princess (Jimin)

— The Face —

Overall cute: yes

Gaze to command a photo shoot: yes

Borderline scary both in terms of beauty and power: yes

This small girl has the power to supervise everything, you can read it on her face (remember she works for a fashion magazine and organises photoshoots). Sheer calculating, organising force. And with a gaze like that, ready to make you wither and die were you to deny her, you see specifically why I chose her.

— The Look —

Smart attire, comfortable flats or slippers to dash from a place to another. Comfy, fashionable, practical. She’s always on a rush from an appointment to the other and she uses bags big enough to hold a skirt and a pair of heels in case she needs more elegant attire for a last-minute evening appointment in fashionable clubs and restaurants. She’s more than happy to play Barbie for Jimin, letting him choose how to dress her.

Lace (Taehyung)

— The Face —

Louder big dick energy than your ex: yes

A neck to die for: yes

Eclectic charm: yes

Honestly, I think Lace is too particular — strange even — to find someone who could possibly embody her. What made me pick this specific woman was her very incisive choice in clothing and accessories, but I’ll update her sooner or later, I think. As me and my friend said: you don’t find Lace, is Lace that finds you. (Also, if anyone has a Lace to suggest, please send links 💖)

— The Look —

Black tight dresses, all the time. Tight pencil skirts and anything that screams Fifties housewife; lots of robes, unusual cuts and premium fabrics — she is a designer and lingerie maker, after all. She doesn’t follow trends, she makes them. She is literally one of those people who looks good even with the most hideous, unfashionable things on. However, the moment she wears a silk slip dress, her power intensifies by a few thousand times — do not expect Taehyung not to get weak in the knees. In the house she’s absolutely comfortable wearing a robe with nothing underneath — and sometimes she doesn’t even tie it close. Taehyung is perfectly okay with that.

Candy (Jungkook)

— The Face —

Biggest smile: yes

Cutest lil nose: yes

Very squishable: yes

The small happy bean is a very gentle bean too. She is a graphic designer and a cartoon artist and it shows in her whole being, even in her facial features. I imagine her hair not too long, soft and wavy — though the most valuable asset to Jk is their scent. And look at those sweater(shirt) paws!!! Adorable.

— The Look —

First rule of Candy and Jk’s relationship is “my flannel shall be thy flannel”. Their wedding rings will probably be flannel shirts. Candy likes to pull them off with oversized sweats or coloured jeans. She also wears oversized sweaters — probably stolen from Jk’s wardrobe — together with leggins and mid-calf socks, especially since her workplace is not too strict with dresscode. She likes oversized and layered fits, using light cotton shirts and tank tops in the summer and fleece/flannel shirt and warm woolen turtlenecks in winter. Comfort always comes first. Expect her to use biker shorts and giant T-shirts and bulky shoes in the summer on her spare time.

An extra — since I’m sooooo gay for these two

Sora Choi and Yoon Young Bae are the two models that I immediately spotted respectively for Kitten and Vixen and the fact that they posed together made me super soft (I literally fell in love with both of them). Oh also!!! Yoon has posted on her insta the sweetest picture of her with a snow bear and it was like... a sign, but also so endearing and I’M SMITTEN, HEAD TO TOE IN LOVE WITH THIS SMALL CUTE LIL POTATO. She’s a cutie and Sora has the prettiest smile I swear to God I’d give the world for these two. *bisexuality upgrades*

Did you imagine them differently? Are there any of the girls that match or challenge your ideas? Leave your impressions in the comments!!! 😚☺️

[tmabigbang]

Masterpost of TMA Big Bang 2020 Fics

To prevent clogging up anyone’s dash, we have put all of these fics under a read more since there are 28 wonderful fics created for this bang, which makes for a bit of a long post! Below the cut are links and summaries to all the fics created for this bang! 

In addition to this post, you can also check out our fic page (which you can find here)! The fic page includes links to all the fics, art, and the team members that helped create them! You can also use some basic filters for rating and oneshot/multichapter to find fics.

Thank you again to all our participants, and we will see you next year!

Your Job’s A Joke (You’re Broke) by @bisexualoftheblade and @desert-lily

Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27590578

Summary: Working at the Magnus Institute was stressful by default. With monsters, mayhem, and potential primordial entities, it has very little expectations for being a comfortable job. However, everyone is allowed to have a little fun sometimes - even an archivist, their assistants, and their really creepy boss. Fueled by spite and a rampant lack of heterosexuality, they all try to balance their work life with a bit of fun and a healthy dose of bullying twelve-times divorced Elias Bouchard.

I Know The End by @williammatagot

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27947966

Summary: Except, for all that beautiful poetry, Eliot was wrong, because the world doesn’t end with a bang, sure, but it doesn’t end with a whimper, either. It ends with the distant-yet-deafening voice of the man Martin loves shouting through a ragged, wild throat--I open the door. (The world ends, Jon shatters, and Martin tries to fix it. The house tries, too, in its own way.)

From the Depth of the Spiral by @trickstergod14

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27842941

Summary: Michael had no idea what was going on. He suddenly woke up in the tunnels under the Magnus Institute with no memories of the past seven years after that fateful trip to Sannikov Land. Watch as he slowly spirals into madness, regaining his memories while strengthening his bond with the Distortion along the way. Can he hide all this from the other Archival Assistants? What will happen when Jon wakes up from his coma? And what does the newly crowned Distortion Avatar, Helen, have to do with all this?

Every Word I Say is Kindling (But The Smoke Clears When You’re Around) by @ohnoimdeathing

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27956897

Summary: The unknowing left Jon stirring in the nightmares of others, watching their torment and suffering and making everything worse. He wanted to wake up, to go back to Martin, Tim, Basira, even Daisy. But he didn’t know how to. Until a voice told him to choose Though, to be honest, he doesn’t remember actually making the choice to stay a monster and live rather than be human and die. The only injury the doctors will talk about is his missing eyes, and why are all the doctors Scottish? At least Martin is here.

Spinning ‘Round (like two sides of a coin) by @awayofunderstandingit

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27835756

Summary: Time is a construct. What we know as past, present, and future all exist at the same time, ad infinitum. • Guided not by time but a spoken word poem, follow along the lives of two intertwined souls, Timothy Stoker and Sasha James. The story of their friendship from the time they meet, through growing apart, to when they fall back together, and through their time working at the Magnus Institute. Witness slices of their lives—not memories, memories would suggest the past—as they exist, ad infinitum, even at The End.

retrouvailles by @jet-siquliak

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27818092

Summary: The Magnus Institute burns. The archivist, for all intents and purposes, burned with it. In a dingy hospital room lies what remains - Jonathan sims. weak, powerless, and insignificant. On Jon’s last day in the hospital, Martin awakes from a coma, unscathed. Melanie King kicks the dirt that once housed the institute. Tim stoker wakes up in the middle of nowhere. Elias Bouchard is dead. No one knows where to go from there. Or: the destruction of one home and the making of another.

Still, I’ll Always Keep the Memory by @revolutionnaire-e

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27932125

Summary: [MARTIN turns, stepping out of the shadows towards him. It is blood, not tears. His left eye is not his own. His eyes never shone that blinding green, never shone with such malice or self-satisfied pride.] MARTIN BLACKWOOD Pleasure to see you again, Archivist.

Making Home by @cuddlytogas

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27664805

Summary: After the events in the Panopticon, Jon and Martin rush to leave London. But making their home in an idyllic safe house isn't that easy: between the layer of dust, and Forsaken still clinging to Martin's heels, it could be some time before they reach an understanding.

called your name ‘til the fever broke by @corpsesoldier

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27845161

Summary: Basira made a promise to her partner. At the end of the world, a monster comes and demands she keep it.

assorted family photos by @lesbianbirds

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27903979

Summary: When setting off on a research trip, it is advised that you prepare yourself for certain oddities that may greet you. or; key moments in a world where the entities are weaker and everyone got a bit more therapy

Timothy Stoker’s Guide to Dating by @pezilla

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27841267

Summary: Timothy Stoker has a lot of advice when it comes to matters of the heart, online agony aunt, gossip monger and general love guru. He has a list and he sticks to it. Or he did. That was before he took a job at the Magnus Institute and before he met three of the most fascinating and frustrating people to ever come into his life. Rule #7 under no circumstances fall for a co-worker. Yeah, that rule was starting to become a problem.

Running the Institute by @drowsy-salamander

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27878306

Summary: Caroline Ferguson, the entirety of the Magnus Institute's legal department, is furiously ignoring any weirdness that could be going on in her workplace, from the tech issues to the vanishing colleagues to the everything about Artefact Storage, Caroline will turn a very deliberate blind eye. They're are not her problem. Now if only those murders could also stop.

kindred spirits (not so scarce as I used to think) by @pollylittlehigher-littlelower

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27914821

Summary: An Anne of Green Gables inspired AU, set in modern day England. Jon and Georgie are childhood best friends, but the two stop talking after a falling out. Even doing their best to avoid each other, Georgie struggles to escape him, even while dealing with her own mental health issues and a blossoming romance with her housemate, Melanie. Is Jon truly the kindred spirit she once considered him? Or will the two eventually part ways for good?

Friends of Empty Graves by @artswaps

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27974807

Summary: After the coffin, she cuts her hair. Who is Alice Tonner? People are searching for her in the space she left behind, in the person she was. Daisy looks elsewhere, and tries not to choke.

just let the feeling grow by @ajkal2

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27838447

Summary: Jon is a musician. He plays songs for a living. Except love songs. He doesn't do love songs, and he makes this quite clear with anyone interested in working with him. Except his manager has booked him for a wedding. Without asking. With days before the festivities start, Jon needs help. Desperately. He won't get it from his hosts, the Lukas family. He certainly won't get it from his manager. However, there's a certain amateur poet on the Lukas' staff who has a talent for making love sound genuine.

World Cold and Hard, Moth Boy Warm and Soft by @lcjenkinswriting

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27827491

Summary: Jon, a young moth fairy, leaves the nest in search of a place that feels like home

tapes winding forward by @ghostbustermelanieking

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27858721

Summary: Martin ignores him, stops him mid-sentence to say, "Jon, what have you heard about time travel?" --- Martin and Jon wake up two years in the future. It goes about as well as can be expected.

MAG 26.5: Beach Episode by @ebenrosetaylor

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27882746

Summary: Sasha is aware of the rising tensions in the archives after Martin was stalked by Prentiss and after she had her own encounter with Michael. In an attempt to boost morale and bring them closer together, Tim suggests that they all visit the beach to unwind and get their minds off of all things paranormal. Sasha takes it upon herself to make sure that everyone has fun and relaxes, but she forgets to give herself that luxury.

Rewrite The Rulebook by @radiosandrecordings

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27823774

Summary: "Panic! Bloody panic! I've been out since I was fifteen and never once actually brought someone home. I think I just wanted to seem like I had my life together, y’know? Mainly I just... I think I just wanted someone to be there with me, so I wasn't just alone with her the entire time. A bit of comfort.” There was pause as Martin let out a dramatic sigh, seemingly relieved to ramble out his thoughts. "... I could go with you. If you want."

A Test In Patience by @talking4the1

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27917749

Summary: Elias is going about his day as the new head of the Magnus Institute in 1995. Some spreadsheets to do, meetings to attend mundane and supernatural. Nothing seems out of place until The Eye calls him to Bournemouth.

Of Mothers and Memory by @loverdontleave

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27856585

Summary:  There is a story to be told, of two people, a mother and a son. Of their history together, and the sacrifices they made for each other. Perhaps they loved each other once, but that thread of connection has weakened on one end, fraying away. And it is so, so cold.

Would That I Were Golden Dust by @that-one-girl-behind-you

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27734197

Summary: The world is a lot more dangerous with your soul walking by your side, and Entities aren’t shy about feeding on golden Dust.

Till Death, Parted by @bigowlenergy

Ao3 Link:https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27749680

Summary: Jon gets caught after ripping out Gerry’s page by Trevor & Julia, and through a comedy of errors ends up engaged as an excuse. Somehow, Jon gets out alive, Gerry is freed, and they have the two hunters accompanying them as bodyguards - and as best man and best woman - without a fight. Living alone in Gerry’s London safe house afterwards will be totally fine. Jon is fine. He knows what coping is and everything! Totally fine.

The Spoken Word by @drumkonwords

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27802708/chapters/68066326

Summary: Jon wants. Their pinky twitches — stretching and curling to the tune of something musical. The song of wanting, with its motifs of long, low notes. Starting quiet and mumbling up into Jon’s chest until the strings of their heart vibrate like the strings of a double bass and all they can do is wonder who’s tune they’re matching. But they know.

First Aid by @platypik

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27948284

Summary: Jon is certain Martin has been acting strangely all morning. When Martin offhandedly mentions he took a bad tumble off the tube to work, Jon suddenly Knows that the fall had given Martin a nasty fracture. Despite his desperate pleading, Martin stubbornly refuses to let Jon drive him to the hospital. In fact, it seems he would much rather take care of it himself than have Jon worry and fuss over him. Jon would disagree.

Burning Bright, In the Forests of the Night by @triffidsandcuckoos

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27915400

Summary: The safehouse bursts into flames at their backs. You can choose to change the path. Just be ready for what else you might change.

i’ve been static for too long by @furryjefferson

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27887878

Summary: Jonathan Sims ends up with a stranger’s phone on the way home from work. All signs point to the Magnus Institute, and all roads lead to its mysterious archivist: Martin Blackwood.

through the clouds like a moonbeam by @digital-waterfall 

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tmabb20/works/27877402

Summary: After passing through the Vast’s domain, Jon is left with an unexpected surprise-- a pair of wings. Unsurprisingly, Martin finds them beautiful. Also unsurprisingly, Jon does not.

[remys-lucky-franc]

Remy x MC (Queen of Thieves) - Kissing Prompt #14

This is the final ‘kiss prompt’ that I have on my request list. I’m sad 😔

I’ve really enjoyed working on these - this wee challenge got me back into the habit of writing regularly which is so nice as I’d been doing ‘sit and stare at a blank page’ thing for months, thank you for inviting me to join in folks.

Prompt #14 - a kiss so desperate that that the two wind around each other, refusing to let go until they are finished - requested by lovely @mcira for lovely Remy

It’s a sort of a ‘good heist goes bad’ alt-version of the ‘first ever kiss on film’ heist from Remy’s S1. Also, I relocated it to Barcelona because Paris is too inland 😂

Written from MC POV.

Word count ~6100 (marked #long fic if anyone wants to filter it away - adding ‘read more’ isn’t reliable - don’t want to clog anyone’s dash x)

TW: drowning / broken bones

—-

[MORE]

[[MORE]]

—-

I curse, scrambling to keep my balance as the yacht lists suddenly to the right; my arms flailing, thrown backwards trying to grip at the doorway to stay upright. I collide with it and stretch my hands out to save myself as I hit the ground awkwardly: the crack from my arm makes me feel sick to my stomach. Furniture shifts. Decor clatters to the floor. Lights overhead flicker violently. What the hell was that noise? Something has gone very, very wrong.

—-24 hours earlier —-

Remy and I have spent well over a month on this con now, establishing and ingratiating ourselves with the obnoxious specimen that is Parker Vos. Ugh, even his name makes my skin crawl. Tonight we’ve met up for some drinks: Parker’s idea. Remy’s positioned himself between Parker and I at the bar of the plush cocktail lounge and I watch on as Parker charges his glass again, loudly laughing, clapping his hand on Remy’s shoulder. Remy clinks glasses with him, smile jovial, eyes full of myrth; swallowing down the liquor to perfectly conceal the bile I know is steadily rising within his throat. If there is anyone who dislikes Parker Vos more than I do, it’s Remy Chevalier.

Watching Remy work a con has been quite an experience. He knows instinctively what people want to see and hear - oftentimes even before they know themselves. He reads their body language with practiced ease and plays his part to meet The Gilded Poppy’s ends: a master of assuaging insecurities or fuelling egos. And I have never known an ego like Parker’s. He’s spent half of the evening acting like Remy’s his long-lost best friend, and the other half undressing me - his buddy’s ‘wife’ - with cold, soulless eyes.

Parker’s on his feet, moving to refill my champagne flute but I move my hand to cover the top, opening my mouth in a half-protest.

He grins at me as I giggle, “I shouldn’t - I’ve had too much already-”

Tutting and moving my hand away from the opening of glass, he pours another generous serving of fizz. I make a big deal out of rolling my eyes at him and exclaiming that’s he’s ‘such a bad influence’. Inside I’m far from smiling - I hate guys who behave like this.

Parker doesn’t seem to want to let go of my hand, his fingertips trace my palm casually, an amused, self-satisfied grin spread over his face. I feel colour rising rapidly from my chest to the tips of my ears and Parker raises an eyebrow at me - clearly delighted that he’s gotten me flustered - but it’s not his touch or his gaze that’s set me alight. It’s the way that Remy’s eyes burn into me from the next seat, flecks of gold and green glitter like fire and the mask he wears is one that I can’t quite decipher, the only clue to his true feelings being the exaggerated bob of his throat as he continues to pretends he’s oblivious to the game Parker’s playing. I simper as I extract my hand from Parker’s to toast our glasses. I know Remy and I aren’t really married, but Parker doesn’t: this guy really has zero shame.

Remy’s seamlessly switched to wearing a playful smirk as he reaches across me, clinking all three of our glasses together, “Ma cherie, the bubbles are going to her head, Parker - look how flushed she is!”

His free hand reaches up affectionately cupping my cheek and I feel myself sink longingly into his gentle touch, his daring wink makes my heart stutter as Parker drones on, boasting about only ordering the very finest champagne for his friends.

A short time later, Remy excuses himself and he hasn’t even reached the bathroom before Parker has slid across to occupy his stool, angling himself into me just a little closer than could be considered appropriate. He’s such a snake, it takes all my energy to fix a sweet, naïve smile on my face when his hand comes to rest on my arm; the way his touch makes me feel compared to Remy’s is so stark in its contrast. He’s watching my face intently as he smirks at me - always bragging about his wealth and possessions, always looking for any sign that he’s impressing me.

He’s acting shocked that this is is the first time I’ve been to this particular bar, given that it’s one of Barcelona’s hot-spots, wondering out loud why my husband never brought me here before now. I sip daintily at my glass as I tell him this sort of place is generally outside of our budget, that it would only ever be somewhere that we’d come for a special occasion. As Parker nods, sacharrine-sweet condescension guising as sympathy, I think about how Remy was absolutely right when he told me he reckoned Parker gets a real kick out of feeling like the Alpha Male in any room and I lean into it. He’s back onto his favourite brand of champagne again - asking me if I ever tried it before tonight. I have, but I play along, feeding the narrative, telling him exactly what he wants to hear: Remy would be proud of me.

I shake my head wistfully, “It’s really delicious, it’s such a lovely treat to have something so decadent. I can understand it being your favourite, Parker - you have really good taste.”

He sighs, looking almost troubled, “You know it makes me sad that a girl like you can’t have everything her heart desires. I’ve got cases galore of the stuff on my yacht. I have it brought in directly from the vineyard just outside Epernay.” He pauses, quirking his head at me, “Say, have you ever been on a yacht?”

I think about what Remy’s always tells me about the best and most convincing cons: they stick as closely to the truth as possible. I feel a genuine smile blossom as I tell Parker about the little sailboat my grandfather had and how I loved spending time on it with him when I was a little girl. I can hear the warmth in my own voice and I know my eyes are sparkling as I think about those happy memories, but rather than ask me anything about my grandfather or my childhood, Parker patronises me and uses it as another opportunity to play ‘The Big I Am’. He chuckles as he tells me that wasn’t a real boat, then reels off what sounds like the manufacturer’s sales pitch for his top-of-the-range, fully customised yacht. Heaven knows, I really want to punch this guy but I nod, maintaining my rapt expression - all wide-eyed and utterly impressed. As he drones on, my brain wanders thinking how the same conversation would have gone sitting here with Remy instead.

Parker’s incessant boasting continues as he drawls about how much he would love to take me out on his yacht, “I think a girl like you would appreciate a boat like mine you know, and you’d look so good on it.”

Such. A. Creep.

I shoot him a rueful smile before biting my lip and looking down at the my hands. My fake wedding ring sparkles up at me under the low lights of the bar. I can feel Parker’s beady eyes on me watching my every move like I’m his prey. I fidget with the golden band and I know I’m working this con just right when he pushes my hair back from my face and tips my chin upward to look at him. A grin slithers across his face - poison hidden just behind the facade.

“Why don’t you come on the yacht with me this weekend, baby? You can have as much of this champagne as you like - I’ll show you how you deserve to be treated.”

I don’t have to fake being a little taken aback: I know it’s been our objective to get on that yacht, and I knew we were reeling him in, but the blatancy of his invite still knocks me off guard!

I glance towards the bathrooms and see that Remy’s making his way back across the bar. I use the shock of the invitation to my advantage, worrying my bottom lip between my teeth as I tell Parker, “Remy’s coming back.” I look up at him through my lashes and breathe, “Parker, I- I don’t know? It sounds amazing, but honestly, I’m not sure I should.”

Parker searches my dark eyes, voice smug, so confident that his charms have me falling for him; that he’s so irresistible I’d be ready to betray my husband with him, “I think you do know. You just don’t want to hurt Remy, because you’re a sweet girl. But I’ll make a deal with you, I’ll send you the directions to where she’s docked - and I’ll be there waiting. If you come...”, his thumb brushes across my lips and I draw in a sharp breath while my stomach lurches. His voice lowers as he stares at my mouth, “I’ll show you, I can give you everything you ever wanted and more besides.” Then he’s gone, quickly slithering back to his own bar stool, duplicitously clasping and shaking Remy’s hand as he returns, as though he didn’t just proposition his wife.

—-

Remy fumed about the audacity of Parker Vos the whole way back to the penthouse last night. And I thought he disliked the guy before... I’d hate to see how Remy would react if someone hit on his real wife because he is the most convincingly jealous fake-husband I’ve ever seen. And his attitude towards our mark got even worse when Parker text me with the coordinates for Port Vell Marina.

When we got back we debriefed Nikolai on all of the night’s events and came to the conclusion that me going to the yacht alone was not an option. I argued that I was more than capable of handling him but Remy was adamant that Parker was an entitled creep and it was too dangerous. Nikolai agreed with Remy, and when I huffed that he would trust Vivienne to fly solo, I have never seen him look more annoyed. He barked at me that he it was his decision, his responsibility and he refused to put any member of his team into that position alone, especially where there was no option for back up if things started to take a wrong turn. As much as I hated to back down, I knew from his tone that he was being completely honest and I should apologise and accept his decision. We spent the rest of the evening coming up with our next move - for Remy and I to arrive at Parker’s yacht together.

—-

We arrive at the beautiful Marina at Port Vell the following afternoon and I don’t have to feign how impressed I am. It is absolutely stunning - the sun dapples the turquoise blue waters while every gleaming yacht is sleeker and grander than the last.

Remy’s holds my hand firmly as we head towards Berth 26 where Parker’s imposing yacht is docked. Our play this afternoon is that I was heading out to meet Parker when Remy asked where I was going and I couldn’t think of any reason for him not to come along that didn’t seem strange or suspicious.

We reach the yacht and I see Parker. The irritate look on his face is replaced in an instant as he wraps us both in a friendly hug, before ushering us onboard. As he takes my hand to help me up the steps, he shoots me a look as though to enquire ‘why the hell aren’t we alone?’ and I drop my head like I’ve never been more deeply disappointed by anything in my life.

Remy has Parker chatting about the spec of the boat and I fear that he may never shut up about it. We spend at least fifteen minutes in the cockpit as Parker regales us with tales about how he got rid of his last captain, how he prefers to sail the yacht himself: bravado, bravado, bla bla bla. My cheeks hurt from the fake grin I have plastered across my face but I really lose the will to live as he places a captain’s hat on my head, cracking a joke to Remy about female drivers and saying that if I felt brave enough, he might even let me steer later. As we walk I ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ where appropriate, observing the ostentatious gold fixings and over-the-top ornate features and I conclude that no amount of money can buy you class.

When we eventually reach the sun deck, Remy raises an eyebrow at me, “Oh. Ma cherie, I think we may be intruding. Parker, were you expecting other company?”

I cringe as my eyes land on the biggest bunch of roses I’ve ever seen, sat next to a bottle of the same champagne we were drinking in the bar last night. I know Parker is a truly awful person, but I can’t help but feel a little sorry for him. His cheeks colour lightly, clearly having forgotten that he paid someone to set this up for him and his mouth works hard at opening and closing for a few painful seconds before his brain catches up, “Oh! Those? A ‘friend’ of mine was supposed to join me a bit before you both arrived. Then I thought we could have some drinks together, all four of us.”

Remy nods, his expression neutral, but eyes sharp, “I see. And they’re running late?”

Parker shrugs, eyes flicking to look at me as he lies, “She cancelled at the last minute. Something else came up.”

Remy wraps his arm around me making a show of planting a soft kiss on my cheek, his sympathetic words juxtaposed to the smirk apparent in his tone, “How awful, cherie! Good old Parker’s been left in the lurch. And after going to all that trouble too!”

I grimace, “I’m really sorry to hear that, Parker.”

Parker clears his throat, snatching up the champagne bottle, “Yeah. I’ll grab us some glasses.”

As he heads inside, I dig Remy in the ribs with my elbow and hiss, “What the hell was that?!”

Remy grins, his face full of mischief, “It’s obvious that I suspect there’s ‘something going on’ here”, he gestures between me and the roses, “and if he knows I’m willing to fight for you mon couer, it makes you all the more attractive to him...”

Knowing he’s right, but hating it, I pull a face.

He winks at me, “Plus, your Remy wants to have a little fun making him squirm.”

—-

We set sail a little after two-thirty, and as the afternoon progresses, it’s not just Parker who Remy is making squirm. Aside from a variety of vaguely passive aggressive jokes about being stood up and dating disasters - at one point even suggesting that I set Parker up with one of my friends, Remy is possibly the most tactile he’s ever been with me during this con: his hand is either holding mine, on my knee, or touching my face at every given opportunity. And his strategy is working because every single time Remy’s hands are on me, Parker’s eyes follow.

I know it’s all for Parker’s benefit but I just can’t help the way my heart races when Remy touches me. I have to keep telling myself it’s just for the con - all a part of his strategy. I repeat it over and over like a mantra: ‘It’s just for the con. It’s not real. It’s just for the con.’ But it feels so good. So real. And I want him so badly my chest aches.

Part of my role on today’s outing is scouting out the location of the reel of film we’re trying to steal. We’ve long suspected that it’s somewhere on the boat. So while the men continue to drink and chatter, I excuse myself and head to the restroom, getting myself deliberately lost in the labyrinth below deck. I’m fascinated by the amount of cool and interesting stuff that Parker owns despite being an uncultured jerk. I wonder if he has any genuine interest in any of it at all, or if it’s entirely for bragging rights and to impress other people. The further I wander unrestricted, the more I marvel and get to wondering just how rich Parker actually is? It’s so unfair - he deserves pretty much nothing that’s aboard this floating treasure trove... Then I see it - a can of film inside a glass case! Surely that’s got to be it? I quickly check the case, it’s pretty secure and looks like it��s inbuilt to the wall cabinet?! That means... This must be it - the first kiss ever recorded... I beam from ear to ear as I think about how excited Remy is going to be when I tell him!!

Unbeknown to me, upstairs whilst Remy and Parker stand at the railing staring out into the glittering dark blue of the Med, Remy decides to lean a little further into his role of suspicious and jealous spouse. Remy subtly turns the conversation from small talk to a grilling before Parker even realises that he’s walking into a trap, “It’s a shame your friend couldn’t make it, Parker. It would have been lovely to meet the woman who’s caught your eye... You were hoping that the four of us could have drinks together, right?”

Parker nods, sipping at his glass.

“But you didn’t know I was coming?”

Parker laughs, deflecting, “Uh, yeah! I got that wrong, I thought you were otherwise engaged. I’m so glad you could make it, buddy! It’s always great to see you!”

Remy cocks his head to the side, face still open and neutral, like he’s trying to understand, ”Sure, I’m glad I could join. But I’m confused? You were planning on the four of us drinking that champagne, oui?”

Parker clears his throat, suddenly realising that Remy might actually not be as much of a mug as he’s taken him for.

Remy continues, face visibly hardening as he speaks, “From where I’m sitting, there’s no mystery lady, and no Remy? And - well - that just leaves you and my wife sailing around the Mediterranean with a bottle of champagne and a big bunch of roses, Parker.”

Parker waves his hands in the air defensively, “Wow, Remy!! Slow down - I don’t know where you think you’re going with this, but you’ve got it all wrong! You’re putting two and two together and getting five, my friend!”

Remy huffs a bitter laugh, his voice now dripping with sarcasm, “Oh, five? So, I have it all wrong that my wife was halfway out the door to come here, to be with you, alone? Seems convenient that your lady-friend mysteriously couldn’t make it at the last minute? The one I’ve never heard you mention before? Please, explain it to me, Parker. Because it looks to me like you’ve got designs on my wife.”

Parker stutters to find an answer for a second before the yacht jolts violent throwing both men to the ground.

—-

I cradle my arm to my chest and grit my teeth as I clamber back onto my feet, nausea washing over me as I try my best not to move it again. Safe to say I don’t need a medical degree to tell me I’ve broken something.

After that god-awful metallic grinding, groaning noise everything has gone quiet. Eerily quiet. The normal lighting has gone, but the emergency lighting has kicked in casting a sickly green hue all around. I need to get back up to deck, to see what the hell just happened, to make sure Remy is ok!

I move towards the stairwell door and as I wrench it towards me, I’m met with a rush of cold water that makes me gasp. Oh this is bad. This is really, really bad. I stare at the fast-moving seawater spilling in, swirling around my feet: I’m rooted to the spot as panic rises rapidly in my chest. I’m not sure how many seconds have ticked by when I hear the roar of my name. Remy. I can’t see him, but I scramble towards the sound of his voice and call out to him, “I’m down here! Remy! I’m here!”

Water is rapidly filling the space below deck as Remy throws open the door of the opposite stairwell. I lurch towards him, sloshing through it, my limbs twice as heavy and struggling to stay upright against the slippery surface.

Remy wades through the corridor to reach me, calling to me, “I’m coming, cherie, it’ll be ok!” As we meet somewhere near the middle his hands grasp my shoulders as he gives me a quick once over, brows knit together when he sees how I’m holding my quick-swelling arm, “Merde! Is that broken?!”

I wince, nodding. The pain radiates from my wrist making my fingers tingle and my head buzz. Remy’s got one arm around me and he’s gripping at the walls with his free hand, moving us steadily toward the stairwell he came down: the water’s around my waist now. He keeps repeating, ‘it’s ok, it’s going to be ok’, but his usually calm voice jitters and I’m not sure if he’s saying it for my benefit or if he’s trying to make himself believe it. We reach the stairwell and Remy ushers me through the door. The tilt of the yacht makes it hard to climb the steps, but we fight to ascend. Up. Up. Up. We’re around half-way when the yacht jolts unexpectedly again; Remy grabs for the wet handrail. Every muscle in his body strains to keep us in place, to somehow stop us from careering back down the staircase. I feel lightheaded from the way my damaged arm jerks as he catches us, but it’s better than the alternative of plunging back down into the murky water. We resume our climb and make it up the final steps together. Only at the top do I truly appreciate the incongruous angle the yacht lists to, and start to properly grasp just how deadly this situation could be. The sounds of straining metal and hissing water fill the space around us and I’m scared. More scared than I’ve ever been in my life.


We scramble our way out across the badly-angled yacht, clinging to the side rails for purchase as we move: we need to get off this boat. It can’t end like this. In the time I’ve been below deck, dark clouds have rolled in and the rain pelts down on us. As we reach the side of the yacht, and I suck in a deep lungful of air trying to black out the pain radiating up and down my arm. Trying to steady my nerves, I tell myself, ‘We just need to get on the lifeboat, getting upstairs was the hardest part. Come on, you can do this - you can do this! We’re almost there, it’s going to be-’ But my silent pep talk is cut short and a sense of dread floods through me as I watch Remy surge around and around, a hand raking through his soaking hair as he yells,

“He’s gone! That bastard! He’s left us!”

Remy’s hanging over the side, trying to locate Parker, frantically yelling his name out into the dank, misty distance. But it’s useless - he’s long gone. Fresh panic rises as what that means sinks in: that snake abandoned us and the sinking ship. And he’s taken the only life vessel with him. A storm’s rolling in and visibility is poor. We’re miles from the coast without another boat in sight. The water this far out isn’t frigid but it’s still cool enough to catch hypothermia without the right clothing if you’re in it for a couple of hours - but we’re likely to end up in there because this yacht is going down. I’m not sure how long I could tread water for with a broken arm? I choke back my horror as I realise - I don’t think we can’t make it back. He’s left us out here to die.

Tears silently streak my face, mingling with saltwater and rain as I turn to Remy. I feel like I’m moving in slow motion, but he’s the most animated I’ve ever seen him, his hands shake and he curses as he pulls useless items out of one of the inbuilt storage benches, tossing them onto the wet deck behind him. I tug at his sleeve and rasp, “There’s no way off, is there?”

He refuses to meet my gaze, yanking his arm away from me, rummaging deeper, muttering in frustration. But I refuse to be brushed off, not now. I pull on his sleeve again, “Remy! Just, stop.”

He whirls on me, his usually smiling eyes are wild as they meet mine. And before I know what’s happening, right there on the deck of the part-submerged yacht, Remy pulls my face to his, mouth crashing desperately into mine. I gasp at the sensation of him. Rough. Passion-filled. Real. His lips spill every frenzied confession I ever wanted to hear and I’m losing myself in him; rapt in every disclosure. The surge of emotion between us swells my pounding heart and fills my soul, a choir with one refrain: he loves me, he loves me, he loves me. My body breaks into song - lyrical, a groan against Remy’s supple lips: rejoicing, dancing, dopamine-high. A million melodies, harmonies, symphonies rush through us as we cling to each other against the stormy saltwater spray. His touch is electric, flesh warm against my skin, deft fingers knotted in my hair drawing me close. Closer. So close I feel two heartbeats pulse through me like an orchestra nearing crescendo. I’m soaked, hurt and terrified, but somehow I’ve never felt more alive than I do right now, exalted in his arms. My hand grazes over the stubble of his jaw, the high arc of his cheekbone: my fingertips trace every beautiful feature, mapping every crease, every dimple. If this is our coda, if this is how it all comes to an end, I want to succumb remembering every delicious second of this kiss - every sensation, every caress, every breath, every poetic unspoken word. I want my finale to be us.

Our kiss ends breathlessly, foreheads touching: both unwilling to part. Remy’s lips hover over mine like we’re magnetised. Green eyes search my own as I gaze upon the face I love through dark lashes, trembling. I cover his heart with my palm - I never want to let him go. Seconds tick past that feel like minutes until he finally breaks away and I gulp for air. Bereft, my body aches for him.

Remy’s rifling through the storage benches again, items shoved from side to side, thrown and discarded until he shouts triumphantly, flare gun in hand! Slick hands fumble to load the cartridge, then he steps away from me, pointing the gun above his head, firing high. We watch as a plume of intense fire illuminates the sky above us, a beautiful SOS, hanging in the air before slowing making its descent to the sea.

The stricken vessel below us strains and groans as Remy grips my hand in his, “We aren’t going out like this, cherie.” He says it with such conviction and determination that my heart stutters. My eyes widen as he brandishes a life buoy at me. “There’s only one.”

Why am I not even surprised that a jerk like Parker went for 24-Carat light fittings but scrimped on the most basic of safety features and maintenance? I shake my head at Remy, fear threatens to take over, “We’re not jumping?!”

Remy exclaims, “We have to! We can’t stay on ‘til it sinks, it’s too dangerous! We need to get as far away as we can. We jump together and I promise you - I won’t let go of your hand. Ever.”

A cacophony of glass cracks and metal tears. Engineering crumbles against a backdrop of smoky neon as we huddle together at the edge of semi-capsized yacht. The rain continues to drive against us, and I understand why we have to jump, but I hate that it’s the only option. My hand fits inside Remy’s and he squeezes it tightly, my pulse racing as we count down together from three, two, one...

As we hit the cool water I cry out, pain seers through my busted arm and makes the world seem dull and frayed around the edges. Everything under water is eerily dark and silence rings in my ears as I plunge beneath the surface. In those seconds it feels strangely peaceful. Serene. My mind, so busy moments before, is a blank. An instant sedation - each nerve numb: novocaine static. It’s not until I feel Remy jerk at my hand, still firmly clasped in his, that my brain reconnects. I kick my feet and follow Remy upwards, breaking the waves, choking and gasping for air.

Remy manoeuvres the life buoy between us, urging me to take hold, his hand cupping my cheek, pushing back my sodden hair, eyes raking over me, “Are you ok??”

I cough and splutter as I nod my head at him: I’m fine. Remy doesn’t look convinced, but he doesn’t argue with me either. He takes charge of getting us away from the yacht and I follow him blindly, feeling dazed, clinging to the buoy. Minutes later, the yacht goes under and the rapid movement of air and water sends pieces of debris swirling perilously to the surface. A watery scrapyard bobs around us.

I feel sick and dizzy and I’m so cold that my teeth chatter. Did anyone see the flare? Is help coming?

Remy repositions himself and wraps both arms around me as we float aimlessly together. I don’t know how long passes, but every so often he says my name and jolts me to keep me awake, and honestly, I’m trying, but it’s so hard to keep my eyes open. I tell him I’m trying, but I feel so weak. Remy says I’m in shock and I mumble, “That kiss was the best shock I ever had.”

I feel the rumble of his laugh roll through me, and then his lips meet mine again. Soft this time. Slow. Tender. His affection washing over me. I feebly smile and sigh into his kiss, his comforting warmth surrounds me. His touch is like a beacon in the bleak dark water, keeping me focussed, keeping me hanging on. The situation is desperate, but at least I’m with Remy.

As time swirls past us, I drift in and out of consciousness, pulled back a final time by Remy shaking me, “Listen!! Do you hear it??”

I startle and try my best to concentrate... Then I hear it, a horn blasting. Someone’s coming! They must have seen our distress signal. Remy’s swimming as fast as he can for both of us, moving our heavy, tired bodies in the direction of the sound until we finally see it. Remy yells until he’s hoarse, waving, whistling - anything to attract their attention. As the vessel approaches, I hear rough, deep voices yelling in Spanish but my head’s too fuzzy and it’s fast for me to understand. Remy is shouting back at them to take me on board first, and before I know what’s happening, I’m being lifted - strong hands grip under my arms as I cry out for Remy. They pay me no heed: saviours in oilskins wrap me in a foil blanket, checking me over, patting my cheek and trying to get me to focus. I struggle to evade them, “Where is Remy?? You have to help him!!”

They won’t let me stand up, won’t let me move! Agitated tears blur my vision - they need to get Remy out of the water. And then I hear his voice and relief consumes me. The fishermen part to let him reach me, he’s dripping all over their deck and he looks so pale, but he’s here and we’re together. He throws his arms around me, clutching me close, face buried in my neck. We cling together, exchanging sweet words, counting our blessings and relishing the feeling of each other. A tall, thin, official-looking man wraps a second blanket around Remy’s shoulders, talking into his ear. Remy nods to him and then suddenly we’re moving below deck, to somewhere warm and dry. My good arm is around Remy’s neck, the other gentleman walks slowly by my other side, hand hovering to support me as my legs wobble. They give me a towel for my hair and large hooded sweatshirt to change into - Remy helps me and the feeling of the clean, dry fabric against my skin makes me want to weep. I sit on a makeshift bed, exhausted and sore, my head buzzing. Remy hasn’t changed into the fresh clothes they’ve left for him yet, he shivers but refuses to let go of my hand - as though he believes I might evaporate if he does.

The sailors tell us the coastguard is on their way and it won’t be long til we’re back on dry land. I can’t wait for my feet to be firmly on the ground. Remy asks the sailors for something to drink, but they refuse telling us not until we’ve seen a doctor. But Remy insists and eventually they relent, giving us both a large brandy. I swallow it down, grimacing at the taste and the burning sensation in my throat. I lie on my side, cheek pressed against a soft cushion, still shivering. I cradle my swollen arm to my chest, rising and falling as I struggle to come to terms with everything that’s happened today. Remy’s finally in dry clothes, and has crawled into the space by my side on the bunk. It’s going to take a while to process all of this, but it feels so nice to lie here with Remy gazing into my eyes, bodies close, to see him smile at me. I feel drained, but calmer now I’m near to him. I reach out and trace his features, just as I did when we kissed on the yacht a short time before; his stubbled jaw, the curve of his cheek, the little dimple that appears when he grins at me. He catches my fingers in his, and presses gentle kisses to my knuckles, to my palm, his other hand smoothing out my damp hair, “I promised you I wouldn’t let you go. We’re safe now. Your Remy’s here, it’ll all be fine mon coeur. ”

—- 24 hours later —-

Leon pats my knee affectionately as I slide into the passenger seat, “Ready to go home?”

I nod and thank him, as Remy reaches over the headrest, squeezing Leon’s shoulder, “Merci, Leon. Thanks for coming back to drive us.”

Leon meets Remy’s eyes in the rear-view mirror, brows tight, looking perplexed, “It’s no problem. I still can’t believe Parker just... Left.”

Remy shrugs, “I can. Proves he was exactly the type of person we steal from.”

I sigh and scrub my hand across my face, “Except we didn’t steal anything from him, Remy. Everything’s gone. The film, lots of really amazing sculptures and artwork - all at the bottom of the sea...”

Remy shrugs, “But you and I aren’t at the bottom of the sea, and that’s what’s really important mon couer.”

And I know he’s right, but it just seems like such a terrible waste, that’s all. I suppose it might be better that no one has all of those treasures, than Parker hoarding them all and appreciating none of them. It was all just ‘stuff’ to him, for bragging rights, nothing more. Someone so shallow didn’t deserve any of-

Leon makes me jump, chuckling while reaching across me to clip my seatbelt in, exclaiming, “What’s this?!”

I glance down and see black Sharpie ink on my plaster cast. I lift my reset arm, and tilt my head to see it properly, there are two doodled little stick-people, one with my initials, one with ‘RC’, surrounded by sweet little hearts and the words ‘je t’aime, toujours ’ scrolled below. I feel my heart leap as I take it in. My cheeks start to colour as I stammer, “I don’t know- I- When-?”

Leon’s sporting a knowing smirk at Remy’s reflection, “To commemorate your fake marriage? Because there’s no need for you two to pretend anymore, right?”

I twist round in my seat to look at Remy who simply leans forward and cups my face in his palms. His eyes gaze into mine, face open and honest - no mask in sight. He meets my lips with a warm kiss as he confirms, “I’m done with pretending.”

[strazem]

I noticed that I’ve been getting blocked by a lot of Ososan artists lately and... At this point I’m sure it’s because of bad rumors and misinfo getting spread about me in discord servers. I’m going to put a lot of this under a readmore because I don’t want to clog people’s dashes with this, but I really want to clear the air here as I feel like there are a lot of things being left out of the narratives people are telling about me, and also the fact this is still happening and has been for four-five years, isolating me from a lot of the ososan community and hurting me in a very deep way...

Now, first off, I’m not here to say that over the past 4-5 years I wasn’t immature and childish. There were many times where I was, even to the point the behaviors could be seen as abusive or toxic even if that wasn’t the intention. I was in my early to mid 20s and had serious issues with oversharing my thoughts and feelings with people I really only knew casually, usually to the point of making them uncomfortable. I would also use all caps a lot, not really realizing the effect it had on people, making others feel like they were being shouted at. I would also act immaturely when I saw that other roleplay blogs were getting more attention than mine, even though the ones I had were for OCs, which meant that of course canon characters would get more traction.

Again, I was very young and not very socially developed. I am by no means trying to use my autism as an excuse, but rather an explanation.

Prior to getting into Ososan around 2016, I did not have any “real life” friends, that is, friends I knew in person. I did not know anyone my age and socializing was, and still is pretty limited to just my immediate family. Almost all of my interactions were online, and even that I struggled with. I had recently gotten out of an abusive relationship as well, and was just starting college. I did not think about how others felt enough and was too concerned with saying my piece and sharing my own opinions, making everything about me or about how I felt, and less about the other person. Again, this is something I’ve struggled with for most of my life as part of my ASD, but I’m still not excusing it by any means, especially considering the fact that other people ended up hurt.

I think the main issue was how immature and self-focused I was if I’m being honest, and how I would tend to make everything about me and how I felt and what I made.

My intentions were always good, that never changed. But as people have stated to me before, good intentions don’t mean anything if the outcome is bad. My immaturity really ended up hurting a lot of other people’s feelings and causing a lot of resentment, and I am by no means saying that anyone has to forgive me or be “ok” with me.

What I do wish though is that perhaps people who I have had struggles with in the past could refrain from spreading biased opinions of me to people who have never even met me. I understand wanting to support your friends, and I also understand that when someone you know tells you someone is “bad news”, it’s natural to take their word for it, especially if they only show screenshots of me at my lowest rather than when I was trying my absolute best to be a good friend, despite my immaturity.

However, I’ll be honest and say that I do think that this behavior in general seems counterproductive and perhaps even concerning... If there’s someone that upset me in my past, I don’t tell others or divulge about them to new people I meet unless I felt they did something actually illegal. I remember misinforming about someone in the ososan community based on false claims and I still feel guilty about it to this day, so I’ve also been guilty of this in the past. It’s also important to keep in mind that if someone is really making someone out to sound terrible or horrible that there is usually a bias clouding their perception. I've sat and reflected a lot on my own biases these past five years in therapy, and at the end of the day, I don’t think most people have bad intentions, at least not lonely kids in a small fandom. I think it’s a lot of miscommunication, lack of confrontation, and fear rather than any malicious intent.

Because if there’s one thing I know that I’m not, it’s a manipulator. I straight up do not have the social intelligence for that. I would all caps, I would get upset and leave chats and worry people, I would go on rants that people couldn’t talk me down from, or get too emotionally volatile, or put my own emotional issues onto other people by panicking and venting and putting on a scary and upsetting scene, but I never tried to manipulate anyone or turn anyone’s friends against them. The only two instances I can think of that even come close to me “warning” anyone about someone (and not for blm*tsu related reasons) happened in 2018 and 2019, well after all of this was (I assumed) done with. 

Most of my issues that people have gotten upset with me for was regarding my social immaturity, self-centeredness, altercations, public panic attacks, public mental breakdowns and a tendency to go off on emotional and heated rants, especially in public areas and in public chats. That’s why this thing about me being a manipulator seems misinformed to me, because I’ve never been great at DMing or talking to others one on one, I think anyone that’s known me will agree. Many of these altercations happened in public group chats.

I’m assuming that many of the bad rumors being spread about me are regarding my skype days back in 2016-2017, back before discord became the new norm for online chatting and servers and such, as well as a very specific “drama” that happened on anti-bl oso-twitter concerning people that had met in an osomatsu-san kin discord server (which I was not in or even knew about). 

Essentially, I befriended some of these people on twitter through people that had been in my second skype roleplay group (the first one I made was in 2016 I believe). I was unaware of any previous dramas or issues and was even unaware that said “person of interest” was even upset with me or thought I was toxic or bad. I had figured we had just stopped talking due to naturally drifting apart. Of course, in my young and naive mind, before understanding “social media etiquette” I went to go ask them why they had blocked me on twitter (I had started being active on twitter during that time.)

And of course, in my immaturity, was freaking out and panicking about having been blocked by someone I thought was a friend to people in my second roleplay group chat... As always... Ugh.. It wasn’t anything malicious though, just confusion and me being scared I had done something wrong.

One member in the roleplay group though, who I guess was a member of the osomatsu-san kin discord, started going off about said “person of interest”, claiming they had gotten their friend into a car accident and that they had groomed minors. Another person in the roleplay group felt the allegations were crazy and unfounded and left. Meanwhile, I was just lost as to what was even happening, I wasn’t aware these people were this connected or knew each other and admittedly, did a pretty poor job as a mod/admin that I didn’t stop the discussions sooner.

I have no idea if the claims were true or not, I imagine they were exaggerated due to bias, I have no idea, but then the same person who had made those claims showed me screenshots that “person of interest” sent to their mutual friend about me. How I was scary and toxic, that I had upset lots of people.. That they were panicking that I even contacted them on tumblr with a friendly “hello!”

Naturally, I responded with confusion. Again, my autism makes it very difficult for me to realize when people are upset or frustrated with me, especially over text. At the time, I couldn’t think of anything I had done to upset them and was very hurt and confused, as our last actual interaction had been seemingly positive. 

I did not try to turn anyone against them though. Here’s what actually happened: After being given this info, I also learned that there was a small discord group of the friend group that the person making the claims was from. I joined it hoping to learn more or get some sort of clarification only to find out that this entire group was very upset with “person of interest”. Like very upset. They made claims that this person lied, that this person liked to play victim as a way to manipulate others, that they had groomed two of the people in the group, that they had said unsettling things, that they would do strange and backhanded things ect. Again, I don’t know if these statements are true and I’m not trying to claim they are, I just know that this group of friends had been very upset with "person of interest” before I had even come into the picture. They were already planning on cutting them off!

I did not sway anyone or say anything, I was literally just there in the hopes of finding out if I’d done something wrong. 

Of course, this doesn’t at all excuse when I was still friends with “person of interest” and subjected them to my barrage of emotional baggage and panic attacks. I just want to make it clear that I never sent anyone after them or tried to turn their friends against them. In fact, I even tried to help them when they came to my twitter DMs asking me for help. I was already incredibly scared of pissing anyone off in general, and tried to keep things peaceful on both sides. When I asked the second roleplay group if they’d be okay with them rejoining, it was a unanimous “no”... I distinctly remember offering to still roleplay with them one on one and to make a new group that they could be in (and this was even after I had been shown the screenshots of them calling me toxic, which I still wasn’t holding against them!), but the offer was turned down.

I’ve noticed this very distinct pattern over the years of me running into a lot of issues due to miscommunication as well. It was very rare that people would express with me how they were feeling, or when they did, it was usually during one of my panic attacks, which were often bad enough that my brain would repress the memories of what happened during them the second they stopped, and it was rare that I would actually go back and read the things I said. People have had a very easy time going to others and complaining or venting about me to friends, but have had a very hard time actually telling me these complaints themselves, as themselves. I don’t really blame them, as we were all pretty young and given how much I freaked out publicly, it would make sense to be scared of how I might react. Not to mention there were probably things in their own pasts that made something like confrontation difficult. However, what I don’t understand is why this would still be happening five years later... I would assume by this point people would have moved on, especially regarding spats within fandoms.

I hold no ill will towards people in my past who’ve gotten upset with me, I do not hold grudges, and for the most part, if someone wants to cut contact with me, I just accept it and move on. But now that I’m noticing that these false claims are being spread around to other people in the fandom, people who weren’t even involved in these situations, blocking me based off of... Stuff they’ve heard about me... I felt a need to say something.

Honestly, my biggest wish or hope is that, given that it has been five or so years, that people who have never spoken to me or met me before maybe give me another chance? If I have personally hurt you, I don’t want you to feel the need to reach some sort of conclusion with me, or forgive me, or whatever...

But at the very least, perhaps people could be more careful when sharing personal issues we went through with other people, people who know very little about me and who I am and only know me through the lenses and narratives of people who felt slighted by me.

I have changed immensely over the past five years, more than I can even describe. I am not the same person mentally that I was, I have had therapy, I have had help, I have reflected, I have become more sensitive to other people’s thoughts and feelings. I even managed to help a friend of mine get therapy! I was not perfect, I behaved irrationally, but I do think it’s important to drive home the fact that it has been a few years and that I’ve made a lot of progress and that as I’m nearing 30, I have mentally matured quite a bit.

Again, no one from my past has to forgive me, I am not here to dictate how people should feel about me. I am just here to try to share my own side seeing as how I am unable to join most ososan servers and communities nowadays, and thus have a harder time being able to get in contact with or reach others.

I’ve been dying to say something, but kept worrying that it would stir up negative feelings or memories for others, but it’s getting to a point now where I’ve felt so isolated and hated by the fandom for five whole years that I’ve actually started having thoughts of self-harm again for the first time in awhile. I’m not saying this to make anyone feel guilty, and I haven’t acted on the thoughts, I just need to be honest.

This sort of behavior on the internet; gossiping about others, spreading misinformation about others, using a position of influence within a fandom to keep someone from making friends in fandom spaces... Or maybe people don’t even realize how much their words can affect others? Especially if they’re well-liked and exist in a lot of spaces. I’m sure there are no actual bad intentions when people say these things or vent to their friends.

And while I explained that one specific incident in detail that was with a specific person, it is not the only issue I’ve gotten myself into over the years either. I simply spoke about that one as I am just guessing it’s the big reason a lot of this is still going on to this day. I behaved poorly enough in the past that separate groups of people have ended up mad at me, regardless of even knowing each other. I was incredibly troubled, dealing with the aftermath of an abusive relationship, overworked with my animation assignments, and incredibly clueless in social situations or trying to relate to others. Again, these aren’t excuses... But explanations. Mentally ill people are not well, that’s why it’s an illness. In 2016-2017, I was at the lowest of my low, and continued to be until around the Fall of 2019. I have also matured significantly since, and have been working with a far more effective therapist as of late 2018, which I think is why I had such a positive change by 2019, as well as finding wonderful and supportive friends who truly care about me.

I know this is getting really long, too long honestly, but I really needed to get this off my chest...

I’m trying to decide whether or not this will be one of my final posts on tumblr as a whole, as I don’t think I will be able to participate in enjoying ososan publicly with how isolated I’ve been over the years by various groups and people; I think by this point the reputation is too soured for me to be a part of the community. Again, probably not out of malice, but fear and resentment at how I’ve acted.

The fact that I’m seeing more than a few people in ososan fandom I’ve never really spoken to, or people I was mutuals with blocking me is enough I think for me to consider calling it quits for public enjoyment. The fandom is already very small, and the anti-bl side is even smaller, so everyone is pretty interconnected and rumors can spread very easily. There’s no way I can compete with that, especially if I’m barred from most servers anyways.

I’m still going to mull it over, but again, if you’ve never met me, or if you’ve only seen screenshots of me from 2016 while panicking or allcapsing or at my worst... All I can really do is hope that maybe you’ll be able to see past these things and consider giving me a chance. 

As for the people I genuinely did hurt, I know I’ve said sorry many times now, even on my old blog Nutastic which I abandoned for similar reasons, but I don’t know how else or how better to prove how genuinely sorry I am... Because the proof of regret is in changing and becoming a better person, and there’s not much chance to see if I have or haven’t if I’ve been cut off.

No one has to forgive me, but perhaps at least entertain the idea I might’ve changed over the course of five years, and that telling people how I was back then instead of who I am now seems a bit unfair. Again, I suppose I dug my own grave by behaving like that in the first place, but I always try to show empathy even to people who wronged me at a low place in their lives, unless they were incredibly abusive and cruel.

At the end of the day, we’re all just people trying to enjoy a show about wacky sextuplets, and I don’t think anyone actually has any ill-will in their hearts, or has it in them to be “bad”, specifically on the anti-bl side. I don’t hold grudges, there’s no one that I currently have blocked unless they are a bl or a man that made me uncomfortable. My DMs are always open, as is my askbox.

Feel free to ask me anything or confront me about anything, though admittedly, doing so through anon makes it hard for me to reply as I don’t want to post anything potentially upsetting publicly.

And I will try to come to a decision about whether or not to pull a Jenna Marbles and leave social media for good out of regret and declining mental health. I will most likely make a post about it when I’m feeling more capable.

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope your year is going good so far despite... Well, everything

[catbountry]

Glancing over some of my older essays on politics, I’m kind of struck how, despite them not being written that long ago, I feel like I come across as a dumbass, or at least like somebody who thinks they’re much smarter than they actually are. And it’s weird, because most of my views are roughly the same; rather, it’s that I feel the way that they’re articulated comes across as too... I don’t know, smarmy? Smug, maybe? Lacking nuance. Blunt. Like I’m talking down to people. Obviously, this was never my intention, but it’s weird how something that was written while in my early 30′s somehow makes me wince a little... as I rapidly approach being smack-dab in the middle of my 30′s. God, I’ve been in my 30′s for almost 5 whole years now, fuck, where does the time go?

I think being able to come out of the other side of the Trump presidency in one piece has kind of helped add some much-needed perspective, at least for myself. I think the hypothesis that a lot of people who voted for Trump were desperate for some kind of change was proven correct when he failed to be re-elected due to his bungling of COVID, which, funnily (or not) enough, he almost could have looked like he was doing the right thing when he initially wanted to close the U.S. borders... except he’d been trying to restrict travel and close borders so often that of course nobody took such a suggestion seriously. And even if they had? Rich people still would have brought it over, because as we all know, rich people can just get away with all kinds of shit. Of course, once it actually hit, Trump really couldn’t handle the idea of looking weak at all, so instead, it was downplayed, joked about, not taken seriously, even though he’d been briefed that it was going to be really, really bad. And when he got it, and in private thought he was going to die? Well, once he beat it, of course he had to say it wasn’t so bad... even though it killed almost a thousand times more people than the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Most of them were seniors. I think that, as well as a general fatigue and disappointment over the lack of swamp-draining from those who weren’t fanatical devotees, probably sealed his fate. I admit, I wasn’t very sure Biden really had much of a chance for a long time... until COVID happened. But hey, at least we got our stimmy from Trump, right lads?

I’m still fully convinced that Trump never intended to win, and that his run was done purely for ego and financial gain, but his ability to effortlessly bait the media, as well as his unexpected exposing of the sham we all knew presidential elections to be, wound up rocketing him to success. Trump will no doubt go down as one of the most successful conmen in American history, one so slick he wound up conning his way all the way into the White House. The whole thing was like if The Producers was a presidential campaign, fascism included. Granted, I don’t think Trump was ever a true fascist; I think he wanted to be a dictator, but the actual job of being President was a drag. The cult of personality he accrued, however, was the biggest source of narcissistic supply that he’d ever experienced in his entire life. Hell, just being the literal President, the most important person in the entire fucking world, is a hell of a high that I don’t think he’ll ever really be able to reclaim. Trump’s going to be chasing that dragon for the rest of his life. Having “President” in front of your name is a lot nicer than actually, you know, having to be the President. I mean, look at how quickly Obama went gray. A lot of people are convinced Trump will run again in 2024, and I don’t doubt it, but unless something happens that completely throws us for a loop, I don’t see him being able to recreate the, er, “magic” of 2016. Everyone getting to see that, not only was his fanbase capable of having embarrassing public meltdowns just like the le epic triggered snowflake lib Hilary supporters, but that their meltdowns were even more embarrassing, and that they all looked like a bunch of fucking English soccer hooligans during the Capitol siege... well, I think that’s going to put off the swing voters, as well as the moderate Republicans.

Also, that Twitter knock-off founded by Trump’s aide, Gettr, being flooded by gay furries posting Sonic the Hedgehog foot porn? Feels like classic 4chan-style raiding. I approve. It almost feels like we’re healing, even if it’s just a little bit.

But what the fuck did we even learn from all this? What did I learn from this?

I don’t know. It feels like over the time I’ve been on Tumblr, what was once SJW became woke, and being woke has become very normal; so normal, in fact, that fucking massive corporations that use slave labor overseas will change their Twitter icons to rainbow every June because The Gays have become a safe, marketable demographic. On one hand, it’s nice to know that, at least in what I guess is considered the western world, LGBT people are more accepted now than they ever have been. On the other... god, it feels so cynical, doesn’t it? This is all very stream of consciousness, here. I don’t write very much on here since, surprise surprise, Tumblr’s been kind of dead since the porn ban. I still see people post, but it used to be that I couldn’t refresh my dash without seeing dozens of new posts. Now it feels like I refresh my dash and I’d be lucky to see a new post there an hour later. This is why I’m on Discord more. It feels like I have more productive conversations than I ever could on Tumblr or Twitter. Twitter is just... god. It’s like all the worst parts of Tumblr without the parts that made it fun aside from a few memes.

Sorry, I got off track there. The point I was going to make before is that, while I am still very firmly anti-censorship, I’ve managed to put myself in a position where it no longer feels like the stakes are so high. I can relax. I don’t have to feel like I’m on the defense the whole time as somebody grills me over some slip-up. I don’t use Twitter that much. When I do post something in response to somebody, I feel like I instantly regret it. I posted in response to some dumbass spreading a rumor that 4chan’s favorite Simpson’s meme about Sneed’s Feed and Seed is secretly ableist, and I got a response from some dude with an Umaru-chan avatar telling me how he’s proudly racist because he and his friends call each other slurs? Like bro, you’re posting cringe, you’re going to lose subscriber-

I don’t know what I’ve learned yet. Maybe that social media sucks and that chatrooms with friends are the superior way to communicate online. I tried out Telnet recently to go into some random IRC, that was neat. It just feels nice to not have to get into a fucking argument every fucking day over shit that doesn’t matter as much as people thinks it does, to not have to hear about every fucking time the President sneezes or farts. It’s not that there’s no longer anything to worry about; there is. I’d really like to see fellow lefties go after the handful of massive corporations that control the majority of the online experience, who censor not just all the racist white dude grifters in suits who all look suspiciously similar to one another, but us as well. I want to see us raise a bigger stink about the web being santized, sterlized, and gentrified to be friendlier to corporations who only want your precious data and eyeballs. Maybe without the constant distraction of Bad Orange Man, we could make that happen. Maybe.

Or maybe fucking Dream will breathe again and all the fucking children will piss their pants and clog up Twitter, fuck these kids, get off my internet, GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[spohkh]

miracle on cornelia street [dean/castiel]

so BASICALLY sarah @adanceinasnowglobe and i were talking about what everyone would be up to post-series -- yknow, like, now that theyre all safe and healthy n everythings cool and destiel is officially together. yknow. as happened in canon -- and we were like so obviously destiel get a house, and thats kind of the basis of this verse so !! this is the foundational fic for what i HOPE will be a series of fun lil day-in-the-life drabbles, from both me and sarah!! 

ehehehe :-) enjoy!

read on AO3

The house is a quaint thing, sitting low and snug under a pair of shady oak trees in a quiet suburb just outside of downtown Lawrence. Its brickwork face is weathered—definitely in need of a good power wash—and the roof is just as worn. The bottom step to the porch slants unevenly, and the porch itself has cracks in the concrete. There are chips in the paint on the window frames, the iron porch railing is rusting, and who knows when the gutters were last given a proper cleaning.

There’s a lot of work to be done, but standing there in the small front lawn, Dean Winchester can’t say if he’s ever seen anyplace else so perfect as the house at 3767 Cornelia Street. Dean’s house—his home. His home with Cas.

“Can you believe it?” he quietly says to Miracle, who has been sitting patiently by Dean’s leg. Miracle tilts her head and wags her tail. Dean looks back up at the house. “Yeah, me neither.”

The sound of a familiar car rumbling up the road snaps Dean out of his reverie. He rubs a knuckle at his eye and clears his throat and tries to look like he hadn’t been standing in his front yard about to cry while talking to his dog, christ.

The car rolls to a stop on the curb just in front of the house. The driver’s side door opens, and Sam slowly unfolds his ridiculous limbs as he gets out. It’s always a wonder how he can fit himself into a car at all. Sam gives a dorky little wave as he ambles over to where Dean is standing.

Dean peers behind Sam, trying to see into the car. “What, no Eileen?”

“Hello to you, too. Dick,” he replies snarkily. “She’s wrapping up a work thing. She’ll come over when she’s done.”

Dean sucks his teeth in disappointment. “Ah, well. Guess you can go home then.” Sam shoves at his shoulder. Dean just laughs and pulls Sam in for a proper hello hug.

“Why are you standing out here, anyway?” Sam asks when they part.

“Can’t a man just hang out in his own front yard? Accompanied by a dashing canine companion?” He leans down to pat Miracle on the head.

“I guess…” Sam looks down at Miracle. When she tips her head up and gazes back at him, Sam snorts.

“What?”

“Miracle on Cornelia Street,” Sam says with mirth.

Dean squints at him. “What?” he repeats, now more incredulous.

“You know—like Miracle on 34th Street. But we’re on Cornelia, so.” He nods down at the dog. “Miracle on Cornelia Street.”

“Dude.” Dean rolls his eyes at Sam’s goofy grin and starts walking up the path to the house, Miracle trotting behind him. “Shut up and come inside already.”

Sam follows after him, pausing just inside the threshold as he spots something on the doorframe. “Oh, classy,” he says, throwing a sardonic look to where D.W. and C.W. are scratched into the wood.

“Just wait,” Dean jokes with a toothy smile, “when I got the time I’m gonna draw a little heart around it.” He was joking, but now that he said it, he kind of wanted to.

Cas looks up from the stove when they walk into the dining room. He’s wearing one of Dean’s old AC/DC tees, the logo all but worn away from being washed so many times. He’s usually in some ratty tee or other when lounging around these days. But in honor of Sam’s visit today (Cas’ words) and to seem a little more dressy short of donning his usual button-downs (Dean’s private opinion), he’s also wearing the cable-knit cardigan Sam got him as a gift last Christmas. “Hi, Sam.”

Sam leans against the counter that separates the dining and kitchen areas, craning his giraffe neck to catch a glimpse at the stove. “Hey, Cas! What’cha cooking?”

“Nothing. Dean made it. I was just watching the pot so it didn’t boil over.” He locks eyes with Dean, his intent stare very clearly communicating I did not touch the chili I added nothing I did not touch the dial I was just watching it like you asked so don’t even start.

Dean just smiles as he walks past the counter and steps into Cas’ space. “Thank you, sweetheart,” he says, and busses Cas on the cheek.

“You’re welcome,” Cas replies warmly. He’s gazing up at Dean with those summer afternoon blue eyes, standing in one of Dean’s shirts and that dorky cardigan, and Dean starts to get full of that feeling from out in the front yard again. If they were alone, Dean would probably say something recklessly sappy like I am so stupid in love with you.

As it is, Dean clears his throat and turns back to Sam, slinging an arm around Cas’ shoulders, and says, “He did the salad.”

Cas sneaks him a knowing look before, thankfully, putting his attention on Sam without commenting on Dean’s hasty redirection. “I did the salad,” Cas agrees blithely, and places the salad bowl on the counter for Sam to see, seeming pleased with himself.

Sam looks between the two of them, an amused tilt to his eyebrow that Dean implicitly distrusts. He’s definitely thinking mocking thoughts about the two of them. But he just quirks a smile and says, “It looks great.” Shrewd little diplomat.

Cas shifts to the side to see past Sam’s shoulder. Sam glances behind himself before shooting Cas a confused look.

“She’s still at work,” Dean tells Cas, guessing who he’s looking for. “Sadly.”

“What, am I not good enough?”

“Of course you are,” Cas promises earnestly, just as Dean says, “Well…”

Sam’s opening his mouth to retort, probably something absolutely scathing, when his phone chimes. He pulls it out of his pocket, a smile spreading over his face. “Speak of the devil,” he says, then tips his head with a grimace, “as it were. That was Eileen. She’ll be here soon, so I’m gonna go wash up.”

“Bathroom’s down the hall—“

“Dude, I know where it is. I did help you guys move in.”

Dean spreads his hands in assent. “Fine, christ, I swear never to be a good host to you in my home ever again. Go ahead and go take your dump now.”

“I’m not gonna—ohmygodnevermind.” He turns on his heel and huffs down the hall, Miracle trotting after him, the tags on her collar clinking together jauntily.

Dean reaches past Cas to turn the burner off, then lands his hand on Cas’ hip. “Have I told you today how cute you are in that sweater?”

“Yes.” Cas brings his hands up to cradle Dean’s face. “Four times.”

“Make it five.” Dean kisses him. He pulls Cas into a hug, pressing his face against Castiel’s shoulder. They sway into each other. After a warm moment, Dean says in a low voice, “The first family dinner in our house.”

Cas hums a soft, contented sound in agreement. “The first of many,” he responds, just as quiet. Dean squeezes him tighter. He knows they’re both thinking about Jack and Claire, their bedrooms sitting empty and waiting for whenever they can find the time to visit—and Kaia and Alex and Jody with Claire, if they can, and Charlie and her girlfriend, and Bobby, and all the other wayward extensions of their sprawling family caught out in the wind. Their house isn’t big enough to host everyone, but with Sam and Eileen up the block and the bunker just a few miles out, there’s plenty of room to put up people who come out their way. Dean has the hope that 3767 Cornelia Street becomes a common pitstop for folks—a suburban Roadhouse, a tidier (much tidier) Singer Salvage.

Dean presses a kiss against Cas’ neck, and Cas breathes a sweet little sigh that pushes all thoughts about future dinners right out the window. Fuck, this dinner could go out the window, for all he cares. He kisses a little higher up, right under Cas’ jawline, before pulling back to catch Castiel’s darkened gaze. “How ‘bout we ditch the nag and go have a private party of our own?”

“Dean, no. I worked really hard on that salad.” He sounds perfectly serious, but the playful glint in his eye gives him away. Dean snorts, mumbling oh, forgive me, Chef Cas as he leans in again.

Just as they kiss, Sam walks back in. “Hey, I think something’s wrong with your sink–- oh, sorry.”

“Huh?” Dean reluctantly pulls away as Sam clears his throat, looking sheepish. “What’s wrong with what, Sammy?”

“Uh, with your bathroom.”

“The bathroom? Oh, what, you clogged the toilet?”

“Wha— N—  I DID NOT SHIT IN YOUR BATHROOM.”

“Then how did the toilet get messed up?”

“It’s the SINK, the SINK—”

“You took a shit in the sink?”

Cas pinches the bridge of his nose. “Dean…”

“What? He started it.”

“Started WHAT?”

Dean snaps his fingers. “The end of the world.”

“Oh! My god!”

“I guess technically, yeah, since god is our kid...” He turns to Cas. “Weird, weird lives we lead.”

Cas just shakes his head, clearly exasperated. Sam has given up on speaking completely and has fallen back on making a gesture like he’s one second away from grabbing Dean by the throat.

“I was there for all twelve years of it,” Sam says to Cas, “and I still can’t believe you stayed with this guy.”

“Well,” Cas muses serenely, “you’ve been here a lot longer than me.”

Sam grimaces when Dean throws him his best shit-eating grin. Nothing like his two favorite people bonding over how much of a pain he is.

The sound of the front door opening distracts them, and then a voice calls, “Knock knock! The life of the party has arrived!”

“Eileen!” Sam exclaims happily. Miracle takes off down the hall, Sam hot on her heels.

Dean chuckles at Sam’s unabashed excitement, then gives Castiel another peck on the cheek before moving away from him. “Can you put everything out on the table? I’ll go check out the bathroom sitch real quick.”

Cas catches his hand as he starts to leave, softly saying his name. When Dean looks back at him, Cas smiles and says, “I love you.”

Dean wonders if maybe three time’s the charm and he should just give in to what his body wants him to do. If a man has a right to stand around and cry messily anywhere in his own home, surely the kitchen would be the place to do it. The kitchen, after all, is the heart of any house.

But Dean doesn’t. He indulges in a little sniffle, Cas’ eyes glimmering with knowing in the soft light. Dean brings Cas’ hand to his mouth and kisses the neat gold band around his finger, and he kisses each peaked knuckle, and he turns Cas’ hand over and kisses his palm and his wrist. Then he lets go and puts his own hand against Cas’ cheek, and says his recklessly sappy thing: “I love you, too, sweetheart.”

And the glowing feeling inside him doesn’t settle, only grows brighter.

Whatever’s wrong with the sink will be just one more thing to a long list of shit to deal with. Their house needs work, no denying. But Dean knows they’ve got plenty of time.

[ask-jumblr]

Goy Asks For Help Un-Fucking a Video Game

The game in question is “Crusader Kings 2: After the End,” which takes place in a post-apocalyptic North America which has regressed to a medieval state due to a deliberately-unspecified global disaster some six centuries ago.

Its an overhaul mod, with “Crusader Kings 2″ being the base game which takes place in the actual middle ages, but I’m only concerning myself with “After The End.” For clarity’s sake, I’ll be referring to the base game, which I will not be concerning myself with altering, as “CK2,″ and I will refer to the mod, which I am altering, as “AtE.”

So CK2 has a lot of baked in Cultural Christianity, much of which is carried over to AtE. I am creating a Submod, and as part of that I want to get AtE’s depiction of Judaism to be less, you know, christian. I want to carve out the ingrained antisemitism so that neither I, nor any Jewish players of the game, will have to look at it anymore.

I’ll be cutting this post up into several parts, each one dedicated to what I, as a gentile, think is probably an issue with the way the game portrays Judaism and my best idea of how to fix it. I’m posting this here with the hope of being corrected about everything I’m definitely getting wrong, and help figuring out how to go about actually fixing things.

Mod of @ask-jumblr briefly interjecting: (1) Putting the rest below the cut so this doesn’t clog dashes, and (2) submission is from @frustratedasatruar because tumblr doesn’t credit submissions once they’re posted.

Part 1: Orthodox, Reform, and… Meshichist?

So the way CK2 handles religion is cut up into a few tiers. The largest categories are the so-called Religious Groups, such as “Christian” or “American-Native” or “Muslim.” Judaism comprises one of these groups.

Then there’s the Heresy mechanic, which exists with the intent to model Catholicism’s whole snake-eating-its-own-tail thing with them, especially back in the middle ages. The way the mechanic works is that you’ve got one Religion that is considered the “main” religion with several others associated with it which vie for control. If things are shaky for the main religion, members of that faith may be prompted to join one of the Heretical movements.

I actually think the way AtE applies this mechanic to Judaism is fairly representative in practice. “Orthodox” is granted the position of main religion, with Reform relegated as a Heresy. But! Both Orthodox communities and Reform communities are scattered across the map at the start of the game. Further, Orthodoxy’s position at game-start is very fragile, so a Reform player can fairly simply supplant them as the dominant branch without even needing a military confrontation with any Orthodox factions.

This combination of factors creates a situation where Jewish communities within the game can ebb and flow between the different sects over time, which wouldn’t be possible if the two religions weren’t tied together with the Heresy mechanic.

One problem though, at least as far as I can see; there’s a third sect in the mix. Again, I’m a gentile, so correct me if I’m wrong, but its really weird for the Meshichists (explicitly the people who believe this man to be the Moshiach) to be depicted as a major faction within Judaism, literally on par with Orthodox and Reform, right?

As far as I, as a gentile, can tell from my research on this subject, the Meshichists are a subset of Chabad, which is itself a subset of Hasidic Judaism, which is a subset of Haredi Judaism, which has a complicated relationship with Orthodox Judaism.

So, assuming I’m not out of place in my assessment that the Meshichists are the odd man out, my question is if I should simply remove them from the game, leaving in-game Judaism to Orthodox and Reform. Or if I should replace them with a different third faction, and if so whom? I understand that Conservative Judaism is another major faction, but I know absolutely nothing about them, including how I would distinguish them from Orthodox.

Help, please.

Part 2: Zealous/Cynical

So CK2, as mentioned, has a lot of structural Cultural Christianity.

Individual characters in the games, that is to say Rulers or associated courtiers, have a list of traits, each one modifying their aptitudes and how the AI will direct them. Things like “Gluttonous,” “Charitable,” “Craven,” “Shrewd,” and so on. There’re hundreds of them.

Some of these traits are set as opposites of one another, which means that if a character has one the game won’t allow them to have the other. You cannot be both “Just” and “Arbitrary,” that sort of thing.

Further, one trait can have more than one opposite. “Slow,” “Quick,” and “Genius,” are all inter-incompatible, for example.

Which brings me to the Zealous and Cynical traits.

Their descriptions are thus:

Zealous: This character burns with religious fervor and cannot tolerate heretics, infidels, or heathens.

Cynical: This character is a cynical unbeliever, disliked by the clergy but good at intrigue.

I’ll shy away from describing their exact in-game modifiers and just leave it that Zealous is considered an overall very desirable trait, while Cynical is undesirable unless you’re playing a spymaster. Zeal makes you more popular with priests of your religion, while cynicism makes you commensurately less popular with the same.

Furthermore, unlike Cynical, being Zealous also precludes you from having any of the “Sympathy for [Insert Other Religion Group]” traits.

Now as I understand it, Judaism rather encourages questioning everything, which feels like a third pole on that little alignment graph. I’m essentially asking if I should try and create a “Pious Skepticism” trait to represent Jewish characters who don’t mindlessly-accept-writ-dogma-and-hate-unbelievers but also aren’t unbelievers themselves, while at the same time arguing with and about established scripture.

This hypothetical “Pious Skepticism” trait, name subject to change, would also allow for characters to be both on good terms with religious authorities and still have access to the Sympathy traits.

I feel like the current system of Zealous/Default/Cynical probably doesn’t represent the Jewish experience, but as a gentile I obviously need advisement to be sure.

TLDR: I feel like CK2 lacks a way to represent the whole arguing-about-everything thing that, at least from what I’ve read following Jewish blogs, is considered so important to your community. Then as an addendum on that point, is my proposed solution of making a new trait to represent it, and slotting it into the zealous/cynical dynamic.

Part 3: Depicting Antisemitism in the Game

CK2 has a limited system for dynamically depicting sexism. For what I feel pretty safe to assume are reasons regarding processing power, the degree of sexism within your in-game territory is boiled down to the “Status of Women” modifier in your nation’s lawcode, with five options.

“Traditional: Women are prohibited from holding all [government] positions. Some government types will be restricted to Agnatic inheritance law.”

“Marginal: Women are allowed to hold some power, occupying background positions behind the people in charge.”

“Significant: Women have been granted official power and are allowed to hold public offices.”

“Notable: Restrictions on female power have been officially repealed. All career paths are open for prominent women.”

“Full: Powerful legislation removing old restrictions has finally had the effect of affecting the general opinion on women in positions of power across society.”

These laws are pegged to different benchmarks in the game’s technological progression system, which has the effect of spacing out the reforms over the coarse of your game.

As you try and move women’s rights forward, powerful men in your nation will fight you tooth and nail to prevent that from happening.

As things stand in the game, antisemitism is represented as identical to every other form of xenophobia. Which obviously downplays the the shear length and breadth of impact antisemitism has on society.

Essentially, my notion to represent the special form of bigotry that is antisemitism is to apply a similar system to the one already applied to sexism.

In the sexism system, your nation is quantifiably better off for every step further you advance down the road to equality. The only real reason not to pursue equality is the hope of placating powerful special interests within your state who want a larger slice of the pie for themselves or have other ideological motivations, at the expense of weakening your nation as a whole.

Which I think would be a pretty good angle for representing antisemitism. I’m not advocating for a 1=1 switchover from the sexism system, of course, indeed one of the things I’d want help with is determine what the five stages would be in a similar antisemitism system.

Anyway, for all that this system is really incapable of handling the magnitudes of sexism or antisemitism, its something I can implement without crashing the game and, I think, a significant improvement over the current situation.

But before I started into the in-depth process of trying to code this, I wanted to seek out some Jewish voices to run my thoughts by first.

Part 4: Ethnoreligion

CK2 has a very christian perspective on the relationship between culture and religion, to the extent that I as a pagan am repeatedly jarred by it. And I’ve learned that Judaism’s view of the subject is even less like that of the christians. Making it, I presume, a bigger problem with the game.

So in the game culture and religion are considered completely distinct from each other, the conversion of one not having any effect on the state of the other. The only direct connection of any kind that I know of honestly just makes the problem worse: if you find yourself in control of a county which is both a different religion and culture from your own, you must actively convert the religion before it will be possible for culture to passively convert.

Which can result in situations which, given my knowledge that Judaism is specifically an ethnoreligion, are very strange. Like Anabaptist Yiddish counties.

Or the way any prospective Jewish rulers, if they want to ensure a firmer political position in a majority-gentile kingdom (if they manage to establish such a thing), demographic shift is fastest achieved not by, say, some mechanism to attract Jewish immigrants from neighboring countries, but by relentlessly proselytizing until the goyim convert, and only then the process of cultural shift may start.

Can you tell that this system was designed for the catholics.

I’m not really sure what exactly I could do to fix this, but I believe I can:

Disable the proselytizing mechanic for Jewish characters. I’d need to replace it with a “dispatch debate team,” or something, mechanic so that Jewish players won’t be left helpless in the face of grassroots Heretic movements.

Code a new system for gentile-counties-with-Jewish-rulers to passively convert culture and religion at the same time, but at a slower pace. And maybe, if I’m feeling ambitious overconfident, some mechanic by which you can try to inspire immigration by Jewish populations, potentially causing a brain-drain in nearby Kingdoms if you invest enough into it.

Create an opposite system, so that if a county of both Jewish religion and culture is converted to a different religion group, the county’s culture will autoswitch to an off-brand version of itself. If I’m feeling cheeky, I’ll call the off-brand culture “Goyim” or something.

I think that these three things in conjunction with each other would adequately solve the problem.

But, you know, I don’t know, because I’m not Jewish.

Part 5: Education

The game’s current system has it that as a monarch you can offer your vassals to have their children educated in your court, which usually results in them adopting your culture and religion if they haven’t already.

I feel like Jewish rulers would be less blaze about that than everyone else. Because, you know, experience. I want to set things so that Jewish rulers will either auto-decline those offers or maybe set it so Jewish characters are ineligible for the events that cause culture/religious conversion during childhood. I don’t really need a perfect solution, I just want to stop the phenomena of the idiot AI selling out to the big homogenizing power every single time.

Unless I shouldn’t do that, and I should leave things as is for whatever reason, or do some completely third thing.

Part 6: Logo

So in CK2, religions have their own individual logos so you can tell at a glance what religion a character is affiliated with. Heresies of the same main religion share a logo between each other, which will be a red version of the main religion’s logo.

Should a Heresy grow powerful enough to usurp the main religion’s position, the former-Heresy will get the full color version and the former-main-religion will get the red version.

Long story short, Judaism is represented by a Menorah. Because I learned that gentiles massively over inflate how important Hanuka actually is, I was wondering if that was a good pick, or if it should be replaced with the Star of David, or some other third thing.

Part 7: Terminology

This one is essentially Part 6: Part 2. The game has a shorthand way of copy-pasting in default terms from the different religions, so that a generic piece of in-game text can vaguely refer back to the character’s religion without needing to be rewritten for each religion.

For reference, here’s what that looks like for the christians:

Scripture Name = The Bible Priest Title = Priest High God Name = God God Names = God, The Lord, Jesus, The Blessed Virgin Evil God Names = Satan, Lucifer, The Devil

So in-game text in various places will be coded to say something like “We found a secret chest of gold, praise [Insert=god_name]!” and the game will insert something from the appropriate category at random.

You’ve probably guessed where I’m going with this: as a gentile, I want to double check that the terminology assigned to Judaism is actually appropriate.

However, as the game’s name lists for the three “god” categories drops several names I don’t recognize, and I know that Judaism is against copying certain things in this regard down, to be safe I’m not going to post the specific list unless asked. Instead, I’m just going to ask how those three categories should be filled out.

What I assume to be safer to directly repeat is that the priest title for Judaism is entered as “Rabbi,” and the scripture name is listed as “The Torah.” At least as a gentile, the only question that leaps out to me between the two of those is if “The Torah” might be better switched to “The Tanakh.”

End:

Thank you all in advance for your patience and assistance! I will of course answer any questions.

My thanks to @queerdo-mcjewface, @terulakimban, @miriams-well-of-jewish-thoughts, and @hermione-walked-out-of-a-yeshiva for helping me already when I couldn’t figure out how to submit this Ask.

[blveblood]

tell me something positive

🌹 (ooc.) i decided to compile all messages sent out for this particular meme in one post, as i do not wish to clog my mutuals’ dashes, but at the same time wish to send out a big thank you to all of you lovely people who reached out during one of the tough times of my life. you are absolutely amazing and i appreciate you immensely~

@therippingtides​ said: (A bit late but here's more positivity for you! You are a cool person and a great writer with a wonderful, lovable muse!)

🌹 (ooc.) late? no such thing as late here! i mean, look at me, answering these asks how many months after they were sent out???

on a more serious note, though. thank you so much for your kind words, love. i know back then i was feeling down, when i was hurting, when i thought things would never get better your message cheered me up immensely. you have no idea how much i appreciate that. 

@jericholeader​ said: I work so I miss a lot but I'm here late to say that your family of RK units is already a pleasure to see?? You've made them so individual, and fun on their own, and I genuinely enjoy reading anything of yours on the dash. Having you here and there makes the rpc brighter.

🌹 (ooc.) becca, my dear, speaking of making the RPC brighter - i think none of us shines quite as brightly as you do; you are an absolute ray of sunshine and a delight to have around. i cannot begin to explain how grateful i am for you and your kind, darling words. thank you so much.

you are so, so very much loved and appreciated.

@destinydriven​ said: hi chenny !! i know we haven't talked or interacted much so far but i really do admire the way you write and portray your four boys ! not only is your writing style so captivating but i love how each four are so unique yet so clearly connected to one another. i'm always so so glad to see you on my dash ! 💙

🌹 (ooc.) MC dear, hi! even though we have not interacted all too much IC, i must admit it has always been a joy and delight to see you on my dash. i hope intently i will, one day, receive the chance to interact with you, after all!

for now, thank you so, so much for your kind, lovely words. i want you to know your care and kindness are very much appreciated. thank you so much for taking your time to send this lovely message in~

@maccaillte​ said: I love you and all of your boys! Dem the best boys around! The goodest boys! Can’t wait to get to know and interact with them!

🌹 (ooc.) ;;A;; RAE MY DEAR! words cannot describe how much i cherish you and your friendship, you are a darling bean and i could not be happier to be able to count you among the most important people in my life. thank you so so much 💕 stay safe, dearest!

@savedgames​ said: You are beautiful and lovely and wonderful. You breathe such life into every character you write. And I personally think it's you that got me back into DBH so thanks for that. :P

🌹 (ooc.) daisy, sweetheart, let me just quickly throw an uno reverse card at you, cause - no, YOU are the lovely and wonderful one! i appreciate your compliment so, so much and i am eternally grateful i am able to call you my friend. you deserve the very best in the world - and! honestly, i do not have a single regret about dragging you into the DBH fandom again, haha. it’s what i am here for~

[laurelsofhighever]

The Falcon and the Rose Ch. 63 - The Flotsam

Chapter Rating: Teen Warnings: None Relationships: Alistair/Female Cousland Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Fereldan Civil War AU - No Blight, Romance, Angst, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Cousland Feels, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort

Read it on AO3 or start at Chapter 1

---

Ninth day of Haring, 9:31 Dragon 

Her eyes snapped open with the gasp of air into her lungs. Awareness flooded into her all at once, the crack of the fire, the ache in her head, the brightness of the room about her, so much it made her dizzy, spots in front of her eyes until she remembered she had yet to let the breath go. She blinked again, and focussed on the familiar canopy of her own bed and its raised embroidery of wildflowers, the leopard stalking through them with golden eyes that had been her companion through so many bedtime stories. The details of the dream were fast fading, but the ragged edges of it drove the drum of her heartbeat in her chest and rose a dull, aching throb in her side. Her head felt raw, her tongue thick against the roof of her mouth. Worse were the ideas swimming through her mind – Howe, a traitor, and Highever lost, the entire country mired in war with something darker stirring above it like a spider lurking in the corner of its web. It would be an interesting story to tell over breakfast, even if her father would tease her that the cause was taking too much of the pudding the night before. And she would not be mentioning the lover her mind had conjured; she had no need of such things. 

A dream, but over now.

With the surety of that thought to calm her still-racing pulse, she sighed and brought her hand up to knead the heel of her palm against her forehead. Cuno’s breath fanned against her collarbone, drawing a smile across her lips. Usually, he slept at her feet, but he must have worried for her as she dreamed and shuffled up to be next to her on the pillow.

But when she reached for him her fingers met cloth, not fur. She turned, confused, and found Alistair stirring beneath the brush of her fingertips. A cold trickle of horror ran down her spine to settle in her stomach, heavy and poisonous as lead. He had been part of the dream. He couldn’t be here. If he were here then her nightmare – everything she had imagined – it would all be real. Howe. Her family. His eyes squinted in the light, but then blew wide as he noticed her regard, and with a rushed breath of her name he propped himself on his elbow and reached for her, his gaze darting about her face as if she were too much to take in all at once. Such wonder in his look, dashed so suddenly as she flinched from his touch, as revulsion that wasn’t his fault slithered in her veins. Her stomach turned. It was all real. It was real.  

She rolled and heaved over the side of the bed. Her fingers clutched the sheets as a thin stream of bile pooled on the floor, her name a hoarse whisper from his lips. Her side flared with pain. Gentle fingers combed her hair back from her face, a counterpoint to his panicked shout for the guards as those same fingers fell to her shoulders to gather her away from the rebellion of her own body and her harsh reintroduction to the world.

He wiped her mouth on a spare corner of the blanket as he wrapped her in his arms, murmuring reassurances into her hair, his own relief slipping loose in the tears that ran down his face and the reverent, disbelieving way his hands roamed over her back. He rocked them both, clung to her. She shook. The pains in her side and her right arm throbbed with every judder in her body as she gave up the fight and wept into his collar, and only her shattered breath and sheer exhaustion kept her from yelling in the face of every one of his soothing words, because she ought to be dead and everything hurt and every single one of her nightmares was real.    

A door opened, and distantly she felt Alistair turn just enough to issue orders to someone over her shoulder, before they were alone again and he was pressing a desperate kiss into her hair, cradling her like a child. Her body’s weakness told her she must have been asleep for days at least, and it grew weaker still as the tears ran dry and her sobs quelled into jerking, broken breaths that drew a wince with every inhale. She couldn’t tell if dehydration or blood loss was causing the new ache in her head, so she fisted her hands tighter in Alistair’s shirt, ashamed of the soaking she had given it but unwilling to allow him even the option of pulling away. Every other horror might be real, but he was solid and warm against her cheek, he smelled of sweat and ointment and smoke, with a sour tint like he hadn’t washed in days, and his heart beat a strong rhythm beneath her ear. She couldn’t have imagined such detail. She had been too long without any such sensation in the dark place she had been. So long as she could anchor herself to him, she could endure the rest. 

The protection of his arms stayed around her as the door to her room opened again, but she only buried her head deeper against his chest, aware of the silent conversation going on above her head and too tired to care about it. 

“Your Ladyship?” Wynne’s voice. “It’s good to see you with us again. I need to look at you.” 

Her throat burned, too dry for words, so she just shook her head. 

“Has word been sent to the kitchens?” Alistair asked. 

“As instructed,” came the steady reply. “I need to check Her Ladyship’s wounds. Your Highness, if you would step outside?” 

Fear clutched at her chest as he shifted next to her. “No –” 

“Wynne’s right, love,” he murmured, kissing her fingers as he untangled them from his shirt. “I’m not going far – I’ll be right outside.” 

“Now that the worst of the danger has passed, perhaps Your Highness will finally submit to a bath, instead?” Wynne interrupted, with a sardonic purse of her lips. 

Chastened, he looked down at himself. “Maybe I am a bit… But I’ll be right back,” he promised, leaning towards Rosslyn again. For an instant, his gaze dropped to her mouth, but with an audience he couldn’t follow through on the intent, and with his thumb brushed across her cheek he pressed his lips to her forehead instead.  “I love you.” 

She only managed a smile in return as all the things she wanted to say clogged in her throat, but her gaze remained hungry on his back until Wynne chivvied him all the way into the corridor and shut the door behind him. In a way, she was grateful, because the healer knew enough not to dance around plain truth, and now that her initial shock had calmed, the number of questions unanswered was growing. Gritting her teeth, she sat up straighter in the bed and pulled in a steady breath.  

“What happened to me?” 

-- 

The hot-water sluices of Orzammar felt particularly distant to Alistair as he roughly washed himself with the cloth and cold water in the ewer in his room, then shaved himself without waiting for Marten or a decent amount of light. He was out of practice with the razor, so when he ended up outside Rosslyn’s door again, he had to resist the urge to fidget with the small, scarlet nicks on his chin where his hand had passed too impatiently over the bristles. Tiredness itched at his eyes, but the rest of his body chafed in the quiet, and as the first wash of blue lit the sky over the keep’s inner courtyard, it illuminated him in indecision, either leaning on the windowsill with his arms folded, or pacing back and forth in front of the door like he was on the inside of the cage. He only stopped when the clack of wood on the floorboards announced Fergus’ arrival. In the week since the battle, his health had improved a great deal, but walking was still an effort for him after months of incarceration and Amell had provided him with crutches so he could exercise the muscles in his atrophied legs without putting his full weight on the still-healing bones. 

“She’s awake?” he asked. 

Alistair nodded, swallowed, and returned to his pacing. “Wynne is… She’s looking her over now.” 

“How did she seem?” 

At that, he could only shake his head. He had lost count of the number of times he had imagined Rosslyn waking, hoped for it so much the vision entered even his dreams, but the disorientation and the panic in her eyes had been unexpected, and his own easement at finding her conscious had only lasted as long as it took to realise she was still very, very lost. And now another worry entered his mind as Fergus settled himself on the windowsill with a grunt of effort, one that had been pushed away by the horror of the battle. The man was her brother, the only family each had left in the world, and compared to that, he himself was nothing more than an intruder on a lifelong relationship – and he had spent the past week entirely fastened to her side, sleeping next to her in her own bed. 

“Uh, my lord?” He cleared his throat, willing the heat on the back of his neck to subside. “I – about me and Rosslyn –” 

“I’ve never seen my sister behave with anyone the way she does with you, otherwise I wouldn’t have let you anywhere near her,” Fergus interrupted. The set of his jaw was the same as his sister’s, and his tone, like hers, offered no room for argument. “I didn’t thank you for your intervention with Irminric.” 

Alistair looked at his hands. “I shouldn’t have left her.” A few moments more, and not even Morrence would have been enough. 

“How’s the dog?” 

“Getting stronger,” he replied. “Once he knows she’s awake he’ll probably try to climb the stairs again.”  

“You should’ve locked that cage,” Fergus said. 

“There wasn’t time to think.” 

Silence fell over them. Somewhere below the castle walls, a rooster crowed, answered by the bark of a dog and the babble of distant voices waking up to start the day’s chores. At any other time, Alistair’s discomfort with silence would have had him scrambling for some topic of conversation to pass the time, but the longer Rosslyn’s door stayed shut, the more he glared at it, and his focus left no room for idle talk. He only moved when the click of the latch sounded in the quiet, and Wynne stepped into the corridor, adjusting the bag of potions she held over one arm. Before either of them could say anything, she held up her hand. 

“Her Ladyship is resting,” she said. “As she needs to after a week battling for her spirit in the Fade.” 

“So there was something keeping her there?” Fergus asked. 

“Yes, but fortunately, beyond some bad memories I can detect no traces of it remaining. She has eaten, and knows to call if she has need of anything, but for now I must ask you both to please let her be.” 

Alistair frowned. “Have you told her about Cuno?” 

“Your Highness, I have lived long enough to know that few things motivate people to ignore healers’ orders like the plight of a distressed animal.” The enchanter pursed her lips and huffed. “I remember one particularly stubborn apprentice in the Circle who was adamant about caring for a stray kitten that somehow found its way inside, no matter how I pressed him to mind his own matters instead. I trust I can leave that happy news to you?” 

He nodded. It wouldn’t be information she’d forgive being kept from her, but after a week of so little good news, telling her that her dog still lived would make a welcome change of mood. And yet, Rosslyn might not wake for hours; he had been so consumed with worry over recent days, he had almost forgotten how to do anything else. Should he go to his room? Try to sleep? Cailan might accept some help with the logistics of the army, but it was unlikely either he or Anora would be awake so early. For an instant, he considered going to the kitchens to make sure the servants would be on hand, but dismissed the idea quickly, because for one thing, he didn’t know the best kinds of foods to combat sickness, and for another, after a lifetime of living with Rosslyn, the cooks probably knew already that she liked honey and dried apple slices in her porridge. 

Wynne was already halfway to the stairs. He made to call after her, but Fergus laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. 

“This is good news,” he said, and coughed self-consciously. “I’m going down into the city this morning on business. You should come with me.” 

“But –”  

“I know your worry,” Rosslyn’s brother told him. “I share it, but duty cannot be neglected, especially not now.” 

“What do you mean?” It sounded like something she would say. 

“Many families were torn apart by what happened here, and they need our help – what little we can offer.”  

Rosslyn would have agreed. His thoughts flew to the argument he had overheard between her and Gideon on Summerday, the righteous anger that had goaded her to stand before the king and demand he do something other than run away, and to the moment in the Circle tower after everything they had seen, when she had confessed that she would have committed treason to keep Ferelden from Orlesian hands. 

“Alright.” She would chide him for not getting out to stretch his legs, anyway – and perhaps he could find something cheery to bring back for her. 

“Good.” 

-- 

It had snowed during the night – not much, certainly not as deep as the winter blizzards that settled over Redcliffe, but enough to cover the still-churned earth of the battlefield outside the gate so that the crows fluttered across the expanse like specks of soot on clean linen. The carriage they rode in had been piled with furs and warmed with a heat rune to stop Fergus catching a dangerous chill, and it rumbled along the road with a convoy of mounted Highever guard and what few supplies they could spare from their stores. They had butchered the horses slain on the field and dried the meat, but with Gwaren’s soldiers to feed as well as those that had travelled from Aeylesbide, even that source of food had been stretched thin. A broth made from the bones had served as the bulk of the army’s rations for four days now, mixed into a rough gruel with mashed grains and what few wild greens could be sourced by the foraging parties. Alistair remembered such fare from his time as Teagan’s right-hand, without much fondness; aside from the lumpy texture, the stench of boiled bones lingered in a greasy film at the back of the throat, a sour taste like the guilt as he picked at his own, significantly better meals, but better than nothing. 

The blank landscape invited such introspection. What would Rosslyn think when she saw the accommodations for her soldiers? Shame wormed uncomfortably in his stomach for the way he had dismissed his share of the work since Loghain had fled. Aside from the paperwork he had taken on to pass the long hours while she slept, most of the day-to-day logistics had been passed to Anora once Gwaren’s soldiers surrendered. While he appreciated the reprieve, his time among dwarven politics had taught him to recognise the queen’s help as an attempt for her to reassert her authority over a leadership that had learned to cope with her absence. It didn’t help that rumours about Cailan’s intentions towards Rosslyn had reached even to Denerim, nor that their near-confrontation before the battle had pitted the two women so neatly against each other, like flint on steel.    

“Didn’t Cailan want to come?” he asked, to break the silence. In truth, the few times his brother had made an appearance outside his rooms, he had been snappish and withdrawn, with a forced, brittle energy that could not be entirely faulted given his guilt over Rosslyn’s injuries and the loss of most of his guard – but which did not entirely explain it, either. 

Fergus turned from the view out over the cliffs. “I asked, but His Majesty said he had a headache. He seems very different to the man I knew.” 

“Rosslyn said you all grew up together,” Alistair prompted. 

“Not quite,” Fergus chuckled. “Though she tried. The king and I were of an age, and there was Nate. Rosslyn never really had that, mostly because she never got on all that well with Delilah, so she would follow along after us, trying to prove she could match three boys twice her age.” 

“What did you do?” 

He smiled. “Oh, we thought she was a pest, especially the time she stole Father’s horse and made us chase her half way to West Hill. I never did work out if she’d done it on purpose or if it had just taken off with her.” The expression faltered, and he took to gazing out of the window again. “I hear she’s taken to leading cavalry now.” 

“She’s an excellent rider,” Alistair replied. “She’s…” But outing her once-plan to revive the stock of Ferelden’s horses wasn’t his place, not least because it had seemed so impossible before her brother’s unexpected return from the dead, so he bit his tongue. “She’s saved a lot of lives with that cavalry.” 

The rest of the journey passed in spurts of uncomfortable and short-lived conversation, an itch of awkwardness that left Alistair shifting in his seat with every bump in the road, and trying not to make the movement too obvious. As the buildings of Highever rose higher around them, the more he felt out of his depth, and the ever longer pauses between him and Rosslyn’s brother were filled with the rattling of the carriage and the jingle of harness. When they finally stopped in the main chantry square, he followed mutely behind Fergus as the supplies they had brought were unloaded directly to the revered mother, watched over by the guards to ensure everyone got a fair share. After that, they drove on further to meet a man in a carpenter’s smock who shook his head over the progress of street repairs, and from there to the wharves, where fresh catches of fish were being hauled in for gutting now that the Clayne blockade of the port had been lifted, and every slow, laboured step of the tour drove deeper the guilt that he had not done more to help. 

And yet, as they passed, more than one dark look followed after them, and once away from the broadest thoroughfares into the maze of ancient, winding alleyways, he noticed how their guard tightened their grip on their swords. Apparently unconcerned, Fergus turned off the street and into a tavern with a board over the door painted with a strange, fish-like creature with a single, spiralling horn rising from its forehead. The tavern’s glazed windows had been smashed and boarded with planks, and the plant pots resting on the upper windowsills contained only dead stems. The few other patrons already inside turned baleful eyes on them as they entered with the cold air, before those same gazes slid to the armed and armoured guards, and finally back to the foamy depths of their tankards.    

“They’re angry,” Fergus explained quietly as they crossed the rush-strewn floor to a table in the corner. He hissed as he sat down, and laid aside his crutches to massage his legs. “Many of them ended up desperate under Howe’s thumb, and they think we did nothing to stop it.” 

Still wary, Alistair kept his silence until the barkeep had taken their order for ale. “They aren’t happy for the supplies?” 

“Their children are starving,” Rosslyn’s brother pointed out. “And the soldiers were brutal to them. I can understand them wanting to protect those they love, and trying to reason that what little we do have needs to be rationed isn’t going to mean much with those who still need to feed their families.” 

“And yet if you gave them as much as they wanted, there’d be nothing left to eat next year, or enough seasoned timber for good quality houses.” Brantis had taught him as much; and Cailan, too, had worried about the harvest. 

A nod. “Not without expensive imports from elsewhere, and Howe drained too much of the teyrnir to fund his bloody mercenaries. We can only do what we can, and hope to win back their trust.” 

The declaration made a weary kind of sense, but even after the barkeep returned with two glazed mugs of mulled ale and a bowl of fried sprats to keep hunger at bay for the midday meal, Alistair’s frown didn’t ease. 

“If they could have seen what it did to Rosslyn, having to leave them behind…” he started, and bit his lip. Those were days he wasn’t proud of, when he had wallowed in his own hurt pride and pushed her away. 

“They would have resented her for hesitating to do what she had to.” Fergus took a long, slow gulp of his drink and wiped the foam from the trim of his moustache. “As a ruler, you cannot show weakness, or else people will lose faith and stir up trouble where it is least needed. Getting too embroiled in personal problems means you stop thinking for the good of the majority.”  

“That seems rather cold.” 

“Is that how you would describe my sister?” 

“What? Of course not.”  

She could seem distant at times, but only to those who didn’t know her, and only when the politics of a situation demanded it. Having been a soldier, sometimes her dismissiveness towards commoners irked him, but to see her get so little recognition for how hard she worked – after everything that happened – turned his stomach in an entirely different way. It didn’t help to have her brother watching him, evaluating like he was some recruit being paraded about for the good of the sergeant on inspection day. 

“Rosslyn is… She cares a lot,” he said at last. “When I first knew her, she spent weeks sleeping in ditches and fighting to stop Howe’s soldiers gaining a stranglehold on Highever, and when she came back, a child ran out in front of her horse and he nearly threw her. She could have lashed out, but she didn’t – I know a lot of people who would have scoffed at her taking time to comfort a crying peasant girl, but it’s what she did.” 

Fergus leaned back in his chair with a smile faint on his lips. “Compassion isn’t weakness,” he replied at last. “My father said once that it was like fire forging a sword – too little and the metal becomes brittle, too much and it will melt and be lost entirely to the coals.” A sigh. “You saw the people we passed. What use would we be if we spent our energy trying to be their friends? They want solutions to their problems, with as little interference in their lives as possible.” 

“Have you asked them?” Alistair countered.  

“Four days ago,” came the cool reply, “when I first came down here to see the extent of the damage.” 

Stung, he dropped his gaze to the wood grain of the table, unable to match the impassive stare that came across so familiar, even if the eyes that held it were sea-blue instead of grey. A proper apology was just forming on his tongue when his companion grunted and slapped the table. 

“Enough,” Fergus said. “I have had precious little to celebrate this past year, and now finally, my sister is awake. This is damn well worthy of an occasion.” 

“It is.” Alistair raised his mug, unable to stop the relieved spread of his smile. “She’s awake.” 

“And thank the Maker for it,” Fergus agreed, watching him again as he tipped his head back. “But now that she is, there’s a question.” 

“Mm?” 

“It’s very obvious you’re in love with her.” 

Alistair choked. Coughed. Felt his ears turn scarlet. 

“And since you are,” the older man continued, slowly, leaning forward with the same rapt attention a wolf might give a ram, “what do you intend to do about it?” 

--

As afternoon drew on, Rosslyn’s attention wandered from the papers in her hands to the blank white world beyond her window, the fields of blinding snow and the winding course of the Donmarl cutting through the landscape like a vein of black flint through chalk. After a week in the dark her thoughts flitted too quickly for her to catch, forming patterns here and there like a murmuration of starlings over an autumn field, but exhaustion dogged her and she let each one surface and fade as it willed.

Cailan’s advance guard had arrived in Denerim, just in time for the weather to close behind them and cut off all communication. They knew the city had been relieved, and that Loghain and those loyal to him had fled, but his plans beyond that remained shrouded, and there was nothing they could do about it, no way to make him pay. Meanwhile, the casualty list from the battle stretched as long as her forearm. While she didn’t recognise every name, the number alone brought her to the edge of despair. Hobbs, who had ridden with her since Wythenshawe, had fallen to Erimond’s magic, and every other soldier who had travelled with her aboard the Windcaller had either met similar fates or were missing from the final tally. Gideon had lost his left arm below the elbow. Morrence, though mostly unharmed, had stared glassy-eyed as she delivered her reports earlier that morning, still in shock from the news of her father’s death, and the death of the last small bit of hope she had carried unnoticed through the summer campaign.

“If you need some time…” Rosslyn had murmured to her when the truth first came out.

“You didn’t have any,” her captain had replied. “And it’s better to be doing, anyway.”

That, at least, Rosslyn understood. Harder to grasp was the way time seemed to slip from her, how the world moved on regardless of personal hurts. So much had changed, she might have been asleep for an age, rather than just a week. In a few short weeks more it would be First Day, and from there, only a month until Wintersend, the anniversary of the day she left, and the day she watched her father ride away for the last time. She still had his ring snug about her finger, the once-sharp fracture in the band worn down by months of use, and in the corner of her room the heirloom sword that had been plucked from the battlefield and given to her because there had been no one else to take it now rested propped up in its sheath like a malignant shadow, waiting for her to make a decision. It ought to go to Fergus. He was the rightful heir, the eldest, but though the sword would fit him better, and she longed to set down the burden of her title, she could not help the wriggle of guilt in her chest for her selfishness when he had suffered so much for it already.

A knock on the door interrupted the ramble of her thoughts. Checking the tears that had rolled unobserved down her cheeks, she stuffed the casualty list in a drawer of her desk and called for the visitor to enter, her shoulders thrown back despite the strain it put on her injuries. When a familiar mess of tawny hair poked around the door, she relaxed into a smile, and started forward as Alistair swept into the room. He got to her first, arms outstretched to catch her fingers, gaze soft but missing nothing as he looked her over, trying to squash the disbelief that had yet to fade from the early hours of the morning. Now he appeared in daylight, it was easy to see the fatigue shadowed in his eyes. Unsure how to answer all the silent questions crowded in them, she stepped close and tried for a teasing smirk.

“You’ve brought the cold in with you.”

He heaved an unsteady breath. “My most sincere apologies, dear lady.” Before she could retort, he flourished the two wings of his cloak and wrapped them around her back so she was enclosed, snug, and unable to escape. “Is this better?”

The suggestive tilt of his eyebrows brought a giggle to her lips. “Maybe a little.”

“That’s my girl.” For an instant he leaned down as if angling for a kiss, but then checked himself and turned back to the doorway, looking entirely too sheepish.

Fergus watched them, leaning heavily on his crutches. Startled, Rosslyn pulled away from Alistair’s embrace sharply enough to send a stab of pain along the line of her wound, but if either of them saw her flinch, they ignored it. Her brother’s expression held the same wry amusement she had seen so often on her mother’s face, in the same blue eyes, and yet there was a sombre edge to it that only increased his resemblance to their father. It had been easy to forget that with a castle under siege, when he had been unwashed and dressed in only filthy rags.

He cleared his throat. “So. You two.”

“Fergus –”

“All I can think is what Mother would have said about it,” he chuckled, limping forward. “If we were playing fair, I’d pay you back for all the smart comments you gave me when –” A pause, and he took her hand. “Well, never mind. At least he’s a prince. Couldn’t have picked better for you myself.”

“Your taste in men is terrible,” she reminded him with an arch of her brow, but something in his expression, a glance that flickered to Alistair over her shoulder, rose a suspicion in her mind. “You two have been talking about me.”

“We’ve been worried about you, love,” Alistair told her hastily, brushing a touch over her shoulder. “We were just happy you woke up.”

Something dark loomed at the back of her mind, a trick of stray thought that vanished before she could really notice it, but it left her too unsettled to answer. She remembered little of what she had seen in the Fade, despite Wynne’s attempts to coax more information out of her. Instead, she turned to Fergus.

“And am I allowed to worry about you?” she asked.

Her brother sighed. “The mages are already doing enough of that. Enchanter Amell is skilled, but there’s only so much even she can do. This morning took it out of me, but I wanted to see how you were before I took myself off for a nap.”

Despite his smirk, she couldn’t miss the pallor in his sunken cheeks, or the way his restored finery hung off his shoulders despite the padding of extra layers to keep him warm.

“Well, I’m out of bed,” she tried, gesturing to herself. “You should get some rest.”

“If you insist. You two play nice.”

She coloured at the suggestion in his tone, but refused to rise to the bait, standing perfectly still as he made his exit. As soon as the door closed behind him, Alistair’s hand cupped her cheek and brought her round with only the barest hesitation to ask permission before he leaned down and kissed her, fiercely, as if he could push all of his relief to her lips at once. She swayed into his embrace as his tongue grazed her lip, stealing her breath in a whimper that only brought him closer. His hand splayed across her lower back, her fingers winding into the fabric of his collar, and when they ran out of breath he didn’t pull away, only pressed his forehead to hers as he caressed her face.

“You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” he breathed.

Smiling, she nudged another kiss against his mouth. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

The laugh that burst from him held more than a note of hysteria, but he kissed her again anyway, a slow, desperate movement that banished thought of all else – until she stretched too far and broke from him with a gasp.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as she clutched at her side. “Do you need to lie down?”

She shook her head. “I’ve had enough of lying down – I never want to go back to bed again.”

“Never never? That’s too bad.”

The joking tone didn’t quite touch his face, the anxious way his hands reached to steady her, but she appreciated the effort nonetheless. When she had imagined being with him in her bedroom, the nausea and fatigue had definitely not been part of it, nor the pain barely masked by Wynne’s potions, and she pushed herself against his chest again to pretend it all away.

“Where are you sleeping?” she asked.

“Officially?” He chuckled. “The blue room across the hall. I’ve been told it’s technically the royal suite, but your brother gave Cailan and Anora the teyrn’s rooms, and he’s in the one next down from you.”

“He hasn’t been back to his own?”

He stroked her hair. “I couldn’t blame him. I can’t stop thinking about how I’d feel if I lost you, and… Maker, I’ve come too close to that for comfort.”

“I’m alright,” she murmured, and pressed a kiss to his collarbone where she could reach.

“When I close my eyes, I keep seeing you lying there, and when it’s not that… I don’t want to let go of you.”

“Then don’t.” Later, she could be glib, but for now all she wanted was his warmth and the even beat of his heart.

They stood together for long enough that she slipped half into a haze, drawing comfort from the shield of strong arms and the sigh of breath above her ear. Even when her legs began to shake from an exhaustion she shouldn’t feel at all, he never let her go.

“You’re tense,” he said, after a while.

She forced a breath through her nose, ordered her thoughts. “This – retaking Highever – it should have solved everything, but it hasn’t. We lost so much, and… Howe got away again, and I can’t go after him.”

“There are search parties out,” he replied, cautious.

“It’s not the same as being out there. He might be halfway to Antiva by now.”

“I know.” A kiss fell against the top of her head. “But… since there isn’t anything we can do, why don’t we get out of here? Go somewhere that’s less… here.”

It hurt to laugh. “Wynne won’t be happy.”

“She can hardly object if you’re escorted, now can she?” he reasoned. “And since I’m a prince, I can overrule her.”

“Where did you have in mind?” she asked.

“Why don’t we see where we end up?”

After taking an extra blanket from the bed to wrap around her shoulders, he offered his arm with a teasing grin and they went slowly. Part of her wanted to chide him for the frequent glances he cast her out of the corner of his eye, but almost as soon as she stepped across the threshold of her room, her frustration at being caged gave out to the deep weariness she had been ignoring for most of the day as a symptom of her close mortality, and she didn’t want to think about it. Being able to lean on Alistair helped, especially when they reached the stairs. She didn’t want to look at her surroundings, didn’t want to hear the quiet of the castle settled about her. Snow had fallen outside and drifted against the corners of the windows. That morning, she had checked and found all of her valuables taken, her things rifled through like goods at a flea market, and as they walked along they passed squares of bare, whitewashed walls where her memory held paintings and tapestries that could not be replaced. The sense of violation followed her to the first floor landing where most of the guest bedrooms were, but of more immediate concern was the shortness of breath that spotted behind her eyes and left her dizzy. Once, she had bounded up those stairs like a deer.

“Where to now, my lady?” Alistair asked, keeping his voice deliberately light.

She dropped her head against his shoulder with a weak huff of amusement. “I was supposed to give you the tour.”

“Any excuse to spend time with me, I know,” he teased. “Are you hungry? Do you need to sit down? I should have asked if you were warm enough.”

“Surely I don’t look that bad? You don’t need to fuss.”

“Yes I do.”

The sincerity in his voice stole what little breath she had left. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry. “The library,” she managed after a moment. “I’ve always liked the view.”

Beaming, he stole a quick kiss and tucked her arm into his again, then led the way down the corridor. She rested her head on his shoulder, smiling at his familiarity with her home. She only lifted it away when they approached the library, but as they stepped through the door, the little strength remaining in her limbs bled away like sunlight from the sky.

The shelves had the look of carrion picked clean. Where once shining leather volumes had been set in neat rows, the shelves now had great, yawning gaps where the books had been torn away by people wanting kindling, or just amusement. The glass fronts of the cabinets had been smashed. The marble bust of King Calenhad that had sat on the desk for as long as she could remember looked like it had been knocked over and glued back together, and a chunk was missing above its left eye. She felt Alistair’s gaze on her as she followed her mounting dread to the corner behind the door, where her family’s most prized tomes were kept, hoping that their half-hidden alcove had been enough to spare them from the fate of the rest of the books.

It was gone. The manuscripts remaining in the case showed signs of rough handling in the scuffs to the edges of the vellum pages and the cracks along their spines, but they meant nothing to her in the face of the conspicuous gap on the shelf like a knocked-out tooth, the spot where the volume of her family’s history had once sat in pride of place.

“Rosslyn?”

This – this was worse than the rest of it, Howe’s greed and lack of respect for her family’s things, because the Cousland book hadn’t been just another tapestry or a trinket. It had borne the handwriting of generations, counting back all the way to Sarim’s dealings with Flemeth almost seven hundred years before, before the castle had been built and before Ferelden had even existed. It had contained illuminations in vibrant inks that matched any in Southern Thedas. As a child, she had spent hours gazing at the illustration of Elethea bending knee to King Calenhad, and the chase through Cullodhne Forest as the twins Haelia and Mather drove the werewolves from the north. It had survived coups and feuds, had been smuggled out in her great-grandmother’s saddlebags during the Orlesian invasion, and now…

“I can’t believe it’s gone,” she whispered. She squeezed her eyes shut as Alistair’s hand fell to her waist. “Everything my father built. How could he hate us so much?”

“I’m sorry.”

There were copies of the book, which her father had had made at the end of the Occupation and locked away against calamity, but those were just words and imitations, lacking the stains and imperfections accrued over ages of use, the intangible history that linked her through messy fingerprints to every one of her ancestors.

“My father loved this room,” she said, almost to herself. “He grew up running from the Orlesians, but he always loved to read. Anything he could get his hands on, he would say. When he finally took this place back at the end of the war he built this library up from nothing. There are so many memories here… I used to balance the accounts in that chair, with –” Heat itched sudden behind her eyes, blurred her vision, and she had to bite her lip. The crossbow rising. “Cuno used to sleep by the fire.”

A breath hissed in between Alistair’s teeth. For an instant, she thought he might be working out what to say, but the look in his eyes as he cupped her jaw in his hands showed only softness.

“He’s alive,” he said. “Cuno. The shot missed its mark, and Howe’s apostate changed sides to save him.”

She jerked away. “Alive? Why hasn’t anyone told me this? What are we doing here when we could be –”

“He’s still very weak.” He licked his lips, choosing his words. “They had to amputate his leg, and he’s still learning to manage. It’s partly my fault. I went down to see him, and… I accidentally left the run unlatched. He tried to follow me, and it was too much too soon.”

“So he can’t come and see me,” she surmised. “I have legs, I can go to him.”

“Rosslyn, you barely made it down one flight of steps. He’s all the way in the kennels. Wynne didn’t want you to know because she thought you’d go flying down there and ruin all her hard work, and that’s just what you’re thinking of doing, isn’t it?”

The touch of humour brought a pout to her lips, as always happened when logic and common sense outweighed her need to act.

“I promise, tomorrow I will make it so you can see each other. You can – meet in the middle, and go for a walk in the garden,” he suggested. “And I’ll go down this evening and tell him you’re awake.” He looked at her with such worry she had to bite her tongue against the impulse to argue, until the familiarity of their positions struck and painted a laugh on her lips.

“This is like the morning we met, when I demanded to see Teagan,” she told him.

He smiled. “We had breakfast.”

“We did.”

“Does that mean I can let go of you now?” he asked, having stepped close enough their breath mingled.

“I don’t want you to.”

And yet she couldn’t fight the red edges creeping in at the corner of her vision, or the way her limbs deadened in a cloud of pins and needles. He pulled away from the kiss with concern written in all the lines of his body and helped her to the window seat before retrieving every soft furnishing from around the room to prop her up and tuck her in.

“Are you quite done pampering me?” she demanded in mock exasperation.

“No.” The answer was smug. “Now wait there while I find someone to bring us some food.”

“Dinner’s only three hours away.”

“And Wynne said you were to eat little and often,” he pointed out. “I’ll be right back. Be good.”

She accepted the peck to her forehead with a good-natured grumble but wriggled deeper under the blankets nonetheless, too tired really to be disobedient. Once Alistair’s footsteps died away, her attention turned to the window. Snow was falling again, thick, fat flakes swirling fast enough to blot out the line of cliffs and the iron-grey sea beyond, batted by the wind into the shape of roaring dragons and galloping horses. It felt better to follow the patterns in the weather than dwell on thoughts of Cuno. Hope tickled like a cough in the back of her throat, but she refused to entertain it, or to unleash it until she saw her dog for herself. Until he greeted her with his big slobbery grin and a headbutt that knocked the wind from her stomach.

But would he even want to see her? What if he associated the pain of his injuries with what she had done, with the fact that she had been too proud to beg even for the life of the one creature that had kept her from spiralling into the dark after Glenlough? She had been so focussed on Howe, she hadn’t even thought to look after the shot was fired – couldn’t look – with all the details of the room crowding in on her, narrowing down her focus, the taste of blood, the crazed shouts, the stench of sweat and rotten breath, and a deeper, more profound hatred than any she had ever thought to experience.

She hauled in a deep breath to rid herself of the echo of Howe’s voice. Her hands were fisted in the blankets and she forced them to unclench. Snowflakes half-melted against the window pane then slid down to solidify at the corners, building up a layer of white already more than an inch thick with the storm still raging and rattling around the keep’s walls. Wearier than she had expected to be, she let her mind drift on the eddies as the fall brought on an early twilight, trying to block out the worry of what might happen when she fell asleep again, if nightmares would plague her, or whether she would wake up again at all.

She didn’t realise she had drifted off until she blinked her eyes open to find Alistair back at her side, holding her hand with a tray of green tea and small platters of food set on a parlour table next to her. The smell reminded her stomach of its leanness and her mouth watered, but she was distracted from the collation by the knot between Alistair’s brows, the pull at the corner of his mouth. The crick in her neck told her he must have been gone some time.

“What’s wrong?” she mumbled, unable to resist trying to smooth the expression away with her fingers.

Something guarded entered his expression as he sighed. He dropped his gaze. “I guess I’m still a little worried you won’t wake up.”

“You don’t need to worry.”

With a brief smile, he turned a distracted glance towards the food. “I hope you’re hungry - the cook has orders to stimulate your appetite by whatever means necessary. We’ve got breaded eggs, mince dumplings, apples stuffed with cheese curd – and I think Graela said those are pomegranate seeds? – and spiced potatoes with garlic.”

All favourites. All things she had missed during her months on campaign.

“I hope you’re not going to kneel down there like a page and feed me like some grand duchess,” she teased. “There’s no way I could eat all of this by myself.”

“What would you suggest, my love?”

She shrugged, traced her thumb over the back of his knuckles. “Why don’t you join me on this very comfortable seat?”

The summer sun couldn’t compare to his grin. He brought the table within arm’s reach as she shifted to make room for him then settled, with gentle guidance on her arms to pull her back against his chest into the fit that had already become so familiar. It was difficult to get comfortable without putting pressure on her injuries, but drawing the blankets up to her chin made things a little better. They worked their way through the food in comfortable silence, except for the moment when Alistair had to gulp down an entire cup of the tea because he failed to take a warning about the amount of spice on the potatoes. Much of the food produced in the castle’s kitchens benefitted from connections with the northern trade routes, with Castle Cousland especially adapting to the hotter palate favoured in Antiva, and while his spluttering shouldn’t have been quite so funny, Rosslyn had to bite her lips together as she passed him one of the apples so the cheese-curd stuffing might cool the pepper on his tongue.

Even before the food was half-finished, however, she began to doze again. Wynne had said her body would have to be eased back into its normal portions, especially given the amount of blood she had lost, but this time at least sleep felt welcome, the fingers playing on the side of her neck a comfort she wasn’t aware she needed. The only thing that disturbed her was a bizarre, intermittent squeak she couldn’t place, and it was a few moments before she realised the sound wasn’t a figment of her imagination. Twisting to see better, she squinted in the low light and found her lover tracing shapes in the condensation on the window. As she watched, he formed the last arcs on the ‘R’ and the ‘C’, before breaking the line to draw the shape of a heart around their joined initials.

He flushed when he caught her looking. “What?”

“Nothing,” she answered, laying her head against his shoulder once more. “I’m… I’m happy.”

His chest expanded in a deep inhale, a weighted silence.

“I know it sounds weird – I shouldn’t be, given everything that’s happened.”

“No.” A hand threaded into her hair. “It doesn’t sound weird, I… You deserve to be happy.”