#how weird and unexpected

[mmmatchasims]

Hibiscus: *murmurs* This feels... Familiar.

[egophiliac]

new chapter 7 installment dropped how we feelin????

YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND

THAT'S HIS DAD

[willowser]

HMMMMMM interesting to think about arranged marriage with prince shouto...............

i think he wouldn't know. what to expect with you. i think he'd have an idea, as in, what his father, the king, has taught him; the duties of a wife, where your importance ranks in relation to his duties. what he's not meant to discuss with you, like politics and matters at court and foreign relations. how you will speak to him. what to buy in the event that you become...unhappy. a nuisance.

("and she will," enji had muttered, briefly glancing up from the parchment on his desk to fix shouto with a look he didn't understand. "they always do.")

you don't meet until the royal wedding, when you're coming down the long aisle of the grand cathedral, dressed up in a swathe of silk and lace. a thin, gossamer veil hides you from him, but he can feel the ardor in your eyes, the intensity burning through the material. it doesn't seem real until your bare face is only a breath from his own, until he has to see the earnestness in your stare, too.

your kiss is simple and chaste, nothing spectacular, something that leaves his mind as soon as it's over. ever a todoroki, a hundred other things enter his mind, all regarding his now iron-laid obligations: it's vital he meet with advisor keigo to reiterate the plan to establish his authority among the council; general aizawa is in attendance to the wedding, and shouto has not yet received word on his opinion of the new king's ideas to modernize their armed forces; midoriya is somewhere, no doubt wanting to go over state affairs again.

truthfully, shouto doesn't spend long "celebrating". there's already too much that's required of him, hardly enough time to even scarf down a few bites of the banquet laid out before he's being chartered off into discussions on foreign relations and infrastructure development. maybe once or twice does he look back to check on you, chatting pleasantly with his mother and sister at the front of the great hall, and that's satisfying enough.

it's not until much later that he sees you again; freshly bathed and wearing something sheer and long and white, atop his bed.

or his marriage bed, he must remind himself.

enji didn't spend long going over consummation, with him or either of his brothers—natsuo, red-faced and annoyed at the very subject, always storming off, and touya had seemed well-aware of the process, at the time (back before he'd been ex-communicated). it had sounded simple: strip off your dress, get his cock out and into you, and only retreat once he was sure his seed had been spilled.

—so he's not exactly sure what to do or think or how to feel, when you're laid bare and reaching up to hold his face.

it's so startling that he sits back on his knees, to frown where he's looming over you.

you stare at him quietly, like you're expecting him to say something, and he only has a moment to wonder if this is you becoming an unhappy nuisance—what had been the answer, to solve this, anyway?—before you let out a soft laugh.

"c'mere," you tell him, sitting up, too, when he keeps his distance. "i want you to kiss me."

"i already have."

"yes," you laugh again, amusement glowing in your eyes, like the warmth off the fireplace, as you reach for the ties on his trousers. "but you're meant to do it again."

and up until then, he'd felt confident in his achievements, his executions; he'd managed a lot today, in one evening, and he had a lifetime to manage more. it was a good a start as any, he'd thought, but now—

shouto almost can't get the words out when he feels your hands ghosting up the inside of his shirt, nails tickling over his ribs. "a-am i?"

you wrap your arms around his waist in what could be a hug, scooting forward to look up at him with your chin against his chest. "yes," you smile and—it's familiar in a way, how touya would whenever he was teasing. "you're my husband, you're meant to kiss me whenever i want."

that—was not something his father had ever said, he was sure, and it was a too-rare exchange between his own parents. now that he thinks about it—and he does, then, because he's faced with the reality that he doesn't know as much as he should—he's not sure the former king and queen even sleep in the same room, much less the same bed.

much less hug and touch and even smile, the way you do now.

there's no argument he can make against it, aside from finding keigo to find his father to verify the truth to such a statement, and he's only meant to retreat from this bed on one condition.

and if this is what it takes to meet that—then shouto supposes he'll have to do it, for now. he's a brand new king, after all, and it would seem he still has much to learn.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Sword of Kaigen

standalone fantasy set in a rural mountain village at the edge of an empire that still holds traditional values, with families of powerful water/ice magic warriors

follows a powerful young heir who begins to question his beliefs about the empire when a new boy comes to his village from the city

and his mother, a housewife who has tried to forget her youth as a warrior and vigilante in the city since she moved back home to a loveless marriage

when there’s a violent attack on their village that they’re unprepared for, everything changes, and she has to embrace her old skills to protect her family and people

[sonknuxadow]

knuckles series spoilers like actual spoilers not just me vaguely talking about my feelings

i cant believe they put iblis in the sonic movies before amy . what timeline are we in . sorry i was gonna hold out for a litlte bit on saying anything that could be an actual spoiler but i literally cant stop thinking about Giant Iblis Puppet Jumpscare . also for people who didnt actually watch it and are reading the posts about it this happens when wade is knocked out and sent to the magic ghost dimension and meets pachacamac and theres a musical number where wade is in a knuckles costume acting out knuckles' life so far and the giant iblis puppet shows up because apparently knuckles has fought iblis before??? and the iblis puppet is holding a laptop singing about facebook marketplace. im not lying i couldnt even make this up if i tried

also when i say "damn cant believe iblis got in before amy" i understand that amy would have been harder to incorporate its just wild that this happened. does that make sense. idk

[demon-of-the-ancient-world]

Thinking once again about the very weird emotional reaction I had (am still having) re: Timothee Chalamet's performance in Dune Part 2. Because I came out of that theatre legit a little scared of that guy, which is not something I ever thought I'd be able to say -- he's very much not an intimidating person in most people's minds and if you'd told me what Part 2 was like before I knew anything about Dune I wouldn't have been able to believe it. But he's so good, and I think part of the reason he works so well in this new phase of Paul's character especially is because of that audience perception of him as an actor, because you go into it thinking "this shouldn't work" and then it does work, and that weird dissonance makes it work even more in a meta way. Paul as a character also isn't supposed to seem like he could be this crazy warrior cult leader, and then he is and people within the narrative believe it and it feels within the narrative like it isn't supposed to work, yet somehow does. The fact that it Feels Wrong is perfect because it's supposed to.

[fisherrprince]

another thing abt arr/hw alphinaud. Maybe current alphy. Just while I’m looking backwards at cutscenes. he has a tendency to look at a situation that’s gone topside and go ‘well this is wrong’, which I think says something about how much he plans in advance, how often things just do go according to his smart little plans because he’s good at them, and something about how thrown off he gets when things do not go according to the ten step plotline he made up in his head

[vimbry-moved]

john flansburgh on tabloid reporting

[cradle-of-darkness]

COOKIES OF DARKNESS NATION WE ARE OFFICIALLY BACK 💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

(long rambling in tags if u care)

[prismit]

dead cells show looks sooo ugly but aside from that it does look fun to watch ngl.... i feel so conflicted

[haxxy]

contemplating all of the people in the world who don't think about the ways they could die in graphic freak accidents on a daily basis.

[murderofsomeone]

WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING

[girlbob-boypants]

Competitive Pokemon is really uninteresting to me because of how oppressive the Meta tends to be but it's really interesting to me from a psychology perspective because of how much it comes down to trying to predict what your opponent wants to do

[woodfrogs]

the physics nobel prize picks this year are crazyyyy

[joyridingmp3]

had this interview with this psych place i was really keen on like a month ago. followed up and didn't hear anything back so I figured they found someone else but they just emailed me a contract????

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Unsung Stories Haul!

I got THE most delightful box stuffed FULL OF BOOKS yesterday, because I really wanted UNEXPECTED PLACES TO FALL FROM, UNEXPECTED PLACES TO LAND after supremely enjoying the author's other book (AND THEN I WOKE UP).

Turns out the publisher was closing up shop, so they were offering deep discounts on all their paperback stock to clear it out. I figured what the hell, I can always use more weird fucked up SFF/H, so here we are.