#but more importantly WHY WOULD YOU EMPHASIZE THAT

[francisforever2014]

series of events that happened in the family (my mom, my sisters and my best friend) group chat yesterday:

mom sends in wordle

i respond with my wordle. saying i will get back into it this semester

my older sister says ooh i’ve never played am i gonna get addicted?

i say and i quote “it's addicting if you can deal with the ego death of not being able to figure one out”

my sister (context: 31 years old, going through a catastrophically bad divorce, just moved back in with my mom, quit her job in seattle to do so, is unemployed and legally homeless rn) says “my whole life lately has been one big ego death tbh what's one more!!!! lets goooo”

my mom EMPHASIZES THE TEXT AND SAYS NOTHING ELSE

nobody says anything in the group chat for 24 hours

[the-joy-of-knowledge]

Becoming an Intelligent Woman

My Dears,

There is no greater goal than being a fine woman who is intelligent, kind, and elegant. As much as we all want to be described with these adjectives, it takes a great amount of discipline to get there. It is very doable only if you are ready to put in the work.

Here are steps you can add to your routine in the next 4 weeks that will make you 1% more intelligent than you were before. This is a process that should become a habit not a goal. It is long term, however, I want you to devote just 4 weeks into doing these steps first and recognize the changes that follow.

Watch documentaries: This is the easiest step, we all have access to Youtube. Youtube has a great number of content on art, history, technology, food, science etc that will increase your knowledge and pique your curiosity. I really did not know much about world history especially from the perspective of World war 1 & 2, the roaring 20s, Age of Enlightenment, Jazz era, monarchies etc but with several channels dedicated to breaking down history into easily digestible forms. I have in the last 4 weeks immersed myself into these documentaries. Here are a few I watched:

The fall of monarchies

The Entire History of United Kingdom

The Eight Ages of Greece

World War 1

World War 2

The Roaring '20s

The Cuisine of the Enlightenment

2. Read Classics: I recommend starting with short classics so that you do not get easily discouraged. Try to make reading easy and interesting especially if you struggle with finishing a book. Why classics? You see, if you never went to an exclusive private school in Europe or America with well crafted syllabus that emphasized philosophy, history, art, and literary classics, you might want to know what is felt like and for me this was a strong reason. Asides that, there is so much wisdom and knowledge available in these books. In these books, you gain insights to the authors mind, the historical context of the era, the ingenuity of the author, the hidden messages, and the cultural impact of these books. Most importantly, you develop your personal philosophy from the stories and lessons you have accumulated from the lives of the characters in the books you read. Here are classics to get you started:

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

Candide by Voltaire

Paradise lost by John Milton

3. Study the lives of people who inspire you: I dedicate one month to each person that fascinates me. I read their biography (date of birth, background, death, influences, work, style, education, personal life) For this month, I decided to study Frank Lloyd Wright because I was fascinated by the Guggenheim Museum in New York. I began to read about his influence in American Architecture (Organic architecture, Prairie School, Usonian style), his tumultuous personal life, his difficult relationship with his mentor (Louis Sullivan), his most iconic works etc. By the end of the year I would have learned the ins and outs of people I am inspired by through books and documentaries. Here are other people I plan to learn more about:

Winston Churchill

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Ada Lovelace

Benjamin Franklin

Helen Keller

John Nash

Isabella Stewart Gardner

Caroline Herrera

Ernest Hemingway

Catherine the Great

Ann Lowe

My dears, I hope you enjoyed this read. I cannot wait to write more on my journey to becoming a fine woman. I urge you to do this for four weeks and see what changes you notice. Make sure to write as well, it is important to document your progress.

Cheers to a very prosperous 2024!

[homoquartz]

hi!! if you would like to join me in being angry, please consider this new gem of journalism bestowed upon us peasants today:

(Article link is here)

In case you doubt it, yes, that is correct. Major studios will now assemble panels of racists, homophobes, transphobes, and misogynists to dictate how much us squirming pathetic little brown queers get to be represented on screen.

They were already doing this, but now they're comfortable saying it outright. As I have said before, THIS SHOULD ALARM YOU.

This post is long so the rest is below, backed up with data:

Disney is tacitly admitting that they canceled The Acolyte because they would rather alienate their marginalized fanbase than their rabid, genocidal straight white male one. And you can be damn sure this is also why the likes of Netflix and HBO Max are so comfortable discarding highly acclaimed queer shows like Warrior Nun, Our Flag Means Death, the Owl House, and Dead Boy Detectives.

The only shows about marginalized people allowed to go on are the ones that, against all odds, become hit successes (eg Heartstopper), at which point their earning potential outweighs their sin of being brown or gay. I want to emphasize that these shows must be breakout hits - shows that perform on par with straighter, whiter releases aren't given this grace.

These companies are going to obscure the reality of their actions by talking about profits and public image, but rest assured they would find a way to justify this even if the vast majority of viewers were brown and queer. Because it's about maintaining power. It's part of a nationwide surge against inclusion.

Do you remember the IGN article that just came out that revealed Disney's insistence that Riley be made to look "less gay" in Inside Out 2?

Do you remember the Autostraddle article which crunched the numbers to show that queer shows are cancelled more often and earlier than others?

How about GLAAD's breakdown of queer shows cancelled last year? Here's a snippet of the data:

❗️Both Autostraddle and GLAAD have found that 1 in 4 queer shows are axed. This is DOUBLE the rate for streaming shows overall, which is just at 12%.

Variety has a data breakdown here. What's interesting is that Netflix is actually pretty moderate with its cancellations, yet the majority of cancelled queer shows belong to Netflix.

I had a harder time finding data for shows featuring leads of color. If anyone has links, I'll add them here.

In conclusion:

They are banning our books. They are cancelling our shows. They are silencing our stories. You know why.

You can help in a few ways. One is to stream as many cancelled shows centering POC and/or queer people as you can. Another option is to cancel your streaming subscriptions and vote with your wallet (this is what I have done).

There's also a bunch of petitions for cancelled shows I strongly recommend signing. Pick a show and google it plus "petition" and it will turn up.

You can go to Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB and 5-star your chosen shows, as well as each episode.

You can message the streaming services on social media requesting renewal. Reaching out to influencers in spheres related to this topic, as well as media outlets, is also a good idea.

Finally and most importantly, talk to your friends and family. Ask them to do something. Ask them to tell people. The more people who stand against a hateful status quo, the less powerful it becomes.

I believe this can be turned around if we make enough noise. These streaming services should revive their queer shows, market them properly, and support them like any other show.

I sound silly now, but watch this space in two years.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Many of Harris’s mistakes were similar to those Hillary Clinton made in 2016. Like Clinton, Harris cozied up to billionaire donors. Mark Cuban, for instance, said he was delighted that Harris was abandoning Democrats’ commitments to progressive principles and letting the business community propose the policies it wanted. Like Clinton, Harris and Tim Walz made hubristic campaign stops in solidly red states like Texas and Kentucky rather than spending the final days laser-focused on crucial battlegrounds. Like Clinton, Harris emphasized celebrity endorsements while failing to successfully court unions. (Most notably, the Teamsters declined to endorse her after she refused to pledge that she wouldn’t break a national railway strike.) Like Clinton, Harris focused too much on the danger of Donald Trump (which is very real) and not enough on the reasons why she would be good at being president herself. Most importantly, like Clinton, Harris ultimately decided upon a strategy of trying to woo moderate Republican voters away from Trump, reasoning that it didn’t matter if doing so alienated progressive voters and the Democratic base. Chuck Schumer, speaking of Hillary’s 2016 strategy, infamously promised: "For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia. And you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin." In fact, they just lost the blue-collar Democrats and didn’t pick up the Republicans! In 2024, Harris, too, aggressively touted endorsements from Republicans, promised to put a Republican in her cabinet (she even cited that as the answer to what she would have done differently from Biden!), and went so far as to praise and embrace Dick and Liz Cheney! The strategy was an abject failure. Because she wanted to appease both Republicans and progressive voters, Harris had to further indulge her weakness for speaking in meaningless word salads, since taking stances that were meaningful could have alienated one of these constituencies. Trump, who is canny about portraying himself as more anti-war than Democrats, correctly pointed out that an endorsement from the hawkish Cheneys should be a badge of shame, not honor. (Specifically he said Cheney is “"the King of Endless, Nonsensical Wars, wasting Lives and Trillions of Dollars, just like Comrade Kamala Harris. I am the Peace President, and only I will stop World War III!")

[...]

The lesson to Democratic leaders in 2016 should have been that Bernie Sanders had been right, that the party had betrayed working-class voters and would be doomed if it could not effectively counter Trump’s pseudo-populist appeal with a visionary alternative. (See the excellent analysis in Thomas Frank’s Listen, Liberal.) Unfortunately, the lessons weren’t learned then, and it doesn’t seem like they’re going to be learned now, either! MSNBC anchor Joy Reid is already insisting that Kamala Harris’s campaign was “flawless” (because she got “every prominent celebrity voice”), and pundits like Jill Filipovic are saying things like, “this election was not an indictment of Kamala Harris. It was an indictment of America.” (Good luck ever winning with the slogan “You’re the problem, America!”) USAToday’s Michael Stern says that instead of talking about “where the Harris campaign went wrong” we should talk about “where the American people went wrong.” The Harris campaign itself is blaming unspecified “obstacles that were largely out of our control.” 

6 November 2024

[il-miele-che-scrive]

Constellations

lando norris x reader

summary: a blurb where lando surprises his girlfriend arriving earlier than planned

words count: 1k

People told Y/n that Lando and her wouldn't last a week in a long distance relationship when he first moved from the UK to Monaco. Yet, there they were - almost three years of long distance and three more in general going strong.

Y/n loved summers because she traveled with her boyfriend wherever his races were, and Lando loved Christmas because it was the time when he would come back and spend time with his girlfriend and both their families.

As soon as Y/n woke up, she started getting everything ready, it was that time of the year again. Cleaning up her apartment and most importantly baking gingersnap biscuits. After she took them out of the oven, she went to the bedroom in the order to choose an outfit. She was going to pick Lando up from the airport that evening and wanted to dress pretty.

When the girl was picking out something to wear, she suddenly heard the doorbell. With a quiet sigh she went to open the door, hoping whoever it was wouldn't take too much time. All her friends knew she'd be busy.

Her facial expression changed from slightly annoyed to beaming when she saw Lando.

"Why didn't you call?" Y/n asked as she hugged her boyfriend. "I was going to pick you up, remember?"

"I decided to take an earlier flight," Lando confessed, "it's been the plan from the beginning, actually. I wanted to surprise you."

"And you surprised me, indeed. Come on in."

Lando stepped into his girlfriend's apartment. Leaving his suitcase in the hallway, he walked towards the kitchen.

"You baked?"

"Yeah, ginger snaps. A small training portion before Christmas, to check if I still got it." Y/n propped herself on the kitchen counter in a theatrically proud pose. "Turns out I do."

Without thinking, Lando took one biscuit and bit it. He quickly regretted this decision when he noticed how hot it was.

"No, Lando!" Y/n exclaimed. "I've just took them out of the oven!"

The girl fought the need to start laughing at the sight of Lando panicking. Despite the temperature, he ended up swallowing the biscuit.

"You know you could've spit it out, right?" Y/n laughed.

"Are you kidding?" Lando snapped jokingly. "I love when you make those, I would never waste even a bite."

"Consider yourself initiated into the Christmas spirit." The girl opened the fridge and poured milk into a glass, then passed it to her boyfriend.

"Well, now I know your gingersnaps are still as deadly as ever." He took the glass with a mock salute.

"That's a nice definition of irresistible."

"Absolutely."

"You know," Lando began when he and his girlfriend laid down in the bedroom watching TV, "I missed this place. Your apartment feels like a second home."

"A second one?" Y/n questioned, a teasing glint in her eyes. "That's flattering, I'd expect like third or fourth."

"Consider yourself promoted."

The boy gently cupped his girlfriend's face, her head turned to look at him. He placed a soft kiss on her forehead, then looked into her eyes. Their eyes met in a silent exchange of affection that needed no words.

She connected their lips in a kiss. Lando ran his fingers through Y/n's hair, savoring the simplicity of the moment. The outside world seemed to fade away, leaving only the comforting glow of the TV screen.

Some Netflix show on the TV played in the background, its characters living their own dramas, but in that quiet space, Lando and Y/n found their own story.

"Y/n," he began again, his voice a gentle whisper, "I was counting down the days until Christmas, couldn't wait to be here with you."

Y/n smiled, her eyes matching the love she felt. "I love it when it's Christmas and you're here... summer is great, we spend much more time together and with your friends, but Christmas is a vibe."

"Definitely a vibe," Lando laughed, emphasizing the last word. "You have a way with words, don't you?"

As the couple kept watching the show, occasionally adding their own comments, it got dark outside and now the screen was casting shadows om the walls, being the only source of light in the room. Y/n and Lando remained cuddled up to each other, his fingers tracing shapes on her arm.

Once again, Lando broke the silence. "I've been thinking about us." From the tone of his voice, Y/n could tell it wasn't anything she should worry about.

"What were you thinking?"

"We're like constellations up in the sky. Even when we're apart, there's this invisible thread that keeps us connected."

"Have you just made it up?"

"Probably, I don't remember hearing it anywhere before."

"Look who has a way with words," Y/n smiled, not a tint of sarcasm in her voice. "That was poetic, wouldn't expect that from an f1 driver."

"We've been dating for over five years and I plan on keeping surprising you for many, many more."

"And people had the audacity to say we wouldn't last a week after you move to Monaco."

"In these past few years our love has been like a guiding star. No matter where I am, it points me back to you. Always."

"And no matter where you go, I'll always be here, waiting for you."

Lando's fingers continued their gentle dance on Y/n's arm, a rhythmic lullaby. Her eyelids felt so heavy when she rested her head on Lando's chest, his steady heartbeat adding up to the sleepiness the girl felt. Wrapped in the soft glow of the room and in her boyfriend's arms, she felt so peaceful.

When Lando noticed Y/n breathing deeply, he realized she had drifted off to sleep. He decided to turn off the TV and do the same, shifting his body to provide comfortable sleep for both himself and his girlfriend. Christmas had a way of bringing everything together.

[sheastri]

Hell N Back ft. op81

Pairing: oscar piastri x fem!black reader

Genre: Social Media AU with story

Summary: In which the reader was finally done with love until Oscar came into her life and charmed (all he had to do was exist) her into giving love another chance.

Warning(s): None.

A/N: Recently been thinking about f1 so I decided why not write??Title inspired by "Hell N Back Bakar ft. Summer Walker" because I've been obsessed with it lately!! No specific fan cast, just photos off of Pinterest.

୨୧–------------------------------------------୨୧

The First Meeting

2 years ago

Y/n was walking down a street flooded by shops all around her with her best friend, A'lidyah. The two women were in deep conversation about love. Y/n was almost sure she would never comfortably be in love again and A'lidyah was telling her that love comes to you when you least expect it.

"You shouldn't fully mark it off because of a few mishaps. And love comes in so many different forms and can be found in so many different aspects of life." A'lidyah explained while moving her hands to emphasize her point.

"You know what, you're right. I love seeing the smiles of the people who walk the streets, I love skipping through town hand in hand, and I love music. I'm so grateful to have you in my life, like seriously." Y/n said smiling at her friend sincerely. A'lidyah returned the smile saying something along the lines of "life would be so dull without you, i thank God for you everyday." The conversation then resumed, the two girls having smiles seemingly permanently edged on to their faces.

While Y/n was speaking she momentarily shifted her eyes to glance at something on the side of the street that A'lidyah stood on and in that quick second she had walked into someone. He managed to catch her by her waist before she had fallen and she immediately began apologizing before looking up at the man.

As Y/n shifted to meet the gaze of her saving grace, she found she was met with a face that displayed the thoughts crossing her mind at the moment. Wide eyes and mouth agape, the man must've been experiencing the shock that circled her mind at the moment. She only broke through this trance at the sound of a witch like cackling that could come from no one other than A'lidyah. Y/n raised her eyebrow and side eyed her best friend with a smile on her face before turning her attention back on to the man who stood in front of her.

They exchanged eye contact one last time before his hold on her waist loosened and Y/n stepped back and bent down to pick up the things that fell on the floor. Oscar soon joined her and then apologized for almost knocking her over.

"Ah, no worries it was mostly my fault and I was able to be saved by a handsome man so I'd say we're pretty even?" Y/n responded cheekily.

"A handsome man? And then you a beautiful woman? Almost seems like a match made in heaven, wouldn't cha say?" The man said while his face was very clearly flushed and he looked like he had to muster up all his confidence and self-control to not stutter. His pupils then went off to the side catching another woman in his line of sight. Seeing that the man had directed his attention to her A'lidyah began to speak.

"That's actually perfect, Y/n needs someone other than me to add a little bit of pizazz and all that fun stuff to her life, mind giving her a name?" A'lidyah says holding back a teasing smile. "Oh that's my bad. The names Oscar, Oscar Piastri. It's nice to meet you Y/n and..."

"Oh I'm A'lidyah! Her wife, her wingman, her manager, and most importantly her best friend. Oscar meet Y/n, Y/n meet Oscar!" The girl says enthusiastically. The two laugh but greet each other anyway.

They exchanged numbers and that day when Y/n went home she found the idea of love just a bit more appealing and Oscar... well let's just say his google history was flooded with many "Do I Have a Crush?" quizzes, a lot more "How to Know if Your in Love" blogs, and one slightly embarrassing question that his friends would definitely tease him about, not that they wouldn't tease him about what he had already been searching up anyway.

Y/n is now following Oscar Piastri

Oscar Piastri is now following Y/n

♫ Could you tell where my head was at when you found me? Me and you went to hell and back just to find peace ♫

୨୧–------------------------------------------୨୧

Current Time

yourusername

liked by oscarpiastri, whosalidyah, mclaren and 276,943 others

yourusername last photo is from me and lidyah's latest gossip session

view all 7,983 comments

whosalidyah not your boy in the likes...🤭

yourusername guys what is this crazy woman talking about?? username girl... you are NOT slick username not alidyah exposing her😭

carlossainz55 can't wait to meet you at our next race!

liked by creator

username anyone noticed that both oscar and mclaren liked??

username that's suspicious🤨 username that's weird...

oscarpiastri no photo creds after standing in the middle of the road to take that second one??

yourusername you're still alive and well?? landonorris justice for my boy oscar😪 whosalidyah burning all my number 4 mclaren merch landonorris I take back my earlier statement, I was misguided please forgive me oscarpiastri the things that love does to people🤦

username ignoring that 3rd photo for my peace of mind

username not me finding out my wife is cheating on me on my birthday

yourusername never bby 💕 oscarpiastri 🤥

mclaren come visit us in the paddock sometime soon!

yourusername I thought you'd never ask!! username oh?

username Man, I thought I had everything, I was lonely.

oscarpiastri

liked by yourusername, mclaren, landonorris, and 392,487 others

oscarpiastri Thanks to all the fans who came out to support @mclaren today.

yourusername Your nails are gorgg, who did them?? I need the number immediately🤭

oscarpiastri that information is classified🥱 username not y/n tryna act like those aren't her nails...

username babe... who's nails are those??

username why is lando lowkey looking like a snack in that photo??😩

landonorris it's just impossible for me to look bad, truly a gift and a curse😪 whosalidyah don't boost his ego too much now, im scared it might implode...

username just noticed that the nails match the colors on his helmet

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yourusername just a girl waiting for her photo creds

oscarpiastri just a boy waiting for the ones he was robbed of😣

username Now you're my everything, now it's on me.

mclaren

liked by yourusername, oscarpiastri, f1, and 203,587 others

mclaren Our papaya boys + Y/n = another good day in the paddock

yourusername I had an amazing time, thank you so much for inviting me (10/10 experience, would recommend).

mclaren You're welcome to join us again anytime!

username ok but who was y/n looking at because I don't think her smile could get any brighter??

username ik y/n was sick of them by the end of this😭

landnorris y/n run they're trying to recruit you

yourusername girl dw i'm already halfway down the road oscarpiastri 🤦 username lmao i love their dynamic

whosalidyah if only I didn't have exams

yourusername never leave me again, oscar and lando almost drove me insane whosalidyah igu next time babes🤞

username hope to see her at the paddock a lot more!

username oh to be y/n rn

username I could you tell where your head was at when I found you.

୨୧–------------------------------------------୨୧

Will You Be Mine?

1 year ago

Y/n was very excited for her date with the one and only Oscar Piastri, not like she hadn't gone on many with him before but he had said he had something very special planned which "fit her persona well", his words not hers. She was very suspicious seeing as basically all their dates filled her with joy and excitement, high standards to exceed, if she did say so herself.

She had gotten her nails painted prior to the date and had made sure her hair looked nice. She had also put on a pretty dress but not before playing dress up and have a whole fashion show in her room with A'lidyah. Her whole hype crew in one person, she was so blessed. While doing touch ups she heard the doorbell ring and practically flew downstairs to go and open the door.

Oscar stared down at her, his face leading her to think he was in a trance or something of the sort. Y/n loved the effect she had on him. She did a little twirl to show him the full fit knowing it would fluster him even more.

"Am I pretty enough for the occasion, Mr. Piastri?" Y/n said chuckling softly before leaving a mannequin like Oscar standing at the door in awe as she went to go grab her purse and let A'lidyah know it was time for her to go. She came back down and Oscar swore she looked like an angel descending from the heavens.

"Well, I'm waiting on an answer?"

"You are absolutely stunning, beyond pretty enough for the occasion, although those are definitely everyday qualities of yours."

"What a sweetheart!" Y/n said, once again teasing the man and taking pleasure in the blush that spread across his face, as she closed the door to the apartment and took Oscar's outstretched hand. As they made it to the car he opened the door for her and allowed her to enter before going around the car and getting in himself.

"Ouhh my favorite song is playing, did you orchestrate this or is the universe just working overtime?" The girl spoke softly in a joking manner.

"A magician can't reveal all his tricks." Oscar said jokingly before smiling softly at the girl in the passenger seat and taking in the joy that radiated from her being. They drove with soft music in the background and just the amazing scenery to guide them through the city. Once they got to the destination, which seemed like a garden of some sort, Oscar practically ran over to her side of the car. Once he had opened the door for her he covered her eyes with his hands.

"Oscar, your coordination better be on point because if I trip your days will be numbered." she said seriously with a hint of humor in her voice.

"Wouldn't be the first time you've fallen for me, now would it love?" Oscar teased as he walked her over to the romantic picnic spot he had set up for her.

"Girl, you know what... just don't be surprised when I jump you." Y/n said playfully. They then came to a stop and and Oscar uncovered her eyes allowing her to see the scene that he had put together. When Y/n saw the sign that said "Will You Be Mine?" her heart felt as though it would jump out of her chest. When she turned to face Oscar he got down on one knee and began to speak before she could say anything.

"From the moment I met you I knew that we would be inevitable. You're intricate but gorgeous hairstyles, your dough like eyes, and your beautiful aura had put me in an immediate trance and I remember thinking 'woah'. My friends once told me that when I looked at you it seemed as though stars had been placed in my eyes purposely as if to gaze upon you meant my pupils had seen an unknown galaxy deeply treasured by the cosmos. So, will you allow me a place in your heart in which I beg to stay for an eternity."

Y/n immediately broke down crying before saying yes a million times and jumping into Oscar's warm embrace.

"I will do my best to treasure your heart." Y/n said before pulling Oscar in for a kiss.

That night the stars danced above them as though rejoicing.

♫ Know life been lifin' lately, so I save you if you save me ♫

୨୧–------------------------------------------୨୧

Current Time

yourusername

liked by oscarpiastri, whosalidyah, and 479,502 others

yourusername I was over love, thought I had enough, then I found you @oscarpiastri

This posts comments have been limited to users mentioned

oscarpiastri I was no doubt, stressed out without you.

yourusername the only man ever🤭

oscarpiastri

liked by yourusername, landonorris, and 923,547 others

oscarpiastri All we got is us, when nobody does, I got you @yourusername

This posts comments have been limited to users mentioned

yourusername For your sanity and my mentality.

oscarpiastri mine, in every universe

yourusername omg I'm literally your biggest fan!!

oscarpiastri well I would hope so🤨

୨୧–------------------------------------------୨୧

♫ Man, I thought I had everything, I was lonely... Now you're my everything, now it's on me... ♫

୨୧–------------------------------------------୨୧

[bowtiepastabitch]

Heaven's Not Homophobic in Good Omens, and Why That's Important

I need to preface this with, I am not trying to start a fight or argument and won't tolerate any homophobic or bad faith arguments in response to this. Cool? Cool.

This is in large part inspired by this ask from Neil's blog, which sparked some discourse that I don't want to get involved in but that brought up some analytic questions for me.

He goes on to reblog a question asking about Uriel's taunt specifically, clarifying that "boyfriend in the dark glasses" can just as easily be read/translated from angelic as girlfriend or bosom buddy. The idea is that an angel and a demon "fraternizing" is seriously looked down upon, not that heaven is homophobic. And that's super important.

We see homophobia in both the book and show, of course. Aziraphale is very queer-coded, intentionally and explicitly so, and we see the reaction of other humans to that several times. Sergeant Shadwell, for example, and the kid in the book that calls him the f-slur when he's doing magic at Warlock's birthday party. These are, however, individual human reactions to his coding as a gay man.

I am, personally, not a fan of heaven redemption theories for the show; no hate for people who want that it's just not something I'm interested in. I don't believe that heaven is good with bad leadership, or that God Herself remains as a paragon of virtue. To me, that's not in line with the themes and messages of the show. It's important, however, that heaven doesn't reflect human vices. Heaven can be nasty and selfish and apathetic in its own right without ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or racism. This matters for two reasons.

Firstly, we don't need the -isms and -phobias to be evil or at least ethically impure. In a world where we spend so much time fighting against prejudice and bigotry, our impulse is to see that reflected in characters whose motivations we distrust or who we're intended to dislike. While it's true that that's often the big bad evil in our daily lives, it can really cheapen the malice in fictional evil from a storytelling standpoint. A villain motivated by racism or as an allegory for homophobia can be incredibly compelling, but not every bad guy can be the physical representation of an -ism. Art reflects the reality in which it's crafted, but the complexity of human nature and the evil it's capable of can't be simplified to a dni list.

Secondly, and I think more importantly, is that for Good Omens specifically, this places the responsibility for homophobia on humanity. If you're in this fandom, there's like a 98% chance you've been hurt by religion in some way. For a lot of us, that includes religious homophobia and hate, so it makes sense to want to project that onto the 'religious' structure of Good Omens. It's a story that is, in many ways, about religious trauma and abuse. However, if heaven itself held homophobic values, it would canonize in-universe the idea that heaven and religion itself are responsible for all humanity's -isms and -phobias and absolve humans of any responsibility. Much like Crowley emphasizes repeatedly that the wicked cruelty he takes responsibility for is entirely human-made, we have to accept that heaven can't take the blame for this. To make heaven, the religious authority, homophobic would simply justify religious bigotry from humans. By taking the blame for religious extremism and hatred away from heaven and the religious structure, Good Omens makes it clear that the nastiness of humanity is uniquely and specially human and forces the individual to take responsibility rather than the system. Hell isn't responsible for the Spanish Inquisition, which by the way was religiously motivated if you didn't know, and heaven isn't responsible for Ronald Reagan.

This idea is perhaps more strongly and explicitly expressed in the Good Omens novel, in the scene where Aziraphale briefly possesses a televangelist on live TV. It's comedic, yes, but also serves to demonstrate that human concepts of the apocalypse and religious fervor are deeply incorrect (in gomens universe canon) and condemn exploitation of faith practices. Pratchett and Gaiman weave a great deal of complexity into the way religion and religious values are portrayed in the book, especially in the emphasis on heaven and hell being essentially the same. They're interested in the concept of what it means to be uniquely and unabashedly human, the good and the bad, and part of that is forcing each individual person to bear the brunt of responsibility for their own actions rather than passing it off onto a greater religious authority.

Additionally, from a fan perspective, there's something refreshing about a very queer story where homophobia isn't the primary (or even a side) conflict. The primary narrative of Good Omens isn't that these two man-shaped-beings are gay, it's that they're an angel and a demon. The tension in their romantic arc arises entirely from the larger conflict of heaven and hell, and things like gender and sexuality don't really matter at all. Yes, homophobia and transphobia are very real, present issues in our everyday lives, but they don't have to be central to every story we tell. There's something really soothing about Crowley and Aziraphale being so queer-coded and so clearly enamored with each other without constantly being bombarded with homophobia and hate. It's incredible to see a disabled angel whose use of a mobility aid makes no difference in their role and to see angels and demons using they/them pronouns without being questioned or misgendered. It's all accepted and normalized, and that's the kind of representation that we as queer people deserve.

[asleepinawell]

sorry if this seems a bit out of the blue, but ever since youve been posting about fallen london, im a bit curious about it! What is the game about and where can I get it?

oh no worries! I'm happy to ramble about it

fallen london is a free to play browser game you can find here. the basic premise is that sometime in the 1800's the entire city of london is engulfed in a swarm of bats and then falls through the earth into a cavern a mile below. this is the neath, a huge underground cavern where london sits on the shore of a vast ocean. queen victoria is still around locked in her palace being a typical shitty british monarch, who, amongst other things, decided that 1900 was cancelled and we were just going to have 1899 for a second time

things are a little...different down there. humans are far from the only ones running around. there's devils, rubbery men (think mind flayer vibes), clay men, and the shadowy cloaked figures running the bazaar (and the city) called the masters. death mostly isn't permanent and the dream world is a little too real. also, most importantly, cats can talk! and there are tons of them! and tigers too

it's got victorian, gothic horror, dark humor, lovecraftian vibes. also it's extremely queer as is everything the dev, failbetter games, makes. something I especially appreciate is that you don't have to give your character any particular gender (though you can) and some of the little avatars are very gender neutral:

since it's free to play it comes with the normal things that type of game has such as real money transactions (completely optional and unnecessary for enjoyment (though some of the bonus side stories you can buy are extremely cool)), limited number of actions you can take (max of 20 at a time and refills 1 per 10 minutes). it is definitely grindy too though there's so many things to do (cannot emphasize the insane amount of content enough) I will usually just switch things up every so often

it's single player for the most part but you can ask friends to assist you in certain actions and there are some specific items that can be sent to other players

(if you like the setting but not the free to play part you can check out mask of the rose which is a visual novel they just released set right after london fell. it's a romance but with full aro and ace options (which I actually preferred) and a murder mystery. that one is a normal just buy the whole game deal and I think it's on most platforms. there's also sunless seas and sunless skies which take place in the same world but are a very different type of game and would require their own post. all of these have great writing in them)

but back to fallen london. it works based off of 'storylets', or little short stories when you usually do a skill check to accomplish something in return for advancing the story, levelling your skills, and reward items. you unlock more and more things as you go and get access to new stories and areas. here's an example of one of the little activities and its resolution

since it's a game designed to be able to play endlessly there isn't really a way to lose or game over. you can die but dying is just a minigame of its own and sometimes even a thing to do purposefully. (the only actual way to die is the notorious story called seeking mr eaten's name which you may have seen me post about, which is a very unique story that will permanently erase your character at the end. why you'd ever want to do that would also be its own post. it's pretty hard to stumble on accidentally I think and extremely well-marked as a thing with severe consequences that you probably shouldn't do. or should you...)

anyway I'd definitely recommend giving fallen london a try if you're interested in the premise and aesthetic

[catgirlforeskin]

Since Wizards of the Coast is torpedoing all the good-will they have with DnD to wring more money out of it, I want to make a guide for people who recognize they should jump ship, but don’t know alternatives.

If you’re deeply invested in DnD and want something as similar as possible, Pathfinder 2 is what you want. It’s the next biggest game in the tabletop scene (in the US), you can find physical copies in stores easily, and Paizo allows free resources online to exist without constant threat of being taken down like WotC does. It will remain free to play on any VTT while DnD will require you to subscribe to their proprietary one.

Most importantly, though, it improves on almost every aspect of DnD. Combat and class balance is extremely well thought out and makes all combats engaging and difficult in a fun way, requiring teamwork and clever thinking. Roleplay is integrated into character creation and play better, and you no longer have to choose between being good in combat or exploration or roleplay, you get to play and feel useful during all aspects of the game. It’s hard to emphasize how much better it is without just playing, if you still want something like DnD, play Pathfinder 2.

If you like high fantasy adventuring but are willing to get more out there, Fellowship and Dungeon World are good options. Fellowship is a more free-form adventure game focused on creating a cinematic experience over getting bogged-down in rules-heavy play. If you want to play a Lord of the Rings style campaign and have it feel like the movies, Fellowship is the way to go.

Dungeon World is called “Powered by the Apocalypse” which means it was inspired by Apocalypse World, an amazing ttrpg that revolutionized the scene and became the gold standard for interweaving roleplay and gameplay. Dungeon World is meant to be a bridge between DnD and indie rpgs, and it’s good for that, though there are better PbtA games. It’s a good introduction to principles like failing forward and playing to find out what happens (and hell, a good introduction to games having principles lol). There’s also an Avatar the Last Airbender licensed PbtA game that’s very good, if that’s your thing!

Speaking of licensed games, Free League Publishing sets the benchmark for rpgs built for existing intellectual properties, and while I haven’t played all of their games, I’m a big fan of what I have played. They also have independent settings, like Twilight 2000, a really good apocalypse survival game set in a collapsing warfront between an alternate-history NATO and Soviet Union as the two dying empires bring all of society down in their death spiral. I’m using it as the base for my Halo rpg, it’s very good.

Blades in the Dark is another big name in the indie scene, and for good reason. It’s a heist game that has been adapted to lots of other settings (games that say they’re “Forged in the Dark” take inspiration here) and it’s clear to see why so many have used it as a foundation once you’ve played, it’s an exciting crime procedural where you play a group of scoundrels punching above your weight and facing the consequences

There’s a million other amazing rpgs I could mention here, and I’m sure people will talk about plenty of lovely ones I’ve missed in the notes, but I think the most important thing I want to convey with this is that there’s a whole world of diverse and interesting rpgs at all levels of production, from big corporate teams to one girl with a laptop who barely knows how to make a pdf, and there’s no better time to start exploring them.

A common refrain is that DnD can be modified to do anything, but once you’ve played other rpgs you’ll see why that’s not true, and why those creative efforts would be better spent in other systems. Hacking rpgs is as old a tradition as rpgs themselves, but if the only tools you know are DnD, you’re being limited with what you can create more than you could possibly know. There’s no better time to leave this Plato’s Cave and see the beauty and wonder of the whole ttrpg scene

[furybymoonlight]

See Me (Now) – Part II

Pairing: Trent Alexander Arnold x OC/Reader

Warning/Genre: NSFW!, Age Gap, Angst, Suggestive Theme, Smut, friends to lovers

Part I

Part III (final)

***

“I don’t want you to dance with other man…and this dress…way too sexy.”

He said slowly, putting emphasize on each word. She could see that he was trying to restrain his emotions, but his words triggered her. Who the hell did he think he was?

***

Why am I such a wuss?

She had been staring at her phone screen for the past hours, endlessly debating whether she should call Trent or not. It’s been a week since the kiss. The new year was around the corner, and she still avoided being alone with Trent as best as she could. Thankfully, this festive season was a busy one for Liverpool with no long period in between matches.

There were of course, instances that required her to interact with him, their parents were best friends after all, and even when things were awkward between them, she wouldn’t pass the chance to support him and watch him played live. So she went to the games, cheered for him in every match, yet every time he approached her, she decided to play dumb, pretending like nothing had happened between them and kept the conversation casual. Surprisingly, the footballer played along with it, didn’t attempt to press her for a moment alone to talk about the kiss. She even began to doubt whether it had been real.

Yet how could it not be? When she could still remember his taste….or how his palm burned the uncovered skin at the curves of her hip as he pinned her to the wall. It didn’t help that now she paid more attention to how his muscles rippled when he played in the field or how his smile made her heart did a double somersault.

She was not blind, she knew that Trent had grown up to be a good-looking man, even good looking was putting it mildly. Tall with lean yet defined physique, skin and eyes in the sweetest shades of caramel, bright smile that never failed to make her life somehow better, even at her less than stellar moments….the man was absolutely gorgeous.

Was she attracted to him? She used to see him just as a younger brother, until at a certain point she simply couldn’t anymore. She always tried to push that notion away though, ‘tried’ being the operative verb. Mainly because after all, they were…well – them. Trent was the first one she called when she had been accepted to her dream uni or when she randomly saw a cute dog on the street. Just like she was the one he first reached out to when he had a difficult game or when there’s a new Drake album coming up. They had always been there for each other, in grand moments and everything in between. Their connection was so precious, she didn’t dare to risk changing it in the slightest. It had never crossed her mind as well that Trent would want their relationship to be romantic, but the kiss definitely proved otherwise, right?

The ringing of her phone snapped her out of her reverie. It was Maddie, one of her close high school friends, asking her if she would want to have a girls’ night out at a newly opened club downtown. Club wasn’t really her scene, but she felt she’d be going crazy if she was alone with her mind for much longer, plus, it was rare than she could hang out with her old friends. So she dressed up, wearing her go-to little black dress that molded her body in all the right places and headed out.

***

“So….how are things with you and Trent?”

Maddie suddenly asked and she almost choked on her dirty martini as her friend raised a knowing brow. They were currently at the bar tables, volunteering to order shots for the others.

“We’re just close friends.” She said as she drank the rest of her cocktail in one go. Seemed like she needed a stronger drink to get through the night.

Maddie tilted her head, looking unimpressed.

“Huh…tell yourself that the next time you two exchange starry eyes across the room when the other side isn’t looking.”

Had they been doing that? Or more importantly, had Trent? She was about to inquire more when her friend spoke again.

“Well, speaking of the devil.”

Maddie’s words made her turn her head, just in time to see Trent entering the room with his teammates, looking devastatingly handsome in a simple white shirt paired with a well fitted black trousers, complimented by a black leather jacket. Her lips reflexively tugged into a small smile, jeez she had it bad. Thankfully it didn’t seem like he had seen her, as she was standing near one of the grand club pillars.

“Just talk to him. I’ll go bring the drinks to our table.”

Maddie chuckled before walking away with the row of shots.

Collecting her courage took a while, but just as she was about to step forward, a flock of girls swarmed around the players. One girl sauntered dangerously close to Trent. She was incredibly pretty, dressed in a red clothing that left none to imagination. She saw them chatted just for a few seconds before the girl smashed their mouths together.

Her belly churned, and she could literally feel her heart cracked. She turned away and returned to the bar, eyes felt hot with unshed tears. She didn’t see that he pushed the girl off of him right away.

A hollow laugh left her mouth. Stupid. She was just beyond stupid. How could she ever thought that Trent wanted her to be his girlfriend now? The kiss must be just a joke for him, such a cruel joke. Maddie was definitely mistaken in her observation.

Trent had changed, he was not the shy sweet boy from the neighborhood that, even though he grumbled a lot, was willing to play girly games with her anymore. He was a top class footballer now, rich and handsome, with pretty girls, most probably models, threw themselves at him anywhere he walked.

It was not that she was unattractive. She was not plain by any means, and had received compliments here and there, but she was not model-like. She always felt her bum was a bit too big, and she often hoped her thigh could be slimmer. She was merely a uni student, taking chemistry engineering for God’s sake. It couldn’t get any nerdier than that…and more unsuitable to his glamorous world. She took a deep breath, shaking her head. She never felt that they were so different than at that moment.

“Tequila, double shots, please.”

She said to the bartender after she was sure she would not break down, at least not then. She just wanted to not think at that moment.

She swallowed one small glass after another like her life depended on it. She didn’t know how many shots she had taken. It was not enough to be absolutely wasted but enough to build a fog around her brain, which was exactly what she needed.

A man suddenly sat right beside her, asking her for a dance. He was good looking, in a neat kind of way, with slick black hair. He was not really her type, but hey, she just wanted to escape tonight, and the man could be a good distraction. Besides, it was just a dance.

She let him lead her to the dance floor. Closing her eyes, she swayed her body in rhythm of the music. The man put his hands on her waist and began to dance as well. Dan was his name if she heard him right, or perhaps it was Dane? She really couldn’t care less. Dan’s hands started to slide to the small of her back, then slid down close to her arse. It just felt wrong. She was about to push Dan away, but someone beat her to it, with a rather unnecessary force at that.

“What’s your problem, man?!”

“Stay away from her. She’s with me.”

Trent’s voice pierced the fog in her mind, and before she knew it, he already dragged her away.

They walked briskly passed his teammates who were lounging on a long sofa, but then Trent continued leading her away. She awkwardly waved at them with one hand. Robbo opened his mouth, clearly wanted to say something, but Trent shook his head. Usually, it would not deter the Scotsman from anything, but something in the Right Back expression that moment managed to shut him up.

She tried to remove her hand from his grip, but he just tightened it, so she just let him. She didn’t want to make a scene and she was kind of grateful that Trent had managed to remove the stranger from her.

Her appreciation died the instance he pinned her into the wall of the club’s exclusive seating space. It was situated at the separate corner of the club. It did not have a door, but had a divider, granting them enough privacy since the guest there had to ring for the server to come.

“What are you doing?!”

His usually warm brown eyes were cold, his tone scathing. He looked like he was up for blood and if she was anyone else, she would have feared him. Yet she knew Trent would never harm her…at least not physically.

“Well, what were you doing?!”

She snapped at him.

“What?”

His expression morphed into confusion. She shook her head, trying hard to tame down the bitter emotion within her.

“Nothing, I… I better get back to Maddie and the girls. Thanks for helping me with the man though. I owe you one.”

She attempted to break free, but the younger man wouldn’t budge. His fingers dug into her shoulder, keeping her on the spot.

“You owe me an explanation.”

“For dancing with a man? You gotta be shitting me.”

“I don’t want you to dance with other man…and this dress…way too sexy.”

He said slowly, putting emphasize on each word. She could see that he was trying to restrain his emotions, but his words triggered her. Who the hell did he think he was?

“Well in this last hour I found out that I don’t want a lot of things to happen to me, but they did anyway. We can’t always have what we want, can we?!”

“What do you want?!”

Perhaps it was liquid courage, or perhaps she was just at her breaking point, but she exploded there and then.

“You want to know what I want?! Fine!! I want our kiss to not happen because now I can’t keep my feelings towards you in check!! I want you to not kiss the girl in red tonight! I want you to not see other girls at all…”

Her voice gradually got quieter as more and more tears streaming down her face, blurring her vision. She fisted her hands and put them against his chest. She closed her eyes. She was already pathetic enough, she didn’t want to see him pitying her.

“I want you…to see me as a woman…only me. Why can’t you just….see me, Trent?”

She said in a broken, trembling whisper. Her heart was bleeding, and nothing can salvage it.

Trent softly cupped her face, thumbs tracing her cheeks to wipe her tears, but still she cried and kept her eyes shut.

“Look at me.”

He said and she stubbornly shook her head, but then her breath hitched in her throat as he closed the gap between their lips. Unlike their first kiss, which started out quite tentative, this time he didn’t give her a chance to resist him. He plundered her mouth, sinful tongue sneaking through to meet hers. He feasted on her like he had been hungry for months and she let him, because if this was the last time she could kiss him then she would take whatever she could get. She could be gone the next day, back to uni, mending her heart far away from this city, and this man. She just hoped to God that there was still some part of her heart remaining.

She wept inside as the man abruptly ended the kiss, only for him to lift her up. His strong hands on the base of her thighs, he pressed her against the wall. Reflexively, she wrapped her arms around his neck. Her dress now bunched up, baring her thighs, and she bit back a moan as the movement created a delicious friction on their nether regions.

He stared into her eyes, dark toffee eyes lit up with desire, and some other emotions that she couldn’t decipher yet.

“You’re all I can see, damn it.”

He hissed at her. Then he sealed their lips together in a fiery kiss, before moving on to the delicate skin of her neck. Propping her up just with his left hand, he then used his right to push down the thin straps of her dress, baring her shoulder to him. He traced the juncture of her neck with his lips before biting on the sensitive skin. This time, she couldn’t hold back her moan and she felt him smirk against her skin.

He kissed her again while gently bringing her legs that had been crossed at the small of his back down so she could stand up. She wobbled, putting her hands on his broad shoulder to steady herself. God, her insides felt like liquid fire.

“Trent – “

She yelped as his fingers suddenly slid pass her thin underwear, which was shamefully drenched at this point.

“Ssshh so wet….all for me, isn’t it?”

She could only nod and bit her lower lip as long, deft fingers moved inside her, pouring oil to the fire within her. Her eyes started to flutter shut.

“Eyes on me.”

As if under a spell, she instantly obeyed, trapped in his dark eyes, letting him take in every detail of her expression as he pleasured her with his talented fingers. It felt just like seconds, or maybe it really was. At one point, his thumb pressed on the tiny nub at the top of her drenched entrance and she came undone, her cry of release swallowed by his mouth. Their lips clung for a while, and some time had passed before Trent helped her to wear her dress properly again.

“Let’s go.”

Trent said as he took of his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulder, then put an arm around her waist, pulling her to his side.

“Where are we going?”

She asked automatically, though she didn’t really care at this point, her mind still fogged by the release that he gave her.

“My place, not a fan of other men seeing you in this dress at all, definitely not gonna risk them seeing you naked.”

Author’s Note: Ahh, always a fan of the old-age misunderstanding/jealousy trope. LOL. Please don’t sue me. Anyway, this was longer than I had imagined. It looks like it will be three parts instead of two, the next would be the last, I am sure this time. Please let me know what you think and thank you for reading, whoever you are <3

[theneighborhoodwatch]

hi. it's 1 am here but i just had a Thought while rereading some old speculation and i wanted to write it down before i forget: you know how part of the horror of eddie's breakdown/dissociative episode at the end of the homewarming broadcast is eddie realizing for the first time that On Some Level, he is an object? something that cannot move or act on its own, created to be at the mercy of something much larger than him, etc etc. and y'know how the live action bits of that scene are Very similar, visually speaking, to the bug videos, which are all shot from wally's pov, with the unspoken implication being that this is just kind of how wally Exists, if not 24/7 then at least a significant amount of the time?

hear me out: what if wally just, like. doesn't think his neighbors are Real, in the same vein that he conceives of himself as a puppet rather than a person? yknow. they're fun to play with, and he's learned a lot from them, but the "friends" bit... i mean. you can't really make friends with cheap simulacrums of humanity being maneuvered around by the ones who are Actually real. friendship is more of an actor’s role to him than anything else.

what if that's why he's so attached to home; because home is so unlike any other living being in the town that they can Only be explained by being Real on some level, as far as wally is concerned? and most importantly: what's wally going to do when he realizes that his neighbors are, in fact, real? when he realizes that being a puppet and being a person are not mutually exclusive? what does that Do to a man's conscience after he's been diving head first into a series of sunk-cost fallacy interdimensional power plays with no regard for how it would affect them? (bc who worries about how their relationships would affect, like. idk their alexa.) how long would it even take him to accept this reality? how long would it take him to realize that this realness also applies to him?

i realize this is kind of a rehash of an OLD post of mine, but the key difference i'm trying to emphasize here is: that old post assumes that wally thinks of himself as a puppet and everyone else as people, but what i am suggesting Here is what if wally does not see any of home's residents as people, and that so happens to Include himself. the distinction is important, at least to me.

anyways. goodnight.

[dracowars]

Hii! If requests are open could I get a professor!neville longbottom and professor!reader?shes the potions teacher and theyre "enemies"? Always at each others throats and interuppting classes just to throw snarky remarks and the students are like "omg not again🙄"? Anyway one night a student sees him leaving her room and rumors start abt how they're dating/fucking?? And after a few days of trying to deal with a school of nosy students they "talk it out" which ends up being a make out session in the potions room and they get caught by the students who are like "plz we just wna study😭"??

Thank youuu <3

greenhouse hearts and cauldron sparks | neville longbottom

pairing: professor!neville x professor!reader

word count: 3,4k

summary: where rumours are spread about neville and y/n having a thing

a/n: somehow this was difficult for me to write & i don't even know why, maybe because it's my first for neville and i don't know yet if i got his character right (especially since he is older here). i really tried my best and i hope you enjoy it <3 feedback in any form is much appreciated!

warnings: slight angst, cursing

universe: harry potter

With a set goal in mind and pure determination, you strut through the glass door of greenhouse three and are immediately eyed by more than twenty pairs of eyes, all curious but somehow not surprised. Some of them even look like they were only waiting for this to happen. Again.

"Professor Longbottom, forgive my interruption", you apologize with a smile that does not quite reach your eyes, making your way towards him. "But I need to talk to you. Urgently."

"Welcome, Professor Y/L/N", Neville greets you, not moving from his leaning position on the table, fully concentrated on the plant pot in front of him which seems to be housing a Chinese Chomping Cabbage. Suspiciously eyeing the dangerous plant, you take a small step back. Herbology has never been your favourite subject, not when you went to Hogwarts yourself, not now, not ever.

"You burst in at just the right time! We are about to harvest the first cabbages", he explains, strongly emphasizing you interrupting his class, his eyes still fixed on the pot.

"I actually don't really care right now. All I care about is the huge plant or whatever that monstrum even is that has spread over my desk in the teacher's room", you start whispering now, not wanting the students to hear your words. But since they all still stare at the both of you, their cabbages long forgotten, you bet they could hear you either way.

"Oh, I must have mixed up the tables", Neville simply shrugs but a small smile plays around his lips as he finally turns his head to look at you. You have looked into his eyes several times before, million times even, but it hits you differently every time. His green eyes stare at you for a second too long before he clears his throat and straightens, pulling out the cabbage and putting it into a big crate. Removing his gloves, he leans his hip against the table, his big frame towering over you as you still stand there.

"You did that on purpose", you whisper, more to yourself than to anyone, but the little chuckle that escapes his mouth confirms your assumption.

"I would never do such a thing", he replies, placing the gloves on the table behind him. Scoffing, you look at him in disbelief.

How come that Neville Longbottom, the slanky, shy and nervous boy who hid behind his robes and hair from your school days suddenly became such a cunning and especially handsome professor who tests your patience every day. And most importantly, why does he always look at you like that, as if his eyes want to tell you something more, something deeper. And why, for Merlin's sake, is your heart beating faster every single time you interact.

"It would be much appreciated if you could get rid of this monster as quickly as possible before it eats someone or whatever it is that it does", you repeat, but something about the way he looks at you right now tells you that that probably won't happen any time soon.

"Of course, of course. Once I've got- No! Put that down, Henry. Excuse me for a second, sweetheart", Neville interrupts himself all of a sudden, jumping into action as he quickly runs to said student who is about to get attacked by one of the vicious plants, the nickname he called you still ringing in your ear. On his way there, he runs against a table and knocks over some empty pots. If it weren't for you stopping them mid-air with a spell, they would have shattered into a thousand pieces.

He may not look like the Neville he used to be, but he has not lost his clumsiness. Shaking your head, your gaze follows him, watching as he rescues the student from his demise and you can't help but smile a little at that. He also never lost his genuine sincerity and willingness to help.

As you are waiting for him to return, you notice several of the girls staring at you, whispering to each other as they have certainly seen the way you looked after him. Clearing your throat in an awkward manner, you stand up straight and adjust your robes.

"Alright, well, that turned out differently than expected but wasn't that fun? Never underestimate nature", Neville speaks up now, all heads turning to him. "Please finish your protocols until next week, clean your tables and then you are free to leave for the day."

What initially looks like pure chaos ensuing turns out to actually follow a clear order as the students rush around and do what he says. In a few minutes, everything is back in its place and the students rush out of the greenhouse, ready for their break. On their way out, they also say goodbye to you.

The second the last student leaves, Neville claps his hands together, rubbing them as if he still has something planned. "You know, these things only ever happen when you are around", he teases you, walking back to where you are standing to put his bag on the table and gather his things.

"Well, I'm glad it wasn't me who got attacked by one of your experiments for once", you counter, having lost count of the times you had unpleasant encounters with his plants.

"That is just because they can sense your fear, sweetheart", he smiles while packing up his stuff, making sure everything is neatly placed inside his bag.

"I'm not scared of them", you scoff, ignoring what he called you and what it does to you once more, and you cross your arms in front of your chest as you lean your hip against the table he is still standing at. "They just make me feel uncomfortable and I don't like them. Your experiments certainly didn't make me like them any more, in case you forgot."

"How could I ever forget that", Neville laughs. He does not giggle or even try to hold back his amusement - he just straight up laughs at you as the memories find their way back to him. Huffing out an exasperated breath, you softly shove him to the side which only causes him to laugh even more.

"You are so annoying, do you know that? I can't believe I have to deal with this every day", you sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose.

"Oh, come on. Don't be like that. You would be bored to death without me", he smiles at you, genuine, and gently pushes his shoulder against yours, coming even closer. He looks at you, the way he always looks at you, and even though you would never admit it, he is right. It would be boring without him.

His eyes are locked with yours, at least until they drift down for a split second, looking at your lips, but it was so fast you are not even sure it actually happened. One of his hands now gently touches your arm and your insides twist.

Until the door to the greenhouse suddenly bursts open and a student comes in. Jumping in surprise, you both put as much distance between the two of you as possible in these few seconds, but the way she stops in the doorway as if she had just interrupted something speaks volumes.

"Uhm- I'm sorry, Professor. Professors. I-"

"Chloe, what are you doing here?", Neville asks her kindly, no signs of nervousness, but out of the corner of your eye you can indeed see how he plays with his fingers.

"I uhm.. forgot my book", she says awkwardly but makes no attempt to move, her gaze switching between the two of you.

"Right", Neville smiles at her, obviously trying to make it less uncomfortable. "Then go get it?"

At his words, she is seemingly brought back to life and quickly runs to one of the tables, grabs her book and rushes out of the greenhouse with lightning speed. Watching her leave, Neville's eyebrows furrow. "What was that about?"

Sighing, you lean back against the table, this time, however, with a lot of distance between your bodies.

"Dear Merlin, we will never hear the end of this now", you say, rubbing your fingers against your temple as you try to wrap your head around what just happened.

"Of what?", Neville asks, curious and seemingly oblivious.

"Of us having a thing."

"What?", he lets out in shock, his eyes searching yours for any sign that you are joking. Oh how much you wish you were.

"Yeah."

"Wh-What do you mean?"

"Don't tell me you haven't heard about it", you answer, turning your body to directly look at him now.

"I honestly don't know what you are talking about."

"I can't believe this", you let out a humourless chuckle before continuing. "The students are talking about us, Neville. Have been all the time."

"And?"

"And they think we fuck", you blurt out and watch as the realization hits him.

"Oh", is all he says to that, his eyes unfocusing and his cheeks turning a slight shade of pink.

"Yeah. 'Oh'. And now we fueled the rumours even more, we have given them even more reason to believe them", you explain, trying your best to not sound too desperate.

When you first heard these rumours, you had to laugh. Neville and you? Never. But over time, you realized where these assumptions came from and you could actually see how someone could possibly come to this conclusion. But there is nothing between you. Right?

"But nothing happened", Neville agrees with your thoughts, looking at you with those beautiful eyes of his. A strand of hair has come loose and hangs over his forehead and you would like nothing more than to gently remove it from his face.

"No. It didn't", you whisper, supporting his statement even though you both know exactly what almost happened. Neville gives you a sympathetic smile before picking up his bag, slinging it over his shoulder.

"Anyway, I believe there is a plant I need to take care of", Neville digresses from the topic and even though you welcome not having to talk about this any longer, your heart feels a bit heavier than before. "Also, did you make the potion I asked you for?"

"Of course", you say as you follow him outside, noticing how his hand hovers over the small of your back as he leads you through the door.

════════════

"Professor?", one of your female students asks for you, sitting in front of her and her groups bubbling cauldron. Quickly, you get up from your seat at the front of the classroom and walk to her, smiling as you are thrilled to help with whatever is going on. You have been these students' Potions teacher since first year and now that they have reached seventh year, you have formed an even stronger bond with them.

"Yes? What can I help you with?", you ask once you reach them, leaning over them to take a look inside the cauldron which is exuding a sugary sweet scent. So far, they seem to have done everything right.

"Do you have a husband? Or kids?", she puts the question out there like it is nothing, the other girls at her table looking at you attentively.

"First of all, that is not a question you ask", you remind her and she only shrugs apologetically, making you feel like she actually does not feel sorry at all. "And to truthfully answer your question: No, I have not."

Apparently, your answer triggers something in them, because suddenly the whispering starts again and they look as if they can hardly sit still due to being incredibly excited about something.

"We asked Professor Longbottom the same question this morning", she continues now, suppressing a giggle. "And he gave us the same answer, so we thought that you two would make a good match."

"Oh girls, please", you sigh, trying to suppress a laugh at their endearing faces. "You definitely shouldn't worry about your teacher's relationship status and focus on your grades and upcoming exams instead."

"But Ms. Y/L/N! You would be so cute together!", they all gush, telling you about all the times they have seen you two, how they can clearly tell that 'there is something more going on'. You know you should tell them to continue their task but you just can't stop listening to them.

"When we asked Professor Longbottom, he told us that he thinks you are a wonderful colleague and also quite attractive", one of the girls chimes in, batting her eyelashes at you.

"He certainly did not say that", you retort, shaking your head with a smile at their determination.

"But he did!", they all say in unison, repeating to you all the words he supposedly said about you.

════════════

"Professor? Do you have a moment?"

"Of course. How can I help you?", Neville smiles at the group of girls in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. He has just finished his last lesson for the day and was on his way to the Great Hall for dinner now if it was not for these students catching him in the middle of a hallway.

"Remember how we asked you about Ms. Y/L/N this morning?", one of the girls says, a smile on her face that he can't quite pinpoint.

"I do", Neville answers, not adding that their conversation had followed him throughout the whole day.

"Well, we just had Potions with her and we asked her about you, too", another student says, a sign of pride in her voice. "Do you want to know what she said?"

"Do I have a choice?", he says, feeling a bit cornered by the four girls in front of him. He was set on eating and then going to his quarters in the Faculty Tower to get some well-deserved sleep. Apparently that was not happening any time soon.

"She told us that you are her favourite colleague and that she also finds you kind of handsome, even though she told us not to tell you."

At that, Neville needs a few seconds and swallows hard. He does not know what he should be more uncomfortable with: the fact that these students are interfering in his private life or the thought that you actually may have said those words. What are the chances that you did?

"That is..", Neville starts, no idea how to best solve this situation. "Certainly very nice of her to say. Thank you for telling me, but I'm afraid we must head to the Great Hall now as dinner will be served soon."

He does not even wait for them to answer and walks straight past them, a blush on his cheeks as their giggling follows him to the end of the hallway. He sighs, their words echoing through his mind as he turns another corner and suddenly bumps into someone.

With wide eyes, he realizes that the person he just almost pushed to the ground is none other than you. His hands are still tightly gripping your upper arms, a measure he took to prevent you from falling, as he stares at you.

"What is wrong with you?! You almost gave me a heart attack", you lecture him, your frozen body slowly coming back to life. Only now do you notice that Neville is still staring at you as if you weren't from this world and the pressure he is exerting on your arms is somehow getting stronger.

"Neville? Hello? Anyone there?", you ask slowly, snapping a finger in front of his face. That seems to bring him out of his trance because he blinks several times in a row and clears his throat awkwardly, letting go of you but not before smoothing down the sleeves of your cloak.

"Sorry", he mumbles, looking to the ground and grabbing the strap of his bag as if it were an anchor to help him from drowning.

"Are you alright?", you ask, a bit worried now at his unusual behaviour. When you hear several voices coming from the hallway, he suddenly takes your hand in his gently and maneuvers you both into the nearest empty classroom, closing the door silently.

"What is-"

"I didn't want them to see us together", he tells you before you can ask and your heart drops.

"Oh."

The sound comes out a lot more sad than you wanted and Neville notices it as well, shooting his head up to look at you. It does not take him long to realize what he said is the reason for it.

"N-No, no. That- That was not what I meant", he immediately starts explaining. "I just- These girls kept asking me questions about you the whole day and since our.. the situation this morning I thought it would be best to not fuel the rumours even more. Like you said."

Switching between his eyes, you don't even know what to say to that. Because you indeed do not want them to spread anymore rumours about you. On the other hand, you can't deny the emotions you feel, especially right now, with one of his hands still holding yours.

"Did you tell them that I'm a wonderful colleague and that I'm attractive?", you hear yourself ask. You have no idea where that came from all of a sudden but somehow you do not even feel sorry for asking. The girls love gossiping and spreading rumours, but a tiny part in your heart still hopes that they did not just make all of it up.

You just need to know.

"What? No", Neville immediately responds with so much vehemence that you take a step back. Again, he realizes a bit too late what he said and you feel your heart crack. You should have been prepared for this, you asked for this, and yet it painfully stings.

"I mean", he tries again, getting ahold of both of your hands now, making you look up at him. "I didn't say those exact words. I- Well, I think they just saw the way I looked at you and probably realized something sooner than I did."

"Neville, you really don't need to justify yourself", you say, not wanting to hear any more to protect yourself but also not moving to leave.

"I'm not, Y/N. What I would have liked to tell them is that you are the most wonderful person I have ever met. You are smart, sweet, sometimes snarky, loyal, helpful and have those little quirks that drive me crazy. The way you are engrossed in your notes and keep pushing the strand of hair out of your face and chew on your lower lip. And I love the way you interact with the students. You can tell how much they adore you and that they see you as their role model", Neville tells you with so much adoration and determination that you think you must be dreaming.

"I love the daily teasing, the banter whenever you get upset about my plants but then help me with the potions I need anyway. And yes, I think you are absolutely beautiful", he continues, mending the crack in your heart. "But I couldn't possibly tell the students all that."

Lowering his head after exposing himself like that to you, showing vulnerability, you are at a loss for words. He said all the things you always wanted to hear from him but never even dreamt about them ever becoming true. Your silence makes him nervous, he shifts his weight from one leg to the other and breathes in deeply.

"They would certainly have loved that", you giggle then, placing your fingers under his chin to make him look up at you. When your eyes meet, he can see yours sparkling and shimmering like they never did before. "And I love you."

With that, you pull him in for a kiss. Neville is too perplexed for a few seconds to do anything, but then he relaxes into the kiss, his hand finding its way to the back of your head to pull you even closer. You relish in the feeling, of how your lips work against each other, of how your hands are pressed to his chest between your bodies.

You forget where you are and what could happen if someone came in any second, but you simply do not care. And Neville does not either as he softly pushes you against the desk in front of the classroom, smiling into the kiss as he says: "Let's spread more rumours then."

[platoapproved]

Two things from continuing to read TVA, bitterness and Marius hating ahead, if you don't wanna see that honestly why are you even on my blog:

Honestly I don't care at all about authorial intent but the way this is written, how Armand narrates his early days as a fledgling, is fucking haunting to me. It's so utterly casual and passive, with just that one little interjection of "this was put to the test". Oh? Who was doing the putting? What was the test? Was the test perhaps Marius starving you to see how many days it would take for you to be too weak to get up, Armand? Was that maybe it? Oh but Marius did it to help him, of course. To teach him his exact limits, for the future! How benevolent. Someone get him a World's Best Maker mug.

____

Idc maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see but the "What I mean is, I didn't have contempt for him" reads as protesting too much. Like... it's giving "it's not that I found Marius tedious, just ancient Roman law and his obsession with it and also literally all the things he said and believed".

MORE IMPORTANTLY, though, the ideas in question here are Marius droning on about how the world is getting more just and how wonderful the contemporary world is. Love him telling all that to an enslaved child - WHO HE OWNS - and bought legally from a brothel! Wow, I wonder why Armand might not have a lot of faith in the law or in government institutions! It's almost like those institutions failed him in a profound way!

But no, Armand probably feels that contempt because he was 'born in a dark and savage land'. Y I K E S. Listen... to anyone reading this overlong post who isn't reading the books I can't emphasize to you how much this is Marius's whole thing. He talks about the ~civilization of the West so often. It's honestly nonstop. He's RADIOACTIVELY Eurocentric and if they stay true to the character it's going to be 100x worse in the show because of Armand's changed background.

[eggtrolls]

haiku misinformation: a fact check

there's an post going around about haiku that has a lot of incorrect information about haiku, its terminology, history, etc. I will try to debunk some of the biggest inaccuracies here. everything in quotes is a direct statement from the original post. this is also really, really long.

"Haiku are made of 14 on, which are essentially the equivalent to Japanese syllabic structures, except the nature of how Japanese as a language is constructed versus English means that any given proper haiku could be translated in extremely and intensely different ways, each giving a subtle but distinctly different meaning."

Starting off strong - haiku are (usually) made of 17 on. It's the classic 5-7-5 pattern! 5+7+5=17! [possibly this is a mix-up with wakiku (脇(わき)句(く)) which is another type of Japanese poetry that does use 14 on but who knows.]

Definitions: an on is a phonetic unit, the equivalent to a mora (pl. morae) in English. this concept a) exists in English and b) like on, is related to syllables but distinctly different from them (i.e. ba is one mora but baa with a long vowel is two morae). On can be counted using the number of hiragana (phonetic syllabic characters) when the text is transliterated, so a word like Osaka that has the long O sound (made up of 4 kana) would be 4 morae or 4 on (o-o-sa-ka; おおさか). it's not really a syllabic structure at all, and more importantly has nothing to do with translation. idk where that last part comes from because that's really...not the point here. Yes, any given "proper" haiku could be translated in different ways with a subtle but distinctly different meaning but that's true of just...translation, period. check out Deborah Smith's translation of The Vegetarian by Han Kang for more on that.

Furthermore, haiku were/are not rigidly locked into the 5-7-5 on pattern. That's just not true, which is why I said usually above. Easy example: a 1676 haiku by Matsuo Basho that uses 18-on:

冨士の風や　扇にのせて 江戸土産; ふじのかぜや おうぎにのせて えどみやげ; the wind of Fuji /I've brought on my fan/a gift from Edo <- that first line is 6-on!

2. "The best way I can explain what I mean is that in English a good poem can be defined as a shallow river, whereas a good haiku is a deeply-dug well."

Not dignifying this with a response. Deeply incorrect and untrue. @bill-blake-fans-anonymous can handle this assertion.

3. "The presence of the kigu. There is a specific series of characters/words which are used to imply a season, and specifically a specific aspect of a season which the haiku revolves around. The creation of a haiku is often done as a meditative practice revolving around the kigu--you're essentially contemplating on this particular natural feature (nearly always the temporal aspect emphasizes either ephemerality or the opposite as well bc Buddhist ideas of enlightenment and beauty begin coming into play) and building an evocative and purposeful point that revolves around it like a hinge. It functions as both ground and anchor."

First (and largest) problem: the word. is. kigo. kigo. It's ki (季; season)-go (語; word) = 季語. Both the English and Japanese language Wikipedia, or a 3-second google search, will tell you this immediately. I have no idea where the term kigu comes from.

Second problem: plenty of haiku, both traditional and contemporary, do not use kigo. these are described as muki (無季; seasonless). Matsuo Basho, the haiku-writing poet non-Japanese people are most likely to know, wrote at least ten seasonless haiku that exist today. Masaoka Shiki, the Meiji-era haiku poet and reformist, wrote hundreds of kigo-free haiku and as an agnostic, tried to separate haiku from Buddhism and focus more on the shasei, the sketches from daily life. you can actually, today, buy what are called saijiki, which are lists of words and terms that refer to specific seasons (in the traditional Japanese calendar, so there are actually a lot of "micro" seasons as well). some saijiki include a whole section of "seasonles" words - here's an article about non-season kigo in a saijiki.

so the claim that English-language haiku are invalid or not "real" haiku because they lack a kigo doesn't hold up, unless you invalidate a whole bunch of Japanese haiku as well. the op also claimed they would categorize a lot of English "haiku" as senryū which is...an opinion. Yes, haiku tend to be focused around nature (more on that below) and senryū tend to be more comedic or about human foibles but...that's it! it's a tendency! it's not a hard and fast rule!

Third problem: the claim that a haiku is as meditative practice revolving around the kigu kigo...yeah, no. the earlier form of haiku, the hokku, were the introductory poems of the longer poetic form, the renga and the hokku gradually became a standalone poetic form known as haiku. the hokku had a lot of purposes and we have a historical record of them going back ~1000 years to Emperor Juntoku where they were declamatory poems tied to events (births, deaths, etc.) or social events (moon-viewing parties) - not really meditative. haiku, if a genre can focus on a single idea, focus on an experience and that can be real or imaginary, direct and personal or neither.

Here's another Basho poem for your consideration:

夏草や 兵どもが 夢の跡 (natsukusa ya tsuwamonodomo ga yume no ato; summer grasses--/traces of dreams/of ancient warriors)

both the dreams and the grasses are those of Basho (contemporary) and of the warriors (ancient); it's about travel, it's about connecting the present to the ancient past, it's not really so much about the summer.

(Fourth, minor problem that I'm not really going to get into: you'd have to take this 'Buddhist ideas of enlightenment and beauty' up with haiku scholar Haruo Shirane but he explicitly says in the Routledge Global Haiku Reader (2024) that "pioneers of English-language haiku [such as D.T. Suzuki, Alan Watts, and the Beats] mistakenly emphasized Zen Buddhism in Japanese haiku".....so.)

4. "The presence of the kireji...it's a concept borderline absent from English because it's an intersection of linguistics and philosophy that doesn't really exist outside of the context of Japanese."

Let's begin with clarification. What is kireji (lit. a 'cutting word')? It's a class of terms in Japanese poetry that can do a few things, depending on the specific kireji and its place in the poem. In the middle of the poem, it can mark a thematic break, a cut in the stream of thought highlighting the parallel(s) between the preceding and following phrases. At the end of the poem, it provides a sense of ending and closure - it helps mark rhythmic division, to say the least, and it is seen as the 'pivot' word.

Two problems with claims above:

a. there are haiku that do not use kireji. For the hat trick, here's a Matsuo Basho haiku from 1689 AD that is kireji-free: 初しぐれ猿も小蓑をほしげ也 (hatsu shigure saru mo komino wo hoshige nari; the first cold shower/even the monkey seems to want/a little coat of straw) <- NB: I love this haiku so much

b. the idea of a kireji, as in a pivot word that provides an inflection point with rhythmic division and structure, exist not just in English poetry but in multiple different types of poetry across time and space! The caesura in Latin and Ancient Greek! The volta in sonnets! Whatever is happening in the third line of the Korean sijo!

final thoughts:

the op included language, which I won't quote here because it was messy and tied into other rbs, about Orientalism and appropriation in English-language haiku, which is definitely a real thing. but this blanket statement ignores that the relationship between haiku and "the West", much like Japan and "the West", was and is not a one-way street. Western writers were influenced by haiku and, in turn, those writers influenced Japanese writers who wrote haiku inspired by these influences - this process has been going on for well over a century. Furthermore, English and Japanese are not the only languages in which haiku are written! Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore was writing haiku in Bengali; other Indian poets were and are writing them in Gujrati and Malayalam, particularly by the poet Ashitha. the Pakistani poet Omer Tarin has written haiku about Hiroshima! The Spanish poet Lorca published haiku in, get this, Spanish, in 1921 and the Mexican poet José Juan Tablada published more in 1922! Italian translations of Yosano Akiko were published in 1919! any discussion of the idea that English/non-Japanese-language haiku aren't really haiku because they don't hold to the "rules" (which Japanese authors have been revising, adapting, critiquing, and/or straight up flouting for centuries) or because English/non-Japanese poetry is "a shallow river whereas a good haiku is a deeply-dug well" just shows a lack of knowledge around traditions and depths of...well, poetry itself.

my god this is so long.

in summary: this is a complex topic. If anyone would like some actual information about haiku, its history, common themes and forms, or a collection of good poets, the Routledge Global Haiku Reader (2024) and Haiku Before Haiku : From the Renga Masters to Basho (2011) are great references and really accessible in their language! hmu if you're interested and I can send you some pdfs.

[pascaloverx]

LAST LOVE — MYG

SUMMARY: You are about to become the Queen of Murak, a kingdom previously ruled by your father, the King. But there is something wrong with you, something your subjects must never suspect. You were born with powers, one of them being the ability to transform into a dragon. Because of a curse, you are condemned to be abnormal for the rest of your life. One of the only ways to alleviate your situation is by getting married. When Prince Yoongi offers to marry you, you feel there is a glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This fanfiction will be a fantasy fanfic involving royalty. As the story progresses, a love triangle may develop, but for now, this fanfic will focus on Yoongi and the reader. This story will feature scenes of violence, fantasy, and romance. Inappropriate language will also be used, so minors should not interact with this fanfic. Other BTS members may appear in the fanfic. Taehyung will be an important character. I hope you engage with the fanfic and help it move forward.

PREVIEW

ONE

Your feet hit the ground hard as you feel the weight of your dress becoming increasingly difficult to bear. You feel as if your whole body is on fire as you walk towards your father's chambers. Prince Yoongi will be at the palace in a few moments, ready to officially request the marriage promise between you. The royal advisor, your father's right-hand man, knocks on the door and, after hearing the king's permission to enter, announces that you request the king's attention. Your life has always been like this, one formality after another. The only times you felt your parents were your superiors were when you dealt with your dragon side.

"My beloved daughter, I must emphasize that your beauty is radiant in that dress. I hope you have come here to bring good news." The King of Murak says, looking at you with a certain tenderness. The Queen is right behind him, looking at you with admiration.

"Certainly, it is good news. I have come to inform the King and Queen that I have found a suitor. He meets every necessary aspect to become a good ally. And before you, Your Majesties, react inappropriately to this news; I would like to inform you that he will be here soon to formalize our union." You play it strong. You know that, despite your parents being King and Queen, they also know that the throne will soon belong to you. And more importantly, that if you do not bond with a dragon rider soon, you will lose the ability to control yourself.

"My dear, our daughter, as insolent as she may seem, must have the final word on who will be bonded to her through the dragon and rider link. Unless you wish her dead. In that case, I suggest you pass the throne to another and end this right here." The Queen, with such subtlety, suggests that the King kill you. But the truth is, if you do not marry and bond with a dragon rider, you will end up turning into a dragon permanently. This would prevent you from being human and make you a target for the population.

"The Queen is right, Your Majesty. If you want me not to marry the one I choose, you will be indirectly killing me. After all, if the wrong person tries to bond with me, the end will be tragic for both of us. If you do not accept that I marry Prince Yoongi, then kill me." You try to be fearless. The reality is that familial love is not important to your family, so your father might actually kill you and put another on the throne.

"I would never kill my own flesh and blood. You are the only heir I have, which is why I tolerate your lack of decorum when speaking to your King. But I will accept this folly, considering that you will be able to control the monster within you. It is a pity that the Kingdom of Murak will lose the opportunity to have Prince Namjoon or Prince Jungkook as its rulers." The King speaks with authority as he laments. However, the princes he mentioned would never accept your dragon form so readily. They are responsible and have a bright future. Marrying a half-dragon wife would be unfortunate for them. Prince Yoongi, on the other hand, will be fortunate to have you as his wife.

Before you can think of a response, you are interrupted by the sound of the door opening. The royal advisor announces the arrival of Prince Yoongi, who enters immediately without being invited. You smile subtly, finding it interesting that Yoongi is as bold as you. The King, however, seems dissatisfied with the prince's behavior.

"Forgive me, Your Majesties, for the intrusion, but I was eager to begin the union of our kingdoms." Prince Yoongi says excitedly. He bows as if paying his respects to the King and Queen. Your parents seem ready to pretend to be pleased.

"There was a time when princes had the decency of waiting for the King to let them enter the royal chamber. These same princes would not have the audacity to ask a princess to marry without the King's authorization." The King says with some contempt. Yoongi smiles awkwardly and then extends his hand towards the King. They wave their hands and you know you'll get what they want.

"In my defense, your daughter proposed marriage. But I recognize my rudeness. I hope the King and Queen can give permission for our marriage." Yoongi says as he goes to his mother and kisses her hand, gently.

"My husband and I are pleased to know that our daughter will be getting married. But we are concerned about your commitment. After all, the Princess of Murak needs a husband worthy of her and who understands the sacrifices that this union will require." Your mother says imperiously. You smile, finding it amusing that she speaks of sacrifices. She is the one who cursed your existence by bringing you into the world, knowing you would become a dragon.

"Your Majesty, your beautiful daughter has instructed me on every essential detail to make our marriage as beneficial as possible. I believe that if the King gives his blessing, our wedding can happen as soon as possible." Yoongi speaks in such a casual tone, as if marrying you were a simple task. Your father looks at him with pity. It is what you expected; of course, your father pities the poor soul who will bear the burden of your secret with you. But he has no pity for his daughter who, in addition to dealing with a curse that is not hers, must also bear the weight of the crown.

"Prince Yoongi of the Kingdom of Cirrus is officially betrothed to Princess Y/N of the Kingdom of Murak. May your union not be a complete disaster. Now, if you will excuse me, my kingdom needs my attention." Your father speaks with a tone of anger in his voice. But he has given his blessing. Looking into Yoongi's somewhat frightened eyes, the King then storms out of his own chamber. Your mother touches your hand, looking at you with a regretful expression. Your mind wonders if she regrets the situation she put you in or if she regrets you being this way. An imperfect daughter. But the only legitimate heir.

"Congratulations on your upcoming union. The next step is to obtain the blessing of the King of Cirrus. After that, we will hasten the wedding. Now, I need to go calm the King of Murak. I suggest you two get to know each other a little better." Your mother speaks, looking more at Yoongi than at you. I bet she wants him to be sure of what he's doing. She then leaves, leaving you and Yoongi alone.

"If I bring one of the strongest drinks from the palace, will you accompany me to the forest again?" you ask, glancing at Yoongi after a moment of awkward silence fills your parents' chamber. He looks at you a bit surprised but smiles slightly while nodding in agreement.

"I'll dismiss my guards and meet you in the forest. Bring the drink," Yoongi says near your ear as you leave the King's chambers. When you turn to look at him, he's already running. Surely, your marriage won't be boring, since your fiancé seems quite spirited. You then descend the stairs, accompanied by some guards, and head to the wing of the palace where the cellar is located. You take one of the best drinks stored by your father. At this moment, you feel you deserve to drink this. Stealthily, you hide it using your hood to cover the bottle. You dismiss the kingdom's soldiers as you always do when entering the forest. You run to the place where you last transformed into a dragon, finding a bored Yoongi sitting under a tree.

"I brought your drink, future husband," you say as you approach Yoongi, who quickly stands up to go to you.

"Your parents are a bit too tense. And my father is the king of stress. Now I understand why you chose me. We both have parent issues. At least with mine, I know I provoke them, but I feel sorry for you." Yoongi says as he takes the bottle and the glass from your hands. You smile subtly, but you feel embarrassed that he noticed your family problems.

"No one will ever know how the King and Queen truly act in this kingdom. Because my parents only allow themselves to act the way they did just now when they are with me. It's one of the perks of being a burden to your parents. They didn't expect me to become a dragon. So they weren't prepared for it. But instead of lamenting our crappy parents, let's focus on why we're here." You speak as you begin to slowly undress, being watched by Yoongi who is drinking the alcoholic drink you brought. After taking a large sip of the drink, he drops the glass and the drink on the floor.

"Here in this kingdom, 'getting to know each other better' means something more advanced than in my kingdom. But I'm open to getting straight to the point; after all, why wait until the wedding night?" He talks about having fun with the possibility of sex, taking off part of his clothes too. You look at him and laugh.

"As flattered as I am that you think I want to jump on you right here, I'm just preparing to transform. I suggest you keep your clothes on." You say, trying not to be rude, as you found the scene amusing. Yoongi looks visibly uncomfortable but starts putting his clothes back on. He then drinks directly from the bottle.

"You made me believe I was striking gold, but tell me, what are we doing here? I don't think you just want to show me your dragon form." Yoongi says, regaining his composure. You finish undressing, leaving you down to your underwear. It's shameful but it will be part of your routine as a couple.

"Before we get married, I need you to be blessed by my dragon side. More precisely, I want you to try riding me while I'm in dragon form." You say, seeing him widen his eyes, impressed by the suggestion of riding you.

"What if you don't accept me? Will I become your food?" Yoongi asks, taking another sip of the drink, while his speech becomes groggy.

"It will be a risk for both of us. Take this risk with me, so we can proceed with this union. If my dragon form allows you to get this close, our marriage will be a success. But if not, we can forget about it." You say, looking at him almost pleadingly, hoping he will accept the idea. Revealing that your dragon form is not reliable is not ideal. No one wants to ride something that might burn them.

"Since we are testing the future of our marriage, I want you to test mine." Yoongi comes closer, and you can guess what his proposal will be. Anticipating it, you gently hold him by the neck and pull him into a kiss. The kiss was meant to be quick and efficient, but the taste of his lips captivates you. So you both deepen the kiss. The taste of alcohol intoxicates your mind, making you feel a certain comfort in kissing Yoongi. You remain with your lips intertwined, drawing closer to each other for a while, until you need to take a breath.

"I hope I’ve cleared up your doubts. Now let’s get to the part that matters." You say, catching your breath as you run in the opposite direction from Yoongi. As you run, embarrassed by having kissed him, you transform into your dragon form; flapping your wings and letting out a somewhat loud roar. Your head sways with your body as you search for Yoongi. He is still in the same place, standing still. Then you lower yourself, releasing a warm breath from your nostrils over him.

"Understood. I'll ride you, even if I die." Yoongi says, taking another drink and approaching you. He’s unsure of what to do, but when you feel his cold hands touching you and gently caressing you, you know he will try to mount you. So you lower yourself for him. Your dragon self accepts Yoongi. He seems to notice this, as he quickly climbs onto you. It’s as if he’s taken a dose of courage. And then, with him mounted on you, you flap your wings to fly with your future husband.

[ganondoodle]

(elden ring DLC spoilers)

i fucking love Radahn so much, what i wouldnt give to meet ACTUAL him, he just gets toyed with and exploited so cruelly, you never really get to know him or what he wants im hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh so normal :)

like i know theres little to go by with typical fromsoft lore and stuff but agreeing to marry miquelly feels so ... not radahn like, why would he have fought malenia and then even after gettign the rot refuse to die if he wanted that .... also didnt he believe in the golden order?? miquella wanted to replace it basically????-

even his 'new' design feels like some idealized version of him that miquella dreamed up, theres significant differences in whats left of radahn in the main game and i feel like even that is an important detail (the braids ... i braids are IMPORTANT IM TELLING YOU-) like it .... to some degrees looks ..almost cheap, like an action figure (what the hell are all those sword things on his belt?? he has his two giant blades that dont go in that??? he would never use a different one?? whats it doing here??) (also the fact that leonard is missing .... like sure we like to over emphasize some character quirks but i also feel like thats and important thing- leonard clearly meant alot to him and he had him still with him when he was fighting malenia and stayed together even after rotting away)

what really REALLY makes me so very "normal" about everything is that radahn remains voiceless and has no say in anythign the entire time we meet him, hes either a zombie or a literally flesh puppet constructed by his own half brother (out of another family member, which clearly shows bc hes using blood magic and got horns growing)- aside from very few quotes on some items we never get to know him, we dont know what he wanted, he gets dragged into this and is then like some animated statue, theres no emotion in his face, even less sound he makes when fighting, even, in my opinion, his animation in the final DLC fight seem OFF to me- it looks stiff how hes moving whenever hes not actively attacking

(also miquella and what he wants is constantly talked about, but while its all about radahn in a way . we never hear anything from radahns side, its never even questioned. as far as i know, like !!!!! argh!!!)

(edit: also also the fact that in this puppet version of the design changes arent just the armor, his skin is different color too, even in the trailer when he fights malenia- BEFORE the rot- he seemed sort of ashy- greyish dark, even if hard to tell with color tint- his hair much longer in og now much shorter and in braids, his armor less practical and more show offy, he doesnt have a bow, even his swords look different, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY his weird anatomy he seems to have in og that i think is from renalla is gone too- AND yes i know his body is constructed from moghs there- which makes this all so much worse bc almost all that was him is stripped away and twisted into what miquella wants from him, second phase its almost all light attacks tooo- ok im stopping this now)

i know it might seem like im just making excuses bc i cant handle my favorite character agreeing to marry his own half brother- BUT I DONT CARE- HE DIDNT WANT IT- WE DONT KNOW WHAT HE WANTS- WE NEVER GET TO ASK HIM- HE NEVER GETS TO SPEAK AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASDJKBHKFJBGSKBVGFHDKBFKABKBA