#i also have One gif left to make for the final era set.

[supernovafics]

𝐁𝐀𝐃 𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒

pairing: steve harrington x fem!reader

word count: 4k words

summary: in which you get stuck in a bathroom with the one person you can’t stand

warnings: enemies to lovers, scoops ahoy era steve, explicit language, a few mentions of blood, the tiniest bit of angst

author’s note: was thinking about enemies to lovers with steve and then this happened 🫶🏾

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

The second you closed the bathroom door behind you, you thought about how stupid this entire night was. 

You examined your shirt; the red stain looked a lot worse than you expected, and the material was already sticking to your skin in the worst possible way. You silently cursed the random guy who bumped into you and didn’t even apologize for spilling his entire drink on you. 

You pulled off your shirt and set it on the sink, leaving you in just your bra. As you went to pull a towel off the rack, someone pushed open the door. They rushed into the bathroom and closed the door behind them, and didn’t notice that you were already in there until they turned around. 

And you didn’t register who it was until he was facing you too. 

Steve Harrington, also known as the bane of your existence, and it had been that way since Sophomore year of high school; ever since you two were paired up on an English project and you ended up doing all of the work for it. That wasn’t enough to make you hate him, but when it happened again at the end of the year for History class, that changed. From then on out, he annoyed you to no end. He was always trying to charm his way through everything, but you saw through all of the “King Steve” bullshit. Everyone seemed to love him, but you felt the complete opposite. 

You didn’t even know that he had also been at this party. 

The words, “Steve, what the hell are you doing?” were on the tip of your tongue, but then you noticed the gash above his left eyebrow.

“Oh my god, you’re bleeding,” You said, turning away from him immediately. You grabbed one of the grey hand towels off the rack and tossed it in his direction. “I can’t look at you right now.”

Steve laughed a bit. “So you’re scared of blood. Got it.”

He was completely right, and it was probably obvious how right he was, but it felt like second nature to deny anything and everything he said. “That’s not true.”

“Oh, okay, yeah,” He said, the sarcasm in his tone was almost too clear, and it made you want to drown yourself in the bathtub. “So you’re just actively avoiding eye contact with me for fun?” 

“Not looking at you is actually one of my favorite hobbies because whenever I do look at you, it makes me nauseous.” 

“Ha ha, good one,” He said dryly, and you could practically hear him rolling his eyes. 

“So, who beat you up?” You asked. There was the smallest hint of an amused smile on your face that you were certain would've made Steve roll his eyes again if you were facing him.  

He scoffed. “Okay, saying ‘beat up’ is a fucking stretch.”

“Doesn’t seem like it.”

“Sorry for barging in. I didn’t know you were in here,” He said, changing the subject, and for the time being, you let him do so. “There was a line for the bathroom downstairs, so I came up here.” 

You knew that he was telling the truth. The bathroom downstairs did have the longest line ever, so that was why you headed upstairs— bypassing the handwritten sign that said do not go upstairs— and went into the first bathroom you could find. 

“I’ll leave,” You heard him say from behind you. 

You nodded. “Good.”

Him leaving shouldn’t have taken longer than a second or two, but then there was a weird sound that you couldn’t fully decipher— it sounded like something hit the floor— and Steve let out a quiet, “Oh, fuck.”

“What happened?”

“Um, the doorknob fell off.” 

“What?”

Finally, you turned around and saw the silver door knob on the floor, which Steve picked up and placed on the sink counter.  

“Shit,” You said as you walked over to the door and started banging on it, hoping that someone would hear the noise and come help, and Steve joined you and started doing the same. 

However, it quickly proved to be pointless when you realized just how loud the music was downstairs. You could hear the faint bass of whatever pop song was playing through the shut door. 

You sighed after a minute of hopeless banging. “No one’s gonna hear us.”

You finally met Steve’s eyes, specifically the hand towel that he had pressed above his left one. You could see a little bit of blood on the towel, but it surprisingly didn’t bother you too much. 

Steve’s eyes, however, were not on yours and were instead trailed a little downward. 

In the midst of him rushing into the bathroom, you’d forgotten to grab the towel, and you especially forgot that you were just standing in front of him with only your bra and jeans on. 

You crossed your arms over your chest to get him to stop staring at your boobs. “Seriously?”

“Sorry,” He mumbled and turned his gaze in the other direction. 

With a huff, you finally grabbed a towel to wrap around your shoulders, and then you sat down on the white tiled floor. You leaned back against the bathtub, and after a moment of hesitation, Steve sat down with you.

Things became quiet for a few moments, and then you looked at him and pointed at where the towel was pressed against his forehead. “Let me see it.”

He gave you an amused look. “You sure you’re not gonna pass out?”

“Good one. You’re so hilarious,” You deadpanned. “Just let me see. I wanna make sure you’re not gonna bleed out sitting next to me right now.”

Steve relented and pulled the towel away from his face. The wound wasn’t actively bleeding anymore, which made it easier to look at it, but seeing the dried blood around it still kinda did something to your stomach. 

“Okay,” You took a breath and looked away. “You’re not bleeding anymore, which is good. And it doesn’t even look that bad. Just a cut.”

Steve let out a laugh. “You literally sound like you’re about to throw up.”

“Shut up,” You glared at him and then changed the subject before he made fun of you further. “So, do you finally wanna tell me who beat you up, or is the story too embarrassing?”

He sighed. “I saw that guy spill his drink on you, and I went over to him saying that he should find you and apologize— I might’ve yelled it at him. And he pushed me for yelling at him, and I pushed him back, and then he pushed me even harder into a stupid coat rack, which cut me.”

“Why would you do that?” You asked, eyes furrowing at his explanation. “We hate each other.”

“That doesn’t mean that I wanna watch a random guy be a dick to you,” Steve answered, and before you could process him actually being nice to you for the first time in a long time, he followed up with, “That’s my job.” 

You promptly rolled your eyes. “You’re so annoying.” 

Steve only gave you a condescending smirk in response and put the hand towel back on his forehead. 

You stood up. “There’s gotta be bandaids in here.” 

You started looking in the medicine cabinet first, which didn’t have them, so you then went to the drawer under the sink. Every few moments, you had to readjust the towel around your shoulders because it kept slipping, which made looking through everything a lot more annoying. 

“Here,” Steve said, interrupting your search. You turned and looked down at him as he pulled off the navy blue jacket he was wearing and handed it over to you. 

“Thanks,” You mumbled, putting it on and zipping it all the way up.

You continued looking in the drawer and found a few stray bandaids, and one of them looked big enough to cover Steve’s cut. You grabbed the towel that had just been wrapped around your shoulders and turned on the sink, wetting a piece of it.   

When you shut it off and turned to look down at Steve again, you thought about how you were going to do this. And then you realized that the easiest way to do it would have to be the most intimate. 

“Put your legs out,” You told him, and he looked at you in confusion for a second, but then understood what was happening and did what you said. 

“Don’t make this weird,” You said as you settled yourself in his lap, knees on either side of him and pushing into the tiled floor. 

“Wasn’t planning on it,” He responded and pulled the towel away from his head. 

You first cleaned the wound, wiping away the dried blood, and then you patted his skin with the dry part of the towel and put the bandaid on. You weren’t entirely sure why you were doing this for him, but it just felt like the right thing to do. 

You shifted off his lap when you were done and put both towels in the tub, so you didn’t have to look at them. 

Things became quiet, and you hated the silence, so you felt like you had to say something to break it. 

“So, what are your plans for the summer?” 

Steve scoffed immediately, and you looked at him. 

“What? I can’t ask normal questions?” 

“No, because I know coming from you, that’s not just a ‘normal question.’”

You stared at him, completely confused because you didn’t understand what he meant, and then it hit you.  

“There’s no way you’re still sensitive about the whole summer school thing from two years ago.”

He gave you an annoyed look. “It was your fault that I had to go to summer school.” 

It had been because of the History project. You told your teacher about Steve’s complete lack of help on it, which was a part of the final, and he failed the class and was sent to summer school because of it. After that summer, it was pretty obvious that he disliked you just as much as you disliked him. 

“You deserved it,” You told him. “The project sucked because you did absolutely nothing to help me and I refused to get a bad grade because of you.” 

This was the first time you two were actually talking about it, instead of just sharing withering looks and annoyed eye rolls like you two did when school started back in September.  

“You know I’m right,” You mumbled instead of keeping things silent for the rest of the time you two were forced to be in here together, like you maybe should’ve. 

“You are right.”

“Holy shit,” You finally looked at him again. “I wish I could go outside and check if pigs are flying because I never thought I’d see the day where Steve fucking Harrington admitted he was wrong.” 

He scoffed at your words, which sounded more like a laugh, as he shook his head at you. 

“You’re not some saint, though,” He said. “I saw the look on your face when we first got paired up for that English project. You thought I was an idiot.”

“No, I didn’t think you were an idiot. I just thought that you were like every other jock…” You trailed off as you thought about your words. “Okay, yeah, maybe I thought you were an idiot. But, you didn’t do anything to prove me wrong, though.”

“Why would I want to?”

You had an answer ready to go, but then you realized that he had a point. If the tables had been turned, you wouldn’t have wanted to prove anything to him either. Spitefully, you probably would’ve ended up doing the same thing he did to you. 

“I’m sorry,” You said after a moment. “And I don’t think you’re an idiot, honestly.”

“You don’t have to lie. You and my parents share the same thoughts.”

“No, I’m serious. Being bad at school doesn’t make you an idiot, it just makes you…” You tried to think of the best way to finish your statement. “Bad at school.”

“Wow, very profound,” Steve joked. 

You rolled your eyes at him, but also couldn’t help but smile a little. 

“I’m sorry too,” He told you, and hearing him finally say that slightly surprised you. “I should’ve helped you on those projects.”

You sighed as you crossed your legs under you. “I finally get why you didn’t. I was an asshole for judging you.” 

“Still,” Steve responded. “Making you do everything was a shitty thing to do.” 

You shrugged as you said your next words. “Honestly, none of it even matters now. We graduated. All that shit’s in the past now.” 

Steve hummed. “So, we’re finally agreeing on a truce after we graduated?”

“Yeah, seems like it,” You laughed a little. “Unless you wanna keep this stupid vendetta going through our twenties and until we’re both separately married with kids and we can pit them against each other too?”

“You paint a very vivid picture,” Steve gave you an amused smile. “But no, I agree with this truce.”

You nodded and smiled back. “Nice.”

Once again, things became quiet, and you looked away from him. You silently wondered how long you two had been stuck in here. Apparently, long enough for things to actually become civil between you two. 

“I’m working at the new mall they opened for the summer,” Steve said, answering your question from earlier. “Ice cream shop.”  

“Fun,” You said and actually meant it. “I won’t be doing anything until college starts in the fall.”

“Where are you going?”

“The community college for two years to save money, and then hopefully transfer to the University of Chicago.” 

“That’s nice.”

From there, the conversation was normal. It became two people who kind of knew nothing about each other, finally learning things that friends knew about one another. Although calling Steve your friend felt like a stretch, and like you were getting way too ahead of yourself. 

After tonight, whenever you and he were finally set free from this bathroom, you weren’t sure that you two would ever have another conversation. Just because you two agreed on a truce didn’t mean that you would now be friends. You had a feeling that you'd end up going your separate ways once you were out of here. 

However, in this moment, you felt entirely too comfortable, and the conversation moved so easily that it felt like you were in some pretend world where you and Steve had been friends forever— the conversation ended up in a place where you two were playfully bantering and laughing and talking about nonsense. 

Your eyes practically lit up when Steve told you the most random tidbit that intrigued you probably too much. “Show me.”

He shook his head with a laugh. “No. I shouldn’t have even brought it up.”

“You can’t say that you have a scar on the side of your ribs that looks like a smurf and not show me,” You said and shifted closer to him. “I need proof.”

He laughed again, clearly amused by your current antics. He didn’t stop you from practically settling yourself in his lap to get close to him and grab at his shirt, but he did keep lightly shooing your hands away. “For someone who almost threw up seeing the cut on my forehead, you really wanna see this scar.” 

“Scars and blood are two entirely different things,” You told him, and then once again reached out to grab the ends of his shirt. His hands found your wrists, and you gave him a look. “Are you lying about this little league scar?”

“I’m not. I just think you’re gonna see it and not agree with me.”

“Let me be the judge of that, Harrington.”

You weren’t sure why you cared so much to see it. You honestly didn’t even like The Smurfs all that much. 

Steve let go of your wrists and finally lifted his shirt so that you could see the scar. 

“Hmm,” You said, tilting your head and examining it for a second. You could make out the typical smurf hat and somewhat of the head. “Honestly, I do kinda see the resemblance.”

“Thank you,” He said as he pulled his shirt back down. 

In the midst of all the playful arguing, you didn’t even realize that you had maneuvered yourself onto his lap. And in this moment, with everything calmed down and back to normal, you should’ve shifted off of him. There was absolutely no reason to stay in his lap— you weren’t putting another bandaid on him, and you were no longer looking at his scar. But you didn’t move. 

Maybe you were waiting for Steve to say the words, to break this moment with a playful laugh or joke, and push things right back to how they just were. 

But he didn’t say anything. 

For the first time in the last hour— at least, you assumed it had been an hour— things between you two were comfortably quiet. 

Inwardly, you could admit that you really liked being this close to him, and when one of his hands found your hip, keeping you planted exactly where you were, you knew he felt the same. 

It was a silent conversation playing out in the look you two shared. Both of you simultaneously daring and practically begging the other to close the small bit of distance between you two.  

And then it was as if your and his resolve broke at the exact same time because you both moved in quickly. Somehow, though, your lips met softly in the middle. 

You had never thought about kissing Steve Harrington, but you suddenly felt so certain that any thoughts about it wouldn’t have lived up to the real thing. 

The kiss was damn near perfect. It started soft and sweet, as if you both were just trying to test the waters, and then it quickly shifted into something that was the opposite of innocent. Your hands settled in the hair at the nape of his neck, and both of his grabbed at your hips, slipping beneath his jacket that you were wearing. He lightly squeezed your skin, which made you gasp into his mouth and gave him the perfect opportunity for his tongue to find yours. 

Aside from thinking about how phenomenal this all felt, your mind was effectively blank. You didn’t think about what this would or wouldn’t mean, or why it all felt so weirdly right. 

When you pulled back to catch your breath and your forehead fell against his, it was then that you noticed that the music had stopped. But neither of you got up to bang on the door again in hopes that someone would finally hear you two asking for help. 

“That shouldn’t have happened,” Were the first words that fell from your mouth when your eyes met his. 

You weren't even entirely sure why you were saying that, but it just felt like the right thing to say. What other explanation could've logically summed up how you two went from hating each other to surprisingly becoming civil to abruptly kissing in just the matter of an hour or two?

A confused look crossed his face. “Why?”

“Because…” You were going to end your answer with “we hate each other,” but that definitely wasn't true anymore.

Before you could further think about how to answer Steve’s question, you both heard a confused-sounding, “What the hell?” from the other side of the door.

You looked away from Steve and at the shut bathroom door. “Hey! We’re stuck in here.”

“Oh, shit, hold on a sec. This happens all the time,” You recognized the voice as Lisa Matthews; it was her party. “One of the reasons why there was literally a sign saying, Do not go upstairs.”

The door was finally opened moments later, and Lisa proceeded to kick you and Steve out of her house after telling you both that the party had been shut down. 

“Do you need a ride?” Steve asked when you two were standing on the sidewalk.

“I drove,” You answered, voice suddenly soft for some awkward reason. 

Steve nodded at that. “Okay.” 

“Okay,” You nodded back. “Um, see ya around.” 

It was obvious that there was a lot more to say, but you both silently decided to leave your conversation from back in the bathroom unfinished. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

On your drive to the mall, you reminded yourself that you were simply going there to give Steve back his jacket— the jacket that you hadn’t realized you were still wearing until you were parked in your driveway after leaving Lisa’s house. 

There was a chance that Steve wouldn’t even be at the mall right now; you didn’t know his work schedule or what his shifts were like. But when you woke up, you decided that there was no harm in taking that chance.

A chance of simply returning his jacket to him. Nothing else. 

You saw him before he saw you. It was kind of hard not to spot him. He was standing behind the counter at the ice cream shop wearing a blue and white sailor’s uniform, complete with a hat that said “Ahoy!” across it. 

You had to bite your lip to hold back the shocked laugh you wanted to let out. 

When Steve spotted you walking over to the counter, he immediately pulled off the white hat he was wearing and pushed a hand through his hair. 

“You being dressed like this is truly the greatest thing I have ever seen,” You said, smiling at him.

“I should’ve never told you that I work here,” Was Steve’s immediate response, and that time you couldn’t hold back your laugh.

“And I’m so very glad you did. God, I wish I had a camera right now,” You told him. “You look very cute.” 

Surprisingly enough, you were actually telling the truth with your last statement. 

Steve rolled his eyes at your words, though, because he couldn’t tell you were being honest. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to give this back to you,” You answered and held up his navy blue jacket.  

“Oh, okay,” He said and grabbed it when you handed it over. “Thanks.”

“Also, I realized that I never answered your question last night,” You said before you could think better of it.  

“My question?”

His slight confusion let you know that you could’ve taken back your blurted-out words. You could’ve disregarded the entire thing and just ended the conversation right there, but you realized that you didn’t want to. 

“When I said that we shouldn’t have kissed, and you asked why. I never answered you.”

“Oh, that question,” Steve responded, a look that you couldn’t decipher crossing his face. “You have an answer now?” 

“Yeah,” You said with a nod. “Yeah, I think so, yeah.” 

Three “yeahs” and yet you actually didn’t feel sure about anything, especially what you were doing in this moment. However, you abruptly decided that you wanted to lean headfirst into honesty.

You didn't fully understand how things with Steve had been able to shift so easily, or why joking around with him and kissing him last night felt so surprisingly right, but you really wanted to find out.

“I said that the kiss shouldn’t have happened, but I was wrong,” You told him, and then continued speaking before you could potentially talk yourself out of admitting the rest. “I want it to happen again.”

You didn’t know what you expected Steve to say in response. You knew what you were hoping for— in a perfect world, he would tell you that he was thinking the same thing as you— but you had no idea where his mind was since last night. 

“Yeah?” He asked and gave you a small smile that managed to warm your insides. 

“Yeah,” You answered and matched his smile, growing a bit more confident. “Obviously, not here because there are children present, but if you wanna get stuck in another bathroom somewhere, that could be fun.”

“That could be really fun,” Steve responded, playing along. “Or we could skip the bathroom because it was kinda small. Maybe watch a movie on my couch instead.”

“You’re right,” You agreed, keeping your voice cool and normal, even though on the inside you were feeling the opposite. “That would be a lot better.”

Days ago, you couldn’t have imagined feeling this giddy about Steve Harrington. But things were so different now— changed with one long-overdue conversation and one really good kiss. 

“Tonight?” He asked. “7, if you’re free?”

You nodded. “It’s a date.”

Steve’s smile grew as he repeated the three words back to you. “It’s a date.” 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

let me know ur thoughts<333

[natalchartnurtures]

PAC: What Greek Mythology love story would you and your FS be?

○●○●○●○●○●○●

[pile 1 to 3- left to right]

Just came out of a bone-crushing healing and shadow work period for my Kundalini Awakening going on right now T-T In an attempt to raise my spirits, I created my very first FS reading-

pile 1:

General vibe of your love story with your FS-

This is the movie pile. I see a full-blown movie arc in my mind’s eye for your love story with your FS. I see an opening at- you guys meeting, the middle act- your separation and individual trials, and the final act- the happy reunion! OBVIOUSLY, there's nuance to how all of this will unfold for each of y’all reading since it's real life we're talking about, but your story with your FS is the closest thing to a happily-ever-after if I've ever seen one.

It's like when y’all first met, y’all were young, or maybe some of y’all didn't know how to handle a relationship or didn't have the resources in the 3D (think money or a place of your own, something like that) to make this relationship happen? Maybe it was long distance for a looong time? And so, for whatever reason (along said lines) y’all had to let each other go or y’all couldn't be together. It's like y’all were shown a grand possibility to be together, and BOOM it was taken away.

Then you guys enter a separation period right after, and the length of this period will differ for everybody reading, anywhere between months to a couple of years. After having worked HARD on yourselves ON YOUR OWN to overcome your personal issues, traumas, and suffering, you guys come together. The key to really mastering your obstacles is in the day to day. You will have set routines to tackle your obstacles, such as say you’ve got anxiety or a dys-regulated nervous system, so maybe you'll always have a stress relief meditation scheduled in no matter how your day looks. So on and so forth, fill in the details of this period as it best suits your life. But the common denominator, I feel like, is that y’all really fight to be with one another. The love is so deep here, and that's what motivates each of you to overcome your personal hurdles, yk? And THEN, when it happens, and y’all reunite, it's sooo beautiful. It's like you guys will build a brand new life together where you can put the past behind and finally enjoy the fruits of your labor! Also, I see you guys growing and blossoming over time with your FS upon reunion 🥺✨.

So… which Greek myth sums up YOUR love story with your FS the best?

drum roll

It’s the story of Cupid and Psyche!

From what I’ve read about this story, Cupid and Psyche couldn’t immediately be together after they met. Cupid could only meet Psyche at night AND she’s not even allowed to see him! T-T This was part of what Psyche has to overcome- the challenges put forth by Aphrodite just because the goddess was jealous of Psyche. And poor Cupid had self-esteem issues from what I gather lmao. He didn't even feel worthy to show his mortal wife what he REALLY looked like (which, by the way, is GORGEOUS af?! Like who hurt you, Cupid?) They eventually overcome their odds and reunite. Eventually, Jupiter blesses Psyche with immortality, which allows them to live forever in their new life happily ever after. Ahhh… beautiful.

I encourage you to read the original story (or watch it on YT, do whatever you like :p) to pick up on any additional messages! Buuut that’s all I have for you lovely folks today.

Love and loads of light, sweet pea :)

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pile 2:

General vibe of your love story with your FS-

Reeeeally strongly coming in right off the bat, I feel like both you AND your FS will be turning a brand new leaf in your lives. Think a new job for one or both of you. A major relocation for one or both of you. A major relationship ending for one or both of you. You catch the drift, right?

It feels like y’all will be closing out a cycle and entering into a new era, so to speak. And in this new era, I sense that you'll keep mostly to yourself and aren't all that interested in anybody because you're still processing this BIG shift you just went through and you're reflecting a lot, drawing on your wisdom, staying in your lane. Ngl, you do feel vulnerable and raw too, which is probably why you seem to keep to yourself mostly during the time you might run into your FS. I sense the same from their end too.

You know what this is? Mutual healing. Your future spouse finds you at a time when you're in the dead center of healing and vice versa. You will both be the catalysts to each other's healing! How cool is that? And after y’all find stability in your journey together especially after navigating healing for so long… I see y’all being so comfortable and content and peaceful with one another 🥺 this makes my heart full!! Stop it! Ahhhhhh <3 The vibes are immaculate, it's giving 'comrades in the battlefield' kinda energy. Your FS will stick with you no matter what, literally. And that's the kind of loyalty many people only dream about. Love it 🤌🏾. Y’all will love each other's pain away 🥺😩. Ugh my heart can't take it anymore!

So… which Greek myth sums up YOUR love story with your FS the best?

drum roll

It’s the story of Odysseus and Penelope!

Now in the story of Odysseus and Penelope, both of them undergo significant changes and face major disruptions in their lives. Odysseus’s long journey home from the Trojan War and Penelope’s long period of waiting and dealing with suitors at home. BUT even in Odysseus's absence, Penelope remains faithful and focused on her own survival and household. Similarly, Odysseus endures many trials and tribulations. Both characters are found in a state of self-reflection in the face of personal challenges (in my humble opinion of course). Their reunion symbolizes mutual healing… both of our characters here show incredible loyalty and perseverance despite being apart for 20 years!

-Side note: on a completely different note, your story low key kinda reminds me of the story of James and Claire from Outlander >< shoutout to the Outlander fans hehehehe, I'm waiting for the 9th season to come out SO BAD ughhhh lmao-

I encourage you to read the original story (or watch it on YT, do whatever you like :p) to pick up on any additional messages for yourself! Annnnd that’s all I have for you lovely folks today.

Love and loads of light, sweet pea :)

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pile 3:

General vibe of your love story with your FS-

Ah.. my Pile number 3s.. you guys are afraid to love.. aren't you? You might be blocked off from your heart and as a result won’t be open to true reciprocal and healthy love for a WHILE. But then I see that the divine will enter your life in some way and shake you up in a big way to show you how you've been standing in your own way and keeping love at a distance.. I'm seeing the tower card in my third eye as I say this even though it hasn't come out for you today.

Ah, this is like a personal journey I see you taking before your FS comes in and swoops you off your pretty lil feet 🙃 tehe! Your energy seems quite mental to me. You love living in your head, thinking, planning, analyzing, and just knowing things. But this came at the grave cost of not being connected to your heart.. and when the divine intervenes and helps you connect to your heart again is when your FS comes in flying ✨.

Side note: Ooh.. suddenly I hear Lavender Haze by our queen Taylor Swift? Take that only if it resonates for you :]

But yea, I see you struggling and feeling out of control when all of this happens because you're used to being in control of things usually but now all of this has you a bit overwhelmed I'm ngl.. but you end up navigating this perfectly well! Yay! I'm glad haha 😅🫂👏🏾

So… which Greek myth sums up YOUR love story with your FS the best?

drum roll

The story of Pygmalion and Galatea!

Yup, just like how Pygmalion accidentally manifested Galatea, you kinda accidentally manifest your future spouse too (low key reeeal funny ngl). Because Pygmalion refused to love anybody, he sculpted out his perfect woman and fell in love with his creation. His deep affections attract the attention of you guessed it Aphrodite herself, and she decides to ahem intervene. She brings Galatea to life, which represents the transformation of Pygmalion's mental fixation (and emotional disconnection) TO emotional CONNECTION. How perfectly beautiful. Ugh. Love your story, Pile 3. Gosh.. who doesn't love their FS simply falling into their laps? Haha

I encourage you to read the original story (or watch it on YT, do whatever you like :p) to pick up on any additional messages! Soooo that’s all I have for you lovely folks today.

Love and loads of light, sweet pea :)

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[paintedonmyteeth]

Sukuna’s Fossil Ahh and Modern Tech/Internet

Having brainworms abt Sukuna losing his mind w how much stuff has changed over 1000+ years since the Heian era and reader having to explain things to him fbskfbwksbdn. THIS IS A FIRST I’M WRITING STUFF FOR SUKUNA BTW I’M SORRY IF IT LOOKS TERRIBLE BUT IMMA PUT IT OUT AS IS, I didn’t edit much of this either, so if you see anything funky no you didn’t— Anyways if y’all did like this tho I got reqs open for Sukuna :)

⭑.ᐟ — It’s been GOD how many years since the Heian Era, the golden age of jujutsu sorcerers, Sukuna’s prime where he reigned the the strongest of them all. So much stuff has changed since then, and it’s both baffling/maddening how different everything is in this age. The city was a lot bigger, transportation was faster, newer technology, etc, etc… and there’s very few things left that still remain from Sukuna’s time.

⭑.ᐟ — Boredom was a bitch at times when Sukuna had nothing better to do, but then he remembered you helped him out the one time how to work the computer (he still struggles at times but he’s learning). Why not go for a scroll on the internet???

⭑.ᐟ — Is he doing this purely out of curiosity at this point? No. He’s lying. He just wants to see how far humanity has fallen over the years leading up to the now. His exposure to the internet were 'trends' or slang terms, along with a bunch of other things he found confusing and stupid, (it was also making him question why he thought it was a good idea to explore the internet). And NOW begins the slew of questions from the King of Curses the next morning…

⭑.ᐟ — “What’s rizz?” Was the first question to kick off the morning with Sukuna. You just about choked on your coffee and you carefully set your mug down, looking at Sukuna all funny, who’s just staring back at you, arms crossed and all serious. “Close your mouth, you look like an idiot gawking at me. Just answer the question.” It took you another hot minute to finally gather your bearings and you explained the term to him.

⭑.ᐟ — Now finally understanding this new term, Sukuna’s expression immediately turned up in disgust. Why the hell do humans need to go out of their way in creating a whole new term for flirting?? People these days really are strange.

⭑.ᐟ — And with each question answered about these trends or slang terms, Sukuna’s perspective on humanity wasn’t swayed by any means, and it threw more fuel to the fire if anything.

⭑.ᐟ — Despite Sukuna’s clear distaste for humanity, he wanted try and learn a little more anyhow. Such as your interests in certain shows, music, and other favourites you consume from the internet more specifically. Besides everything else he hated from the internet so far, he liked listening to your rambling, seeing your eyes light up and your personality coming out more when expressing your favourite movies or whatever else. Even if he didn’t understand half of it, he just loved hearing your voice.

⭑.ᐟ — But don’t ever make the mistake in throwing those god awful internet slang words around him, he will look at you all funny like you just insulted him indirectly.

[ronearoundblindly]

okey dokey, I've had *a day* and will use this glorious...🥴 idek which body part to reference 😮‍💨...and merge it with your previous ask about cooking or baking for Steve and giving him a nice, comforting, home cooked meal. And his response to that act of service and caring. Because this is me, I will obviously be starting with ::gasp:: an argument. Don't you love how predictable I am?!?!

To Tire Is Human

No warnings, uhhh, canon language (sh*t)? Written in drafts so no exact word count. It's not long (2k maybe, very much unedited)!

"The hustle? What does that even mean?" Steve gripes as he finishes up various chores around the property.

"It means I do the work."

Your boyfriend rips apart the wood log he was about to start chopping. "Do the work? Do the work? For nine hours? After leaving home early enough to be at work for an hour before the actual work starts? Then staying at least a half hour to clean?"

"Unless I also have to restock," you add quickly just to really turn the knife.

"You have got to be shitting me," he nearly snarls, eyes down toward the pile.

You don't blame him for not understanding. He's from an era where people worked to live, the point was the living. This...is not longer that era, and you are not of that generation.

Of course, it frustrates him, too, because your work makes living almost impossible. With all that he just mentioned, the commute, and attempting to offer yourself the basic self-care of eating and washing, you don't have the energy to do chores, and you've certainly struggled to find energy enough to show Steve love.

"That's the gig nowadays. That's how us super-average humans do it."

The thing is that you are also so tired of having this conversation. You are tired of the guilt for not magically considering yourself the center of your universe because, despite jokes about every kid receiving participation trophies, it is deeply engrained in you that you are replaceable.

If you don't perform above and beyond, fired. If you ask for too much and offer too little, gone. If you don't constantly learn how to outpace others, useless. It never ends.

And, finally, Steve Rogers might not get this but you age. You aren't powerful to begin with, but day after day, you get weaker and older, while someone else on Earth gets smarter and stronger.

You don't want to hear the spiel. You can see from his pinched face that Steve wants to give the spiel.

You sigh in exhaustion and prepare to hear the whole Cap speech before you two go pick up dinner in town.

One day later that week, your work schedule falls apart and lands you back at home hours before Steve is due to return. Antsy to accomplish something--and looking for a snack,--you notice the perfect combination of ingredients, something saucy and salty, hearty, just like Steve melts for, and a fruity baked good.

It's a lot of steps, there's a lot of mess to clean up as you go, and then there's still a lot left behind. You're hastily rushing around to set the oven timer and yank a skillet off the burner. Perhaps the whole endeavor has gotten you in over your head.

Steve appears out of nowhere.

Well. Not nowhere, but all the chaos in the kitchen is making enough noise, you didn't hear the door.

"I have everything under control," you automatically say.

His expression morphs from one of surprise and concern to utterly overwhelmed. His eyes look glassy as he approaches and scoops you into a quick hug, hands tucking themselves beneath the hem of your shirt so he can feel your skin as he breathes you in.

He quickly releases you at the sounds of oil popping and sniffs, reverting to Cap mode.

"What do you need? What can I do?"

All you can think is that the table hasn't been set.

Steve eats his whole meal--entree and dessert--with his non-dominant hand just so he can hold yours.

He had one of your days.

He spent the drive home listing all the things he needed to do in his head, more energy for each tick, more time for sitting still, more of him to give...

...and then he got to enjoy a lovely dinner with you.

You spent your energy on him, on you both. You spent energy specifically to spend time with him, and Steve could cry but he won't. He keeps smiling, making happy, pleased noises with each delicious bite.

An hour ago, he wasn't sure he could feed himself or wash up. He's simply too tired.

You start playing with his hand, drawing patterns in his palm, lightly dragging your nails on the sensitive inside of his wrist. It makes him shiver.

There were at least four things he was supposed to do outside before it got too dark, a load of towels and sheets needs done, a basket of clothes waits to be folded and put away. He does not want to do any of it.

His fingers close around yours.

"Thank you," he interjects softly, "I was so tired."

You lean forward and plant a sweet kiss on his cheek, whispering in his ear, "you wanna leave the dishes to soak and watch a movie instead?"

Steve chuckles, turns his head to quickly kiss your lips, and nuzzles his nose to yours.

"Oh, you're a naughty minx, aren't you?"

Playfully racing up the stairs, ignoring the plates and glasses still on the table, you call back to him.

"Show some hustle, big guy! We got a whole lot of nothing to do."

He twitches, just for an instant, before finally deciding that grabbing the spare pillows from the guest room will add more to the movie experience than doing the dishes.

You're both going to do the work tonight: the work of taking care of each other, enjoying each other, and being human together.

Thank you for asking!

[Main Masterlist; Light Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

[platinumshawnn]

Bound by Blood and Fire -- benjicot blackwood x tully!oc (pt i)

A/N: Hi, if it's terrible and has some stupid stuff in it that doesn't make sense i beg of you to pity and be gentle with me as it was written over the course of a spontaneous overnight shift that turned into a sixteen hour work day <33 Also, character was given a name because I don’t like writing “y/n”

Masterlist

backward | forward

Synopsis: Lady Tully and Kermit travel to Raventree to reunite with a long-time family acquaintance amidst finalizing the details of the pending nuptials with Lord Blackwood.

"To my dear Lady Serra," he announced loudly enough for all to hear, "who, I am told, has a tongue as sharp as her needlework. Pray, let's hope she proves as skilled with her wifely duties as she is with her embroidery."

warning(s): Mentions of blood, era related content/sexism/violence, adult language (i.e., innuendos), mentions of arranged marriage, mentions of family physical violence (father-son, shoving).

word count: 6.6k

 Lady Tully was not the type who particularly enjoyed wandering beyond the walls of Riverrun. She only ever left the safe confines of its boundaries under circumstances in which she had little to no other choice -- if only by force of her father’s hands by whatever command; often it was an event of necessity in which her father insisted her presence was vital, “To put on a strong, united front -- that the House of Tully and its members remain united as ever.” 

It was always a conversation that required a lot of begging on her father’s side, pleading with his daughter to see reason, and often ended in a bribe that would prompt her to reluctantly agree. She wasn’t one for negotiating and often did not want more than to be left alone with her books, to stay back at home in the comfort of her library, but she was stubborn and would only cave out of guilt and obligation for her dear father. She truly did love the man -- as did her love her; his little dove. 

She hadn’t been nearly as close to him as a child, but following her mother’s passing, she and her father had worked to build something of a relationship. Before that moment, she had always been closer to her mother -- a kind, soft-spoken woman who embodied what it was to be a proper household lady; one who upheld duty and honor. She was loving and gentle with her children, and if her daughter had been anything like her, she would have been the perfect woman to model her likeness after. Instead, she had been considered odd -- a little “out of sorts” according to other children of House Tully, who had relentlessly teased her as a child. She could recall the years of sneers and jabs, tugging on her dress and pushing her into mud puddles, leaving her sobbing in the fields behind her home. And despite her mother wishing she had just enjoyed playing “lady of the house” and making pretend with the other girls, or wishing that she enjoyed dresses and fantasizing about the day she was married to a doting husband like the other girls her age, the sight of her daughter running inside with tear streamed cheeks; covered in dirt and desperately reaching for her mother with her chubby hands as a young child, her mother’s facade would drop; all those selfish wishes out the window as she consoled the girl who clung to her skirt. If there was anything she remembered about her mother, it was how fiercely she loved her children and how willing she was to set fire to the realm to protect them despite her gentle nature. 

And often on days like this, she yearned to have just one more moment like that with her mother. 

The ride to Raventree Hall was long and silent as the two siblings sat across from each other, having not said a word to one another since their journey had begun two days prior. Kermit had tried to spark conversation by making small talk, making the odd comment about the weather, or the journey -- he had even tried to scold her on the first day, face pinched into a scowl of annoyance when his hours of rambling and several attempts at even joking with her were left unanswered. 

“You can’t ignore me forever -- please, you have to see reason, sister. I did not have any other choice.” He pleaded, reaching across to attempt to take her hand, her gaze only briefly turning to look at him, eyes scanning his face as she had noted the way his shoulders dropped; slumping forward and looking defeated as though he had just lost some bet. “If I had had any other choice, I assure you I would have taken it.” 

Since then, she hadn’t even bothered to look at him. More often than not, she felt his gaze on her, watching her carefully as though he was waiting for her to change her mind and say something. More often than not, he would be met with silence and not even as much as a look in return, only to then realize she was stubbornly still behind decision to ignore him and huffing in frustration before looking out the other window of the carriage that rocked and swayed over the bumpy trail. She knew they were nearing Raventree and despite that she was not happy with the circumstances of her presence there, she would be grateful to get out of the small space she’d shared with her brother for too long  -- although the memory was vague and distant, shrouded in fog, she could recall this journey from a time in her childhood; clinging to her mother’s hand while Kermit and Oscar excitedly babbled to their father about their time spent there, spewing stories of their training and the mischief they had gotten into with the Heir himself. She just needed space from him. 

“I do not understand….” Kermit suddenly said, her gaze still fixed out the window to look over the vast pastures that seemed to stretch on forever. The only thing that implied otherwise was that if she squinted close enough, really focused, she could make out the shape of the Brackens estate, Stone Hedge, fully aware that somewhere between here and there there was some invisible line that separated the two houses. “I do not understand why it is such a big deal to you. Of all the lords and their heirs…” he spat, that same temper she had become all too familiar with boiling over the edge once more, ”I combed through the realm as best I could, as painstaking as it was to ensure you were promised the best match, I did it. I searched high and low for someone with honor and loyalty, a husband who I could guarantee would treat you well. Of everything I have done for you…and you can’t even be grateful for all the effort I have made?” He rambled, scoffing. 

Her gaze darted up towards the sky as she wrung her hands, the orange hues of sunset blending into something beautiful as she processed his words; her chest rose with a sudden sharp inhale as her chest seemed to fill with emotion she couldn’t quite put her finger on -- frustration? Anger? Grief? 

“You know Benjicot-- we have known him since we were children. He is a dear friend of mine and I would trust him with my life, sister.” Kermit added, his gaze burning into the side of her face. 

Her left hand rose, fingers coming to her lips and absentmindedly rubbing across them as she fought the urge to anxiously chew at the skin there; to gnaw until they were bloody. She suddenly dropped the hand back into her lap, “But I did not choose him, Kermit.” She suddenly replied, her hands clenched into fists so hard her nails dug into her palms as her gaze finally turned to him. It was then, for the first time in two days, that his features softened as though he was relieved to just get as much of a word in response -- that finally he was not just speaking into the air, met with silence; even if she did not agree with him, he appeared grateful and even guilt-struck as she stared at him. “You could not have even given me that decency at least.” 

Kermit nodded, a meek gesture as his gaze dropped briefly to look down and away from her. He was silent for a moment, her attention being fixated back out the window to take in the last of their journey and the sights that came with it as a silence fell over them once more that she broke again after a pause. “He tore that blue dress I used to love…do you remember that?” She suddenly spoke. 

Kermit frowned, his head tilting to the side as he looked at her with his mouth opening, searching through any memories he had of them as children alongside a young Ben. She looked at him again, scanning his face as though she was hoping for a sign of recognition to her prompt. “With the red stitching, I wore it all the time when I was ten and two. Mother had gotten it for me on my name day just before she died.” She explained, her voice softening slightly as she recalled the memory — and suddenly, there, she saw the recognition cross her brother’s features as his eyes went wide and eyebrows rose with his mouth open in the shape of an ‘o’. 

“You wouldn’t leave your chamber without it— you caused quite the stir anytime anyone suggested you wear another one.” He suddenly said, sitting up straighter with a small smile on his face. 

“You don’t remember what he did, do you?” She asked again. She could see the confusion sink in, struggling to grasp the memory. “He tore it right down the back of the skirt— stomped his heel right into it and shoved me into a puddle twice the size of me. He said it looked stupid— that the sigil was crooked. He ripped it and Father forced me to burn it, saying it smelled so bad it was lingering all through the house. It was the last gift I had from her.” She quietly explained, her hands suddenly clasping to one another and wringing themselves as she looked down at them. 

Suddenly it dawned on him. Kermit had only caught bits of it and had not been present when it happened, but he remembered that day — behind Raventree just six moons since their mothers passing; Benjicot had just received his new dagger as a gift from his uncle as a gift on his name day and had been quite proud of it. Kermit had been so preoccupied with their sparring game he had hardly noticed. Even when he did, he did not think that things would escalate so quickly. He’d heard the sudden yelling after Ben had tripped over her, not seeing where she was crouched, distracted by a caterpillar that was crawling along her hands that she hadn’t noticed him when she stood up suddenly from the tall grass. Ben had been rushing backward and tumbled over her, sending the pair into the mud — and while Ben didn’t mind mud, he didn’t appreciate the gash in his arm from his dagger just nicking his bicep when he fell. 

Shame filled him as he recalled looking away and not intervening as Benjicot had gotten into her face, hurling insults at the poor girl who was more distracted by trying to find her bug companion to even issue an apology; wide-eyed and teary-eyed as she looked up at him in absolute terror. Even as children, Benjicot had had a temper, crushing the bug in her hand and shoving her — only then did Kermit rush to her aid and intervene. He knew Benjicot had felt bad for the whole situation, guilt and shame on his face as soon as he had done it — Kermit had seen the tears in his eyes even; only to then be hurried back to the house to be tended to for his wound. But he realized there had never been any apology afterward and in the years following, there hadn’t been many opportunities to speak about it or mend things as they hardly found themselves in each other’s company. 

“How can you promise that he will be good to me?” She asked, interrupting her brother’s thoughts. 

He suddenly looked at her again, his voice wavering in confidence, “He’s grown, sister. He is not the same boy he once was.” Kermit tried to reason, knowing the truth behind it — Benjicot had grown and matured since they had last seen each other; learned to cool his temper where necessary. But that didn’t seem to be enough for his sister, a grim look on her face as her mouth pressed into a fine line, eyes narrowing slightly, her skepticism written clearly on her face. 

“He will make a loyal and dutiful husband, I promise you. Is that not what matters?” He asked, pleading with her. 

“I did not choose him, Kermit.” She said once more. “I did not want this.” 

—

They had fallen into silence once more following their conversation and she had returned to not looking at him for the rest of their ride. Thank the Gods, it was only an hour more, but Kermit wasn’t sure if he felt more relieved or discomforted by the conversation; eyes on her and chewing his nails as the guilt he had suppressed these past two days returned, rearing its ugly head in his face. Maybe he had rushed her too soon and been rash in his decision — maybe he should have fought harder to postpone any betrothals or for anyone else. But it seemed to be a cause too far gone to be possible to turn back on now as they pulled into the gates of Raventree. 

Kermit had gotten out first, offering his hand to his sister who was slow to follow in stepping out of the carriage to where Lord Samwell and his counsel stood ready to greet them. He’d been relieved that she had accepted it, though her apprehension was visible as she eyed it before taking it and stepping down the stairs, hanging close to his side as they approached the house. Lord Samwell immediately stepped forward, excited at their arrival but containing it as he smiled at the pair, "Kermit, it is an honor to host you at Raventree Hall as usual. I’m glad to see you made it safely.” He said, his attention turning to his sister just as she offered a polite smile and a curtsy to the Lord, “Lady Tully, it is a pleasure to see you again, too. It has been many moons since we have last seen one another— though, I presume we will be seeing more of each other soon.” 

"Thank you, Lord Samwell. I bring warm regards from my father as well as his regrets as he could not join us tonight, he will be arriving later tomorrow instead -- he had some business to attend to.” Kermit replied, a hand reaching out to his sister and encouraging her hand to his elbow as he looked between the two, “He sees great promise in this match and believes it will bring strength and unity to the Riverlands. My sister, Lady Serra, is eager to meet Benjicot -- seems she hasn’t seen much of him since she was all but… ten?” 

Samwell chuckled, “Come now, Kermit, there is no need for such formalities so soon. You’ve only just arrived.” He said, encouraging the younger man to approach and come inside, “I imagine your sister and Benjicot will have much to catch up on, but first I imagine she would like to get settled. Melinda, see to it that Lady Tully’s belongings are brought to her chambers immediately.” 

Kermit’s face flushed in embarrassment, a subtle pink that spread up his neck and into his cheeks as the older Lord led them inside; the Tully’s sharing a glance as they timidly followed indoors, just as a slew of servants hurried to gather their belongings from the carriage, brushing past them. “I do apologize for my son’s absence— seems he decided now was conveniently the best time to go on a hunt with his cousins. Though I do imagine you are as best familiar with his antics as anyone.” Samwell rambled, glancing back to Kermit with a knowing look — even through the humor in his tone, she could sense his annoyance. 

As they entered the hall, her gaze wandered to scan their surroundings, reminded once again of the few visits she had taken there in her childhood. “You have a beautiful home, Lord Blackwood. I forgot…how beautiful it is out this way.” She softly said, just as the trio stopped near the door of the stairs, Samwell’s face pulling into a smile. 

“Soon enough this will be your home, too. I want you to feel as at home as you do in Riverrun— if there is anything we might be able to do to make your stay more comfortable, please,” he said, stepping forward to take her free hand in his. “Do not hesitate to ask. I will see to it myself that all your needs are met.” Lord Samwell stated, his tone laced with sincerity. 

She stared at his hand over hers for a moment, freezing at the gesture and sucking in a deep breath as her gaze was forced up to his face. A polite smile once again graced her features, “Thank you.” 

“I’ll have Alistair show you to your room— I imagine you would like to rest. Are you hungry at all, my lady?” He inquired, a look of concern etched into his features as he waited for her reply, releasing her hand as she then took the chance to pull away from her brother with a quick look in his direction. 

Maybe it was the uneasiness at the realization she was now in his territory, but the thought of food churned her stomach, “No, no. I am fine, thank you, Lord Blackwood. As you said, I thought I might get settled and rest ahead of tomorrow’s feast. It has been a long journey.” She explained, her voice sweet as she spoke, the same polite small never leaving her face — however, she was eager just to get away  from the stifling reality of just what was in store for her over the next couple of weeks. She watched as the Lord nodded, waving over a guard who hung close to his right, stepping forward with the gesture. 

“Alistair, see to it that Lady Tully finds her room okay.” Samwell instructed, his attention turning to her brother. “The young Lord Tully and I have matters to discuss then.” 

Kermit’s gaze once again bored into her as she began to follow the guard, her head turning to look over her shoulder at him; though they were silent, she gave him a look that assured she was okay — a small nod that was subtle, but enough assurance for her brother to nod back and follow Lord Samwell as he began to stride in the opposite direction towards a gathering room. 

— 

She didn’t know how long had passed. It could have been minutes, hours, days even — she wasn’t even aware at this point. She had been too lost in the sight of the flames that licked at the singed walls of the fireplace to even pay much attention; having curled up with her knees to her chest as she sat on the floor in front of it, playing with the ends of her hair that had been braided and laid over her shoulder. Some young servant girls had been sent to help in unpacking and getting settled in, but just as quickly as they had arrived, they were gone and since then, she had taken to her spot on the floor and had yet to move. The castle was silent at this point, though, aside from the distant shouts of guards who were still hankering down for the night, sinking into the routine of night shift. 

It was only when her stomach grumbled that she thought to move, her joints aching with the movement as she pushed herself to her feet and brushed off her skirts, debating on dragging herself from her room to venture down the hallways in hope she could find something to eat. Though she doubted she would have any luck, she had timidly opened her door, coming face to face with the guard who had lead her to her room hours prior posted outside — his expression hinted confusion and curiosity as she emerged from her room, stepping into the hallway, “My lady?” 

“I was wondering if it was possible to get something to eat— I understand it’s late, I just…” she quietly said, her hands smoothing over the fabric of her gown. 

He seemed to consider her request, nodding after a short pause and turning, “Follow me, my lady.” 

She was quiet as she followed the guard — an older man, probably near that of her father’s age and without hair, stoic and still-faced. With her hands clasped in front of her as he lead her through the hallways, she was lead down the stairs back towards where they had entered earlier, her eyes taking this opportunity to better scan the contents of the walls — the artwork that displayed paintings of the Blackwood’s sigil and their history. In better lighting, she could presume it would be breathtaking, but in the dark there was almost eerie shadow cast upon them, making each line look more harsh than the next; like the paintings were staring down at her, watching her every move. 

Her gaze was torn away at the sound of voices carrying from the meeting room her brother had descended to when they had parted ways, laughter heard through the doors as she gathered her skirts in her hands, lifting them out of her way as she walked down the stairs; ensuring she did not trip over them, her eyes fixed on the large, ceiling tall doors. She had wondered what the source to her brother’s laughter was— surely, forcing her hand to a man she hardly knew was not a laughing matter? Her eyebrows furrowed as she stopped at the base of the stairs, her head turned to face the doors, despite Alistair calling her name in an effort to regain her focus on the task at hand, but his calls fell on deaf ears. She slowly approached the doors, the two guards standing outside them sharing a look before looking down at the woman, who reached out; fingers brushing the wood of the doors, curious...

The two guards moved, pushing the doors open for her, prompting them to swing open at the nod of Alistair, who had long given up on stopping her. The doors opened to reveal her brother and Lord Samwell sat at the table, caught mid-laughter as she entered; hands filled with goblets of what she could only assume was wine. Their laughs died down as their attention was suddenly turned to take in her startled appearance, her hand still raised to reach out in front of her as she looked between them. Lord Samwell cleared his throat, her brother and him both standing at her arrival, “My lady, what a surprise.” He greeted, his head bowing to her, a smile on his face. “Benjicot, here, was just telling us about his hunt.” He announced, his eyes landing on his son to his right, sitting directly across from her brother.

Her gaze followed his, landing on the man who resembled nothing of the boy she had once known -- a handsome man grown, tall and lean in build, with broad shoulders adorned by a blood stained tunic and cloak. His hands were still stained with dried blood as he lifted his own cup to his mouth, taking a large gulp of its contents as he let out a muffled chuckle with full cheeks. The sight of blood on such a handsome face, however could have made her sick to her stomach. 

“I thought you were asleep.” Kermit suddenly said, noticing her gaze frozen on the young man opposite of him, attempting to redirect the conversation as he stumbled over his chair in an effort to approach her. Her eyes only darted to him briefly as she watched him stagger towards her, obviously noticing his disheveled appearance and evident drunkenness. Benjicot’s gaze, too, followed his friend as he made his way across the room towards his younger sister, whose face screwed up in a look of disgust at her brother’s current state; the younger Blackwood Lord’s lips parted as the trace of a grin danced on the corners of his mouth, teeth bared as his tongue pressed against to the corner of his mouth. “We were just celebrating your marriage, here— sister, come toast with us.” Kermit slurred, stumbling into his sister, who reached out to catch him just as her brother slung an arm around her shoulders. 

Her gaze lingered on her brother who giggled stupidly, her eyes downcast as her cheeks heated from the embarrassment of his behavior -- if only their father had been there to witness it. 

Suddenly, Benjicot’s gruff voice spoke up, drawing attention from the three members of his audience as he stifled a laugh, “I have a toast. For my betrothed..” He announced, glancing around at the three as his eyes then stopped on her, catching her gaze and causing her cheeks to further burn. His words had even caused Samwell to stand at attention, eagerly awaiting his son’s next words as the young boy lord had to suppress a laugh, that same grin on his face as he then tilted his head. 

 "To my dear Lady Serra," he announced loudly enough for all to hear, "who, I am told, has a tongue as sharp as her needlework. Pray, let's hope she proves as skilled with her wifely duties as she is with her embroidery."

Kermit let out a drunken snort from beside her clearly not understanding the suggestion in his state, her body tensing and becoming rigid as she stared back at him, her eyes widening in horror at his words. Even his father, who she could make out in the corner of her eye, looked horrified, his cup faltering as it had risen to the toast; only to be slammed down onto the table as she stood frozen in shock that the words had even just come from his mouth, his mouth now preoccupied with gulping down the remainder of his drink before dropping the cup to his plate with a loud clatter that caused her to jump timidly. 

“Benjicot!” 

“Oh, father, please…” Benjicot began to say, amusement laced in his words as he began to walk away from his seat and in her direction, “I only jest. Surely, Lady Tully knows that.” He said, dismissing his father as he looked at the woman who began to grab her brother by his waist, teeth clenched and avoiding his gaze suddenly and beginning to back away in the direction of the door she had just come through. 

“Come, brother, I think it is time for bed.” She muttered, earning a laugh from Benjicot when Kermit stumbled over his own two feet in the attempt to turn around. Samwell quickly circled the table away from his seat, striding towards the pair with an outstretched hand. 

“Here, let me help you.” He stated, concern laced in his warm voice. 

“It is okay, we just…need to go to bed, right, Kermit?”

“Don’t be foolish, here.” Lord Samwell insisted, grabbing her brother’s opposite arm and hauling half his weight off her shoulders as he supported him in his walk towards the door and to the stairs to their rooms. “Alistair can help you both to your rooms-- I think we have all had enough for tonight.” Samwell stated, his head turning to look pointedly at his son.

Benjicot watched on as his father then exited the room, along with their sibling guests, pacing back towards the table where he leaned into it with his palms; preening to see watch as the doors were closed much to his disappointment -- though, he had caught a glimpse of Kermit standing up and waving off his sister as he clutched onto the staircase railing with a grumble. He let out a hum. 

He knew that the servants would have a hay day with the dining room when they arrived to tidy it, dried bloody hand prints smeared across the furniture and dishes, the floors soaked by the rain he’d dragged in with him as he seemed to leave a trail of water behind him. He hovered over the table that was nestled right perfectly in the center of the room, the torchlight above still faintly glowing but slowly dying out as he plucked through the contents of what was leftover from dinner, his gaze cast down on the table as his father hurried back into the dining room where they had been gathered; hearing his footsteps approach as the doors were closed behind him.

“Could you not have had the decency to be kinder to her?” Samwell asked, his voice low as he stood opposite the table to where his son stood. “You’re already covered in blood, the poor girl is probably already scared enough as is-- you are going to scare this one off and we cannot afford…”

“She was your choice, father, yours. Not mine.” Benjicot replied with a sigh, as he glanced into a jug he had found amidst the scraps to confirm that there was indeed wine left at least, his mouth turning upside down and eyebrows raising briefly with a subtle shrug — not much left but it would suffice for the heir, taking an empty goblet that clanked against dishes as he plucked it with his free hand. Benjicot turned the goblet upside down, dumping out any remaining traces of drink that had been leftover, “She’s…a half-witted moron. I do not see why I must be the one to marry her. Why not you?” He said, sighing as he reached for another couple of grapes from the table, tossing them into his mouth and washing them down with a gulp of wine. 

Samwell watched on as his son moved to sit, mouth partially agape in utter horror at his words. There was no doubt that Benjicot had not been keen to the idea of marriage these past couple of years -- not since his mother had passed, but there was no denying the shame his words brought their house. Samwell tensed, seething as he sucked in a sharp inhale as his gaze went to the doors that may have been the only source to conceal his insult from the prying ears of Kermit Tully and his sister; abruptly lunging forward and across the room towards his son, who had been mid-sit, however jumping straight back up on his feet just as his father reached him. The two men were suddenly face to face, Lord Samwell’s face screwed up in a scowl of disgust whilst grabbing the collar of his son’s cloak in a stumbled wrestle of Benjicot’s free hand coming up as if to shield himself with the still half full goblet in his other hand. 

“You— petulant, spoiled child.” Samwell hissed, shoving his son backwards on his feet, knocking him into the side of the chair he had once gone to sit in; an arm flying out to grasp for something to catch himself and instead losing the goblet that had been in his hand in a clatter of dishes and food being flung from the table to the floor. Benjicot’s eyes were wide as he stumbled back over the mess, his wine spilled somewhere between the table and floor, his sleeve stained and sticky against his wrist from the fall as he landed on his backside; left staring up at his father, who had let him go and caught himself against the table. 

His eyes wide, mouth open like a fish out of water, stuttering, “Wh- wha — ” he had begun to say, hurrying to stand back up on his feet, scuttling back a few steps as his father fought the urge to lunge for him again, Benjicot’s gaze going down to his legs; watching, waiting — like his training, awaiting his opponent's next move but yet cowering like a scared child as they stared back at one another, both breathing heavily in the aftermath. The servant girl who had entered to help with cleaning up had even been startled by the outburst and gone cowering out of the dining hall; seeking shelter in the kitchen with her cloth in her hands. Benjicot glanced towards the table and door quickly, his left hand wiping off the slick of wine on his tunic, squaring his shoulders as he attempted to stand upright, straight as a board and regain his usual composure that eluded some false facade that his father had not bested him and that he was brave even in the face of his rage. He swallowed, his mouth closing as he looked back at his father, who was still evidently stewing in his fury, his fist clenching finally as he let out a frustrated sigh that bounced off the walls. 

“Do you not understand how much I have done for you? To secure your future? As my heir?” Samwell growled, approaching his son again who took a quick two-step backward, nearly bumping into another chair, his feet banging into silverware that had fallen to the floor. Samwell Blackwood was typically a cool, level-headed man — never one to put a hand on his son, even when he acted up and defied his orders in his youth — but now, amidst the war looming near, something about his words had caused something inside him to snap. His shoulders slumped, relaxing, as his fist unclenched with another sigh as he took another couple of steps towards him, his hand reaching up to grab Benjicot’s face, “This war is bigger than just you and I, bigger than some childish feud over stones and boundary lines with the Brackens, Benjicot. The Brackens have declared for Aegon—”

Benjicot’s wide eyes stared at his father, swallowing thickly as he spoke, processing his words. Of course, the Brackens would declare for Aegon— 

“This will be a war of dragons. This war will bring all of the realm to its knees.” Samwell said, voice low enough that just the two of them could hear. His hand released his face, going to the back of his neck, “We must be prepared and find strength in our allies. Our house must live on. You must secure the longevity and future of this house— it is your birthright, Benjicot. Just as it was mine before, and my father’s before. If I die, this house is yours. Do you understand?” He muttered, his tone now pleading as he searched his son’s face, eyes wild and desperate as they awaited some response from him that suggested he understood. 

Benjicot felt as his father’s grip tightened around the nape of his neck, squeezing and giving him an abrupt shake that was more of a jerk, his eyes still wide in shock at his father’s outburst. His father’s eyebrows rose as he gave a weak, timid nod in reply, hesitant as he grits his teeth and clenched his jaw, “Yes?” 

Benjicot nodded again, more confidently this time, “I understand.” He said. 

Samwell hesitated, blinking a couple of times before he nodded too, releasing his son and frowning as he glanced down, mumbling something incoherent that resembled ‘good’ before he glanced at the mess he had made. Benjicot remained tense and frozen in place even after his hold was gone, hands falling to his sides as his father slowly receded towards the door that led back to where the Tullys were left, at the landing of the stairs. “Ser Eryn, see to it that this is…tidied up, fetch the servant girl. We are expecting guests tomorrow…for the heir’s betrothal feast.” He quietly said, approaching the guard who stood by the door, leaving his son in his spot as he withdrew to his chambers for the night. The guard nodded in response to his father’s order, not even glancing at Ben as he walked past the kitchen to fetch the girl as instructed. 

Ben waited for a few moments before he timidly followed his father’s path towards the door figuring he was best to get some rest ahead of the day’s festivities. He paused at the doors before opening them to smooth out his bloodied tunic, straightening his cloak and once again, squaring his shoulders as he stood upright and attempted to regain some sort of composure; knowing that Kermit and his Lady sister were presumably just behind those doors, waiting. He sucked in a deep breath with one last glance to the floor, his mouth pressed into a tight line; his bottom lip quivering for a moment as he stifled a cry, sniffling to himself once, twice… he lifted his head, using his sleeve to wipe his nose and blinking back any sign of weakness in the form of a tear before he shoved the door open and emerged from the dining room. There, as expected, Kermit and Serra stood, their eyes on him and failing to suppress their pitiful looks as Benjicot found his usual stoic gaze, and expression blank as he nodded his head in the direction of the siblings. 

Kermit’s expression hardened, nodding back in return, in part because he understood — a silent understanding between the two young men. Benjicot’s gaze then shifted to the girl who stood on the second to last stair, clutching onto the railing as the dying orange glow from the torches of the hall lit up her expression; her gaze softening as she looked on at him, her expression something of sadness, “Benjicot…” she quietly said, his name a breathy sound on her lips. 

“I apologize for my appearance, my lady. I did not anticipate you to already be here upon my return.” He gruffly said, voice quiet. “I would have cleaned up had I known.”

He held her eye, watching as the wheels turned in her brain, confused by his sudden change and reaction as she glanced around before blinking rapidly and nodding, “It’s alright, I…understand you were away on a hunt.” She mumbled, voice soft. 

“I assure you I will be cleaned up and much more presentable ahead of tomorrow’s celebrations.” He said, hesitating as he swallowed before taking the few steps to close the distance between them, his eyes darting briefly to Kermit who watched on; his eyes looking up at her from the end of the bottom step, their height difference only then balanced out by her leverage on the stairs as they were suddenly eye to eye for the first time. His right hand reached out for her left, inquiring as if to confirm it was okay before taking her hand in his, “You should get some rest. I will see you in the morrow.” He said, his gaze on hers as his head ducked, lifting her hand to his lips to press a gentle kiss to her knuckles before allowing her hand to drop from his. He watched as she gave him another timid nod just as he released her hand and began to walk up the stairs, brushing past her to withdraw to his bedchambers for the night, leaving the pair at the base of the stairs. 

Benjicot appreciated the awaiting bath drawn for him when he returned to his rooms more than he ever had and wanted nothing more than to wash the events of the day off of him as he undid the pin to his cloak; sliding the fabric from his shoulders and throwing it over a chair as he walked further into the room. His expression was blank as he stared into the flames of the fire that had been started to keep his room warm enough to his liking as he stripped down. Once he was fully naked, he approached the tub and stepped in, slowly sinking himself into the warmth of the water that came up to his chest once he was sat flush in the tub, his hands still gripping the ledges. Quickly, he could already see the blood that had stained itself into every little crevice of his skin wash off and rather, mingle into the water in diluted swirls as the dirt, grime and blood dyed the water. He sucked in a deep breath before sliding forward, submerging his head under the water.

TAGLIST: @deltamoon666 @drwho-ess @callsigncrushx @clarityisnofun @jhepolie @juhdoche , @username199945

[cameronspecial]

Loving the Zach stuff so far!!!

Could you maybe do something where yn hates his guts, but he is like in love with her and all her sass?? Then they're forced to go on some school trip together or something, and she realizes she likes him and a cute angry love confession, perhaps???

Danke 🫶🏼💐

Thank You, History Class

Pairing: Zach MacLaren x Reader

Warnings: N/A

Pronouns: She/Her

Word Count: 1.2K

Masterlist

Y/N and Zach have been running in the same friend group since Freshman year, but it doesn’t mean they necessarily get along. Well, it doesn’t mean that she likes him. His sarcasm and puppy dog vibe annoys her cool and distant personality. He’s always asking her how her day is going and trying to make her laugh with his stupid jokes. Zach, on the other hand, fell for her grumpy soul the moment he set eyes on her. Unlike most people, who don’t bother looking deeper into her personality, Zach could see the soft side that she held within and never let anyone see. He would always catch how she would stand up from her bus seat when she saw an elderly person. She wouldn’t let people around her know it was the reason, but she always did. He saw the little bowl of milk she left outside her house for a cat mother and her kittens. Finally, he saw how sweet she was to children whenever they were around her. 

Zach didn’t want to take a history class and he certainly didn’t feel like going on a field trip to a museum. It all felt very high school to him. The only upside about it: Y/N is also taking the same class. When he saw that he needed a history credit to graduate, he definitely didn’t go looking for what classes she was taking this semester to try and be in the same one. The cost was giving Jason access to his bathroom whenever he wanted, but it was worth it. He knows the field trip isn’t mandatory for any marks, yet he knows Y/N is going to be there. As he heads toward the Victorian house, he finds Y/N out front waiting for the professor to show up. Her clothing consists of black and brown colours as usual. Her hair was held back by a shiny black claw clip. 

“Fancy seeing you here,” he grins, coming to stand beside her. She gives him a side eye, “Could you be more cliche? Try something more original, would ya? I still can’t believe you are taking this class.” He doesn’t let her sour mood dampen his energy. “Come on, you know you like having me with you in this class. The only other people in this class are girls who have a romanticized view of the era, or guys, who have a history stick so far up their ass that they think a history degree will take them far in life,” he notes, turning to look at her. She looks him dead in the eyes, “I’m a history major. And I am neither of those things.” “I know, that’s because you are so much better than them. You are far too smart for them,” he flatters. She shakes her head, turning her attention to the professor who has just arrived, “Flattery won’t get you anywhere.” The professor leads them into the museum and begins his lecture. After ten minutes of listening to the man speak, both Y/N and Zach realized that coming was a big waste of time. He doesn’t know what he is talking about and Zach can hear Y/N constantly correcting the older man under her breath. 

He leans toward her, making sure his lips are close to her ear. “Wanna go on our own little tour? This man is getting half of this stuff wrong.” She thinks she has lost her mind because this must be the first thing Zach has said that she thought was a good idea. “That actually sounds kind of fun. They have a Victorian fashion exhibit I want to see, but I don’t think Professor Robo over there is going to take us to,” she whispers back. Her hand finds his and she hates to admit she likes the warmth of his in hers. They round the stairs to the exhibit. She looks delighted when she spots the first mannequin with clothes. Her feet find their way beside a girl about six years old, already looking at the dress. The child’s eyes find Y/N’s face and they smile at each other. “You know, this is an 1843 Evening dress. The bodice, the thing around the chest, is low off the shoulders. And they have lots of other skirts underneath to make it poofy,” Y/N softly explains to the little girl. 

They spent around thirty minutes in the small room. Y/N walks around with Willow and Zach, explaining each outfit to them. She is surprised that Zach seemed honestly engaged with what she was saying and would ask thoughtful questions. Eventually, Willow’s mother, an employee, came looking for her and took the girl to lunch. “Do you want to head to lunch?” she asks. He shakes his head, “Actually, I was hoping we could look at the Victorian sports exhibit. I brought some snacks, so if you are hungry, we can share.” He pulls out a bag of cucumbers shaped like hearts. She has to giggle at the sight because big jock Zach MacLaren likes to have his vegetable cut into shapes. 

“What?” he questions in fake offence, holding out the Ziploc to her. She shakes her head with a chuckle, “Nothing, just surprised your cucumbers look like an inaccurate depiction of a human organ.” “They make them taste better. Try,” he says with a shrug. He hands her a slice and listens to the sweet crunch of her biting into the vegetable. “Okay… I must admit it is more fun to eat it like a heart. I can pretend I’m a witch eating people’s hearts,” she agrees. He doesn’t look disturbed by her macabre comments, instead, he pretends to be ripping out his heart as he hands her another slice. She enjoys him playing with her deadly thoughts.

They spent about an hour looking at the different displays, eating his snacks and taking turns reading the display’s blurbs to each other. As they stand on the steps of the museum, Y/N towers over him from the step above. He looks up at her like she hangs the stars in the sky. “I hate to admit that you made this day pretty fun,” she confides. Her hands find their way behind her back, biting her lip as she looks into his eyes. His mouth turns into a crescent moon, “I’m really glad I did. I like spending time with you.” She takes a moment to think and moves her head away in frustration. Not at him, but at the turmoil inside her mind. Why is his charming smile suddenly getting to her? Why does she want to step into his warmth and let his arms bring her in? “Ugh, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I’m falling for you, MacLaren. So… would you want to go to dinner? Like on a date,” she confesses with a hint of annoyance in her tone that is just normally there. She is disgusted by the excitement that crosses his face. He gets off the steps, running around the green grass in front of the building. He jumps every so often with a little whoop let out as he does so. 

He rushes back to her, grabbing her around her waist and spinning her around. She finds the sound of her giggles odd but enjoys it nonetheless. “Way to keep a poker face,” she sasses, looking down at him. He doesn’t care though all he wants is a chance to be with her.

Taglist: @winterrrnight @loves0phelia

[whateverisbeautiful]

♥️ Ranking Richonne

#3: Have Your Mints (S6E10)

✨TOP 3!✨

Wow. 😍 Let’s just start there. Oh this moment is perfect and I wouldn’t have Rick and Michonne officially become Richonne any other way. This is one of those mesmerizing scenes that is guaranteed to make my heart flutter every time I see it no matter how many times I’ve seen it. The joy radiating from them in this extremely significant moment is beautiful to behold. This scene set off a 'canon' heard around the world and history was made as Rick and Michonne finally let all that love and desire for each other completely pour out. Three words best describe this gorgeous scene to me - euphoric, soul-stirring, and, of course, iconic...

With so much build-up from season 3 to this moment on their living room couch, it was perfect that all it took was some mints and finally holding hands for all that blazing passion between Rick and Michonne to be released.

After nine months of knowing each other, it was time for Richonne's canon era to be born. 🥳

And if you wanna talk about scenes that are instrumental to the making of Richonne, few are more instrumental than this one right here, where the two joyously embrace that the love of their life has been right in front of them all this time. 🥹

Ok so first, I quickly want to talk about the beautiful scene between Carl and Michonne on their porch in this ep. It is such a sweet profession of the love those two have for each other and their mother/son bond, and I adore that Judith was included in this scene too.

I always think about how Michonne and Carl hug at the end of the scene, but I had forgotten Judith is right there in that hug too. And I love this moment because it’s this great visual of the way Michonne is so clearly the Grimes matriarch to these two children. They’re hers. 🥰 She loves them so much and it’s clear they love her so much too (Also my ears hear that adorable baby girl say 'Michonne' at the start of this scene every time lol 😂)

And this moment with her Grimes kids just really makes it feel like all that’s left is for Michonne to embrace that she also has a whole Grimes husband waiting for her too. And thank goodness that’s exactly what is embraced at the end of the episode. 🤗

It’s always so telling that the scene starts with Rick clearly tired but plopping down on the couch instead of just going to bed. He’s waiting for her.👌🏽

And Michonne was waiting for him too as she entered with the baby monitor. Like Danai said, Michonne wants Rick home. 🥰

I adore the way this whole episode establishes the deep comfortability Rick and Michonne have built with each other. Like their morning and night routine in this ep just shows they really feel at home with each other.

I love how she gently kicks him and says move and, of course, this has Rick looking more awake as he gets up to make room for her on the couch. I like getting this insight into how they’ve spent these last two weeks and how Rick and Michone clearly enjoy starting and ending the day together. 🥰

And then I love that she sits so close to him on the couch and shows him their daughter practicing crawling in her crib. And the way they both smile and move their heads in sync. PARENTS. (Also just imagine them looking at a baby monitor of RJ together 😭😭😭)

I love Rick saying, "it’s good to be home" and that Michonne agrees - and truly home is more than four walls and a roof, home is with each other, and Rick and Michonne know it.

Rick is such a family man, and I love how he cherishes these familial moments just being home with her and their kids. It’s painful knowing he’s gone without that for several years when what he wants most in life is to be with them.  

Side note: I just have to say, I feel like what Rick stans who dismiss Michonne and their kids tend to miss is that all that cool warrior stuff Rick does is stuff he does because he has to. And it's super entertaining and we all love him for it absolutely, but he savagely throws down like that cuz he has no choice in their world. When he’s at home decompressing with Michonne or having family fun days with her and his kids - this is the stuff Rick does because he wants to. Like this is who he most wants to be. Having these moments with them is what drives the character and motivates all those cool action moments that Rick-only stans love. His wife and kids are his "why" and the "why" is vital because it makes "what" the characters do matter. Rick's wife and kids are why he keeps going and keeps fighting. And that’s a big reason why I celebrate that Rick found such a wonderful love story and family with Michonne because it’s what this protagonist most wanted.  A character’s core want is so important to a show. And what is always made clear is that what Rick wants at his core is Michonne and their family. So we love him so much for being a fighter but we also adore him for being who he truly is - which is a devoted family man. And if you really want the character of Rick Grimes to win in this story, then you don’t just want him to win the battles. You want him to have what he wants. And again, what Rick Grimes wants is Michonne Grimes and their family. That can't be denied. That can't be overlooked. And when anyone tries to dismiss it...Rick's character happily re-reminds everyone of this every chance he gets.👌🏽

Knowing how much family is a part of Rick and Michonne's core wants and needs, contributes to why it's so rewarding seeing the two finally go after what they most want in this 6.10 canon ep. 😌

I love the Richonne tones as they talk but don’t talk about their days cuz they both are open to hearing about the other's day but are on the same page about wanting to just relax for a bit.

Whenever Rick and Michonne are alone together there is often this desire to just be present in the moment which I appreciate. And just their ease as they decompress together - you know it means so much to them to have found a bond like this with someone who makes you feel safe, heard, and comfortable in this broken world.

Like to turn your brain off for a minute in the apocalypse is such a rarity, and it's refreshing that they can do that with each other. 😊

The way they can just sit side by side and silently enjoy being in each other's presence in the calm and quiet here - that’s real love. Also, Michonne’s curious face when Rick then dishes the mints out of his pocket will always make me smile. 😋

Rick says, "got you something" and hands Michonne the mints and I love the way it’s shot with the emphasis on their hands. It reminds me of the emphasis on their hands in Clear when she handed him a bullet and a spark was so clearly felt. And now, seasons later, they will finally act on that spark. 🙌🏾✨

It’s precious the way Michonne playfully takes the mints and the laugh they share, with Rick clearly happy that he could make her smile with this. I always liked that bringing home the mints was Rick caring to not just fulfill a survival need, but a personal want that Michonne had. He loves her, y’all. 🥰

And it’s sweet that at this point, Rick did this with zero ulterior motives. He didn’t know this would be the night. (Even tho earlier in this ep he does happen to tell Daryl "today is still the day" or something, which made me laugh cuz uh...little did he know😋)

As they smiled over mints on this couch, it was clear that making Michonne happy was the sole goal. And Rick seems genuinely pleased to have achieved it. 👌🏽

This moment also just made me think back to when Michonne playfully teased Rick with a razor in season 4, and Rick sorta had this nervous energy as he gave a little smile. For seasons, Michonne has always been the best at reminding Rick to smile, and what's sweet is that in this canon ep, Rick doesn't just do shy smiles anymore - no, now he grins from ear to ear over Michonne. 😊

And their banter is just the best as she amusedly asks if this is instead of the toothpaste and he playfully says yeah then tells her he actually did have a whole crate of toothpaste for her it’s just currently at the bottom of a lake.

I always love that he says he had a crate of toothpaste "...for you." I knew when Rick found toothpaste in that truck his first thought was Michonne, and I love that he can never help but reveal that she and her wants are important to him.

It is beyond sweet that in this world, Rick’s romantic heart still manages to gift Michonne and find ways to make her smile. Real one. I'll always love that he's so aware of how special she is. Rick gets gifts for Michone because he knows she is such a gift to him. 🥹

Then I adore the way Michonne looks at him as he hints at the whole lake debacle and then forever love her saying, "Oh so you had a day?" 😋 They are the best, and I like how they can really show their personality with each other. And Danai's delivery was perfect yet again.

Rick says, "Yeah all on account of your dental hygiene," and I love that one thing Rick Grimes is always going to find time to do from season 3 forward is flirt with Michonne. Apocalypse be damned lol.

And Michonne smiles, clearly a smitten kitten by that man Rick cuz who wouldn’t be. And Rick has these little content glances over at her as he smiles upon seeing her happy. 🥹 Again, her happiness genuinely means something to him, and I appreciate these loving glances for further conveying that.

And as Rick smiles, it really feels like it’s him knowing, not subconsciously but cognizantly knowing, that he’s in love with her.

No speculation needed. He's in love, your honor. 😌 

And because those magnets can’t ever be denied, Rick proceeds to pat Michonne's hand and say, "Have your mints." And then Michonne ever so gently takes his hand.

And that’s all it took for history to be made. 🥳🎉

Truly the sparks between Rick and Michonne had been so strong for so long that all it took was a single moment of them actually letting a moment of touch linger for the fireworks to be set all the way off.

Like the shot focuses on the handhold, but had their been footage of R&M's hearts in this moment it would have for sure looked like this...

And I love how after Rick makes the move to touch her, Michonne takes his hand, and then Rick is ready for those mints to exit stage left as he more than reciprocates in fully holding her hand. 

Once again their hands gave a great performance of their own, cuz this handhold really told a story. 👌🏽

Like starting with Rick instinctually patting her hand in this innate need to touch her and Michonne instinctually taking his hand as though she was no longer resisting what felt most natural for her to do.

And then the two of them letting this touch linger a bit as tho they have a decision to make at this moment - just pass this off as a (fiery) fleeting moment or not let go and instead let what is meant to be finally be.

You see Rick then initiate in showing he doesn’t want to let go as he more deliberately holds her hand. And I love that by not letting go of each other's hand, it’s all the two needed to know that in a figurative sense they also never want to let go of each other. 🥹

Then the way they stay looking into each other's eyes, communicating so much without words before they lean in - it’s beautiful and lets you know that what they're about to do is such a meaningful, personal, long-time-coming moment for both of them.

Michonne looks over at him, and I’ve noticed that for several TWD reactors, her look here is when they realized Rick and Michonne have not in fact been 'uggin' bumplies' before this moment and that what they’re about to do is actually a first.

So much of R&M's behavior in this ep made it clear they’d been a couple for a while. This physical part of the relationship was really just the final piece of the marriage puzzle finally locking into place.

The way Rick smiles right at her while looking so sure about this. 😍 Like there’s just zero uncertainty about how he feels about her. He knows confidently that she is what he wants. They say when you know, you know - and Rick knows. She's the one for him. He's been knowing.

Then it's precious that in this shot of Michonne, you can practically see the exact moment she realizes in Rick's eyes that he's been wanting this just as much as she has. Danai plays this moment just before the kiss so well, communicating everything with her eyes.

So then Michonne smiles at him with those pretty eyes glowing as they finally lean in for their iconic first kiss. 

🤩😍🤩😍😭🤩😍🤩😍😭🤩😍🤩😍😭🤩😍

Now you know it's physically impossible to not happy dance real quick. i gotta do it. 😋

This first kiss is absolute GOLD. 🔥

I really do see that “of course” moment that Andy and Danai talked about cuz it just looks like they’re thinking of course it’s always been you.

As I’ve said before, to me this couch moment is not where Rick and Michonne first realize their own feelings for each other, as I think they been knew that, especially within the last two weeks - but rather this couch scene is where they finally realize, at the exact same time, that the feeling is very much mutual.

So still holding hands, Rick and Michonne lean in for that kiss that is utter perfection and just keeps getting better.

I love that Richonne's canon era started with a handhold that unsurprisingly turned into the most passionate first kiss of all damn time. 😊

And y'all, I’m watching this scene back to write this post, and I have to admit the moment they first kiss I literally gasped like it’s not my thousandth time seeing this moment. 🤭 Just goes to show...

I love the way the kiss starts off just so slow and intimate and of course ramps up. Cuz you know once these soulmates open this door it ain’t ever closing again. 

Every good adjective comes to mind when thinking of this kiss. And let me tell you, this is the first kiss of two people who have wanted to kiss each other for a long time. 💯

Also, the fact that this was the actors not wanting to overthink it and just let the moment play out as organically as possible and this is the level of passion that came from that...no words. Just applause.

I adore everything about this equally hot and heartfelt moment. The natural progression. The quietness and the music. The way they can’t stop looking at each other. The way they can’t stop smiling at each other. (Their smiles throughout might be my favorite part. #PureBliss.) The unscripted impromptu moment the show kept in between Andy and Danai, with 'Rick' gently saying wait a minute because his gun holster was in the way, and 'Michonne' laughing. (The best soulmates are best friends too, and I feel like their reaction to this little 'hiccup' moment inadvertently ended up nicely reflecting that. 😊)

The way they so intently and lovingly take each other in. The way they both equally feel like “finally.” The steamy passion as it goes from a first kiss to more. 

The hunger for each other. 🔥 (Especially from Slick Rick. Truly, I forget sometimes that we’d ever seen Rick kiss before this because the passion Michonne brought out of that man was different in the best way. 👌🏽 And I love that the second Rick had the greenlight, he let Michonne know exactly how much he's been yearning for her).

The way it was so clear that this person in front of them is their best friend but also is so much more - this person is their soulmate, the greatest love of their life. 😭

It was and is amazing to see the immense love and desire they have for each other pour all the way out after all the build-up throughout the previous seasons. I'm forever in awe.

And no matter who claims to not see the chemistry (which to me requires an urgent optometrist appointment if someone still can't see it tbh) it'll always be factual that the characters of Rick and Michonne deeply love and desire each other in every possible way.

This special scene immediately proved that all that chemistry and tension sensed from Rick and Michonne pre-canon was not only really there but would be amplified perfectly once they acted on it.

Whenever I think about Richonne's story from the very beginning to this canon moment here, it never fails to warm my heart and make me emotional because it is just absolutely moving that their journey led them to each other in this way.

This moment will forever be beautiful and a big deal both for the characters, the series, and honestly for television as a whole. #NotAnExaggeration.

The scene was a gorgeous moment of love prevailing in a show that is more often grim and gruesome. And it's a rewarding moment for these two characters to receive a major win by officially letting their romance ascend to new heights as they embrace being the married couple they've been for the longest.

Richonne's canon moment more than delivers and even gives us a bit more when they cut to that work-of-art scene featuring Rick and Michonne asleep in bed together, all tangled up cuz magnets don’t ever quit even when they’re sleeping. 🧲😊

And even with Jesus' bold self barging into their room, they both show that the Get Things Done Grimes are still ready to stand on business at a moment's notice when they swiftly hop out of bed with their signature weapons.

See, Rick and Michonne are great at being the cutest love birds, but they're also great at being...

We got us a ship that can do both. 😋

And while Gimple was behind my least favorite decision the show ever made - killing Carl (😞) - he's also behind my absolute favorite decision TWD ever made by putting Richonne together as a romantic couple. So Gimple, for your Richonner heart, I'm grateful. 👌🏽

Also, hearing Andy and Danai discuss this whole couch moment is truly as swoon-worthy as the scene itself. Like every time I come across their heartfelt reflections on this moment, my heart completely melts. 😍

Again, we’re so fortunate to have Danai and Andy as both the talented actors bringing these characters to life and as the passionate, thoughtful captains of this glorious ship. The way they always value and champion Richonne is just the best. 🥰

Everything about Rick and Michonne's iconic canon ep let us know that the power couple to end all power couples was finally here and here to stay. And I will always treasure this impeccable, beautiful, passionate, and game-changing scene where Richonne officially took flight. 🥳💜

[jmdbjk]

Cannot wait...

Still a month away from watching these two be their adorable goober selves together:

I keep telling everyone around me I'm going to be insufferable for a while, with Jimin and Muse coming soon and then these two together, week after week ... makes me giddy. Sorry, not sorry.

We'll get teasers. I'm going to squee over all of those as well. Again, sorry, but not very sorry at all actually.

All of it takes me back to when I realized JK's 2022 Vlog was going to be centered around camping. Honestly? I was a little surprised. He has never come across as the outdoorsy type to me. But he'd never had the chance to express much of what interests him outside of BTS and outside of what we saw on various content through the years either!

This series of vlogs helped us see each member doing things they chose to do on their own and helped kick off the "solo" era in 2022.

Jungkook's delight in stopping at Korea's version of Buc-ee's and buying gas station food and eating to his heart's content was oddly satisfying. Maybe because I take great pleasure in doing such simple things too, after all, the best part of a road trip is stopping to buy snacks along the way, am I right? The service area where they stopped is called the Gapyeong Service area on the Seoul-Yangyang Expressway (60). These places are like a food court/mini mall. Just like Buc-ee's.

I am already laughing at the thought of he and Jimin stopping at a grocery store to buy deli pizza in Connecticut... IT'S GOING TO BE WOEFULLY SUBSTANDARD I FEAR!

In his 2022 vlog, Jungkook helped set up the camper he slept in and cooked and sat around the campfire drinking. And we know in past Bon Voyage seasons and other content, they've pitched tents and slept outdoors. All of these things he must have immensely enjoyed if we might be seeing them again soon with Jimin.

Then there's the recent story going around about someone spotting he and Jimin returning their rental car in Japan and learning Jungkook was driving... Jungkook got to drive on the "wrong" side of the road in Japan! He put that international driver's license to use finally!

From the preview clip the other day, it appears Jungkook also got to practice his motorcycle handling skills. Handling a Harley Davidson is a bit trickier than handling a smaller motorcycle. Those things are heavy. And it's a little different when you have a passenger sitting behind you. The two Harley helmets we saw sitting on the edge of his sofa last year... yep, he's had practice.

TMI: I was today year's old when I learned that motorcycles are banned on major roadways in Korea.

Are we going to see how Jimin scraped his knuckles while snorkeling on Jeju?

And that nekkid-in-bed live when Jungkook was begging him to come over and Jimin told him to look at the photo he sent... did Jimin get a black eye from being elbowed when they were sleeping?

And as I was running through my blog posts, I realized all of these things I previously said last year:

Me wondering if their trip to Japan was unstructured and spur of the moment...

I wondered if Closer Than This was a pre-release to an upcoming album...

I'm thankful to Tae for bringing JK along with his Wooga friends to that ski resort back in 2022. We can't know if JK had ever snowboarded before that but it appears he loved it enough to want to stick around long after they left him there. And now he had the chance to do it again with Jimin! I know they had so much fun together. At the beginning of this year, I pointed out some fun facts about Sapporo...

Skiing? Snowboarding? All of the above?

And save this for future reference, it's the onsen resort image we heard about and I mentioned in a weekly Bangtan report this past February....

Maybe none of the above will be accurate, but thinking about how much fun they had anyway has me very excited for August 8.

[giovanareadshere]

💖🔪 Rot, Rage, and Glitter

We All Rot Eventually by Mia Ballard

📚 Finished Reading: We All Rot Eventually

📏 Length: 98 pages

💫 Vibe: Slasher core ambition, femme villainy, blood soaked hunger for fame

“Tomorrow, I tell myself. Tomorrow will change everything… It means people saying my name like it means something, saying it with reverence, like a secret they get to hold in their mouths.”

— Alexa Valentine

First, let's talk about Alexa. Fuckin. Valentine.👏🏾👏🏾

She’s sharp-tongued, bloodthirsty, and on the verge of exploding. From the first page, she’s already halfway feral. Hungry. Determined. The kind of girl who’s stared into the abyss and said, Make me famous, I don’t care the cost.

This was my first horror novella and I tore through it in one sitting. Just 98 pages of gore, glitter, and full throttle delusion. TikTok recommended it based on Camp Damascus, and honestly? A perfect match. But where Camp Damascus whispers its horror, this one screams. 😱😱

The best part? Alexa gave me serious Maxine Minx energy. 🧨

If you’ve seen X or MaXXXine, you already know what kind of obsession I’m talking about. That dangerous, unstoppable hunger for fame. That “I don’t care who I have to kill, I will be remembered forever” mindset. Both Alexa and Maxine are femme, fierce, and deep in their villain girl era; spinning in blood and rhinestones, and fucking daring you to look away.

“The thing told me to do it, and I listened because it was right. We all rot eventually. We all fall apart. Why should I feel bad about trading blood for glory?” 😈😏

Damnnnn. That line from this read lived rent free in my head for hours after finishing!

The horror in this novella is fast paced; it slashes, splatters, a rollercoaster ride with sharp turns, but so does the commentary. It’s about fame. Power. The desperation to be famous is front and center . Alexa’s spiraling monologues feel like a mirror held up to every girl who’s ever been underestimated, overlooked, or told to be quiet, especially as an Afro Latina. She doesn’t just want the spotlight. She wants to set the stage on fire and watch it burn to the ground.

“Fame is a fire, and I want to burn with it until there’s nothing left.”

Say less Alexa!

This book reads like a slasher where the final girl is also the monster, and you’re still rooting for her. It’s brutal. It’s glittery. It’s unhinged in the most fun way. And Alexa’s voice? Loud, clear, hella unforgettable. I could hear her laughing at the edge of every page.

“I am famous. Alexa Valentine will be famous after this.”

And honestly? I believe her. 😭

This book gave me:

🔪 Femme rage and fame hunger

💖 Unapologetic villain era

🩸 Glitter and gore, teeth and lipstick

🔥 Monologues that bite

📺 Fame as obsession, as prophecy

🧠 Psychological unraveling that hits hard

Final thoughts:

Short but deadly. Like a blood soaked manifesto for every girl who’s ever wanted to be remembered and didn’t care what it cost. Mia Ballard snapped. I’ll be reading everything she writes next.

[thegettingbyp2]

Sorry if this is too basic!!! please could we have an aaron tveit best friends -> both secretly crushing -> one night stand -> dating fic? maybe they're both celebs who the media is used to seeing together, then things seem different/reader comes out/goes into his apartment etc and suspicions are raised? also preferably 2016/braindead era aaron!! ty!

No Use Hiding

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‘You know, I’ve always thought you were beautiful,’ Aaron said, slurring his words slightly. You were both out with some of Aaron’s co-stars, celebrating wrapping up filming for season one of Braindead. Even though you weren’t in the show, Aaron had brought you to set practically every day. You’d been best friends for years, neither of you picking up on the crushes you harboured for one another.

‘You know exactly what to say,’ you replied, giggling slightly. The two of you had been left alone at the table while everyone else went over to the dance floor and all of the drinks and shots you’d both had were quickly catching up to you.

‘That’s me,’ he said, laughing. Without thinking, he leaned in closer to you and your senses were suddenly filled with everything Aaron.

Before either of you were able to register anything, Aaron had cleared what little remaining space was between you and pressed your lips together. Despite the alcohol that was currently clouding your thoughts, you froze for a second, never thinking that something like this would happen and Aarons hand came out to cup the back of your neck, deepening the kiss as you let yourself relax into him. You shivered as you felt his tongue sweep along your bottom lip and the second you parted your lips, you could taste the alcohol and a mix of something that was distinctly Aaron on your tongue.

Your fingers reached out and twisted in his shirt as you pressed yourself closer to him, your grip keeping you firmly in place when the two of you broke apart to catch your breath. ‘Wanna come back to mine?’ Aaron asked, his hand still on the back of your neck as he tilted your head until your hazy gaze met his.

‘Yeah,’ you replied dumbly, too caught up in the kiss and being in such close proximity to Aaron. Aaron smiled and pressed one last peck to your lips before getting up from his chair and holding his hand out to you. You took his hand and let him lead to out of the bar. The bar you were at wasn’t too far from Aaron’s place so you both decided to walk, the cold air hitting you both straight away, leading to the two of you having to lean against each other.

The second the front door was closed behind you both, Aaron had you pressed up against the wall, his lips on yours and your legs wrapped around his waist. One of his hands slipped underneath your skirt as he brushed his fingers against your inner thigh, chuckling against your lips when he felt your thighs tighten around his waist and a whimper escape your lips.

‘How about we take this upstairs?’ he mumbled, pressing you further against the wall.

‘Lead the way.’

---

Your eyes fluttered open and it took you a couple of seconds before you realised that you weren’t in your own bed. Waking up a little more, you looked around the room before your gaze landed on Aaron’s sleeping form laying in the bed next to you. And that’s when it all came rushing back to you. Going home with Aaron, making out in his hallway and the way his body felt pressed against yours when he finally got you in his bed.

‘Morning,’ Aaron’s rough voice came from next to you, startling you out of your thoughts. You looked over at him and realised that he was shirtless and that was the first moment that you realised that you were naked under the soft duvet cover and you felt a sudden wave of shyness take over you as you tightened the duvet around your body.

‘Morning,’ you replied, ‘last night when,’ you began before Aaron was quick to cut you off.

‘I know, look, if you want to just pretend that this never happened, that’s fine.’

‘I don’t want that.’ Aaron looked back at you, a small frown on his face and you took a deep breath, knowing that if you didn’t say it now, you never would. ‘I’ve…liked you…as more than a friend, for a while now. And I don’t know how you feel, if you feel the same way, or even if you want to forget all about this, but I don’t. I’d actually quite like to see where this goes.’

Instead of replying, Aaron moved closer to you in the bed, pulling you close so he could press a gentle kiss to your lips. Your hands came out to rest on his neck and you were incredibly aware of the fact that you were both naked. ‘I’d like that you,’ he said, smiling at you when you broke the kiss.

You’d spent the rest of the morning in bed, cuddled up together and exploring the new dynamic in your relationship, only dragging yourselves away from each other when it was mid-afternoon and you had to go back to your place to get ready for work. Aaron followed you to the front door, trying everything to get you to stay and you knew that if you didn’t have work later, you would have let him persuade you back into bed.

‘You can always come back here after your shift,’ Aaron said, lifting your hand up to his lips and kissing the back of your hand.

‘I don’t finish until 3am, you’ll be asleep.’

‘I’ll wait up,’ he said, slipping the spare key into your hand.

‘We’ll see,’ you replied, smiling at him as you opened the door, stepping out onto the front steps before turning back around to face him. ‘I’m excited about this.’

‘Me too,’ he said softly, kissing you once more until he let you walk down the street, only closing the door again once you had rounded the corner. Neither of you had noticed the people hanging around outside the house, too caught up in each other to notice the cameras that were pointed at you both.

It wasn’t until you’d slipped into bed next to Aaron at 3:30am, not until he pulled you into him as soon as you were underneath the duvet and whispered in your ear that you found out about the photos.

‘What are we going to do?’ you asked, your faces centimetres away from each other in the darkness of the bedroom.

‘Well, there’s no use in hiding it, I think we just tell people what’s going on,’ he said, kissing you once again.

[popculturebuffet]

Mutant Month: The 2021 Hellfire Gala: The X-Men Conquer Mars: Comissioned by WeirdKev27

Hello all you happy mutants and welcome to our big finale to Mutant Month! Over this month we've taken a look at the X-Men's first apperance in animation, one of their greatest stories ever and the debut of one of the greatest x-men period, so it's only fit to end this monumental mutanty month with some fireworks: We're taking a look at the first annual Hellfire Gala, aka one of the x-men stories I brought up the most for some time: that time the x-men colonized mars, now known as planet Arakko.

For those of you who like Kev, who comissioned this, stopped for a second from scrolling and went

Allow me to present you with the grand tale of how Mutantkind terraformed an entire planet as a one two punch of solving a massive looming diplomatic crisis... and using it as the big main event of their version of the met gala. Your invitation is on the table, so take it with me, get your flowers pinned on so you can go through the gate, and join the party under the cut. Afterparty on Arakko bitches.

Well, How Did We Get Here?

So to get to the Hellfire Gala I have to get into the krakoan era of x-men, an era tha'ts reaching it's twilight but is still ongoing and has been one of my favorites in comics.

This era of X-History comes after a fairly bleak time in x-men comics: See in the mid 2010's, Marvel tried outright dismantling the x-men. Since the MCU didn't have the rights to them, Marvel was trying hard to not give Fox any more ammo, forgetting they still got mech money out of the x-men existing. They also just outright canceled fantastic four. Because who needs the founding family of the marvel universe if we can't merch the hell out of them amirite?

So despite the X-Men having JUST WARDED OFF EXTINCTION a few years ago, post secret wars they decided to push the Inhumans , anothe rgroup of superpowered beings they'd already set up clevery and uniquely as their own thing last era without stepping on the x-men's toes, as the new x-men and to shoe out the old.

What followed.. is one of the dumbest things i've seen in all of comics. So to push the Inhumans.. they decided the best way was to make the cloud of terrigen mist that created new inhumans... TOXIC TO MUTANTS. So that the Inhumans were casually allowing a toxic murder cloud to kill tons of people.. just to keep more of them existing.

I.. cannot find the words for how tonedeaf, short sighted and just plain moronic this was. You can't just.. kill one group to make another group popular. Queen didn't consume the beating hearts of all four beetles to become awesome. They just were. And the inhumans books.. were GOOD. Charles Soule was doing an utterly fantastic job on them and continued to for the entire run. You didn't need this shit. Instead it sunk the inhumans so that the followup, Royal, by one of my favorite writers in all of comics Al Ewing, got cut short and the inhumans were then mostly killed and those left put into exile. Except Lockjaw. Everyone loves a giant teleporting dog monster. He could stay.

Afterwords while Disney didn't have the rights back YET, Marvel realized they couldn't just magically flimflam fans and tried a half hearted attempt at boosting the x-men: They returned to sorta prominence.. but the new runs weren't given a huge push in the marvel universe as whole. We got the underrated classics X-Men Blue and Iceman, the former finishing up Cullen Bunn's awesome magneto trilogy and the latter redefining Bobby now he was an out and proud gay man, but the other flagship book at the time, yes there were two, x-men gold had a great status quo (Kitty Pryde as Xavier's School headmistress and x-men leader, and the institute now being located in central park), but was given to Mark Guggenhiem instead of a more compitent hand, resulting in a series long rehash of better stories... and one actually GOOD story mixed in.

It was clear while Marvel was willing to use the x-men again, they needed to actually use their whole ass. Enter Jonathan Hickman. For those not familiar with him

Jonathan Hickman is one of the best writer's in comics, and has had storied runs on all three of Marvel's biggest teams, all having a major impact and all really dang good, with a knack for longterm plotting, high sci fi concepts and quotable as hell lines and arc phrases. Hickman left marvel after Secret Wars 2015, his grand finale to his avengers run and intended as an end to his time at marvel so he could move on to new horizons, planning to give the compettition a ring. And while sadly that meant we didn't get what would've been likely THE definitive teen titans run, though i'm sure we'll get it some day as DC would be nuts not to let him do it, Marvel simply had an offer too tempting for him to pass up: Run the X-Men.

Something I never knew before his interviews for this era.. is that while Jonathan Hickman liked marvel... he never really read most of their comics before his runs. When he did Fantastic Four and Avengers, he studied heavily. Granted it shows how good a writer he is that it dosen't show and he clearly gained an apprceation for both. It's also a NEEDED reminder for comic book writers: YOU CAN JUST RESEARCH SOMETHING YOU DON'T KNOW. I know it sounds obvious but plenty of writers , Brian Micheal Bendis in paticular, don't seem to understand that.

For X-Men though, they were his intro into comics, the books he picked up as a kid. The playset he always wanted but during his first run at marvel the timing just never synched up. So Hickman gathered a crack team of writers and took an approach I feel most lines in comics should follow: he set up a writer's room, allowing the writers of all the books to bounce ideas off each other, which made the books better, and approach that's stuck even after he left and will hopefully.

The results of all this hard work? House of X and Powers of X, a set of two interconnected mini series that serve as essentially one big mini series setting up a brave new world for mutantkind. Hickman used the various attempted genocides on the x-men as a backdrop, including the m-pox, and another one that took place in the crappy uncanny x-men run between series that i'll no doubt have inflicted on me one day. And more importantly the fact that Mankind and most other heroes had done the bare minimum to help if that.

So the X-Men decided to once again start their own country. Except unlike previous attempts, they made an effort to become a global power, to play the game of nations. In this case they created plants that helped stave off diseases like althimerz, and leveraged them in exchange for acceptance a nation. Xavier had given up on his dream and instead had a new one: suing for peace.

If that sounds divisive.. that was the intent. That you get why the x-men are doing this, but also see that this has a real danger of them loosing their way and making shadier decisions... not helped by them offering amnesty to ALL mutants including past foes. Exploring the complexities of this is what makes this era so fantastic: the x-men are hoarding world changing advancments.. but after the world spat on them for so long while good men did nothing half the time, you can't blame them. As Cyclops expertly puts it in the first issue.

And yet many have issues with how dogmatic the ruling body of Krakoa, the quiet council is being, the shady decisions, the backdoor deals. It's a mixed blessing: Mutankind has home, saftey, wants for nothing.. but is the price tag worth it?

They also have one other thing, a secret to the world at this point: Resurrection. For years, in part thanks to seeming non mutant ally revealed to be secret mutant Moria Mactaggert, long story, and her longgame planning, Xavier had worked out a plan to cure death. It was both a way to raise the stakes.. and to just as importantly undo a LOT of crappy shock deaths for mutantkind, to bring back characters who'd been dead for DECADES and no one simply had gotten around to them. Death was over, mutantkind was truly immortal.

The process is also unique, using the five, five mutants working in concert, turning the non viable eggs made by goldballs, now dubbing himself egg, into viable clone bodies using a combination of reality warping from former foe proteus, life giving powers from elixer to make them viable, time from tempus to speed them up, and the boosting powers of Hope, the mutant messiah, to make this all possible.

So as a result, any mutant come back, mutants now had freedom and fancy organic warp gates, and a homeland on Krakoa, a mutant who as once an island that walked like a man but was now the benevloent home of all mutantkind.

So your probably wondering how all this somehow esclated FURTHER. Well that's a lot as the Hellfire Gala is the result of a few ongoing story beats all rolled together in a delicous tortilla.

The first is the gala itself. The Hellfire Club was normally the x-men's foes, a group of rich assholes who used their secret society to try and conquer the world through BUISNESSS! and other persuits. And also often wore bondage gear because Chris Claremont is not shy about his fetishes.

For Krakoa though, they became the Hellfire Trading Company. Emma Frost, teacher, x-man and 100% that bitch, had built up a huge fortune again during the meantime and was convinced by Magneto and Xavier to invest it in the children. It's a consitent thing: While Emma can be cold, has a sarcastic tounge bar none, she's always cared about the future of their species and always been protective of young mutants.

So Emma , in addition to a seat of the table, runs the BUISNESS side of things, and thus the inner circle of the hellfire trading company became the large shipping end for mutantkind. They buy the drugs, they light the fire, they are Humankind's main suplier. While other parts of krakoa focus on the growing of the life saving drugs, Emma's the one who markets and ships it, with two others to help: Kitty Pryde, her former enemy turned close friend who as head of the Marauders, lead a pirate crew of x-men to save mutants trapped in countries who didn't go for Krakoa's deal and do drug shipments, while Sebastian Shaw, king of the assholes and enemy of emmas, was given the job of smuggling. He also tried to Kill kitty suprising no one. And Emma and Kitty responded by beating the piss out of him and leaving him in a wheelchair for a while, suprising even less.

Emma being her usual extra self, decided the best way to show off their power as a nation, their wealth and what they could offer.. was a giant ass party with friend and foe alike invited. So threaded throughout the first year and a half of the marauders was Emma's plans for the Gala, with her having Magneto buy an island to host it on. It's such a character rich thing: buying a whole ass island to throw a giant party that's one part diplomatic work and one part "go fuck yourself racist assholes". It's Emma Frost.

The second part leading to all of this was a myth arc that spread through the first year of the comic. One of Mutantkind's most dreaded foes, Apocalypse.. willingly joined them and was given a sympathetic backstory: turns out his "survivial of the fittiest schtick" was because his wife had to send Krakoa's other half, Arrako, into the gates of hell to save the world, taking their children, his original four horseman, because of course Apocalypse has four horseman have you seen the man? He's not subtle.

So he inacted a plan to bring Arrako back, leading to the event X of Swords, where Arrako, taken by the demons they were fighting the amenth, planned to invade earth. Thankfully they pissed off Saturynyne, omniversal magistreix and registered asshole who turned it into a tournament arc: ten swordsman from each side, winner takes all.

Naturally this contest ran by a manevloent schemer from beyond dimensions and against demons had consequences: one of the mutants on our side, Gorgon, died, Doug Ramsey got married, and yes that was indeed a match, and storm killed the embodiment of death. Normal x-men stuff. I really don't have time to go over it all as it's 22 issues long. Not hyperbole. It's a decent if entirely bloated event.

The climax is what's important: the rules got broke, and while Xavier and Magneto's plan was to do nothing and hope it works out, sacrifcing the mutants they had trapped there, Cyclops and Jean grey said

Especially since their son Cable, a cool teen at the time, was in danger. So Cyclops gathered every mutant he could... aka PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE ON KRAKOA NOT ON THE QUIET COUNCIL to storm the gates, leading to an epic battle, and the freeing of Apocalpyse's wife genisis and his remaning kids. Apocalypse decided to have a family road trip across amenth as part of the deal, but in trade the x-men got Arakko back.

The problem was.. Arakko had just spent the last centuries fighting demons and living to eat, murder and conquest. So while Krakoa doubling size was a good thing on paper, as was the new mutants added, in practice it set off a massive political powder keg, with the Arakko mutants gleefully ransacking nearbye areas and refusing to not conquer. While the x-men were fine to inheret the earth once humanity burned itself out, the Arakko didn't want to wait. They needed somewhere to go.

So that dear friends and readers brings us to the gala itself a massive crossover event.. but a unique one. Every issue of every x-book intersected wtih the party of the summer, but only the four we're covering today were the big takeaway points. It was a fun crossover too, a way for all the books to intersect, while leaving the core trim enough to let someone just wanting the big takeaways to only have to pick up 4 books that month. I MIGHT do the rest another day but honestly besides saving kev a lot of money.. it just made more sense to just do the core storyline, to do the part you all came here for, and maybe do the other issues some other day. Thankfully future gala's are much smaller for next year and beyond.

So let's mosey on over shall we as the festivties begin.

Mauraders #24: The party kicks off naturally with Mauraders, the Hellfirecentric book. We open with Kitty, Sebastian and Emma all awaiting the guests. Emma is wearing one of three outfits she has for the night and all of mutantkind is wearing their finest.

Okay Kitty's wearing her finest, emma just has a giant cur cape with an x cut out, because her brand and what not, and a giant head piece that says NOTICE HOW RICH I AM, and Sebstian Shaw is dressed as some sort of war grandpa, wearing a suit LESS fancy than what he usually wears, but weirldy bedecked in tassles, with a fur cape and supervillian eyepatch. I mean the last part's on brand for him but all together it's just fucking weird even by the standards of this gala, held off the coast of two giant monsters.

So as Emma waits security, done by X-Force Krakoa's black ops division, lets in our first guests , fitting them with flowers so they can pass through the krakoan gates for the gala and any afterparties. The Krakoan Gates are giant flowery gates world wide that allow mutantkind to pass through them.. except kitty pryde due to how her powers work: since she goes THROUGH barriers, the thing kinda futzes out with her.

Our inaugral guests are naturally earth's mighteiest heroes, the avengers, consiting at the time of the Captain America (Steve Rogers), Iron Man (Tony Stark), Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers), Thor (Odinson), She Hulk, Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes) and Blade. yes THAT blade. It's honestly a good roster I liked a lot, bringing things back to the classics while adding a few weird touches like Blade and Robbie. The run itself.. was hit and miss, paticuarlly having She Hulk as a regular hulk instead of her usual self, despite the previous run of her solo having finally gotten her out of that state.. for no clear reason really. It was just bad. Thankfully those dark times are over and the tv show's only made sure that won't be happening again. Tony flies in on his own, not trusting the tech and you know.. being kind of an asshole he has to make a bit "NOTICE ME EVERYONE" entrance. Also boarding are the world's greatest heroes, the Fantastic Four, along with their children Franklin and Valerea and The Thing's wife Alicia Masters. Things are a bit rockier between these groups so gather up people as it's time for EVEN MORE EXPOSITION

So since his introduction Franklin had been a mutant.. and since he and the team as a whole had come back in Dan Slott's run, his power had been shorting out. Krakoa, wanting to both help him and naturally add another powerful mutant to the pile, reached out, and unsuprisingly fighting insured between both sides, Reed Richards pulled a Richards and disabled his son's ablility to use the gates, Franklin ran away, ended up with Doctor Doom, and both sides settled things long enough to stop it. IT's a story I will likely cover some day and ended on a positve note: Franklin would alternate between both the baxter buildling and krakoa, while Xavier, not pleased reed had the kind of tech he did, erased the gate supression tech from his brain and told him to his face he'd done it, to tell reed "never again"

So naturally FF writer Dan Slott's reaction to this promising, engaging new status quo was to say "fuck it" and retcon that franklin just MADE HIMSELF into a mutant with his powers, once they were gone he wasn't one, and Xavier basically told him go the fuck away. It is one of the dumbest, most waasteful, egotistical, selfish moves i've seen in comics, doing this simply because you had to share idaes and plans with someone else. At the time of this writing it hasn't been undone, but I woudln't be suprised if current writer Ryan North or future writers undid this or at the very least found a good angle for it.

For now we do at least get this page.

I assume it was a smart, well thought out intellectual GO FUCK YOURSELF YOU OLD MAN. Also while i'll defend the cerebro helmet, I love the look and while the usual version wht the black jumpsuit is plain, it works for the story that's being told... this version is just.. what Iam I even looking at. The extra uncessary packs on his helmet, the gold and green, and then he has the fucking gall to say that to Franklin. I do like him bonding with Kitty, who the mini established was tight with the kind after the 80's era crossover where a younger frankllin talked a younger kitty out of unaliving herself. Another series to add to the pile.

So the party kicks off with a concert from Rhapsody, a forgotten mutant who sadly died during he one apperance in the first peter David Run of x-factor who can make people see things via music. By linking her up to some telepaths, the conert allows everyone present to participate.. except Doom whose naturally being a mopey pants about things. DOOM IS ALWAYS A MOPEY PANTS FOR HE IS DOOM!

The party then goes into full swing and we get some nice moments. ben, upon seeing a bunch of the marauders and an aim guy playing dice on a boat chastizes them.. for not telling him

While Cap and Doom have a stare down watched by celebrity guests Run the Jewels, two of my faviorite rappers in existance as a duo, Killer Mike and E-LP

Before Cap can close his eyes and count to fuck, Emma steps in to stop them, with Doom incensed at mutantkind for considering themselves superior, pot meet kettle, but we get a rare doom laugh , an da great joke when Emma, insiting the mutants haven't claimed earth..

So the party moves on. We get some specific plot beats for Mauraders itself i'll gloss over, some reunions of old friends as Northstar and Vindicator catch up, and Cap talking to his old aqunatince Henry Peter Gyrinch. For those who haven't heard of this douche... good. But since I brought him up Henry was Marvel Comics token asshole beurcrat: he was first introduced making the avengers job harder, tried to bring them to court over Scarlet Witch wanting to you know, leave, as is her right, was the head of the anti mutant witch hunts of the 80s, has joined several sense, and tried to deport all aliens on earth during Dark Reign. In short no one likes him, he's working with Orchis, the big bads of this era, surprising no one, and everyone everywhere celebrated when he died a few months after this. He's there to compare Krakoa to latveria and call steve an optimist for.. not assuming the Mutants are evil.

We also get one of the greatest scenes in comics as Emma oggles caps and plans to see america's ass up close.. only to read that she reminds him of his mother telepathically, horrifying her. Note that Cap's next solo run.. fully confirms that despite this, she STILL went for it and he was fine with it, his current girlfriend Sharon Carter being fine if he steps out as their apart for months at a time. It's cool. And yes folks, Cap has a mommy kink. And that is awesome.

We then get a nice scene of Emma gathering her staff including Jumbo Carnation, a mutant designer introduced to die during New X-Men and brought back here to do most of the fashions for this event, and Somilier, an expert mutant chef to thank them all.

Cue the fireworks.. which we'll get to shortly, but we see the reactions of everyone: All the bigots in attendence are rattled, as is Doctor Strange, who understandably needs to duck out to figure out what the hell this means, and Tony, who congradulates Cyclops on solving one problem.. but warns him he might of made an even bigger mess. But this being steve rogers he also ends his stern warning on "I just hope you know what you people are doing". He's worreid sure, they just conquered mars and knows what the backlash will be.. but he also is aware they likely know what their doing and as always has faith in the best in people.

Onto X-Men

X-Men #21

While the Hellfire Gala kicked off and continued a lot of exciting bits of the Krakoan Era it also marked a major ending: The final issue of Jonathan Hickman's ongoing X-Men title, with the previous one having set up his proper exit with Inferno later that year.

Hickman's X-Men was the flagship title for the books, a series of one to two issue stories that set up the world of Krakoa and showed off how this nation worked.

And naturally for the viewpoint character, Hickman picked the very first x-man and one of mutantkind's finest, Cyclops. Scotty needed the rub. Since AvX a chunk of X-Books had demonized him as some form of boogie man. While his killing of Charles xavier was shocking.. it was also while he was posssed by the phoenix force, and thus not in full control of his actions. Most characters.. blamed him for it anyway despite there being no logic and treated him as Magneto JR for the crimes of... saving mutants from racists trying to attack them and doing what he was doing. This was compounded by the aformentioned M-Pox era, which killed him off after he FINALLY got everyone's accpetance back.. and once again treated him like a villian for... destroying a cloud of terrgin mist that was killing his people.

He then got brought back from the dead after his teenage counterpart brought from the future, long story that.. but was plopped into that awful uncanny run.

Scotty needed a break, so thankfully Hickman took a special intrest in scott. It helped that with Xavier back and back allegedly doing the right thing, Scott could take a night off of being the leader of all of mutantkind and just enjoy having his dead wife back, a son that's not older with him and presumably regular threesomes with wolverine, who not only is ALSO dating Jean during this era, but lived in Scotts house on the moon. Also , Scott had a house on the moon.

With Hickman leaving though, Scott needed a new direction and Hickman set it up for him on his way out in the aftermath of x of swords. Scott, who was the leader of Krakoa's great captains (their security and people authorized to form a team for whatever threats face this sacred land), and Jean , who was on the quiet council rulling Krakoa, were both utterly fed up with the council's bullshits, from refusing to resurrect Scott's ex wives or any clones period, to sketchy rulings like the one in X of Swords. The two decided there had to be something outside them and that Krakoa still needed heroes.

See while the book was called x-men, Hickman cleverly got away with not actually having a formal team for his tenure. Scott and Jean stepped down to change that, founding a new team. The premise was genius: the team would last for one year in and out of universe, a tour of duty, and be picked entirely by Krakoa itself at the gala.

As a sweet bonus to this already great concept, Marvel left some of the voting up to real life: while most of the team was picked by incoming writer Gerry Duggan, the last member was left up to the fans, a tradition that carried onto the next to galas. In this case Polaris, longtime x-man, twice time x-factor leader, and daughter of magneto won.

We open issue 24 with a followup to something from House and Powers of X: During the mini when building Krakoa Xavier and Magneto approached Namor, prince of the deep, to join the nation. He refused as he had a powerful empire thanks.. and once again refuses when they approach him at the party. They control an island. he controls 75 of the oceans. Call him when you have something more to offer. This plot thread.. never really went anywhere, as Namor turned himself in at the end of Jason Aaron's run on avengers and Atlantis was a non factor by the time the latest gala ended in a bloodbath. We do get this outfit for my boy magneto

Unlike Charles who.. I sitll don't get what he's going for, Erik pulls it off. It also begs the question WHY charles wore his big ass helmet to the party. Max had a WAY cooler helemet that matched his outfit and went with a bitching top hat chuck, what's your excuse.

We then get right to the point: the X-Men vote. And how it's done.. is endlessly cool. Jean telepahtically reaches out to every mutant everywhere.. and the vote happens. The Human Torch is a bit confused... partly because he's not sure how his rap went down

But mostly because he dosen't know what the heck their doing. Dr. Strange fills him in.

It's a truly awesome way to do it too: it not only left a nice hook for the series, as each person's pitch is shown over the course of Duggan's first year on the title, it's just a neat concept and way to do it. As for who made the cut...

This is such a cool page. I love it dearly. It helps the x-men picked for duty all got great gala outfits, from Rogues which resembles her first uniform, to Shrio's dope as hell suit and wearing his sunfire mask because why wouldn't you if your mask was that sweet, to synch's techincolor suit it's awesome.

So a breakdown of this roster for those less familiar with the x-men. Besides Cyclops, Jean and Rogue, who shoudlnt' need an intro, we have Wolverine, Laura Kinney, also known as X-23, wolverin'es female clone and certified badass, Sunfire, an arrogant frenemy of the x-men's with fire powers and a proud japanese heritage, the aformentioned polaris and Synch, a member of generation x, the 90's class of teenage x-men, recently ressurected after spending a thousand years in a vault. Long story. It's a stellar roster and while Duggan's first year on the book was rocky, it can't be denied this was a great choice for his first for the most part. My only gripe is a lack of diversity, with only two members of the team who aren't white. Otherwise it's a good selection.

So after this we get two pages of Sinsiter being a gossipy bitch before we get to the ending of this issue, a truly amazing scene with a bit of meta flare. A tad cheesy.. but the kind of cheese I like.

So after another cameo by Patton Oswalt, as seen by RTJ the gala had a lot of real life celbreity cameos thrown in, all approved by the people themselves, Kevin Fiege, head of marvel asks Scott a simple question

Is it a tad cheesy to have the head of marvel literally ask a character whose key to their next big franchise his story? Yes.. but I can't help but love it. It's just a fun way to have Cyclops give his story and given marvel comics actually exists in universe, it's not a stretch to say some form of the mcu does either, simply running on the same "offical authorized story" deal they have with most heroes, changing it up for ones whose id's aren't public.

Due to image limits and not wanting to overdue it, the speech stretches over two full pages, i'll have to due with quoting it. But it's one of my faviorite moments of this era so far, and it gets to the heart of who scott summers is NOW.. and just who he is.

"I was blind. Blind to how the world worked...and then I met a man who taught me to see—see how things really were. I loved him for it. And because I loved him—because I believed in him...and, in a way, worshipped him—I claimed things that he had faith in as my own. He called it his dream. It was a good one. But the world, you see—the waking world—were we all live...it is a killer of dreams. A destroyer of things you believe in. So when I grew older, I realized it was foolish to...deify him. Honestly, it's unfair to expect that kind of perfection from anyone. After all, we're all flawed and imperfect... There is no real difference between any of us. No matter how much we believe the lie that there is. You see, he wasn't a savior. He was just a man—a mutant—like me. And his dreams—which still make me smile to this day—are no more valid than anyone else's. Including mine. So what's my story? I'm a dreamer. I'm an X-Man."

Scott is the guy who belviies in Xavier's dream more than the man himself, and while he sidestepped it for a while, as the world wore him down.. he never truly gave up on it.. and he'll never stop fighting for it. So as Scott walks off Emma cues the fireworks.

Planet Size X-Men

So before I get into this one , some context: When this issue happened.. what the fireworks were.. was a suprise. It was kept deathly secret and the reactions seen in marauders were a tease the x-men had done something MASSIVE. While for our purposes here you know the twist I just wanted the context for readers that the x-men colonizing a whole damn planet.. was a massive well done suprise. IT's something this era does well: it hides spoilers VERY well and even when some info has to come out via solicits, it does a great job not telling us everything.

So we open the issue with the reveal of what their doing: The narration is a flashback to someone talking to Forge, the x-men's resident inventor, about IF what their about to do before our eyes is possible. And to start they need a ton of iron, and to plunge it into the planet, then get it nice and hot.

The first part.. is easy given the master of magnet is around and we get a lovely shot of Magneto hauling a giant meteor. This issue's done by Duggan with art by Pepe Laraz, who also did art for House of X and is a phenominal artist, so he not suprisingly knocks it out of the park here. Using the metal they open the planet and as forge puts it "perform open heart surgery" using a team of Hope and Vulcan, Scott Summer's youngest brother who has energy powers> They get it bubbly, Max stirs the sauce with his powers.. and next up is Iceman, who proudly announces himself to the party, whose all viewing this telepathically thanks to Emma Frost

We then flash back to a few days ago. Magneto TRIES to talk some sense into Iscaa the unbeaten, annoyed at the Arakkil shenanigans I mentioned before, but she's unmoved. As long as their of this planet, they'll act as they have and conquer. This likely gave Max the idea.

And his timing for it isn't bad as the Hellfire Trading Company have another problem: their suplies for the lifesaving drugs are running out. The X-Men were doing most of their production in the savage land, a land where dinosaurs never died out, but the super science golden girls stole most of it, so they REALLY need a new place for production. Mags asks to borrow Emma's spaceship.. and prepares his pitch.

The next day Cap and Cyclops talk at westchester, with Cyclops assuring Cap there's a solution to the arakko problem, which gets him to come to the gala. Max pitches his plan to the quiet council and it's a rare unanmous "YES".

Cut to the morning of the gala and while Mags has a lot of the pieces he needs.. he needs more. So he first goes to Jamie Braddock, brother of Bestsy (Formerly Psylocke now Captain Britan) and Brian (also Captain Britan), and half mad reality warper, who Mags convinces to help out. He also goes to Arakko and their own council happens to have three Omega Level Mutants (Mutants with no upper limit to their powers, something firmly defined in this era after being vauge for years on end), who fit the bill: Lacuta the Knower, Sobunar of the Depths, and Xilo the first defender of this broken land.

Back in present day Sobunar goes first: Sobunar contains an ENTIRE ocean within them, so they simply donate a little water and have jamie expand it into an ocean. Storm captalizes on this, using her powers to the strongest they've ever been to give the planet weather, giving the dead red planet wind for the first time.

Next up is Xilo, who.. tears off his head and combines with the land.. he's also a caterpillar. Because why not. With Elixer's help he restores life leaving the next step for the final member of our trio, Lacuta. Her power.. is knowing the precise location of everything. So using her , Jean Grey and exodus, a centuries old telepath bar NONE, shove the ENTIRETY of arakko through the external gate, a magical super krakoan gate, to mars.

WIth that Arakko is on here.. and Arakko itself, which like krakoa is alive, sighs happily at it's first bloodless victory in a long while. A diplomatic area is set up as is a memorial to honor those who could not make it

The downside of the review format is I really can't show you just how awe inspiring all this is. I do have images an dcan show you some of it but the compression here and how much this issue makes use of the full page makes it impossible to translate. It's why while my reviews are good on their own merit, they'll never be a subsitute for the media in question.

So after this Arakko needs it's own SWORD station. SWORD was once the space verison of SHIELD, but with SHIELD ending and Earth's own space branch, alpha flight, being laughably ineffective, former SWORD head Abigail brand went to mutantkind fo ra space program, resulting in their revivail. And since they need a base here, Jean and Quinten Quire, professional loveable scamp, implant the idea of one in his mind. Jean says she's making him pregnant with it.. and soon regrets her word choice

I... didn't doctor any of this. All of this actually happened. Jean Grey made a man pregnant with a space station. That's canon. That's part of this landmark in x-history. God bless you X-Slack, one and all.

Elixer has one last idea.. and this time it's just transmitted to prevent more of .. that... so Jamie gladly obliges, creating port promethus, a massive hub for all the space ships a comin. With that all of Krakoa is welcomed to..

With that we get some data pages, a bold announcment proclaming this the captial of our solar system, a person in the goverment reporting, and nasa being disapointed by mutantkind just anexing the planet but hoping they can visit.

And before we move on to the direct ramifications in story.. let's talk about those fireworks shall we? The Terraforming of Mars into Planet Arakko.. is one of the biggest, genius and insane swings i've seen in a comic. It's all perfectly built up too: from the beginning of this era i'ts been built up how much power omega mutants have, how much stronger krakoa can be it's ties to space via the shiar and brood. And over in SWORD, which had recently launched and will close out today's look at the gala, they subtly laid the seeds: SWORD had been further pushing the idea of a "mutant circuit", i.e. using a group of mutants in concert to do a task, the first being of course the five and SWORD having a circuit in it's first issue bring a super metal from beyond time and space. The idea of seeing just what mutants could do with their powers and a whole nation had been seeded... it's here it sprouts. In what's implied to be an hour at most, with the world watching, mutantkind terraformed a dead planet. While both terriotires had different goverments the fact remained mutantkind now had a PLANET.

It's also nice in that even if Krakoa as a nation tumbles into history... this is something that really CAN'T be easily undone: Mutantkind created a new planet stuffed with mutants, where alien dignitaries have visited, and that humankind will NEVER forget happened. Even if it all collapsed the sheer scope of it is something that can't help but have impact. It's the kind of status quo shift you could ONLY pull off in this era, with these characters, at this time, a perfect allinging of the planets... to let another be reborn.

It also has a lot of nice fallout that's still being felt: A whole book would end up dedicated to this new concept, X-Men Red, which is one of the best of this era and one of the best x-books period, and it's not even over yet. We'll likely look at that next year, or at least part of it, but the idea of this warbased society grappling with peace is fascinating as is humanity grappling with loosing one of it's biggest pieces of the sky. There's so much that's been done with this concept, so much more to do and it's one of my faviorite in the x-men's long history of awesome ideas and was brought about stunningly, with the issue being one long showstopper. They hyped the hell out of this one moment.. and man oh man did they deliver. All that's left.. is the afterparty.

S.W.O.R.D. #7

SWORD opens with Captain america, standing alone reflecting his thoughts. This opening is one of th emain reasons I wanted sword as part of this: this scene helpfully frames what happened from a human perspective, by showing how the best of us grapples with what just happened. And also DOOM, who'd tell you he was but you know DOOM. Cap decides to humor him this once and share his thoughts.. mostly because Victor points out they are both faces of their nations and the weird irony of that tickles our hero a bit. The speech that follows.. is gorgeous, showing that SWORD, and future x-men red, writer Al Ewing, one of my personal faviorite writers, REALLY gets cap. I mean he really gets pretty much any character he rights but still.

Cap relates the story of his waking up from the ice. How soon after.. he felt hopless, a shocking thing to hear from Captain I Can Do This All Day, but understandable: Everything he knew and loved was gone and he'd missed decades. Tony gave him hope by showing the moon landing, showing how much humanity achieved.. but got quiet when Steve asked where the colonies were... what had come NEXT. It's a sad statment on the fact we just kinda.. gave up on space after realizing it was too expensive to exploit.

I belivie in a better tommorow is a cap line up there with classics like "I'm loyal to nothing except the dream" and "No you move", and this scene is expertly done: it shows the two sided coin: Steve is well aware humanity kind of gave up on mars and other planets aside from mapping them, but still wishes they'd worked together.. instead of their next iteration swooping in and taking it all. It's the lovely double edged sword of this all: The Mutants had every right to do this: they had the power, the technology and the need. But it still means they took it for themselves and only themselves.

So while Cap muses about this and Doom heads off to do Doom stuff, we cut to SWORD"s station the Peak where director Abigail Brand, who nick fury wishes he could be, is explaning the situation to a council of galactic ambassadors from very marvel races and factions. Notable faces include Orbis Stellaris, who'd become VERY important soon enough, a guy named Riitho representing the interglactic empire of wakanda, a real thing that exists, long story I don't quite know to be honest, Smasher, former avenger, wife of x-man and former avenger Cannonball, and representive for longtime x-men space buddies the shiar, paibok the power skrull representing the kree skrull alliance and three of the guardians of the galaxy: Star Lord represnting his in comics half home of spartax, Noh Varr aka marvel boy represtning the Utopian Kree and Richard Rider , the man called nova representing earth. Ewing adopted Richie who'd come back from the dead but hadn't got a lot to do, making him a focal point of his run on Guardians and then bringing him over to X-Men Red after that.

Richie in paticular is nettled they didn't tell anyone, and while Frenzy, part of SWORD's security, points out he was kinda busy with guardains stuff.. he still has a point: While Krakoa coudln't afford to tell EVERYONE or someone would've tried to stop them, and they DID need this space... they didn't tell ANYONE they were doing this.

The rest of the delegates are ambivalent: For humanity , mutantkind terraforming a whole planet is a big whoop. And while the SPEED is impressive, terraforming a planet is pretty standard procedure for the empires present.

Thankfully Mutankind brought Abigail brand to the negotating table: she's lived in space her whole life, knows it better than earth, and her whole reason for restarting sword is that she's sick of earth being so ambiviliant and reactionary: they've been invaded COUNTLESS times.. yet the heroes wait. In the previously reviewed epilogue to empire/gay wedding of the century, she quit Alpha Flight entirley because head at the time Carol Danvers.. didn't think to consult her or anyone abotu the crisis and instead cried avengers assemble.

So she decides to take a page from the krakoan book with some space flair: like Krakoa, Arakko won't be recognized without something to give and since the healing plants aren't really a huge get, she has something more: Mysterium,. the metal they plucked from the white hot center of the omniverse.

It's a COOL as hell call back: why did they plunder time and space.. not because they could. .but to get the sol system a foot in the galactic door. See at the time of this run, something running out of Ewing's guardians run as Al ewing tends to use every book he writes to follow up on others, Ewing had the clever idea of the galactic community being in a pretty crappy place: after so many wars, sieges, and attempted conquests, they were battered and the economy suffered. Mysterium... is the answer. Expensive, as seen here super useful for space travel and recovery after all the nonsense the unvierse has been put through.. and a perfect Bribe. Abigail is upfront about it too: as I said this is the same as Krakoa using the drugs and Abby says that outright: a new currency to help the unvierse recover.. in exchange for recognition. Abby's logic is also flawless here: Earth.. has a ton of nations, their all squabbling and generally can't agree on how to treat their own people much less aliens. Arakko is one goverment and thus allows them to simply negotiate with them instead.

Naturally though for a confrence like this.. someone has to ask...

I said he had doom stuff to do.... I didn't say said stuff wasn't in this issue did I? Doom demands to know: who speaks for sol. Given how Victor is, tyranicall and very personality based, he demands an audience with it's rule: who is it's king. Who is it's monarch. And naturally for this story... the answer is badass as hell. It's also the answer every X-Men fan predicted, but it's no less awesome

It's a perfect choice: Storm really hadn't done much in this era up to this point... but in interviews HIckman and others constantly said they had more plans for her and "great stuff coming up". This is the payoff: Storm is once again a queen... and a perfect fit. She's peaceful enough to lead the arakkil in a new direction.. but she's still storm. It's part of what makes Orroro such a great character: she can be gentle, kind and fair.. but god help you if you think you can win a fight with her. And given Roro now has to deal with both a planet of warmongers AND various galactic empires ready to try to exploit this, not to mention eventually Abigail herself trying to exploit this for her own ends, a LOT of people are going to need god's help.

This conversation continues into the next issue, but for our story, the end is not on the grand new red planet.. but back on Krakoa. Magneto is quitely having a drink to himself.. and has a guest.

So one last bit of backstory for this run, for the non comic guys in the audience, hi kevin and such: In the comics Wanda, during a mental breakdown after being manpulated by her own brother, depowered all but 200 of mutantkind. Give or take obviously because comics, but still most were left powerless thanks to her. Wanda DID do her best to atone once she returned much later, helping restore mutantkind.. but instead of undrestanding she wasn't in her right headspace, no one thought "hey let's get her a threapist instead of try to kill her".. no really that was the storyline. Bendis I swear.

Anyway, instead Mutantkind turned her into the boogeyman

Yes a bogeyman, "The PRetender" as it was later revealed she wasn't a mutant because marvel didn't have rights to them at the time. And while I do wish this era had turned her back into one.. the directoin they went was clever.. and this scene is part of it. Wanda comes to her once thought to be bio dad: she skipped the party because well.. she knows what they say and the pretender can't sit at the throne.

Magneto's response? one of the best moment's in the characters history and clear proof of why Ewing was given the character for X-Men Red not long after

It's a heartbreaking well done speech.. and honestly an angle for helping undo the hasty unparenting of Magneto I never considered: Keeping Wanda not a mutant.. but having Magnus still consider her his child. Have him realize after buildling paradise.. that he'd been a pretty crappy father to her, even if he turned out not to be his dad, how he wasn't much better to his biological daughter Lorna. and That even if she's seen as the pretender.. that Wanda is his kid and deserves better. It's also a nice aseop: that you don't NEED to be biologically related ot be family. She's his daughter. End of dicussion. And he will fix this

The how ended up being convoluted, but did result in Wanda going from the pretender, to the redeemer by setting up the waiting room, a way to bring back mutants who didn't have an imprint in cerebro. It's a touching end to this story.. I mean granted the story ACTUALLY ends with magneto suspected of her murder, but it'ts not where we're ending

The Hellfire Gala is one of my faviorite comics events. IT's a unique take on one: instead of a big fight or a big crisis.. it's just a party. It still has all the gravitas and after effects: Wanda's very temporary death leading to her excellent new era under Steve Orlando, the start of Magneto's character arc for X-Men red, a whole new setting with vast ramifications, a new team, and lots of other smaller setups. It's no suprise they did it again the next two years. It's a story packed with both the fun breezy character moment's you'd expect like Emma discovering steve's mommy kink or RTJ getting ready to watch doom fight steve all day, or gambling time, and the big stuff needed to justify it being an event, all organically threaded from here.

We'll no doubt return to krakoa and I already have plans to return to the x-men next year. For now though... we've reached the end of x-men month. As we enter spooky season.. thank you for reading, my x-men.

[foxydivaxx]

Gossip Girl Prequel Chapter 5 Snippet

Hello Upper East Siders. Gossip Girl and boy do I have some juicy gossip for you today.

It is the dawn of a new era. Out with the old and in with the new. Dragon Records have finally announced that they have terminated Z’s contract. And their latest signee has been officially unveiled to be GR. From what I know, GR is Z’s mysterious Paris ex.

I can imagine how Z must be feeling now. Imagine being replaced as the top guy by your ex whom may or may not be half as talented as you are and yet the guy is getting that much hype and publicity that everyone has forgotten you exist.

Basically Z is now all washed up. A has been. There is a lot of pressure on him to prove otherwise. Sure those songs he released following the award show incident got plenty of buzz. But he needs more extra oomph. The industry is changing each passing minute so he needs to catch up or set a trend or two otherwise he stands the risk of getting left behind.

That is if he has not chosen to retire. And if he has retired where does he go from here? Is he gonna school here or will they take him to Japan? So much speculation here since Z has chosen to remain silent save for occasional updates from his family and friends, mostly S and SU.

Z hasn’t been posting on social media ever since that incident which is making people worry about his health. Now that this news of his ex has made headlines, his situation has gotten worse. Could this signal the end of the King of the Upper East Side or now that he is a free agent, could this be the moment he breaks his silence?

Now back to S again, how does he feel about all this? Surely he would be pissed about this young upstart trying to steal his bf and would kick his ass right? E would be displeased by this news too and would want to kick his ass as well. SU may be scheming something right now. Who knows?

Still good news for Z and the fam as the verdict is now in their favour. The two divorces have been finalised as his mum has now been publicly humiliated plus she has been jailed for a lot of crimes.

Hold up!! Just got our first sighting of Z and boy does he look different these days. He was spotted with his family at a beach in Japan alongside SU. Compared to his former cute boyish looks, Z is sporting a more matured look. He appears to have cut his hair, now sporting a faux hawk haircut.

The baby fat is not that pronounced this time. The signature Roronoa jawline is becoming more prominent now. Also he looks a lot more muscular now if those hot abs and muscular biceps are any indication. He is sure to break the Internet with these photos.

But perhaps the most noticeable body feature of his, and the one that will make a lot of men and women drool and easily rivals S in a lot of ways, is that ass of his. It is a lot rounder and noticeable. Heck, SU was caught groping and playing with his ass. S is one lucky dude. Considering the fact that both daddy figures are fitness buffs, it seems like their habits are rubbing off on the kid. Some fans have come forward with stories and pictures showing Z, G, SU and one other dude going in and out of the studio.

I guess Z knew how much fans missed and got to work in secret. That can only mean one thing; he has a backup plan in mind. Perhaps Daddy Hawk has something in store for him. And considering the fact SU has been hanging around Z a lot more these days, I have a feeling that we could be getting a boy band or some sort of collaboration.

I can’t wait and see what happens next.

XOXO,

Gossip Girl

[ljsd]

10 TV shows to get to know me better!

1. Doctor Who

I used to be a massive fan of this show - and do still like it, I just haven’t watched it much recently. I once made a video which went semi-viral of all the times the title of the episode was said in the episode. My favourite Doctor used to be Jon Pertwee - it probably still is. I need to watch more of the Classic stuff again, and I need to catch up on some of Capaldi and Whittaker’s eras! 

2. Community 

Probably my favourite comedy, especially seasons 1-3. It's just extraordinary. I love the characters and the concept episodes are always really interesting while not being pretentious. I love it. Watch it. You'll love it too.

3. The Office (US)

I'll be honest, I tried watching the original UK Office years ago and never quite 'got' it. I should also admit that I've not seen all of the US Office - I stopped watching a few episodes after Michael left and skipped ahead to the finale - I will watch the rest at some point, promise! Definitely a big 'comfort show' for me.

4. Peep Show

OK, if you're not into British comedy, this is a weird one. Especially the first couple of seasons. But it's so worth it. You'll grow to love (& pity) Mark and Jez, as you see just how comically tragic their lives can get. It peaks in season 4 for me, but it's all great. And this one links to the next one, which is...

5. Succession

I put off watching this one for ages, because I was so attached to Peep Show, and this was created by one of Peep Show's co-creators. It felt almost wrong, for some reason. Anyway, I gave in and binged the whole thing immediately after the final episode came out, because I knew that at some point I'd come across spoilers, so I may as well watch it. Obviously, it's really really good. You should watch it if you haven't already. Very intense and emotional, and occasionally a bit bonkers.

6. Breaking Bad / Better Call Saul

Yeah, I'm including these as one. I think if you watch 1 of them, you pretty much have to watch the other. Again, no spoilers. It's one heck. of a ride, though. (Also, El Camino, the sequel movie.)

7. Red Dwarf

A British sitcom set in space. It's wonderful. Well, most of it. Particularly the first 5 seasons. But it's all at least pretty good, I think.

8. Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister

A British political sitcom which changes its name halfway through, because - well, because the minister becomes Prime Minister. The word which comes to mind is 'quaint', in the best possible way. It's like Dad's Army meets The Thick Of It (2 other shows which I don't have space for here but I also love!)

9. Bojack Horseman

This will make you cry with laughter and cry with sadness. It's a beautiful show about celebrity culture and mental health, through the eyes of a troubled and flawed celebrity horse. It's bizarre. And brilliant.

10. The Boys

Left this one till last because while there are some others above which are not exactly family friendly, this one really isn't. It's not for everyone. If you're particularly squeamish, maybe give it a miss. But if you're up for the gore and adult content, this show is insanely brilliant. Very much looking forward to season 4 and the upcoming spin-off.

[jjungkookislife]

The final part of Baby Kicks 🥹 This short drabble fic is just as adorable as I first read it 🥰 There’s just something about dad!jungkook (or any of the guys really 😉) that’s just so satisfying to read about ☺️ The “domesticness” just makes me 🥺😩😭 and it is so satisfying cause you also see how amazing he is as a husband ��� Thanks for giving us the final part 💜

La Boda 😳 When it was still in your wips, i remember how it sounded really intriguing for me. After finally reading it, there was so much happening 😲 The confusion from the groom when SEVEN people bursts in 😂 Her mother fainting and being caught by the husband 😂 her maid of honor being on board and giving her a thumbs up 😂 The audience being moved by the scene while her groom is steaming pissed and his groomsmen just shrugging at him 😂 The revelation of the groom setting them up to look like cheaters, this is just like a telenovela I LOVE IT 😍 Not the MC focusing on Jk’s waist while being in his tuxedo 🥴 And the groom looking for backup from his groomsmen to fight with the 7 exes currently professing their undying love for his bride 😂 The collective gasp from the guests when she drops bouquet on the ground 😂 I expected the MOH to cheer for her finally reuniting with the 7, but not her family too 😂 And finally, the classic bride running away with the one she actually loves (that just so happens to be 7 different dudes 🥴) and they live happily ever after 😌 All in all, it was a great read. The classic dramatic scenes that happens on weddings 🤭 I loved it, thank you for sharing it with us 🥰 I hope you are doing okay and not overworking yourself. Goodluck on your tutoring sessions, I hope it goes well 💜

I love dad!jungkook 😭 I can imagine him wearing matching outfits with his son and getting him a little toy karaoke machine so they can sing together 😭

I couldn’t remember if I had posted La Boda or not bc I talked about it a lot 😅 the mother fainting was my favorite part lmao the absolute shock of it all is how I imagined my mom would have responded lmao she passed before my bts fan girl era but she was with me through my other eras so I can only imagine her reactions lol

The groomsmen knew better than to take on any of the exes lol especially with his beefy joon is 🤤

Jungkook’s waist is amazing and I am very jealous lol

There’s definitely a lot going on all at once and the groom was just evil so he got what he deserved being left at the altar 🤣 and the bride and her seven exes can live happily ever after like they deserve 🥰

Thank you! I have been overworking myself this week writing for other fandoms 😅 but I think I need a few days rest 😴 I had two classes back to back so it was an hour of nerves and sweating lmao I had to turn on the ac and I’m still figuring out how to pace myself bc I go too fast sometimes and then I go too slow 🥲 I have to be up in about 5 hours and I can’t sleep 😴 that coffee did it’s job 🤣 but I will post a chapter of the nanny next month bc I had to cut it in half and then hopefully finish the second half soon so I can post after my break in May/June 🥰 thank you for stopping by! I’m glad you enjoyed both drabbles and I hope you stay healthy and take care 💖

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

I have now shifted from reading the first X-Men run to reading the Claremont stuff, and of course I have opinions. (I'm nowhere near done with Claremont's run, just past Dark Phoenix and Days of Future Past.)

I can honestly see why Claremont basically saved the X-Men franchise, his stuff is so much better than the first 66 issues. I'm sure part of it is a shift in comics writing style, from less adventure-of-the-month to more ongoing saga, soap opera style, but it's just good. It's really good. Claremont sets up plot points well in advance, he creates a team with distinct personalities, and friction (or friendships) that come with that. The prose is beautiful at times. I remember trying to read Claremont stuff after growing up with 90's X-Men, and thinking the writing sounded corny (and I know people who grew up reading later era X-Men feel the same way about 90's comics now). But after reading the first run, Claremont's X-Men hits differently, and it's so much easier to read, like I'm not forcing myself to slog through it.

Phoenix/Dark Phoenix saga is genuinely a beautiful story. There's a lot to be said about the all-powerful female character being unable to control her power, and being essentially corrupted by lust (both physical lust and lust for power), and the weird virgin/whore dynamic Claremont has going with Jean. Like, there are absolutely weird sexist undertones. But if Jean absolutely had to be killed off, it's a well-written death, and I can see why adaptations keep going back to it, although I wish they'd stop, no one has gotten it right. I think the X-Men Animated Series actually did the best job, they stayed close to the original story (with the 90's cast) and went with a "Jean is possessed by Phoenix" angle rather than the "Jean was replaced by Phoenix" retcon in the actual comics. I can kind of see why the later retcon went with "cosmic firebird" to separate Phoenix from Jean, as even the way Jean talks about "Phoenix" in the original story, like she's tapped into some primal, cosmic power, sounds like it's some force outside of herself.

I totally forgot that Beast and Angel are both there for the final battle before Phoenix dies, Beast because he saw on an Avenger's monitor that the X-Men were in trouble. And Angel actually rejoins the team for awhile. Poor Bobby is the only one who gets left out.

There's a long period in the comics where Jean and Beast think the other X-Men are dead, and the X-Men think Jean and Beast are dead after the groups are separated escaping Magneto's lair, which fills with lava. I can understand Jean not being strong enough to do a psi-scan (she is exhausted from protecting herself and Beast, and they emerge in Antarctica, so they are struggling just to survive). But apparently when they report the news to Xavier, he just doesn't bother to do any kind of Cerebro search. "The X-Men are ambiguously dead with no bodies or real confirmation of their deaths, guess I won't bother to use this device that can locate mutants, I'm off to space with my bird girlfriend."

This was also the start of the "Professor Xavier is a jerk!" era. The first run had Xavier doing so very questionable stuff, but it was always treated in a "Father Knows Best" kind of way. Xavier was the mentor that they all obey without question, and he was basically always right. Claremont wrote an Xavier who is flawed and capable of making mistakes, although he still appears to be a man who loves his students like his own children. He gets distracted by his dreams of (and later romance with) Lilandra, he butts heads with Cyclops and tries to treat him like a child when Cyclops has been leading the team independently for a while. After Jean's death, when Cyclops is basically summarizing his entire life with the team, he criticizes a few of Xavier's decisions, and in particular thinks about how cruel the whole "fake death Changeling substitute" thing was. I know Claremont is also responsible for also fleshing out Magneto as a character and making him a much more nuanced figure, and I like it. To be honest, I think fan opinion lately has swung too far in the other direction, now we've got "Magneto was right" and "Xavier is the worst," and I don't fully agree with that, either. I think they are both deeply flawed leaders who are both capable of good and bad. I like flawed Xavier who is still a thoughtful and caring person.

This run also gets into Claremont fetish territory, big time. We've got the whole Jean seduction thing, the Hellfire club fetish gear (only for the women, of course!), Storm constantly getting naked, and that time Magneto turns the X-Men into adult babies. No, seriously, he is angry about being changed into a baby by Alpha the Ultimate Mutant (something that happened in another book between the first run and Claremont's run), and he wants to give them a taste of it. So he has them strapped into chairs with collars that shut off their powers and greatly restrict their movement and speech, while a robot nanny feeds them and brushes their hair, and yeah, it's really weird. He sort of makes it make sense, as Magneto claims that in baby form he could still remember who he was and what he had lost, and that actually sounds nightmarish. I can understand wanting to subject his enemies to the same indignity. But it's still weird.

Claremont really loves putting people in leather bondage outfits and the whole "you're mind-controlling me to be evil but I secretly like it" thing, starting with Jean. Even in the New Mutants and Excalibur we get some of this stuff, like Empath forcing Sharon and Tom to have sex with each other and put on weird bondage outfits. It's a whole thing with him. Storm is kind of like Starfire (who came later), in that she's a sexy, beautiful character who likes to get naked because she is comfortable that way, but she is not actively trying to be "sexy." I can kind of see it as "Storm is connected to nature," but otherwise I'm not sure how I feel about it. I don't think female characters should have to dress in skimpy outfits because they are trying to be sexy, but at the same time we get sexy characters who aren't really "allowed" to own their own sexuality. I almost respect it more with characters like Emma who say, "Yes, I dress this way to be sexy." We just get a lot of Storm taking showers.

Poor Thunderbird, he only lasted like four issues. Sometimes I wonder how it would have been if Wolverine had died instead, and if Thunderbird would have become as big a character. Wolverine has the whole "Weapon X" past thing going for him, but it seems like that was added later to flesh the character out, they could have just as easily given Proudstar an interesting backstory. Thunderbird's death is interesting, because it's not really depicted as a necessary sacrifice. Thunderbird didn't have to stay on the plane with Nefaria, Banshee was right there and could have caught him in the air. It was less of a noble sacrifice and more like a character desperate to prove himself. I'm not trying to disrespect Proudstar here, I just think it's interesting. I wonder if this death was meant to show Cyclops/Xavier failing in leadership for the first time, that they didn't realize Thunderbird would do something like this. They sort of "bring him back" with James Proudstar/Thunderbird II/eventually Warpath in the Hellions. Normally I don't really like "replacement characters" that have the exact same powers and look very similar to the original except Madelyne but New Mutants did a good job of making James Proudstar his own character. He is connected to John as his brother, he wants revenge for his brother's death, but unlike John, James comes across as very calm and serious, the leader of the Hellions who is responsible for everyone. And hey, now they're both alive in current comics - if only they'd be allowed to actually interact.

Claremont starts with a big team and then does a lot of pushing characters out. The original team leaves except Scott. Thunderbird dies. Then Jean comes back as Phoenix (and dies). Sunfire goes on the Krakoa mission, then says "Fuck you, I'm out," which is kind of constant theme with him. Lorna and Alex are constantly on the periphery, occasionally getting dragged into stories (like when they are brainwashed by Erik the Red), but never full team members. At least Havok gets to properly join later, Polaris is constantly getting pushed aside. Banshee actually gets a proper run on the book and is there for the first Phoenix saga before Claremont eases him into retirement with an injury to his voice and a romance with Moira. I really like Banshee, it's neat to have an "older" character on a team full of kids (and even Wolverine is treated as a younger guy in his early appearances, before his backstory gets fleshed out), and he has his own backstory of being an Interpol agent, and an evil cousin who wants to kill him. He also has an ancestral castle with leprechauns, but we won't talk about that. Claremont sort of keeps the "Muir Island" characters in the loop for awhile, so occasionally Banshee, Moira, Multiple Man, and sometimes Lorna and Alex get drawn into the story again.

Erik the Red shows up as a Shiar agent, even though Erik the Red was a fake persona that Scott used in the first X-Men run, and I swear we never get an explanation as to why. Did the Shiar agent just find the costume and think it was cool? Or maybe it was the agent's costume the entire time and Scott found it somewhere, that would explain how Scott quickly cobbled together a villain disguise complete with laser gloves that mimicked powers. I think Claremont just saw the bondage gear and couldn't resist.

First appearance of Juggernaut and Black Tom Cassidy as a duo, and Juggernaut even dives into the sea to save Tom. These two, along with Pyro and Avalanche and Unus and Blob, are high on my "gay villain duo" list.

Mesmero hypnotizes the X-Men into thinking that they are carnival workers, and Magneto shows up and is like:

Magneto actually rescues the X-Men from Mesmero just so he can take revenge on them himself, and says that Mesmero was just working with a Magneto robot the whole time.

I probably make it no secret that Wolverine is very low on my favorite character list, but I like him more in the early days when he's not only allowed to be a massive asshole, but the narrative actually treats him like one. Wolverine bothers me the most in his over-hyped days, when he is basically, to borrow TV Tropes, a Jerkass-Sue, who always saves the day and is still loved and respected by almost everyone despite being a massive asshole. In the early days there are actually consequences for Wolverine being a massive asshole, people yell at him and put him in his place, he actually loses fights occasionally, he gradually develops and shows that he has a good heart and cares about his team-mates. He is actually part of the team, not the star. My favorite Wolverine is a character who fits in as part of the X-Men, while Wolverine on his own bores the shit out of me.

The Hellfire Club story really makes Mastermind an impressive villain. I always thought he was a creep, and Hellfire club elevates him to mega-creep, but it also shows him managing to work his way into this Inner Circle of powerful mutants, and gain control over Jean with his illusion powers. (And some help from a device that Emma made, current comics forget she is a tech whiz). Like this is a legitimately dangerous, threatening Mastermind, although not after Jean wipes the floor with him.

I wonder what fan reaction was like to Kitty Pryde - was she a welcome addition, or the "annoying child character," like Wesley Crusher? Personally, I like Kitty, and I appreciate her acting like an actual child, not a hyper-competent genius, although she is an actual genius. I don't mind her doing things like wandering into the Danger Room and forgetting to phase because she's so scared, it makes sense. She's like 13.

There's a lot more to be said about the introductions of Sebastian Shaw and Emma and my favorite Brotherhood, with Destiny, Mystique, Blob, Avalanche and Pyro, but this has gone on too long already. Claremont definitely gave us a lot of characters with staying power.

[harostar]

HONKAI POSTING

Or "How I flail and scream at the latest update, and ramble while also theorizing on how this will parallel Honkai Impact 3rd and the Elysian Realm".

So some HI3rd breakdown, to get things started:

Flamechasers and the Previous Era:

The Honkai manifests in a roughly 50,000 year cycle with an unknown number of cycles occurring before the Previous Era.

It's called that because...well....it was the Era prior to the current one. This was a golden era of great technological advancements, which was ultimately destroyed by the Honkai. T

he primary force focused on combating the Honkai was FIRE MOTH and its genetically-enhanced soldiers, MANTIS. These soldiers underwent surgical procedures to modify them, including using genes from Honkai beasts and ICHOR, to turn them into global-level super soldiers.

During the "Tragedy of Binding", in which the Herrscher of Binding emerged and killed much of humanity's MANTIS soldiers, only a handful were left. Humanity was facing extinction at that point, with little hope left.

One soldier, a mysterious woman named Elysia, proposed that the surviving MANTIS soldiers form a group. A sort of superhero team, if you will.

The Flamechasers.

Her proposal was shot down, but these 13 survivors would still essentially gather to create the final plans to save humanity. They also created the Elysian Realm, a virtual realm populated by AI simulations created from the Flamechasers' memories.

In the final days of the Previous Era, Elysia emerged as the 13th Herrscher and was slain by humanity's strongest warrior:

Kevin Kaslana, codename "Deliverance".

However, things were not so straight-forward.

Elysia was a singular existence that was believed to have been created or born from the Imaginary Tree itself. She was born a Herrscher, but had no connection to the Will of Honkai and felt no animosity towards humanity. In fact, Elysia was a being filled with an overwhelming love for the world and humanity. She called herself the "Herrscher of Human", while the few aware of her true nature gave her existence another name:

"Herrscher of Origin", an existence that broke the cycle. She sacrificed herself, having Kevin kill her and returning to the Honkai. In doing so, Elysia created new Rules and altered things for the new Era that would make it possible for humanity to finally triumph over the Honkai.

First, the next cycle's Herrschers would have the same Authorities and emerge in the same order as those in the Previous Era.

And second, Elysia made it possible for the next cycle's Herrschers to retain their humanity and not fall to the Honkai.

Most of the Flamechasers died, but a handful survived and became involved in guiding the next cycle of humanity.

First and foremost among them was Kevin, appearing before ancient humanity with his infant son. His bloodline would become House Kaslana, one of the pre-eminent clans to fight the Honkai and the bloodline of heroine Kiana Kaslana.

(Extra fun fact: Void Archives, the guy that was Welt's companion and created Shush? Is a super-weapon/tool created by the Flamechasers during the Previous Era. So was the device hidden inside Welt's cane, "Star of Eden".)

So how does this tie into Star Rail and the Chrysos Heirs?

Well, first and foremost! Many of the Chrysos Heirs are at least loosely based on the Flamechasers.

Phainon is almost certainly a counterpart to Kevin Kaslana, much like Acheron and Raiden Mei.

Cyrene is a counterpart to Elysia.

Like the situation with the Honkai, it seems that Amphoreus is trapped in a cycle of death and rebirth. The Flame Chase is a cycle of defeating a set group of gods, and then taking their place in the next cycle. Humanity is wiped out, and then reborn.

We have some indications of an "Emperor's Scepter" being at the center of this mess, drawing in the Genius Society to deal with it.

And now we have Phainon, our Kevin expy, at the center of destroying/creating the new world.

And our Elysia expy, Cyrene, appearing to him at this vital moment.

Will she, like Elysia, be a being central to breaking the cycle?