#god i used to kin her so bad last year

[mspaint-flower]

HI WHAT ABOUT TAME MENE FROM HORA MITE YO HORA FURETE YO BON'YONA FUKU O SUTESATTE

twisted cycle path

[doc42]

"The dragon is too far away to save you."

The fandom misunderstands the sad, wistful tragedy of Jon Connington chasing the dream of placing Rhaegar's son upon the Iron Throne when it considers only ever that its end must be to have big bad woman who is Rhaegar reborn fly down and burn him and the lad.

Seventeen years had come and gone since the Battle of the Bells, yet the sound of bells ringing still tied a knot in his guts. Others might claim that the realm was lost when Prince Rhaegar fell to Robert's warhammer on the Trident, but the Battle of the Trident would never have been fought if the griffin had only slain the stag there in Stoney Sept. The bells tolled for all of us that day. For Aerys and his queen, for Elia of Dorne and her little daughter, for every true man and honest woman in the Seven Kingdoms. And for my silver prince. "The plan was to reveal Prince Aegon only when we reached Queen Daenerys," Lemore was saying.

King Stannis is Jon Connington's kin from the "slayer of lies" sequence of visions from the House of the Undying and his foreshadowing for choosing to burn a kid to save the realm is he literally talks of burning a kid to save the realm:

"I know the cost! Last night, gazing into that hearth, I saw things in the flames as well. I saw a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning . . . burning, Davos. His own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash. Do you think I need Melisandre to tell me what that means? Or you?" The king moved, so his shadow fell upon King's Landing. "If Joffrey should die . . . what is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?" "Everything," said Davos, softly.

Jon Connington's foreshadowing with the backstory of the Battle of the Bells is equally straightforward: he's thinking he's willing to burn down a town if it means getting rid of the Usurper's line. Because he missed his chance getting rid of Robert Baratheon in Stoney Sept, so he won't miss it again.

Others might claim that the realm was lost when Prince Rhaegar fell to Robert's warhammer on the Trident, but the Battle of the Trident would never have been fought if the griffin had only slain the stag there in Stoney Sept.

For years afterward, Jon Connington told himself that he was not to blame, that he had done all that any man could do. His soldiers searched every hole and hovel, he offered pardons and rewards, he took hostages and hung them in crow cages and swore that they would have neither food nor drink until Robert was delivered to him. All to no avail. “Tywin Lannister himself could have done no more,” he had insisted one night to Blackheart, during his first year of exile. “There is where you’re wrong,” Myles Toyne had replied. “Lord Tywin would not have bothered with a search. He would have burned that town and every living creature in it.

The road ahead was full of perils, he knew, but what of it? All men must die. All he asked was time. He had waited so long, surely the gods would grant him a few more years, enough time to see the boy he’d called a son seated on the Iron Throne. To reclaim his lands, his name, his honor. To still the bells that rang so loudly in his dreams whenever he closed his eyes to sleep.

Death, he knew, but slow. I still have time. A year. Two years. Five. Some stone men live for ten. Time enough to cross the sea, to see Griffin’s Roost again. To end the Usurper’s line for good and all, and put Rhaegar’s son upon the Iron Throne.

Connington cares much and more about how he's going to be remembered. This is the reason he tried to face Robert honorably in single combat and this is why he promises doom to Lord Varys:

The shame of the lie still stuck in his craw, but Varys had insisted it was necessary. “We want no songs about the gallant exile,” the eunuch had tittered, in that mincing voice of his. “Those who die heroic deaths are long remembered, thieves and drunks and cravens soon forgotten.”

Death had robbed him of his ears, his nose, and all his warmth. The smile remained, transformed into a glittering golden grin. All the skulls were grinning, even Bittersteel’s on the tall pike in the center. What does he have to grin about? He died defeated and alone, a broken man in an alien land. On his deathbed, Ser Aegor Rivers had famously commanded his men to boil the flesh from his skull, dip it in gold, and carry it before them when they crossed the sea to retake Westeros. His successors had followed his example. Jon Connington might have been one of those successors if his exile had gone otherwise. He had spent five years with the company, rising from the ranks to a place of honor at Toyne’s right hand. Had he stayed, it might well have been him the men turned to after Myles died, instead of Harry Strickland. But Griff did not regret the path he’d chosen. When I return to Westeros, it will not be as a skull atop a pole.

A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd . . . mother of dragons, slayer of lies . . .

What does a eunuch know of a man’s honor? Griff had gone along with the Spider’s scheme for the boy’s sake, but that did not mean he liked it any better. Let me live long enough to see the boy sit the Iron Throne, and Varys will pay for that slight and so much more. Then we’ll see who’s soon forgotten.

Because Varys the Spider dared to decide how Jon Connington must be remembered. But now Lord Jon Connington is ready to be remembered as a butcher if he must:

Men and boys, babes at the breast, noble knights and holy septons, pigs and whores, rats and rebels, he would have burned them all. When the fires guttered out and only ash and cinders remained, he would have sent his men in to find the bones of Robert Baratheon. Later, when Stark and Tully turned up with their host, he would have offered pardons to the both of them, and they would have accepted and turned for home with their tails between their legs.” He was not wrong, Jon Connington reflected, leaning on the battlements of his forebears. I wanted the glory of slaying Robert in single combat, and I did not want the name of butcher. So Robert escaped me and cut down Rhaegar on the Trident. “I failed the father,” he said, “but I will not fail the son.”

The tragedy isn't that their choice to go to Westeros alone have turned Daenerys against them as the second dance of the dragons, the Blacks versus the Greens reborn and the final Blackfyre rebellion. The tragedy is they were so close. History does not repeat itself exactly.

Despite what the fandom says about Quaithe of the Shadow prompting Daenerys to go against the mummer's dragon with prophecy, Daenerys literally forgets all about the kid and confuses the mummer's dragon with herself, which is the most funny and charming thing you could find her thinking in the spot in the narrative the fandom designated as "Daenerys is up in arms ready to go to war with the mummer's dragon." But she thinks to herself she might have married Aegon VI had he lived just as these guys choose to stop chasing the dragon's tail and decide to go to Westeros alone.

There would have been a sixth, but the Usurper's dogs had murdered her brother's son when he was still a babe at the breast. If he had lived, I might have married him. Aegon would have been closer to my age than Viserys. Dany had only been conceived when Aegon and his sister were murdered.

That's the tragedy, the road not taken. They were so close. She would have come to them in Volantis had they waited.

"As you say." Tyrion grinned. "If I were Volantene, and free, and had the blood, you'd have my vote for triarch, my lady." "I am no lady," the widow replied, "just Vogarro's whore. You want to be gone from here before the tigers come. Should you reach your queen, give her a message from the slaves of Old Volantis." She touched the faded scar upon her wrinkled cheek, where her tears had been cut away. "Tell her we are waiting. Tell her to come soon."

Farther on she came upon a feast of corpses. Savagely slaughtered, the feasters lay strewn across overturned chairs and hacked trestle tables, asprawl in pools of congealing blood. Some had lost limbs, even heads. Severed hands clutched bloody cups, wooden spoons, roast fowl, heels of bread. In a throne above them sat a dead man with the head of a wolf. He wore an iron crown and held a leg of lamb in one hand as a king might hold a scepter, and his eyes followed Dany with mute appeal.

Smiling, he seized his dragon, flew it across the board. "I hope Your Grace will pardon me. Your king is trapped. Death in four." The prince stared at the playing board. "My dragon—" "—is too far away to save you. You should have moved her to the center of the battle." "But you said—" "I lied. Trust no one. And keep your dragon close."

What Tyrion says with the cyvasse game is Aegon is going to lose if he does not move Daenerys to "the center of the battle."

King's Landing is called "the center" by GRRM himself when describing the designs of his world:

Well, of course, the two outlying ones — the things going on north of the Wall, and then there is Targaryen on the other continent with her dragons — are of course the ice and fire of the title, “A Song of Ice and Fire.” The central stuff — the stuff that’s happening in the middle, in King’s Landing, the capital of the seven kingdoms — is much more based on historical events, historical fiction.

Aegon is moving to King's Landing without the dragon piece.

“The demon road is death. We will lose half the company to desertion if we attempt that march, and bury half of those who remain beside the road. It grieves me to say it, but Magister Illyrio and his friends may have been unwise to put so much hope on this child queen.” No, thought Griff, but they were most unwise to put their hopes on you. And then Prince Aegon spoke. “Then put your hopes on me,” he said. “Daenerys is Prince Rhaegar’s sister, but I am Rhaegar’s son. I am the only dragon that you need.” Griff put a black-gloved hand upon Prince Aegon’s shoulder. “Spoken boldly,” he said, “but think what you are saying.” “I have,” the lad insisted. “Why should I go running to my aunt as if I were a beggar? My claim is better than her own. Let her come to me … in Westeros.”

Note how Griff here puts his black-gloved hand upon his purported son's shoulder just as Prince Aegon chooses the most unwise course of action. This is an omen of doom.

"Your death is with us now, my lord. Give me your hand." "My hand. What do you know of my hand?"

Jon Connington signs his letter to Dorne as "Hand of the True King", and Death spreads through his hand. His hand, and greyscale spreading through it, the very reason that made him accept this course, because time's running out for him to reclaim the dream. He is trying to reach the star he once failed to grasp, his green light, but what he brings to Westeros is death.

“Pirates and adventurers, we heard at first,” said Valena. “Then it was supposed to be the Golden Company. Now it’s said to be Jon Connington, the Mad King’s Hand, come back from the grave to reclaim his birthright. Whoever it is, Griffin’s Roost has fallen to them. Rain House, Crow’s Nest, Mistwood, even Greenstone on its island. All taken.”

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further… And one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Prince Aegon Targaryen was not near as biddable as the boy Young Griff had been, however. The better part of an hour had passed before he finally turned up in the solar, with Duck at his side. “Lord Connington,” he said, “I like your castle.” “Your father’s lands are beautiful,” he said. His silvery hair was blowing in the wind, and his eyes were a deep purple, darker than this boy’s. “As do I, Your Grace. Please, be seated. Ser Rolly, we’ll have no further need of you for now.”

The foreshadowing of their defeat due to the dragon being too far away to save them is no different than the foreshadowing of King Stannis' defeat to Renly's ghost at Blackwater, doom equally straightforward and for a very precisely written reason:

Melisandre saw another day in her flames as well. A morrow where Renly rode out of the south in his green armor to smash my host beneath the walls of King's Landing. Had I met my brother there, it might have been me who died in place of him.

It is binding. King Stannis is indeed defeated by Lord Renly riding out of the south in his green armor to smash his host beneath the walls of King's Landing, or so it seemed.

They plunged through Stannis like a lance through a pumpkin, every man of them howling like some demon in steel. And do you know who led the vanguard? Do you? Do you? Do you?” “Robb?” It was too much to be hoped, but… “It was Lord Renly! Lord Renly in his green armor, with the fires shimmering off his golden antlers! Lord Renly with his tall spear in his hand! They say he killed Ser Guyard Morrigen himself in single combat, and a dozen other great knights as well. It was Renly, it was Renly, it was Renly! Oh! the banners, darling Sansa! Oh! to be a knight!”

Aegon's defeat shall be because he did not keep his dragon close, leaving Daenerys behind him in Essos, the girl thinking she might have married Aegon VI had he lived. Of course, Stannis did not die at Blackwater, so while the boy king may be doomed, the fake Rhaegar's son that he is, the young dragon, Jon Connington ironically despite his greyscale may still live long enough to meet the true Rhaegar reborn of the tale, his silver prince shining from afar.

Alone in the tent, as the gold and scarlet rays of the setting sun shone through the open flap, Jon Connington shrugged off his wolfskin cloak, slipped his mail shirt off over his head, settled on a camp stool, and peeled the glove from his right hand. The nail on his middle finger had turned as black as jet, he saw, and the grey had crept up almost to the first knuckle. The tip of his ring finger had begun to darken too, and when he touched it with the point of his dagger, he felt nothing. Death, he knew, but slow. I still have time. A year. Two years. Five. Some stone men live for ten. Time enough to cross the sea, to see Griffin's Roost again. To end the Usurper's line for good and all, and put Rhaegar's son upon the Iron Throne. Then Lord Jon Connington could die content.

She could smell home, she could see it, there, just beyond that door, green fields and great stone houses and arms to keep her warm, there. She threw open the door. "… the dragon …" And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. "The last dragon," Ser Jorah's voice whispered faintly. "The last, the last." Dany lifted his polished black visor. The face within was her own.

[triglycercule]

wahhh wahhh triglycercule post more NON jk fashion au related content i whisper as i post this. double post today because i genuinely love jk!dream and also if i dont post the dreamtale twins together i will actually die! you might consider her crazy way of somehow getting into trouble a form of bad luck but i see it as more of a being too pure for the world meeting a world that's not all that great. jk!dream lives up to her name she is a idyllic dream

valedictorian. practically a million extra curriculars. she can sing she can dance she can cook she can do advanced math she can fix a car jk!dream is everything jk!nightmare isn't (a loser). the types of trouble she gets into though aren't manmade (like some guy trying to rob her) but instead are naturally occurring. like one day the dreamtale household washing machine explodes because dream used it and coincidentally it was because it was faulty or something like that. really really crazy coincidences

nightmare is a fighting force in keeping her little sister alive i swear to god. she has to monitor dream a lot and when she can't she gets one of the mtt to do it for her. because if she doesn't there is bound to be something that hurts her. and because jk!nightmare is an absolute fucking loser who's stupid she came up with the genius idea of roleplaying a bigger issue than the one that dream's about to encounter (because then she gets to keep her safe and also feed into her pretend villian persona). like for example with the washing machine thing earlier nightmare would probably distract dream with some sort of evil monologue and then put her own load in the washer before she could. that way it won't FUCKING EXPLODE (comments from currently existing jk fashion au sanses :3)

"ah, my younger kin, dream. quite an enigma she is. on one hand, she's the epitome of perfection. even i can admit that, for she's loved by our school, family, and i. but of course, like all aside from i, she has her faults."

"for example, last week, our bloodline was strolling around the kingdom on the search for a new mirror of truth, as the one in our castle bathhouse had shattered. how did that happen? uh, i might've maybe... i shall maintain secrecy."

"returning to the point, dearest dream had almost lost herself in the shopping district, claiming she had seen a lost puppy in a mirror that she wanted to help. a chivalrous reason indeed, but my, dream can be quite... foolish sometimes. nevertheless, blood is thicker than water, and our bond has never been closer."

they still love eachother in this universe because there was no corruption thing. also nightmare's bullies were just other elementary school kids in this au so it wasn't like fully grown adults vs a 6 year old at least. she's recovered from it (somewhat) and doesn't blame dream. dream's too perfect for anybody to hate her. dream supports nightmare's delusion and nightmare keeps her alive. equivalent exchange (dream has no idea nm is doing this. ok now the mtt‼️

"oh. my. god. dream? like, dream dream? she's literally my idol, i love her so much! i'm the 7th member of her fanclub out of like, the entire school, which is like 300-ish students! she's cute, and pretty, and she gets this a lot, but her voice is literally like an angel's~ i've never heard what a hymn sounds like, but it probably sounds like dream's voice. and no matter how much i search up online, i can never find any dirt on her too! she's got a perfect online footprint! huh? why was i searching dream up? eh... haha... let's move on~"

"dream? she's really cool. there's a reason she's part of the star students at this school, along with swap and ink. nobody really knows what it takes for someone to become a "star student" though. none of the students know, none of the teachers either. apparently it's a title given to a student specifically from the principal? still, dream probably deserves it though. she's good enough to win a nobel prize. one day she's gonna cure cancer or something."

"oh, dream? that girl with the angel halo crown thing? yeah, i know her. she volunteers at the dog park i bring my dog to, the bakery i go to get snacks, the local art museum, the ice cream shop during summers, nightmare's gang, the... car dealership? wait, hold on. how many volunteer opportunities is this girl doing? is she not getting paid? that has to be illegal. or at least some form of monster rights violation..."

both of the jk!au dreamtale twins are soooo silly i love them. the more and more i elaborate on jk fashion au the more i realize that this is just turning into sans aus but anime tropes but its okay i like it its funny. jk fashion au was always meant to be silly and slice of life and fluffy anyways. anyways i love her i'm literally her number one fan. i mean i AM the principal of this school aftersll,,,,,, this really was our,,, jk fahsion au. says dream at the end of the au (there is no end because this au has no lore what am i talking about

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #51 – Monstress Volume 8: Inferno by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

This is the last volume of Monstress that’s currently published and (since vol. 9 is coming out in November) the second-last I’m going to read this year. Which could be either a good or a bad thing, I suppose. This is the first volume I can say I genuinely didn’t enjoy, not even grading on a curve fro the highs of the rest of the series but in general. Not awful, but not good either – by far the most ‘comic-bookey’ plot arc so far, and I really don’t mean that as a compliment.

Through a variety of contrivances involving Maika’s friends journeying to the centre of her mind to try and wake her up from her coma and finding a massive and seemingly living statue of Adara Farclaw – the previously semi-mythical ancient hero-sage of the cats – our main cast (plus the ghost of Maika’s childhood self created by the sheer intensity of her own self-loathing) find themselves on the prison world where Zinn trapped all his kin to keep them from devouring the world we’re more familiar with back in pre-history. They’ve adapted surprisingly well, adopting humanoid forms and farming for the food they need. Immortal but sterile, their history since has been dominated by an endless race war between the first generation Fallen Houses (Zinn’s peers) and the second-generation and much reduced in grandeur (but increased in numbers) Defiled. Zinn, Maika, and the fragment of the Shaman-Empresses’ mask they brought with them are a chance to upset the balance of power, or perhaps even escape – and both sides are willing to do anything it takes for that chance.

Though all that plot aside, the actual point of the volume is to a) provide great reams of lore on the Monstra in general and Zinn’s past and present relationship with the rest of their species in particular and b) give Maika a chance to work on her self-esteem issues and guilt over accidentally killing and eating her mom as a child by providing a tulpa of 10-year-old her to scream at, protect, and reconcile with. Also a bunch of stuff about cats.

I can see the version of this story that works for me, at least in broad strokes. But yeah, the one that actually exists really didn’t. The largest part of that is just allocation of narrative resources, I think? As the book goes on, it has become steadily less interested in the themes and aesthetics I find more compelling to focus on it’s deep lore mythohistory and melodrama among the elder gods, to the point of just leaving the actual setting with its fascinating politics and societies entirely for basically the last two volumes. It begins to make me question why I’m still reading. Maika as a character is profoundly interesting, but having her just clearly announce her issues to a literal embodiment of them is not, to me, particularly compelling reading.

On an aesthetic level, the strange and alien prison planet let me deeply unimpressed. It was all so..familiar. Even the two warring nations of eldritch god-monster have ended up basically human-sized and human-shaped, farming and eating and using tools and building structures in instantly recognizable ways. There’s an excuse offered, but I’m still left wondering why even bother if it’s going to be so unspectacular.

I also found myself disappointing in how...monotonous, I suppose? The aesthetics of technology are growing to be. The guns, tools and armour of these cat worldwalkers who’ve been living underground on this prison world for centuries look almost identical to what technology of the Shaman Empress and the toys the Blood Court uses and- Even if you can torture and justify it all to make sense, it just gets boring and samey eventually, you know? Makes the world feel small.

Which is related to my thematic issues with the volume, in a way. The story is clearly much more interested in the grand, superhuman drama of the monstra, the exploration of multiple worlds and lost continents, space age high technology, more species and relics and myths and just – it all piles up so much that the result just ends up feeling more generic and boring than the more focused and detailed world of the first few volumes was. This is made far worse (for me, anyway) by the fact that Zinn seems to have been personally involved with literally every major historical personage that was mentioned at any point.

The most concise way to put it is that at the start of the story Maika et al really felt like people inhabiting a world, and now it’s at Star Wars levels of the world feeling like a canvas for a specific set of people’s melodrama. Nothing wrong with that, in the slightest – I just prefer the other, and feel a bit cheated by the shift.

On a different thematic level I kept waiting for some real, like, narrative pushback or reversal about how the Defiled are treated as these disgusting morally abhorrent abominations for the fundamental crime of being genetically impure and ‘spiritually mutilated’ and...never really got it?

Anyway, pacing wise the arc is much too short to be a complete, satisfying version of the story it wants to tell, and much, much too long to be a part of the longer story it is a detour from. The story never becomes offensively bad, but I am honestly reading as much out of inertia as anything by now.

[voidcommascreamintothe]

Maiden, Mother, Crone - The Archeron Sisters as reincarnations of the Three Faced Goddess

Part 1

Elain, Ferye, Nesta. Three humans, turned Fae. Made magic. Or perhaps only awoken?

No I will not be normal about this, it is you who should be more weird about this.

It has always been clear to me that the three Archeron women have magic in their human blood. They are descendants of an acient deity, that once ruled over the lands alongside The Bone Carver, The Waver, and perhaps many other Deathless and Nameless gods. It is very much so confirmed by the Bone Carver themself that Feyre resembles and old god, powerful and cunning, who sought to hide herself and her magic, for reasons of a mysterious nature. This is just contextually picking up on the inherent meaning of the statement. In book 1, a big plot detail is that Feyre can taste and smell magic. She uses it to her advantage a few times during the events of book 1. This isn’t something that normal humans can do, seeing as how a lot of the village folk live in fear of magic and cant understand its working. The Human Lands are baren, cold, and stripped of all magic, and yet- Feyre can taste and smell it. And yet, Nesta remains of sound mind, immune to glamours, a type of magic that effects the mind. Elain only needs a little push to snap out of its influence.

These women are of magic descent, and to me this was a well established plot point. I interpreted the events above as the author just plainly telling this; although its entirely possible that i have been overthinking this because i have never been normal about these books, not once since i started them.

Feyre is the Mother, she is Mother Life, vindictive and vengeful; aggressively protecting her own kin, going and hunting down threats. She is the Mother; passionate and inclined towards the arts. Calm in the face of fear, and with a strong sense of duty. She claws, bites and rips out throats. A wild mother wolf, a wild beast. Feyre has always been inclined to go nuclear on her revenge plans. Sabotaging and undermining a religious leader, Ianthe, and plotting and successfully executing her revenge over an entire court of - lets be honest here, entirely innocent people, is very Aelin Galathyneus of her. Standing up to a magic wolf, with her throat exposed, she stood her ground and bargained. In the face of the heinous lie about her pregnancy, she was calm and brave and coping, only so that her son would not feel those things as he grows inside her womb. It is my headcanon that she went scorched earth on Rhysie’s ass afterwards.

Elain is the Maiden. She is Mother Nature. Ambivalent, and yet omniscient. Seeing all, reacting only just so.

When it comes to Elain, I don’t have much to work with; she has yet to have her books after all. However, I am confident in saying that he is not as mentally checked out of reality as I originally thought. She is a seer, one who sees the future. But this must also come with the immense strength to resist altering it. She either must not intervene, or do so incredibly delicately. She does also see the reality of what their situation was, in regards to the Archerons loosing their money, but she is rather unbothered by it. I hesitate to say she does not care, because again, we have not see her perspective yet, but she is aware how bad it was for them. In book one, there is a distinct moment when after Feyre comes back fro the Fae Land, Elain remarks on how the rich people treat them as if they didn’t loose all of their money, as if the last however many years did not happen. Its either cognitive dissonance, or Elain just does not.. care? Again, we have not seen her story, so I am speculating; and also resisting hating her for being docile and passive, and seemingly disinterested. Altho she is not a favored character of mine, I shan’t repeat history and hate on her as I did Sansa Stark.

That being said, her ambivalence and lack if action reminds me on nature and of natural disasters. Elain, the gardener, Elain the Mother Nature, The Maiden. A storm does not care if the levies might break and cause a flood, a mountain does not want anything, does not act on changing the outcomes of future events. Elain is a living being, who loves her sisters very much, so of course she reacts and saves them. But she was to be a young bride, in love and idealistic, yet she never consummated the marriage. Never got to be the bride, in fact. She seems to be stuck in this perpetual state of maidenhood, not quite moving on, remaining innocent, and maybe not yet ready to do anything else but ignore the happenings in front of her. She ignores Lucien, perhaps still grieving the loss of her old life and her old love.

Nesta is the Crone, The Mother Death. She is Lady Death. Meeting the Lord of Bloodshed at every step, a loyal companion to her friends, she is always there, inevitable as a rising storm. She is passive. She stays and guards. A mirrored image to Feyre in every way. She Makes objects of immense power. She creates and yet her power is pure death. But she creates. She does not want power. She creates, she seeks peace. What is more peaceful than Death’s embrace? Nesta has the power of the eternal flame. Her power coming out in silver flames perfectly encapsulates the power of fire: giving and taking life. Nesta is not vindictive. Don’t misunderstand me, she is actively cruel in Book 1, and a whole part if her journey was owning up to that. She recognized where she was wrong and made amends.

She is not nice, she was never taught to be nice. Her mother taught her how to read and manipulate people, not how to be kind and nice to them. She learns those things on her own. And again I ask, is Death nice and kind? It is peaceful and passive. A power that inspires awe. She is broken and rebuilds her self. She is Made, and i suspect that in order to be Made, she needed to die first. She inherits the most power out of all three sisters. Her dying during her Making means that she inherits Death itself. She experiences it, so she wields it because she understands it. She has lived many lives and appears older than she is. I personally thought that she was 30 in ACOSF, not 26, only 5 years older than Feyre. The narrative presents her to us as The Crone. She reads as someone older, harsher, someone who is also Death herself.

Where Feyre, Mother Life, is active, Nesta, Mother Death, is passive. Feyre hunts, Nesta guards. A mirrored image of eachother, they represent the cycle od life. The symbolism attached to them shows just how connected life and death truly are. Feyre and Nesta are always invoked in each other’s inner monologue. It is also entirely plausible that they each had an almost pathological need to keep Elain safe and innocent, because that was the only way to show that one cares for the other. Nesta loves Elain, but she keeps her safe because that is what Feyre would want. This fact, that Nesta would do anything to keep Elain safe, is very clearly stated by Feyre in both book 1 and 2. They both love Elain, no doubts about that. But Nesta’s and Feyre’s relationship was so burdened and volitale, that the only way for them to show affection was through the unspoken rule that Elain stays safe, is kept safe, at all costs. Nesta and Feyre, Death and Life, two sides of the same coin.

For me, it has always been reasonable to assume that the sisters represent one of the three faces of The Three Faced Goddess. Its buried in metaphor and vague statements, but it is there regardless. The more I read the books, the more obvious the comparison was. Having read Throne of Glass as well, the sisters also remind me of the Three Faced Goddess worshiped by the witches. After all, it was an ancient Witch God that hid her power and herself in the human lands; a place without magic and entirely mundane.

I intend to elaborate further in part 2 of this essay, but for now, let us enjoy quite a unique take on the Goddess Hecate. The Greek goddess has had many a modern interpretations, but I have not seen one done as subtly as this one. Having three separate people represent her faces, and therefore phases of a woman’s life, is new to me at least. Maas doesn’t really reimagine the old greek myths in a 1-to-1 recreation, but rather a loose inspiration taken from the core of the story. I quite enjoyed placing it all together.

More on how Nesta is the one to Bless Aelin’s blood line, and even how she might have started said bloodline in part 2.

Bonsoir.

[hotmonkeelove]

Utena Rant Ahead

The level of misandry in the Utena fandom knows no bounds. I'm used to misogyny in various anime fandoms (and series), but the way the Utena fandom has become in the last several years just sickens me. And it goes against the whole point of the series, defying society's expectations and reading between the lines.

For instance, fans piss all over Saionji for his abusive behaviour towards Anthy (and Wakaba, despite the fact he isn't truly abusive to her), yet they don't bat an eye when Saionji is suffering abuse, and it's made clear he's been suffering it for quite some time. And plenty of you call him 'gay,' as if it's somehow okay to use sexual orientation as an insult or criticism. That's just plain homophobic! And then there's people who get outraged by my shipping Saionji with Wakaba, because "he was mean to her," yet will ship him with Touga, who actually does abuse him, and chalk up their problems to "not realising they're gay." Now if you ship Touga x Saionji, that's your thing, you're perfectly free to do so. Ship what you want. But don't go saying Saionji x Wakaba is somehow less moral. Touga and Saionji, respectively, go through some of the worst trauma in the series, but fans barely notice. Yet when there's just a possibility that something bad was done to a female character, they scream bloody murder. Unless it's done by another female character, then they downplay it. The only female who gets called out is Nanami, the straight-up bully of the series. Yet again, there's barely a word spoken when her brother tries to gaslight and abuse her.

I am also sooooo sick of the shit these idiots say about Ruka! *headdesks* They all either accept everything he does at face value, never considering just how deep his ulterior motives go. Or they assign motives to him that he doesn't have. He never tries or even hints at believing he can "convert" Juri. He never insults her for sexuality, nor does he say same-sex attraction is wrong, the way Touga does. He instead indirectly questions Juri's reason to want someone who is "spoiled, pushy, self-centered, not to mention a liar," all of which are fair criticisms of Shiori. And oh my god, don't get me started on the kiss... First off, I've suffered real sexual assaults. An unwanted kiss is not sexual assault and I find it personally offensive when people make it out to be. If he kept at it, sure, but he didn't. The only reason he even kissed her in the first place was to distract her, so he could swipe her locket, the chain which binds her to the albatross of Shiori. When he sees her horror at his attempt to break it, he realises Juri wants to stay chained, only for Juri to start bargaining with him. Not only that, but look and listen to him when Shiori tries to drag him back to her by the arm. He knows by now that Shiori loves Juri back, but when she tells him that he's "the only person" she ever loved, he is at his wits' end. Ruka takes it personally that Shiori still keeps up the charade, despite having every reason to come clean. Ruka manipulates people in an attempt to get them to do what they should, but won't do, on their own (playing the system of Ohtori against itself). Shiori manipulates people to try to make herself feel better. She does not have the moral high ground. And I say this as Shiori kin. Seriously, I don't like people dissing Shiori, either, but she's no better than Ruka. I am just really fucking tired of the hypocrisy.

[jinx-on-mars-19xx]

Ragnarok

⚔️ All Previous Parts Here ⚔️

Dom x Colson (Yungblud x Machine Gun Kelly)

Warnings: future ABO, mpreg, PAY ATTENTION TO THESE! THIS CHAPTER IS ROUGH! BIG BAD/BIG SAD™️, Viking Col, fae Dom, threats, talks of murder, war, threats of death, violence, intense violence, some threats of sexual violence (against Dom), explanations of sexual violence (past tense about Col's mom), questioning if sexual violence happened (Dom), cutting, slashing, stabbing, bleeding, lots of blood, wondering if someone is alive, violence against Col, Col beaten and bloody, more slashing, description of throat ripping, body shifting, magic, not knowing if someone is alive, worrying over fetal death, pain and suffering, hurt/comfort ish (just wait), surprise ending, fear, PTSD, boys in love ☠️ rating: EXPLICIT ☠️ ideas helped by @iamnotanearthlingmotherfucker 🖤

The chieftain tried to sneak up to the meeting place he was expected at but he was sure they already knew of his arrival. He'd attempted to stay close to the trees and keep his steed quiet but he swore his rage was a beacon around him, heralding his return. There was a knot in his stomach from so much anger and fear- he was tired of being stepped on and treated as lesser and the enemy taking his family was the last fucking straw. He was looking for more than just Harald- he hoped he'd find both him and his uncle together since he was sure they'd been working as one, at least that's what Inga had led him to understand.

☠️⚔️☠️

The Viking was gathering his weapons for the meeting ahead when his aunt found him. She was fretting more than he was used to seeing her, she was always his port in the storm but something was truly bothering her. "Feilan, I beg a moment of your time. I know you're busy but it's… it's life and death I think." She rushed to say and he paused after placing a sword on his back. He stepped closer to her, his hand going to her shoulder to hopefully give her a little peace but she was a wreck and truthfully so was he. They were probably feeding off each other.

"What is it? Dom needs me." He knew it was more than just his thrall but he was having trouble facing the truth. First he had to find his boy alive and then he could deal with the extra passenger. Gods- he didn't know how to be a father. His own was dead long before he was gone and his uncle was... Shit would be too kind.

"That's just it. I believe it was Bjørn who wished to keep your thrall." She whispered and his heart sank. No. It couldn't be true. His uncle was a bastard sure but he was kin. Sure he'd tried to assault- Kol'son couldn't even finish the thought without growling, so many thoughts were racing through his mind. He'd always put that off to the man just being narcissistic and seeing the boy as lesser but he couldn't see it that way anymore. Pieces of a puzzle were trying to fall in place. "I believe- Odin help us- I believe my brother made arrangements to take the throne himself." Inga sniffled, tears welling her angry blue eyes. "I'm starting to wonder if he hasn't been fighting for it since he was a boy. Kol I think… I think he killed our family."

The man couldn't breathe, all the blood seemed to freeze in his veins. He'd been burning hot with rage as long as he could remember- a constant fire burning in his belly that smelted him into the Viking warrior he was but he'd never gone so cold with it. So much in his life felt like a lie. He was in his twenty third year of life but for the first time he knew he was finally seeing clearly. "Do you think he killed our men? You truly believe he's been orchestrating this for so long?" He was almost begging her to say she was joking, it would be a terrible joke but anything was better than finding out the man he loved almost as a second father had hated him so long. Had slaughtered his own kin.

"The girls have been trying to get more information but we could find no proof. I was going to wait until I had something but I can't wait. It isn't just Harald, it's him. I believe this was all his will. He wants your place as he did your father's. He's probably with him now, I doubt the agreement holds any truth, I fear they plan your death no matter what you agree to." She cried softly but stood tall and strong. Kol may have seen Bjørn as his role model but Inga was the one who raised him. She was who taught him to be who he became. "If you go I fear your death." She pushed again and grabbed for his hand but he shook her off and turned back to his horse.

"Inga I love you more than I can say but they have Dom. Whether I die today or not I'm not-" His voice broke, his throat trying to close around the words he feared almost more than death. "I'm not letting them hurt him or my child. If he wishes for my death he'll kill them as well just to destroy my line. I'm sorry, but I have to." Even when she called out to him again he shook his head. There was no way to stop him. He had to rescue his family.

☠️⚔️☠️

There were too many warriors for his comfort but any strong fighters when he had so few was far too much. He could see Harald on his throne in his great hall but there were so many people around. He had wondered why they went back to their own land but as he watched the bastard drink his fill as if he were already celebrating he knew the truth. They didn't want Kol's clan around to watch him be put to death, they'd already decided to kill him and if they did it on their ground then they could lie to his people. Bjørn could lie to them all. Again. There was never a bargain for him, there was no submission or die- they planned for him to perish that day- alone and broken, and his bastard uncle would step up in his place.

He prayed to gods he was having trouble believing in as he centered himself and stood tall. He couldn't see Dom or Bjørn for that matter but he was sure they were somewhere. Probably hidden away to be one more surprise knife in his back before they murdered him. He had been thinking he'd be dead without Dom but now that it seemed he might genuinely die he was almost at peace- as long as he made sure his family lived on.

He stalked into the room, his footsteps heavy and his anger so hot and cold he was positive it touched everyone he walked past. His fist gripped tight around the hilt of his blade and the roar around him fell silent as he jumped onto the table and pointed his sword at Harald's throat. "Where is my thrall?" He demanded, his voice booming and echoing off the walls in the quiet. Of course his enemy just arched a brow and leaned back, but he could see the fear around the edges. "What did you do with him? And where the fuck is my uncle? Bjørn! Get your ass out here. I'll take you both at once!"

"I see you've learned a few things but you are still so wrong, boy. I don't have your thrall or your uncle. I know not what you speak of." The other Viking sighed. For just a moment Kol let his gaze flick to the bitch he had almost married just to save his clan and the children he assumed were her siblings that were lined up next to her at the table. Gods he didn't want them mortified and cursed for life by seeing their father's blood spilt. Megna he didn't care for, but some of them were so young. "I swear Kol'son, perhaps I lied about much but I have no reason to lie now. Your death was not planned by me, Bjørn only offered me my revenge. If I helped him kill you he would pay me a tithe for years to come and he would take my daughter's hand- making both lands mine."

Kol didn't know what to believe or not so instead of speaking he pressed the blade tighter to the man's throat and tried to calm his rage enough to deal with the present problem. Harald must have seen something in his eyes because the jerk smiled and arched a brow. "Didn't you know? He's why you're an orphan. An only child. He's who slaughtered your men this week. He wanted to break you down for all you and your father stole from him. First your mother and sibling, then your father, now you. Either way I had my revenge as well. I didn't care how I got it but even I have to admit he's a dark fellow. Honestly you were for so long blessed by the gods boy- someone was always watching but your family was not so lucky. And… I worry perhaps your thrall has not been either." The last almost sounded true, as if he were so disgusted by truths he knew to have happened that he could only imagine what might have befallen Dom. It made Kol ill.

The Viking felt cold, every inch of his body broke out in a sick sweat, and his body trembled as his stomach soured. "You're saying he- he what? Took my brother from my mother's womb? Why are you telling me this?" He shouted, pushing the blade until it nicked the man's skin. He was so close to breaking but he needed the whole truth and he needed to bide time. Make sure the whole village was searched.

"So innocent. I'd heard stories about you and I had assumed you would be… quicker than that. Perhaps even darker as your uncle is. No, he didn't tear a child from her womb. He wanted- as I did- what he felt was stolen from him so he took it. Filled with rage and jealousy he took her- from what I've heard. With body and weapon until she was no longer as perfect as she once was. Even I shudder at the thought. Åse was lovely." Kol almost swung at that very moment but he knew he had to wait. It was destroying him not to see blood shed for blood. "I tell you not to torture you boy, although that is a bonus. I tell you the truth so you may face your gods honestly. I intend to send you to them today. You should not have come alone but all has been stolen from you hasn't it?"

"Hmm, not quite!" Kol'son heard a new voice behind him and a dark angry smile curled his lips. New footsteps filed in, almost thundering behind him, and he savored the look of apprehension turned fear on the man's face. One of the fae stepped up behind the chieftain and hopped on the table next to him- holding a sword so surely no one could tell he wasn't used to it.

"Harald, meet my fellow chieftain and prince of the forest- you know Modig don't you? The army behind us? Almost all fae. This would be the part where you grovel." The room froze, it felt as if the universe were holding it's breath and waiting for the human's answer before all Hell broke loose and all Kol'son could think was that he hoped to see his love again. Soon.

☠️⚔️☠️

Dom came to slowly. He tried to keep himself as relaxed as possible because his instincts knew he was in danger. If he woke carefully he could take in his surroundings and hopefully get a handle on everything. He kept his dark rimmed eyes shut tight because he knew they would reflect any light in the room and he was quite sure there was a fire near. He could hear a noise like a knife against stone and bile rose in his throat. The Bastard was still with him and possibly sharpening a weapon? Fuck. He tried to carefully test his body but he could feel restraints around his wrists and ankles- his body was bare, and his thighs spread. He couldn't tell if he'd been used yet, he still felt full from his mate and even when he clenched he wasn't sure. He just prayed the last and only person inside him was Kol'son.

"The pup is awake I see." Shit. He thought he'd been hiding it well but he supposed not if that drunken bear arsehole could tell. He didn't dignify him with an answer though and he kept himself playing dead- maybe the man was testing him. "If you'd just stayed a distraction for him I might could have left you alive but no- somehow my kin always beds freaks of fucking nature!" Dom knew in the next moment he should have opened his eyes but he didn't think he'd have been able to stop the backhand slap across his cheek. He might have dodged it enough to hurt less though, he wasn't sure. As it was his cheek split open against his sharp fangs and he choked on a mouthful of blood. The crimson stained his face as the Viking hovered over him with a small sharp blade that he teased in a line down the siren's shivering body.

"Wha'- wha' you mean?" He finally whimpered when the bastard held the knife over his stomach and pressed it hard. He could tell Bjørn had been holding it in the flame when it automatically seared his skin but he swallowed his scream to instead glare at him. He'd fight not to give him the satisfaction. He just didn't know how long they'd already been in there or what all had already been done to his body. He felt like he'd been asleep too long. He just hoped someone would find them soon.

"My whore sister spread her legs for any forest nymph that smiled at her, putting halfling blood in our family line. My fucking brother fell for a-" He paused his rant to spit on the boy's skin and that almost made Dom throw up. "I don't even know. I know she was wrong though, I felt it in her the day she died! I thought you would help me with my fate- distract that stupid boy from wanting to be chief but no! Even you're- you're-"

"Wha'? I'm wha'? You don't fucking know because you can't understand pure magic! You can't force ya way to the top Bjørn! You'll never be as good as Kol! You're jus' fucking jealous of 'im and the love he and ya bruv got. 'Ow dare you take 'er! Even if you kill me-" Whatever he was about to shout was cut off on a scream as Bjørn slashed a shallow cut straight down his stomach. It wasn't deep at all but it burned like hell and there was so much blood. It wouldn't kill him but without help he knew he'd scar.

"Don't you dare try to use that on me boy! Keep your mouth shut!" Dom hadn't tried to use his siren song- he hadn't even thought of it but he did after that. His throat felt raw, his soul not even a little bit in it but he had to save himself and his child. For Kol'son. The man growled, somehow fighting through the first note to wrap a hand around the selkie's neck and keep him quiet. "It doesn't matter anyway. Your master is dead by now. You're all mine little whore. All mine." With that horrid thought and the man's war worn face so close to his own Dom couldn't help but start to give up. The world went dark around him.

The door slammed open behind Bjørn and he turned fast, surprised to find his nephew bruised and bleeding and pissed behind him. "How- where did you- what the fuck? Why aren't you dead?"

Kol'son knew his uncle didn't mean to ask that, it was obviously too truthful and the bear of a man tried to pull himself together as the still true chieftain took in the room. His nostrils flared when a familiar scent filled his nose and so much new rage filled him he shook with it, his knees going weak. He'd fought his way through the other clan- killed Harald and so many others he couldn't count- only to realize Bjørn and Dom were nowhere to be found. The moment the others had laid down their swords and submitted to him he stopped the fight- leaving Modig and Tom in charge of what happened there. He had to find his mate and now he had. "Is he-" He clamped his jaw shut, he couldn't ask and he wouldn't trust the man's answer anyway but what scared him most was the crimson covering Dom's stomach. If this bastard killed his child-

"Nephew? Feilan?"

"You call me that again and I'll show you a fucking wolf! Shut the fuck up!" His voice was barely above a growl- in fact everything felt graveled and low as if his vocal cords had been ripped to shreds. He knew so much of him had been stabbed and cut, he was bleeding all over and most of his ink was in ruins but nothing mattered if Dom was d- if he was g- nothing mattered if.

"Your runes-" The Bastard gasped, literally falling to his knees as if about to pray and that was perfect for the chieftain. Kol walked forward, his sword landing steady on one side of his uncle's neck. It would kill him to shed kin blood but looking around he knew the man had shed so much more. He looked into those blue eyes so much like his own and shook his head. "I love you Kol." He had the balls to whisper.

"And I loved you as a father. But you took my father didn't you? You took them all?" His voice went soft. Small. For just a moment he was a boy of maturity again and Bjørn was cradling him close, telling him his father was gone. The last time they'd stood like this, the last time Bjørn had fallen on his knees was when he returned from battle and knelt to Kol- telling him he was chieftain now. Gods he'd been lying so long. So long.

Bjørn struck out, his upper body lunging to tackle Kol to the ground and just as when he was a boy they wrestled again- but this time it was real. This time it was for their lives. Kol'son felt empty besides a rage that was fighting to get out. Something had shifted inside him during his fight before. Something predatory. With every punch and stab and slash he felt it grow stronger. With every grunt it sounded more like a roar. Finally though his uncle landed above him, his hand wrapped tight around Kol's neck and he held a knife covered in Dom's blood against his chest. "The first son- you were supposed to be so special. All of you were! But every generation I swear you get worse. Look at you- falling for a nymph just like your kin before you! Wolves you are not!" A gash opened across the skin of Kol's chest and his next shout felt more animalistic than them all. He put every ounce of fear and pain and anger into it and screamed to the gods for his fate to change. He just didn't understand they were closer than he ever knew.

Bjørn scrambled off of him, falling on his ass and trying to crawl away as a light emanated from his nephew's wound. The cut glowed bright and brighter until all his blood seemed to shine pink it was so red and it followed through every vein in the Viking's body. The tattoo he'd watched his brother etch into Kol's skin was destroyed which he'd thought would be a good thing but no. "Oh- oh gods-" But whatever and whoever he was about to pray to didn't matter when claws sank into his throat and tore through his flesh.

☠️⚔️☠️

Kol'son blinked slowly, there was so much light around him he could barely see but at the same moment everything felt so clear. He pulled his hand away from the disgusting wet heat it was surrounded by only to see his uncle's lifeless body drop to the ground. His brows furrowed as he turned to wipe his hand on a discarded tunic, too sick at the thought of keeping that Bastard's blood on his skin. It hit him suddenly and all at once, his war was over- but at what cost?

"Dom? Shit! Dom?" His voice was shot and filled with tears as he crawled onto the bed and systematically cut each rope holding his mate. The boy was drenched in blood and limp in his hold but he got him free and pulled him close into his arms, covering his lover with his own fur. He couldn't even think about the fact that his uncle might have taken him- he couldn't smell the man's spend on him though so he tried to take comfort. However he wasn't sure why he thought that was something he could smell. "Wake up boy. I'm taking you back home. Come on. You have to wake up for me." His voice was wet and choked up but he couldn't stop begging those jade eyes to open. All he could do was cradle his prince close and carry him from the hell he'd been in.

The village gathered as he slowly walked home to their hut, he was pretty sure there was still a glow about him but he couldn't focus on anything but making his thrall wake. "No. Not thrall. Prince. Mine. My fucking mate. If you don't wake up I'll-" He knew the clan was hearing him curse the kid but it didn't matter. Everyone was around staring and some were crying but once he reached their home he knew everything would be okay. It had to be. He'd go mad if.

Once inside he laid his boy out so carefully above his fur and he straightened his limbs before finally petting through his hair. He sat on the bed next to him and something reminded him about their first night together when he sat in the same spot nude and waiting to be joined by the beautiful creature with the glowing eyes.

"Kol'son-"

"GET THE FUCK OUT!" His voice didn't sound his own. It was empty and amplified and he didn't care who had tried to talk to him- friend or family no one mattered while his future wife and child weren't here. The person ran off, shutting the door behind them. Even sitting his knees buckled and he slid to the floor, almost melting into a puddle of fear and pain. He'd been so terrified of his babe ever existing but now that they might be gone along with the only person he truly loved? He couldn't live without them. His ear pressed to his thrall's belly, he knew even without threat of death he wouldn't be able to hear anything- they were hours old- but he needed to be close. "Please- please fuck- just… just come back to me? I can't do this… I can't lose anyone else." Kol'son hadn't sobbed since the day he found his mother dead but as he closed his eyes he saw the scenes superimposed over each other. It was as if it were happening all over again. And finally- he let himself break.

"D- did someone say-" A soft voice sounded and the world halted- or at least Kol's world. There was a harsh cough before- "Fenrir?" The Viking ignored the pain and heat that rushed through him at that whispered name and instead he surged up over his boy to press his quivering lips to those plush perfect dark ones.

"You're here? Fuck! You're okay? Dom? Ástin min? Fuck-" His words sped fast as he left kisses all over Dom's blood stained face but he couldn't help it. Everything felt like a dream. "Gods I… I didn't think- I love you!"

Somehow the siren found strength to laugh at his puppy-like mate as the man kissed his face so much it felt like he was licking him. "I love you too. You're okay? Wait- wha' 'appened?"

"Don't ask."

"Daidí- oh wait." The selkie had started to chide his lover before the nickname he'd called him so long hit him and a happy bright smile curled his lips. He could tell something was happening and there was so much he was missing- his master was fucking glowing and he had a name loud in his head but first. "Daidí." He purred, pulling the chieftain close.

"I know." And Kol- with all his fear, smiled back.

Author's Note/Tags: @manicpixiedreamb0y @hollywoodxwhore @jaxbreaker @cole-way-iero28 @iamnotanearthlingmotherfucker 🖤

Eeeeep 😬 I'm honestly proud of myself after this one, we're near the end of part one. I worked so hard on this chapter and I really really hope you all like it! I promise smut next. Happy smut. This was a long and intense chapter and we ALL deserve a treat! 🖤☠️

[lakemichigans]

tlou episode 8 thoughts!!

- man.... joel had the death rattle and everything...

- ellie trying to sound intimidating, i love her sm 😭 as much as i dearly love the "ditto for buddy boy" line, it felt wrong coming from this version of ellie. similar to how in the podcast they said it would've been strange for pedro's joel to say "you're treading on some mighty thin ice", i thought they would go the same route here. it's still cute though

- i love the addition of david being a christian preacher. i can imagine manyyy people only became religious after the world ended, making them more susceptible to manipulation than people who may have already been religious their whole lives. if you don't know anything about the bible except what your preacher tells you, you'll believe anything he says. you're desperate to find meaning and salvation in this cruel world and this guy is offering it to you on a silver platter (haha). finding out later that he just uses religion as a way to justify his own sick brain is like.... so real

- wow, david revealed himself quick. i knew we wouldn't get a super long fight scene with david as our ally like the game, but i expected at least one infected to be killed to solidify their bond before breaking it. that scene felt rushed to me :/

- the way ellie feels so much more comfortable being affectionate with joel because he's in this vulnerable state 🥺 if joel never got hurt, i truly believe it would've taken them YEARS to get to the point where ellie lays next to him and he rests his cheek on her head. being in danger speeds up the realization of "oh shit, there's no sense in building walls between us because it's already too late -- you feel like family to me and it would hurt me if you were gone"

- my god that kill in the basement was brutal. pedro captured the perfect amount of badass joel still on the verge of death energy lmao

- FUCK YEAH OH MY GOD that interrogation scene was literally perfection, i wouldn't change a single thing. my ass was CLENCHED kfjskfjs

- i like that the cannibalism is (kinda) less cartoonish in this version. i REALLY like (and by that i mean i'm very horrified by) the fact that only a few people know they're eating human meat while everyone else is left in the dark. especially the poor wife and child :(

- i didn't think it was possible to make the scene with david and ellie in the cage any grosser but they managed it ??? it was so visceral oh my god i want to kill that man. ellie is so smart and resourceful and it's devastating :( the way david uses her 'violent side' as a way to manipulate her is sick. it's such a typical abuser thing to do: "if you hurt me in retaliation you're actually just as bad as me" 🤢 it's written masterfully. i know that line will stick with ellie for a long time :( i'm choosing to interpret it this way because i despise the idea that the show-runners are implying that ellie truly does have a violent heart and is somehow kin to david because of that. i refuse to interpret it that way, ew ew ew.

- yooooo he said cunt

- i was worried the whole episode would feel rushed but i actually appreciate how it continues to ramp up as joel becomes more desperate to find ellie

- jesus christ.. they really went there.... i know it was implied in the game too but wow. i was in complete shock until the moment joel called her baby girl and then the floodgates opened. fucking hell man. poor ellie fucks sake

- i am so so so so glad that they still allowed ellie to save herself rather than be saved by joel. that has always been so special to me. although i wish ellie never had to live with the memory of killing david, it's so important that she was able to talk, think, and fight her way out of that situation. joel swoops in at the last second to COMFORT her, not to save her. it's perfection.

10/10 episode wow this one was brutal but easily my favorite?? i was on the edge of my seat for all 53 minutes even though i knew damn well what was about to happen. it was the perfect mix of action scenes compounding the emotional scenes

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

Carrie watches: The Unsleeping City S2

there are so many spoilers and this is so long, proceed at your own risk

all the little Kugrash throwbacks are breaking my heart

but nothing more than Kug’s name coming up in conversation and Emily just silently rolling for Sofia’s relapse mechanic :(

Iga is honestly the coolest. obsessed with her whole deal. she is so practical and business minded and in touch with her roots and she has a sickly dragon familiar and she’s magical but kinda doesn’t give a fuck? incredible

“you don’t have time to date! you’re falling out of a tower!”

it infuriates me how Brennan is so detail oriented but then whenever it comes to Europe he gets the most hand-wave-y imaginable. sir. sir. you cannot describe a Polish landscape as Alpine. consult a single map. wtf.

what is a borscht bite my guy that is a soup. how do you serve a soup as finger food and also how does sheep’s cheese factor into any of it

honestly every campaign Murph just figures out a whole new flavour of “deeply pathetic guy” but i think he may have hit peak rock bottom with “he’s a mall goth without a mall”

i’ve never seen nerd culture parodied so viciously every time Cody speaks i cringe so hard i swear my toenails roll in on themselves

the Ricky/Cody duo trying to puzzle out a plot point at the mist wall in Iga’s castle is fascinating to watch because the characters are the objectively worst choice and the players are the objectively best choice. It’s like they probably could figure the whole thing out here but it would be out of character so they can’t it’s very funny

Sofia talking to Cody like an exasperated single mother with a misbehaved thirteen-year-old

Iga’s traditional fairy tales disappearing from the shelves is just devastating. Mr Mulligan I just want to talk

“Murph summoned New Jersey!”

nobody looks more mortified at the New Jersey incursion than the guy actually from there. honestly this is so relatable I’ve been nothing but mortified by my fellow state citizens for years

Lowell is just. such an absurd yet incredibly effective plot device. And frankly an incredibly solid communicator

“All I can think about is how I could have sold him Xanax”

done!Ricky is not something I expected to want but it is glorious

Lou rules-lawyering his way into remote-controlling a Tesla

“I just want you to know that I’ve rolled a trigger roll every time you do something with the weapon that my husband gave me -“ “Oh GOD-“ “Cody has no idea, how could he know?” “Yeah, do it, Murph, do the bit!” YIKES

Sofia casting silence on Ricky so he can scream a bit

so last season the mission statement was “New York, New York” and this one it’s “In A New York Minute” I want to be annoyed but I’m so impressed god damn it

Kingston trying and failing to convince Sofia he *wasn’t* constantly out on Staten Island when Jackson was running the show

Cody being super emotional finding out that Santa is real

also the sheer delight from the players when Wally’s return is announced <3

“Not only did you not get the Questing Blade but you have a magical sword that would be cooler than the Questing Blade if you didn’t feel like you deserved the Questing Blade.”

“The fact that you said this like it was something that - ‘these aren’t clowns, these are true clowns’”

La Gran Gata fully distracted by the Garfield float ❤️

as much as every line out of Cody’s mouth gives me a headache, giving Pete just the most cringefail of cis guy friends is somehow a stroke of genius

Pete pulling a real Riz move and getting out a fucking gun in the most whimsical of settings

Ally did not come to play this fight hot damn

Lou deciding to be largely useless because Kingston *would* just fucking hate running around a balloon float is some excellent commitment to the roleplay

“Don’t worry I’ve been cut in the chest before, I healed up, I have plenty of Arnica left at my house” Pete you’re my hero

“NOTHING BAD IS EVER GONNA HAPPEN TO US” Lou 😬 buddy 😬 Mr Wilson 😬 sir 😬 you are jinxing this HARD

Kingston ✨✨💫hacking✨💫✨

Emily’s deeply pained “nooo don’t make us go to New Jersey” is sending me

“Cypher Energy presents: The Gladiator Industries Recreational Rotating Horse Area” I’d like to teach my followers the incredible German saying “I can’t possibly eat the amount of food I want to throw up”*   *Max Liebermann, German Jewish artist (1847-1935), reportedly made this comment at the sight of the Nazi’s celebratory torchlight march through Berlin on the day the NSDAP seized power in parliament in 1933.

Sofia just hammering into Cody to fucking behave at the Kugrichs’ home is breaking my damn heart

I think in some way or other Murph has been responsible for at least seventy percent of Sofia’s relapse rolls so far

seeing Brennan’s love for that scene where Kug awkwardly hopped around the crime scene at his son’s home disguised as a ratty eagle fills me with such joy

“most of them have committed crazy tax fraud because they’ve been alive for so long so we just get the city to repossess their homes and then we bulldoze them in broad daylight and it’s a much easier way to hunt vampires” David takes after his father in the funniest way imaginable I adore him

Emily just fully walking into that nativity joke, good job everyone

Kingston’s aggressive thanksgiving invites

Murph is so committed to playing this 27-year-old goth who used to hold a management position like some brutally repressed sixteen-year-old

Ricky is just. such a good guy. like yeah obviously but honestly Zac’s ability to make characters that are so profoundly good just bowls me over all the time, what a guy

the whole bit about JJ’s loneliness speaks to me, Big City Loneliness is so real that poor kid (someone get me out of this city 🙃 help 🙃)

Pete bringing special drink options for Sofia to the thanksgiving party 😭

“turns out all of her rules were based on a hunch from a woman in the 800s”

there’s no way to describe how Brennan is doing both the most and least convincing drug pusher imaginable but I am concerned by 53\/3N

I’m living for JJ’s cheerful enthusiasm to steal back the Native art from the Met, and the fact that Ricky is completely down with it

Alejandro!

“Misiek dies... all the time. you probably just find him dead every three days or so. he is not well.”

Cody, Ricky and the katana is just. just oceans of pain. like I have subzero interest in Japanese culture personally and I still think white men with katanas are the worst flavour of all

I’m still trying to figure out if Cody was created to be funny specifically to Emily or to Brennan. I mean probably Emily but honestly I did not expect this to be the character that cracks Brennan’s composure most often

for a former English linguistics major I am really not that good with accents and I can feel my brain leaking out my ears trying to pinpoint what the hell Brennan is doing with this unicorn

ah yes, the spirits of New York, a juicy cockroach, a spicy pigeon and a regular unicorn

Brennan’s little tangent about love for objects not out of materialism but out of a love for history and permanent tangible traces of time??? my history nerd heart swelled five sizes yes you GET it

“I’ll admit, when I wanted to sort of honour Kugrash by taking up his mantle I did not assume I would also take on his aesthetic and that is something that I’ll have to think about but overall this is a net positive” oh Ricky

are they. are they playing some variation of “new york minute” over Brennan’s technobabble explanation or am I hearing things now. if so, massive kudos

the idea that you could change or destroy magic by making it evident to more people because it would be impacted by being observed!

“Can you ask Nod if it’s possible to bring somebody back?” “Dale?” “I was thinking Kugrash.” honestly Murph very deservedly won a wife guy poll but Emily is consistently 100 percent ride-or-die for his little creature pcs and all their questionable decisions and that shouldn’t be overlooked

genuinely choices were made with whose closeup they chose to cut to as a reaction sometimes

"I might be pregnant and if I am I have to tell him, it might be more complicated -” “I have three bricks of cocaine in my backpack right now!”

“let’s go to the bathroom and you flush the cocaine and I take a pregnancy test”

“Pete you’re on your knees in a bathroom stall flushing bricks of cocaine. you’re also in Nod so this toilet sprouts two eyes and goes yum yum yum, I’m always hungry!” this is why i cannot talk about this show outside of tumblr jesus christ

“toilet don’t make it look fun, whatever you do!” “nonononono, I’m not - I’m not having fun! this isn’t fun, I just - I just feel very productive does anyone want to write a screenplay?”

Cody having a brief moment of clarity about cultural appropriation and just hanging around a museum while everyone else tries to save the fucking world

dude is finally over the first bump of the Dunning-Kruger curve

I have such a deep desire to see Iga in her eighties get-up, Eastern Bloc eighties hits different

“does Pete know what an anglerfish is? ... what you thought was this entitity reaching out to Heather is really just a lantern.” HOW DOES HE KEEP DOING THIS wtf Brennan calm down

oh boy knowing this campaign was filmed in late 2020 makes so much sense with how much visceral loneliness and creeping despair there is in it (and also obvious DIY haircuts)

“MY LUNGS ARE MADE OF LIGHT! I’M NOT GONNA GET POPCORN LUNG IN HEAVEN!”

love how much the previous season matters to this one. all the big and some little choices come back and Kug isn’t just missed but his absence is actively creating problems in the world and the sacrifice mattered but also the sacrifice created a hole because that’s the point but it’s still mostly its own story

take notes, serialised media

Siobhan coming in clutch with the historian’s latin: targeted guessing

I’m so agitated that they may be getting the “what if anything remains” line wrong because I think it comes with a bunch of commas (”what, if anything, remains?”) and that’s my brand of nerd in a nutshell

also (and that is even more on brand) i have like .4% of Latin but that sentence does not look right

oh good after the anglerfish thing we’re dropping megalodon metaphors into the conversation! nng nothing gets me like deep sea horror

Sondheim’s back!

Cody finally putting some work in to learn about arms and armour only to come out of it butt naked with the worst sword in the world is so painfully on brand

“he doesn’t need the underwear, no. he might need to chafe a little to... learn.”

“I had a house once”

Murph slowly losing his mind in the upper right corner for the entirety of that Perry the Pigeon encounter

Kug’s deeply bizarre descriptors being mythologised will never get old. how is the pigeon spicy?? will we ever know

obviously Dr Lugash is an absolute hero

Sofia and her invincible embryo are cracking me up, big ups to Brennan for just preemptively going “we are absolutely not gonna do a miscarriage plot line thank you”

but also I just watched two friends roleplay a gynaecologist appointment for like twenty minutes. not a thing I ever thought I’d do for fun but sure

“we exit from the chest -” Ally, dejectedly: “...eggsit.” Murph, in an equally disappointed tone: “I thought the same thing.” “we’re not proud of it.”

Brennan fully imploding with the cuteness of his own story when Kingston holds the egg

“Iga resolved hundreds of years of tension between humans and dragons, it was really something!” “I almost talked to Cody... but then I didn’t.”

living for the meta jokes about the structure of the episode “hey Sophie, remember how we didn’t talk at all during that really long train ride?” “Pete takes off his beats headphones, like, oh, are we all talking again?”

the monastery! of little cockroaches! with toothpick sticks! praying to a rat that is the universe!! I may be crying over cockroaches here soon

“when I meditate very deeply, sometimes I can feel his whiskers, I can feel his presence... he ate the bagel of all things and he knows everything and even when he knew everything he still chose to love the universe” my HEART

“He really is Rat Jesus” Ally’s voice so perfectly caught between wonder and laughter, and like same, Brennan turned the one-off joke from the beginning of Kug’s intro into a?? profound truth?? somehow, I’m amazed

“rat jesus in the aspect of the chinchilla” I want to know all about this theology. Happy Easter btw

the sword stats are insane, and giving the unluckiest player known to man a weapon he has to roll a 15 or higher to even lift is probably the funniest and cruelest thing I’ve ever seen good job Brennan

first attempt to use it he rolls a nat one. poetic cinema.

Brennan’s rant about weapons that are sharp on more than one side is so good

“What sort of faith would you say is shielding you right now, Cody?”

“You stand on sacred ground, and will meet only death!” I know he rolled a nat 20 but Lou did not have to go that hard, damn

the idea of Iga’s kids doing Kug’s dumb dance on tiktok is the most precious thing in the world to me

the. the cockroaches have taken prisoners of war. and are treating them in accordance with the geneva conventions?? yet another thing you just can’t think about for too long

Brennan (who usually handles deities in stories incredibly deftly) outsourcing this huge exposition dump to Kug is a weird call narratively? it’s really hard to keep a scene emotionally rewarding while rattling off a list of very specific fetch quests, and also. you’re already asking Mr Grounded Irreverence to pull off an enlightened being and then you give him a wall of text to read out? I think with most cosmic beings shark movie rules apply. can’t show us the whole shark. Kug only works as hints and glimpses and vague impressions on the breeze now, much as it kills me

that said, Murph-as-Cody complimenting his own character design is pretty funny

ooooooh the little twist with someone settling Pete’s debt with 53\/3N, this is the good stuff

the ongoing bit about Sofia’s tablet that she can’t get to work, the Dream Team remains hilariously low tech New Yorkers only

don’t quite want to know what it says about me that for the entire time of Sofia’s conversation in front of the church I had my hackles up SO much. like I just Do Not Trust men to just be that nice for no reason (a very lovely take on it tho)

“….Jesus fucking Christ.”

“we’re not gonna put this dragon through college”

this whole conversation is such a gift

Brennan still getting shit for “you lay together”

Murph’s face when Ally goes “I hide Nod in my spleen, the heart’s too obvious”

Ally truly is the MVP this season, they are the heart and soul of this campaign

Ricky is the absolute worst time traveller. what a mess bless him.

MISTY! Well, Holly, but same difference!

the prophecy of the Irish woman is SO cool

ALEJANDRO!

Misty/Holly already flirting at Kingston is so funny, Siobhan you are so underrated

pretty sure Kingston just put a lit candle in his pocket

“young man, that’s a nice coat”

“Kug ran a great catch-neuter-release. They just loved him, just herds of cats....”

Rowan!

the only thing funnier than Murph’s shock and outrage at the Beck’s can opener was “your husband got you a Visa gift card for your birthday??” last season

the reactions to “I’ve told Tony we might be able to save Heather and I think that was a mistake” are the perfect reverse of the six of crows ‘how to steal a man’s wallet’ Lou (in character): “no I doubt it was!” Ally (in character): “no no, trust your intuition!” Murph (out of character): “literally... literally how could you not” Siobhan (in character): “do you want me to beat this guy up, he sounds bad. what are we doing.”

Siobhan’s characters don’t even tend to carry knives but are somehow always most likely to stab a bitch

Kingston just wandering around with a huge egg

“Sofia, you are a woman pulled over on the side of the road, punching the backseat of your own car” “this! is! not! my! low! if you can believe it!”

an excursion on Heaven’s return policies

“I need a fucking weapon”

the most poignant little meow from Brennan’s cat

the absolute shock in the whole group that Cody read Dante’s inferno

honestly getting Rowan to sub in was a stroke of absolute genius

“i have subtle spell you sad, sad man”

Cody and Lucifer aka Brennan and Murph having a cringe-off

Brennan was definitely gunning for this to be heartbreaking but Emily’s initial attempt to save Dale is all chaos, “this just looks like an insane breakup. a real Staten Island breakup.”

Ricky is excited to baby-proof the house, naturally

the bit about the drones’ AC is so funny and I can’t explain why

“what do you mean, racing a moped through a tunnel in a dark cave isn’t safe and good?”

the divine intervention roll! “I think Brennan just actually came” (Siobhan is 100 percent correct on that) “don’t touch me don’t touch me” (on a zoom call)

“say it in an excited way to trick Brennan into thinking - oh I actually got an eight!!”

half the party playing hot potato with Kug’s legacy for several minutes

the continued bit of people inviting Ricky to go jewellery shopping is glorious. “I don’t think he’s gonna get it on his own.”

does this mean nobody can eat at the amusement park?

jesus the fucking green screen clipping in and out every five seconds is so bad, why do i chose not to just go audio only

Iga has a storytelling night in Pete’s bookshop :(

Ricky’s “You Don’t Have To Be Good” afterschool sports club sounds like a thing I would have needed in school tbh

Em!!! how I’ve missed you

the commitment to Spaghetti’s Bakery my beloved

“so how is Flute Neuter Release going?”

[lemonhemlock]

It is never said in the text that Alys pointed out every member of house Strong to Aemond and to be fair, I don't think he needs her to do it although, who knows, he could've used her to do just that on purpose. I'm sure there are other servants unrelated to them who could do it as well. We simply don't know anything about her relationship with her trueborn family, however all the insane stans have already decided that it must have been really, really bad since she's a bastard, with some suggesting that the Strongs were actively abusing her thus making Aemond the prince charming who came in and "saved" her from her evil bad family. Basically the damsel in distress trope, I guess? Sure, it's very possible they were on bad terms but why they insist it's canon when the source material doesn't confirm it either way? Obviously, they are doing this to whitewash the ship and make it less toxic. I personally find this angle - with her taking an active part in her family's massacre - quite distasteful and I admit I would probably not find her a good person if she does that in the show. I get that she may have been treated badly by the Strongs (the adult ones), but all of them? I doubt it. Some of the Strongs killed by Aemond were young boys (the illustration in The Rise Of The Dragon definitely shows a young boy about to be executed) who were presumably innocent, children Alys herself most likely nursed? Am I really supposed she hated them as well or that she didn't care at all about them being executed? Strong bastards were killed as well, so why am I supposed to believe she didn't care either about them? Surely she must have had some empathy for them since I find it hard to believe that she was discriminated against and abused by her family for her bastardy status yet the other Strong bastards weren't.

So I went to check my sources and, you're right, it's never spelled in the text that Alys pointed out her kin, so I must have misremembered that, because she is never described as particularly bothered by the swift and bloody end of her family either, even though she may even have nursed some of those children herself or at least performed some child care for them, like you mentioned. I don't know how we're supposed to feel about this, even if, say, the Strongs mistreated her, because the complete annihilation of their line is also very much disproportionate to their supposed crime. Also considering that they were innocent of the accusation Aemond pinned on them. Even if they were guilty, like you said, surely the children could not have been considered complicit? The more I think about it, the ickier it gets.

So, while, yes, Alys being actively involved in their downfall is yet to be decisively proven, the reason I'm inclined to give credence to this line of thought is the fact that it seems kind of unbelievable to fall in love with the man who killed your entire family, no matter how much of a wet-cat god-fearing women-respecting momma's boy he proves to be later? And even if you were on bad terms with said family. It's a very extreme thing. You can hardly notch this up to some Pride & Prejudice type of misunderstanding.

So, if we accept that Alys empathized with her brutally murdered relatives, we kind of have to exclude her catching feelings for him later? Or, if she does get to a point of emotion, it surely must be closer to a Stockholm Syndrome type of situation? Which is an entirely different can of worms, like the dynamic changes to Aemond being the abuser or the one in charge, if you prefer. Take into consideration that this entire relationship escalates very quickly. The Dance barely lasts three (?) years, Aemond and Alys know each for less than a year tops (did someone make a timeline for these events yet? I'm iffy on the actual dates). In any case, they're not engaged in some lifelong reconciliation, rehabilitation and therapy sessions here for their supposedly mutually-consensual relationship to become less dicey on Alys' side.

[kamreadsandrecs]

Title: The Children of Gods and Fighting Men (Gael Song #1) Author: Shauna Lawless Genre/s: historical woven with some mythology and folklore Content/Trigger Warnings: suicide (one scene), violence, death, slavery, underage marriages Summary (from author website): They think they’ve killed the last of us… 981 AD. The Viking King of Dublin is dead. His young widow, Gormflaith, has ambitions for her son – and herself – but Ireland is a dangerous place and kings tend not to stay kings for long. Gormflaith also has a secret. She is one of the Fomorians, an immortal race who can do fire-magic. She has kept her powers hidden at all costs, for there are other immortals in this world – like the Tuatha Dé Danann, a race of warriors who are sworn to kill Fomorians. Fódla is one of the Tuatha Dé Danann with the gift of healing. Her kind dwell hidden in a fortress, forbidden to live amongst the mortals. Fódla agrees to help her kin by going to spy on Brian Boru, a powerful man who aims to be High King of Ireland. She finds a land on the brink of war – a war she is desperate to stop. However, preventing the loss of mortal lives is not easy with Ireland in turmoil and the Fomorians now on the rise… Buy Here: https://headofzeus.com/books/9781803282602 Spoiler-Free Review: If you’ve ever read A Song of Ice and Fire, or watched Game of Thrones, then this might interest you. It’s not as sprawling as ASoIaF, but that’s mostly because it’s recounting a story within a historical (ish?) framework, and within a narrower span of time, with fewer characters (well, fewer compared to ASoIaF; there’s still quite a few of them in here). I say “ish” on the history because it’s based on the Irish sagas, which are an interesting mix of history and legend - which plays well with the inclusion of the equally legendary Fomorians and  Tuatha Dé Danann in this novel. A part of me thinks that the inclusion of those legendary figures might not have been necessary at all, given how interesting the story is on its own. But I’m sure there’s a reason they were included in the first place - this is, after all, the first book in a series, so there are other books that will likely show how that aspect fits in. What I liked most about this novel, though, is that it is a story about women, and specifically about mothers. These themes are clearest in Gormflaith’s storyline - both for good and for ill. Between her and Fódla I think Gormflaith’s the most layered, but that’s mostly because of the situation she finds herself in throughout the novel. Fódla’s interesting too, don’t get me wrong, but in terms of characterization I think it’s clear that Gormflaith got the lion’s share of that in this book. Still: that’s not to say Fódla’s a bad character; as I said, this is just the first book in the series, so I’m willing to bet that things will get interesting for her in the subsequent books. So: definitely a good book to read if you’re interested in Ireland’s legends and history, and/or are looking for a fantasy novel that’s along the lines of ASoIaF but aren’t too keen on how those books handle the portrayal of women. This book (and maybe this series) is pretty gritty and objectionable things still happen to people, but at least it’s not as egregious as in some other fantasy novels out there. Rating: Five swords (magic or not is up to you) Thoughts beneath the cut for spoilers:

-  As a historical novel, it’s intriguing. I can see the comparisons between this and ASOIAF pretty damn easily, especially with Gormflaith the way she is, but tbf, GRRM is writing a fantasy, even though his series is inspired by European History (the Hundred Years’ War specifically). Lawless is mixing her legends and her history together. -  The way folklore and history mix in this novel is pretty damn good I have to say, though I think even without the Tuatha Dé Danann/Fomorian angle it’d stand well on its own. So I’m not really sure if that aspect was NECESSARY, per se, but I suppose the author’s using it as a tool to smooth some of the uncertainty in the historical record - which, I imagine, has its own mix of legends in there anyway, given the primary sources. -  Gormflaith in particular is an interesting character because of how her motivations push and pull against each other. On one hand, she’s cruel and conniving, but on the other hand you can actually see WHY she’s the way she is: she is trapped in a system where she’s a second-class citizen, and she winds up doing what she can to hold on to any sort of power she can. It’s also interesting to note how there’s a CYCLE to the things she does: how she doesn’t want to be like her mother but winds up becoming her mother anyway, conniving and manipulating to keep herself in power - and in this world, power means safety and security, so she does anything and everything to keep those things for herself. And again, it’s hard to blame her for what she does. I’m not HAPPY about it, and I don’t APPROVE of it, but I can see WHY she does it. - Tomas is a fucking gaslighter and I don’t like what he did/is doing to  Fódla. I kind of think she finally saw through him by the end, but I just have to wait and see in the next books.

[cocomuffy]

i found the book i wrote when i was in 6th grade. i think it was trying to be fantasy (?)

warning, this is some bottom of the barrel writing. but luckily you don't have to read the actual text. maybe if this gets enough notes i'll do the "Second" book that I wrote that continues the story. but I don't know.

here's the plot:

a girl named stephanie (i can't find her last name but i have a feeling it was bailey) is going to lady school™ and reminiscing on when this old lady used to tell her fairy tales

and then there's a boulder that absolutely WRECKS her building so she gets the old lady (who's still alive?) and the kids in the back ( i guess some of the ladies were already mothers?) and takes them to a safe location while her town gets absolutely destroyed.

she runs into this chick named Annalise (i swear i was bi before i knew it these two were definitely lesbians for each other but i have stephanie a boyfriend) and then the girl is like "your aura.... come with me"

and so the story goes that there are three branches, life/plants, ocean, and ice. why? i don't know. why aren't ice and ocean the same thing? i don't know. why isn't there fire or rock? i don't know. why is the first one only plants? no idea.

but apparently some bad guys are at it again or whatever so Annalise and Stephanie run into the forest and stephanie rips off half of her dress because she wears jeans under it because she doesn't like dresses. i never use the phrase "not like other girls" though so i'm proud of myself.

so then they set out for "Tehen", which means "happy" in the elf language that is never named or brought up again other than our third character's name: Kinnteir (Kin-tear) (I don't know if it's tear as in tear in clothing or tear of an eye, only 6th grade me does).

But they all bond for a while and there's this red dust that paralyzes Annalise but apparently the old lady and children from the beginning survive and stephanie goes to them for help because the old woman is like my ultimate plot saver in this book. This lasts two paragraphs.

they find the ice branch, which I distinctly remember used to be two characters but then I got tired of trying to juggle them so I rewrote them to just be one character so i bet that Elle's gonna be a delight.

Then they get attacked by giants(?) and like they get wiped? Stephanie passes out. Typical.

Wolves attack that night for GOD KNOWS WHY.

They meet a monster I don't remember the name of that makes them fall asleep, we get some poorly written angst and then Stephanie starts getting premonition visions (which is what Annalise was so concerned about).

She sees them fighting a big shadowy bad guy and watching someone kill Kinnteir

Elle then goes all spooky and evil. i mean look at how tense this scene is:

" I see a cloaked person fighting with him, he didn’t look like anything I’d seen. I join him. 'What are you?' 'One of you' she says as she pulls out the ice staff and freezes my feet in place on the dirt. 'Elle?' 'Correct.' My heart breaks."

Chills.

Then Anna goes hunting, I guess we're supposed to find more tension with Kinnteir and Steph but nothing really happens? Steph has another vision and they go try and help the already injured Anna.

Just found the name of the sleepy monster. "ShiinSlump". I kid you not. Shiinslump. Who names these things. Me, apparently.

But some true love's kiss stuff happens and then they're all fine again

Stephanie has a vision that Anna becomes one of the cloak monsters. Spooky. The premonition, action, and crying all takes up about one and a half paragraphs.

Wow you can tell I have ADHD.

Then Kinnteir just drops this TRUTH BOMB:

"Hey, I was doing research, it turns out the fourth one is a mystic powerful person that comes around every 5,000 years."

So yeah, Stephanie has mystic ancient powers. Guess she isn't like other girls after all.

After Kinntier and Stephanie meet the newly evil Anna, they go to a hospital and get Stephanie treated I guess

Then I randomly introduced the fact that Anna can produce sedatives that spray out of her flowers like the Joker but okay go off.

The book ends with the vision from the beginning happening, and then ELLE DIES

JUST STRAIGHT UP... DEAD. STRANGLED BY ANNALISE

wow.

so that was fun, right?

if you got down here i think that your determination far exceeds anything i've ever felt. good job.

[archived-kin]

caught in a twin courtship

note from kin: i’m going to be honest i only really wrote this because the title is fun to say, so it isn’t as cohesive as i normally would have wanted to make it

(this is an au where the twins aren’t separated by the unknown god! instead, just their world-hopping powers were stolen, and that’s why they’re journeying to find said god - to get their powers back so that they can go home. i’ve also excluded paimon since i kind of forgot about her while writing this haha)

(this doesn’t follow canon at all since reader and the twins just kind of start wandering about after the dvalin incident rather than heading straight for liyue oops)

fandom: genshin impact

character(s): gn!reader, lumine, aether, diluc, venti, jean

pairing(s): aether/reader/lumine

warning(s): i don’t think so??

genre: fluff with a little bit sprinkling of angst

you first meet the twins in the aftermath of the stormterror battle. it isn’t a glamorous introduction by any means - it’s pretty unflattering, actually - but it definitely makes a powerful first impression.

the group - aether, lumine, venti, diluc, and jean - are on their way back to mondstadt city, making small talk here and there, but mostly just walking in silence.

then they hear a yell in the distance.

jean and lumine both drop into a battle stances, venti leaps to hide behind aether with a very unmanly squeak of fear… but diluc, who arguably should have been the most alerted by this occurrence, just gives a resigned sigh and pauses.

a split second later, a figure comes speeding up to the group. you barrel up to diluc and immediately punch him square in the stomach, yelling “why didn’t you tell me you were going after stormterror?!”

aether and venti both give matching gasps of horror at the blatant disrespect, but diluc only shakes his head and catches your fist as it goes for another blow, this one aimed at his chest, and chastises, “calm down, i left a note.”

“i left a note,” you mimic, an absolutely awful impression that has you sounding more like a mosquito than the darknight hero, “fat lot of use that is when you aren’t even telling me where you’re going!”

diluc evades another jab at his arm and firmly sets his hands on both your shoulders, effectively anchoring you to the ground. you contemplate swinging your feet at his knees and knocking him over, or maybe shocking him with your electro vision, but ultimately decide that you might as well try to preserve what little dignity you have left in front of those three people you’ve never met before

so you stop with a defeated sigh and turn to face said three people to introduce yourself

it turns out that you’re diluc’s cousin and he’s been having to baby-sit you for the last few years after your own parents left on a ‘business trip’ to snezhnaya that they’re still not back from

you’re pretty sure they’re dead, killed by the fatui, and you say as much during your introduction without even the slightest sign of distress, which is a little unsettling

lumine’s first thought is that you’re quite the interesting character, what with the casual way you treat diluc, and how you don’t seem to question whatever situation lead you to meet in the first place

aether’s first thought is holy shit, they’re cute

one twin greets you in return with a lot more enthusiasm than the other, and venti the bard wastes no time in asking whether you have access to good master diluc’s wine storage

(you’d be shocked by the audacity if you weren’t just as bad as him when it came to shamelessness)

strangely enough, the fact that aether likes you so much actually makes lumine more wary of you than she was initially

aether trusts too easily, and from experience, that usually leads to disaster - and your flippancy regarding your parents’ apparent probable deaths rather inclines her to think that you might be a very dangerous person indeed

the three of you don’t see each other for a couple of days after that - you and diluc leave for dawn winery together, while the twins depart with venti to wrap their whole situation up, and jean returns to her duties in mondstadt city

all this time, apparently unbeknownst to even himself, aether keeps finding ways to bring you up in the middle of conversation

you’d only spoken to him for a few minutes and somehow that as enough to get him absolutely fascinated

lumine would be lying if she said she wasn’t still curious about you as well, but it gets annoying after aether somehow manages to mention how ‘mysterious’ your black cloak is in the middle of a conversation about why mitachurls are able to randomly set their axes on fire

luckily for these two, they happen to run into you the very next day!

you’re in the middle of taking out a ruin guard stomping around the thousand winds temple -  a ruin guard that the twins had been meaning to take down themselves, which is why they’re here in the first place

at first they move to help you, only to stop short and watch in awe as you plunge down at the ruin guard from atop one of the enormous pillars, your polearm held steady in your grasp as your entire body seems to spark and glow with a deep purple electro energy

the sharp blade of your polearm goes clean through the top of the ruin guard’s head and shatters its core, and it sinks to the ground with a massive thud that echoes around the temple ruins, massive wooden limbs twitching and jerking as the last of your vision’s energy disperses from it

aether and lumine are basically star-struck

from there you spot them and call them over for a conversation, show them how to take apart a ruin guard’s circuits to get at the good parts, and somehow end up agreeing to journey with them across teyvat in their search for an unknown god who stole their abilities to hop from world to world as well as their apparent true power that allows them to wield all seven elements at once

the details are a little lost on you, but what you’re hearing is that you get to go on a cool adventure with a cool gal and a cool lad, so you’re pretty much all for it

diluc isn’t too happy about you up and leaving without so much as two week’s notice (partially because he has literally no friends apart from you and he’d get lonely without his little cousin bothering him all the time) but you simply tell him to deal with it and go anyway

(you do give him a big hug and promise to visit, you’re not heartless)

from then on you, aether and lumine become a dynamic trio like no other

it’s actually pretty damn spooky how well the three of you end of working together

aether and lumine had long since formed a style of fighting that meant they made up for each other’s weak spots and could attack in perfect sync, but then you come along and somehow manage to make their already pretty flawless formation even better

is it witchcraft? they honestly don’t know

considering you fit so well into their battle strategies, it follows that you’d also slot perfectly into their every day life

lumine is cautious at first, wondering if your presence would disrupt her and her brother’s long since pre-established routines, but you fit in so naturally that it’s as if you were there all long

maybe it it’s this that makes both twins slowly start falling for you - the comfort of being beside you and the familiarity that you bring are things that they struggled to find, being trapped in a world far from their own with no way to get out, and they unknowingly latch onto you like drowning men clutching lifebuoys

aether is the most obvious about his feelings - he starts waking up earlier just because he knows you do, sitting beside you as you stoke a campfire and keep watch for any approaching monsters, making quiet conversation as lumine continues sleeping. he tells you stories about his adventures in other worlds, including an encounter with a rather bigoted individual who is the reason that he keeps his hair so long while lumine’s has been cut short

he even starts taking his hair out of its braid before he goes to sleep so that he can ask you to braid it for him when he wakes up

lumine is a lot more subtle

she finds excuses to stand closer to you when, deliberately brushing her fingers against yours when handing you something. she listens far more attentively to you when you speak than anyone else, and she smiles far more in your presence, hanging onto your every word and gazing at you so intensely that it’s almost unsettling

of course, the twins notice each other’s feelings pretty easily

at first neither acknowledges it - it’d be far too messy for both to accept that they’d both fallen in love with the same person, let alone actually admit this to each other

but it gets to the point where it just isn’t ignorable anymore, and finally the twins decide to talk

it’s about as civil and sensible as they could hope for with the subject at hand, and they eventually decide to talk to you about it

and so, we come to an ultimatum. what will your choice be?

if you reject both, it’ll be hard to continue adventuring with twins who can’t look in your direction. neither resent you, of course, but the atmosphere has become so stifling that they can’t even make eye contact

it’s as if an enormous gap has opened up between the three of you. the twins are avoiding each other as well, unsure of how to handle the fact that they’re both in love with the same person and have now both been rejected by that same person. if anything, they should be becoming closer out of solidarity, but it seems that they can’t stand to be in each other’s presence as much as they can’t stand to be in yours.

the three of you still work together as seamlessly in battle as you did before, but once the final monster has been cut down and your weapons are sheathed, that connection seems to disappear again.

it’s aether who finally breaks the stalemate. he starts trying to start conversations as the three of you sit awkwardly apart from each other around a fire, and while the first few attempts end in stony silence and an awkward cough on his part, eventually you begin replying with some semblance of the humour you used to

from there things only improve - the three of you come to a silent mutual agreement to leave this behind you, and soon you’re all laughing and joking as you used to

lumine and aether both know that they cannot force you to love either of them, and they respect your choice. if anything, they’re the ones in the wrong for springing something like this on you so suddenly, and they start to feel a little guilty that they were essentially pressuring you into making a choice that you were never obligated to make

so they return to treating you as a dear friend, just as before. things are different now, of course, but they can only be grateful that you continue to travel with them and stay by their side; this situation doesn’t make them love you any less, even if you don’t love them in the same way.

if you choose lumine, aether will be understanding. the twins have been each other’s only support for longer than they can remember, and as the older brother, he’s well used to giving things up for his sister.

he’ll still be friendly and amicable, but he won’t seek you out as much as he did before. he starts braiding his hair by himself again, and stays in bed as late as he can every morning so that he doesn’t have to be face to face with you. just because he’s accepted this doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt.

sometimes, when the sky grows dark and you and lumine have long since fallen asleep beside each other, he wonders to himself - why is it that he has to give everything to his sister? he’s given away so much, so why couldn’t the universe let him have this one thing?

but he knows, deep down, that this is nothing to do with the universe - you simply fell in love with someone that wasn’t him, his sister at that, and he’s struggling to come to terms with it.

he wants to hate you, hate lumine, hate the relationship that the two of you have formed, but he just can’t. he loves the both of you in different ways that are just as important as each other, and he can’t stand to lose either of you. he’d rather throw himself off of starsnatch cliff.

so he’ll smile and bear it, even if it’s a battle to keep himself from breaking down every time he sees the two of you lace your hands together, off in your own little word, so near and yet so far from him.

if you choose aether, lumine will become cold. at first, that is. she’s never been as empathetic as her brother, always holding grudges and developing dislike much more easily. it had taken a lot for her to open up to you in the first place, and now that you’ve rejected her, it’s going to take a while for her to return to the same camaderie with you that she had before.

lumine does not begrudge aether for being the one you chose. if anything, she’s glad - aether is always putting her first and himself second, and she’s happy that he has someone like you, who lights his eyes up in a way that she’s never seen before.

but our hearts often betray our mind, after all, and lumine can’t help but scowl and turn away every time she sees her brother wrap his arms around your waist or press a kiss to your cheek. despite her best efforts, all she can think is why? why did you have to choose him?

she can’t bring herself to hate you, though. as much as it feels like her heart is threatening to split down the middle when she sees you smile and is reminded of something that she cannot have, there is an equal joy in the fact that her brother can be with the person that he loves so dearly. if anything, the two of you deserve to be happy together.

lumine would never do anything that could take that away, and so she forces herself to accept it. it takes several days of tentative conversation and barely held back tears, but eventually the two of you seem to return to the way you were before - all friendly jabs and light-hearted banter and little jokes exchanged over crossed blades.

but lumine knows that your friendship can never be quite the same as it was before. she’ll forever be holding you at arm’s length, terrified to let you get too close lest you see how much your presence affects her. she can’t let you know how much she loves you because she will never be the one who links hands with you as you walk down a long, winding path, or the one who holds you close under a darkening sky filled with stars - because that person is aether, and she would sooner die before she takes her brother’s happiness away.

if you refuse to choose, the twins will be at a loss at what to do. they hadn’t considered this scenario - that you had somehow come to love both of them.

the confusion becomes joy soon enough, though. they realise what this means - they both love you, and you love both of them! isn’t this perfect?

neither are particularly thrilled at the concept of ‘sharing’ you with the other, so to speak, but in the end they both equally want each other to be happy as they want you to be, so the logical conclusion is that they both become your partners.

they’re not too sure how this should work, nor what sort of label to put on it, but they come to you tentatively with the idea anyway

to their joyous surprise, you agree!

and from then marks the point of no return…

aether is definitely the clingier of the two. once he realises that he’s allowed to show affection and be close to you for no particular reason, he won’t stop - it’s as if he absolutely has to be holding your hand or be standing or sitting  as close to you as physically possible. he’s always buying you souvenirs at every place you stop by, scaling trees to pick apples for you when you mention a craving for fruit, presenting you little treasures that he’s found with all the pride of a golden retriever.

lumine is a more subdued kind of partner, preferring to demonstrate her feelings with little things like making your favourite food for dinner or bringing you sprigs of flowers that she’s secretly been collecting in order to present you with them. of course, that doesn’t mean she isn’t physically affectionate at all - she presses perhaps even closer to you than aether when you sleep beside her, and somehow her hand finds yours at every opportunity she has.

the twins clash every now and then, as siblings often do, except that you’re usually caught in the middle. their arguments are little more than playful squabbles, though - things like play-fighting over who gets to hug you first after a well-fought battle, or who gets to hold your hand on the way to the next village (you have to step in and remind them that you do, in fact, have two hands)

in conclusion: why choose one when you can have both and prevent the unchosen from having endless amounts of angst?

[afriendlyblackhottie]

Kin

Summary: Bucky’s been acting weird and you can’t help it when you expect the worst.

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Black!Reader

Warnings: 18+, smut, swearing, breeding kink, daddy kink, dirty talk, degradation, GGFIL (you’ll see), arguing, cheating accusations

(A/N: this is different but I had fun writing it. And isn’t that what matters. Reblog follow like 💜✌🏾)

Tagging: @titty-teetee @zaddychris @queenoftheworldisdead @olyvoyl @liquorlaughslove @mariahthelioness29 @donutloverxo @little-baby-vixen @mochamaniacbabe @brattycherubwrites @iam-laiya @whiskey-cokenfanfic @doloreshazes

——————————————————————————-

Bucky had never given you a reason to not trust him. He’d been nothing, but the perfect boyfriend now fiancé for the two years you’d been together. Sure it was a little difficult dating an Avenger mostly because you worried about him coming back to you, but still being with him was kind of perfect.

The first time you started to sort of question things was when a phone number fell out of his pocket while you were doing laundry. Some girls name written on a napkin. You didn’t want to jump to any conclusions especially since it’s not like he wasn’t meeting new people everyday because of work. Who knows it was probably nothing.

Then he came home all late that day smelling like vanilla. You know it was bad, but you tried to check his phone while he was sleeping. Not that it worked because your super assassin fiancé was a very light sleeper and woke up before you could even try.

“Hey, what’s up?” He asked, in that sleepy voice.

“Oh it’s nothing,” you said, playing it off by stroking his hair. You know you should have said something, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it.

All he did was smile and kiss you before pulling you close. Like everything was fine. You know you should have asked him right then. The words had been on the tip of your tongue.

But you didn’t ask. Instead you let him roll on top of you before he started making out with you. Would a man that’s cheating be fucking your mouth with his tongue like that. Probably.

“Alright, what’s wrong?” Bucky asked with a sigh, putting his forehead to yours.

You shrugged, looking down at his mouth so you didn’t have to look him in the eye. “It’s nothing.” Then you out a fake smile on to really sell it.

“Come on,” he whispered. “You know I know you better than that. If somethings wrong you can tell me. Daddy’ll take care of you, Doll.”

You made the mistake of looking into his blue eye that seemed to be seeing into your soul. There was always this gentleness towards you. That he seemed to save for you especially.

“I’m fine,” you replied before rolling over on your side away from him. Bucky sighed again before wrapping his arms around you from behind.

“Hey, so I’m busy tomorrow, but when I get home why don’t we do something?” He asked into your shoulder before pressing a kiss to it. “Just the two of us?”

You nodded, but didn’t reply out loud because if you did he’d hear that you were crying. You’d rather not deal with it.

So the next day you went to get some stuff done. Grocery shopping and shit. On the way home you passed by this coffee shop, recognizing his car as some girl got into the passanger seat.

Your stomach felt like it was doing fucking somersaults on the way home. You tried to keep yourself busy. Not wanting to think about Bucky or his lying cheating face.

When the door opened, you could hear him set his keys down on the table beside the door. You were making dinner because you were hungry. He could worry about himself.

“Fuck it smells good in here, Baby,” he said, coming to hug you from behind before kissing your cheek.

You didn’t say anything at first. Instead you continued to cook and even though he noticed how quiet you were, he didn’t let go of you.

“What? No hello?” He asked, kissing your neck.

You tried to shrug him off, but no you just had to be engaged to a super assassin who was strong as fuck.

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

You shook your head because you were pretty sure if you’d say anything you’d explode. Not that he wouldn’t deserve it. You were trying to keep an ounce of dignity instead of blowing up like your brain was telling you too. “Nothing.”

Bucky leaned up against the counter beside you, bringing your face up so he could look at you. “Baby, I know you better than that.” He tried to smile to get you to open up then it faltered when he saw that you were clearly not in the mood. “C’mon. Just tell me what’s up.”

“Nothing, James.” You turned off the stove because now you’d lost your appetite. As you tried to walk away he grabbed your hand.

At hearing his first name, he crinkled his nose. “Baby,” he whined all pouty, “please. I let it go last night, but you’ve never not talked to me. What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong is that we’re supposed to be getting married in two months and you’re cheating on me.”

Bucky looked so taken aback. His face getting all scrunched up. “What?”

“Oh so now you don’t know what I’m talking about?” You scoffed. “I saw you.”

“Saw me doing what?” He scoffed out a laugh. “I haven’t done anything.”

“Bullshit!” You yelled. “You’re lying to me!”

His jaw clenched as you raised your voice. “Watch your tone,” he commanded. “I didn’t cheat on you. I have no idea what you’re even talking about.”

“Really? Well then who the fuck is Becca?” You finally asked.

Bucky pulled away and you finally turned to face him. “How did you...” he trailed off.

“So, it’s true. You’re cheating on me?” You asked with a sniffle.

He shook his head. “No! Of course not, Baby,” he said.

“You’re lying! I saw you, James. I fucking saw you with her!”

“Hey, hey, hey,” he said, putting his hands on your shoulders. “Let’s just calm down so we can talk.”

“I don’t want to talk. I want you out.”

He shook his head. “No, Baby,” he said. “I know how this looks, but I promise it’s not like that. I’m not... I’m not cheating on you. I’d never.”

“Fine then explain.”

Bucky hesitated. Closing his eyes like he was trying to find the right words.

“If you don’t tell me then I want you out.”

It wasn’t like this was the first time you and Bucky had ever fought. This was just the first time you’d ever done this. Usually when he messed up, he’d buy you flowers or kiss you until you forgave him. This time you needed to let him know that none of that would work.

He scrunched up his face before finally looking at you. “Okay. Becca is...” he took a deep breath. “Becca’s my great granddaughter.”

You also finally understood what it meant for it to be so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Bucky’s eyes bore into yours as he gave his answer.

“Can we just sit and talk?” He asked.

You nodded and he turned off the stove so he could grab your hand to lead you over to the couch. He sat you down in his lap and you couldn’t help it as you started crying into his chest because you felt like the worlds biggest asshole.

“Hey, Baby, don’t cry,” he said. “Not like you could have known. Hell not like I knew until recently.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” You asked him with tears in your eyes. “We usually tell each other everything.”

“Because... I dunno I was waiting for the right time. It’s kind of hard to go to your fiancé and ‘go hey meet my great granddaughter, Baby.’” He chuckled before wiping your tears. “Or that I have a son and he’s seventy-six.”

You raised your eyebrows. “Seriously?”

Bucky nodded and laughed. “I know right. It’s...” he sighed, “it’s so weird, but I’ve been hanging out with them and its been kind of great actually. Having a family. Hate that I didn’t get to see him grow up.”

“God I’m... such a bitch.”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “You would have never guessed,” he replied, placing a kiss to the side of your head. “So, yeah. Becca is my great granddaughter. I was picking her up from work. She’s seventeen.” He looked down then at you again. “I just... I wanna be in their lives. Make up for lost time.”

You nodded. “I get that.”

“I should have told you. I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want you to get freaked out.”

“Bucky, I’d never get freaked out over something like that,” you said. “Things are different for you and I wanna be as understanding as possible.”

He smiled. “I know, but doesn’t make it any easier.”

“I know.” You put your head into his neck. “God I’m such an asshole.”

“No you’re not. Any woman would have assumed the worst like you did. I didn’t give you any reason not to.”

Your lip trembled as tears fell from your eyes again. “I’m sorry, Bucky.”

“I know, Baby,” he whispered.

“So, how did you find out?” You asked.

“Becca came looking for me. Saw stuff about the Avengers and saw me. My son James, his mom told him all about me so...”

You smiled, but you were still all teary eyed from the way you’d talked to him just now. “I’m so happy for you, Baby.”

“Yeah, well, they’re your family now too. If you still wanna get married.”

“Of course I do! I was just... I was scared to lose you so I freaked out.”

Bucky kissed your cheek. “You’re never gonna lose me, Doll. Besides, if anything this all just made me wanna be with you more. All I can think about is making babies with you.”

You laughed. “You would.”

“It’s true. All this just made me realize how bad I wanna have a family with you. I just... I mean our wedding is two months away, would it be so bad if we started trying now?”

You shrugged and he smiled before leaning into kiss you.

“Tell me you don’t want me to put a baby in this pussy and I’ll back off until the wedding,” he whispered into your ear.

“Daddy, I...”

You could feel him growing harder against your ass as he started grinding you into him. Fuck he knew how to get you to that point. You hated how it took pretty much nothing for you to want him to fuck the shit out of you.

“Tell me you want it,” he whispered in your ear. “Tell me you wanna have my baby.”

You sighed so deeply because his breath against your year was making you feel fucking feral. “I want it.” It was like you couldn’t even stop yourself from saying it.

“What do you want. Tell Daddy what you want.”

You looked up at him with those big eyes. “I want you to put a baby in me.”

“Yeah? I wanna make you a mommy, Doll,” he said, before putting his metal hand around your neck as he leaned you into him. He helped you pull your legging down until you could kick them off. Then kissed your shoulder as he spread your legs. “You want Daddy to put a baby in this little pussy, Baby?” He asked now that he’d pushed your panties to the side so he could play with your clit.

“Daddy,” you whimpered, leaning back so you could connect your lips to his. He started doing that thing again where his tongue fucked your mouth.

All that plus with the way he was touching you was making you forget all about how embarrassed you felt for accusing him of such a terrible thing. You should know that your daddy would never hurt you like that.

“Gotta teach you a lesson now,” he said. “Don’t you ever accuse me of something like that again. I should fucking spank you.”

“I’m sorry,” you said, your pussy feeling all tingly from the way his fingers were rubbing you making you let out a moan. “Daddy!”

“That’s it, Slut. Don’t you ever threaten to take this pussy from me again. It’s mine.” He growled into your ear and it made your stomach tighten especially when he started nibbling on it.

You nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Good little slut,” he said. “You know better. This is mine.” Bucky’s fingers now dipped into your pussy making you let out a whine.

“Yes, Daddy!” You mewled as he stuffed your pussy with his thick fingers. Metal hand going from your neck to your tits.

“You’re lucky I can’t wait to fuck you or else I’d be punishing you, Doll,” he said as he groped you.

You leaned back so you could kiss him again. Reached between the two of you so you could take hold of his dick through his pants. Enjoying how hard he felt through the denim. “I know, Daddy.”

“You’re so lucky I wanna cum in this pussy instead.” Thats when he tore his hands out of you before forcing you to stand up. Bucky undid his pants, pushing them and his boxers off before pulling you back down.

He didn’t waste any time in sinking you down on his dick. Hands on your ass as he helped you move up and down. “Who’s pussy is this?”

“Yours,” you whimpered. “All yours.”

Bucky grabbed the hem of your top so he could pull it over your head, watching as your tits bounced. “That’s right, Doll. Not gonna pull that shit again.”

You shook your head and then threw it back as you moaned. Bucky pushed you to the side against the couch before getting up so he could climb on top of you.

“Fucking love this juicy pussy,” he said. His metal arm coming to grab at your thigh as he bent your leg over his shoulder.

He thrusted in and out of you, shoving himself inside of you as his dick stretched you out. You tugged at his t-shirt that he hadn’t taken off. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” Your head was bent back against the couch as you let out this low moan. “Fuck, Bucky!” Your eyes were watering as you started to feel your orgasm coming to you.

“That’s it, Baby, I know you want it. Want Daddy to cum in your pussy?”

You nodded as he got up so he could hold your throat again because he knew how much you loved it. “God, yes. I’m gonna cum.”

“Yeah?” He groaned. “Gonna cum on Daddy’s dick?” He was all in your face.

You reached up so you could tug on his hair. “Yes! Fuck, please.”

“Good because I’m gonna cum in you. Daddy’s gonna gonna fill you up, Y/N.”

You cried out wrapping your legs around him as you came so hard. Maybe it was from all that bullshit and you almost ruining everything because fuck it felt so damn good. Especially with the way he was fucking you through it.

That was when he got closer to you. His balls slapping against your ass as he started getting really deep into you. “Fuck,” he hissed. “Daddy’s gonna cum in this pussy, Baby. I know that’s what you need, Baby. Need Daddy to keep you pregnant.”

“Uh huh,” you moaned.

“I’m gonna keep getting you pregnant for as long as you can. Make you have so many babies.”

You couldn’t help it as the noises you were making started getting louder. “Yes. Please.”

That’s when his hips stilled as he started to fill you. His seed flooding into your womb for the first time. He put his head into your neck once he started moving them again, trying to make sure he could give you ever last drop.

He laid there on top of you. Breathing all heavy before pressing kisses into your neck again. “Was that our first time without a condom?” He asked.

“Uh huh,” was all you could say. It was like you couldn’t move.

Bucky chuckled seeing you all frozen before yawning and getting off of you. He grabbed you so he could carry you to your room, cradling you in his arms. When he finally laid you down he pulled the comforter over your body, pretty much tucking you in.

He took his shirt off before getting in beside you, “Comfortable?”

“Mhm,” you replied your brain feeling like it couldn’t think.

“You okay?” He asked.

“Yeah. You just made my mind into goo,” you grumbled.

Bucky smiled before kissing your nose. “Good.” He held you around your waist. “So,” he breathed, “what do you think about meeting everyone.”

“How much is everyone?” You asked with a smile, turning to him.

“There’s James. And, he had a son also named James and then he had a son named Kyle. He’s twenty-two.” Bucky laughed.

Your jaw dropped. “Jesus.”

He was still laughing. “I know, right. And he looks just like me. It’s kinda scary.” But, there was this softness in his face. It was different than the one he gave you, but there was almost this pride you’d never seen him have before. “Then there’s Becca. She’s so much like me it’s terrifying. She even has a friend like Steve. It’s awful.”

This time you laughed with him. “Would it be bad if I met them?” You asked.

He shook his head. “No. I’ve been wanting you to, they’ve even been asking, but I just... I didn’t wanna freak you out about being a great grandma.”

You pouted, creasing your brow. “Baby, I know how strange your life is to say the least. I’ve kinda made peace with the idea that there’s going to be random shit popping up. Kinda what I signed up for when I agreed to marry an old man.”

Bucky’s jaw dropped, before he patted your butt. “You’re such a brat,” he said before kissing you. Then he pulled you away. “Wait I didn’t tell you about Noel and Kimmy.”

You laughed and then wrapped your arms around him as he told you about the two youngest kids. God you felt like such an asshole now. Maybe a blowjob later would make it up to him.

[heiyodream]

"The first and last risky thing my older sister ever did was marry your father and take his surname." Hanabi-neechan told him. "The elders were very, very furious. They had failed to get her to be attracted to one of distant cousins ​​and keep her within the clan. And her request that her future children would take the name Uzumaki instead of Hyuuga? It was an audacious request, impudent even. And your father wasn’t refused to become a Hyuuga. Oh, Naruto-niisan would pick stars just for her. But my dear sister was very adamant about her stance, and her request was granted with much reluctance and one condition."

"Condition?"

"Every child with the Byakugan that comes from her and Naruto-niisan will remarry into the clan without exception. When she was pregnant with you, she prayed day and night that you would be born with blue eyes, and so did she when she was pregnant with Himawari. But like what we see, sadly, Himawari have the Byakugan, for all my sister's unspeakable sorrow and disappointment. Be thankful you don't get them, do you?"

Boruto thought about how his mother sometimes looks at Himawari sadly, how her eyes never look to the blue seal on his little sister's neck, and how she never seemed too pleased when people praised Himawari's resemblance to her.

"Does she hate the clan?" he asked carefully. "Or the Byakugan in general?"

"Not really." Hanabi-neechan waved her hand. "Clan is after all her blood, after all. We weren't raised to hate our own kin. Discontented, always, I guess; on bad days, she objected to the clan rules and disliked them. But that's about it. Even so, I saw her had this unbelievably wide, bright smile on the day she moved in after the wedding." The tone was almost nostalgic and mushy. "Marriage is good for her."

"Did you think marriage was not good for you that you got married so late?"

Hanabi-neechan's grin almost parted her face. "Ah," she said, amused, almost dismissively. "It's never too late or old for a marriage."

Boruto wanted to say that she was over thirty years old and was old, but he knew he'd just get a head-lock to say so, so he kept his mouth shut.

"Not every girl is excited about being a wife," she later said. "I'm quite happy with the idea of ​​being a bride. Shiromuku is a very stunning, lovely outfit. But being a wife and mother comes with obligations and expectations that can put pressure on a person. These two things shouldn't be exclusive, of course, but as the sole heir clan, I am obligated to have at least one kid. God forbid this long line of family and leadership died on my behalf."

She did not sound bitter or resigned but not happy either, Boruto thought. He knew duty and its price, responsibility, and how to be dutiful. His mother made sure he knew. His aunt was not made for housekeeping or domesticity like his mother. She was shaped to stir people's minds in interrogation, a rough hand pushing forward instead of cradling and nurturing to something. And so was Konohamaru-niichan's. They were good, brilliant teachers, but teachers and parents were different.

"Neji-jichan has three children with the Byakugan." Boruto reminded him. "Shouldn't the line continue to him and Takku-nii?"

"He has suffered so much," Hanabi-neechan said sharply. "And that's been discussed before; a billion ryo isn't enough to persuade him to approach clan politics other than for a frenetic revolution. Anyway, Tenten will take her children on a run across the continent before she lets them be bound by my obligations."

"Oh."

"Don't tell your mother you know," she said, refusing to look him in the eye, "but ever since she was born, Himawari has been my unofficial heir. She still is, to this day, until I give birth to a living, breathing baby with the Byakugan. My dearest sister quietly resented the idea. The life of a Hyuuga heiress is never easy, and the last thing she will bring to both of you is the cloak of hardship and sadness that accompanied us growing up. How relieved she was when we announced the engagement can only be matched by the moment she saw what color your eyes were for the first time."

[helpistolethesecharacters]

Death Does Not Discriminate Between the Sinners and the Saints

Part 1

Tony Stark x Male Demon Reader

Word Count: 3361

This is for the amazing @charliedakotariley who keeps absolutely making my day with all the sweet things they say.

This one is a bit angsty, but there is fantastic tooth rotting fluff at the end for anyone who gets that far. Keep yourselves safe and don't read anything that will make you go down a bad path.

Warnings: The title kind of says it, we are going to be dealing with the concept of a loved one dying in this. NO-ONE ACTUALLY DIES.

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

Y/n had known for months now that something was wrong with Tony. They had gotten past the hurdle of Tony's new self-consciousness thanks to the arc reactor that was a part of him now, or at least Y/n thought they had. He had spent weeks reassuring Tony (in and out of bed) that he still found him attractive.

Of course, the rest of the world would be surprised to see Tony Stark be self-conscious about anything, but they didn't know him like Y/n did. He found Tony's public persona to be hilarious. As a literal demon he loved to watch Tony wind up anyone who thought they could get under his skin.

That had been a surprise to Y/n. He had approached Tony at a party one night for a little bit of fun. Hey, he wasn't about to censure himself, he was a demon. Fun was what he did best.

As cliche as it is, Y/n hadn't expected to fall for the dashing young man so many years before. He sighed for at least the tenth time that night. They had been together for years and still no-one had connected the dots.

'Friends my ass,' Y/n snorted as he thought back to that latest tabloid headline, 'or Tony's ass, as the case may be.'

The problem right now was that Tony was avoiding him. Y/n watched disinterestedly as Tony got eye-wateringly drunk at his birthday party.

Y/n was long over the days where all chaos was his preferred fun. That had stopped when he fell properly for the billionaire. He much preferred it when the chaos didn't stem from his boyfriend getting drunk, putting on his Iron Man suit and proceeding to destroy large parts of his home.

Pepper stood beside him looking equal parts furious and worried. She was alternating between biting her fingernails and sighing in frustration. She looked up at the much taller man.

"Isn't there anything you can do to stop him Y/n?"

Y/n's expression soured.

"No, he hasn't told me what's bugging him. He hasn't even looked at me once tonight."

That was when Rhodey came busting in wearing one of Tony's other suits. For a minute Y/n considered getting between them, but then he decided that if Tony couldn't be bothered to even talk to him, then he could get out of his own mess.

It wasn't until Y/n was back in his own apartment staring out into the darkness of the night sky that he realised what it was that had been bugging him.

Tony smelled like death.

----------

Y/n was a man of many talents. As a demon, he had lived for over a hundred years, all the while, seemingly never aging a day. He had been all over the world and met (and ruined) many amazing people. (Thank the devil for the light telepathic abilities he had that allowed him to make people see him as human looking. Well, at least more human than he really was.)

He had never once been in love. Until Tony. Y/n was starting to regret not getting closer to other humans over the years, because now he had no idea how to deal with the idea of Tony dying.

What was he going to do? He was a demon, they lived for over a thousand years at least. That was like the lowest natural age to die for a demon. He couldn't live the rest of his life without Tony, he was his everything.

That pulled Y/n up short. When had he fallen so low as to be so affected by the death of a lowly human? But that lowly human was Tony, his adorable chaos-creating boyfriend. He wasn't even dead yet, but Y/n was already acting like he was gone.

A glimmer of a thought flickered through Y/n's head.

There had to be something he could do, instead of sitting back and letting this happen. Tony could NOT die. Y/n wouldn't let it happen, no matter who had to fall in his place.

'How do you stop the death of someone who doesn't even know they are dying. If only there was a google search for something like this.'

Y/n grinned manically. They had healers in Asgard. Some of the best in the universe. He had heard whispers of paths between the realms here on Earth. Heck, he had even used some of them himself, how else did you think he got here in the first place?

Y/n's face set in determination. He could do this. He would stop Tony from dying even if it meant his own death.

He wasn't a demon for nothing after all.

-----------

Getting into Asgard shouldn't have been that easy Y/n lamented as he stepped out into the lush forest that surrounded the portal. He was pretty sure that there was supposed to be some all powerful, all seeing God that watched over the realms. Y/n wasn't sure what to do about that, but figured that if there wasn't a squad of Asgardian guards waiting to arrest/remove him on arrival then he must not be a valid concern.

Y/n bared his teeth at the thought. He considered letting his perception field fall and making a big dramatic entrance, but let it go.

'For Tony.'

Y/n walked as carefully as he could through the forest. It wouldn't do to get all tattered and look even more suspicious than he already would.

Luckily it didn't take more than an hour to get to the edge of the forest, and even more luckily it bordered on the golden city itself.

Y/n stopped to take in the grandeur of the city of Asgard and thought that he must be the only demon to have ever set foot in this realm. How ironic that he wasn't even there to try to destroy it like so many of his kin had dreamed of doing.

No one really paid Y/n much mind as he made his way into the city proper. It turned out Asgardians were taller than humans generally speaking, so Y/n actually fit in better here than on Earth where he just about towered over everyone.

He even saw a couple of other people with skin as pale as his was, and the same white hair. No one had eyes like his though. Y/n knew that his eyes looked like the lava that covered so much of his home realm. They even glowed if he got too emotional.

This realm was so much more open. The streets were wider, there was so much more room to move than on Earth. Y/n was starting to feel like a tourist, gaping at every little thing in the city. That wouldn't help him in blending in, but he couldn't help it. He had the sudden urge to see if he could do a full spin and not knock anything over.

That had been one of the hardest things to unlearn when he first made it to Earth. His long armored tail was pretty unwieldy in such tight enclosed spaces, so he had had to learn to balance all over again with his tail tucked closer to his body. Unfortunately his perception field only changed how people saw him, so if they tripped over his tail and really looked to see what had tripped them, they sometimes saw what he really looked like. Luckily for him, they were usually written off as insane or, as one really unlucky woman found, it was written off as women's hysteria.

Y/n reined that thought back in and tucked it away for later. If he got out of this alive he would think about it later.

Y/n was sure that the best healers would work in the palace, but that would mean trying to sneak in and abscond with a royal physician. That would be noticed much more quickly, and would be met with a much harsher response.

Y/n set his shoulders back in determination. He would just have to be incredibly convincing, or this would go sideways much too quickly.

'Well,' Y/n thought grimly, 'at least that would solve the problem of watching Tony die slowly.'

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

The palace was quiet. This was just too odd. Something supernatural must be at work here.

Y/n was starting to freak out. He had made his way into the palace totally unhindered, and even his admittedly amazing luck had never been that good.

He slunk around another corner, still on high alert. Which was why he didn't miss the shimmer in the air that meant something else was in this space with him.

Y/n shot out an arm at it, aiming for the same height as his own neck.

His hand caught around a slimmer neck than his own, and he tightened his grip to almost unbearable for a demon. He wasn't about to underestimate the people of Asgard.

The stories of Asgardians from back on his own realm lauded them as incredibly strong and fast, and able to live as long as demons themselves.

The Asgardian struggled fiercely for a moment, but when it became apparent that Y/n was stronger than them, they slumped and dropped whatever incantation had allowed them to be invisible.

They appeared to be male, and around the same age as Y/n, but then, so had Tony when they had first met.

Y/n shoved the man away from him hard, and took up a fighting stance.

The other man sputtered and heaved in deep breaths to make up for his previous lack, thanks to Y/n. He looked pretty pathetic, laying against the wall, black hair falling over his face, which was red from lack of air.

"Why have you brought me here mage?"

The man looked up, affecting a surprised expression.

"What makes you think I have brought you here? Are you not an assassin, here to remove either the King or Crown Prince? Both are in the throne room, if you were interested."

Y/n remained in his stance, passive.

"I have the feeling that you know why I'm here already."

The man pulled himself up at last.

"Fine, I might have sensed you when you first stepped foot in our realm. I must say, I haven't seen anyone from Helheim before. Whatever are you doing here, a place that some have dubbed the promised land, home of the Gods?"

"You don't half think highly of yourself, do you?"

The man's response is a sneer.

"I need help."

Y/n stood up from his stance. It didn't feel like this man was going to attack him, and he could hardly ask for help much less receive it while preparing to attack.

He definitely gave off an odd vibe, but it wasn't an 'I'm about to kill you and all of your family just for breathing near me' vibe.

The man looked positively delighted.

"A demon of Helheim needs help," He crowed. "What can I, the humble Loki of Asgard, do to help you Oh Great Demon of Helheim?"

Y/n's left eye twitched, but he reigned himself in once again. Just because Loki seemed like he would benefit from a good smack upside the head, that didn't make it his job to deliver it.

"My, paramour, is in need of a healer. We do not have the ability to heal him, and I will not see his life ended without every attempt having been made to save it."

Loki apparently noticed the pause at the beginning of my request.

"My, my, what type of paramour could you possibly have that would warrant such a delicately put request? Surely not another demon, I thought you were nigh on indestructible?"

He was wandering around Y/n now, getting closer in his circling, all the better to whisper intimidatingly in his ear.

"Perhaps, to be in such desperate need of rescue that you, a demon, would risk everything by coming here of all places, your 'paramour' is something a little more frail?"

Y/n took it back, Loki was pure evil. He grit his teeth and squashed the urge to deck him in his smug face.

"Me thinks, perhaps, something so frail as, a human?"

They stood face to face in silence.

"Your silence speaks volumes my dear."

Y/n lost the battle. With a cry of outrage that came from somewhere deep inside he leapt at the smug God and prepared to smash his stupid face into pieces.

Shockingly his fist simply went through Loki's face. The image rippled and flickered out as it did so.

It flickered back into place beside him.

He spun into a roundhouse kick and the God went down.

"Stop! Dammit, just stop!"

'Some God,' thought Y/n.

"I was sent to get you."

Y/n was done with these so-called Gods and their mind games.

"What do you mean you were sent to get me? Spit it out!"

Loki looked up and glared at Y/n from his position on the floor.

"You were Seen. The moment you stepped foot into Asgard Heimdall Saw you and reported it to the All-Father. Luckily for you Queen Frigga Saw that you weren't here to attack, and that you only sought our help. I was sent to collect you and bring you to her rooms."

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

The Queen turned out to be much sweeter than Y/n had assumed. He had heard stories of course, but how much could be believed from the daughter who was banished to Helheim?

"Y/n, come, sit. How was your trip dear?"

Y/n was confused. She was acting like they were old friends. As far as he knew he had never met the Queen of Asgard before.

"Ma'am, I'm here for aid. My partner is not long for our home realm. I could smell death on him."

Y/n looked at the ground and clenched his hands into fists.

"I can't lose him. I thought once before that he was gone for good, but he fought tooth and nail to come back to me. Now I am having to sit and watch as something pulls him ever closer to deaths waiting arms. Please, I'll do anything, but please, heal him."

Y/n knew he was begging, but what else could be done. He had thought maybe he could intimidate a regular healer into healing Tony. After that was hazy, but he had been prepared to do anything that would be necessary to make Tony better.

This was not going to plan. He couldn't do anything to make the Queen decide to help him, he would just have to appeal to her softer side.

Frigga knelt by Y/n's side and softly took one of his hands in hers. Her eyes softened as she took in the genuine distress on Y/n's face.

"There is nothing to be done dear. No, don't panic, your loved one is fine. You were right, he was dying, but events have conspired to keep Tony Stark alive. Something needs him still alive, and I am talking about something bigger than you or I. He lives, and at this moment is going just a little bit more out of his mind than normal in his search for you."

Y/n was on his feet and by the door before Frigga had even finished speaking.

"Wait!"

Y/n turned, not wanting to waste another second when he knew that Tony was looking for him, but not able to be disrespectful of the one who had given him hope back.

"Eventually, when you are both ready for that next step, come back and bring your partner. I can organise for one of Idunn's golden apples. You can grow old together."

Tears gathered in Y/n's eyes at the offer.

"But, why? I'm a demon. Tony is a human. Neither of us are anything special. Why are you offering this to us?"

Frigga smiled, beautiful but so broken.

"Because you remind me of someone. So passionate and loyal to the ones who you love that you are willing to flatten entire realms."

Y/n didn't know what to say to that, so he turned back to face Frigga fully. He bowed from the waist to her.

"Thank you Queen Frigga of Asgard. I am in your debt."

Y/n heard her words spoken softly as he left, not entirely for his ears.

"Will you ever forgive us, my dear daughter?"

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

Tony was broken. He had thought that the lowest he could get was knowing that he was dying from something that was supposed to be saving his life.

He was wrong. When he had finally come up for air after the whole thing with his arc reactor, Shield and the Hammer Fiasco as he was calling it, he had realised that he hadn't seen Y/n since his disastrous birthday.

He had searched for what felt like forever. Not even Jarvis could find any mention of Y/n anywhere in the world. It was like he had dropped off the face of the planet.

Tony was now spending his time in his boyfriends apartment. He was sure that when he finally came back from wherever he had been, this was one of the first places he would go. He loved his boyfriend, but they were both equally as vain as the other. Any big dramatic entrance back into Tony's life would need to be planned out meticulously by Y/n. So he was sure if he just waited in his apartment he would see him again.

He was not wrong, he realised with rising hope as he heard the door swing open. He poked his head up over the back of Y/n's couch, hair a mess, goatee completely unkempt, knowing that he was wearing rumpled clothes that hadn't been washed in a few days.

In short, he was the only thing that Y/n wanted to see when he got home.

They collided with a slightly painful thump, banging limbs into each other, but not caring in the slightest.

"Oh God, Y/n, I'm so sorry! I--"

"Tony! Thank God you're alright!"

They fell into hysterics at this. Both knew that it wasn't funny at all, but after all the stress they had been through lately, simply being in each others arms was the most amazing feeling in the world.

Neither of them wanted to move, but common sense won out in the end, and they found themselves on the couch some time later.

They had pulled a soft blanket out of somewhere and where wrapped up together, totally unwilling to move for as long as possible.

"I was so scared when I realised you were dying. Why didn't you tell me?"

Tony had never heard Y/n so quiet before. He sighed heavily.

"I wanted to, but then whenever I tried to tell anyone, it wouldn't come out. It was never the right time, and then I realised that I didn't want anyone's last memories of me to be clouded with the knowledge that I was going to die soon. You especially. I didn't want you to have to carry that around, that I was dying and there was nothing you could have done about it."

They were silent for a while after that.

"Maybe that makes me selfish, but I couldn't bear the thought of adding to the hurt you were already going to feel when it happened. God, I'm so sorry."

Y/n just pulled Tony in closer, wrapped him up a little tighter into his arms.

"It's okay, but next time, tell me. I know you remember that I'm a demon. You have the best memory in the world. Next time you have some unsolvable problem, let me in. There might be something I can do that you can't, but even if there isn't, we would still shoulder that problem together. There's nothing I would rather do, than try to help lighten the load."

Tony was crying now, he could feel the tears dripping openly down his face, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

"I love you, so much it hurts. Never leave me."

"I will always love you Tony. You've changed me irrevocably. If there ever was a point where I could have turned away from you, if was long ago. You're never getting rid of me now."