#for the Rare Pears: THIS IS WHAT I WAS WRITING WHEN I WAS COMPLAINING ABOUT HAVING A SONG STUCK IN MY HEAD

[nehswritesstuffs]

Avid Reader

I’ve been trying to figure out something LawBin to write for ages now and I’ve finally done it!

3413 words; for @rimetin, who is a sweetheart; takes place post-Dressrosa but pre-Wano (clearly); I am a manga eye color truther so this means brown for Robin and yellow for Law sorry but those are the rules; the fact this ship doesn’t have more traction in Anglophone circles is very interesting to me but hey be the change you want to see in the world I guess; there is no real plot just these two making clumsy moves on one another since it’s me test-driving writing this ship; it kinda got away from me but what else is new

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Trafalgar D. Water Law was getting desperate.

Okay, so maybe that was a strong word. Desperate. It did accurately describe the depth of his feelings as he wandered around the… ugh… Going Luffy-senpai looking for a quiet place to just exist for a while. The rest of the ship felt like one big and obnoxious party, despite the fact that all he wanted was to be left alone the entire rest of the way to Zou—and therefore his crew. There was only one problem with that: his host was making it actively uncomfortable for all but the Straw Hats, which was probably the most annoying part of all.

Eventually, he was able to slip away from both Straw Hat and Bartolomeo long enough to go below deck and begin looking through some of the more empty rooms. After a few open doors leading to sleeping areas, storage space, and further shrines to the Straw Hats, Law eventually found a room labeled “LIBRARY”, which he slipped into without question.

“Couldn’t take much more atop deck?” Law glanced over into a corner and saw Nico Robin curled up on a couch by a port hole, a stack of books at her feet and one in her hands. He let out a heavy sigh of relief, one that she instantly caught. “So I’m correct.”

“You have no idea,” he grunted. He looked around and took in the fact that there was a library on the Going—ahem—on the ship. A quick inspection of the nearest shelf found that it was scarily stocked as well. “Had no idea that our host could even read.”

“Pretty sure it came with the ship,” Robin smirked. She sprouted an arm off the bookcase and plucked a specific book off a shelf, handing it to Law. “This one will suit your interests, I feel.”

He looked at the cover—it was a fiction novel. “Nico-ya, I was aiming for something a little less…”

“If you were looking for a medical journal, unfortunately that is the closest thing you’re going to find, and that includes in the infirmary; I checked,” she replied nonchalantly. “At least the main love interest is a court physician.”

“I’m not looking for a romance novel.”

“You’ll be hard-pressed to find anything different… unless you feel you’re ready to take on Luffy and Rooster-kun again…”

“Eh… I’ve fallen asleep to worse.” Law flopped himself down on the ratted armchair near the other porthole—one leg hooked over the side—and reluctantly cracked the book open to the first page, figuring it was better than nothing. At least if one of the more obnoxious of his fellow passengers found him, he could easily enough shoo them off with a glare and a lie on the topic.

Okay, he had to hand it to Robin; at least she had pushed a book on him that was well-written. It reminded him of the books he’d occasionally find in his parents’ home library, or on the sisters’ desks at school. He’d read a few of them back then, raising his eyebrow at how his mother kept reading them despite anatomy Not Working That Way, but mostly gave them a personal hard pass. What did a little boy know about romance? What did a child understand about relationships spurred on by hormones that they had yet to experience? His parents had never stopped him from reading anything, however, making the novel oddly nostalgic despite the fact he had never seen it before in his life.

The main character was a woman, strong-willed and sharp-tongued as such protagonists oft were. Her quick wit was integral to her getting out of scrapes, but also getting her into trouble as well. There was something amiss at the noble court she had been contracted by a neighboring kingdom to investigate, their tenuous alliance under the World Government’s flag being one that required more skill and finesse than a normal inquiry could garner. She held herself well and was damn good at her job. Said job was testing her limits, and for good reason: there was very clearly something going on, and yet everyone was covering their tracks almost too well. With each new character she covertly investigated, the more tangled the case became, until there was a sort of pallor that hung in the air, tightening around her neck like one of Doflamingo’s strings.

Ah, yes, there was the court physician, finally back from assignment; Law checked and saw he was about a third of the way through. The character was dashing and desirable, possibly the only one to potentially jeopardize the investigation with his odd sort of magnetism that changed the entire mood of the book. It was all the main character could do to keep a level head with him around. They stole each other away from the costume ball and began to kiss passionately out on the veranda, the novel devolving into descriptors almost more at home in Shachi’s collection of naughty Sora, Warrior of the Sea fan zines.

Quirking his eyebrows, Law knew the implications involved with Robin having expressly recommended this book to him. They were still allies until they reached his crew, but this… this was far from appropriate for mere allies, threatening his poker face with… let’s be honest. It was smut she handed him. At least, it was about to become smut if he was gauging it correctly. He flipped to a few pages further on and… yeah. It was down-right filthy. Wasn’t she with Robo-ya? As in they were together-together? It didn’t make sense…

Law then made the mistake of glancing over to where Robin was still sitting, light now filtering in directly through the porthole now. It caught her dark hair and brown eyes in a way he had not seen before, causing a brief thought to cross his mind. Seas, was it the book’s flowing language getting to him or was she rather pretty with her nose in a book? He realized he had been staring when she turned her gaze up and gave him a smile.

“Enjoying the novel, Torao-kun?” she chuckled. His face darkened in blush and he dropped his eyes back to the page.

“Nothing… just…” A lie, a lie, quick… “With the sun I’m seeing some differences between you now and when your bounty photo was taken—the one our host has framed. Did you have access to vitamin supplements wherever it was you were hiding?” Okay, not the best of his lies, but it would do for the time being.

“Hmm…? What do you mean…?”

“You’re much paler now. A change of that magnitude can only come from a prolonged period with minimal sun exposure. Usually vitamin supplements are necessary when such a relocation happens.”

“No vitamins, but you’re right in that I did go from being in the sun a lot to not rather recently. It was when our crew was broken up in Sabaody—I was transported to a very cold place in the East, near the northern-most part of the Red Line.”

“I grew up in the North—my sympathies.”

Robin gave a nod and suddenly hands appeared over by a small door in the wall, opening it to reveal it was actually a dumbwaiter with some freshly delivered tea. Law was surprised for half a moment—of course Chicken-ya would know to have his crew send her some tea every once in a while. He took his leg off the armrest to get up, only for her to hold up a hand to stop him.

“Allow me.”

With a flick of her wrist, Robin activated her Devil Fruit ability to retrieve the tea tray. Instead of it being a series of hands, however, as Law was used to, an entire clothed replica of her body sprouted up from the floor and took the tray from its cubby to the small sidetable that sat between the couch and armchair. The replica gave him a wink before disappearing in a flurry of petals, which also dissipated as they fluttered away.

“That’s… different…” he choked out. “I… didn’t know you could do your whole body.”

“I can, but I can’t hold it as long as I’d like yet,” she replied. Robin put down her book and poured them both some tea, expertly ignoring the large thud that rocked the ceiling above them atop deck. She passed him his mug—no sugar or milk—and shrugged. “Not nearly as useful as your ability, but it has its uses.”

“You make it sound like a party trick.” He blew a puff of air across the surface of the tea before taking an exploratory sip—still too hot. “Didn’t take you for the type.”

“It’s no party trick.” A wicked grin crept across her face as she took a sip of tea. “Would you like to help me practice?”

He gave a short nod. “I could. Chicken-ya seems to have a decent sparring area on the forecastle…”

“Right here is fine,” she replied. Robin leaned back into the couch with her tea and her book, a Devil Fruit clone of herself sprouting up next to her. “It’s not something that needs the sparring area, I imagine.”

It took Law a moment to realize that she did not mean sparring, as the Devil Fruit clone approached him, hips swaying just enough to notice. Leaning forward at the waist, it held his chin as their lips pressed together in a chaste kiss.

Quickly, Law put up a Room and checked to see where everyone was on the ship. Most everyone was distracted by the continuous party, with the remainder keeping to actual jobs they had aboard ship. He locked the door before dropping the Room’s field, definitely not wanting to be disturbed now.

“You know what to do,” Robin said through her clone. Law looked at her and saw that the original was sitting rather calmly, not visibly registering the contact her clone was doing. He placed his mug of tea down on the sidetable and swallowed hard.

“Aim is endurance, then?”

“…that and not allowing what happens to my clone to show on the original,” she admitted. The clone’s hand let go of Law’s chin and instead pressed against the back of the chair, fully trapping him.

“Do your worst,” it dared.

Carefully, Law placed his hands on the clone’s hips and pulled them closer, making it straddle his lap as it sat. His thumbs accidentally brushed under the false clothing and marveled at the fact the skin under the shirt felt warm. The clone’s hands gently caressed his face as it leaned in and started kissing him in earnest, teeth worrying his bottom lip as he looked over at the original.

She turned a page in her book and kept reading. How the fuck…?

The Devil Fruit clone’s hands then began to wander, moving under his unbuttoned shirt to touch his shoulders and chest. He tried not to moan as fingers lightly went over his nipples in a teasing manner—this wasn’t fair.

“You play dirty, Nico-ya,” he wheezed.

“I play fair as is needed,” the clone murmured against his mouth. “Come on Torao-kun… don’t be shy… I know you’re more clever than that…”

A moment’s worth of thought crossed his mind—the novel! She must have known how far he had gotten before they began with tea. He tried to remember what had been in the novel, his brain beginning to stutter due to the unexpected contact.

Oh… if only the guys could see him now… they’d never believe it.

“I thought you were with Robo-ya…” he breathed. He wasn’t going to ask permission, but the least he could do was avoid making however long of a trip they had in front of them growing awkward.

“Even if I was, I don’t think he’d blame me.” Robin’s clone moved one of its hands to his shoulder, then back of his neck, and the other to the small of his back as it continued to kiss him. “I’d be getting a real boy for once.”

“You get the real deal and I don’t?” He worked one hand under her shirt and another up the leg of her shorts, getting a decent handful of what certainly felt like real tit and ass, giving both a squeeze. “That’s hardly fair.”

“Prove you’re ready for the big leagues and then we can talk,” the real Robin chuckled. She took a sip of her tea and her clone continued to kiss him, egging him on.

“The big leagues? How do you know I’m not already there?”

“…because if you were, I’d have a much more difficult time following this book.”

It took all the synapses in Law’s brain firing at once for him to remember what the two characters in the novel had been doing. He recalled the court physician using his long fingers to his advantage, which made him decide to do the same. Shifting his fingers, he felt to see if there was anything for him to anatomically tease between her legs—there was. He found its entrance first, then the nub of its clit, feeling the clone shudder as he rubbed a few quick circles before it burst into a cloud of petals that vanished in thin air.

“What was that?” Law teased. Robin frowned and reformed another clone, this one in the dress she had worn when she last stepped off the Thousand Sunny… and only the dress from what Law could tell. He pulled this clone in with more purpose, grinding his hips up into its, hearing a gasp from clone and original alike. “And here you were making fun of me.”

“Rude,” the clone scoffed, pinching some skin on his chest. He retaliated by grinding up between the clone’s legs again, making sure that his growing erection hit where it was needed most. “It’s a lot of work remembering all the details to replicate on each copy. Should I take shortcuts on the next one?”

The next one…? Another clone? Fuck that… Law was determined to the real Robin before they were done.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Two hours later, Luffy came barging into the library, a large turkey drumstick in one hand and his eyes full of mirth. There was food again! The ship’s cook finished making dinner! Robin and Torao needed to stop being cooped up inside and go eat on the deck!

It was a good thing he didn’t catch the pleased sweat on Robin’s brow, nor the flash of horror in Law’s yellow eyes as he quickly moved a cushion to cover his undone trouser fly, nor the assortment of petals that covered the floor as they faded into nothing…

…though… huh… Torao’s tea was cold. A full mug too! Maybe that’s why he seemed upset? His face was really red… oh well! Some meat could help him cheer up! Luffy wrapped a noodly arm around his friend and dragged him from the library, despite his protests and Robin’s giggling.

People sure were weird sometimes.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

With the Alliance made and everyone breaking off to their separate assignments, now that he and his crew were again within the auspices of the Polar Tang, Law felt more at-home than he had been in ages. Everything was beginning to settle into something closer to what it should have been—what it was going to be after they defeated Kaidou—and for the first time in a long time, Law found himself beginning to unwind.

“I don’t know what the fuck you people did, but I like this version of the Captain,” Penguin chuckled as he brought a tray filled with drinks over to the table. They were in the middle of riding a current, so the most that all but a handful of them had to do was wait. Most of them were gathered in the mess hall shooting the shit or, in his captain’s case, simply tolerating the others’ presence.

“Helped me get a fucking dragon off my back,” Law grumbled as he reached for a drink. He pulled his hand back for a moment as Zoro grabbed two drinks at once, going back for his allotment when the other swordsman was firmly double-fisting the alcohol. Penguin tried to yank the tray away but to no avail.

“I meant something else, but whatever,” he shrugged. Law downed half his mug at once and glared at his crewmate—no, one of his oldest friends. “Pretending ain’t gonna work. I’ve known you long enough to know better.”

“Uh-huh. Sure.” Law tried to appear aloof, yet knew he wasn’t fooling anyone from his crew. He felt Penguin’s stare bore straight through him, their guests not picking up on what was happening. It was then that their final guest came through the doorway into the mess hall—Robin. “Nico-ya, I thought you said you needed a lie-down.”

“I feel much better now, thank you,” she smiled. No… something felt a little off… “I have a question for you, Torao-kun.”

“Is it about the ship?” Penguin asked suavely, passing the drink tray to a passing Uni. Of course he would jump at the opportunity to be alone with a pretty lady not named Ikkaku. “I might be able to assist you.”

“No, I think I might,” Shachi cut in. Fucking hell, where did that perv come from? “The Tang is a marvel, isn’t she?”

“That she is,” Robin agreed, “but I wanted to discuss a book your captain and I were both reading on the Going Luffy-senpai. You do remember the end, correct?”

“I do,” Law nodded. He stood, poured the rest of his drink into one of Zoro’s (who simply shrugged and kept going; the liver damage had to be insurmountable), and walked past the insanely grumpy Penguin and Shachi to join Robin in the corridor… except… “Couldn’t come here yourself?”

“Think of it like another test,” the Devil Fruit clone smirked. It walked with him over to the door to his cabin before dissipating, Law waiting until the final petals vanished before slipping into the cabin and locking the door behind him.

There, sitting at his desk and looking over some of his notes with great interest, was Robin—the real Robin—wearing nothing but one of his button-down shirts, just like the heroine of the novel as she was readying to team up with the court physician in the final act. He felt his face grow hot in embarrassment as he realized she was reading one of his Sora, Warrior of the Sea compilations, the familiar tome looking strange in her hands.

“I have to admit, I never took you as a comics fan,” he said, trying to play it cool. He went to the desk and rested his chin on Robin’s shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

“I used to read Maruko-san when I was little, but I never really had the chance to keep up considering everything.” She turned a page and chuckled lowly. “This looks interesting—maybe I’ll read this instead.”

“Instead of what? Maruko-san?”

“Instead of seeing if you’re finally ready to show me how the book ended.”

Law raised an eyebrow; wasn’t the book merely an excuse? Code? He felt himself get pulled backwards by a familiar hand and he knew that it was another Devil Fruit clone, courtesy of Robin’s desire to torture him. It manhandled him towards the bunk, aggressively making him sit on the mattress as it prepared to keep him occupied while the original read.

Well, two could play at that game; an open Room and a twitch of his wrist swapped Robin with her Devil Fruit clone, putting her in his lap. She frowned playfully at him as she realized what happened and allowed her clone to dissolve.

“I lost my page.”

“Mmm… I’ll catch you up.”

“You sure?” She looked in his eyes as his hands idly began to work at opening the shirt she had stolen. Brown and yellow stared one another down as buttons were carefully undone, making them both wonder how this—whatever it was—would survive once they were in Wano.

“I’m sure.” He opened a Room again and watched her expression turn curious. “Now it’s my turn to test something I’ve been working on. Be as loud as you want; I dare you.”

He watched her grin and knew that if they wanted it, there was definitely a chance this could last.

[the-fiction-witch]

Girl P1

Media The Last Legion AU

Character Romulus Augustus (Age Up)

Couple Romulus X Reader

Rating Dark Smut

The winners write history, is a phrase I'm sure many are familiar with. and It's something many of us have to remember whenever looking at any recorded history, It's always a massive asterisk that needs to be remembered. That history is recorded by those who win, by those who control and rule, and who want the world to look favourably on them.

That and history books often skip over smaller things deemed less important.

I walked the blood-stained cobbles of the once beautiful city, through the bustling market littered with wooden stalls graced with sweet cotton fabrics and the various items being offered. The tall buildings looming over us all create a shade for us all from the intense sun and merciless heat. I wore my little grey sandals laced up my legs well, my little cream dress, with my wicker basket in hand filled with the items I had already picked up. I continued with my shopping and did my best to stop myself from purchasing things I didn't need.

As I turned the corner in the market I stopped short a moment as I saw the blood red and shimmering gold on the amour of city soldiers at the foot of the statue of Mars, three of them stood one clearly a commander barking orders to the others, the other two stood hassling a young girl in green. She couldn't have been much older than me they were trying to take her to a nearby cart but she was scared and trying to argue with them but that was a useless display as the soldiers were too strong merely picking her up and forcing her onto the cart where I noticed many other girls sat. I didn't want to pry into what was going on, perhaps some kind of round-up over some new law. But I trod carefully as I continued my shopping.

I stopped to check over some pears and oranges when suddenly my basket was forced from my hand and the guards began to take me to the cart.

"What- Where are you taking me!?" I complained trying to get out of their grip but they just pushed me into the cart with the other girls. "What's going on?" I asked one of the girls

"I don't know, they've been gathering up girls all day," she says

Soon enough they led the cart through the city, I did my best not to panic looking at the city, people bustling about their business, the soldiers at every corner.

They took us to the tall gates of the palace, they took us inside the palace and forced us into a line in the high luxury corridor. I didn't know what was going on but anytime someone tried to speak to each other soldiers would force their silence. There were only women in this line and I was at the end of it. I was fearful, unsure of what I had done or why I was here not being helped as the line moved deeper and deeper into the palace's grand halls. Finally, the hall opened up to the grandest room I had ever seen in my life.

The room was huge bigger than the temples with pillars of marble and curtains of glistening gold the walls were lined with guards in red and gold uniforms, the line of girls being marched across the floor. At the head of the room two souls sat, the first in a small wooden chair graced in white robes with red embellishments was the balding, sickly-looking man, I knew who he was from announcements and other such things. The royal advisor, he was the highest of the senate and the man who had to carry out that which the emperor demanded you could tell the role of this weighed heavily on him. And the other soul.

I had rarely seen him, no one had. But he was identifiable all the same. He sat on the throne of Roma and her empire, but he sat on it sideways so his head dangled off the armrest, his legs off the chair so the back of his knee sat on the other armrest, he was barefoot, in clothes worth more then everything I owned tight black trousers and a shirt of deep royal purple with gold lining and rope around cut-outs that went down the top of each sleeve even if the sleeves only reached his elbows, his face shockingly youthful and a head of the golden blonde hair he was well associated with.

Romulus Augustus and several other names that I honestly didn't know. He was a Cesar... apparently. I imagine if Cesar had royal blue blood this boy's blood would be a pale sky blue at best, as his relative to the Cesars was thin some even doubted if he had any at all. But supposedly he was the last living Cesar, he was sworn in as emperor when he was only a boy and his parents were killed not long after.

I suppose in another world the young emperor may not have lasted long perhaps overthrown by another or raised merely as a political show with the senate in true control. But that was not the world we live in. He was sworn in as a child, raised in secrecy and spoiled beyond measure. And because of that or perhaps just because, he was cruel. He was known in the city for Being mercilessly cruel, oftentimes your life would hang in the Balance of his childish whim, his name was known and feared across the empire for his downright evil tactics. And even guards and senate members knew better than to question him.

I had not been this close to him since his coronation when I saw him in the streets, but I was so scared my blood ran cold.

He had a small knife in his hand and was using it to file the nails on his other hand.

They brought a girl from the line directly In Front of the throne

"Your grace" the advisor began

"No" he snapped not even looking up

So they threw that girl to the side and brought the next one

"No" he snapped again not looking up from his nails

This went on until I was pulled In Front of him as scared as I was confused, and at that moment the advisor snapped

"Your grace!" He began "Forgive me, but we have been at this all day. Will you please at least look at them"

He pouted stuck his knife into the throne and turned to sit normally looking me up and down "No. Next"

"There is no next we've run through every girl in the city. You're having this one"

"You don't get to tell me what I am or am not doing!"

"Just look at her. Please"

He rolled his eyes getting up from the throne he came closer to me and paced around me like a hungry vulture,

"I don't like her"

"Perhaps you shouldn't have done that to your last one"

He turned sharply "She got what she deserved"

"Be that as it may"

"she's too chubby."

"she can be thinned"

"she smells funny"

"We can wash her"

"I don't like her hair"

"We can cut her hair"

"fine" he sighed returning to his throne "Show me her teeth" He demanded and the guard beside me grabbed my jaw hard forcing me to open my mouth and slow my teeth he rolled his eyes and sighed "Fine," He sighed "Lift her dress" He demanded and the guard let my jaw go grabbing the hem of my dress lifting it up to expose my pussy which made me scream covering myself up "Better then I expected" He smirked and the guard let me dress go "Alright. she'll do. Take her to the baths"

Immediately the guard grabbed my arms and forced me along with him no matter how much I protested

"What's going on? where are you taking me!"

"Quiet. You belong to the Emporer now" the guard told me 

They threw me into a hot steamy stone room with tall arched ceilings painted with gold, a few luxurious baths and waterfalls, along with areas to relax and a sauna in the corner, it even had a deck out to a garden with another hot spring pool with a waterfall of stone. They locked me here so I just took a seat and tried to come to terms with all that had happened.

Until the doors opened and the Emporer arrived and my blood again ran cold.

"Name?" he glared as he slammed the door shut

"I'm sorry"

"Okay," he sighed rolling his head back a little "First lesson. Do not make me repeat myself. Name. what is it?"

"Y/n y/l/n"

"Y/n. Fine. Take your clothes off and have a bath" He demanded as he slipped off his clothes leaving him utterly naked, his body as thin as I imagined but his erection half hard, I quickly looked away, I didn't want to argue and carefully slipped off my clothes and climbed into the water before he could see me

"What's going to happen to me?"

He sighed rubbing his eyes his arm leaned on the bath his body surrounded by the water"I will explain this, Once and only once." He says "Yes?"

"Yes Your Grace"

"Good girl, Now. Here's the deal. I get bored. This place is boring, the work is boring, it's just fucking boring so I need something to entertain myself or I'll end up killing somebody. So I need something to keep me entertained, And the advisors are constantly shitting themselves about bastards, terrified over another succession fight. So our way of dealing with this is they let me keep... a girl. For my amusement. You get room, food, and medical if needed."

"What would I have to do?"

"You do what I tell you. You belong to me body and soul. You do as I ask Without question. Without argument. silently if possible. You do as I say no matter what I say."

"And If I don't?" I asked

He smirked "Then I'll make you wish you were dead." He said "We clear?"

"Yes Your Grace" I nodded in fear

"Good girl," he smirked "Get out of the bath."

I didn't want to argue nervously getting up and climbing out of the bath using my hands to cover my body

"Hands," he demanded with a smirk

I gulped but took my hands away

"Humm. Not as nice as my last one. But... fantastic tits." He smirked "Jump up and down"

I sighed but did as he asked making him chuckle

"Good, here now" he smirked suggestively running his hand through the water so I moved climbing in and moving close to him, he smirked and grabbed my waist pulling me into his lap "I think you and I are going to have fun" he smirked

"I hope so your grace"

"ah ah" he warned "This mouth. Is for one thing and one thing only. My cock. if my cock isn't in your mouth it needs to be shut. I don't want your opinion. your conversation. or your goddamn voice. That mouth is for my cock and my seed nothing else. Understand"

"Ye-" I began but stopped short and simply nodded

"Good girl." he smirked his fingers dug into my skin as he turned and threw me against the edge of the bath I did my best not to complain as the edge hurt my stomach he grabbed my ass and dug his nails in tightly as he spread my cheeks as far as possible "Legs open" he demanded 

I bit my tongue and did as he asked me to, and he quickly forced himself inside me, I quickly put a hand over my mouth to prevent making any noise as he buried himself deep inside me almost enough to make me scream, he held me tight and moved fast and hard with very little concern for me even if it felt unbelievably amazing the sound of our skin connecting and water splashing I did my best not to squeal from the pleasure until he got slower and sloppier pulling himself out and forcing me to turn back to him my body sinking back into the water and he took his cock in his hand for a few strokes before he came sending his seed across my body immediately I grimaced at the substance now all over my body but he only smirked more seeming amused by my disgust

"Lick it."

"No-" I began

"Excuse me?"

"No, that's revolting!" 

"You belong to me. and if I say you do something you do it." 

"Yes your Grace" I sighed

"Now lick it off" He demanded 

I hated it but did as he asked licking and swallowing the horrible stuff as quickly as I could which only amused him more

"all of it" He demanded but I was perfectly clean I looked rather confused and he just glanced down at himself and the amount that remained on his shaft I did my best not to hurl but did as he asked licking it off and swallowing quickly even if I at one point gaged so hard my eyes welled with tears which made him chuckle "I own you girl. better get used to it" He smirked heading off to another part of the baths "Now clean yourself get that peasant stench off you" 

"Yes your grace" I sighed 

[thestarfishdancer]

tagged by the delightful @shineyma - thanks for the tag, it's nice to have fun things to think about!

name: Myranda. Often misspelled, most recently as Moiranda by the Starbucks barista who asked "Is is Mir?" and got the reply, "Myr, actually, but it doesn't matter!" and yet neither of those were used!

pronouns: she/her

where do you call home: Northern Canada. Yellowknife, if you need more pinpointing but honestly I usually just get ??? after that so... Northern Canada. Above the 60th parallel Northern.

favorite animal: Like @shineyma who tagged me, also tiger! I like the way they stalk about and their stripes. I also like dolphins though.

cereal of choice: I actually rarely eat cereal! When I do, I tend to weirdly like the "boring" grownup granola kind I would have turned my nose up at as a kid.

visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner: Some combo of auditory and visual, not entirely sure. I can remember a lot from what I hear without notes, but I also recollect a lot of what I see/read, so...

first pet: A couple of tetra fish.

favorite scent: A light floral jasmine.

do you believe in astrology: I think anything that you can use to help discover more of yourself is interesting and that there's validity to it. I read my horoscope now and again to see what resonates, but really I can take it or leave it.

how many playlists on spotify/apple music: Several! I love exploring playlists, but I'm also lazy. Periodically I made a new one for myself or do one for a friend, but when making a "real" playlist I'm also obsessed with the flow being JUST RIGHT so they take forever (though I do also have "dump songs in playlists". My friend Emily makes incredible playlists though. She used to live above me when we both lived in a different building, and once there was music playing loudly and I messaged her and was like, 'hey, what are you playing???" and she was all "I'm sorry, I'll turn it down!" and I was like, "No! I'm not complaining, I am chilling to this hard!" So she burned me a couple of CD (this was like 10 years ago) of the playlists she'd made: "Love Songs For Lonely Foxes" inspired by the foxes by hour house and "I Miss Pear Crisp". She still sends me an excellent playlist now and again. Here's one: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3d0aHp9eEttSA1GZ1E8lcp?si=e1bd2c36dfc14869

sharpies or highlighters: Sharpies, but only for writing the address on packages. I like pens with really fine tips.

songs that make you cry: I can't really think of any that make me cry on my own. Music on its own not yet a tear trigger for me.

songs that make you happy: So many. I just love discovering new music. Or old music. I was Teamsing with an HQ colleague lately about The Rigs, The Civil Wars, The Weepies being a vibe I like, so thinking of those artists is making me happy lately!

do you write/draw/create: I do write, though I haven't been lately. I have been taking on some editing projects outside my day job. BUT my best friend and I did write and publish a kids' book this year, and we're both off in September (she's a constituency assistant so our territorial election means no job in September, so I planned some Leave With Income Averaging to coincide) so we are going do a writer's retreat for just over a week together to work on more... then I'll be hanging around BC for a few more weeks on my own to get inspired by the ocean and work on some of my own writing. Hopefully the Muse will appreciate the setting and become a little more activE

tagging but no pressure: @dresupi, @meghan84, @treaddelicately, @sapphireglyphs, @ANYONE who wants to! My brain is too tired to tag more! I'm an old potato who slept poorly, and needs to get a few more braincells back to rub together.

[dacompanionreactions]

Hi! Can I request dai companions reacting to receiving baked goods made by Inky (including romance options if possible)? ^^♡

This was so fun to write! I tried to research some foods of Thedas to predict what kind of baked goods the characters would like <3

Cassandra gasps as she is presented with a small fruit pie. She sniffs it gingerly and- yes! It has spiced pears inside. One of her favourite delicacies from home. Cassandra holds the pie close to her chest and thanks the Inquisitor with a huge smile. She offers them a piece, but they decline. She digs in immediately and makes a mental note to ask the Inquisitor to make more.

If romanced, the Seeker will take the pie with a shy smile. She tastes it, then feeds a forkful to the wonderful man that made it for her. Cassandra loves it. She finds the gesture very romantic, and if she were the swooning type... well, to say she enjoyed the pie would be an understatement. "You are amazing."

Solas raises his eyebrows in surprise. He was not expecting a plate of sugar cake, and yet one somehow appeared on his desk anyways. "Inquisitor, you continue to surprise me." He's not sure what to do. Does he return the gesture and make a cake for them? Solas finally settles on eating the damn thing and is not disappointed when he does.

If romanced, Solas will stop what he's doing to try the cake his vhenan baked for him. It tastes even better than it looks. He kisses the Inquisitor's cheek and thanks her for the delicious cake. The interaction is enough to bring a smile to his face for the rest of the day. He will miss her cakes.

Varric sets his quill down when the Inquisitor comes to him with a fish and egg pie, specifically from Starkhaven. He barks out a laugh as he's reminded of Sebastian, and accepts the plate. "Andraste's ass Inquisitor, this actually tastes good! You deserve a medal." By the end of the evening, he's full of pie and warm memories of his friends.

Dorian peers over his book and raises an eyebrow. On the table in front of him is a loaf of freshly baked bread and a side of olive oil. It's a common dish in Tevinter, and also happens to be one of his favourites. The homesickness slowly ebbs away as he takes a bite. By the time Dorian is done, he's practically begging them to bake more.

If romanced, Dorian will laugh as he's greeted with a plate of bread and a kiss. "What's this, amatus?" When he's finished, he kisses his love's knuckles and thanks him. Internally, he thinks 'I cannot fall in love. I cannot fall in love. I cannot- oh kaffas.'

Sera looks at the cookies in front of her and snickers. There has to be some kind of prank involved. Raisins? After a thorough inspection, she realises the Inquisitor just made them for her to enjoy. Sera eats them all at lightning speed. She can't help it. They just taste so darn good.

After receiving the plate of cookies, Sera peppers her Honey Tongue's face with kisses. The cookies were perfect. And the first person her Inky thought of to give them too was her? Sera isn't the type to blush, but her face brightens with a wide grin.

Blackwall glances at the plate then back at the Inquisitor, raising an eyebrow to ask 'Is this for me?' He sets down his wood carving tools and takes a bite from the Ferelden pasties. They're warm and flaky, and perfect to eat during his break. He offers the Inquisitor some and they sit in the barn, eating together.

If romanced, Blackwall's heart practically explodes with adoration for the Inquisitor. The nagging thought that he doesn't deserve her is promptly shoved to the back of his mind as he digs into the pasties. They are wonderful. She is wonderful.

Cole looks at the plate of bread rolls and informs the Inquisitor that he doesn't eat. He sees the look on their face, hears the momentary panic in their mind and takes a bite anyways. "I don't need to eat, but I want to." It makes the Inquisitor happy.

The Iron Bull observes the plate of cinnamon rolls with a certain wariness. The last time he had these, they were poisoned by a friend. These ones are just fine, however. Screw fine. They're delicious!

If romanced, he brings his kadan into his lap and feeds them a piece of a roll. Bull thanks them with a kiss (much to the chagrin of Krem, though he stops complaining as soon as he's offered one too). "My kadan is a badass and an excellent baker as well? Damn, I'm lucky."

Madame de Fer. Iron Lady. The name strikes fear into the hearts of weaker opponents, so it is strange to see Vivienne lose her composure. She's touched by the gifts of powdered biscuits, and after the loss of her dear Bastien, it's just what she needed. Vivienne thanks the Inquisitor with many darlings and my dears, and quietly tucks in, her heart warm with thoughts of her lover and baked goods.

Cullen glances up at the icing dusted biscuits presented before him. "These are for me?" He eyes the biscuits, then his paperwork, then gives in to the temptation of the sweet treats. Cullen feels less stressed about his day than before, and happily tucks into them with a soothing cup of tea by the side of his desk.

If romanced, Cullen blushes at the sight of the heart shaped biscuits. They're cute and sweet (much like the person in front of him) so he has no choice but to ignore his paperwork. He's already thinking of a million ways he can return the favour.

Leliana blinks at the plate of cookies in front of her. "You are too kind, Inquisitor." She takes them with a rare, genuine smile and allows herself to relax. It's an odd feeling to be sure, but not an unwelcome one.

Josephine has about a billion things to do. Organise a party between an Antivan and Orlesian ambassador, spread support for the Inquisition in the little villages of Ferelden and... eat baked goods? She decides to make it a priority on her never ending to-do list and doesn't regret a single crumb.

If romanced, Josie finds a giggle easily reaching her lips. "Did you make this, my love?" She's all 'thank you's and bright smiles. Her love's baking has her glowing with happiness all day long.

[randomingoftherandomness]

Squeals and flails! Your writing is so good! Have been stopping myself from asking for continuations of pretty much every piece, especially the childhood, omega Lao Wen going into heat and possessive Ah Xu ones! Could you write a 5+1 fic with five times Ah Xu dotes on his Lao Wen, and one time Lao Wen is sweet to Ah Xu please? Was thinking that the first moment could be Wenzhou stargazing with Lao Wen falling asleep in Ah Xu’s arms and then Ah Xu hugging him closer? Thank you!

A/N: So this is going to be a 3 + 1 instead of a fiver because I’m sleepy and I want to finish this before bed haha... Sorry...

1. It’s a little too late in the season for them to be indulging in a spot of stargazing on the roof of the Manor, but Lao Wen had complained that they’d barely had any time alone (lies; they’ve stolen plenty of time alone because his ass sure as hell remembers those times alone) and had pulled out his trump card of telling Chengling to gather the kids for a spot of camping out in the plum forests as a form of cultivation exercise.

Zishu isn’t sure what sort of bribery Lao Wen had promised the brat, but he hopes Chengling bargained hard for it.

So, here they were. Up on the rooftop, wrapped up in their cloaks, passing a bottle of pear blossom wine between them as they watch the heavens twinkle down at them. In the distance, Zishu can clearly see the dull glow of the firelight and he feels assured that the kids haven’t gone too far.

“Ah Xu, pay attention to me,” Lao Wen harumphs, wriggling himself into his arms with a laugh. Zishu wraps his arms around him, burying his lips to the crown of his head and kissing him there with a smile. 

“I’m always paying attention to you,” He says.

It takes Lao Wen a beat to reply and when he does, it is a quiet but fond, “I know.”

Under the moonlight, they enjoy each other’s company; reminiscing of their first time stargazing together and all the hijinks that night had entailed. They talk about the progress of the disciples, about Chengling and his upcoming trip to Nanjiang to visit Luta, about the extension they will need to make for the new students that are coming next month.

It is about an hour into this when Zishu realises that Lao Wen has fallen silent. Worried that he may be struck by a bout of strange moods again, he looks down only to find that Lao Wen has fallen asleep in his arms. 

Smiling, he adjusts their cloaks so that they’re bundled up warm in the night chill. Curling a touch to Lao Wen’s cheek, Zishu settles in against him.

2. When Lao Wen sulks, he doesn’t do it in half measures.

Chengling winces at him in sympathy before backing away slowly like he is trying to escape a spooked tiger. In a way, Zishu thinks that this situation probably warrants a strategic retreat of some kind. 

Still. He glares at Chengling’s winning smile as he darts away to safety. That little traitor.

“So when were you planning on telling me that Lord Seventh,” Here Zishu notes that Lao Wen spits the syllables of Beiyuan’s title as if rolling something extremely distasteful in his mouth. “Was coming to visit?”

He mulls over what to say; well-versed as he is in taming Lao Wen when his darkest impulses flare to the fore, Zishu needs to weigh the next things that come out of his mouth before he digs this grave any deeper.

“Or were you not planning on telling me at all?”

The thread of hurt in those words strike true in twisting his heart. Looking up at where Lao Wen has his back to him makes it worse and he hurries across to him, pulling him into his arms and peppering kisses over his cheeks, the bridge of his nose, his brows, the plush heat of his lips, as he seats both of them on the divan. 

“I really was going to tell you, I promise,” Zishu says, brushing back his hair. Letting Lao Wen nuzzle against his throat, he sighs. “I know how you are when Beiyuan visits and I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable with him being here, but he’s one of the few people in the world who knows me as well as you do. He’s a friend and there are times when I just want to have my friend with me.”

“I don’t hate him...” Lao Wen mumbles softly.

Zishu has to laugh at the blatant lie. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together can tell that Lao Wen gets an eye twitch or two when Beiyuan and he exchange some inside joke or two that excludes him. It’s such a little thing; petty by the standards of others and Zishu knows that he isn’t actually jealous or trying to be controlling, but is instead curious and yet dreading all the secrets that Beiyuan may let slip about Zishu’s life before him and all the persons that came before.

Now, that he is jealous about.

He doesn’t say anything to the contrary, merely pull Lao Wen tightly against him. “Alright, alright, if you say so,” He says agreeably, peppering kisses to his husband’s cheek.

3. Absence, as those who claim to be wise, would say, makes the heart grow fonder.

What Zishu finds is that it makes him a fucking misery to be around.

Chengling had long since given up in trying to coax him into some sort of reasonable mood a good week ago and had taken off in the night, leaving a note to say that he will rendezvous with him in another week. That disciple of his is getting better at picking up the subtle things that people are telling him without saying a single word.

He downs another cup of wine. 

It has been horrible to travel this far without Lao Wen. He’d had to contend with constantly looking over his shoulder for a smiling face and the quick-fire wit of his beloved. He has had to draw upon every self-control he had in him not to scream at the Sect Leader they were visiting to further their alliance.

Zishu fumes and drinks two more cups in quick succession.

If Chengling isn’t back in time and if he has to delay his trip back to the Manor just to wait for his silly disciple, he will absolutely without a shadow of a doubt, leave the idiot behind to fend for himself.

He’s done his best to equip the kid for surviving in the wild. No one can fault him for wanting to run back home with the stash of wines he had found on his travels. Zishu had bought them to share with his Lao Wen of course; there were some well-loved flavours and then some others that could be considered rare enough that a former Lord of the Ghost Valley would definitely find delight in the taste of.

Zishu finds himself calming somewhat at the thought of laying out his gifts for Lao Wen; of how those beautiful eyes would widen at the sight of all the wines, of how his lips would curl in a smile as he tastes each and every one of them, savouring them in the only way a connoisseur can; the sounds he would make in his enjoyment that could only come from a place so deep in pleasure--

No, no, no. Zishu is not going there tonight. He downs three cups and sighs. He’s already rubbed himself raw from missing Lao Wen this entire trip. If he does anymore, he’ll probably...

Yeah. Best to just save it til he gets home to his beloved.

+1

Lao Wen likes to think that he is an attentive husband. Certainly, Ah Xu has never wanted for anything when he was with him. Be it in bed or outside of it, he loves to cater to his beloved’s needs. 

As such, when it comes to his birthday, Lao Wen will die before he admits that he doesn’t know what to get him.

In the end, the answer comes simply. 

After the birthday dinner with the members of the Manor, he steals Ah Xu away for a bout of kisses that leave them both weak-kneed and aching jawed. “Get into bed. I’ll bring you your gift,” He says, hands on Ah Xu’s slender waist. Smiling, he swallows down his moan, licking the taste of wine and good food off Ah Xu’s tongue. “You’ll love it.”

He watches his husband stumble back, eyes a deep desire dark.

He cannot wait to see how his Ah Xu unravels when they put into play the little gift he had custom made for him; an exquisite jade that sits on a bed of silk in a lacquer box, hidden in the folds of his second-best robe. The same jade he may or may not have spent a small fortune in carving into the shape of his own cock. 

If he was being honest, this was an entirely selfish gift to be giving someone else on their birthday, but what does he care? This is something Ah Xu and himself can utilise over and over again, and this was something that could be the first of many to come. 

Absently and with glee, he thinks of the day he gets to help Ah Xu model for a jade phallus of his own. 

Oh, Lao Wen is going to have so much fun tonight.

[cobblepottantrum]

ACNH HC

PPG edition

so me and my friends on a server were discussing about how the powerpuff girls and rowdyruff boys would play the game, and i took it upon myself to write it all down. This isnt every single one and all of these were created in a mixture of mine, @empress-lulu-of-mischief and @toxicovee minds (possibly other so if i left you out im sorry!!!) Just something fun and silly to think about. 

its long so ill break it up. Let me know if you have any others :) 

Blossom: She had played New Leaf and loved being the mayor so only being a resident was a low blow for her. In that case her island is always 5 star because she would have nothing less. When it comes to how her island looks, it's perfect. It's symmetrical and her villagers have a cute little town that looks oddly like Townsville. She prefers the natural looking stone compared to Bubbles bright pathways. Her favorite thing is the museum and she will donate everything one by one so that Blathers will tell her everything, it's kind of insane. She does this with Celeste too and has little information signs everywhere. She doesn’t really like doing the custom designs for clothes but will occasionally.

When it comes to the flowers, she only likes the red, pink and white ones. She only plants those and if any colorful ones come up, she gives them to Bubbles or has giveaways on her island. She has giveaways on her island where up to five people can come and ask her questions like a little meet and greet.

She doesn’t time skip too often but she did go back in April for the cherry blossom DIYs which her entire house is pink and cute. When it comes to her outfits, she wears the red bow and Bubbles made their old school dresses so she usually has on her pink dress. Her villagers are all pink and she likes having the snooty ones best. She won’t hesitate to complain to Isabell and she will take a net to them.

Game Name: Blossom Island Name: The Good Place (Was Townsville but Bubbles told her no) Fav Characters: Blathers, Celeste and Tom Nook Fav Villagers: Flora, Merengue, Pinky, Whitney, Audie, Raymond Fruit: Cherry Flag: Her iconic red bow with a pink background Tune: The ppg theme song (it's actually mine too)  

Bubbles: The queen of custom design and the hybrid hoarder. Her custom kiosk is constantly being used as everyone wears and uses her designs. Her island is filled with pastel blue pathways and the cutest decor ever. She mostly has small parks and cafes and is still trying to get past her 4 star ranking for KK Slider. She loves the hamster and small villagers and refuses to hit them with nets (except for the monkey who was mean but that's ok). She revolves around her flower gardens and she will yell at you if you try to steal her golden roses. No time skipping for her because she likes the slow pace of the game.

Every morning she goes to every villager and talks with them and sends them gifts. The Able Sisters is her favorite place and she mostly buys things for her villagers. Her musem isn’t even close to being complete because she is scared of the bugs except for the butterflies. The fish she is okay with but the moment she saw the tarantula she closed her game. If one of the girls or boys is on her island, they will catch everything for themselves. Her terraforming skills are off the charts since she likes design so much and everywhere you turn there is a waterfall covered with flowers but absolutely no weeds.

She loves having people come to her island. She sends out Dodo Codes for flower watering and trading. Everyone brings her gifts and it's now a running gag to bring blue flowers. Her player is always changing styles and hair colors but she always has custom heart cheeks.

Game Name: Bubbs Island Name: Sugar Shore Fav Characters: Leif, All the Able Sisters Fav Villagers: Bunnie, Cookie, Merry, Bubbles because duh Fruit: Apples Flag: Intricate bubble pattern with flowers Tune: She changes it from one disney song to the next

Buttercup: She wasn’t too thrilled about the game as she never played the other ones before. However she does start to like it as it's relaxing and helps with her anxiety. She's a grinder and always has money. She designed her island to have different areas based on her favorite movies and sport areas. She likes the jock and lazy villagers and will not hesitate to smack them with her nets. She hates how long dialogue takes and smashes the buttons violently.

She breeds the black flowers and her house is surrounded by them. She likes to catch the fish and every night she goes to as many islands as possible for taratuna hunting. She only allows her best friends to come to her island because the log screens are a pain. Her island is nice and cool and she time skips like crazy and likes the turnip stock market. Other than that she's not too obsessed with it and her villagers get upset when she leaves them for days at a time. The only custom thing she makes is movie posters and band album covers. Hidden around the island are magical summoning circles and fake blood, Bubbles hates it.

She likes CJ’s fish challenges and half her island is covered in bugs for Flick. Her player has the bandages and custom fake blood as well as spooky outfits that she gets from other people's codes.

Every time she catches a snail, she sends it to Butch with a message “its you” attached.

Name: BC Island Name: Spice Shack Favorite Villagers: Kid Cat, Bam, Phil, Bruce Fav Character: Cj and Flick Fruit: Orange Flag: Green skull with a black background (bubbles made it) Tune: Opening to “Welcome to the Black Parade)

Brick: Stock Market King, Mr. Richie Rich, Snob. After Boomer told him to play and gave it to him, he became obsessed with the stock market. Every Sunday is turnip day and he spends the week finding the highest selling price, usually his twitter followers will invite him and he will leave them a bunch of Nook Tickets. He time skips like crazy, cheats and he wears the crown without hesitation. His island is 5 star spotless and shows off the rarest items. If you wanna come to his island then you must pay up. He is the person who you hate because you wanna be him. He has only the top tier villagers and will call you poor. He doesn’t bother with custom designs and if he wants something then Bubbles is the one to go too. He used an island planner beforehand to make sure everything was in place. The moment something new comes out, he's on top of it. He doesn’t really care if a villager is ugly or cute, if they are highly wanted, he gets them.

If you happen to be dating him, you must wear the matching crown to prove that you are the best because it's what you deserve.

Name: Lord Brick Island Name: Bricktopia Favorite Villagers: Audie, Marshall, Raymond, Bob Fav Character: Redd, Daisy Mae (He is her bitch and sets his alarm) Fruit: Peaches Flag: Red flag with a crown on it (made by bubbs of course) Tune: He doesn't know and he doesn’t care because he plays on mute.

Butch: Disater. His island is always messy and he doesn't care too much about the atmosphere but he does like the bugs and is a simp for Isabell. He saves all the snails BC gives him and puts them in his snail room or the army room. He becomes serious about the game a little later and sooner follows Brick with all the cheats. They dominate the stock market like bosses

He doesn't talk that much with the villagers but spends time hitting them with nets if they are ugly. He keeps Butch without a doubt and moves his house next to his cause they are bros but all of his villagers are cats only for the reason to make jokes. (pussy island)

His island is like a living meme as he has random images in the sand. His house is simple but a punk rock domain and he wont tell anyone that he spent hours making the green day album covers for his wall. He doesn't have too many flowers but prefers the bamboo look more. His favorite item to wear is the hockey mask and he put fake blood face paint on. His island is like a horror game instead and Bubbles refuses to come to his island because it's scary. He also likes to make mazes out of hedges.

After a while he restarts his island and son time travels and has the island buffets where people pay to come get materials and objects. He becomes an AC king in no time and likes that he can make money. (the only people allowed on his island without payment is the girls, his brothers and his friends, other than that, pay up)

Name: Butch Island Name: Butch Pad Fav Villagers: Butch, Bob, Olivia, Stinky, Tom (litrally just cats and Butch) Fav Character: Cj and Kicks Fruit: Pears Island flag: A snail with a skull on its shell Island tune: Mr. Brightside opening

Boomer: This boi right here is the AC King. He's played every single game since he was little (always made fun of by his brothers but look at you Brick). He knows all the AC lore and will go into detail about Tom Nook and Redds past plus he is the biggest shipper of Flick and Cj. His island is terraformed perfectly and he has literally everything you could want. He time skipped for a little bit but never cheats.

He is a twitch streamer and everyone tunes in the moment Boomer is on. He allows for five people to come on his island a day to play games and get DIYs that he already has. He's a humble player who knows his way around everything. He doesn’t care too much about which villagers come and go but Audi is his favorite as the back story suggests. He just wants to complete it all except he will never be able to catch wasps, he sucks at it. However he rarely misses a fish and also has piles for Flick and CJ.

He is an avid hybrid flower person and any extras, he gladly gives away. Bubbles gets the first pick. He is surprisingly good at custom designs and makes everything himself. His island has little cafes and band areas as well as a perfect view of KK Slider because he is a 5 star island for sure.

He owns AC Merch and buys fanart from other people because he is obsessed. He got Brick Daisy Mae socks and he catches him wearing them every Sunday for good luck.

His player looks like him but also wears the crown (he got it first anyways). His house has all the instruments and has a nod to all his past houses.

Name: Boomer Island Name: Big Blue Fav Villagers: Boomer, Bubbles, Audi, Tad Fav Character: Isabell, Timmy and Tommy, Cj he loves them all. KK SLIDER Fruit: Cherry Flag: His flag changes weekly as his subscribers have flag comps each week and he uses the winner as his flag Tune: He is an Og and didn’t change the song.

Ships and how they play:

Reds: Museum dates. They love walking through the museum while talking on the phone and wandering around. Brick brings her a pink rose each visit and Blossom places them around her house. Usually when they are on each other's islands they are facetiming or talking and they just kinda run around and don't do much before getting off and focusing on each other. Blossom brings him gold flowers because he is a snob but he secretly appreciates it. Blossom has to take off the bow and wear the crown because only the best can be on his island. She makes him wear a red hat when he comes onto her island. Sometimes they have fishing competitions and whoever wins gets to brag on the bulletin board.

Blues: Dates!! When they visit the other islands, they go back and forth all day, exchanging hybrid flowers and catching butterflies. Bubbles talks to every villager he has and they each made a secret picnic spot on their islands for them. If he is streaming, she is mostly likely watching and or playing with him. They can spend hours just talking and running around and they just craft and decorate together. She helps him fix his house up and “I love bubbles Is written in the sand that can clearly be seen from the plane loading screen. They always give things and write love notes on their boards. Together they host games on their island and it's always on a certain day. There's at least a queue of 100 people each time.

Greens: They hit each other with nets and axes for five minutes before switching to a fighter game and hopping on with the boys. But if they manage to stay on longer, Butch and Buttercup just cuss consatntly and leave eachother gross notes on the bultin boards. The play hide and seak and Butch likes to dig up her flowers and make a mess of her island before she does the same to his.

COLOR CRACK:

Brick x Bubbles: He constantly is paying off her debut because she doesnt time skip or grind for her money. She never asks him to but she opens her mailbox to find bags of money and rare items. She makes his red sweater and when he goes to her island that's the only time he removes his expensive outfits. In the back of his island he grows hybrid flowers for her. She makes his custom designs and shows him how to boost his flower production and villager points.

Brick x Buttercup: He likes calling her poor. He is insulted by her island being boring and gives her gifts but she sells them to piss him off. They are the most competitive pair when it comes to fishing and she likes to dig in random places and drop items to make him mad. He’ll walk around and find thirty sticks everywhere and call her. It's about teasing with them and good fun. They are also the turnip couple overlords and constantly are looking for the best princes.

Boomer x Blossom: Boomer knows everything about AC and Blossom loves learning about the stories. He gives her tours of the museum and everytime she has a new villager, he explains their past. He gifts her pink flowers and she helps him complete his museum with fossils. He will have people come to his island and she even has meet and greets with people. It's simple and fun.

Boomer x Buttercup: Boomer gets BC addicted to the game. No other person can make her care so much about these animals than her soft boyfriend. He shows her all the secrets and how to make her island amazing. She becomes obsessed and is soon rivaling Brick for best island, Blossom knows hers is better. Buttercup likes to grind and travel for materials and anytime Boomer says he needs to find some more wood, she has it sent to his island in no time.

Butch x Blossom: Sir is a simp for Pinky. He enjoyed listening to her talk about the fossils in the museum and when she flew to his island “Blossom is Hot” was written on the ground. Even though her island is thriving , he constantly sends her gifts and things. His favorite thing to do is to run on her island and leave a random heart patch for her to find. She doesn’t exactly approve of his methods of making people pay money to get stuff but him allowing her to get whatever she wants, she turned the other cheek because if people want to spend money so be it.

Butch x Bubbles: He hits her villagers and she yells at him. He also likes to take her flowers one by one and replace them with normal one. He tried taking her golden rose but she cried and he called her to make sure she was ok. Now he doesn't mess with her but finds himself growing her flowers. She doesn’t come to his island because it's spooky but he made a little spot on the beach and “Bubble Safe Zones”. She tends to have the best items for sale so whenever he visits he shops a lot. They like to fish together and she shows him how to plant flowers and make his island nice. After he decides to restart and make his island a shopping paradise, Bubbles gets anything she wants especially since she doesn’t time skip. If there's something rare that he only has one of, she gets it.

Bonus: (doesn’t matter which ship)

-Blossom once had turnips for 800 bells and did not let Brick come on her island because he said something about the bow being dumb. He instantly regretted and called her and begged, the man begged over the phone for her to open the gates. She did at the last second.

-Butch once stole Bubbles gold rose and the entire city heard her sonic scream. He put it back and waters it daily. (She screamed cause she saw a spider on the wall but it got him to but the rose back)

-Boomer and Blossom know about the AC lore and often have long discussion on his stream about different

-Nintendo contacted the girls and for a new event they made the powerpuff girls as villagers you could have. Blossom is a preppy wolf named Blossom, Bubbles is a sisterly duck named Bubbles and Buttercup is a jock cat named Butters. Each of them are themed to their signature color and each offers a special diy. (they sent the girls amiibos and codes to get their own) Big Bow Bookshelf (Bow shaped bookshelf with blossoms signature), Heroes Bedtime(replica of the childhood bed), Hotline Phone, Heavenly Hearts Rug (the heart ending screen rug), Bubbly vanity (three giant blue bubbles that look like a mirror with bubbles signature), BC Bean Bag (bean bag that is green with Buttercups signature). Crime Fighters wallpaper (wallpaper that has the famous pink, blue and green streaks), Pink Poster, Green poster, and Blue poster, PPG Poster (has all three girls on it)

-Each girl has a special memorial on their island for Bunny. It is just a patch of Purple roses and all of them are near their house.

[threelivesthreeworlds]

EXCERPT FROM PILLOWBOOK, CHAPTER 21, BOOK 2. IN WHICH YE QINGTI’S FIRST (AND LAST) LOVE IS A GODDESS.

Ye Qingti never thought one day he would cultivate into an immortal, and yet he had only to wash away the dust of the mortal world in the Jade Pool, and go see Da Luo Heaven Qing Yun Hall's Eastern Lord, and he would become an immortal.

Ye Qingti remembered that the lifetime during which he was a human was four hundred years ago. He was born to the Ye family during the Jin Dynasty, and was the first son of the Marquis of Yong Ning. The house of Yong Ning was a militaristic one. Every generation of the Marquis of Yong Ning died at war, and his father spilled his blood on the battlefield when he was thirty five, and so he was only seventeen when he became the marquis.

At that time, the Jin Dynasty was at the end of its strength - sons of great families were predominantly good-for-nothings, but the sons of the Ye family were the best out of a rotten lot, and Ye Qingti was the best of this best. According to common practice, since Ye Qingti was handsome, had a good personality and a great house, he ought to be first on the list of every house looking for a son-in-law. However, since the start of the Jin Dynasty, the Yong Ning peerage produced an infamous amount of widows, and the great families that truly cared for their daughters usually did not wish to marry them, and so for every generation the Marquis of Yong Ning had a hard time getting married and could only hope for the Emperor to arrange a marriage.

When Ye Qingti became the Marquis, conflicts at the border were endless and troubling, and so the new, young Marquis could not wait till the Emperor arranged a marriage before he went off to patrol the border, and stayed there for five years, driving away the the Da Tan tribe that was causing trouble at the border in the process.

Ye Qingti made incredible progress, and the Emperor was very happy, and not only rewarded the house of Yong Ning greatly once he returned to the city, but also arranged a marriage with Councilor Qi's eldest daughter, and then gave him a beauty to be a second wife. In this dynasty, past emperors sometimes liked to give beauties to their subordinates, but the current Majesty lived for forty something years and was on the throne for twenty something, but never gave a beauty to a subordinate. Even though he was a general, and did not think as much of the atmosphere at court as the civil officials did, he thought this matter was somewhat bizarre.

After a few rounds of secret investigation, he found out that the beauty that had been given to him was a Consort Chen that had been living in the Emperor's palace, who had not at first been particularly noticed, but had saved the Emperor from the water at the Wei Tuo Hu Fa Dan four years ago, and earned His Majesty's interest. According to the rumors, Consort Chen loved His Majesty ridiculously deeply when she was unfavored, but without reason, when His Majesty became deeply in love with her, she was very cold with him and made him angry constantly. An even more private secret was that even though Consort Chen was so cold, His Majesty still favored her greatly for four years, and no night in those four years did Consort Chen ever let him near her.

Ye Qingti was sat on the wall drinking and watching the moon, and hearing the spy say this, dropped the jar in his hand, shattering it on the floor, paused for a long moment, and said, "What a curious woman. If His Majesty has tolerated even that, what great mistake could she have made that cause His Majesty to give her to me as a second wife?"

The spy paused for a moment, and said: "She...wrote Her Highness the Noble Consort a love letter."

To take a second wife was not like marrying a first one, from engagement presents to meeting the bridal party, carrying all out according to the etiquettes. To marrying a wife took up many months, and to take a second wife was only to pick a day, and lead her in through the back door. Ye Qingti's whole heart had been on the battlefield since he was young, and rarely took an interest in matters of romance, but he was rather curious about this Consort Chen. The day Consort Chen came to the house, even though Ye Qingti left the study late at night, he decided to go to Bi Yun Courtyard to meet this curious woman.

Because he was too lazy to get maids to come open the door, Marquis Ye flipped over the wall directly, and without even touching the ground, he heard a light laugh like a silver bell, and looking toward the sound, saw a blue lotus pond, full of lotus leaves, and a great distance away there was a white-clad woman with light footsteps walking between the water and the lotuses to chase the fireflies in the pond.

Beneath the silver moonlight, that woman suddenly turned her face, and between relaxed, dark eyebrows there was a flower, bright eyes as if the stars were melted in them, the smile touching her lips adding to an already beautiful face. Marquis Ye heard a great noise in his mind, and two phrases from a text he'd read as a young man crashed into his heart: like the moon concealed by light clouds, floating and swaying like the snow on a flowing breeze.

When he flipped over the wall and landed beneath an old pear tree, he stepped subconsciously and broke a branch, and in the silent night the sound was especially attention grabbing. As expected, the woman in the pond appeared alarmed, a warm white light shooting straight into the pavilion in the middle of the lotus pond, and after, the woman was gone.

He hurried to the pavilion, and within, a green-clad woman rubbing her eyes stood up from a stone stool. The green-clad woman had a round face and could only count as somewhat good looking, looking at him blankly for a moment, and then said: "Marquis Ye?" But he noticed the flower on the woman's forehead. No, it wasn't a flower - it seemed more like a birthmark in the shape of a beautiful flower, like spread phoenix feathers, like the one on the white-clad woman's forehead a moment ago.

He stayed at the borders for long years and had seen all sorts of bizarre things, and thought her playing dumb was adorable and laughable, narrowing his eyes and asking her plainly: "You're a demon?"

He thought she would deny it, like a snake demon that had married a hunter of a border village that he had encountered when he had been twenty, who denied it to the end even when her tail came out. But she only paused half a moment, and asked him with a distressed expression: "Someone like me looks like a demon?" Before he could respond, she sighed. "This is getting ridiculous. Before, they just thought the flower on my forehead was a demon flower, and now my real body is being thought to be a demon." After sighing, she continued to ask him: "Do I really seem like a demon? Why do I seem like a demon? Have you seen a demon as pretty as I am?"

It was because she was so beautiful it seemed impossible she was human, that he was sure she was a demon, but she asked him if he had ever seen a demon as pretty a demon as her, and so his heart was moved, and though he thought the hypothesis was somewhat ridiculous, asked her with a smile in his eyes: "What, are you a god from the heavens?" 

She pursed her lips a little: "Do you mortals think there are only gods in the heavens? I'm not a god from the heavens - I'm a god from the country of Qingqiu. Have you heard of the Eastern Wilderness? I am the goddess of the Eastern Wilderness, Feng Jiu."

When she said this, her clear eyes danced with teasing, and even though she wore the round face of Consort Chen, one forgot her face and only saw her clear eyes.

The heart in his chest began, violently, to beat.

Ye Qingti had lived twenty three years, and had not known what love was. The first time he tasted love was to fall in love with a god. This god was very beautiful, lively and gentle, was an excellent cook, liked to mess around with weapons, and made good conversation with him. According to her, she came to the mortal realm to make a love calamity for the current Emperor.

She asked him: "Do you know what it means to create a calamity? I'm actually not a professional at creating calamities, but I have such bad luck. I came to the mortal realm to to repay a debt of gratitude, but then I met my aunt who was here to change someone's fate and got roped into it." She complained about the Emperor to him: "Siming made me create a love calamity for him last minute. Do you understand how difficult that is? Siming gave me a play, and I used all the ways the horrible ladies use to hurt men written on there, and he still loved me deeply without regret." She shuddered. "I didn't have any other choice than to go with a bad idea and write his Noble Consort a love letter." She sighed: "I did something like that, don't you think he should've given me a noose or some poisoned wine? What was he thinking, to give me to you as a second wife? Now even if I want to leave, I don't dare to, for fear of implicating you!"

She took him for a friend, and sincerely complained to him, and so he held a jar of wine, drank and smiled. He remembered hearing someone say that gods had no feelings, that those who were gods had neither the seven emotions nor the six desires. That he fell in love with a god meant there would be no conclusion. Sometimes he hated that his heart was moved that night, hated that that moment of being moved could last for five years, taking root deep inside so that he could not remove it if he wished to. He had been lost, and had struggled, listened to Taoist lectures from the Councilor, and meditated with Buddhist monks, but after all that still wanted to return to her side, even just to watch her from afar. She said she was here to create a love calamity for the Emperor, but it seemed she also created a love calamity for him.

He didn't want to burden her, in actuality, thought to bury his feelings until he too, grew old and died and would be buried, but when it came to the moment of death, he couldn't keep it inside.

After Consort Chen hurt the Emperor, the Emperor began to take a liking to studying Taoism, trusting especially an old Taoist, giving him the rank of royal advisor and constructing an Imperial Tao Temple, discussing Taoism with him on the fifteenth of every month.

He only knew that night that this Taoist was an evil demon, who had wanted to take the Emperor's soul to create a magical pill with it, plotted for five years and thought to take the Emperor's life during that rare astronomical period of yin, and took a demon blade, Lan Yu, to attack the Emperor when he came to the temple as usual.

He hadn't thought the silver bell always attached to her wrist was a magic item that could tell when the Emperor was in danger, and he hadn't thought that a god could have feelings. When the demon blade Lan Yu was flying toward the Emperor, her face was clearly pale, and when she put herself in the path of the blade in front of the emperor, her voice seemed as if her heart was ripping out of her chest when she called "Donghua!" The Emperor's name was not Donghua, that was the first time he had heard such a name. Without hesitation, she threw herself in front of the Emperor, and without hesitation, he threw himself in front of her. 

The tip of the blade stabbed into his chest, but he held it tightly in his hand. 

He was afraid the point of the sword would travel through his heart and hurt the woman standing behind him. 

The demon Taoist died under her sword, and when the guardes belatedly formed a protective circle around the Emperor, he finally collapsed into her arms.

When she chattered to him, he always liked to smile, and even at his death, his pale face held the trace of a smile. "They say...Gods have no feeling, and I...believed it. But...Gods can have feelings....yes?"

He saw her nodding as she cried, and wishfulness blossomed in his heart: "This life...our fate has ended...Can we...make a promise....for the next life?"

She was still crying, the tears falling on his face, but did not give him the answer he wanted. Choked with tears, she said, "Qingti, I owe you a life. I will pay you back."

"Qingti, I'll observe mourning three hundred years for you."

"Qingti, please rest in peace."

He loved her so deeply, he gave his life for her. But there was nothing in the world that said one could exchange a life for a feeling.

He thought, she said gods could have feelings, but refused to feel for him. She cried and said she would pay him back - a life, yes, but could someone pay back a feeling?

[shazyloren]

The Room: Chapter 12 - Writing the Essays

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12710496/chapters/29506974

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

Jon was currently in the library with Theon and Robb, they were all trying to get their Transfiguration essays done before the next lesson the following day. But Jon couldn't concentrate much, he kep thinking about Patrol three days previous and that weird kiss he'd given Daenerys. Sure it didn't mean anything, he merely needed her to be quiet before their arguments escalated into something more, but she'd been ignoring him ever since and he got the uneasy feeling that when she did speak to him it would be a temper he'd never seen from her before.

He regretted saying she wanted the glory when he knew it was not true, he'd just spent so much of his past few years getting a rise from her that it was hard to transition from them hating each other to them trying to be civil. So when she started on her massive rant at him, to stop it becoming something more, he had kissed her tenderly. It was a brave move even by his standard. She didn't fight it, she just let it happen, and that was a weird thing to him. He was sure she might smack him or hex him. It was a calculated risk, put it had paid off.

He understood her now though, she wasn't entering the tournament for pride or glory. She didn't make the scene in the Great Hall for nothing; she genuinely cared for the welbeing of her fellow students. He hadn't needed to listen to all she said; he got it. She did like the grandstanding speeches though. He'd been witness to several of them and he wasn't about to listen to another.

He'd rather she just shouted at him now and got on with it. He probably shouldn't have done it.

It meant nothing right?

"Wait so... You can't summon food from nothing?" Theon scratched his head as his voice pulled Jon out of his brooding self.

"No. It's one of the Principal Exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration" Robb confirmed. Theon blinked rapidly as if Robb had grown a second head and spoke Spanish. Robb rolled his eyes at their friends dim-wittedness when it came to Transfigurations. Theon was good at Astronomy and Arithmancy; he'd always struggled with Transfiguration. Transfiguration was one of Jon and Robb's stronger subjects. "Jon help me out here, Theon doesn't understand"

"Food cannot be outright created from nothing, it can be multiplied if you already have some food to multiply, it can be enlarged or the food can be summoned if you know the approximate location and are fairly sure the food will still be there" Jon spoke. "So I could go Accio chocolate cake without thinking of anywhere in mind and it would not work. However-"

Jon picked up his wand, thirteen and a quarter inch pine with dragon heartstring. He cleared his throat. Theon's eyes widened. "Are you really going to summon chocolate cake? We're not allowed food in the library!"

"You're not after you smashed a pumpkin pasty into the carpet. You know that took several scourgify attempts for Professor Marwyn to clean it all out" Jon laughed. He closed his eyes and pictured the Kitchens downstairs by the portrait of the pear in a fruit bowl. He knew they kept cake in huge chilled rooms on the left as you enter the portrait. He'd seen them when he'd snuck in many times with Ghost. Taking a deep breath he could almost see it in his mind. The rich brown chocolate covered sponge with buttercream and decoration. He could almost taste it. "Accio Chocolate cake"

He waited all of fourty seconds before a large chocolate cake zoomed in the air on a cake stand and landed softly on the table. There was a muttering of impressed looks from nearby tables who'd seen it all go down. Jon smirked to himself. Before Theon could grab for a piece of cake, he flicked his wand and sent it back to the kitchens. "Not fair"

"Not the dinner table" Jon shrugged. "So as I was sayi-"

"HE'S AN IDIOT, DON'T RISE TO IT SANSA!" Jon heard a voice squeak. His little sister was trailing behind Sansa's flowing red hair. Sansa was marching with her books towards their table while Arya dragged her bag along the floor.

"He spoils everything!" She sighed in defeat as she slumped next to Robb. Arya dragged her bag, they'd both earned glared from Master Marwyn who was signing papers. Jon gave an apologetic glance at him before turning to his sisters.

"Reminding you this is a library so stop shouting" Jon almost hissed. Arya shrugged and got out parchment and her copy of Standard Book of Spells: Grade One to do her defence homework. Sansa grumbled for a few seconds before getting her herbology homework out. "What's the matter?"

"It's nothing" Sansa snapped.

"Joffrey levitated a tarantula on her" Arya shrugged.

"I don't wanna talk about it" Sansa.

"She's not stopped complaining for three hours" Arya.

"Okay enough both of you" Robb ordered. Sansa rarely listened to Jon but she always listened to Robb. When she'd been very young she'd sided with her mother in the hate against him for being an outsider in this family. But Jon had engaged in a heart to heart with her and explained how he felt and how he wished things were different but he could not change anything. She'd accepted him after that  and they'd enjoyed a good siblingship (if that was even a word).

"Tell us what's going on" Jon asked politely. Sansa glared at Arya for causing a scene. Arya just shrugged and continued writing her essay.

"I was in the great hall with Jeyne and he thought it would be funny to put a spider on the ravenclaw table. He levitated it over but it landed on my head and you know I hate spiders. It was awful: I wanted to cry but I didn't because it would just make him happier. Professor Lannister saw and deducted points from Slytherin and gave him detention but he said he wouldn't turn up because his uncle wouldn't really give him detention"

Theon scoffed at this. The privilege he gets from Headmaster Lannister sometimes was not good. Jon wondered however with his father being Minister for Magic if there was only so much punishment of Joffrey's insolent behaviour that could happen without the Minister breathing down the headmasters neck. The Lannisters were a powerful and influential family after all.

"He's a pig" Robb grumbled. "Is he hitting you still?"

"What?" Jon exclaimed. "He hit you more than once?" Sansa nodded. "That little rat! I'm gonna-"

"Calm down Jon, its fine. I've got him back. William and I have just been and put Itching powder from Weasley Wizard Wheezes in the Slytherin boys dormitory" Arya stated causing everyone to turn their heads and stare at her. She had written a paragraph in the four minutes she'd been sat down, Jon noted. She was intelligent, very intelligent. She was also very abrupt and rude sometimes but Jon loved his sister for it. But itching powder in the common room?

Only Arya Stark.

"And how have you done that? Neither of you are Slytherin! You can't get into the dorm!" Sansa demanded to know. Robb rolled his eyes at the argument he knew was coming. They all knew it was coming. "Don't be causing more trouble!"

"Relax, no one saw us" Arya coolly spoke.

"Wait who's William?" Theon added.

"Potter, troublemaker if ever I saw one" Sansa sniffed. "And how do you know no one saw you?"

"Shut up Sansa, just because he is a fun person to be around and doesn't abide by the 'Sansa standard of how to act in society' doesn't mean he's a troublemaker" Arya argued back. "And we have our ways of getting places"

"You're lucky you didn't get caught, I should report you for it!" Sansa was a stickler for the rules.If Jon did not intercede now then they'd never stop. he knew his sisters too well and when they argued they argued big time.

"We did it for you so don't be rude!"

"Alright girls, enough" Jon's voice was stern with authority, even if it's gruffness sounded funny in his tone of voice. There was an uneasy silence as everyone looked at each other before backing down and continuing to do what they came to the library for. It was an hour before anyone else spoke again and by this time Jon had finished his Transfiguration essay and was asked by Arya for help on her Defence one. Sansa was breezing through her Herbology essay, and Theon and Robb were finishing up their stuff. "This is great, Arya, you'll get good marks for this"

"There's a but coming isn't there?"

"Only a little one - You need a little more evidence. You go back and forth on the theory of levitation charm and it's origins. You just need to be more decisive. I think that the wand movement best for this incantation is this, and then back up with evidence from your books. Leave the 'but this could also work out' as you look like you're second guessing yourself"

Arya nodded and said thank you, it wasn't an issue for Jon. He enjoyed helping his siblings with their work. He was about to go back to finishing the last sentence off on his essay when Robb spoke. "Heads up Jon, fiery blond at ten 'o' clock"

Jon froze. He looked up to see Daenerys with Missandei. She had papers in her hand and while Missandei took a seat at the opposite end of table she walked straight towards Jon. She hardly looked at him, keeping her head down as to not make eye contact. She reached his table and didn't make much more eye contact. "Err... hi"

"Hi" Was all Jon could say. He had said it meant nothing, it was nothing. So why did every fibre in his being feel extremely awkward looking at her right now. He'd kissed her, no big deal. It was not a big deal.

"Umm, the Gobstones club have officially moved from Thursdays to Tuesdays I need you to agree it and sign" She said passing a piece of paper over. Jon blinked for a few seconds before nodding.

"Sure" He squiggled his signature on the paper and handed it back.

"Also I've moved prefect meetings forward on Saturdays so they can be done in time for dinner. Our head meeting will be after dinner now, is that okay?" She was so nervous about something. Jon wondered if something family related was causing her to act this way but it couldn't have been. It had to be the kiss. Had it unsettled her? Made her scare or nervous?

If there was ever a time he regretted this kiss it was now more so than before. "Sure, that's fine"

"Okay, see you in class" She mumbled before leaving abruptly to go sit with Missandei. He could see her hair was almost down to her bottom, even in it's new braids she'd learnt to do; he frame was so petite she was almost all hair. Jon blinked. What had happened? He did not know. But something had changed between them because he was thinking about her hair and... no he wasn't thinking about her rear, that wasn't like him.

"Okay, what was that?" Robb demanded. Jon turned to see his family all staring at him.

"No idea" Jon said.

"Bullshit" Arya sighed.

"Language" Sansa.

"Whatever" Arya wasn't listening. "He is bullshitting us"

"It's nothing" Jon tried to say.

"Well it's something" Theon reasoned. "We're not stupid"

"It's none of your business" Jon shrugged.

"True, but that doesn't mean we won't find out" Robb agreed. "Maybe Miss. Targaryen is starting to fancy people who aren't related to her"

"ROBB!" Sansa snapped. Jon couldn't believe what he'd said. "That's uncalled for!"

Jon took one look at Robb before packing his things up in his bag abruptly. He glared at them all as he did. Grabbing his wand and slinging his bag over his shoulder. He wasn't about to rise to their comments, he wasn't suppose to care. But he did, he cared immensely; and this change in him scared him.

Oh Daenerys Targaryen, look what you've made me become.

A better person? Jury was still out.

[bornpariah-a]

NEVER ENDING EMO PHASE. it’s been a bit since my last Little Dorian Things™ post

he and public displays of affection don’t get along very well, in part due to his deeply internalized homophobia —— in the heat of the moment is one thing, but if you are in a relatively serious relationship with him and try to get a kiss from him in full view of a lot of people, he’ll accept it but he will be incredibly aware of everything that’s happening around him and insist that you move elsewhere. mostly for his partner’s sake than his own, really

hard cover >>>> paperback

deeply possessive and protective over his books. to extreme and somewhat subtle extents, really, but if you take a book from the library or what have you and don’t return it whatsoever he will hunt it down. posthaste. with immediacy. that shit is also organized to his liking, and not necessarily alphabetically, though parts of it definitely are. so uh. GOOD LUCK FINDING SHIT IN THERE

uhhh for his own personal store of books he rarely lets someone borrow from it unless he trusts them very much and will hold them completely accountable for the safety and well being of his novels. will bite your head off if you mess up one of his books. absolutely.

prefers dry red wines, will drink sweet ones ( and also white wine ) but it’s not at all preferred to him and, if he has a choice, he will choose a dry red

has absolutely gotten into bar fights or what have you, albeit definitely in his younger days. now he’s way more likely to just gamble, cheat, and piss people off but then avoid physical confrontation by being an absolute asshole because he’s dorian

does not say i love you very easily whatsoever. really, you will never hear him tell someone that he loves them, though he shows it through the way he acts. when he loves you, you just kind of know, especially since you should know him pretty well by then

he just... absolutely hates it when people quote lines from literature and either get it completely wrong ( he’s forgiving if it is a word or two off ) or use an itty bitty fragment of it but not know the rest of the context of the statement. because he’s a pretentious dick and i hate him?

kind of actually neutral to grapes, if he’s going to eat fruit he’s more or less likely to eat apples or shit like starfruit and other “exotic” fruits. also really likes peaches and plums and pears

actually prefers getting old books and quietly hoards first edition copies of things because he just likes them. he may or may not complain about people writing in books but, particularly if it is old, he is generally interested in whatever the person who previously owned the book has to say. uh, he does get annoyed when it’s just useless notes, though, it’s gotta be some pretty profound shit for him to appreciate it

ill fitting suits bother the fuck out of him, he insists that anyone who wishes to wear a suit must get it tailored. even if only a little bit.

god he absolutely has a million and a half pairs of sunglasses in modern verse. and leaves them everywhere, at that. absolutely everywhere. he’s constantly buying more. it’s ridiculous and unnecessary.

[sarahfama]

Theoretically, students can make it through all four-plus years of college without ever setting foot in the library. But why on earth would you want to do that?

Libraries are awesome, and the J. Paul Leonard Library at San Francisco State University has some particularly cool features that can significantly improve your student experience.

8. No Laptop? No worries.

Murphy’s Law says that “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” I’ve had students lose laptops on buses and trains, and leave laptops hundreds of miles away while visiting family over breaks. I’ve had students whose homes and cars were broken into, their laptops stolen. I’ve had students whose computers unexpectedly crashed, bricked, and fried.

  Losing your laptop sucks. (Especially if you forgot to back up your work. Always back up your work. Use Google Drive or Dropbox or even just email your latest draft to yourself whenever you make major additions or alterations.)

When Murphy’s Law bites you in the hard drive, stay calm and library on. You can visit one of the library’s several computer labs or even check out a laptop for anywhere from four hours to thirty days, allowing you to retrieve all those assignments and keep going — because you backed up your work.

7. Google-fu failing you? Library research assistance to the rescue!

…And I mean literally failing you. If you aren’t using any sources for your college writing assignments beyond what you can scrounge up in basic web searches, you’re going to start having a very hard time very quickly.

At first, doing research in academic databases (much less the actual stacks of academic books and journals) may seem intimidating; it’s like trying to find your way in a country where you may not speak the language and you’re unfamiliar with the local customs.

Like the quaint British custom of “not being completely goddamn oblivious”

You know the stereotype of the “ugly American” tourist who just stomps around shouting louder in English at people who don’t speak it, and who complains that they don’t do things in Oslo/Cairo/Chiang Mai/La Paz the way they do in Muskogee? Using basic web searches when you should be doing academic research isn’t nearly as gauche, but it is a symptom of a cultural adjustment — to an important part of academic culture.

Happily, the world is a pretty friendly place, and when you ask for help politely (even if you “ask” mostly via gestures and a few badly mispronounced phrases), you’ll find that people are usually enthusiastic about introducing newcomers to their culture. At the library, they’re almost aggressively happy to help: you can instant message, call, text, email, watch videos, use web-based how-to guides, drop in, or even make an appointment to work with a subject librarian to get in-depth research consultation.

It’s like a personal tour guide, a butler, and a concierge got together and had a magical library baby who lives to help you. Start seeing the sights — you’ve got the intellectual world at your fingertips.

6. Find some Silence in the Library

No, Whovians, not that Silence in the Library.

  Which is a good thing, because I would be less excited about sending you to the library if I felt there was a chance you’d be eaten by invisible microscopic alien piranhas hiding in the shadows.

  But did you know that the SFSU library has multiple spaces set aside for quiet study? Because sometimes you’re trying to study with friends or at home, but the noise starts to drive you crazy until you just can’t take the yapping and the snapping and the tapping and you just want to leap up and shout —

But you can escape those distractions in a quiet study space.

Thanks, library!

    5. Get your group project going full steam in a group meeting space.

I know a great joke about group projects (and by “great” I mean terrible):

At my funeral, I want everyone who I’ve ever been in a group project with to be a pallbearer, so they can let me down one last time.

Group projects can be…challenging. The library doesn’t check out cattle prods (as far as I know) so there may be very little you can do if your group members aren’t very motivated; nor do they offer drones mounted with tracking devices and tranquilizer darts (again, as far as I know — you’re welcome to inquire further), so if a group member goes totally AWOL there’s not much you can do to pull them back into a productive orbit.

What the library does offer are a number of handy meeting spaces, including reservable group study rooms with whiteboards, wifi connections, and everything you need to collaborate with two to twelve of your favorite people.

4. Ran out of ink at home? J. Paul Leonard has your back.

It’s the moment every college student dreads: you’re printing out a major assignment worth what feels like 160% of your grade, and page one prints out looking���faded. Page two? Barely legible. At page three, your printer hacks out a final consumptive cough and the ink dies completely, leaving you with a dozen blank pages that should have been filled with your scintillating argument about the causes of the Boer War.

In this moment, you hate your printer. You want to destroy your printer and all that it represents!

But don’t go full Office Space on it yet. You’ve got a deadline to meet!

Hurry — grab your laptop or email/upload your final draft where you can easily access it, and run, don’t walk, to the library. You can print there.

One caveat: don’t expect to be able to waltz in and out in minutes, at least not during peak times of year such as midterms and finals. You will not be the only person whose printer gave up the ghost, and there are also plenty of people who use the library printers as their regular printing method.

Plan ahead and give yourself plenty of time to print before assignments are due — and if Murphy’s Law kicks in and literally everything goes wrong, contact your instructor as soon as things start to go pear-shaped, attach the assignment to an email to show them you completed it before the deadline, and ask if you can get an extension on the paper copy.

3. Fuel up on coffee at Peet’s.

Some of us need our coffee in the morning. By which I mean throughout the morning, in a continuous infusion. And then again in the afternoon, as a pick-me-up. None in the evening, of course, unless it’s a shot of espresso over ice cream — or unless we need to be up late working on a project.

I could really use a coffee right now.

Because it would have been silly to ask people to walk the hundred or so yards to the nearest coffee shop in the student center, there’s a Peet’s inside the Library, in a kiosk in the middle of the first floor.

In theory, this makes getting coffee incredibly quick and convenient. In practice? Give yourself plenty of time to get your fix delicious beverage, since at peak times the line at Peet’s can extend most of the way through the lobby.

Pictured: The line at Peet’s during finals.

2. Snag great deals at the used bookstore.

Channel your inner Belle and pick up your next book at the booksale room on the first floor (in room 120 A, near the book drop). Although small, the Friends of the Library bookstore seems to turn over its inventory frequently — and the books are so cheap, it’s easy to splurge without hurting your pocketbook.

If you’re trying to stock up more texts relevant to your major or intended major, this is the bookstore for you; I suspect a lot of the donations here come from professors cleaning out their offices, as you can frequently spot insane deals on older editions of textbooks and scholarly works.

1. Oh yeah, and the library is also a library!

So you can also find articles and check out books. For free!

You aren’t even limited to the SFSU library’s collection. If you need a book and it’s not available at SFSU, you can almost certainly get it through the inter-library loan service CSU+ or iLLiad.

Once you’ve followed the advice above and learned how to use some of the library’s research tools, you can search for articles from the comfort of your own home using the online databases.

The library also has an amazing collection of films, music, theses written by former students, and archival materials. Heck, the library even contains another library. The Sutro Library, on the fifth and sixth floors, is a California State Library and has a massive genealogy collection, as well as a massive selection of rare items (including a selection of Shakespeare Folios) and publications.

So what are you waiting for? Go live it up at the library.

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  Level up your SFSU Library game with these 8 tips Theoretically, students can make it through all four-plus years of college without ever setting foot in the library.

[garychildsmaphoto16-blog]

Advertising Still Life

06/17

I have worked as a commercial advertising photographer since the mid 1980’s and my main area of work, my main photographic genre of interest has been, and remains, still life.

In “Photography : The Key Concepts” David Bate describes how the genre of still life is relatively ignored in the art world:

“Still-life remains one of the most neglected genres, not only in photography criticism but also in the history of art. It is rarely discussed, despite the fact that still-life pictures are as pervasive as they are maligned.Art historians complain that the still-life,is, as well neglected and ignored”.

I have just watched a documentary “Apples, Pears and Paint: How to Make a Still Life Painting “ (BBC) which starts but outlining the lowly view of the still life painting. In 1st Century AD Rome Plinies' discussion of still-life art in “The Natural Historie” labelled the genre with the name      ‘Rhyparography’ which was understood to mean the depiction of lowly, meanly and unworthy subjects. However, the documentary concludes with the fact that it was still life painting in the 20th century that , spurred on by the pervasive influence of the new technology of photography and its apparent ability to accurately record reality, led to the new techniques of painting employed by Cezanne, Van Gogh, Picasso,  the Cubists and the Surrealists, a new way of seeing and depicting the reality of the world around us.

If asked to name a famous fashion of landscape photographer I think most people could come up with at least one or two names. The same goes for documentary or news photographers, but in my experience mention the world of still-life, particularly the world of advertising still-life photography, and there are no names that come to mind. This is probably due in part  to the fact that advertising does not credit its image makers, the names of the photographers are not beside the images as the are in magazines.But it is also due to the fact that still life photography appears to most viewers to be merely a record of the objects that are found to be in front of the camera lens. The element of creativity and technical skill is not apparent as it is in the same way in other photographic genres.

The influence of the still life advertising imagery to which I was exposed in the 1970’s was considerable and contributed to the way I saw things through a lens when I started to take pictures   for myself. It was the work of Irving Penn and most notably Lester Bookbinder that I found to be most influential. Bookbinder was responsible in the UK for many of the Benson and Hedges cigarette advertising images for the agency Collet, Dickenson and Pearce. The images depicted a luxurious world of objects and settings that surrounded the gold pack and were photographed with such control of lighting, composition and atmosphere that they stood out from the ever increasing number of advertising images. The adverts never succeeded in persuading me to take up smoking , so in some sense failed in their commercial task, but they did formulate for me an approach to making pictures that I have used throughout my career as a photographer.

It is most likely this style of photography to which Benjamin refers in the following:

“The world is beautiful - that is its watchword. Therein is unmasked the posture of a photography that can endow any soup can with cosmic significance but cannot grasp a single one of the human connections in which it exists, even where most far-fetched subjects are concerned with saleability than with insight.” Walter Benjamin “A Short  History of Photography” 1931 One way Street and Other Writings ( London:Verso 1992)

Against a backdrop of legislation in the UK that sought to limit the advertising of cigarettes the B&H campaign became increasingly creative in what it revealed. Over a period of a few years, and anticipating the restrictions, the images became increasingly abstract and removed from a traditional commercial advertising poster and reached the point where only the smallest clue of the gold colour of the pack was seen. They ultimately reached the point where a poster of a gold square with no copy on the entire advertisement could be displayed yet the viewer understood what was going on and what it was for.

I agree that the B&H adverts offer little in the way of a philosophical ‘insight’.They are clearly concerned with saleability through the suggestion of a world of luxury to which the viewer might gain access by adopting a lifestyle which includes the brand. But it is this mystery, this masking of reality with “cosmic significance”  that , for me, makes the photographic image interesting. The stylised and beautiful view of the objects is enough in itself to be interesting. It is an approach to photography that lets you see beauty and an enhanced visual aesthetic in the most mundane of objects and in the textures and surfaces that surround us. It is summed up in the opening line to the BBC documentary : “ Still life is not about looking but seeing….it asks us to stop and consider the world anew”.

[msarki]

A Really Big Lunch: Meditations on Food and Life from the Roving Gourmand by Jim Harrison

A Really Big Lunch: Meditations on Food and Life from the Roving Gourmand by Jim Harrison Hardcover, 272 pages Expected publication: March 24th 2017 by Grove Press ISBN: 0802126464 (ISBN13: 9780802126467)

…Hundreds warned me I was going to die young from smoking and drinking but I disappointed them…

I was thirty-one when I first discovered Harrison’s best writer friend Tom McGuane back in 1984.  There was an article in the Detroit Free Press magazine that dealt with McGuane’s recovery from alcohol addiction and the publication of his new book Something to Be Desired. The next year would find me as well beginning my own recovery from addiction. Religious and obsessive reading of Thomas McGuane led me to naturally segue into Harrison. Both writers were from Michigan which also piqued my interest.

…Then again, I’ve always been a Luddite, much saddened by the invention of the auto. Many people think a Ferrari is beautiful, but it isn’t if you compare it to a horse.  

Regardless of Jim Harrison’s periodic poetic dirges of drivel, he is an American treasure. An iconic figure cut of gluttonous gourmet and storytelling of the first rank. That is, when his writing centers on food, friends, hunting, and fishing.  A sad day indeed when it was reported he had died. But we who read him for over forty years knew it was coming. He drank too much and lived too heartily to have lasted even as long as he did. And this fascinating and rewarding book proves it.

…A number of doctors have been amazed that I am still alive…

Developing Type II diabetes is no laughing matter. But for Harrison to continue his gouty ways, and in spite of his unhealthy dietetic preponderance, only furthered his quickened demise. But I am not so sure he would have had it any other way. Seems his eating and drinking habits started at a very young age and were modeled religiously beginning in northern Michigan, a land of excess too evolved to attempt an honest explanation on this page.  Suffice to say I grew up there as well, and as luck would have it I escaped with my life by chasing a more healthy and vacationing filly down and into the bluegrass of Kentucky.

…When he reached the gate to Paloma Canyon on a friend’s ranch it was a few minutes before he could remember the lock’s combination because his mind had drifted back to a girl he had seen in a Key West dress shop exactly twenty-seven years before.  She had been stooping before shelves of blouses in her white shorts and her butt was a perfect Anjou pear.

The last quarter of this amazing book presents the most humble and loving mind and heart to be found in such a grizzled veteran who squandered the vast majority of his lifetime on the word. And predictably, the penning of all of his work in fiction and nonfiction was based on personal experience. Harrison’s pleasures in his life alone could fill several volumes of autobiography.  But these essays provide enough occasion to know the man in sufficient measure to recognize his quality of being, especially as he writes about nearing the end of his long and fruitful life.  

…A friend, the novelist Tom McGuane, once said to me, “You can lecture a group of us on nutritional health while chain smoking and drinking a couple bottles of…

In his many resulting infirmities, severely wracked by pain, his sadness seeping through his writing feels in some ways like an apology or an act of forgiveness for not being a better man than most of us generally perceive ourselves.  Harrison certainly knows who he is and what he is.  And makes no bones about it.  Even in his immense and punishing pain he never once complains and accepts his last trial as his personal and distinct cross to bear.  And maybe it is my own sadness coming through his writing, but I have watched previously strong and robust individuals slowly lose their vitality and witnessed first hand their sad acceptance of it.

Camus maintained that the critical decision was whether or not to commit suicide and that once you assent to your own survival you must commit to life...

Harrison has always interested me. He is cut from a rougher cloth, but his mind and tastes are refined in ways unimaginable upon first look and rare sighting of this menacing man. And his words are often bitingly direct and presented as tease in order to entertain us as he gooses the less inquisitive minds who live among us.  Harrison’s readers being somewhat a sort of privileged society looking down on the powers actually controlling our world these days. I liken Harrison’s work (his fiction and essays) as a treatise against stupidity, even in light of the disparaging of himself and his own mistakes in the process. In other words, Harrison makes reading fun, and for me at least, extremely rewarding and satisfying.

…Everywhere we are witness to the extreme confidence some people have in their stupidities…

Mr. Harrison was definitely a gifted writer. In this book he religiously celebrates the indulgences of over-eating and drinking too much. He not only makes his anecdotal bouts of gluttony interesting but actually champions it. And though his work is interesting to read there is a more responsible and informed part of me who believes his excesses not only killed him, but were sadly used as a way to cover up something. In my own case the villain would have been my many disappointments throughout my life. My frustrations as well as my not getting what I wanted.  But learning to deal with these harsh realities has actually been quite freeing for me.  Knowing that a richer life is made of frustration and the not getting of what I want has enabled me to learn more about accepting what is.  John Steinbeck and his pal Ricketts called this non-teleological thinking. But perhaps I am wrong about Jim Harrison.  Maybe over-eating and drinking exorbitant bottles of good wine is the way to true happiness and satisfaction. And living a life of moderation is something I am not expert in either. But I do follow my doctor’s orders and attempt to eat right and exercise to stay healthy.  In contrast, Harrison’s explicit reason for taking a two hour walk was so he could drink an entire bottle of wine.  For him, perhaps, there was no other way. And because of seemingly undying conviction we have here a pretty fantastic book about food, drink, and friends that only Jim Harrison himself could have written.

…My prodigious napping is caused more by my love of unconsciousness than fatigue…  

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

Ask D'Mine: Battling Snark + Surviving Starbucks

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/ask-dmine-battling-snark-surviving-starbucks/

Ask D'Mine: Battling Snark + Surviving Starbucks

It's a Holiday weekend, but the surviving-diabetes-train never stops. Our Ask D'Mine weekly advice column host Wil Dubois is workin' overtime to answer your every query.

This week, he's taking on online commenters who bite, and coffee drinks that hopefully don't.

Need help navigating life with diabetes? AskDMine@diabetesmine.com

Chad from Illinois, type 1, writes: When I put up positive messages on some diabetic chat sites I've gotten replies to my posts stating that I must be in denial, or that my "eyes are closed." I'm starting to think that maybe there are people out there who feel it's impossible for someone to be so at peace with a disease like diabetes, and not be full of anger. I'm focused on my family, community and faith. In no way do I feel that I am better or worse than anyone else. I am just different, and I am A-OK with that. What upsets me is when people complain anonymously. I don't want to cause a ruckus with anyone. What would you do to let people know that this is just my own philosophy?

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: Oh boy, where to start... Well, I don't think you're in denial. I don't think your eyes are closed. And don't worry, you're not the only one at peace with having diabetes. I feel the same way. So at least there's the two of us! But yes, there're a lot of people who cannot conceive of any feeling towards diabetes other than anger. So why the anger?

Well...

People are tired. People are broke. People are scared about the future. And that's just garden-variety people. Add a pesky chronic illness to the mix and ya' gotta great recipe for anger.

But that's only half the story.

Because it gets more complicated.

Because there are no diabetes facts. None of our experts can even agree on something as simple as what the hell we should eat. Hey, medicine is an art not a science, and your mileage will vary. No one wants to admit it, but really all we have is theories. Ideas. Beliefs. Diabetes is more like a religion than a science. And people are pretty sensitive when it comes to their religion.

Now, add all that up and then remember that people are territorial creatures. So we've got an environment with an abundance of anger, a dearth of facts, and very deep personal feelings. Trust me on this: I'm speaking from experience, you can't say anything about diabetes without stepping on someone's toes.

So it's really easy to set people off. Even when you didn't intend too. And to make matters worse, written communication on the web suffers from a lack of visual and auditory cues that help smooth over miscommunication in the face-to-face world. Oh, and on top of that, most people don't read carefully and thoughtfully anymore because they are tired, broke, and scared. And most people don't re-read what they wrote online before they post it. Most people don't even realize how they "sound" online. Some are being rude. Others just sound that way.

But as to ruckus avoidance (and personally, I like causing a good ruckus) I have some advice for you. Bear in mind that except for the absolutely most crazy amongst us... and members of Congress... most people respect your right to have an opinion—even if it's different from their own. Where folks get upset is if they misinterpret you giving your opinion as arguing about their "facts" with them. Or worse yet, trashing their beliefs.

To avoid a ruckus, you just need to make it clear you're speaking for yourself, not proselytizing to them. And you can best do that by just prefacing every comment you leave with the letters "IMO" or "IMHO." That's internet slang for "In My (Humble) Opinion." It's simply a way of flagging to folks when you know you're editorializing. It can go a long way towards avoiding miscommunication with tired, broke and scared people; while also not setting off those the-world-is-carved-in-stone freaks out there who believe that anyone who believes anything differently from them is stupid and wrong. A few simple letters stake out some safe ground for you.

Oh, and about those anonymous folks: They're just a bunch of lily-livered chicken-shit spineless cowards who don't have the frickin' guts to stand up and say what they think in the light of day. I say screw 'em. If they won't say who they are, we shouldn't pay any attention to what they say.

But that's just my opinion... Let the ruckus begin!

Kayla, from Alabama, type 2, writes: I love coffee drinks and Starbucks, but I have stayed away since I was diagnosed. The other day I finally did the big No-No and had a Latte ...I will NEVER do that again. My sugar spiked way up! That really scared me. But who likes black coffee? Is there a certain coffee choice that won't cause such a high glucose rise?

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: IMO, Starbucks rocks! Oh, and just speaking for myself, I not only like black coffee, I love it. So the answer to your first question is: Me. That's who likes black coffee. (See, Chad, it is possible to have a civilized disagreement in the diabetes social media space!) As to your second question, not all Starbucks Lattes are created equal.

The low-down on Lattes can be found at the Starbucks homepage's most excellent nutrition guide here. Did you know that Starbucks has 14 different species of Lattes on the menu? And the blood sugar impact of each one couldn't be more different.

You know what a carb is, right? Technically, carbs are organic compounds made up of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms, but we can use the carb content of foods and drinks as a proxy measure for how much a given food or drink will impact our blood sugar. We T1s use carb counts to determine how much insulin we need to take to keep each meal from killing us. Although it rarely works out this way, in theory, we T1s could eat anything we wanted so long as we take enough insulin for it. As a type 2, your meds most likely don't give you as much flexibility, but you can count on the fact that the higher the carb count of a food item, the more impact it's likely to have on your blood sugar; the lower the carb count, the less the impact it's likely to have on your blood sugar.

So, at the low end of the carb scale is Starbuck's Tall Skinny Flavored Latte, tipping the carb scale at only 8 grams of carbs. For perspective, that's about the same carb count as a snack-sized bag of baby carrots. I very much doubt that this drink would spike you "way up." At the other end of the spectrum is the Venti Caramel Brulée Latte at a whopping 88 carbs, almost twice the recommended carb count of an entire meal for a woman with diabetes. That's like chugging your breakfast and lunch in one sitting. I'd place money on that drink being "spiky" for you.

Now some folks are saying that the Tall Skinnies taste pretty much like puréed baby carrots, and aren't worth drinking; while others find them pretty yummy. I haven't tried one, so I can't say. 'Cause... you know... I drink black coffee. But that's not the point. The point is, there's a whole lot of variation in the carb count of Starbucks Lattes.

So what's going on here? Well, Lattes are basically espresso coffee (carb-free) and milk (not carb-free) and flavorings (maybe carb free and maybe not). Sometimes the milk is whipped up, like in a hot Latte, and other times it's just poured in, like in an iced Latte. Whipped milk is effectively lower in carb 'cause it's foamy and a given amount of 'milk space' is taken up by air. I also cheated. The "Tall" is Starbucks smallest size and the "Venti" is their largest. So I'm comparing apples to oranges. But, hey, you can cheat too. What size was the Latte that screwed up your blood sugar? Wouldn't it be better to have a smaller one than none at all?

I've been doing a lot of experimenting with smaller portions lately and have found that for me at least, I'm happier with less than none.

So, is there a coffee choice that won't cause such a high glucose rise? Yeah. I bet there is. Look up the Latte that punched you in the blood sugar. Find out its carb count. Then scan the menu for something else that sounds yummy with a lower carb count. Maybe a different kind of Latte. Maybe a different size. Try it and see what happens. It may take some trial and error, but it's worth it.

Kayla, your Latte is waiting for you. Go find it. Life is too short to live without Starbucks, IMHO.

This is not a medical advice column. We are PWDs freely and openly sharing the wisdom of our collected experiences — our been-there-done-that knowledge from the trenches. But we are not MDs, RNs, NPs, PAs, CDEs, or partridges in pear trees. Bottom line: we are only a small part of your total prescription. You still need the professional advice, treatment, and care of a licensed medical professional.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

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